I manifested almost exactly $10,000 in cash.

At the time, we had owned the wine bar and had just purchased the coffee shop. Financially, things were… let’s say character-building. There was absolutely no obvious path to an extra $10,000 at once.

Around then, I bought one of those manifestation journals on my Kindle. Don’t do that. It’s a stupid way to buy a bunch of journal prompts with nowhere to actually write.

The title was Journal Yourself Rich: How to Manifest $10,000 in 30 Days.

Sounded pretty straightforward.

I’m always up for a challenge, and honestly, who couldn’t use an extra $10k?

For five or six days, I did the prompts. I wrote things down. I visualized it. And somewhere in there, I genuinely believed I was going to receive $10,000 in cash.

Not because I knew how.
I had absolutely no idea how.

I just believed it.

I Wasn’t Starting From Scratch

However, I wasn’t starting from scratch.

By then, I had years of evidence that life likes to surprise me.

I had manifested parking spots.
I had found twenty-dollar bills in jacket pockets and under car seats.
I had received random refund checks I wasn’t expecting.

Little things. Small things. Things that could easily be explained away.

But I didn’t explain them away.

I paid attention.

And over time, paying attention became its own kind of evidence.

By then, I had already watched an entire wine bar go from journal entries and visualizations to a set of keys in my hand.

So I wasn’t starting from zero.

I was standing inside a life that had surprised me before.

I was simply asking to be surprised again.

At some point, I stopped seeing these things as isolated coincidences and started seeing them as evidence.

Evidence that I don’t have to know how things are going to happen before I allow myself to believe they’re possible.

At the time, I had a tenant renting space from me.

One day, she texted and said someone was going to stop by and pay several months of rent upfront.

I thought, okay… that’s unexpected.

The Day I Counted Almost $10,000 in Cash

A little while later, a man walked into the wine bar around noon on a Tuesday, pulled out a stack of cash, and started counting.

Then he had me count it.

When I finished, I had something like $9,800 and some change sitting in front of me.

I remember looking at it and giggling to myself.

Fucking close enough.

Now, I know exactly what some people are thinking.

And before you tell me all the reasons why I didn’t, I know. I’ve heard them all.
“You already had it coming.”
“It wasn’t exactly $10k.”

Blah. Blah. Blah.

You can call it manifestation. You can call it coincidence. You can call it an advance on future income.

I call it $10,000.

The Universe Doesn’t Think in Amounts or Timelines

I’ve also stopped believing that the universe experiences money and time the way we do.

We think in amounts.

Twenty dollars is small. Ten thousand dollars is big. A million dollars is enormous.

We think in timelines.

Tomorrow is fast. Five years is forever.

I don’t think the universe knows the difference.

I think we’re the ones assigning weight to everything.

Twenty dollars. Ten thousand dollars. A million dollars.

Tomorrow. Thirty days. Five years.

We decide what’s big and what’s small.

We decide what’s fast and what’s taking forever.

The universe just keeps moving.

Maybe manifestation is just paying attention.

I don’t mean that in a dismissive way.

I think most of us move through our lives so distracted, so worried, and so convinced we already know how things work that we miss half of what’s happening around us.

I started paying attention years ago.

I paid attention to parking spots appearing when I needed one.

I paid attention to unexpected checks in the mail.

I paid attention to opportunities and coincidences and strange alignments.

I paid attention to what felt good in my body and what didn’t.

I paid attention to my finances instead of avoiding them.

I paid attention to the things I wrote down that later became my life.

And the more attention I paid, the more evidence I seemed to collect.

You have to be ready to receive.

That’s the part people don’t talk about enough.

Manifestation isn’t just wanting something.

It’s becoming the kind of person who can receive the thing when it arrives.

Because sometimes the answer shows up in a form you never would have thought to ask for.

By then, I had spent years practicing.

Practicing possibility.
Practicing trust.
Practicing receiving.

Why I Still Make Vision Boards

Which is also why I still make vision boards.
I still journal.
I still recite positive affirmations.

I think those things matter.

Not because a magazine cutout has magical powers.

Because they’re tools.

Every time you write something down, create a vision board, or imagine a future that doesn’t exist yet, you’re practicing possibility.

You’re loosening your grip on what currently is and becoming available to what could be.

I don’t think the universe needs my vision board.

I think I do.

Because every time I engage in those practices, I’m reminding myself that my current circumstances are not the whole story.

Maybe that’s what manifestation really is.

Deciding what you want.

Trusting that the how isn’t your business.

Letting go of your made-up rules about time and amounts.

Practicing possibility.

Becoming someone who is ready to receive.

And then recognizing the answer when it arrives, even if it walks through the door looking nothing like you imagined.

Even if it happens to be a mysterious man counting almost $10,000 in cash onto the counter of a wine bar that you once wrote about in your journal.

Maybe I wasn’t manifesting more.

Maybe I was simply noticing more.

Either way, my life got a lot more interesting and a lot more enjoyable when I started paying attention.

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Have you ever had something happen that felt like manifestation, coincidence, or something in between? I’d love to hear your story. Shoot me a message or reply to my Love Monday newsletter and tell me about it. I read every one.