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The Secrets of THE SECRET
Oprah Show Summary 2-8-07
(Get
THE SECRET DVD, book or tapes
here)
People around the world have been
talking about a movie so powerful that
it can change the course of your life. This movie, The Secret, was
created by Australian Rhonda Byrne, and she says that if you follow its
philosophy, you can create the life you want�whether that means
getting out of debt, finding a more fulfilling job or even falling in
love.
Rhonda says she stumbled on what she calls The Secret at the end of
2004. At the time, everything in Rhonda's life had fallen
apart�physically, emotionally and financially�and she was in
"total despair." Then her father died suddenly, and she was
worried about her grief-stricken mother. "I wept and wept and wept,
and I didn't want my daughter to see me sobbing," Rhonda says.
That's when Rhonda's daughter gave her a copy of The Science of Getting
Rich, a book written in 1910 by Wallace D. Wattles. "Something
inside
of me had me turn the pages one by one, and I can still remember my
tears hitting the pages as I was reading it," Rhonda says. "It
gave me a
glimpse of The Secret. It was like a flame inside of my heart. And with
every day since, it's just become a raging fire of wanting to share all
of this with the world."
After that first discovery, Rhonda read hundreds of books, listened to
hundreds of hours of audio tapes and scoured the Internet for more
information. She says she traced the idea of The Secret through
history�all the way from 3500 B.C. to the present day. "Since I
discovered The Secret, every single moment of my entire life has
changed, and I am living my life for the first time," Rhonda says.
Rhonda defines The Secret as the law of attraction, which is the
principle that "like attracts like." Rhonda calls it "the
most powerful
law in the universe," and says it is working all the time. "What
we do
is we attract into our lives the things we want, and that is based on
what we're thinking and feeling," Rhonda says. The principle explains
that we create our own circumstances by the choices we make in life. And
the choices we make are fueled by our thoughts�which means our
thoughts are the most powerful things we have here on earth.
To help teach the philosophy, Rhonda created the DVD The Secret,
which
features experts including the Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith, James Arthur
Ray, Lisa Nichols and Jack Canfield�who not only teach other people
about The Secret, but say they are successful in their own lives because
they know and use the principle.
The Rev. Dr. Michael Beckwith says he was a drug dealer in
college�until he was arrested in a deal gone bad. Michael says he had a
spiritual awakening during his trial and decided to turn his life around.
Today he leads the Agape Spiritual Center in Los Angeles, where he teaches
thousands of faithful followers the path to reaching their highest
potential.
James Arthur Ray was insecure and awkward as a teenager until weight
lifting helped the self-described geek gain confidence in his 20s. He
says that surviving a near-fatal motorcycle crash and almost going
bankrupt forced him to focus on the life he truly wanted. Now he runs a
multimillion-
dollar corporation dedicated to teaching people how to
create wealth in all areas of their lives.
Lisa Nichols grew up on the tough streets of South Central Los Angeles.
She admits that as a self-conscious teenager, she often used sex to feel
loved by men. After hitting rock bottom at age 19, Lisa prayed for a
better life. Now, she has made her fortune by motivating more than
60,000 teenagers to make better choices in their own lives.
"Chicken Soup for the Soul" creator Jack Canfield was deep in
debt
before he made it big. Now his best-selling books have sold more than
100 million copies worldwide, and Jack travels the country teaching the
secret of his success.
The law of attraction means that everything that happens to you�good
or bad�you attract to yourself. Lisa describes it as if you're placing
an order. "If you were at a restaurant and you ordered something, you
fully
expect it to come served that way. That's how the universe is. You're
putting out orders�consciously and unconsciously,
" Lisa says. "So if
you say, 'I'll never have a great relationship,
' you just placed an order."
Jack says everything you focus on can have an effect on your
life�from books to magazines to thoughts. "All of that affects how
we feel, and the feelings actually send out a wave into the universe, and
anything
that's vibrating in a similar level gets attracted into our life,"
Jack
says.
"Most people focus on how it is. We talk about our current
reality�'I'm in debt. I'm overweight. I'm not happy. I'm sad. The
world's not
working. We're at war,' whatever. And the more you think about that and
focus on that and talk about it, the more you attract that
[negativity]
," he says.
Although thoughts are powerful, Jack says the "feelings" that
the
thoughts generate are what actually attract things into our lives.
"Too
many times people are thinking a thought like, 'I want to be my perfect
body weight of 185 pounds.' But they look at the scale and they see 205
and they think, 'But I'll never make it,' � so they feel bad," Jack
says. Instead of wallowing in those negative thoughts, you need to find
the positive in the situation. Jack says you should stop feeling bad
about the weight, and instead feel positive that you are willing to do
something healthy to make your life better. Carrying with you those
positive feelings is one key to your success.
James says that in order to attract the things you want into your
life�to place the right order�you have to do what he calls going
"three for three." "Your thoughts, your feelings and your
actions all have to
be firing simultaneously in the same direction," he says. Visualizing
your future life can help to hone your thoughts and feelings toward the
things you want.
The panel says the thoughts and the feelings are often easy for people
to grasp, but you still have to /do/ something about them. "A lot of
people watch /The Secret/ and they say, 'Well, I'm sitting around
visualizing my millions coming into my lap.' Well, they'll come take
your furniture away. And then how are you going to visualize [when
you're living] on the curb?" James says. "You've got to act on
it. Make
decisions on where you're going versus where you have been."
Jack says that everything in the world is made up of energy, which is
controlled by thoughts and feelings. According to Jack, thoughts can
travel long distances, so you are sending out signals to many people
without even knowing it, and these signals attract like energy to you.
Jack and James say that this means there is no such thing as a
coincidence. "Everything happens by principles and laws in our
universe.
And so consequently, we have an absolutely unlimited power within
us,"
James says.
Michael says that thoughts�which turn into experience, speech and
behavior�become the "feeling tone of your life." "An
individual can
actually begin to generate a certain feeling of gratitude, of love, of
peace and of harmony, and the universe will begin to match that feeling
tone�and what will flow into your life will match the feeling that
you're holding," he says. "It means that everyone�can release
themselves from being a victim and begin to take control of their life's
destiny."
Gratitude is one example of the magnetic force of the universe.
"Basically, nothing new can come into your life unless you open
yourself
up to being grateful [for what you already have]," Michael says.
"If you think about it, the universe has a conveyor belt of presents
lined up for you, and until you receive the one and fully are grateful
for it, the next one can't come out of the chute. It's all lined up,"
Jack says.
Lisa says this perspective applies to weight, family, friends and other
aspects of life. She says too many people who want to make things better
focus on what's wrong with the present. "Instead of wanting to change
it, appreciate what's there," Lisa says. "Find the things about
it that
work � and by doing that, you create a space for it to get better."
For example, Lisa says she would like to lose some weight. But instead
of focusing on the negative�that she hasn't dropped the pounds
yet�she loves and appreciates the present moment. "I accept it. I
love it. I
embrace every inch, every pound," she says. In this way, Lisa is
creating the space to "celebrate the now" and then invite better
things
into her life.
According to the panel members, much of the energy that people project
into the world is done unconsciously. "People aren't walking around
thinking, 'I want a bad thing to happen to me,' but there's an
unconscious fear. There's a doubt. There's a worry. There's a sense of
separation there that's running them," Michael says. He adds that
spiritual growth is "allowing that which is unconscious to become
conscious."
Michael says that spiritual growth does not mean religion but our
"real
identity." "The love, the peace, the joy, the wisdom, the
harmony�these are all qualities of the spirit that it's seeking to
express through us," Michael says. "And so as we become more
awake, more aware of that, our life is filled with that kind of vibration,
that kind of feeling
tone. To grow spiritually is to actually become more aware of who you
really are."
Ryan Bell, a single mother of a 4-year-old, is currently $43,000 in
debt. "I'm just in over my head," she says.
Ryan says her financial woes started back in college when she took out
loans. After college, Ryan got a job, got pregnant and got married. To
cope with the new bills, the couple opened more credit cards, and Ryan
helped put her husband through school. Then the unthinkable happened:
She and her husband got divorced�and Ryan's debt worsened. "I went
from living on two incomes to living on one income, but I kept the same
bills," Ryan says.
To support herself and her daughter, Ryan works long hours at a high-end
clothing store. After her daughter goes to bed, Ryan works at her second
job, a home-based Internet business. "It could be huge, but I can't
spend the amount of time on it that I need to to make it successful,"
she says.
Now, Ryan sees every day as a struggle and won't even go to the mailbox
because she knows there are bills waiting for her. "I'm sick and
tired
of being a victim," Ryan says. "How do I get out of this endless
cycle
of debt?"
Ryan's choices have attracted debt to her, the panel says. To attract a
solution, Jack says Ryan should turn her focus from her debt to what she
knows her life will be like when she's financially free.
Simply changing her language can also start to make a dent in her debt.
When asked how she is, Lisa says she shouldn't respond with phrases like
"I'm surviving." "That's not the kind of life you want to
live," Lisa
says. "When people ask me how I'm doing, [I say], 'I'm phenomenal.
I'm
great'. Even in the midst of all�I'm great," she says. "I'm
great
because I made it through."
James, especially, can relate to Ryan's troubles, having been on the
edge of bankruptcy twice himself. He urges Ryan to take an "action
step"
toward her dreams. For Ryan, that's starting a debt retirement program
to pay a certain amount of money toward her credit /automatically/ so
she can focus every bit of energy on financial freedom.
Still, the most important stride toward a debt-free life, Michael says,
is forgiving her ex-husband and to stop feeling like he owes her
something. "Let him know in consciousness, in your awareness, that he
cannot determine your destiny. You're not leaving him unaccountable, but
you're severing those emotional vibratory tonalities so that you can be
free."
True forgiveness, James says, is when you can say the following to the
person who hurt you: "Thank you for giving me that experience."
But how can you forgive when something truly tragic or terrible happens?
James says you should grieve, but eventually you need to look for a
hidden gift. "Here's what I encourage people to ask themselves: How
does
this serve me? � If you're really willing to dig, there's a lesson
in there," James says. "And secondly, what can I learn from this
situation?"
Even if you can't identify the gift now, Rhonda says to remain positive
in order to benefit from of the law of attraction. "You can say,
'There
are so many gifts in this for me. I can't wait to see what they
are,'"
Rhonda says.
In chronic situations with no end in sight, Michael says you should ask
yourself another important question: "If this were to last forever,
what
quality would I have to grow to have peace of mind? Now, as my attention
goes to the quality I have to /grow/, that quality starts to emerge,"
Michael says. "The issue that I'm resisting and fighting against
becomes
less and less intense � it begins to dissolve because it doesn't
have your attention any longer."
Panel member Lisa Nichols says her life was spiraling out of control
before she learned The Secret. She grew up in South Central Los Angeles,
where there were gangs, poverty and violence.
In fifth grade, Lisa was in the first class to be bused to the
Valley�a predominantly white neighborhood�
where she thought she would be welcomed. Instead, she was met with
name-calling. "My self-esteem went
way down," she says.
Although she eventually became a popular student, Lisa struggled with
depression. "At 17, when my best friends were thinking what college
to
go to, UCLA or USC, I was contemplating suicide and trying to figure out
how to do it without getting blood on my mother's carpet because I knew
they couldn't afford to move," she says.
Growing up, Lisa was also told that she wasn't pretty and wouldn't find
love. She began having "a lot of sex looking for a little love,"
searching for her own validation in men. "The sex led to a lot of
pain.
I thought if I was saying no to the sex, I was saying no to potential
love. And I didn't want to say no to love."
Lisa began to gain weight in order to avoid men altogether. After
gaining 100 pounds, Lisa says she was obese and embarrassed.
Finally, Lisa reached a turning point. "I got on my knees and I said,
'God, if you bring me through this � I promise I will spend every
moment, every breath, supporting and encouraging others to do the
same,'" she says.
Lisa decided to stop being a victim. She stopped looking for love
elsewhere and fell "madly in love" with herself. Now, she
teaches people
how to treat her. "I'm the first example of how the world is supposed
to
love me and I have to give them the best example ever," she says.
"We
expect someone to show us our greatness when [instead] I'm supposed to
show up understanding my greatness and allowing you to celebrate it with
me."
After 16 years of marriage, Carlton and Beverly Credelle say the passion
in their marriage had fizzled. "It just felt as though our life was
just
mundane, really passionless, almost emotionless,
" Beverly says. "Like I
didn't have his mind anymore, his soul, his heart." At one point, the
couple hadn't been intimate in a year.
Then, Beverly watched /The Secret/. "For the record, I've seen it 62
times. But the first time is when that lightbulb went off," she says.
Beverly realized she was part of the problem. She stopped complaining
and began to focus on her gratitude for Carlton. "I started telling
myself, 'I am beautiful. I do deserve passion. I am in a passion-filled
marriage.'"
Things changed immediately after Carlton also watched the DVD. Soon, he
started making romantic gestures, like taking Beverly out for lunch
dates and calling her during the day. She began doing little things for
him, too�leaving him a rose in his car and surprising him with his
favorite cookies.
Michael says Carlton and Beverly are an example of how gratitude brings
about change. "My marriage now is wonderful," Carlton says.
"I feel the
passion. I'm loving it."
Launell is successful in all areas of her life�except when it comes
to taking off the baby weight she started gaining 14 years ago.
The first step, James says, is to be grateful for her health and choose
to stay healthy and whole. "I want you to start every single day �
saying, 'Thank you for the health I have.' Say, 'I love my legs because
they're working functionally,
'" James says. "Concentrate on your health
and wholeness every day, and you'll attract more health and wholeness
every day."
Lisa says Launell also has to believe she has the right to have the body
she wants. "Make a decision. Do you have the right? Are you ready for
it? Are you ready to look in the mirror and love every inch?" Lisa
says.
"Make 2007 about showing up in the now for you," Lisa says.
Repeating after Lisa, Launell declares, "I choose today to give
myself
the best life ever!"
You can start living the The Secret today by following three simple
steps: Ask. Believe. Receive.
Michael says to start making a conscious effort every day to take
actions that will sync with the energy of the life you dream about.
"When you're talking about action, you're talking about walking in
the
direction you want," Michael says.
But not just any action will do, James says. It has to be one that comes
from the heart and will provide a real service. "It's not, 'If you
build
it, they will come,' necessarily. It's, 'If you build it and it provides
/value/, they will come,'" he says. "It's that heart space. Not
'What
can I get?' but 'What can I give and how can I serve?' And when you're
in that moment, the universe lines up behind you and it's at your
command."
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