How Does Manifestation Work? Roxie Nafousi Explains

This article is an excerpt from the Shortform book guide to "Manifest" by Roxie Nafousi. Shortform has the world's best summaries and analyses of books you should be reading.

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How does manifestation work? How does your mindset influence your life outcomes?

Manifesting is the process of attracting what you want in life using a positive mindset. When you have a positive mindset, you emit a positive frequency, attracting positive things into your life.

Here’s how manifesting works, according to self-development coach Roxie Nafousi.

What Is Manifestation and How Does It Work?

How does manifestation work? According to Roxie Nafousi, the author of Manifest, manifestation is based on the Law of Attraction, which states that the energy we put out into the world attracts similar energy back to us. In other words, a positive mindset will attract positivity into our lives and propel us toward our goals, while a negative mindset will attract negativity into our lives and prevent us from reaching our goals. So, to manifest the life of your dreams and become the best version of yourself, you must adopt a positive mindset—everything you think, do, and feel must attract the life that you desire.

(Shortform note: Since the mid-2000s, the term “manifest” has been redefined by popular culture and the spiritual community, and in large part, by Rhonda Byne in her book The Secret. While Nafousi defines manifesting as the process of attracting what you want in life through positive belief—in other words, deliberately using only the positive side of the Law of Attraction—Byrne defines manifesting as the intentional or unintentional process of attracting whatever you think about, good or bad. In this guide, the verb manifest means “the process of bringing something tangible into your life through positive thinking and belief.”)

The Law of Attraction is based on quantum physics—everything in the universe is made up of atoms that vibrate at different frequencies, and atoms with similar frequencies attract each other. Nafousi argues that thoughts, behaviors, and emotions all impact the vibrational frequency that we emit—a positive mindset causes us to emit high vibrations that attract high vibrations in return, while a negative mindset causes us to emit low vibrations that attract more low vibrations.

Can Positive Thoughts and Emotions Alter Your Vibrational Frequency?

Numerous mind coaches and spiritual teachers have used The Law of Attraction to justify the process of manifesting. They claim that positive thoughts lead to high vibrational frequencies that attract positivity. However, there’s no credible scientific research proving that thoughts and emotions are linked to vibrational frequencies, nor that frequencies are “positive” or “negative.”

Health experts elaborate that there are many different vibrations that occur inside the body—large-scale vibrations (rhythms) like your heartbeat, breathing rate, and circadian rhythms, and small-scale nano vibrations that occur on the molecular level (the ones that impact your vibrational frequency).

Your thoughts and emotions can alter large-scale vibrations—for example, your heartbeat will increase when you’re anxious. But large-scale vibrations won’t impact your body’s vibrational frequency. Further, the molecular-level nano vibrations that can alter your body’s vibrational frequency are unmeasurable, and there’s no evidence yet for how or if thoughts and emotions can alter them.

So while the process of manifesting positivity by emitting positive energy may make sense based on what we currently understand about quantum physics, there’s not yet scientific evidence supporting this theorized phenomenon.

How Does Manifestation Work? Roxie Nafousi Explains