This is how I do it - share your tips too!

[Beekeeper]

Loved the Chinese finger cuffs metaphor.

[eyeoneblack]

Yes haha, Chinese finger cuffs, the more you struggle the more you're arrested - trapped. Reminds of the old Eastern maxim - to learn to Do, by not Doing. People especially of the West are Doers and the notion that not-doing is foreign and 'will get you nowhere'. An old Yogi (from the 70s - Maharishi (?)) told his group of students, "Don't just do something, sit there." That made sense to me.

You don't find me cruising this forum very often because I am so ambivalent about the whole pre-text. We are our own manifestation - everything about us we have manifest and this is a hugely complex 'mechanism'. As usual we record the positive aspects of it's workings and ignore the negative. And we positively and negatively manifest our self continually from the chromosome up (think epigenetics).

There is a 'me' in me that I don't understand, can't. But 'he' is hard at work doing his thing behind the scenes - behind my awareness. Sometimes delight erupts from behind the veil, sometimes bother comes my way. But I have a deep-seeded trust and considerable history that the goings-on beyond my senses favors good fortune. Great expectations if you will!

Consider the lotto players - how much they so want to manifest a fortune. But they are pulling at their finger cuffs. Sad really. I'll never win a lottery because I never spent a dollar on one. To do so would be like telling this universe that concentrates a thing called 'me' in a place called 'here', to step aside because we don't like how life is going. It is impossible to wrest the wheel away that is turning our lives the way Nature and the certainties embodied by that un-seen hand co-create.

Ok. I'm starting to lose even myself . This is all. It's too big a question.

[I-stone]

I bet its because too much effort activates the more physical bodies while what you are talking about activates the subtle bodies (which aren't as restricted). Like if I put too much effort into something my physical body tenses and shakes- good way to get exercise, not so good for manifesting.

[Mari]

Interesting and a couple of thoughts/questions-

I too came back to this after one year and it was interesting to read my old post and the others, starting from the beginning.

I, like Butterflywoman, had several serious and negative experiences that ultimately were the path to something I had been trying to manifest for some time. I think that sometimes the more energy you put into something that you want to manifest and later wish to disentangle, the greater the chances that it will "explode" rather than simply dissolve when it is no longer useful.

That said, someone earlier posted a comment about our manifestations being in contradiction with the manifestations of others and how this serves to cancel out what we are trying to manifest. I have always grappled with that idea.

On the one hand, some would say that our entire reality is a function of our own manifestations so nothing external can prevent what we are manifesting.

On the other, assuming we believe that a physical reality exists, we all become entangled in the reality (physical or otherwise) of others so what happens if what we are so desiring is in direct opposition of what someone else is needing or attempting to manifest? What if our circumstances are the result of someone else's manifestation? Are we stuck forever in this energetic tug of war? How do we extricate ourselves? Is it all our own reality or can the manifestations of others impact us?

I must say that very honestly, there are more times than not that I feel that I have become a player in someone else's play and now serve a purpose that is not in my best interest. I don't like to think this way because it is very limiting.

[CFTraveler]

assuming we believe that a physical reality exists, we all become entangled in the reality (physical or otherwise) of others

I think this answers your question. It has to do with how you define reality.

Are we stuck forever in this energetic tug of war? How do we extricate ourselves? Is it all our own reality or can the manifestations of others impact us?

I personally beleive we can change circumstances regardless of others' interpretation of it, but it's a matter of 'knowing' this. I do not believe in 'forever' in this way, because the nature of our reality is fluid and changing all the time, and this precludes (in my belief) 'forever' physical existence.
How do you extricate yourself? Change how you perceive reality, change your mind.