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There's no secret about this Secret secret.  I mean, all you have to do is search the web for it and the entire Secret is yours to watch.  If you truly believe that what you want is in your future, it will be. The real clandestine information (the actual secret) is how to reliably apply the whole idea of positive visualization to your normal life.  Not the life you imagine (as you hear about positive realization for the first time and picture yourself like a genie, visualizing yourself into riches and your own troop of dancing girls that accompany you everywhere you go.) Not that world. That's all in your head.  I'm talking about the world where you're positively visualizing a tropical vacation spot and then someone walks in and talks to you like an asshole.  Poof!  Now what are you visualizing?

Apparently every thought has power and you're to do your very best not to let negative thoughts fly out of your brain onto the energy super highway of the universe and run your good thoughts off the road.  Negative thoughts are remorseless bad drivers, so I'm convinced they come from New Jersey.

I find the whole thing a lot like going to therapy...you just have to keep saying, "Shhh crazy voice.  I said SHHHH crazy voice!  Begone with thee crazy voice!  The power of Christ compels you crazy voice!" until the feeling passes, or something shiny appears and grabs your attention. It's hard to do.  If they sold a Secret brain implant chip, I would totally pay the $19.95 and read the boring monthly newsletter, which I assume would display on my eyelids for convenience, should I have the chip implanted correctly.

Not really actually. Typically, I'm more likely to imagine reading that monthly newsletter, but in reality, my attention for it would last for approximately one month until I got distracted by a war in a foreign land, or more likely the controversial performance of some stupid pop star that I couldn't care less about. I've always been that way.  I just have too many interests to stick to one thing for too long a time.  Apparently, one of my life lessons is to learn diligence and focus, but that's another blog. What?  Sorry, I thought I saw a unicorn.  Oh, I was writing!  Anyway, it's pretty much the same across all belief systems and religious sects - whether it be prayer, ritual dancing, spellcraft, meditation or the Secret - the point is visualization and intent.  And it's not hard to prove that the concept works.  I think we all know that if we sit around thinking about how angry we are, we just get more angry.  And if we spend time listing off the things in our lives that make us happy, we get more happy.

The problem is that, as human beings, I think we might be programmed to focus on the negative.  I know I am apt to do it, but I am unconvinced that it's our innate state of being.  I am so jealous of people who can have regular jobs that they don't really love, but they don't resent. They have money to be comfortable, or maybe they're struggling a little, but they still relax and enjoy their lives.  From most peoples' perspectives, I am pretty damn lucky.  I'm not poor, I have a good job, a great apartment, an amazing partner and a very cute little kitty.  I have health insurance and dental insurance and car insurance.

But, I haven't yet achieved those things that I really want, and if I never do, I'm not sure I can ever be totally happy with life.  And that shames me.  That's not what it's about - what you've achieved and how much money you have, how many countries you've visited or how many people know you.  It's part of it, but it's not the main part - the meat of life. That's the joy you get from spending time with a child and seeing them discover something new.   That's the joy of coming home to someone that you respect and love no matter what they do or how much money they make.  That's loving yourself enough to know that if you die and all that you do is leave the Earth a little more positive place than you found it, you should be proud because you've truly changed the world.  I want to be happy just being happy. And I want to be happy without needing a single thing. I want to be a transformer - to take energy in and transmute it into something more positive within me to send back out into the world.  I haven't yet mastered it, but I'm working on it.  Still, something small can turn me into a negative energy generator and I'm very, very efficient.

Because we're conductors.  We run on energy.  If our bodies are stressed continually, we end up living in a state of constant fight-flight-or freeze.  Back in the days when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, this response was very useful, but we don't live with that kind of imminent danger anymore.  But, when stressed, our bodies still release the chemicals that put us on high alert and, since there is no real threat, we get anxious and sometimes irrational.   Our muscles tense and, because no dinosaur is chasing us, we don't run and so we need to find ways to discharge that tension or end up with stiff necks and back spasms.   Our blood flows out to our limbs to aid our fighting or flying, leaving our body organs lacking in oxygen to do their jobs and so we begin to rob ourselves of vitamins and throw off our toxin control functions.  We get sick.  And because our system is totally gummed up and out of whack, we have no way of allowing energy to flow through us.  We can't stop it from coming in, but our stressed bodies simply can't process it for efficient release. So we get filled up with energy from all around us until we're to the point of bursting, revealing cracks in us that allow an escape.  That's when we blow up, cry, argue, break things, and basically act like jerks.  Because we just can't hold it inside anymore without the entire machine breaking.  We release all of the negative energy we've absorbed in its same state.

I see it like this: imagine you're a car.  All your parts are clean and oiled and you're running really smoothly.  As your pistons rev, you can send huge amounts of power out to your wheels, or you can generate electricity to recharge your battery. All of this power is at your disposal when you're taking care of yourself and you're staying in your own lane.  Veer into someone else's and you both end up damaged or worse.  Get dirt into your mechanics and it creates havoc.  Carelessly leave your door open and you'll drain your battery.  It's the little things that can prevent you from starting back up.  A powerful machine, inert because of a speck of dust.  These little things are the moments that don't go our way, but that we let take the wheel.  When they're in control, we allow fear, anxiety, depression, addiction, distrust, paranoia and lack of hope to grow within us until we can't move another foot.

It's easier to complain and self-pity than it is to learn the universe's lesson, or just sit back and marvel at the beauty of the balance and inconsistencies of the world.  Just because we're trying to put out positive energy, doesn't mean everyone is, so we're going to have to face good and bad in our lives, no matter how annoyed or disappointed we are in that fact.  Neither bad or good will ever go away.  But, we can do our best to recognize the good in the bad and, therefore, transform it within us and send it back out.

Realizing that this is how you want to live your life is not easy.  Once you begin to focus on the negative energy as just what it is - not something that must be absorbed, but just energy - you are compelled to remember that it's your purpose to somehow change it so that you do not become part of the problem - your own and the world's.  Because we cannot just take negative energy in and release it untouched.  Once it enters us, unless we're determined to work it in a positive way, we cling our own negativity to it, enhancing it and empowering it before we let it out.  We can't help it.

For awhile, everything begins to feel overwhelming, as it does whenever we try to make fundamental changes in ourselves.  But, with patience, it begins to become second nature and, best of all, you begin to realize the change you feel within yourself.  It is a giant relief to no longer be a sponge for the world's troubles, just sitting there moist and mildewing.  Dry out...absorb what you need to, and let the rest evaporate.  It's really no secret at all.