DARK SIDE of the trend for manifesting
That’s the idea you can get anything you want simply by imagining it. But JENNIE AGG says it leaves women blaming themselves whenever things go wrong
WHATeveR you want out of 2022, a bigger house, a dream job, more energy, a bikini body, well, there’s a very easy way to get it. You just need to ‘manifest’ it. Let me explain.
Manifesting or manifestation is the idea that by thinking, believing, and acting in a positive, aspirational way you can have anything and everything you want. Just like that. It even works for serious health matters such as fertility — or so some seem to believe.
This week, Cara Delevingne said in a magazine interview that she was ‘manifesting’ the child she one day hopes to have by buying clothes for them.
‘I buy children’s clothes for my future child who doesn’t exist,’ she told Harper’s Bazaar. ‘I went shopping the other day and I bought these tiny Air Jordans, which are purple and they have a lion on them, I’m manifesting . . .’
Reading those words, I felt like someone had taken hold of my heart and squeezed, hard. If only it were that simple. If only I’d known, five years ago, reeling from my first miscarriage — and with three more soon to follow — that all I needed to do to make my dream of having a family come true was simply to fill my still-empty spare room with a cot, toys, and stacks of sleepsuits and tiny shoes. Silly me.
I’m sure Cara meant no harm. I’m sure she would never dream of telling anyone going through infertility or recurrent miscarriage that they just need to believe and their bodies will magically get the message.
But this is the problem with ‘manifesting’ and the pseudo-philosophy that it stems from. It conveniently glosses over all manner of life’s inescapable realities.
Indeed, when I posted on Instagram about #manifestation this week, I was shocked by the messages I got from women struggling to conceive or who have lost pregnancies, who have been encouraged to adopt this mindset to solve their fertility problems.
Some had well-meaning friends tell them they were going to ‘manifest a baby for you’. Others had been told ‘you have to ask the universe for what you want’ in the wake of a miscarriage.
It’s a particularly insidious new-age mutation of telling people who are trying to have a baby to ‘just relax’ or ‘you’ve got to think positively’.
Unfortunately, it’s a trend that appears to be here to stay. Celebrities from Oprah to Ariana Grande have spoken about their belief they ‘attracted’ career success and immense wealth by tapping into the infinite power and possibility of manifestation.
Gwyneth Paltrow’s website Goop has regularly featured interviews with ‘manifestation advisers’. A new book, Manifest: 7 Steps To Living Your Best Life, by Roxie Nafousi, is currently sitting pretty in the bestsellers lists.
It’s a concept that’s particularly popular among the TikTok generation, with videos captioned #manifestation racking up billions of views. ‘Manifestation’ comes from a cod-scientific theory called ‘the law of attraction’, that everything — including our thoughts and emotions — ‘vibrates’ at a particular frequency. And, the theory goes, like ‘attracts’ like.
If you want to be rich, you need to truly believe money is coming your way. In fact, you need to act and think like you are rich already.
The law of attraction is not a new idea. It’s been a mainstay of self-help books and new-age spirituality for years now.
In 2006, The Secret by U.S. author Rhonda Byrne was a runaway bestseller, shifting more than 30 million copies around the world, and with numerous celebrity fans, from Paris Hilton to Will Smith. This month, Byrne is publishing a follow-up, The Secret To Love, Health, And Money: A Masterclass — just in time for anyone whose New Year’s resolutions have fallen by the wayside. The contents of her new book are being kept strictly under wraps until publication, but Byrne has previously said that: ‘Illness cannot exist in a body that has harmonious thoughts.’ And this, I think, is where things get dangerous — offensive, even.
Because while it might be tempting to see ‘manifesting’ as a harmless, if irrational, bit of fun, the logical conclusion of thinking this way gets seriously dark.
Because what if things don’t work out exactly as you want them? Devotees of manifesting sometimes talk about stepping out of ‘victim mode’ or a ‘victim mindset’. But taken to its extreme, this is a grotesque idea.
Imagine telling someone wondering how on earth they’re going to pay their fuel bill they just need ‘to trust in the abundance that the universe has to offer’.
And what about the women and children starving in Afghanistan? Can they manifest away their suffering?
Often, these inconvenient questions are side-stepped by manifestation ‘experts’. But not always. In the past, some who preach the law of attraction have stated explicitly that famine victims are culpable for their own fate. As for me, did I ‘attract’ my miscarriages? Was it because I wasn’t vibrating at the right level for the universe to send me a baby? Hardly. Not least because, the first time I was pregnant, miscarriage couldn’t have been further from my mind. I truly believed I was going to be a mother.
I pictured myself heavily pregnant. I had bought a maternity coat in the sale. I had mapped out a whole new life for me, my husband, and our baby. Not only did this not protect me, it was the loss of this imagined future that caused so much pain.
Of course, what the manifestation ‘experts’ will tell you is that if things don’t go your way the problem is you didn’t really believe it. It’s a bit like the deal with fad diet books — if it doesn’t work, it’s because you didn’t follow the regimen properly. (It’s perhaps unsurprising that this is a trend that seems to be aimed at and driven largely by women.)
It’s also surely not a coincidence that we’re seeing a resurgence of interest in the law of attraction in the wake of a pandemic. It’s a comforting illusion after what has felt like years of chaos.
Perinatal psychologist Julianne Boutaleb (parenthoodinmind.co.uk), agrees. ‘Manifestation lets people believe they’re in control — it gives you that illusion,’ she says.
‘The shadow side of it is that it leads to blame when the manifesting doesn’t “work”.’
There are, she points out, aspects of the practice — such as repeating positive affirmations and visualisation techniques — that can be useful in specific contexts.
But the wider manifestation philosophy does concern her. ‘It can be really unhelpful, as it puts too much responsibility on the person using these techniques.’
During my fifth pregnancy — which finally gave me my son — I worried every day that something would go wrong; that I would lose him. I worried right up until the
‘Does it work for the children starving in Afghanistan?’
‘Did I “attract” my four miscarriages?’
moment he was placed on my chest after his birth.
My mindset was the exact opposite of the one manifestation coaches insist is the way to get what you want from life.
By all means make a ‘vision board’, recite positive affirmations, or write yourself a millionpound cheque from the universe.
But let’s not lose sight of the fact sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sometimes good things happen to bad people.
And sometimes, as in my case, good things happen long after you stopped believing they would.