LET ME HELP YOU CHANGE YOUR LIFE

Roxie Nafousi say it’s impossible to follow the seven steps in her book on manifesting and not make improvements – and she should know because she used the same method to turn her own life around

Manifesting – that is, the idea that if you think it, your wish will come true – has been around since the 19th century, with a resurgence in 2006 cultivated by the global phenomenon that was Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, which sold 30 million copies worldwide. However, there’s only one modern day queen of manifestation – and that is Roxie Nafousi. The 33-yearold’s first book, Manifest: 7-Steps To Living Your Best Life, has become a go-to bible for millions of wellness advocates across the globe. It’s distinctive orange cover – inspired by Prada’s neon kitten heels – was even pictured under the arm of supermodel Bella Hadid in New York last year. Roxie’s rocketing success has shown no signs of stopping, with a second chart-topping book, Manifest: Dive Deeper, following at the start of this year. Alongside hosting corporate workshops for the world’s largest companies, public speaking appearances and webinars, Roxie – who’s mum to four-year-old Wolfe – has just released her third book. This time it’s children who can learn to become their happiest selves with Manifest for Kids: Four Steps To Being The Best You.

Today, as we chat on Zoom, she says she feels like it’s been around ‘forever’, despite its newness. Perhaps it’s so familiar as it was an important step for Roxie to write a book that would empower both children and parents, because of a lack in her own childhood.

‘I’ve been very conscious of parenting Wolfe in a completely different way than I was parented,’ she says candidly, looking understatedly beautiful from her

London office. ‘As a child, I was not heard or validated or seen, or given that safe, emotional safety.

‘I don’t ever raise my voice at him, I let him express whatever. We’ve been practising gratitude since he could communicate and he’s always been extremely positive as a result, but he started school in September and I have noticed a shift in him.

‘It really is true that once your kids go to school, there’s so much more that’s influencing them so I think this book was really important for me, because I wanted to give something that we as parents can give to our children to support them once they’re behind the school gates or on social media.’

The book offers an uncomplicated route to ultimately equip children with tools for resilience and happier lives – zoning in on understanding emotions, encouraging self-belief, embracing gratitude and establishing goalsetting. As a Roxie fan and parent of two young daughters myself, I read it and it’s simply brilliant.

It’s like a hug for both a child and a parent, I suggest, as they try to navigate such big changes from very different perspectives. Roxie smiles at this feedback.

‘Children have so many emotions and they have no idea what to do with them or how to express them, so it’s no wonder our generations have so many insecurities,’ says

Roxie, who is open about her own less than happy childhood.

She was born in Saudi Arabia and when she was six months old, her family moved ‘very suddenly’ to the UK, which for her and her three siblings, was a huge culture shock. ‘My family were very devout Muslims and I think from my earliest memories I felt different, like I didn’t fit in,’ she says of growing up in Oxford, which she describes as ‘very white and quintessential’.

‘I found it hard to make friends. I wasn’t accepted. Then at the same time, home was not somewhere that gave me a stable and safe space to grow my self-worth.’

Roxie says she was very badly bullied when the Iraqi war broke out, and as a result started to ‘reject myself and my culture and my family. I felt embarrassed when my mom would pick me up from school in a headscarf, I didn’t want people seeing her,’ she says. ‘I didn’t want to eat Arabic food any more. I was not taught how to have a positive mindset, how to be happy. It was just not a very happy childhood. Of course there were some great times but it didn’t set me up to become a confident person who was happy.’

Roxie left school at 17 and because her parents had moved to Dubai, moved in with her sister in London. At this point, her life started to unravel. ‘I discovered cocaine and that was kind of it for me,’ she says drily. ‘I went to Goldsmiths to study psychology but I was too busy partying. I found drugs and suddenly I had confidence. It became this incredible escape and I think as soon as I realised I could escape in that way, it became very addictive to me.’

Roxie admits that this became her way of life for the next ten years. ‘I was very, very lonely and sad,’ she says. ‘The only time I felt like a relief was when I was intoxicated, so it was very appealing to me.’

The turning point for Roxie came in May 2018, after returning home from a yoga teacher training course followed by a ‘48-hour bender’ during which she hit rock bottom. ‘I had gone on this retreat for a week, to cleanse my body,’ she says. ‘Within 24 hours, I was back taking drugs, then woke up two days later and thought, I’m never going to change. I felt so full of shame and regret.

‘But then I listened to this podcast on manifesting and something in it clicked. They had said that manifesting was all about self-worth. I realised I kept attracting these negative things into my life and I’m keeping myself stuck in this unhappy place. So I went home and I started researching manifestation and how to build self-worth.’

For the more cynical who might view manifestation as nothing more than an Instagramable woo-woo concept that doesn’t really work, Roxie simply says they don’t understand it – and in that case, her books would be ‘perfect’ for them.

‘It’s not surprising, because manifesting has become such a trend, that it’s become really devalued,’ shrugs Roxie. ‘There’s so many misconceptions around it.

‘It’s used in language now in a way that actually it doesn’t make sense. Or some will say, “Oh, I’ve manifested this or that”, but they’re not using the term correctly. You can’t just wish for what you want. It’s not just about visualising it or thinking about it and then it coming to you. This is a self-development practice that’s rooted in self-worth.

‘My book is perfect for cynics because it’s so practical. There’s no way you can follow those seven steps and not change your life,’ she emphasises. ‘It would be impossible to build your self-worth, to be clear on what you want, to practice gratitude, to persist through challenges and not make progress in your life or have a positive impact on it.’

Roxie says that while there’s a link between wellness and mental health, there’s also a distinction and wide spectrum between the two. ‘I really am passionate about the world, about wellness as a whole and the wellness industry. I think that for some people, it’s not really easy for everybody to start on this journey of inner healing, because it can feel really daunting.

‘A lot of us didn’t grow up with it, we can be quite set in our ways, a lot of people feel that they are unchangeable. It feels like too much of an effort to choose a life and I see it a lot. I see it with people around me, they’re not happy but their pasts are controlling them and they don’t feel capable of making that change for themselves. So if somebody comes across advice that says start by taking baths for yourself, or journaling, if that’s an entry point for someone, then that’s fine.

‘But I do think the importance of going deeper, and healing on a deeper level is what’s really important. I’m big on seeking professional help. I think that’s also part of the manifesting journey. I have lots of friends who take medication for anxiety or depression, and it’s been superb for them.’

Roxie herself has focused on that a lot this year, and has enlisted the help of a ‘hormone doctor and a functional medicine doctor’, which she says has been ‘life-changing’. For while she is now at her happiest point, the start of the year was very different. ‘If I compare myself now to the beginning of the year, it’s worlds apart,’ she says. ‘I really practice what I preach, I don’t accept things about me if I can tell it’s harming me or something is still troubling me. By January, when the second book came out, I basically was on the verge of a breakdown. I was in a really, really bad place and really burnt myself out to an extreme level.

‘In 2022 it was absolutely huge, I had built something massive. Everything was like a rollercoaster. It just went bigger than I ever expected and it was so exciting.’

But Roxie says despite her new way of life and success, healing still had to happen. ‘I think I just realise that I went through 28 years where I was unhappy, so it wasn’t going to be healed in the space of two,’ she reasons. ‘Having success in my career didn’t mean that suddenly, all of that trauma was going to disappear.

‘As a child, I was in fight or flight a lot so I’ve been told that I had too many adrenal receptors and I could be more prone to anxiety, so I’ve