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Love this Katie, and beautifully written as ever. I’ve long had an issue with the idea of manifesting - largely because of the lack of recognition of privilege and victim blaming flip side you mention - but I also generally believe that’s “what’s for you won’t go by you” which I guess is it’s own form of magical thinking. So thank you for verbalising that dichotomy in such a thoughtful and nuanced way xx

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Thank you! I do think it’s really important to keep a level of magical thinking and it has definitely provided a lot of comfort in my own life but then even this morning I said to my dad “I’m not sure if many people will read my piece” and then was like “oh I’m TELLING THE UNIVERSE and now people won’t” so it’s so so easy to sink into and then blame yourself. X

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i loved this piece. the whole ‘manifesting’ movement is so fascinating, but this made me feel so sad for alternative universe katie who might’ve blamed herself. i hope it encourages people to be careful with how much they rely on this to ‘help’ themselves, or it could just lead to so much more helplessness.

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Hello! Thank you! I also uncovered so many psychologists commenting on the helplessness thing and, in some cases it’s so true as people begin to expect things to just “happen” but then there was one study that showed people who believed they had more control over their health, then took steps to ensure they remained healthy motivated by this feeling that their thoughts made an impact. It’s all so interesting and I kept finding myself going off down other avenues when writing!

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