Hulu's "The Act" brings the story of Gypsy Rose and Dee Dee Blanchard to life, highlighting the devastating effects of Munchausen by proxy.
Hulu's "The Act" brings the story of Gypsy Rose and Dee Dee Blanchard to life, highlighting the devastating effects of Munchausen by proxy.
With another UK lockdown in full swing, even the most motivated of us can be tempted to hit snooze a few more times or watch another episode of your favourite Netflix show.
If you're feeling in a slump, follow these five steps to get your motivation back and start being productive while staying safe at home!
Tarot cards, angel numbers and spirit guides. Sound
familiar?
Unless you have been living under a rock, you have probably
entered the world of TikTok by now. Among many fleeting dance trends and influencer
dramas, the newest movement involves hundreds of users “claiming” positive
energies and goals to come into their lives. As an app designed to showcase up
to 60 seconds of creator made content, and with national lockdowns increasing boredom
and the need for positive change in many, it has become a hub for those with
similar hobbies to congregate – and that includes the manifestation or “spiritual”
community.
The concept of manifestation has been around for far longer
than TikTok itself – in fact, it originates from ideas dating back to the New
Thought movement, a spiritual movement which boomed in the US in the early 19th
century. According to the Wikipedia page, New Thought philosophy lies in the
idea that “divine thought is a force for good” and "’right thinking’ has a
healing effect”, both of which translate into the modern concept of “manifestation”,
the suggestion that positive thoughts and affirmations can bring something tangible
into our life simply through belief in the “law of attraction.”
The Law of Attraction garnered
attention from a new generation of spiritualists in 2006 after the release of
the book “The
Secret” by Rhonda Byrne, a “self-help” book based on the film of the same
name (which has reached a vast new
audience after Netflix bought the rights to stream it), in which Byrne cites a
three-step process to achieving your desires: ask, believe, and receive.
Several critics responded negatively to the message of the
book, the March 2007 issue of Skeptical Inquirer for example citing the
central idea of the film "has [no] basis in scientific reality",
despite involving scientific concepts, and the phenomenon was put down to being
just that: a sensationalised piece of cinematic fiction lacking any sort of
logic.
After all, surely just thinking about wealth will not
attract material goods into your life, “like having the universe as your
catalogue” as the film suggests. And thus, the idea was written off as nothing
more than a fad.
That was until the birth of Tiktok. Along with whipped
coffee, dance challenges, and teen social media stars, the platform became a
central hub for a new generation of young people interested in spirituality to
learn about the concept of manifestation. In a time of unrest and isolation
during the global Covid-19 pandemic and with the future feeling lonely and
bleak for many, manifestation opened up a way to feel like we were actively
making changes in our lives to better ourselves and our relationships, when
perhaps we were physically unable to.
THE WORLD
OF TIKTOK AND MANIFESTATION
A quick search for #manifestation in the app reveals that
the trend has a massive 6.1 billion views as of writing, with some of the top
videos under the tag claiming to teach techniques that can attract whatever you
want. They say you can make your crush think about you, get better exam
results, get the job you always wanted and, perhaps in reflection of the 41% 16-24 year
old demographic, even how to make strict parents more lenient.
One of the top videos under the tag comes from user
Carysleah, who claims she was able to change her eye colour simply by using the
law of attraction.
“I used to have pretty brown eyes,” she says in the Tiktok
that has over 230.7k likes and counting at the time of writing. “But one day I
was like ‘I would really like to have green eyes.’”
She describes how she would tell others upon meeting that
she had green eyes, despite getting a few questioning looks because of her
clearly brown eyes, even going as far as putting her eye colour as green on her
driver’s license.
“I affirmed myself every day, believing truly ‘I have green
eyes.’… lo and behold today I fully do have green eyes.”
Oddly enough, the comments on her video have been turned
off, so it’s difficult to gather any “success” stories from her method – but
regardless, she has been able to amass over 85.1k followers and 1.5m likes in
total on her videos, all of which have click-baity titles in the thumbnails
such as “To manifest love do this…” which seem to draw people in with their big
promises.
Among others, techniques that users who claim manifestation
worked for them include placing pieces of paper with your desired affirmation
beneath your pillow to rewrite your subconscious thought patterns as you sleep,
the “55x5 method” which involves writing the desire you wish to manifest 55
times for 5 days in a row to create a
“vibrational shift” or simply keeping a daily “gratitude journal” to tune in
with high vibrations and manifest your dreams.
Of course, to some this sounds like nothing but hocus-pocus
– but the dedicated group of practisers on Tiktok claim that these methods do
work and that they have seen tangible results.
So what’s the harm in trying, right?
MY EXPERIENCE
A few months back I was going through a “break-up” of sorts.
The usual boy trouble experienced by nineteen-year-olds like myself, paired
with feelings of loneliness and an uncertain future brought on by a second UK
lockdown, I was left feeling like I wanted to make a change in my life.
Inspired by the TikTok’s I saw online promising to kickstart
this change I wanted so desperately, I bought a journal. I watched hundreds of manifestation
tutorial videos on Youtube and Tiktok, many promising a text from the boy whom
I was heartbroken over at the time and others career prosperity and wealth.
Every night before bed I “scripted” – the art of writing about
your desires in the past tense as if they have already manifested – asking the
universe for trivial things like better sleep and motivation, as well as bigger
life changes like better career prospects and a new love interest.
I started paying attention to angel numbers – numerical sequences
such as “111” and “444” thought to contain coded messages from your guardian angels.
A few weeks later I was amazed. My sleeping schedule was far
better than it had been in a while, and I was waking up every day and studying
hard for my journalism diploma. I felt focused and motivated on getting to the
place I wanted to be in life.
I was keeping a gratitude journal that reminded me of things
in my everyday life I was thankful for, and this helped greatly in getting over
the boy who I thought was the be all and end all my happiness.
And then it happened: he texted me first, weeks later,
unprompted. The one thing I’d been manifesting the hardest came to fruition –
and I felt nothing.
By this point I was already over him, because after weeks of
instilling positive affirmations into my daily life, I realised I didn’t need him,
and I was far too focused on doing
things that made me happy to care when he left me on delivered the next day.
THE RESULTS
Now – do I think
this positive change in my life was due to my tireless manifesting? Yes and no.
No, I don’t think
it was a miracle awarded to me by the Law of Attraction or some form of divine
intervention. I don’t think I was able to cause a vibrational shift in my own
life of such epic proportions that it gave me everything I wanted without any
hard work.
Truth is, I still have
not got everything I manifested. I have not moved out of my family home or got
the perfect journalism job I dream of, and my eyes are still very much the same
shade of blue they have always been.
But I do think that
my experience with manifesting prompted me to start thinking more positively
about the things that were negative in my life and made me come to terms with
the things that I needed to change or work harder at in order
to get to the place I wanted to be.
I realised I was
unhappy sitting at home all day getting nowhere with my studies, so I tried
harder. I realised lack of sleep was affecting my concentration, so I made sure
to get into a healthier sleeping routine. I realised that sitting around and
waiting for my dream job to come up wasn’t enough – so I started to actively
work towards finding that opportunity myself instead.
Did I magically get
everything I wanted? No. But did writing out what I wanted everyday make me
realise I needed to put more elbow grease into my everyday life in order to
feel fulfilled. Yes.
As for the text
from my ex; some may say, “Oh, but that came true!” and to that I would say it
would be overestimating the placebo effect to consider writing this boy’s name
out 55 times made him think of me, as opposed to the real reason he did text,
which was to give me back my hoodie he kept.
Manifesting has no proof but, as a form of spirituality,
proof isn't the point. It’s up to you to decide whether or not you believe it,
and positive thinking is only the beginning – it’s your hard work that makes
your manifestations come true.