Mind Magic - The Neuroscience Of Manifesting & Magic Of Surrender

If this is your first time here, welcome. My name is Will, and I’m a writer and the co-founder of the Academy of Self Help. I love to read and write about self-healing.

To manifest our goal, we must accept that is all we can do and no longer have attachment to the outcome.

I recently started reading the book Mind Magic, by James Doty, a neurosurgeon exploring the science behind manifesting, and it got me thinking about surrender.

Writers and philosophers have echoed the message for generations: free yourself from the desire to control your outer experience. Observe, take proper action if possible and necessary, and then release your attachment to the results. The sentiment has been around since at least the time of the Stoics, who wrote about it extensively some two-thousand years ago.

Epictetus, a Stoic philosopher born into a 30-year slave sentence before becoming one of Ancient Rome’s most revered teachers, said:

You may be always victorious if you never enter into any contest where the issue does not wholly depend upon yourself.

Meaning, do not resist what you can’t control.

The weather, the followers, even the death of a loved one (or your own), all of it is external - driven by forces that will ultimately make their decisions without you.

From a Stoic’s perspective, if I can’t control the outcome, why would I let my mind suffer about it? What benefit does it add to my experience? I can still strategize and take action when needed, but what value does adding inner turmoil to the process bring me? Wondering if it’s all going to work out, obsessing over what another person is thinking, how does it help?

Logically, it makes perfect sense: no suffering about my suffering. No adding internal suffering to my current problems, and especially not to ones in my future imagination. As Marcus Aurelius said,

Accept whatever comes to you woven in the pattern of your destiny, for what could more aptly fit your needs?

Sounds easy enough, just let go.

Unfortunately, my many failed attempts at instilling surrender in my life have proven to me just how tough staying consistent with it is. You wouldn’t think it would be, to just not give a duck, to say it is what it is and really mean it, but as it turns out, it’s hard as hell.

Manifestation has its own timeline that may or may not correspond with ours. - James Doty

The good news is that every round does seem to get a little easier, every effort lasts a little longer, every moment of inner resilience connects a little deeper. Maybe that’s called healing, or maybe it’s just finally having had enough.

Aurelius said if you’ve seen 40 years, it’s as good as seeing a thousand. And if there’s one thing I sure as heck don’t need another 40 years to learn, it’s that my mind never tires of suffering, only my spirit does.

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power or our will. - Epictetus

So it is time to try again; to try releasing my attachment to everything outside my control. Zero tolerance for suffering about my suffering. The universe is free to throw anything it wants my way and it will be my responsibility to only give attention to those things I can change. No moaning about the weather. No checking how many views this gets. No letting my mind spend another minute worrying about something that might happen to my loved ones.

That’s what I’m manifesting today: no attachement to outcomes. And then tomorrow too. And if I’m really, really lucky, maybe even for the rest of the month. That seems as good a place to begin as any: today, then tomorrow, then this month.

If you’d like to join me in trying to bring more surrender into your life, I would love that. But also, I remind myself, I’m not allowed to care.

- Will Watson

But what if, by saying you accept everything, you’re welcoming in the darkness? What if you ask to be tested and the universe complies? What if everything turns to hell now and you’ll always question whether it was you who brought it on? Isn’t it better to defend against it, no matter the inner suffering it creates, than tempt fate by saying ‘I surrender’?

I don’t know dude, but that’s a lot of words.

…

…

…Surrender then?

Yes.

Okay.