Did you know there are actually five manifesting steps?

Many of us are familiar with the first three steps of manifesting:

• Step 1: Ask. Contrast is always causing you to ask and clarifying your preferences about what you want and don’t want, what you like and don’t like. You are asking all the time, in spoken and unspoken ways.
• Step 2: Believe. This step is also referred to as It Is Given. Because when you ask, Source answers. When you ask, it is given. What you want—what you’ve asked for—is created in a vibrational form.
• Step 3: Receive. This step, often referred to as Allow, is about getting in the receptive mode. To receive what you want, you must align with the vibration of what you want, which is always some flavor of feeling good.

But did you know there are actually five manifesting steps?

When I first started my Law of Attraction journey in earnest almost three years ago now, I learned about the five steps to the creative process. But I quickly focused my attention on those first three steps, as I think so many of us do. At least for myself, my attention over the last nearly three years has been on Steps 1, 2, and 3.

So it was almost a surprise the other day when Steps 4 and 5 came onto my radar. I was listening to Abraham when these other two steps were very briefly mentioned, and I thought, Oh, perhaps I should know more about these steps.

Because while I’ve been doing some amazing manifesting and feel high vibe much of the time, I thought: What am I missing? What comes after Step 3? How can I take my LoA practice up a notch?

I love to learn new things about Law of Attraction, and experiment and apply what I’m learning in my own life. So this is a fun unfolding—learning about Steps 4 and 5.

Let’s start with the basics of Steps 4 and 5. What are they? What are they called?

• Step 4 is called Uncondition. Hmmmm, that’s sounds interesting, right? Do you think you’re doing this step or not?
• Step 5 is called Welcome Contrast. Hmmmm, again. Welcome contrast? I definitely don’t think that’s what most of us are doing, so perhaps we all have an opportunity with these additional steps in the creative process.

When I say creative process, that’s just another way to refer to manifesting. So five steps to manifesting, five steps to the creative process. Same thing.

Abraham has said Steps 3, 4, and 5 are really just varying degrees of mastery, which I think is a fantastic way to look at what’s going on here.

Because it’s not so much about learning something new in order to manifest; rather, it’s about applying what you already know in a more practiced and skillful way.

Let’s take a closer look at both steps.

Step 4: Uncondition.

Step 4 is getting really good at Step 3. What do I mean by that? Remember, Step 3 is about getting in receiving mode by feeling good now. By being in alignment.

Step 4 is really about unconditional alignment. That’s why the step is called Uncondition.

Step 4, then, is about being able to maintain your alignment. It’s about consciously managing and maintaining your vibration. Regardless of circumstances and conditions.

Step 4 is…

• Being able to maintain your alignment late Sunday night when there are dirty dishes in the sink and laundry to be folded and your kid is sick.
• Being able to maintain your alignment at the dentist office and while you prepare your taxes and as you’re cooking dinner for your family.
• Being able to maintain your alignment when you’re stuck in traffic and waiting in line at the bank and getting the call back from the doctor.
• Being able to maintain your alignment on a Friday night when you’re working late and on Saturday when you’re visiting your in-laws.

You get the idea.

Step 4 is alignment without conditions.

Step 4 is unconditional alignment—feeling good no matter what is going on around you, no matter what’s on your To Do list or calendar, no matter what the scale or bank statement says, no matter what your job title or relationship status, no matter the diagnosis, the weather, the work deadlines.

Uncondition.

Listen to how Abraham describes what many of us are doing instead:

“When you start living conditionally so you’re looking for good conditions that then cause you to feel good as you see them, you’re likely to find bad conditions that cause you to feel bad when you see them. And now you have no real control. Because the conditions (over which you have no control) are running the show about how you feel.” —Abraham

Oh my! That was certainly me prior to my obsession with all things Law of Attraction. Conditions, over which I had no control, were running the show about how I felt.

Even today, I most certainly have an opportunity when it comes to Step 4. Perhaps you do too.

Are you letting conditions run the show and dictate how you feel?

• If conditions are good, you feel good.
• If conditions are “bad”, you feel bad.

Because if you are letting conditions dictate how you feel, then you’re probably spending an inordinate amount of time and energy trying to control conditions so you can feel good. And that, my friends, is simply an exercise in futility.

“Humans use manifestations as conditions to support emotions, and that’s what goes wrong with you. Because when you use conditions to support good-feeling emotions, now you are bound… now you are not free, because you cannot control the conditions that you feel you need, to support the emotions.” —Abraham

Step 4, Uncondition, is inviting you to a higher level of mastery of alignment. Step 4 is asking you to maintain your alignment regardless of circumstances and conditions.

Abraham says: “Unconditional means finding the feeling and that being everything.

You have to be unconditional in order to get the condition.

Unconditional is caring about the emotion without it needing to produce results. And then the crazy wonderful thing is that by finding the feeling without needing the results, which eliminates all resistance, you will have the result.

Step 4 is being deliberate about how you feel. Guiding how you feel. About deliberately staying on what Abraham calls your high flying disk. It’s where you are so practiced at alignment that it’s easy to be there.

I imagine we all have a significant opportunity when it comes to Step 4: Uncondition.

Let’s move on to Step 5: Welcome contrast.

Step 5 is about having a Step 1 moment without feeling disconnected. You’re back in Step 1, meaning the contrast of life has caused you to ask. There’s something you don’t want or don’t like, there’s something you want more of or less of or to be different.

You are back in Step 1—and you are not upset about it. That is Step 5.

But what are most of us doing when we have a Step 1 moment? When your boss tells you to redo the report you worked so hard on, when your spouse forgets your birthday, when you don’t get the new client, when you receive an overdue notice in the mail, when your kids are bickering.

• When you are in a Step 1 moment and experiencing contrast, are you welcoming that contrast—or are you upset about it?
• Are you welcoming the contrast or are you thinking you are doing LoA wrong?
• Are you welcoming the contrast or are you headed on a downward spiral of negative emotion?

When you are back in Step 1, experiencing contrast, and you are not upset about it, that’s mastery of Step 5.

I absolutely love this from Abraham:

“When you’re approaching contrast from an aligned point of view, it does not sting, it interests. A problem does not feel like a problem, it feels like an opportunity for expansion.” —Abraham

Notice Abraham says when you are approaching contrast from an aligned point of view.

Because when you’ve gotten good at Step 4, Uncondition, and you’re not relying on conditions to feel good, then contrast is a whole lot easier to experience with interest and curiosity rather than an overwhelming sense something has gone wrong and there’s a big problem.

Step 5 is really about recognizing the value of contrast and the value of being back in Step 1.

• Contrast clarifies your preferences.
• Contrast helps you launch rockets of desire.
• Contrast helps you focus.

“When a contrasting thing happens to you, you acknowledge its value for the clarity that it will bring. For the expansion that it will bring. For the evolvement that it produces. For the eternalness that it promises. So you’re way past ever beating up on yourself or anybody else. You’re just acknowledging ‘Hey, hey, here it is. There’s something here. This doesn’t feel so good to me. I can do something about this.’ You’re not beating up on yourself. You’re just making choices based upon that contrast. And blessing the contrast.” —Abraham

I think that is mind blowing. Blessing the contrast.

Do you bless contrast? I believe that’s why I was lead again to Steps 4 and 5 because this is definitely expanding my understanding of contrast and its inevitability and its value.

Here’s the thing: Many of us, myself included, have not been blessing contrast. Instead, what do so many of us do when we experience contrast?

We beat ourselves up. I should be better at this LoA thing. I should have this figured out by now. I should have all my ducks in a row so everything is always smooth and the way I want it. We are frustrated and disappointed with ourselves when we experience contrast.

Or maybe we blame others.

• If only my husband or kids or boss or mother-in-law would behave differently, I could stay in alignment and not have to experience this contrast.
• If only the world would match up to my point of view and preferences, I could stay in alignment and not have to experience contrast.

Beating yourself up and feeling guilty because you’re experiencing contrast or blaming others because you are experiencing contrast—well, you can see neither of those is Step 5.

Step 5, Welcome contrast, is not about compounding negative emotion with blame or guilt. This step is not being mad at yourself for having a Step 1 moment.

“The contrast is necessary for the focus. But the beating yourself up for the contrast is not necessary.” —Abraham

In Step 5 of manifesting, you experience contrast, and rather than fight it and create momentum with negative emotion, you have a knowing that contrast is part of the process.

If you were to truly welcome contrast, you would be curious about what it’s telling you, what it’s clarifying for you. You would ask yourself, What’s this guidance about? What opportunity is this negative emotion providing me?

Because you can be sure of this: Contrast is guiding you to more clarity and more clarity and more clarity. That’s a very good thing, indeed!

In fact, Abraham says: “What if your own Inner Being is guiding you to contrast for the benefit of the clarity it will bring?”

Again, that puts contrast in a new light, doesn’t it? I sure know it does for me!

Step 5 is inviting us to welcome and value contrast rather than try to avoid it or fight against it.

You are a growth-seeking Being, so expansion is part of what you came for. And contrast is what causes expansion.

“If you are looking for conditions that feel good, to feel good, but then you look at conditions that don’t feel good, so you feel bad, you have no control over the way you feel-other than to attempt, a futile attempt, to control conditions.” —Abraham

It’s really this simple: You want to get circumstances out the driver’s seat for how you feel.

This is Law of Attraction 101: Circumstances are neutral. Your thoughts create your feelings.

That means it is your focus and attention—and your thoughts about what you’re focused on and paying attention to—causing your emotions, creating how you feel.

Conditional alignment is making conditions mean you can’t feel good until the condition changes. Which is the very thing that prevents the condition from changing.

“You cannot control conditions and find alignment.” —Abraham

As I’ve been percolating on Steps 4 and 5, several questions have surfaced that I’ve been asking myself. I think these questions could be useful to your LoA practice, too.

First, I’ve started asking myself: What conditions need to change so I can feel good? What’s the condition that needs to be different?

Now, I’m asking myself this question gently, with love. Again, this is not about beating myself up. It’s about being curious and shining a light on the conditions I’m using as my excuse not to feel good.

I’ll admit, I do seem to have conditions that I need to be different in order to feel good. If you ask yourself this question, you might find the same is true for you.

Here’s an example from my life: I need a family member’s health to improve in order to feel good. An improvement in someone I love’s health is the condition.

There’s always power in being self-aware. Being aware of your thinking about conditions you believe need to change so you can feel good is a great way to see where you are in the way of Step 4.

Next, I follow by asking myself: How will I feel when the condition changes? When the condition is exactly the way I want it to be, how will I feel?

In my earlier example, when my relative’s health improves, I will feel appreciation and joy. I will feel happiness and optimism.

Start by simply asking yourself those two questions:

• What condition needs to change?
• How will you feel when the condition is the way you want it to be?

Of course, your opportunity doesn’t end with those two questions. Your opportunity is really just beginning with your answers because then you can find and feel those emotions now.

Next, say to yourself: “I cannot change that condition, but I can find these emotions.”

Oh! Now we are getting in the neighborhood of Uncondition, of Step 4.

The opportunity you will then have to practice Step 4 is to find and feel those emotions. Now. With conditions just as they are.

You don’t need the condition to be different to feel the way you want to feel. Your alignment is not conditional on the condition changing. And with that, you will begin to master Step 4.

Back to my earlier example, it’s about me finding and feeling appreciation and joy, happiness and optimism now, and not making experiencing those emotions conditional on any condition.

What about Step 5? How can you build the LoA skill of welcoming contrast?

I hope this post has helped you look at contrast differently. I know for me in reading about and researching Step 5 of manifesting, I definitely have felt a transformation taking place regarding my relationship to contrast.

Before, I looked at contrast as a natural part of life, but also like a regrettable necessity. Do you know what I mean? Like, Yeah, it’s a normal part of life and yeah yeah it’s necessary for expansion, but gosh darn it, contrast kind of sucks.

Step 5 being framed as “welcome contrast” really bumped up against how I usually react and respond to contrast in my own life. I’ll put it this way: There was not a welcome mat out saying, Come in contrast. Glad you’re here.

This episode has helped me shift at least in that general direction. I’m not claiming a mastery by any means of Step 5, but I can feel a lessening in my resistance to contrast.

To help you welcome contrast and master Step 5, I’d like to share three questions that have been helping me. So when you experience contrast, ask yourself:

• What’s the guidance being offered?
• What new clarity do I have about what I want?
• What is this contrast helping me focus on?

My personal favorite of those is: What’s the guidance being offered? That is such an expansive question. It also wraps contrast, which, let’s face it, can be challenging to experience in the moment, it wraps contrast in something a bit more gentle and easier to flow with.

Steps 4 and 5 are about conditions and contrast.

About not making how you feel conditional and about recognizing the value of encountering conditions you want to be different.

I invite all of us to embrace and embody Steps 4 and 5. To continue to grow our LoA practice beyond Steps 1, 2 and 3.

“This is the thing we wish for all of you. We don’t want you to learn to control conditions so that you can win the game. We want you to learn to control the vibration of your being, so that you can feel good in the game, win or lose, you see. We want the conditions to be irrelevant. And once you do that, you’ll win way more games. Once you do that, more of the things that you want will flow into your experience. And it is a noticeable factor, isn’t it, those of you who’ve been living it? Life just gets better and better. The conditions reflect the vibration you’ve practiced. It’s just the way it is.” —Abraham