What happened when the world's biggest sceptic (me) tried manifestation

I’m as shocked as any of you

Throughout this brief tale, I will give you the tools you need to do what I did. Stick with it. Your 2024 dreams might rely on it. And trust me, that’s not a sentence I ever thought I’d be committing to perpetuity on Substack.

At the end of December last year, I wasn’t in the best place, as a RHOBH cast member might say. It was nothing and everything and nothing again, but I just wasn’t feeling very motivated; career-wise, I was just bobbing along without real direction, not succeeding in a way that felt meaningful. At home, my marriage was well and I was enjoying being a parent, but there was a lot of change in terms of my husband’s career that made things very uncertain. All of this to say: I was looking for something to buoy me. Something to make 2023 a year that would hopefully prove more fruitful and exciting and happy than 2022 was.

I’m not a manifestation girly. I’m not a ‘charge your crystals under a full moon’ girly. And I’m absolutely not a ‘ask the universe’ girly. So, in spite of myself – and I mean this – I followed some girl on TikTok’s advice about manifesting yourself a great year. I was reluctant, sceptical, hesitant, and about nine more synonyms for utterly disinclined. Probably not the best way to start out a cleansing, positive ‘journey’ into manifestation, but I am who I am.

The first piece of advice she gave was to write a letter to The Universe thanking it for all the things you’re grateful for. So I did. I pulled out my favourite foolscap notebook – it has pink paper, apparently to fuel creativity – and started out ‘Dear Universe’. At this juncture, reader, I felt like a total arsehole. And that embarrassment is 100% on me, I daren’t shame anyone who is in frequent correspondence with the universe: They, as it turns out, have been on to something this whole time.