Many people have asked me about The Secret which is a very successful book and DVD. It has captured peoples’ imagination around the world. My personal assessment is The Secret is a wonderful stepping stone towards the future. It’s one of the more attractive, decorated stones on the path. Rhonda Byrne is to be given high praise for compiling such a popular work.

The Secret’s message is one that’s been around for centuries – thoughts become things.

The real question is: what kind of thoughts?

The regular garden variety thought isn’t going to cut it. That’s thinking, and thinking doesn’t make it so. If that were the case there would have been a lot more ponies on Christmas morning.

The reality is that “thoughts become things” is a headline. The real story is many paragraphs deeper. When you investigate fully, the real secret is: Beliefs become things.

Beliefs are subprograms of the mind that run the whole show. No matter what we think, if we have a belief that opposes our thoughts, the belief will always rule the day. Thoughts are logical and beliefs are not. Beliefs run from serious to silly. Your beliefs on any of the talk show “hot button” topics (gun control, capital punishment, abortion, the war) are the “serious” ones. The “right” way to hang toilet paper is one of the sillier ones. Either way, your belief wins the day.

So if you desire to attract a new shiny, sleek, expensive automobile, you will have to do more than picture or imagine it showing up in your driveway. That’s a start but you will remain in the starting blocks if that’s all you do.

Your thinking will never change for more than a minute unless your controlling beliefs melt and fade away. Deep in the bowels of The Secret is the unvarnished truth. Quoting Rhonda Byrne,

“The law of attraction is reflecting back your innermost thoughts and feelings as your life.”

Those innermost thoughts and feelings are your beliefs and you will not think your way out of them no matter how vivid your imagination.

Another testament to “beliefs are things” comes from the author of Radical Forgiveness, Colin Tipping:

“Your life is a mirror of what exists in your subconscious mind.”

Socrates said, “An unexamined life is not worth living.” We live our lives, mostly unaware, of many of the beliefs we hold, and the hold they have on us. Beliefs will take you to one destination – the same place every time. They are like trains that run on predetermined tracks and they always arrive at the same station – no matter that you desire to go elsewhere.”

In order for you to attract something different than what you have, your beliefs will have to get updated.

A great starting point is recognition. Recognition of a controlling belief will get you to the threshold of change quicker than the most vivid of imaginings. Your beliefs need to be interrupted by you before they have a prayer of changing. Before you can interrupt one, you have to recognize that you have it.

So get curious about what belief is keeping you from getting what you want. When that belief rears its head, interrupt it by noticing it. Just the practice of noticing it every time it presents itself will weaken its grasp.

I think that Wayne Dyer communicates the starting point for the law of attraction when he says, “Imagination is the force of creation.” Imagination is the catalyst. Think of it as the fuse that leads to the bomb. The difficulty most people experience is the personal explosion will always short circuit as long as the belief is in between the fuse and the bomb.

Here’s a reframe of an old saw that points the way to finding fruition:

“Curiosity killed the cat’s belief.”

All the best,

John