The Collision of Two Worlds
I have a friend in Ukraine. She is mother with a six-year-old daughter. Her husband is in the army. Their lives are lived against the background of bombings, blackouts, and the constant uncertainty of whether tomorrow will come at all. Work is precarious, safety is fragile, and the future is never guaranteed. Yet she keeps going. She wakes up, she raises her daughter, and she continues to live.
And then I think of my ex. She had a secure, well-paid job. A comfortable home. A supportive family. Travel, restaurants, everything she could possibly need. But it wasn’t enough. Within the coaching and manifesting world, she was told that her life was “blocked.” That she couldn’t manifest her full potential while tethered to me. The story became that I was standing in the way of her success, because in the coaching world, the universe rewards those who cut ties with anything that doesn’t fit the fantasy of “more.”
The contrast is staggering: one woman fighting daily to survive, another convinced that survival with stability, family, and love was a limitation.
This is where manifesting ideology reveals itself for what it really is: not spirituality, not wisdom, but entitlement born of privilege.
The Illusion of Cosmic Transaction
Manifesting is marketed as a universal law: think positively, express gratitude, and the universe will respond by giving you what you desire. Health. Wealth. Soulmates. Opportunities. The underlying message is that you are the architect of your reality,and if you don’t have what you want, it’s because you haven’t aligned your energy properly.
On the surface, it looks empowering. In reality, it’s a hollow equation: gratitude + visualisation = reward. And it only works inside a bubble of privilege.
Because if this “law” held true universally, then the most grateful people on earth,those who wake up in war zones, who ration food during famine, who express daily thanks simply for being alive,would be the most rewarded. Yet they’re not. The universe doesn’t deliver safety to Gaza because its citizens keep journals of gratitude. It doesn’t provide jobs in Ethiopia because people wake each morning thankful for water.
Manifesting fails the moment you apply it to reality outside of the privileged West. Which is why manifesting culture simply ignores those places. It has to.
Gratitude as Currency: The Privileged Redefinition
What makes manifesting doubly insulting is the way it co-opts gratitude. For billions of people, gratitude is visceral: surviving the night, finding food, holding your child’s hand. For the privileged, gratitude is reframed as a currency to purchase more:
- “Be grateful for your job so the universe can give you a better one.”
- “Write down three things you’re thankful for so you can attract abundance.”
- “Say thank you for the money in your account, then watch more flow in.”
Gratitude is no longer an end in itself. It becomes a means to an end. The poor express gratitude and get nothing but survival. The privileged express gratitude and believe it entitles them to more wealth, more status, more “alignment.”
This is how privilege disguises greed as spiritual practice.
Privilege as a Precondition for Belief
Here’s the thing about manifesting: it only exists where the basics are already covered. You need food, water, shelter, health, and safety before you can afford to sit around journaling about “alignment.”
No one in a bomb shelter thinks the universe is punishing them for low vibrations. No mother in a famine imagines she can “attract abundance” by writing affirmations. These beliefs are luxuries reserved for those already insulated from the worst of reality.
Manifesting isn’t universal truth. It’s a boutique ideology built on privilege. The universe is only generous to those who already have.
Coaching and the Language of Blocks
Coaching culture weaponises this entitlement further by inventing blocks. If you aren’t manifesting the life you want, it must be because something, or someone, is in the way. A limiting belief. A toxic relationship. A job that doesn’t serve your higher self.
This was the narrative my ex bought into. Despite love, stability, and a supportive partner, she was told that those things weren’t evidence of success, but evidence of compromise. I became the block. The coaching world gave her a script: if you want more, you’re entitled to cut off whatever doesn’t “align.” Love wasn’t enough. Family wasn’t enough. Stability wasn’t enough.
In this worldview, relationships aren’t commitments. They’re what she call a stepping stone to something better, discarded the moment they no longer serve the individual’s personal growth story.
The Moral Bankruptcy of Manifesting
When you put manifesting side by side with real hardship, its bankruptcy is impossible to ignore.
- In Ukraine, people manifest nothing but the hope of survival.
- In Gaza, no amount of positive thinking stops bombs from falling.
- In famine zones, no number of affirmations conjures food.
Yet in the West, manifestors declare that their new car, their job promotion, or their Bali holiday was delivered by the universe in response to their gratitude. It is not just delusional. It is obscene.
By this logic, the universe is a cruel tyrant, rewarding the privileged with abundance for being “aligned” while ignoring the suffering of billions who are equally, if not more, grateful.
Entitlement Dressed as Spirituality
At its core, manifesting is simply entitlement dressed in spiritual language. It’s the belief that you deserve more than what you already have, not because of effort, skill, or luck, but because the universe recognises your worthiness.
Ironically use of eastern influences, which when you look into those eastern countries, were riddled with poverty and disease. Yet the affluent spiritually inclined were special.
It provides cover for dissatisfaction. It reframes greed as alignment. It excuses selfishness as self-care. And it encourages people to abandon gratitude for what is real in pursuit of a fantasy of more, better, bigger.
And because it carries a spiritual veneer, it shields its believers from criticism. To challenge manifesting isn’t to challenge greed,it’s to “misunderstand universal law.”
Real Gratitude, Real Resilience
Contrast this with people in hardship. Gratitude is not a trick to attract more. It’s a grounding practice that allows them to keep going in the face of despair. It’s not about aligning energy. It’s about finding reasons to live another day.
That’s what resilience looks like. Not journaling about abundance. Not visualising wealth. But waking up in a bombed-out building, holding your child close, and deciding to face another day.
That is gratitude. That is strength. And it requires no universe, no coach, and no manifesting playbook.
The Universe Doesn’t Owe You
Manifesting thrives because it flatters privilege. It tells comfortable people that the universe is on their side. It frames dissatisfaction as a sign of higher awareness rather than greed. And it gives them permission to call love and stability “blocks” if those things don’t feed the fantasy of more.
But the universe doesn’t owe you a thing. Not because you’re grateful. Not because you’re aligned. Not because you cut off people who “hold you back.”
Just because a privileged woman like Gabby Bernstein tells you that the Universe always says yes. Remember she talks out of her bank account.
If you want to see what real gratitude looks like, look not to the manifestors but to the survivors. The mother in Ukraine. The family in Gaza. The child in famine. They show more resilience in one day of survival than most manifestors show in a lifetime of journaling.
And they do it without ever believing the universe is their servant.