Manifestation as Modern Self-Help
Manifesting your desires and dream life has become big business.
I recently purchased access to an app by an influencer I follow, who describes herself as a manifestation expert and high priestess. After trying one of her affirmations, I had a small but striking experience, I repeated the affirmation in my mind and moments later notice a £10 note lying in the road ahead of me.
Experiences like that are captivating. And to be fair, I enjoyed her content. The affirmations felt, at their core, like positive self-talk, a way of directing attention and shaping internal dialogue.
But the app itself raised ethical concerns that quickly overshadowed any initial curiosity.
When Intuition Says No
After entering personal information about my dreams, wishes, and desires, I was prompted to type in the name of a specific person I wanted as a partner. My instinct was immediate and clear: don’t do it. Yet I overrode that instinct, entered the name, and felt regret almost instantly. I deleted the app the next day.
That moment has stayed with me.
On a personal level, it highlighted something I am still working through, the tendency to act against my own internal knowing. To feel a clear “no” inside, but respond with a “yes” externally. I understand this as a pattern shaped by conditioning, trauma, and neurodivergence. It is a vulnerability, and one I am learning to take more seriously.
The Ethics of Influence and Consent
On an ethical level, it raised a more fundamental question: should products like this exist at all?
With experience in yoga, tantra, and esoteric traditions, I am familiar with practices that aim to influence outcomes. At a basic level, we can all understand how attention, belief, and behaviour shape reality. But understanding how something works does not make every application of it ethical.
For me, the line is clear: consent and autonomy must come first.
Practices that involve focusing on or attempting to draw a specific person into your life, whether through writing their name, visualisation, or other techniques, risk crossing that line. They shift the focus from mutual connection to unilateral desire. From relationship to acquisition.
Even if one does not interpret these practices literally, psychologically they reinforce a mindset that prioritises control over connection. That alone is worth questioning.
Attachment, Projection, and Control
There is also a deeper issue beneath this. When desire becomes fixated on a particular person or outcome, it often narrows perspective. It is driven less by clarity and alignment, and more by attachment, projection, or unmet needs. Acting from that place rarely leads to something grounded or sustainable.
I believe that what and who is meant for us will unfold through alignment, not force.
No amount of manifesting or ritual can override the fundamental reality that relationships require mutual willingness. What we can shape, however, is ourselves, our awareness, our choices, our actions, and the way we show up in the world.
In that sense, manifestation is not about control. It is about alignment.
Dharma, Trust, and Letting Life Unfold
I also hold the view that life has an underlying order, whether one calls it God, nature, or something else entirely. From that perspective, trying to impose our will on specific outcomes, especially when they involve other people, can be seen as a form of interference. Acting from a limited viewpoint, rather than trusting a broader intelligence. In yogic terms, this moves away from dharma.
A more grounded and ethical approach to manifesting is inward rather than outward.
To cultivate health, resilience, discernment, compassion, and clarity. To develop self-respect and integrity. To align thoughts, words, and actions with those qualities. From that place, life tends to organise itself in ways that are more stable, reciprocal, and meaningful.
And importantly, it leaves space for others to meet us freely, rather than being pulled into a narrative we have already written for them.
Overriding Ourselves Less
This experience reminded me of the importance of listening to instinct. That initial moment of resistance was not confusion, it was clarity.
So perhaps the real practice is not manifesting more, but overriding ourselves less.
Being more attentive. More honest. More willing to pause when something feels off, even if it is presented as normal, popular, or desirable.
There is a difference between creating a life and trying to control one.
It is worth knowing which one we are doing.
With love,
Karmic Rebelle