Get Happy, Be Happy, Stay Happy

I have a subscription to daily inspirational emails from an organization whose overall message I like. This morning’s email said, “Are you happy? GET HAPPY!”

It went on to say that you need to make the choice to get happy. The concluding question was, “So, are you happy yet?”

Even though my own blog is called Get Happy, Be Happy, Stay Happy, the email’s admonition really annoyed me. I agree that happiness, for most, is a matter of choice. But I think happiness, which to me means a sense of well-being, results from lots of choices. Choices about how we think, feel and act. Choices about what and how we eat, how we move, how we breathe.

For some people, making these moment-to-moment choices isn’t easy. The last thing they want to hear is a chirpy, “Hey, happiness is a choice! You can choose to be happy, man. So are you happy now?”

I constructed the name of my blog to remind me of the path I’ve chosen. For me, it’s not always an easy trip.

Got an email from one of The Secret stars blathering on about using the law of attraction to create health, wealth, happiness, anything you want — and, of course, selling you his programs to learn how.

I’m on his email list because I attended one of his seminars. I know this guy. I know a lot about his personal and business life. He does NOT practice what he preaches. Surprising, huh?

How does he create his wealth? By taking advantage of others. By being part of the “circle” that wheels and deals together. By promising people what they want to hear.

So his emails disgust me.

Are all these Secret teachers alike? I don’t know. But I’ve seen and experienced enough to continue to warn people about jumping on The Secret bandwagon.

A friend just sent me a link to an interesting review of The Secret (book) by Robert Furey, Ph.D., a psychotherapist, columnist and author of The Art of Affirmation. The article is titled A Secret Not Worth Sharing. Couldn’t agree more.

If you’re interested in a Christian perspective, Furey provides a balanced review.

“This is a silly book,” he writes about The Secret. Suddenly I find myself back in time, 25 years ago in a refugee camp in Thailand. I was teaching English to Laotian refugees. We used a simple method to teach words — point to a line drawing in a book and repeat the name of the object over and over and over.

“This is a book,” I say to my class.

“Thith id ah booook!” they shout back joyfully as they try to master this new crazy-sounding language.

I hold up a copy of The Secret.

“Thith id ah seeeeelee booook!”

Pretty smart class.

A video introducing energy psychology technique Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) is now available. According to Gary Craig, the developer of EFT, the high-quality film was several months in the making. Numerous EFT clients and practitioners contributed.

You can watch it here and at Gary Craig’s site. A free EFT training manual is also available at the site.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nRY3UtTHvo[/youtube]

It’s getting to the point where I’ll no longer need to drive 30 minutes to Trader Joe’s or Whole Foods Market to get my “health” stuff. Much to my surprise, our town’s new Fry’s supermarket has a well-stocked health section. And just a few months ago Safeway introduced its O Organics line of USDA certified products. Very cool. But I’ll still do my TJ runs — they’ve got really fun food from all over the world.

Last week at Fry’s I bought several Seventh Generation nontoxic, environmentally-safe cleaning products, which I’ve been wanting to try. The company name is derived from the Iroquois belief that “in our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations.” I believe that environmental toxicity is one of our planet’s greatest threats. I’m on the fence in the global warming debate, but I have no doubt that we’re harming our world in other ways.

Anyway. Yesterday I used Seventh Generation’s Free & Clear Glass and Surface Cleaner to clean our bathroom mirrors and a glass-top table. Their claim that it cleans without streaks is true. I’m really impressed. No smelly ammonia, no perfume. That makes me very, very happy!

I also tried the Natural Citrus Shower Cleaner, which has a very light orangy fragrance. It also worked great. I have been using Simple Green, but I don’t care for the smell. Plus it makes my eyes water.

If every household in the U.S. replaced just one 32 oz. bottle of shower cleaner containing chlorine bleach with our hydrogen peroxide based shower cleaner, we could prevent 1 million pounds of chlorine from entering our environment.

This Sunday is Earth Day. It’s weird, but I haven’t paid much attention to environmental awareness campaigns and movements. Mostly because they’ve been so political and polarizing. But now almost everyone understands that our planet needs some TLC.

While visiting the Seventh Generation site, I saw a link to TreeHugger.com. I’ve never hugged a tree. I tend to stereotype tree-hugger types as a bit loopy. But I checked out the site anyway. I’m glad I did. Despite some areas of disagreement, there’s a lot to like. They seem to strike a nice balance in their approach to sustainability and environmental issues — an approach critically needed to bring sustainability into the mainstream. From their About page:

TreeHugger is the leading media outlet dedicated to driving sustainability mainstream. Partial to a modern aesthetic, we strive to be a one-stop shop for green news, solutions, and product information….

Why is TreeHugger Doing This?

Our environment is currently facing huge obstacles that have the potential to seriously disrupt our future and the future of all our fellow flora and fauna friends. Keeping that in mind, TreeHugger also sympathizes with the fact that most people aren’t willing to compromise their current lifestyle in order to improve our shared environment, so we have created a place where you can discover how to maintain or improve your quality of life while reducing your harmful impact on the earth.

TreeHuggers know that you don’t need to run off to live with the wolves to contribute to the betterment of Mother Nature. (We do, however, prescribe this to anyone with strong urges to pursue cave art and moon howling). TreeHuggers live in the 21st century, make quotidian decisions, consume, have fun and maintain their aesthetic je ne sais quoi.

Knowing that apocalyptic predictions tend to paralyze the masses instead of mobilizing them, we also prefer an enthusiastic, upbeat outlook.

We live green, through education and action.

TreeHugger’s Simran Sethi is appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show today to talk about going green. Should be a great show. I hope I can watch without talking back about global warming

This morning I received the latest issue of eSkeptic, the electronic newsletter of the Skeptics Society, of which I’m a member. I read the review of George Levine’s Darwin Loves You: Natural Selection and the Re-enchantment of the World. The review closes with the following, which led me to spend half my morning at Wikipedia.

By his own declaration, Levine is engaged in a kind of theodicy for atheists, an attempt to reconcile us to the pain, horror, and pointless randomness of the world on the basis of his postulate that “human consciousness” can “transform mere matter into the sublime and the beautiful.” I suspect that, like all theodicies, this one is ultimately self-defeating. If one is not in need of such consolation, Levine’s formulation appears cloying and sentimental, as well as superfluous. If, on the other hand, one thirsts for some such comfort, this version is, in the end, likely to prove inadequate. Like theodicy in general, it courts the risk of reminding readers just how cruel and arbitrary the world is, after all, and how little power these ruminations have to soften the blows.

Darwin Loves You sets out to hunt us up a genial Snark who will accommodate our soft-hearted instincts by removing the fangs from a remorseless naturalism that has evolutionary thought at its core. Alas, when one examines it closely, one sees that Levine, in spite of himself, may have conjured up yet another Boojum.

First, I read the Wikipedia entry for theodicy, which prompted me to think about where The Secret teachings about good and evil might fit in. Then I looked up Boojum, which I learned is a dangerous type of Snark (I’m not familiar with Lewis Carroll’s poem, “The Hunting of the Snark”). That entry refers to Martin Gardner, a name I recognized because I had read his “Notes of a Fringe Watcher” column in Skeptical Inquirer.

Even though Gardner is a founding member of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal and an outspoken critic of pseudoscience, surprising to many, he believes in God. According to the Wikipedia entry, he describes his own belief as philosophical theism.

While critical of organized religions, Gardner believes in God, claiming that this belief cannot be confirmed or disconfirmed by reason. At the same time, he is skeptical of claims that God has communicated with human beings through spoken or telepathic revelation or through miracles in the natural world.

Gardner’s philosophy may be summarized as follows: There is nothing supernatural, and nothing in human reason or visible in the world to compel people to believe in God. The mystery of existence is enchanting, but a belief in The Old One comes from faith without evidence. However, with faith and prayer people can find greater happiness than without. If there is an afterlife, the loving Old One is real. “[To an atheist] the universe is the most exquisite masterpiece ever constructed by nobody,” from G. K. Chesterton, is one of Martin’s favorite quotes.

Interesting philosophy. Leaves a lot of wiggle room.

Then, reminded about the controversies surrounding pseudoscience and religion, I looked up the Wikipedia entry for New Age. As I read through the list of New Age beliefs, I noted which ones I outright reject, which is the majority. However, there are a few areas that I continue to explore, especially those concerning health and healing.

Readers of my blog know that I promote energy psychology, for instance, but with the caveat that I don’t know if the techniques have anything to do with “energy.” I also like homeopathy — but, again, I’m not sure why some remedies work (yes, I’m aware of the placebo effect). Based on personal experiences, I think there could be “something to” some of what is considered pseudoscience. As a “skeptic,” I try to remain neutral when there’s no scientific evidence, but I don’t always succeed. (I realize that I’m not a “pure” skeptic; I believe that such skeptics are rare.)

It can get mighty tiring always sifting and sorting my way through the areas I explore. I’m after the truth. I’ll keep going after something that seems to have merit even when mainstream science says it can’t be proven or has been, by their standards, debunked. You do know that not all scientific findings and interpretations are without error or bias, right? There’s that wiggle room again

I find it intriguing that I’m drawn to the healing arts that use “magical” potions and methods, and that I’m almost positive my stuffed animals and Bouncing Snowman are conscious. Really. I can’t bear to put those guys face down in a box for storage. And you should have seen me the day I had to return my leased car, which was “my baby” for five years.

To explain this magical bent, I have an interesting theory that my ancestors were Druids. Of course, I only know for certain that I’m of Scottish and Irish heritage, but according to this guy’s calculation, I have a 40-100 percent chance of having a Druid ancestor.

There are 600 Million Europeans today. There were only 30 million Europeans during the Black Plague of 13th century. Probably only seven million in 1 AD in Europe during the Roman Empire (which is why a single legion of 10,000 was so HUGE a problem for the Celts). Let’s assume that two million of those were Celtic religious practioners (France, Switzerland, North Italy, Spain, Dalmatia, Turkey, Britain, Ireland, Wales, Scotland, Belgium, Denmark/West Germany), with about 20,000 Druids/Intelligentsia (1%) okay?

There are plenty of legends with Druids having offspring. Assume 1.2 kids per Druid (probably three is normal, but child mortality, plagues and war reduce it, plus overlapping descendents) and a 20 year inter-generational period with 100 generations since 1 A.D..

So, you’ve got 20,000 ancient druids (1.3 to the 100th power which is 8,2817,974.5) producing a whopping grand sum of about 165,6359,490,440.3 currently living Druid descendents at a minimum. And it’s a possible 2,535,301,200,456,458,802,993,406,410,7520,000 people, if we use 2.0 kids for calculations; but there are only 8,021,020,016 people on earth now). So with Europe and America and Australia’s combined estimated Celtic-descendent population of about 400,000,000 people, you have at least at 40-100% chance of having a Druid ancestor, depending on your calculations, without knowing any more than that your great grandmother was a McWhatzername.

I suspect a Druid ancestry for additional reasons, but I’ll save that story for another day!

Attention authors, speakers, experts, coaches!

I just learned about the brand-new site Free IQ created by Brad Fallon, a highly-respected Internet marketer (if you know anything about Internet marketing, being respected in this business is extremely rare). Brad runs myweddingfavors.com, which pulls in $30 million a year.

As an idea person, business communications consultant and information addict, I LOVE this concept: A google/youtube/amazon-like marketplace where you can promote (and sell) your ideas and knowledge (in the form of articles, e-books, articles, videos, Webinars, etc.) — all hosted for free. And, you can become an affiliate and promote other people’s products.

If you are an expert on just about any topic, Free IQ is the perfect solution to display your ideas and showcase your knowledge.

We will host and stream all your content for free, whether it’s video, audio, articles or ebooks. While we reserve the right to eventually set limits, currently there is no limit to how much content you can upload. And if anyone buys an electronically deliverable (downloadable) product from you, we’ll deliver it for free as well.

For content providers, there is no monthly fee to use the Free IQ shopping engine to sell your information products. We host and stream (and digitally deliver) an unlimited of audio and video for free. For any sales you make, we charge just 5% of the sales price (plus credit card processing fees.)

At the urging of a friend who is a business coach and savvy Internet marketer, I signed up as an affiliate today, before this whole thing busts loose. He writes:

We’ve all heard about the phenomenal success of YouTube.com and how Google bought them for $1.6 billion.

But, there’s something even bigger on the horizon…

I know that sounds like a bunch of hype but trust me on this. As we all know, success comes from getting in early, and here’s your chance.

So what am I talking about? It’s called Free IQ.

And there is a very real chance this site will become a bigger phenomenon than YouTube.com Seriously… and you can be a part of it.

The new site is currently in beta, but next week it goes live, and that’s why it’s so imperative that you create your account NOW.

You see, Free IQ is an amazing new web 2.0 concept that combines the YouTube.com user added content concept and combines it with the Google like search engine, and an ever growing educational database of content like you might find on Amazon.com.

But unlike all the garbage content on YouTube, (I mean who really cares about a video clip of a monkey smoking cigarettes, or some Danish car commercial), Free IQ focuses on educational, business and instructional content only — both free and paid.

What’s very cool is that this new model allows you to be an affiliate for any or all of the paid content uploaded by other users.

Think about that for a moment and really let that sink in…

As amazing as it sounds, you actually get paid for promoting videos and content supplied by other people.

There are no hidden or additional costs to get a free account or to upgrade an account while the site is in beta.

That of course will change when the site goes live, so there’s yet another reason to get your account now.

It would not surprise me at all that this site becomes an acquisition target by Google, Yahoo or Microsoft sometime within the next 18 to 24 months.

This is truly one of those situations where if you wait to get an account, you’ll lose the chance at getting your place at the head of the line so to speak.

Learn more

or

Sign up as affiliate

Check out my first Free IQ audio advertisement:

Join the Free IQ Revolution! We’ll help you develop the content

Feel free to rate it and share the link

Events like yesterday’s massacre at Virginia Tech university can trigger anxiety and fear not only in those closely involved but also in the public at large. Those who have experienced similar trauma are particularly at risk for experiencing flashbacks and high levels of anxiety.

The following tips for dealing with trauma are from a licensed clinical social worker and trauma specialist in New York who has treated 9/11 survivors.

Ten Tips for Trauma Recovery
By Mary Sise, LCSW

It is helpful to begin by understanding that your body reacted normally to an abnormal, frightening event. All of the systems of the body went into fight-flight-freeze mode, and your brain released a cascade of chemicals to help you to survive.

Sometimes when that happens the brain can’t do its other jobs, like processing the trauma so that the body knows the event is over. Sometimes the trauma gets stuck. Images might stay intense, smells might trigger panic, sounds might also trigger panic as if things are frozen in time and you aren’t safe anywhere.

Research shows that most people (85 percent) will heal by themselves. In other cases, especially if the body was hurt in the trauma, you might need the help of a therapist. Although it will take some time, there are certain things you can do to aid your own recovery.

Here are some ideas to help:

1. Use all of your senses to help you. Play soothing music, light a candle, take a bubble bath, get out in the sunshine. Seek safe physical contact. Hug each other. Talk to your body/mind. Tell it is safe now.

2. Exercise helps to release endorphins in the body. Walk, move the body, swing your arms back and forth.

3. Breathe deeply, sending oxygen all the way to the bottom of the lungs. That brings more oxygen up to the brain, which sends a signal that you are safe again. In the trauma, many people hold their breath without realizing it. Deep breathing restores the feeling of safety.

4. Eat healthy. Your body has been in a shock. It needs help to recover.

5. Sleep may be disturbed. Your brain is trying to process the trauma to help you know that it is over. However, sometimes you wake up having nightmares interrupting the processing. If you sleep through the nightmare and wake up in the morning, that is a good sign the brain is better able to do its job. If you wake up in the middle of it very afraid, then the processing is interrupted. At that point it might be helpful to use some of the Energy Psychology techniques to calm the body down, and help you to sleep.

6. Avoid alcohol or illegal drugs. While they may initially put you to sleep, they will disturb the processing that the brain can do at night. Use regular medicines under the direction of a physician.

7. Limit how much trauma you watch on TV. Distract yourself with more hopeful things.

8. Be active. Don’t sit around. Do something that empowers you, rebuild something, take action in a positive direction.

9. Count your blessings, even though it may be hard at first.

10. Learn some simple Energy Psychology techniques to help the body calm down. Seek the help of a therapist or a trusted friend if needed.

Mary Sise is a past president of the Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology. Energy psychology techniques are very effective for calming the mind and body. Mary is one of many mental health professionals who use energy psychology to treat trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Visit her site.

Learning an energy psychology technique

You can learn the popular Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) for free. EFT is based on concepts from acupuncture. You’ll learn to lightly tap on acupuncture points. This technique may look strange, but it works. I don’t use EFT as often now that other techniques have been developed that don’t involve tapping. I recommend visiting the EFT website and reading about the amazing results people routinely experience from using EFT.

Another easy-to-learn technique is Zensight Process. This technique does not involve tapping, which appeals to those who think tapping is just plain weird The developer of Zensight Process, Carol Ann Rowland, MSW, also specializes in treating trauma.

Carol Ann offers a low-cost manual and other products to learn Zensight Process. She also provides the convenience of telephone sessions. Visit her site to learn more.

I’ve mentioned several times on this blog that energy psychology is controversial. Some think it’s bogus. Obviously I don’t agree. If you are interested in energy psychology research, read articles available at the ACEP website.

The blogosphere is another great example of a colossal cultural wind sock. And what I see there is a windsock in tatters from all the hot air, blowhards, windbags and Evil Winds. It’s no surprise that a blogger’s code of conduct is being proposed after a recent episode involving a high-tech book author receiving death threats.

Menacing behavior is certainly not unique to the Internet. But since the Web offers the option of anonymity with no accountability, online conversations are often more prone to decay into ugliness than those in other media.

Nowadays, those conversations often take place on blogs. At last count, there were 70 million of them, with more than 1.4 million entries being added daily, according to Technorati, a blog-indexing company. For the last decade, these Web journals have offered writers a way to amplify their voices and engage with friends and readers.

But the same factors that make those unfiltered conversations so compelling, and impossible to replicate in the offline world, also allow them to spin out of control.

As many female bloggers can attest, women are often targets. Heather Armstrong, a blogger in Salt Lake City who writes publicly about her family (dooce.com), stopped accepting unmoderated comments on her blog two years ago after she found that conversations among visitors consistently devolved into vitriol.

Read the entire NYT article A Call for Manners in the World of Nasty Blogs.

The Blogger’s Code of Conduct draft opens with:

We celebrate the blogosphere because it embraces frank and open conversation. But frankness does not have to mean lack of civility. We present this Blogger Code of Conduct in hopes that it helps create a culture that encourages both personal expression and constructive conversation. One can disagree without being disagreeable.

I know it’s a pipe dream to believe that more than a small fraction of nasty bloggers are willing to comply. And that’s really scary. On the other hand, because of these uncensored public communications, we get to see the world’s thinking in all its glory. I think it’s important to see what’s really going on in people’s minds. We’ll see a lot of good, and we’ll see a lot of bad. Nothing new. But the Internet provides a vast view of the landscape in intimate detail as never before. It’s both exciting and alarming to me. What do you think?

I’m really getting depressed talking about the perils of The Secret. Isn’t this blog supposed to be about being happy?

So let’s lighten it up here with the funny Danier Leather video, which everyone has seen except me because I’ve been too busy obsessing about the Law of Attraction. Interestingly enough, a psychologist sent me the video. Little did he know I needed some laughter therapy!

I love Steve Salerno’s insightful description of The Secret phenonema: “It is quite simply a colossal cultural wind sock, encapsulating the zeitgeist in a way that few other recent events or enterprises have.”

I totally agree. And if you’ve been wondering why I seem to be hung up on The Secret, this may help to explain why. I keep getting blown into the enormous wind sock!

Read Steve’s article in American Spectator.

Steve is the author of SHAM: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless. I haven’t read the book, but I do visit his blog to hear his perspective about The Secret and other self-help topics.

As a person fairly entrenched in the personal development world, I can’t say that I agree with everything he says, but he does offer interesting insights and food for thought.

Calista McKnight writes in a recent blog post, “Abraham-Hicks and other law of attraction gurus state that you should avoid negative thoughts at all costs. They say negative thinking and corresponding bad moods act as repelling forces. Your goal, they claim, is to ‘feeeel good’, or else you won’t attract what you want.”

Read Calista’s entire post

She nails one of the huge concerns I have about The Secret and its teachings. We have negative emotions for good reasons. Yes, emotional management is essential for overall success and happiness. But the current emphasis on avoiding negative thoughts and emotions at all costs is extremely detrimental.

Some how, some way, the suppressed negative emotions will try to find expression. This can lead to anxiety, depression, loss of energy, physical pain or discomfort, and other signs of stress.

Negative thoughts and emotions are a part of life. They give valuable feedback. I don’t think that A-H argues that. However, what I’ve seen happen with A-H students is the extreme application of the need to feel positive. Many are “frightfully overjoyed,” which is an unbalanced state. The “fall” from this state can be brutal.

In an earlier post I recommended an article series on applying the Law of Attraction, which is being written by Dr. Patricia Carrington, a respected mainstream psychologist. Pat is also a leader in energy psychology, an admittedly controversial field. Personally, I don’t know if energy psychology techniques have anything to do with “energy.” But these techniques work.

I share Pat’s concerns about people attempting to use the (so-called) Law of Attraction, which has everything to do with managing beliefs and feelings, and finding themselves stuck, at best. Most people will find that deciding to think or feel a certain way isn’t easy. In fact, it might be extremely difficult or even impossible at the moment. So, if you find yourself struggling, I encourage you to read the series. Parts 1 and 2 are available here. Sign up for the free e-newsletter to keep posted on the series.

Last night I listened to the hyped-up Marci Shimoff (one of The Secret stars) interview with Rhonda Byrne (The Secret producer), sponsored by HealthyWealthynWise. If you’ve been reading my blog, you know that I’m not too happy about The Secret film and book and Rhonda Byrne’s teachings about the Law of Attraction.

Just when I think I’m ready to let this whole Secret thing go, something happens to stir the pot. I’m truly distraught after listening to the interview, in which Rhonda provides insight into her frame of mind and how she created The Secret based on her heartfelt mission to bring joy to the world.

“And on that spring day in 2004, when a small, old book called The Science of Getting Rich was put into her hands, and Rhonda’s whole life suddenly pulled into spectacular focus, she knew exactly what her mission was to become. She was going to take this knowledge to the world. She was going to make a movie to carry joy to every corner of the Earth. And so the great journey that was The Secret began.”

From Making The Secret - A Brief History at the official Secret web site.

In last night’s interview, Rhonda explained that it took 100 percent faith in her vision. She had to feel the joy in her heart and be absolutely certain of the outcome. She had no doubt that her vision would manifest.

When asked about the role of action in manifesting your heart’s desire, she said that the action is in the receiving what you’re asking for. She said that if taking action were required, it would have taken a lifetime to produce The Secret. Feeling what you want inside of you just two minutes a day, Rhonda says, is worth more than lifetimes of action.

Toward the end of the interview, Rhonda reiterated that unleashing the innate joy inside of you will attract every single thing.

Wow. If only life were that simple.

I don’t believe life works that way. I suspect that if we were able to objectively examine the entire chain of events in the making of The Secret and its phenomenal success, we would discover many causes and effects that were not the result of feelings or faith. And this is where I start getting more than a little upset.

Let me shed some light on why I find Rhonda Byrne’s perceptions and teachings so disturbing. Several months ago at a seminar, I met a woman who is very similar to Rhonda. She’s from Australia. She’s on a mission to spread love around the globe. She speaks using Abraham-Hicks terminology (manifesting, vibrating, you are perfect, everything is perfect, there are no judgments, etc.). She believes everything in her life happens for a reason. She believes that her intuition and inner guidance is to be completely trusted. She says she doesn’t need to do anything to manifest her vision — everything just magically comes to her. She prides herself on being able to walk into the unknown.

She’s also very good at recruiting people to join her mission. Over time I got caught up in her vision and was invited to become a founding partner in her yet-to-be formed organization. To make a long and painful story short, I was given the boot. She explained that I wasn’t properly aligned with her mission (no details given as to what she meant).

Several weeks after my dismissal, I received an email from her distraught husband and learned that this woman had left him and their 7-year-old daughter, and that her new man (who she had met at the seminar mentioned earlier and was also onboard to be a founding partner) had left his wife and daughter. The pain and suffering these two have wrought — all under the umbrella of manifesting this woman’s vision of spreading love around the globe — is enormous.

What I saw happening with this woman was, in my opinion, not the Universe helping her create her vision. Instead, I saw her cast off people whenever she thought someone or something else could further her cause better or whenever she felt threatened. One day you’d be the perfect gift from the Universe. The next day you’d be thrown away because the Universe apparently had changed its mind and provided a different perfect gift. One day you’d be brought into her life as a perfect vibratory match; the next day you’d be dismissed because she realized that not only were you on a different (lower) vibration, but you had also shown her what she is not. Huh?

One day she’d claim that her mission “wasn’t about the money” and that she could “easily get the money.” Yet she couldn’t or wouldn’t pay me what she owed for business services. I also find it interesting that the new guy she hooked up with had recently inherited over a half-million dollars.

I don’t want to provide more troubling details here, but I think you can get the drift. I believe that this woman distorts reality (possibly unconsciously) in order to make everything fit into her vision. So while listening to Rhonda talk last night, I was reminded of this sordid mess. I started to wonder if Rhonda might have a distorted view of how she was able to create The Secret. I also wondered if there were people who she might have cast off in the relentless pursuit of her dream. We know that she cut out Esther Hicks.

(Disclaimer: These are my personal opinions, not statements of fact about character or motives. I could be completely wrong since I don’t have all the facts and can’t read minds.)

Moral of this story: Be careful about taking these Law of Attraction teachings as full truth. Please, just be careful!

I wish we could have a new name for the principles that most in the business and personal development worlds have called the Law of Attraction. Why? Because that Law of Attraction we know and love is not the same as the Law of Attraction being taught in The Secret film and book. And it’s going to confuse people.

I see at least four major problems with The Secret’s Law of Attraction. Number one, it’s not a law like the law of gravitation, as The Secret teachers claim. Number two, The Secret film and book make other claims about this so-called law, many with terrible ethical and philosophical implications. Number three, the film and book take bits and pieces of stuff that does work and is proven, mixes it with conjecture and personal beliefs, and calls the whole mixture truth. Number four, this version of the Law of Attraction has been brought to you by an allegedly real group of enlightened entities known as Abraham.

Ick, ick, ick, ICK!

The primary allegedly scientifically proven fact from The Secret is that thoughts are things — vibrations based on our conscious or subconscious beliefs and feelings — which are broadcast into the universe, attracting the same vibration. Of course, there is no proof for this claim.

However, science does show that we are a mass of vibrations and frequencies. Emotions are mediated through vibrating molecules. Thoughts can be measured. Electromagnetic fields that extend out from our physical bodies are measurable. What we believe, think and feel has a tremendous effect on how we perceive our environment and how we behave. Much of our behavior is driven by the subconscious. Synchronistic events do happen. Seemingly miraculous things do happen. The quantum world is absolutely, totally weird and spooky and scientists are still trying to figure it out. Quantum mechanics enigmas do remain. And we still don’t understand consciousness.

So it’s easy for concepts from The Secret to grab our imagination and gain traction.

But my bottom line is that any claims about how or why the Law of Attraction works is conjecture. And the idea that thoughts are intact, meaningful, coherent vibrations going out into the universe with the ability to create your reality based on like vibration (and somehow tied in with quantum physics and observer-created reality) is indeed interesting, but not proven.

Now that you know where I stand, I would like to introduce you to what I think is extremely helpful information about putting the (holding my nose while I say it) Law of Attraction into practice. It involves another controversial area known as energy psychology. No one truly knows how energy psychology techniques, which are based on the concept of so-called subtle energy, work. However, I do know that energy psychology techniques work incredibly well. That’s why I use and promote them, with the hope that one day we’ll figure it out.

Dr. Patricia Carrington, a leader and innovator in energy psychology, is writing a series of seven articles about the Law of Attraction as depicted in The Secret.

In this 7 part series, EFT Master Pat Carrington delves into the complexities of the Law of Attraction as depicted by the DVD and book known as “The Secret.” The Law of Attraction (LOA) has tremendous appeal but most people just can’t seem to harness it in their favor. This series will tell you why it can be so difficult and how EFT is the essential ingredient to making it work. Indeed, EFT may well be The Answer.

Parts 1 and 2 are available here at Gary Craig’s EFT web site. I recommend signing up for Gary’s free e-newsletter to be notified about the article series. Plus, you’ll get to read other mind-boggling, real-life applications of Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT).

I would love to hear your comments!

The following is an excellent article from Beliefnet, written by Valerie Reiss, which shows perils and pitfalls of The Secret and the Law of Attraction.

I’m of two minds on law of attraction. Of course, like any good American, Horatio Alger-championing, magic-loving, wannabe-mystic control freak, the warm fuzzy you-can-do-it-by-wishing parts of the secret are delicious, delectable, enticing things– I can “manifest” my dream home without working more? Cool. I can wish myself to stay well without more self-care? Cooler.

I’ve experienced a taste of this before, putting lots of intentional thoughts out into the Universe and having them come back quickly, as surprise goodies, just like James Redfield said they would in The Celestine Prophecy. I’ve had amazing coincidences all over the world, thinking about people minutes before running into them. I believe in the power of positive thinking, and I believe that once we are clear in ourselves, aligned with our purpose, and going toward our dreams, magic can and does happen, miracles do occur.

And I also think we are connected to each other and God and nature more than we know, and that our minds hold huge reserves of untapped potential. I even buy the part about “anti-war” movements being less successful than “peace” movements, and that the war on drugs and terror only gets us more of what we’re fighting against.

And yet…

The Hubris of ‘The Secret’

As a cancer survivor I’m not sure I buy the ‘create your own reality’ stuff in ‘The Secret.’ And if it’s true, what about God?

By Valerie Reiss

When I was diagnosed with cancer a few years ago, I was afraid to tell my New-Agey friends and acquaintances. Mainly, I was afraid they would say, “Why did you do that to yourself?” Not out of cruelty, but from a genuine desire to help me see how I had “created my own reality,” a central tenet of New Age thinking. Thankfully, no one said any such thing. (Though one woman did ask if perhaps I should have just ingested a lot of wheatgrass instead of having chemotherapy.)

This choose-your-own-adventure thinking has caught fire recently with the wild success of “The Secret” book and DVD by Australian TV producer Rhonda Byrne. There are already 400,000 copies of the book in print and Simon & Schuster just announced they’re printing two million more, which is what happens when Oprah champions your book in two separate shows and says this is how she’s lived her own life for years.

The book and the documentary-ish film are essentially the same: a compendium of talking heads””philosophers, life coaches, and authors””all talking about how the essence of our thoughts affects, nay, creates, the world around us through the power of quantum physics, energy, and our interconnectedness. It’s similar in a lot of ways to “What the Bleep Do We Know,” but without the narrative Marlee Matlin part.

Except this time the production values are better — everything looks very luxe and DaVinci-code-esque — and the heads are all hitting the same point home over and over: If you “align” yourself by feeling good, the Universe (New Age-speak for God) will provide limitless abundance. This is illustrated in numerous dramatizations: a woman wraps her thoughts around a necklace in a window, pretty soon it appears around her neck; a gay man who’s harassed for his homosexuality starts practicing the secret and soon finds people are offering him new respect.

The “secret” is kind of like prayer on steroids: Instead of a personal God processing and granting requests, a web of energy simply bounces your mindset back at you in material form. As one of the teachers in the film, Mike Dooley, sums it up, “Thoughts become things.”

I first encountered the “secret” about 13 years ago when it was much less sexily called “The Law of Attraction” or “Intentional Reality” by many, many authors and alternative spirituality teachers, from Esther and Jerry Hicks to Wayne Dyer to Deepak Chopra. Living at a yoga ashram the summer between sophomore and junior year of college, two friends and I were walking through the woods. City girl that I was, I carried a stick, hoping to fend off dangerous animals or deranged woodsmen.

My curly-haired friend Scott looked at the stick and shook his head, “What you resist persists,” he said, very much the 22-year-old sage. He explained that what we fear, we “magnetize” and manifest in our lives. So by holding the stick as defensive weapon, I was actually putting us in unnecessary peril. I reluctantly let it go. And proceeded to head-trip myself on and off for years about my negative thoughts, which were abundant.

I would realize I was thinking negative thoughts, which would trigger more thoughts about how awful I was for thinking negative thoughts and how I was ruining my life with those thoughts, and so on and so on, until my head was ready to explode with all the bad juju. The only thing that freed me from that loop was something else I also learned that summer at the ashram, meditation.

The teaching that inside of us is a “witness” who is not our thoughts, not our body, but just a still, silent observer, soothed me. I could find that perspective when I quieted down and simply did as I was told: watched the thoughts roll by like unimportant clouds””not clinging no matter how great or terrible they seemed, just watching. Buddhism also teaches this, of course, non-attachment to thoughts good or bad; in one of many out-of-context quotes whispered sotto voce throughout the film, “The Secret” cites Buddha as saying “All that we are is a result of what we have thought” to back-up its claims.

The secret, a.k.a. law of attraction (LOA), works, goes the theory, because our bodies and thoughts are made up of the same vibrating matter as the air, the trees, and God. According to a segment of quantum physics, each thought has a vibration that the Universe can somehow respond to, and each thought, especially those charged with emotion, helps to manifest every experience, person, or object in our lives. And, the LOA-teachers say, we can use this knowledge to create lives we want and intend. It’s supposed to be empowering. It supposed to point out how we’ve been unconscious victims of our own undirected intentions and allow us to become victims no more.

To some this seems laughable, like the Tooth Fairy or Ouija boards. To others it’s downright offensive””where does God fit into this DIY existence? Fate? Karma? Destiny? Are those disposable as paper plates? And what, of course, about genocide? Did Anne Frank just not “align her desires with the Universe” well enough? Were Rwandans’ thoughts too focused on what they didn’t want (”Don’t slaughter my family”) instead of what they did want (”Give me peace”)?

Rhonda Byrne actually addresses this seemingly gaping lack of compassion in a recent Newsweek article: “‘The law of attraction is that each one of us is determining the frequency that we’re on by what we’re thinking and feeling,’ Byrne said in a telephone interview, in response to a question about the massacre in Rwanda. “‘If we are in fear, if we’re feeling in our lives that we’re victims and feeling powerless, then we are on a frequency of attracting those things to us … totally unconsciously, totally innocently, totally all of those words that are so important.’”

It’s difficult, when you follow this line of thinking to this ultimately icky conclusion, to not feel sort of gross about wishing yourself a new plasma TV. And yet. This is hard. But what. If. It’s. True? What if Darfur is getting worse because we’re focusing energy on stopping the violence instead of emitting requests for peace? What if we do end up electing presidents we don’t want because they’re the ones everyone’s thinking about, as one man says in “The Secret”? What if, nothing personal, I did create my own cancer by being afraid of cancer? Then what?

I don’t even want to ask these questions, but if we’re going to be buying into this law of attraction stuff, we must take a legitimate look at its ugliest parts, in the same way that if you’re going to eat meat you should be willing to spend a day at a slaughterhouse.

I’m of two minds on law of attraction. Of course, like any good American, Horatio Alger-championing, magic-loving, wannabe-mystic control freak, the warm fuzzy you-can-do-it-by-wishing parts of the secret are delicious, delectable, enticing things — I can “manifest” my dream home without working more? Cool. I can wish myself to stay well without more self-care? Cooler.

I’ve experienced a taste of this before, putting lots of intentional thoughts out into the Universe and having them come back quickly, as surprise goodies, just like James Redfield said they would in “The Celestine Prophecy.” I’ve had amazing coincidences all over the world, thinking about people minutes before running into them. I believe in the power of positive thinking, and I believe that once we are clear in ourselves, aligned with our purpose, and going toward our dreams, magic can and does happen, miracles do occur.

And I also think we are connected to each other and God and nature more than we know, and that our minds hold huge reserves of untapped potential. I even buy the part about “anti-war” movements being less successful than “peace” movements, and that the war on drugs and terror only gets us more of what we’re fighting against.

And yet. When “metaphysician” Joe Vitale says in the film that the Universe is like “a catalog” that we can flip through and shop, my stomach churns. When Lisa Nichols says at the film’s end that, “It’s not your job to make the world a better place,” I want to sit her down for a good long chat with Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King, Jr. And when the weirdly out-of-it looking woman says she cured her breast cancer in three months with affirmations and funny movies, I want to hit the TV for all the false, dangerous hope it’s transmitting.

When I had cancer (and I carefully choose the past tense though the doctors never will, no matter healthy I am, because I want to send my body a happy message), I made sure to lower my stress levels, think nice thoughts, listen to an affirming CD, and ask my friends and family to pray for me. The mind-body connection is real to me. My thoughts may or may not affect the Universe, but I know they affect my body; I have willed warts away, calmed myself when fearful, visualized love pouring into me and felt a shift. Energy is real to me too.

I’m just not so convinced that a woman peddling borrowed ideas (and that’s the generous word for how Byrne has ransacked the work of people like Esther and Jerry Hicks, authors of “The Law of Attraction” and other books) about wishing ourselves fabulous is for real. If it gets people thinking more positively, great. If it gets people clear and making strides to do good things for themselves, even better. I’m just patently suspicious of something that’s a) so slickly marketed and obviously co-opted and b) is supposed to be about feeling good yet doesn’t mention the word compassion or seem to take seriously the idea of harnessing this great law (if that’s what it is) to help others.

In other books on LOA, the materialism isn’t quite so bald, the hubris and lack of humility much less egregious. But no one to my satisfaction addresses the blame-the-victim issue at the slippery heart of this; in a culture that’s already not too fond of “losers,” do we really need another reason to disdain or pity those who suffer because they’re not “manifesting” the right reality? In a culture that already likes to look away from systemic political and economic oppression (bo-ring!), do we need another excuse to walk away from it all and say, “not my problem”?

“The Secret” feels like white rice to me — stripped of its nutrition for maximum palatability and fluffy appeal. And I’m all for fluff, with the Entertainment Weekly subscription to prove it. But not when it comes to something as serious as creating genuine joy and peace. That should be sacred””done with a combination of faith in a force that knows better than I do and compassionate free will to make my life and the world a better place. Manifest that, Universe.

Beliefnet

While visiting Candace Pert’s site, I discovered the EQ Planet podcast episode, The Physics of Emotion with Candace Pert.

The podcast is hosted by EQ (emotional intelligence) development expert Joshua Freedman of Six Seconds EQ Network.

Former chief of brain biochemistry at the National Institutes of Health and professor at Georgetown Medical Center, Dr. Candace Pert is the pioneering scientist who discovered the opiate receptor mechanism — unlocking a new perspective on neurotransmitters and emotion (her bio is on candacepert.com).

In this episode of EQ Planet, Dr. Pert explains “emotional resonance” and the way emotions change every cell in the human body to literally change the frequencies of nonverbal communication. With profound implications for leadership, parenting, education and personal mastery, Pert’s perspective is on the cutting edge on neurobiology and neurophysics.

Listen to the podcast. It’s good stuff!

The Secret and What the Bleep introduce the concept that our thoughts and our bodies “vibrate.” As much as I don’t like how these films distort scientific findings and claim extrapolations as truth, at least people are becoming aware of some really interesting research about emotions, the mind-body connection and consciousness.

And, yes, scientists actually have discovered that the cells of our body “vibrate” and “resonate.”

What the Bleep featured psychopharmacologist Candace Pert, who codiscovered the opiate receptor while a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University in the early 70s. Her subsequent research into the vast network of cellular receptor sites and neurotransmitters helped to scientifically prove the powerful mind-body connection, which she wrote about in Molecules of Emotion.

Last year Candace wrote another interesting book about her personal and professional discoveries about consciousness, mind and emotion — Everything You Need to Know To Feel Go(o)d.

Here’s an excerpt about how music, which is a patterned vibration, may heal. (In this excerpt, she is relating a story about presenting this information at a conference.)

“Here we have the spectrum of all possible vibrations in the universe,” I began. “You can see the full range of frequencies from cosmic rays at the top to subsonic sound at the bottom. We humans can supposedly perceive a very limited portion of these, mainly those that translate to light and sound. Visible light, as you can see, is confined to a very narrow range that’s further broken down into the seven colors of the rainbow, each vibrating at its own specific, measurable frequency.

“I’d like you to look at audible sound, which includes everything you can hear — music, spoken words, and sounds from nature. The range of audible sound is 20-20,000 hertz (Hz), which is a measurement of frequency, or the rate of vibration of air. Notice also that the frequency of human brain waves falls within this audible range, overlapping on the low end, the same frequency at which channels in a cell pump ions as they are driven by peptides and other informational substances. Various receptors — such as those for endorphins, endocannabinoids, interleukins, Valium, and alcohol — thus vibrate at these frequencies and higher harmonics.

“Music, which is a patterned vibration, can bypass the ligand and directly resonate those receptors, interacting like a peptide or a drug — or an emotion. The vibrational frequency of the notes turns on the receptor, setting in motion all kinds of cellular activities. That’s how music can heal, interacting directly with your molecules of emotion to charge you with energy, get your juices flowing, and make you feel good.

“These molecules are not only vibrating to cause bodywide changes, but they are ‘hearing’ each other through the psychosomatic network of cellular communication. You can see that we don’t just hear with our ears, but we ‘hear’ with every receptor cell in our bodymind. We’re literally alive with the sound of music!

“In this same sense, consider that we really do have extrasensory perception (ESP), given that our receptors, not just our ears, are ‘hearing’ as they vibrate. Possibly, when the mechanism of ESP is understood scientifically, it will be recognized as the resonance of our molecules of emotion, vibrating across distances from receptor to receptor.”

Everything You Need to Know to Feel Go(o)d, pp. 109-110

But what about our thoughts? Are they really “things”? Do they “vibrate”? Well, everything is a thing, right? Thoughts are patterns of information, just like everything else. And there are rules that govern the behavior of information. The challenge is that we don’t know what all those laws are yet. More on that later!