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Book Review - The Secret - Rhonda Byrne

I have had The Secret on my mind for a while. I finally chose to buy it so I could read it and I'm quite happy that I did.



I used to reference this book as sounding like the book I read as a young teen called, Being Happy. I ended up being right about the similarities. In the book, Being Happy, it's focused on training your brain to think positively. As in, you attract what you think about most.

Buy a new car, think, I sure hope nobody hits me!
Result: a shopping cart dings you the moment after you park. Or someone backs into the car as you're leaving the parking lot.

As in, our thoughts have energy. Our thoughts, and what we think about most, what we believe in most, will happen. That's not to say that if you can't THINK yourself to something that you didn't think correctly. It simply means that when you focus on something, you're bringing it about. I learned about this method when I was younger. Never truly understood it until recently when I've been learning about this stuff.

I remember thinking to myself that I couldn't live without my dog, Jake. We ended up having to get rid of him once the neighbor tried to poison him. In my heart, I truly believed that I could not live without this dog. It was because we got him when I was dealing with my first stalker. Only through a combination of getting this large German Shepherd, and the boy's father sending him to military school, did it cease my issues with him. Years I had to deal with nasty sexual things he would say to me in front of all of my friends in school. Years I went through dealing with him sitting outside my house, up the street, watching me. Years I had to listen to the police telling me that unless he truly threatened me, and physically tried to hurt me, they could do nothing. Get a restraining order. Still, it went on. Having the dog made me believe I could handle all of that once I left school. The thought of him being gone was scary to me because I would face that stalker alone.

I believed in my heart and soul that I could not live without him.
Life proved to me that I could.

I did that again with another dog.
Life once more took her from me at an early age because we had to put her down.

After that, I said to myself . . . wait. When I believe something? It happens. How is that possible? Am I doing this to myself?

I stopped believing that I couldn't live without these dogs, yet I still invested my entire heart into them. I knew that wasn't the issue. I realized on my own that what I focused on most, came true. And I finally stopped having to get rid of dogs within five years of having them. I stopped being scared of losing them, and just started to enjoy them, be grateful for them in my daily life.

That is sort of what The Secret is about. It's a really great book to read, but it's not the end game. There are many passages in it that work. Many passages that I read that just made me think up that first book, Being Happy. When I was overweight, I read that first book. I learned about the focus, about positive thoughts versus negative, and I stopped believing I was fat, unhealthy, and nobody liked me. (That was also part of self-esteem issues I developed from the abuse, the stalkers, the rape, and on.)

Instead, I started to focus on being healthy, fit, beautiful, and everybody loving me. I started to SEE it, believe it, and bring it about because of that focus. When we focus on something, it comes true. And that is what I learned, so when I read this book, it was like revisiting that other one. Only in a new way.

My life is what I have made it because of reading that first book, Being Happy. I forgot about a lot of the focused thoughts and went through a period of change after that second rape, but I think it was also because life will make us take stock, reevaluate and show us where we need to go. Like Oprah, Eckhart, and the rest say, when we are living the right path, it comes easy. When we live within a stress-filled existence and life is a daily battle, we are not seeing that we need to make some changes. There is something going on that we are not seeing.

I went through panic attacks, I went through a bout of depression, I went through hell after that last rape because I wasn't seeing it. I felt uneasy all the time, I struggled because what I wanted was to fit in. What I wanted was to be like everyone else. Get a 9-5er (I assumed this was the way life worked), and everything that most people do. I thought my idea of having my own business was wrong, and I ignored that feeling that I could do something more.

My life changed when I finally stopped listening to the outside, and listened within. I started to focus on the whisper that had existed all this time within. Instead of the loud voices all around me.

It was a nice change to read this book. I know a lot of people who don't believe in this, and a lot of people who do. A lot of people relate the energy this speaks of as God, and a lot believe it's their own doing. Whatever your stance, if you have an open-mind, this is a great book to read. It doesn't talk too much about immediate results and I know that's the truth. Most of mine have come from years of work behind it, or have taken time in general to achieve, but I would still suggest you giving it a go if interested. For me, it's something that I believe in. A part of it, but not all. You do still have to act for your life to be how you want it to be, but . . .

Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.” 
― Napoleon Hill

And for someone like me, this book made complete sense to the way I live my life.

Ariana

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