My next stop on the Spirituality Express was The Secret. (A book and movie created by Rhonda Byrne about using the Law of Attraction to create the life of your dreams.)
I bought the book and read it every day. I bought the DVD and watched it constantly. I created my "vision board". For those who don't know, it's a bulletin board covered with pictures of my wildest dreams - house, car, yacht, career, body; pictures of the life that until then, I hadn't even allowed myself to fantasize about. I got myself a "gratitude rock" to keep in my pocket as a daily reminder to be grateful and feel the feeling of gratitude as often as possible.
It was such a huge relief to know that I control my experience in the world. I was absolutely elated to learn that as long as I thought positive thoughts and truly believed in my own power that I would be as happy and successful as I had dreamed when I was a kid. I was walking on sunshine.
I got deeper into the law of attraction. I read and studied the Abraham books (Abraham-Hicks Publications) from cover to cover. In fact, I embarked on a 30 day workbook of daily activities that were created from the Abraham teachings. I read several books by other contributors to The Secret including the Conversations With God books by Neale Donald Walsch. I spent hours on The Secret website reading about the experiences of others who were on this journey and posting about my own experiences.
I stopped watching the news (the news is never positive), and even stopped watching my favorite shows like American Justice and Cold Case Files in order to stop emitting those negative thought signals out into the world, thereby attracting less negativity back to me.
During this time my contract ended at my job and I got a new job that paid twice what I had been making. I stopped procrastinating and finally signed up for acting classes, which I had wanted to do for 15 years but for some reason just didn't believe I could. I put together and almost completed a project I had been working on for a decade but again, never thought I could really finish. I had an inspired idea for a non-profit charity organization, created a website for it and began promoting the website in every way I knew how.
I was happier, more productive and more hopeful than I remember ever being. I had more self esteem, too. What others thought of me was less important because I knew that I was a unique, blessed and special person with so much to offer. I believed it in my very core.
Then something really bad happened. It isn't important what it was, but just that it was one of the most horrible things that has ever happened to me. It was one of those experiences that sends a shockwave through your entire life.
On top of the shock of the actual event was the realization that I had spent all that time and energy and put my heart and soul into The Secret, having been told that my life would be forever changed for the better, and instead, one of the worst events of my life happened. So at that point the spell was broken and I couldn't invest any more of myself into working that plan. It was obviously a sham and I had bought into it.
So life went back to the way it was before The Secret. I stopped meditating, I quit doing the daily work, I took down the "vision board", I put my "gratitude rock" in the junk drawer and started watching the news and true crime shows again. The Secret...HAH...what a let-down...
After a couple of months of being back to "normal" again I had stopped working on my charity idea, I hadn't completed the 10-years-in-the-making project that was so close to being done, I was unmotivated and uncreative, and truly unhappy. It occurred to me that I had been so much happier, more confident, motivated and productive when I had believed in and studied The Secret! The bad thing that had happened to me would still have happened even if I wasn't doing The Secret. Bad things happen to people some times. It's just a part of life.
Regardless of whether The Secret was real or not, I had been happier when I was studying it. It was another clear message to me that I need spirituality in my life. Maybe not The Secret, or maybe not ALL of it, but I could take the jewels, the parts of it that rang true for me and put them in my pocket.
So, with all the jewels I have collected so far (from The Secret, from people I've known, experiences I've had, places I've been) I am off on the life-long journey in search of the glorious life!!
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Curtis and I were just discussing The Secret. We believe that the problem with "The Secret" is that it is a little on the "selfish" side. Also, as the song goes "You can't always get what you want, but if you try some times, you just might find, you get what you need!" The Secret seems geared to get people what they "want", not what they "need". You know? And I do think it's a bit of a sham. However, thinking positively is always a good thing.I believe in the law of attraction. I believe that thinking positively is the key to a lot of happiness. It's something I struggle with myself. But I have been trying to incorporate it more into my mindset. And I agree with your belief in taking what works for you out of spirituality ideas and leaving the rest behind.
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