art of allowing Archives - Zanna Keithley

In this post, discover the meaning of the Art of Allowing, plus get tips and journal prompts to help you surrender your worries and trust the Universe to guide you in the direction of your dreams and desires.

What is the Art of Allowing?

The Art of Allowing is a key component in manifestation, which is the practice of visualizing your dreams and desires and vibrating at the frequency of your desires as if they’ve already come true. By becoming the embodiment of all your deepest desires, you attract more of this positive energy to you. (For instance, when you allow yourself to feel truly loved and cherished right now, you attract even more love into your life.)

Generally, when you read or listen to someone speak about manifestation, it’s in a very active sense. The word “manifest” itself is an action word. It seems to require continually doing. You visualize your desires, set an intention, listen to your intuition, take inspired action, and continually cultivate more and more self-belief.

But this only tells half the story. Manifestation isn’t only about doing; it’s also about being.

Or, rather, allowing.

According to Abraham Hicks, the Art of Allowing is “the conscious, gentle guiding of your thoughts in the general direction of the things that you desire.”

To demonstrate this, imagine that you’re on a boat floating down a river. When you’re effortlessly floating downstream, you’re moving in the flow of all your dreams and desires. You might set aside your paddles, lay down, and let the Universe carry you, trusting that it’s taking you exactly where you want to go.

It seems simple enough, but often, we do the exact opposite: we pick up the oars and start furiously trying to paddle upstream, convinced we know the right path. Not only does this take us in the opposite direction of our desires, but it causes us to exert a lot more energy (and most of it isn’t positive).

The Art of Allowing is the practice of moving in flow with the Universe. It’s understanding that manifestation and the Law of Attraction isn’t 100% doing all the time. When you’re in alignment with the universal flow, you realize that your most important work of all is to feel good. You’re able to let go of control and surrender your path to the Universe. You focus on cultivating such a beautiful world within, your positive energy spreads outside of you.

This is the Art of Allowing: to let the positive energy of all your dreams and desires become the center of your world. You leave the when, what, where, and how to the Universe and focus solely on cultivating positive thoughts and positive emotions that support your entire well-being.

When you’re able to do this consistently each day, something kind of magical will begin to unfold in your outer world.

Want to learn how to practice the Art of Allowing? Keep reading to learn how to know if you’re moving with the flow of the Universe and how to cultivate a mindset of allowing.

You May Also Like: 44 Abraham Hicks Affirmations for Love, Joy & Manifestation

How to Know If You’re Allowing

Have you ever had a moment where you feel really good about the path you’re on but then inner worries start to kick in? Maybe you think it’s too good to be true. Or maybe you start to think that you’re not truly worthy of your dreams. Many of us unintentionally self-sabotage, believing that it’s just not possible for good things to happen to us.

Something has to go wrong, right?

I’ve experienced this many times in my own journey. I’ll experience success and feel really good about my success . . . and then soon after, my inner worries and insecurities start to kick in. Here are some common thoughts I’ve had when this happens:

Am I really worthy of all these good things?
Something bad has to happen, right?
I shouldn’t be so confident. As soon as I’m too confident, the Universe will knock me back down again.

Have you ever had these types of thoughts? These negative thoughts are essentially our way of sabotaging ourselves from allowing more good things to flow in.

It’s not just our own internal fears and limiting beliefs that stop us from allowing, though. When we let external situations influence our internal worlds, we also block ourselves from receiving what we desire.

For instance, someone cuts you off in traffic. Or someone is rude to you at the grocery store. Maybe your boss was a jerk today or your partner’s bad mood has started to affect your own.

When you let these external situations stir up negative feelings such as anger and frustration within, you’re only causing yourself to suffer in the long run. Your power lies in your ability to experience a range of negative external situations but to not let them influence your own emotional state.

Related: Abraham Hicks’ Emotional Guidance Scale Explained

How to Practice the Art of Allowing

In theory, it seems like practicing the Art of Allowing should be really easy. It simply requires you to allow in the things you really want in your life. And to do that, the first step is to feel all of the things you already want to feel in your life: joyful, peaceful, free, abundant, loved.

All of it sounds simple enough.

But the truth is, this practice isn’t always easy. Especially not at first. There’s a good chance that you have decades of lived experience that directly counteracts the Art of Allowing.

So that’s why I want to start with this:

If you notice yourself having trouble releasing your worries and simply allowing, don’t criticize yourself. Don’t judge or condemn yourself.

One affirmation that I really like in these moments is, “I’m doing the best I can, and my best is enough.”

To help make the Art of Allowing a little easier, here are some practices you can utilize in your daily life:

Connect With Your Inner Self

The first step to practicing the Art of Allowing is to understand your own relationship with allowing in your daily life. Do you easily allow things in, or do you always have to be in control of every situation? Do you trust the Universe to support you? How much time do you spend doing versus time spent being?

Once you understand your own relationship with allowing, you’re better able to begin surrendering control. While you can internally reflect upon the questions I posed above, I always find journaling to be a profound practice when I need to connect with my deepest self. To start, find a quiet spot where you won’t be interrupted. See if you can dedicate at least 15 to 20 minutes to this practice. As you journal, enact a “no self-criticism” rule. This means that even if uncomfortable truths arise, you don’t judge yourself for what you uncover.

Rather, acknowledge your truths with love and compassion. Remember that this journey of personal growth isn’t easy, and give yourself some credit for the courage it takes to go on this journey. If you’re not happy with the way you’ve reacted to situations in the past, you can recognize this while also asserting that you’re ready to start telling a new story now.

Below, you’ll find some journal prompts to help you uncover your own relationship with the Art of Allowing.

Journal Prompts for the Art of Allowing

Do I trust my path or do I have a hard time releasing control? What makes this hard or easy for me?
What does it mean to me to surrender to a higher power? Is this easy or hard for me?
What are three ways I can practice surrendering in my daily life?
What evidence do I see in my life that the Universe is always looking out for me? What are some visible and non-visible signs of the Universe’s love?
How can I use this evidence to cultivate more trust and allowing?
When it comes to my big goals and dreams, how much time do I spend doing? How much do I practice simply allowing?
What does allowing mean to me?
How does allowing feel to me?
Describe a day as your highest, most authentic self walking through life simply allowing. What does this day look like?

Use Positive Affirmations

Positive affirmations are present-tense statements that are designed to uplift and encourage while boosting self-belief and supporting your overall well-being. Most positive affirmations support the practice of allowing, as they help to align you with the feel-good state of your dreams and desires. Depending on the situation, you can use specific affirmations that will help you in the moment. For instance, if you’re experiencing anxiety, you can repeat some gentle affirmations for anxiety.

To learn more about how to use positive affirmations to get the most out of them, I encourage you to read my blog post, How to Use Affirmations (So They Actually Work).

Below, I’ve linked to a few blog posts that will help to lift your vibrations and align you with the feelings of faith, joy, and inner peace:

Meditate

Whenever you feel misaligned, meditation is a powerful practice for gently guiding you back home to yourself. It allows you to let go, surrender control, and open yourself up to receive whatever is for your highest good. Meditation is truly the ultimate practice for being and allowing.

Consider this quote from Abraham Hicks:

“By deliberately focusing upon good-feeling thoughts, you allow your physical cells to return to their natural balance. Breathing deeply is the key, softly hearing our words and allowing gentle alignment with the Energy of your Source.”

And this one:

“There is no better way of stopping the momentum of something unwanted, and to allow the momentum of something wanted, than to meditate – other than getting a full night’s sleep.”

If you’re new to meditating, Mindful has a great meditation guide for beginners. I also encourage you to check out the InsightTimer app, which is my personal go-to app for meditation.

Align With Your Highest Self

Your highest self is your essential self; it’s the eternal part of you that’s untouched by human experiences. This is the truest, most authentic part of you.

When you think about the Art of Allowing, consider how your highest self would respond to various situations. How does your highest self approach your goals and dreams? Does your highest self trust your path? How does your highest self respond in the face of not knowing what’s going to happen next?

It takes practice, but intentionally choosing to align with your highest self is one of the most powerful practices you can do to allow your deepest desires to manifest in your life. (And if you stray from your highest self? That’s okay. Don’t criticize or judge yourself. Respond with love and compassion, and remember that in every moment, you have the opportunity to realign with the true you.)

Below are some questions to consider when thinking about your highest self. You can answer these questions internally or reflect upon them in your journal.

Who is my highest self? How do I align with my highest self in my daily life?
Is my highest self able to trust, allow, and just be?
How does my highest self approach each day? How does my highest self react to negative energy? How does my highest self walk through life?
Do I regularly consult with my highest self when responding to situations and making decisions? If not, how can I begin to include my highest self in my life’s journey?
When I’m aligned with my highest self, how do I feel?

Abraham Hicks Quotes on the Art of Allowing

“The Art of Allowing, is wanting so much to feel good, that whether you are perusing the past or the present, or the future, you’re deliberately looking for the best-feeling thought that you can find.”

“The Art of Allowing says, ‘I’ve created it. It’s coming to me. It wants me. I want it. I will find a path to allow it. And the path of allowing what I want is the path of happiness, and joy, and feeling good.'”

“No matter what it is, if you really want it, and if you get out of the way of it, it will happen. It must be. It is Law. It can be no other way. It’s the way this Universe is established. If you want it and you relax, it will happen.”

“The Art of Allowing is caring so much about how I feel that I am unwilling to go to those uncomfortable places like: defending, justifying, rationalizing or trying to figure out why.”

One Final Note

One last aspect about the Art of Allowing that’s important to mention is that this practice also means allowing others to live their lives without trying to control them. You may think you know the best path for them, but you can’t force anything on another person. They must discover their own path, which may be drastically different from what you want for them.

You can be a beacon of love and compassion. You can be a guiding light when they ask for advice. You can be a positive example of what it means to walk your own path in love and faith.

But you can’t push them in a certain direction.

The Art of Allowing means giving others the freedom to follow their own inner knowing, learn from their own experiences, and grow at their own pace.

And truly, when you’re aligned with the flow of the Universe, you won’t want this anyway. Once you fully allow, there is no need to control. You’ll be able to let go and trust that the Universe is taking care of the highest good for yourself and others.

For uplifting affirmations and inspiring messages, be sure to connect with me on Instagram, where I post daily affirmation stories every morning. And don’t forget to follow me on Pinterest, where I’m pinning positive affirmations and empowering quotes every single day.

And if you’re looking for more manifestation resources, be sure to check out the Dreams, Goals & Manifestation Printables and The Ultimate Manifestation Workbook, available now in my online shop.