“Without exception, every human being has the ability to transform any weakness or suffering into strength, power, perfect peace, health, and abundance.” Exactly! What a lovely reminder brought to us by the mega hit The Secret. Perhaps you’ve watched this film, read the book, or heard similar tapes on the subject. But did you listen?
Negative thoughts create negative energy and negative realities. Positive thoughts and energy bring happiness and abundance into our lives. Happiness is heaven, and heaven is here on earth. You’ve heard this simple concept many times I’m sure. You may even be rolling your eyes and reaching for the barf bucket. Yet you know it’s true. So what holds you back from strengthening your manifestation muscle on a daily basis? See your dreams. Hear them, taste them, become them. I know from my own experience that when my focus is weak I lose track of my needs. I overwork, underplay, and allow other people’s agendas to overtake mine. Once I’m adrift it’s very easy to be devoured by doubt stoking the fires of failure and all the fears that accompany it. To get unstuck from this cemented place we must do one simple yet profound action: Change our minds.
Have you ever set a really clear intention? Not a “hope”—hopes are too wishy-washy roulette for my taste. Roll the dice and “hope” you win. Hmmm, success seems pretty random under this model. Instead, stack the odds in your favor with directed and nurtured thought. Intentions place your desires on a course for success. We don’t just toss our desires out to the “universe” and then forget. We lovingly raise them like little children.
To successfully manifest your dreams you must be able to feel the emotion that accompanies the desire. If you want to be healthy, then imagine how healthy feels. Really put yourself there. What else do you need to make your life better? More money for organic veggies, the perfect job with benefits, a relationship with a hot yet spiritually advanced partner? Soak yourself in the physical sensations of abundance. Get specific and detailed.
What you hold in your mind you can create. But here’s the catch: You must back up your wants and desires with a willingness to meet the universe halfway. Sitting on your ass and dreaming won’t get you to the finish line. Get busy! Brainstorm like you’ve never brainstormed before. What concrete steps can you take regardless of your condition? Big or small, doesn’t matter. What matters is that you move the energy towards your desired outcome. Success is six degrees of separation. I guarantee you know someone or something that can help you network. But keep your purdy peepers open! Sometimes you will receive what you intend in a different package. Though it may look like the polar opposite of what you thought it would be, accept the gift anyway. You will not be sorry.
A gorgeous way to support our intention and reinforce these important teachings is by constantly filling our lives with uplifting and spiritually informative reading material, CDs, DVDs, etc. Surround yourself with the sacred. Don’t wait for the guru to come to you. An inspirational electric community fills in the gaps between visits to the yoga studio, mosque, or wizard college. Each time we study spiritual texts, we get another diamond. Wear them. Gems can’t shine in a box. Create a syllabus and school yourself. Try to refrain from being a one-note simpleton, “Jesus or else!” The original hippie wouldn’t like that very much. We expand our God knowledge to include different philosophies and traditions not to replace our spiritual beliefs, but to deepen them. Sadly in many cases religion has lost its spirituality. Like a big cosmic pizza pie, we’ve carved up slivers of God and claimed that our piece is the tastiest. Dogma and doctrine break the divine connection. When God is only “out there” we will always feel powerless and small.
In times of crisis I haul ass to my teachers. However, as my plucky therapist says, crisis isn’t the only time we can grow. Why wait till we are at the bottom and the only place to go is up? What if we worked on our “how to be a happy human” studies on a consistent basis? Here’s what would happen: At the end of every year of your life you would be a truly better person. That’s right, at your yearly bliss evaluation you would pat yourself on the back and say, “Go girrrrl, look at me, one step closer.”
I myself have a long way to go—a (long) lifetime to be exact—and that’s wildly exciting. The most inspiring aspect of reminders like “The Secret” isn’t what they say, it’s the sheer number of people saying the exact same thing from their own unique perspective. Countless faiths and sciences come together through cinema with the intention of reflecting the collective consciousness back to us. Bravo!
A few favorite Secret diamonds:
Watch the flick yourself, or read the book. Then crack open your journal and jot down the quotes that inspired you. Soak in the meaning behind those quotes and begin to locate tangible ways to incorporate their messages into your life. When you’re done, pick another flick and turn another page. Dig deeper. Just one other thing (because the title of this section is “The Secret CanSer Cowgirl Style”): it’s important to remember that though we often attract our successes and our failures, we didn’t attract cancer. The objective of these teachings and of all the advice in this book is simple. Retrain your brain.