THE SECRET

"THE SECRET"

"The Secret" (A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing) 
copyright Jo Davidson 
Zentertainment Talk Radio 
www.zentertainment.org

If the law states that like attracts like and it's always that simple, then how does one explain batteries?

As long as human beings have lived, we have been trying to explain suffering. We strive to give meaning to it, interpret it, get rid of it by all means, and then when it doesn't seem to go away, we cast blame. Who do we blame? 

Ourselves. Others. Circumstances beyond our control. 

Some say that everything is in our control. In a nutshell, this is the message of the movie THE SECRET. 

This longing to rid ourselves of suffering has been going on forever. We all want to feel good. Why do so many magazines sell over and over again when they are basically recycling the same articles? It is because the headlines start with "The Secret"….to weight loss, to great sex, to sleeping better, to being happy, to a more fulfilling career, to making more time for ourselves, and the list goes on. We rarely learn anything we don't already know, yet we keep buying magazines. The real problem is that we don't do what we already know how to do. Do you want to lose weight? As a wise 92 year old friend of mine recently announced, "Eat less and exercise everyday!"

A few years ago, I picked up a copy of a book by Esther and Jerry Hicks called "Ask and It Is Given." I became fascinated by their ideas of using emotions to heal. At first, I loved the book. In "Ask and It is Given," they claim that negative emotions always attract negative experiences, and higher ones which are positive, always attract positive experiences. There is some truth to this! If a woman is always complaining about how she wants to be with a man but they are all horrible, she probably doesn't have a very good chance of finding one. (She also won't be attracting friends like me who happen to love men, and would gladly hook her up on dates).

If somebody believes that something is impossible for them, then it most likely will be. If someone believes something is possible, then they have a shot at it! And when we feel happy, we feel more confident, more alive, and more able to draw happy experiences into our lives. We also attract others into our lives who bring us joy as we do them.

On the other side of the coin, sometimes we mistake charisma for character. Not only that, it is easy to mistake true suffering as a failure. For example, this "I can do anything, achieve anything, move any mountain sort of girl" somehow ended up facing two very challenging and devastating illnesses for 13 years. Social life? Gone. Career? Put on hold. Daily activities? Almost zero. Hope? Hanging by a thread. My life became about surviving each day while I desperately searched for a cure. Right in the middle of the years when I had hoped to be building a career and starting a family, I was going through something I had never imagined, never thought into existence, never daydreamed about or wanted.

Sometimes I would enter out into the world, usually looking quite normal, only to crash afterwards for days, weeks and months, entering into hell where all I could do was keep breathing and tell myself "this too shall pass." Doubts began to creep in. Without being able to do, I was forced to be. But this was not a rest and relaxation state of being. It was like descending down into the darkest depths, where the sinking fatigue went on and on. I wasn't swimming. The wave was too big to fight. The best way to get through it was to float. Keep breathing.

Along the way I faced huge amounts of judgements, ignorance and endured harsh comments from people I knew to total strangers. But the longer this went on and the more I tried to cure my condition without success, the more I began to wonder; just what if this thing called illness- this thing that is supposedly some great failure of thinking, is actually a path that only the bravest, strongest souls take on? What if it is the people judging who are the ones who are weak?

I remember one day a few years ago when I was in an especially grueling few months of insomnia. I also had very severe symptoms of extreme debilitating fatigue levels, brain fog, body pain, numbness and tingling, vertigo, strange headaches, blurry vision, shortness of breath, memory loss, and I was totally unable to even shower and blow dry my hair without landing in bed. Somehow my interest in sex never left which is bizarre. I actually felt hypersexual at times (another lyme symptom or who knows, maybe it's just me). Not sleeping and having all these symptoms made feeling happy very difficult as anyone can imagine. I was doing my best. But the truth is, I felt like I was dying, and I think I was. I had several experiences of feeling like I was passing....but I wanted with everything in me to live! To truly live! I just knew it wasn't my time to go. 

It was during this time that I had gathered every ounce of will power within me to stay afloat, when one day a "psychic" told me that I needed "the secret" more than anyone she knew. I felt like I had been slapped and kicked in the gut. Instead of applauding my courage, my strength, and encouraging me, this person chose to judge an experience that she herself had never experienced. 

You can always tell the true healers from the wanna be amateur healers, by their level of compassion and understanding. There are few sheep, but many wolves dressed in sheep's clothing.

In the world of the so called law of attraction, illness is thought to be a massive failure. It is not a failure. There is a gift in illness. It is that it develops in the one suffering, a new capacity for compassion. Long term, kick in the ass, devastating illness cures arrogance, spiritual or otherwise. It keeps us humble. I am actually very grateful for some of the lessons illness has given me, even as I have long been ready to be healed. I would never say to others many of the things that have been said to me. It makes me very happy that my heart and soul have been softened and molded in such a way that now I can help others more. I wish I would have come to this understanding through another path!

I have a million questions for myself. Truthfully, there could be partial truths buried in all my questions, and yet not one contains the whole truth or explains this thing. I could spend years analyzing myself and still come up short. I learn what I can and then leave some things in the realm of mystery. I have judged myself enough. If anyone can cure this it's me. But maybe cures are not always about the will, the ego, the right thoughts or feelings. Maybe we have to let go of our upside down world and its stories of what it means to be a hero.

In our culture we honor the hero as being the one who overcomes, cures, forges onwards, gets up when the going gets tough, keeps working, lets nothing get in her way or stop her.

But I wonder if maybe the hero is also the one who lives with a difficult reality with grace and still manages to love, have faith, hope and belief in her heart in something bigger, even with incredible limitations. This path might be the hardest one of all to walk.

Can we leave room for both experiences to be considered successes? Can I?

"Ask & It is Given" makes judgements. Good. Bad. Right. Wrong. Positive. Negative. Up. Down. Enlightened. Unaware. Dark. Light.

As I read this book (which was the basis for "The Secret") I began to strive to feel only my "higher" emotions. I began to think that anger, grief, fear, or despair were negative emotions that had little value in the life of someone who was happy, healthy and "evolved." I spent many nights before bed transcribing paragraphs from the book so that they would sink in. I felt uplifted and inspired. Most of all, I had that wonderful sense that I could be in control. Who wouldn't want that? 

As I began to believe what I was reading, I also began to wrap myself up in a tidy if somewhat judgmental blanket of "I create everything that is in my reality." I was determined to take the driver's seat, and change my reality. This felt pretty darn good! I can make anything happen! Yes!

There was however, a blaring red flag. Not only did Esther Hicks claim to be channeling "Abraham," but as I absorbed this book's message, I sensed myself disowning the "darker" aspects of myself and my contradictions, or feelings that might embarrass me. I also couldn't help but note that I began to judge others who were suffering even as I myself still was in the throws of an illness! I began to feel that somehow I was becoming more enlightened than others. I was going to come through and conquer all, through the power of my thinking! Oh the pride of it all! I saw myself becoming so spiritually evolved.

Just as feeling inferior and feeling superior both stem from a fragile ego determined to claim its importance, so spiritual pride is just as false an illusion as having no belief at all. 

What does it actually mean to become enlightened? What does spirituality look like without pride? Is it even spirituality once pride is a part of it?

I began to realize that this whole notion of telling ourselves that some emotions are bad while others are good is false. Even Jesus felt anger and grief! ALL of our emotions are a part of our healing. They all have a place and a purpose for us. Imagine all of the wonderful art and music that would not exist if artists only created when they felt happy! There might be very little art in the world today!

Without fear there would be no such thing as courage. Many times anger has helped me create boundaries. Expressing grief helps me to heal and even tears actually release toxins. There are no negative emotions. There are only stuck emotions. Anger, fear and sadness are not a problem unless those are the predominant emotions that fuel our lives.

I decided to take the few good things I learned from this book by Esther and Jerry Hicks and throw out all the rest. 

A few months after working with the book "Ask & It Is Given," I picked up a copy of a movie called "The Secret." This was a few years ago, long before the media circus began to swirl around it. This movie was circulating underground among the new age thought and metaphysical circles. 

After shelling out over $30 for a DVD, I was expecting a fast paced movie dripping with "Da Vinci Code like scenes" such as the ones the movie's trailer suggested. I had no idea that the movie would basically be a collection of interviews touting the exact same principles I had read in "Ask & It is Given." In one of the first scenes, there was a huge "genie in the sky" saying "YOUR WISH IS MY COMMAND." 

Bob Proctor said, "We can dictate exactly what we want to come into our life. And with absolute certainty, it will come into our life." 

Wow. Everything in me knew that this was total BS. But I wish it was true. My ego loves stuff like this. It makes me think I can be totally in control of everything and never have a bad day, a negative experience or a challenge that feels too hard to handle. Bring on the easy life! But the truth is that I am not God. There are things I can control and things I can't. I don't make the sun set and rise, the stars shine, the ocean tides go in and out. I am not the one that makes the flowers grow and bloom, the lightening strike, the rain fall. I am powerful, but I am not the ultimate one in power. 

I decided to take a closer look at "we can dictate exactly what we want to come into our life. And with absolute certainty, it will come into our life." Personally, I am grateful that not every single thing I have dictated has come into my life. Think of what chaos it would be if everything thing we each "dictated" happened! How would that work exactly if two opposing baseball teams each dictated that they were going to win the game? What would it be like if 1000 songwriters each dictated that they wanted to win the grand prize in a songwriting contest? What if two people entered a parking lot and each one dictated that they wanted the one close parking spot available? Who gets it? The one with a stronger vibration for channeling God's, I mean, the genie's magic wand? 


In the secret, I heard Joe Vitale selling the theory that "everything that's in your life, including the things you're complaining about, you've attracted." This is a lie. The truthful statement would be that MANY things in your life including the things you're complaining about, you've attracted.

We can change alot by what we focus or don't focus on. But we must be very discerning when it comes to where we get our inspiration and guidance from. Personally, I do not want to get my spirituality and my purpose from a man who has gone from being homeless to bragging about owning 300 luxury cars. I once spent a week in the slums of Haiti, and what passes off as enlightenment in America is often nothing more than gross materialism.

If we believe that we can command a genie in the sky to do our wishes, then how can we explain the Holocaust? I am sure many people prayed and believed the war would end sooner rather than later. So many wonderful faith filled people suffered unspeakable things. Surely the creators of the secret don't believe that everyone who suffered including the children, somehow suffered because they didn't have enough faith or think the right thoughts? This line of thinking is what makes the movie's message cruel and inhumane. 

Can we say that a person who was killed in Rwanda and raped in Darfur attracted it? That each little girl or boy who has been molested has attracted it? Every child who has cancer has attracted it? Every baby with autism attracted the side effects of mercury from vaccines? 

There are some truths that one doesn't hear in this move or read in this book.

We can attract material things into our lives without being particularly spiritual. 

Miracles and healings happen to people who deserve them as well as those who don't. 

I use vision Maps regularly. They mention them in THE SECRET as well as other books. This is one of the best things I learned from these teachings on the law of attraction. I collect random words and images that I am drawn to, and glue them onto poster boards and place them where I see them everyday. It has made me very aware of the power of advertising! Just seeing these images on a poster board keeps them in the front of my mind and somehow creates in me a strong desire, a current, a flow towards manifesting these things so that they show up in my life. Vision maps are very powerful tools! 

I use to put the images in notebooks, but I have found they are even more powerful when placed on a large poster board. Many things have come true in my life from what I have put onto these maps. Beach scenes not only preceded my week long vacation to a Caribbean island, but a move to a waterfront property CT for a year. Now I have left CT and I have two more beach vacations this summer, a new beach house apartment in NJ and a NYC apartment with water views! So it has been water water everywhere, and I love it.

However, what I did NOT ask for was to get lyme disease (again) in the oh so beautiful CT location that I spent last year in.

Sometime we control what happens to us, and sometimes we can only do our best to figure out how to respond to what happens to us.

I would like to propose a whole new way of doing vision maps. Instead of making vision maps full of mansions and jewelry and fancy cars and boats, how about making vision maps that show us how we might connect to others and be of service? This is what ultimately gives our lives meaning. When we invest in treasure that the world cannot destroy, then we are truly rich.

As a child in church, I remember hearing that one of the best ways to pray was to start by thanking God for our blessings before making our requests. That gratitude brings a balance to our hearts and minds and bodies. Gratitude is something we can do even through trials and life challenges. Through anger and grief, confusion and tears, through joy and clarity, laughter and smiles, gratitude is what opens up a space for blessings and joy to flow in. Notice I used the word THROUGH. I believe that gratitude is like a raft, a life boat in a stormy sea. It might not make the storm go away (the "negative" emotion or experience) but it might keep you alive until the waters get calm again.

Of course we always want to be on the mountain top of life, but as Arthur Caliandro once told me, "It is in the valleys where we grow." It's hard to be grateful when the valleys are low and go on for years, but those are probably the times when I know I need to practice gratitude the most.

There are times when our intentions and our vision maps might manifest but not be for the greater good. On the far end of the scale, I am sure Hitler intended to massacre millions of Jews. I am sure that Osama Bin Laden intended to fly planes into the twin towers. I witnessed that act of intention with my own eyes from my window in NYC. Just because someone sets an intention and makes it come true does not mean that they are "enlightened." So we should be careful of following teachers just because they have been able to manifest their wishes onto the world. This does not prove that they are leaders worth following.

Not every single thing from my maps have come true. This teaches me that I do not know everything. (As if I needed a reminder). 
This also shows me that if I become too attached to the things I want, I am not living fully now with what I already have. I have become aware that there is no end to my wish list. The funny thing about desire is that it usually creates more desire. Have you ever noticed that a newspaper is much more interesting when someone else is reading it next to you? Sometimes I get the things I wished for and find out they aren't all I thought they would be! (You can just look through my clothes closet to realize that truth)!

Can we feel complete in this moment right here and now? Complete with all the messiness and imperfections of life? 

It is much easier to chase after something else that we think will give us the high we need to feel good. The entire advertising business is based upon the concept that we will be happier and more complete if only we buy whatever product is being advertised.

A wise friend of mine who is a world reknowned doctor referred to the teachings from the secret as "psychological malpractice." 

The makers of "the secret" actually claim that the secret has been discovered, coveted, suppressed, hidden, lost and recovered. According to them, the secret has been hunted down, stolen and bought for vast sums of money. They say that for the first time in history these ideas are are presented in one place. (I guess the Bible didn't quite make the grade.) 

We are told that this so called secret to success was practiced by some of the greatest people who ever lived such as Plato, Einstein, Beethoven, Lincoln, Newton and others. But these men, just like me, just like you, had a mixed bag of human emotions to deal with. 

"I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on the earth. Whether I shall ever be better I can not tell; I awfully forebode I shall not. To remain as I am is impossible; I must die or be better, it appears to me.: -Abraham Lincoln, Jan 23 1841 in a letter to John T Stuart, his first law partner 

In 1802 Beethoven suffered severely from depression brought on by the realization that he was losing his hearing. "As for me," Beethoven wrote, "I am in despair so often and would like to end my life." 

From one website, I learned that Newton often wrote for 18-19 hours a day, even ignoring meals and sleep. From another I learned that: 

" At the age of 50, he had a nervous breakdown brought on by depression and paranoia." 

And what about Einstein? Albert Einstein married a brilliant mathematician named Mileva Maric. In a time when women were not given choices and opportunities in education, she participated in her husbands' scientific work and is now deemed co-creator of his theory of relativity. Einstein worked obsessively, and sometime later began an affair with his cousin Elsa. He eventually divorced his first wife Mileva, leaving her with their two sons. She had a nervous breakdown. One winter Einstein got very sick and thought he had cancer then a gall bladder problem. He was on his back for months. He moved into an apartment across from Elsa and her daughters. Then he temporarily decided he wanted to marry one of Elsa's daughters, named Ilse. (Can anyone say Woody Allen?) Ilse was not attracted to him and saw him as a father. In the end, he married his cousin Elsa in 1919 and he had many affairs during their marriage. She died in 1936. When Mileva died, at the age of 73, she was penniless, and her grave was unmarked. 

"I can love humanity, but when it comes to close relationships, I'm a horse for single harness. I failed twice, rather disgracefully." As for marriage: "An unsuccessful attempt to make something lasting out of an incident. All marriages are dangerous." 

-Albert Einstein--- 

I find it unbelievable that the movie touts these people as having lived the secret and at the same time condemns the type of thinking and behaviour that they all struggled with from time to time. Does this seem a little off? Why is nobody calling Rhonda Burns on this? She wrote the book, how could she get this so wrong? Yes these people were brilliant. But they lived very real and very messy lives, like we all do if we are honest.

I wonder if Jesus would have thought that spiritual people should never feel despair when while in a garden, he plunged into agonizing sorrow and prayed "This sorrow is crushing my life out." I wonder if Buddha would have thought that through his low energy field vibrations he had attracted the food poisoning that killed him. 

If every single prophet and saint to ever live (operating on the highest levels of consciousness) has died of something eventually, then why would we assume we are immortal? Why do we think that we can ever attain perfection in our lives if only we think the right thoughts or feel the right things? And what exactly IS perfection? If this is the only goal we have, then we, all of us, fall short. How about appreciating life's perfect moments in all their beauty, rather than thinking that every moment must be one in which we are filled with ecstasy and bliss?

Is this moment, now, ever enough?

Perhaps the secret to surviving any life challenge is in focusing on what we are grateful for even amidst the thorns. It is also letting ourselves cry when they cut us. If I block out my tears, I also block out my joy.

The real source of our strength, happiness and our true purpose cannot be found in ourselves alone or even in manifesting every desire we have. And it is certainly not found in shutting down half of our emotions in order to only feel some of them. 

Our true happiness is found in our connection to the Divine whether we are in the shadows and valleys or standing on top of the mountain. Sometimes we just have to hang on for the ride and remember that this too shall pass. Whatever it is, it always does eventually.

I was deeply disappointed when Oprah did a show promoting this movie which brought it into the mainstream. One of the speakers said that when asked how we are, we should always answer "FANTASTIC!" But what if we don't feel fantastic? Is it ever permissible to just reply, "Ok?" After-all, if we are always pretending to be on 10, we don't have anywhere to go when we really DO feel fantastic. I can hardly imagine Jesus dying on the cross with nails in his hands and feet saying "I feel fantastic!"

I have learned alot from the Secret and also from Ask & It is Given. What I learned is that when we think we control every single thing, we become addicted to being in control. When we let go and honor the mysteries of life, we have space for compassion and kindness and for embracing our imperfections as part of our beautiful selves. We also find it easier to accept other people's weaknesses once we are aware of our own. 

The world is full of people spouting off their programs and formulas. Frankly, I have had it with these people. They might look spiritual and sound spiritual. They might look like they have it together, but if they are promoting this movie or book as the big answer to how to live a happy life, beware! We are all thirsty, and many people will buy into whatever they think will fill their emptiness. This is the drink of the moment.

But there is another root where the true water comes from!

The Secret is full of imperfections just like all of us. We all seem to get some things right, and some things wrong. So we keep learning. True spirituality goes beyond the grasping of the ego, and I heard a lot of ego in this movie. There is a place and a space inside all of us where we can be free right here and now, even in this strange paradox of embracing suffering and happiness at times, simultaneously.

There is no perfection, just perfect moments and the journey. The goal is not that we never become discouraged. The goal is that we take those times of feeling discouraged and utterly broken by life, and in them, allow our courage and strengths to shine through. 

What we focus on does indeed expand. On the flip side, sometimes things show up when we were not thinking about them at all. And there have also been many fleeting thoughts and daydreams I have had in my life that have NEVER become reality! Thank God there is a bigger plan beyond me and my thoughts, beyond my ego thinking mind.We are not failures or somehow less enlightened when we suffer as we face challenges that test us beyond what we ever imagined we could bear.We are strong when we respond with courage rather than blame, and openness to learning rather than arrogance in having all the answers.

Those who go through major challenges and illnesses are sometimes meant to go through these things in order to emerge as great healers. To say that these initiation periods are failures, is to dishonor the soul journey of individuals who are bravely forgiving paths through a wilderness that most others might never survive. The kingdom of God might be within me, but it is also bigger than me and outside of me, in the same way that the songs I write are a part of my life force and energy and yet are not all of me. I am not God. I was created by God. This is my belief.

We are here to love ourselves and love others. It is in appreciating all of our emotions, (contradictions and all), staying connected to gratitude, and embracing rather than trying to solve this great thing called mystery that we develop maturity. Perhaps suffering is not always meant to be understood. Perhaps it is the journey itself of seeking to understand, that is this beautiful thing called life.

Now we see in part, but there will come a time when we see in full.


I reserve the right to change my mind about any of this because I don't know, and this too shall pass.


copyright Jo Davidson

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