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Secrets… I Love A Good Secret!

****note – this entry are notes to a talk I presented at Unity Church of Ottawa many years ago lightly edited in 2023

I love Secrets! I love being in on the “in”. When someone shares a secret with me, I feel so honored and trusted. I love Secrets!

So, when the movie “The Secret” came out in 2006, I had to see it!

The movie “The Secret” is about how we can have everything we want in life.
Do you want to know the secret to having everything you want?
The secret in “The Secret” is the Law of Attraction.

The Law of Attraction is the explanation of how it is we come to experience everything we experience in life. That our thoughts and emotions influence the creation of form, and that whatever we focus on and pay most attention to, we draw to ourselves.

For example; you’re at the grocery store approaching the checkout area and notice several long lines. You remain focused on the lines, feeling and thinking frustrating thoughts about having to wait in one of these lines. You stand in one of them, and then completely miss noticing the cashier opening next to you. By the time you do, the line is just as long as the one you are in. That is the power of attraction!

My experience discovering the Law of Attraction……

I started studying the “law of attraction” years before I even knew such a law existed.
Back in the mid 90’s I started recognizing how my thoughts were manifesting in life. Sometimes I would ask for an event to happen in a certain way, and it did. I really became fascinated by this new ability I had apparently acquired, of being able to make things happen.  When I started my Reiki practice in the late 90’s, I named my company Conscious Creation because I had realized I could create my reality and I wanted to help others to do the same. Then, I learned about the Law of Attraction which nicely explained my experiences.

Being mindful of how our thoughts manifest……..

Now the Law of Attraction – otherwise known as “The Secret” – really emphasizes that we need to be mindful of thoughts, because they do become our reality. Now the good news is that we have so many thoughts and can only be aware of so much at one time, therefore, our thoughts don’t all manifest instantaneously. This is demonstrated in the movie as someone looks at a postcard with an elephant on it, then turns to see an elephant appear in his living room! Naturally, an elephant didn’t really appear, however, critics of the movie seem to miss the fact that it doesn’t try to imply that ALL thoughts manifest.

So, while not all thoughts manifest like that, sometimes they do 😉

The day after my boyfriend (now husband) and I had watched The Secret, we were at a pet store, picking up food for our cat Patches. While there, we were looking at all the cute furry creatures. We both noticed the rabbits and commented on how cute they were. I remember envisioning being at home, holding and petting a soft furry rabbit.

Next day, I’m headed to the basement of the apartment building we were living in at the time, to do laundry. I open the door and straight ahead is a furry little thing. As I’m wondering, “is that a stuffed animal or is it real?”, it turned, looked right at me, and started hopping towards me! It was a rabbit!
Right away I think “oh my god! What have we done?!? We’ve manifested a pet bunny! So, upstairs I go to get Daniel, and tell him I have a surprise! He comes down, sees the bunny and the bunny starts playing with him, chasing his ankles – it was so cute.

As it turns out, both of us had imagined how cute it would be to have a bunny as a pet. We did end up bringing it upstairs to our apartment for safety, until I ran into the owner during my next trip down to continue the laundry.

How to manage our thoughts…….

Our thoughts can become experiences in our reality, so how do we manage our thoughts, so that only the ones we want to experience in our lives happen?
That’s a heavy question. Can you imagine having to monitor all your thoughts??? Yikes!
There has got to be a Secret to that one…….

Discovery of Prayer connection during that summer…….

During that summer I participated in one of Unity’s small group classes titled “Creating a Life of Prayer”. At the same time I also decided to finally start reading a book a friend had gifted me “Handle with Prayer” by Alan Cohen “Harnessing the Power of Prayer to Make Your Dreams Come Through”.
As I was both reading the book and participating in the class, it dawned on me that Affirmative Prayer, which is what Unity teaches, is the conscious application of the Law of Attraction. I had not yet connected the two until that moment.

There are two key aspects of Prayer that led to this insight:
1. That prayer is our communication to God or our source.
2. That we have faith that God or source exists, and that it is always at the receiving end of our prayer.

Prayer/Law of attraction Connection

Can you even imagine engaging in prayer, if you didn’t believe there was some greater power at the receiving end of the prayer? No, we won’t even bother. But we know there is a power that is omni present. It is in everything, in the air we breathe, in every cell of our bodies, all around us all the time. There is nowhere it is not. It is always present, connected to every word and every thought. God/source/universe never turns off!!
If this is true, then all my thoughts are a prayer.

Now, let’s look at the Law of Attraction teachings for a moment. It supports that there is a force that responds to our thoughts and attention. It is always working, whether someone is aware of it in the moment or not. It just is. It is the explanation how it is we experience that which we experience, so it too is active everywhere, at all times, through all!
This explanation of how we create in our lives, sounds a lot like how the idea of God operates through prayer, doesn’t it?

Prayer is the conscious application of the Law of Attraction.

Example of Law of Attraction and God

As I was preparing for this talk Mother Teresa came to my mind. She was a woman who demonstrated every day how she always attracted what she needed as she traveled being of service wherever she could. Here is one of her stories:

“One day in Calcutta a man came with a prescription and said, ‘My only child is dying, and this medicine can be brought only from outside of India.’ Just at that time, while we were still talking, a man came with a basket of medicine. Right on the top of that basket, there was this medicine. If it had been inside, I would not have seen it. If he had come before, or if he had come afterward, I could not have seen it. But just at the time, out of millions and millions of children in the world, God in his tenderness was concerned with this little child of the slums of Calcutta enough to send, just at that time, that amount of medicine to save that child. I praise the tenderness and the love of God, because every little one, in a poor family or a rich family, is a child of God, created by the Creator of all things.”

This happens to us too. See if you can remember a time when you needed something and suddenly, like magic, it appeared. Synchronicity or a coincidence suddenly happens to make something come together for you.

This is such a beautiful demonstration of the real Secret to an abundant life, which I will share with you next.

Sometimes it works – sometimes it doesn’t

So how is it that sometimes what we ask for happens and sometimes it doesn’t. And why do someone people seem to easily manifest what they want and need, while others aren’t so good at it, even though they ask?

What is the real Secret to creating an abundant life?

As I asked myself this question, I thought about the people of the past that the movie referred to as having known the Secret; Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Edison… What did all these people have in common? I suspect that they knew something other than the Law of Attraction, which was the real Secret to an abundant life.

As I contemplated this I wondered “what’s been different in my life between the times when everything is flowing smoothly, everything has come together the way I want and the times when I’ve experienced disappointments, illness, setbacks or what I may have viewed as a failure at the time.

What is it that has been missing during these experiences?

A specific experience came to me, of when I was working at the Bank, and I was feeling really frustrated with my job. I had started off the new year by missing the first week of work because I had laryngitis – for the first time in my life. I also had an emotional breakdown at the same time. It was a rough week.

As I recalled this experience, I realized that what wasn’t present was faith and my belief in myself.

Can you think of time when you suddenly lost your belief in yourself, in who you are at the core of your being, an expression of God/Source that can create whatsoever you desire in life just like every other person in the universe can.

Have you ever been in a state of mind when you’ve forgotten the divine spark of light that you are? And then suddenly, something shifts. It, whatever “it” is, becomes so painful – and you start regaining something…. maybe faith.
You suddenly start thinking there must be a way out or that something must change.

Your faith is restored.

Inspiration flows in. You get an idea of something you can do or say. A belief in your ability to change or make a difference is restored and you start to feel stronger, more alive, and capable.

Have you ever experienced that? When you regain your belief in yourself, as someone who is capable of handling whatever it is life has thrown your way?

So now your faith has been restored as well as your belief in yourself to make a difference and everything starts flowing in the direction you want. It may still be a climb – and you know you can do it! Because you know you have the power inside to do it – whatever “it” is!

The truth is you always have.
And that is the real secret to an abundant life.

Faith, that a power greater than us always exists alongside and within us, just waiting for its queue to attract whatever you want or need.

Belief that this power is in you, and that you with it can be, do and have anything your imagination can produce for you.

Believe in your dream! Your ability to be the one to bring them to fruition and the faith that the creative force, source, God power, is in you, present at all times, working through you to make your dreams come through!

That was the main difference in the men that were portrayed in the movie the Secret.
Beethoven, Alexander Graham Bell, Buddha, Joseph Campbell, Andrew Carnegie, Winston Churchill, Robert Collier, Thomas Edison, Albert Einstein, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Ford, Victor Hugo, Carl Jung, Martin Luther King, Isaac Newton, Plato, W. Clement Stone, Hermes Trismegistus.
They all believed in what they were doing, in themselves and had a strong faith in a Greater power within and all around – whether you call it God, Source, Universe…

Summing it up…..

Whenever life isn’t flowing the way you’d like, remind yourself to Believe In YOU. Have Faith in the creative power within and all around you! Pray or think affirmatively for all you want to be, do and have. Be open to receiving inspired directions from your source within and have faith that because there is a vibrational law of attraction, you will attract all that you desire. An abundant life is ours to live, for we live in a universe of abundant potential, supported by universal laws that respond to our every thought and feeling, and by an Omni Presence, Source, God.