Your unfortunate circumstances are valid.
An essay about the privilege and luck attached to manifestation, law of attraction and “inspiring lifestyle”-YouTubers
I watched a video by Lavendaire yesterday. Yes, THAT girl with the huge platform who’s telling you to manifest your dream life and showing off her house (looking like a rich person’s house) as if that’s a normal thing for us other people to have. Compared to most people, Aileen, the girl behind Lavendaire, is privileged and has things from the beginning that we don’t have. So, of course, she has an easier time becoming who she wants to be.
Occasionally, I like her content. I’m not here trying to criticize everything she does, because I truly think she’s helping others. Which is good, of course! But when she says her greatest life trauma is that her parents, and particularly her dad, had too high expectations of her, and that’s pretty much it (from what she has shared) that was tough in her life, I get “rich and privileged girl trying to be relatable” vibes from her speech. She does not know what real trauma means.
Maybe I’m not the target audience for her videos, though. Even though I really want to improve my life with healthy habits, be active, be healthily productive towards my goals, and design and build my dream life. Just the things the Lavendaire channel is all about. The problem is that I have too many factors in my life that make me different from Aileen, and her channel seems focused on upper-middle-class to rich people and girls and women who are able-bodied and neurotypical. (Neurotypical means you are typical and have no neurodivergence, like a mental health or neuropsychological diagnosis). It’s frustrating when someone says that everyone can build their dream life when… Everybody most certainly can’t due to their circumstances. It’s a privilege to even be able to say that, a thing that is not even true for so many of us.
Some of us are chronically in the shadow, and our dreams are constantly out of reach. Our traumas are valid! If you have a harder time reaching what you want out of life, you are so valid! I don’t want to take someone’s dreams away and tell people not to challenge themselves or try to reach their goals, but I equally don’t want people to beat themselves up just because they have a higher hill to reach than others.
Because we can see it like this. Everyone has a mountain to travel to the top of to be content. Some people’s mountains are higher than others, and the roads up to the top are more winding. Some people have a pointy edge just near the top. Some people’s mountains are more like a round, easy hill. The latter is what inspiring channels like Aileen’s try to target, I think. The problem is that she’s not acknowledging anything else, though. She talks like everyone can become what she has become, or at least near that, without mentioning something else or recognizing her round hill. Of course, I don’t know if she had anything severe in her life that she doesn’t share; I just judge what she puts online. But hey, it’s not my fault she comes across in a certain way, because how we come across online is within her control. Without oversharing, we can mention things and impact how others perceive us. So if I perceive her in this way, it’s on her.
And I don’t just talk about Aileen. She’s just an example. There are so many other channels like hers. Immediately, I’m thinking of Vivacioushoney as another example, although I don’t follow her channel as closely as Lavendaire. Nothing at all to be honest, I have mostly heard of her channel through others, so I might be wrong, but anyway… There are plenty more, of course, but I cannot list all of them here. Most “inspiring life design” channels are the same anyway!
So yes, you should flourish! You should keep trying! But please don’t beat yourself up for not looking like someone else. Especially if you’re disabled or neurodivergent. Just the fact that you woke up today is amazing; you are still alive. Keep blooming where you are planted.
xo