The Secret
So, I'm not sure if any of you have heard about a movie or a book called "The Secret". Well, I read the book last night (I really want to see the movie), and it most certainly warrants an update. Part of me is at odds about what I have just learned. The analytical scientist and skeptic in me is saying where's the proof? And yet I do see it in my life and in other people's lives. And by virtue of doubting it, it becomes hidden from my vision. As Henry Ford said, "Whether you think you can or think you can't, either way you're right." It's a paradox. It's a koan. I've come to the conclusion that there is absolutely nothing to lose in taking The Secret for a test drive. Just to see what it can do.
So what is it? First I would like to discuss that, and then I would like to discuss how it has manifested itself in my life, and how I see it manefesting in other people's lives.
Forgive me, for the logician in me needs to discuss this in a logical way. To make sense of it and ground it in my life, I will discuss the philosophy behind the idea, and not in the order that it was explained to me.
Here it goes.
The basic idea is that we are all made up of pure energy. Technically, this is true. Everything is made up of energy and so in essence we are everything and everything is us. We are part of the One Energy Force, the One Consciousness, the One many religions refer to as God.
Because we are made of energy, we posess a property of vibrational frequency. Our energy can vibrate at lower frequencies, and it can vibrate at higher frequencies. Since we are connected to all things, our vibrational frequency gets sent out into the Universe and effects the vibrational frequency of those things around us, much like a drop in a pond spreads the waves of it's contact with the surface of the water. The frequency that we send out influences the frequency of the energy that gets sent or reflected back to us. If we are vibrating at a higher frequency, then the things that get sent back to us are also of a higher vibrational frequency. The things that get sent back can be in the form of relationships, situations, circumstances, thoughts, etc.
Love is the highest vibrational frequency. So when there is love in your life, and you are constantly showered with that love, it only brings more love (again, in the form of things that you love, things that bring you a feeling of love or joy, situations, etc.) What influences your energy's vibrational frequency are your thoughts and your feelings. When you have positive thoughts or are in a good mood, your vibrational frequency is higher (towards that of love, joy, etc.) When you are in this state, it then brings forth more things, situations, circumstances, relationships that bring you more of the same, love, happiness, joy, etc. Likewise, when you are in a negative mood, or thinking negative thoughts, that frequency gets sent out and it brings back to you more negative situations, more negative thoughts, more hopeless feelings. Thats why depression is so hard to get out of, and also why we sometimes have "just one of those days" when you stub your toe in the morning, start your day in a foul mood, and bad things just keep happening.
Now my initial reaction to this was hogwash. It's all part of somebody's ego to gain absolute control and power and blah blah blah. But then, therein lies the paradox. If you don't believe it, you don't feel it, you don't live it, then it simply will not be. "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, either way you're right." Why not just give it a try? Test it out?
I began to look back on my life and notice all of the examples of this phenomenon.
(Now the psychologist in me says, well of course, you only see what you want to see, that doesn't mean you create it for yourself... but that's all how you define this process of creation. When you have a bad day, you choose to notice the bad things, and fail to notice the good things. The good things are the things you have to be grateful for every single day, whether it be a warm bed to sleep in, a loving family, a good friend, a beautiful sunset, etc. Because you notice only the bad things, doesn't mean the good things don't exist. But it DOES mean the good things don't exist TO YOU. When you bring something into creation, you are bringing it into existance FOR YOURSELF. At least that is one way of looking at it. On the flipside, the argument is that you can literally bring more good things to yourself. It's the butterfly effect, the ripple effect, and it all begins with your attitude.)
I bring the following examples of this phenomenon in my life:
1) Perhaps the biggest example is meeting Nick. Looking back, I can say that I simply stopped focusing on how I didn't think it was possible for me to fall in love. I just dropped it altogether. I stopped making that idea the center of my romantic life. It was also the time at which I had begun to read the Power of Now, and understanding how to attain the default state of joy. I began focusing on finding happiness and joy right NOW in my life, without the aid of a significant other. I began to be okay with being alone and being prepared to accept the possibility of a life in total solitude, and yet still being joyful and grateful for the life I have. And then came Nick. Slowly I fell in love with him, but since then, my life has unfolded with more and more love and goodness and happiness. The most major of these events, was realizing what I wanted as my career path, something I also never thought I would find. Since Nick came into my life, and since my life has been filled with more love and happiness, opportunities have fallen into my lap (ie. having a place to live, getting my current job, obtaining kilns and a pottery wheel, etc.) Things just started to eerily work out. According to The Secret, it is the law of attraction. Like attracts like. With more love and happiness in my life, it attracted even more good things, love and happiness into my life. And even to this day, I fall more and more in love.
2) Here's an example of how a negative attitude has kept me down. For years, since middle school, I've told myself that I do not have enough confidence in social situations. I often am afraid to strike up conversations with strangers because I fear the conversation would lead to an uncomfortable silence or that I may appear boring. In my worst states, I have even avoided my own friends for this reason. I do not feel like I have the ability to be engaging and full of conversation. Indeed The Secret explains the self-fulfilling prophecy. And this is another one of those things that has changed since I met Nick. There have been social situations in which I have commanded the room, was talking to everybody was filled with joy and became the center of attention. This has NEVER happened to me before until I met Nick. One STARK example I can remember is this one night I went to the local swing dance near my house on Long Island:
The way I usually feel when I go to this event is very small, shy, afraid to talk to people, and always noticing how nobody ever asks me to dance. I would cling to whoever I was with, rarely talk to other people on my own and tended to dance with the same person over and over again (who was often a terrible dancer or not quite fun to dance with), if I was even being asked to dance at all. One night I decided to run a little experiment. I decided to think of the night as an experiment, and told myself that whatever happened, I would not allow it to reflect poorly on my character or make me feel bad about myself. I told myself that I was going to talk to people and that I was going to enjoy myself and not be afraid.
Lo and behold, this new creature emerged. I was sociable, talking to complete strangers and even remembering their names (something I always tell myself I am bad at), and if I did not remember somebody's name, I was not afraid to ask. I was engaging, talking to nearly everyone who gave me eye contact. I gave other people eye contact and smiled. I felt joy inside of me. I would sit on the chairs and just laugh with this huge grin on my face. I couldn't believe what was happening. I felt like my presence was in the entire room. Sure enough, I was getting more invitations to dance than I can ever remember getting; one invitation was from one of the absolute PRO dancers who I always dreamed of dancing with! I hardly had a seat the whole night, and I was dancing better than I had ever danced before. It was a phenomenal experience and I will never forget it.
These occurrances are rare as I often doubt my ability to ever do that again. But with The Secret, I can recognize that and change that.
3) Since probably about middle school, early high school, I have always had these unexplainable intestinal symptoms. I get cramps, pains, headaches, dizziness, and a less than regular schedule of events if you know what I mean. It has caused me quite a bit of distress and continues to do so to this day. (Or so it may seem... Even now I resist keeping that idea in my mind). Whenever I have a negative symptom, I focus my whole energy on it, it consumes my thinking and my worrying. Naturally, it has never gone away. In fact, I recently took this food intolerance test to see if it was a dietary thing that was causing these problems. The first few weeks I tried the diet out, I was amazed. Everything was normal. I rarely had symptoms and my schedule was healthier and more regular than it has ever been. However, slowly and gradually the symptoms have been creeping back, making me focus on them even more because I thought they would go away. The Secret is not about wishing for what you don't want, and willing bad things to go away, it is about visualizing and believing that you already HAVE what you DO want, about imaging the good, and not the absence of the bad. It is quite possible that my strong mental focus on these negative symptoms have brought them on even more. Sure it could be that this condition is something that is a concrete medical condition and that imbalances happen, and disease happens because of genetics or because of bodily circumstances, but The Secret is saying that, while all of that is true, thought, feeling and belief lie a dimension above those things. If you are sick and you are trying to visualize yourself getting better and it is not working, it is likely because you really don't believe it is going to work, or you don't act as if you are better (by doing the things you would do if you were healthy). In fact, there have been times when I was sick, or was worried about not getting well because of some big event that was happening the next day. I would tell myself over and over, "Know that you'll be fine, and you will." And often times it works. Once I really believe it, and know it, then I'm fine. It is a paradox though, because don't you have to be fine in order to know that you'll be fine? Sometimes it's difficult to trace which came first, and I'm not about to try.
What I am going to try is an experiment with these symptoms (simply because the only thing I have to lose are the symptoms!). I will try not to focus on them, and try to visualize myself as not having them at all. As being perfectly healthy and normal and regular. This might look a lot like denial, but the idea is that you submit your thought to the Universe, and then all you have to do is try to maintain that vibrational frequency by keeping your attitude and mood positive. When it starts to shift, bring it back around by thinking of all the things you have to be grateful for.
Some Smaller things that have happened:
1) A couple of summers ago, I had taken the kids I was babysitting for to an amusement park. We all rode this ride that involved being in a boat type thing that had some degree of control in steering out of the way of falling water traps as you circled around this round moat. As I was steering, a jet of water dropped on my face and knocked my glasses off into the water. My glasses were lost in this pool of water, and they were not allowed to stop the ride to help look for them. I was distraught about losing them because not only did I not have access to an older pair of glasses, but I was also leaving for Lake Tahoe the next day and could not bear the thought of not being able to view the gorgeous landscapes from a distance. Even though they could not stop the ride to fish the glasses out, I asked if they could try while the ride was loading and unloading. The kids rode it over and over again, seeing if they could spot them in the water below. All my energy and focus was on getting those glasses. I kept thinking really hard about getting them back. After about an hour of attempts and refusing to let people tell me they could not stop the ride or look for them, they were found and retrieved.
2) This past August, I was at my cousin's wedding. Indeed I even wrote an entry about this, but long story short, I knew I was going to catch the boquet. It was the most powerful feeling of knowing that I had ever felt and it was impossible to ignore. I didn't even bother trying to strategically place myself in a better position. I didn't even jump or move. I reached my hand directly above my head and the boquet literally fell into my hand.
3) Even for purposes of this entry, I wanted to find that Henry Ford quote, and I wound up opening to the exact page.
Sure many people would say that these are all conincidences, and that it is all just luck. But don't people who think they are unlucky continue to be so? If you have even gotten this far, and if you think this is a bunch of horse shit and that the world is an unfair and unforgiving place, ask yourself, are you happy? Is the world unfair and unforgiving to you? The funny thing is, it isn't that way for everybody. And what The Secret is saying, is that it isn't luck. Some people don't realize they are doing it. But when you are aware of it, you start noticing the set of circumstances you constantly set in motion for yourself by the way you think and feel about yourself or about the world.
It makes sense to me, and all I can see now is that I have absolutely nothing to lose. So why the hell not give it a try?
So what is it? First I would like to discuss that, and then I would like to discuss how it has manifested itself in my life, and how I see it manefesting in other people's lives.
Forgive me, for the logician in me needs to discuss this in a logical way. To make sense of it and ground it in my life, I will discuss the philosophy behind the idea, and not in the order that it was explained to me.
Here it goes.
The basic idea is that we are all made up of pure energy. Technically, this is true. Everything is made up of energy and so in essence we are everything and everything is us. We are part of the One Energy Force, the One Consciousness, the One many religions refer to as God.
Because we are made of energy, we posess a property of vibrational frequency. Our energy can vibrate at lower frequencies, and it can vibrate at higher frequencies. Since we are connected to all things, our vibrational frequency gets sent out into the Universe and effects the vibrational frequency of those things around us, much like a drop in a pond spreads the waves of it's contact with the surface of the water. The frequency that we send out influences the frequency of the energy that gets sent or reflected back to us. If we are vibrating at a higher frequency, then the things that get sent back to us are also of a higher vibrational frequency. The things that get sent back can be in the form of relationships, situations, circumstances, thoughts, etc.
Love is the highest vibrational frequency. So when there is love in your life, and you are constantly showered with that love, it only brings more love (again, in the form of things that you love, things that bring you a feeling of love or joy, situations, etc.) What influences your energy's vibrational frequency are your thoughts and your feelings. When you have positive thoughts or are in a good mood, your vibrational frequency is higher (towards that of love, joy, etc.) When you are in this state, it then brings forth more things, situations, circumstances, relationships that bring you more of the same, love, happiness, joy, etc. Likewise, when you are in a negative mood, or thinking negative thoughts, that frequency gets sent out and it brings back to you more negative situations, more negative thoughts, more hopeless feelings. Thats why depression is so hard to get out of, and also why we sometimes have "just one of those days" when you stub your toe in the morning, start your day in a foul mood, and bad things just keep happening.
Now my initial reaction to this was hogwash. It's all part of somebody's ego to gain absolute control and power and blah blah blah. But then, therein lies the paradox. If you don't believe it, you don't feel it, you don't live it, then it simply will not be. "Whether you think you can or you think you can't, either way you're right." Why not just give it a try? Test it out?
I began to look back on my life and notice all of the examples of this phenomenon.
(Now the psychologist in me says, well of course, you only see what you want to see, that doesn't mean you create it for yourself... but that's all how you define this process of creation. When you have a bad day, you choose to notice the bad things, and fail to notice the good things. The good things are the things you have to be grateful for every single day, whether it be a warm bed to sleep in, a loving family, a good friend, a beautiful sunset, etc. Because you notice only the bad things, doesn't mean the good things don't exist. But it DOES mean the good things don't exist TO YOU. When you bring something into creation, you are bringing it into existance FOR YOURSELF. At least that is one way of looking at it. On the flipside, the argument is that you can literally bring more good things to yourself. It's the butterfly effect, the ripple effect, and it all begins with your attitude.)
I bring the following examples of this phenomenon in my life:
1) Perhaps the biggest example is meeting Nick. Looking back, I can say that I simply stopped focusing on how I didn't think it was possible for me to fall in love. I just dropped it altogether. I stopped making that idea the center of my romantic life. It was also the time at which I had begun to read the Power of Now, and understanding how to attain the default state of joy. I began focusing on finding happiness and joy right NOW in my life, without the aid of a significant other. I began to be okay with being alone and being prepared to accept the possibility of a life in total solitude, and yet still being joyful and grateful for the life I have. And then came Nick. Slowly I fell in love with him, but since then, my life has unfolded with more and more love and goodness and happiness. The most major of these events, was realizing what I wanted as my career path, something I also never thought I would find. Since Nick came into my life, and since my life has been filled with more love and happiness, opportunities have fallen into my lap (ie. having a place to live, getting my current job, obtaining kilns and a pottery wheel, etc.) Things just started to eerily work out. According to The Secret, it is the law of attraction. Like attracts like. With more love and happiness in my life, it attracted even more good things, love and happiness into my life. And even to this day, I fall more and more in love.
2) Here's an example of how a negative attitude has kept me down. For years, since middle school, I've told myself that I do not have enough confidence in social situations. I often am afraid to strike up conversations with strangers because I fear the conversation would lead to an uncomfortable silence or that I may appear boring. In my worst states, I have even avoided my own friends for this reason. I do not feel like I have the ability to be engaging and full of conversation. Indeed The Secret explains the self-fulfilling prophecy. And this is another one of those things that has changed since I met Nick. There have been social situations in which I have commanded the room, was talking to everybody was filled with joy and became the center of attention. This has NEVER happened to me before until I met Nick. One STARK example I can remember is this one night I went to the local swing dance near my house on Long Island:
The way I usually feel when I go to this event is very small, shy, afraid to talk to people, and always noticing how nobody ever asks me to dance. I would cling to whoever I was with, rarely talk to other people on my own and tended to dance with the same person over and over again (who was often a terrible dancer or not quite fun to dance with), if I was even being asked to dance at all. One night I decided to run a little experiment. I decided to think of the night as an experiment, and told myself that whatever happened, I would not allow it to reflect poorly on my character or make me feel bad about myself. I told myself that I was going to talk to people and that I was going to enjoy myself and not be afraid.
Lo and behold, this new creature emerged. I was sociable, talking to complete strangers and even remembering their names (something I always tell myself I am bad at), and if I did not remember somebody's name, I was not afraid to ask. I was engaging, talking to nearly everyone who gave me eye contact. I gave other people eye contact and smiled. I felt joy inside of me. I would sit on the chairs and just laugh with this huge grin on my face. I couldn't believe what was happening. I felt like my presence was in the entire room. Sure enough, I was getting more invitations to dance than I can ever remember getting; one invitation was from one of the absolute PRO dancers who I always dreamed of dancing with! I hardly had a seat the whole night, and I was dancing better than I had ever danced before. It was a phenomenal experience and I will never forget it.
These occurrances are rare as I often doubt my ability to ever do that again. But with The Secret, I can recognize that and change that.
3) Since probably about middle school, early high school, I have always had these unexplainable intestinal symptoms. I get cramps, pains, headaches, dizziness, and a less than regular schedule of events if you know what I mean. It has caused me quite a bit of distress and continues to do so to this day. (Or so it may seem... Even now I resist keeping that idea in my mind). Whenever I have a negative symptom, I focus my whole energy on it, it consumes my thinking and my worrying. Naturally, it has never gone away. In fact, I recently took this food intolerance test to see if it was a dietary thing that was causing these problems. The first few weeks I tried the diet out, I was amazed. Everything was normal. I rarely had symptoms and my schedule was healthier and more regular than it has ever been. However, slowly and gradually the symptoms have been creeping back, making me focus on them even more because I thought they would go away. The Secret is not about wishing for what you don't want, and willing bad things to go away, it is about visualizing and believing that you already HAVE what you DO want, about imaging the good, and not the absence of the bad. It is quite possible that my strong mental focus on these negative symptoms have brought them on even more. Sure it could be that this condition is something that is a concrete medical condition and that imbalances happen, and disease happens because of genetics or because of bodily circumstances, but The Secret is saying that, while all of that is true, thought, feeling and belief lie a dimension above those things. If you are sick and you are trying to visualize yourself getting better and it is not working, it is likely because you really don't believe it is going to work, or you don't act as if you are better (by doing the things you would do if you were healthy). In fact, there have been times when I was sick, or was worried about not getting well because of some big event that was happening the next day. I would tell myself over and over, "Know that you'll be fine, and you will." And often times it works. Once I really believe it, and know it, then I'm fine. It is a paradox though, because don't you have to be fine in order to know that you'll be fine? Sometimes it's difficult to trace which came first, and I'm not about to try.
What I am going to try is an experiment with these symptoms (simply because the only thing I have to lose are the symptoms!). I will try not to focus on them, and try to visualize myself as not having them at all. As being perfectly healthy and normal and regular. This might look a lot like denial, but the idea is that you submit your thought to the Universe, and then all you have to do is try to maintain that vibrational frequency by keeping your attitude and mood positive. When it starts to shift, bring it back around by thinking of all the things you have to be grateful for.
Some Smaller things that have happened:
1) A couple of summers ago, I had taken the kids I was babysitting for to an amusement park. We all rode this ride that involved being in a boat type thing that had some degree of control in steering out of the way of falling water traps as you circled around this round moat. As I was steering, a jet of water dropped on my face and knocked my glasses off into the water. My glasses were lost in this pool of water, and they were not allowed to stop the ride to help look for them. I was distraught about losing them because not only did I not have access to an older pair of glasses, but I was also leaving for Lake Tahoe the next day and could not bear the thought of not being able to view the gorgeous landscapes from a distance. Even though they could not stop the ride to fish the glasses out, I asked if they could try while the ride was loading and unloading. The kids rode it over and over again, seeing if they could spot them in the water below. All my energy and focus was on getting those glasses. I kept thinking really hard about getting them back. After about an hour of attempts and refusing to let people tell me they could not stop the ride or look for them, they were found and retrieved.
2) This past August, I was at my cousin's wedding. Indeed I even wrote an entry about this, but long story short, I knew I was going to catch the boquet. It was the most powerful feeling of knowing that I had ever felt and it was impossible to ignore. I didn't even bother trying to strategically place myself in a better position. I didn't even jump or move. I reached my hand directly above my head and the boquet literally fell into my hand.
3) Even for purposes of this entry, I wanted to find that Henry Ford quote, and I wound up opening to the exact page.
Sure many people would say that these are all conincidences, and that it is all just luck. But don't people who think they are unlucky continue to be so? If you have even gotten this far, and if you think this is a bunch of horse shit and that the world is an unfair and unforgiving place, ask yourself, are you happy? Is the world unfair and unforgiving to you? The funny thing is, it isn't that way for everybody. And what The Secret is saying, is that it isn't luck. Some people don't realize they are doing it. But when you are aware of it, you start noticing the set of circumstances you constantly set in motion for yourself by the way you think and feel about yourself or about the world.
It makes sense to me, and all I can see now is that I have absolutely nothing to lose. So why the hell not give it a try?