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You Become What You Think About

6/30/08

The Secret

Have you seen or read "The Secret" yet? (www.thesecret.tv) If not, what are you waiting for? "The Secret" is a great introduction to what's called the Law of Attraction. The Law of Attraction says that everything that is coming into your life, you have attracted into your life by your thoughts, words and actions. Both what we consider to be "good" and "bad" in our lives have all shown up because of the energy that we are vibrating with. Like attracts like so when you look at the results in your life you are looking into an energetic mirror. There are no accidents. Even when we say we don't want a specific thing, if that "despicable" thing holds enough of our attention long enough, we will attract it to ourselves because we are giving energy to its creation by thinking about it. Whatever you think about and give the most energy to, you create.

In the movie, Jon Assaraf talks about the creation of Vision Boards. A Vision Board is simply a large corkboard or piece of poster paper that we post pictures, images, words or symbols of things that we would like to create or achieve in life. The things we post can be superficial like fancy cars and watches, or deeply profound like attracting a life partner, creating a loving family or actualizing a career of fulfillment. Once created, a vision board helps you manifest your dreams by keeping your dreams in your physical vision everyday. When you see the images posted, take some time daily to visualize yourself having already achieved them. Even more importantly is to feel the feelings that you will feel when you get these things.

Martha Beck on Oprah

This is a picture of author, life coach and O magazine columnist, Martha Beck, on Oprah showing her vision board. Martha says has received many of the things she hoped for on her vision board, including a visit to Africa. "I have to say, as I was putting it together to bring here, I realized that I have to add more because everything on this board has already happened," she says. "It happens so fast now I have to keep making new ones." Martha had a picture of Oprah on this vision board and we can see that dream has obviously come true as well. Martha believes that intentions manifest very quickly for people whose resistance (negative thoughts) is low or non-existent, and for people whose dreams are coming from their "core of peace", that center of inner-knowing where we seek to only do what is best for us and everyone involved.

So how does this work? If it is your dream to have a beautiful and healthy body, you could post an image of someone you feel is beautiful and healthy. Maybe even cut out a picture of your head and put it on that body. Then visualize yourself having that body and feel the joy that you will feel as if you have already achieved that level of health and/or fitness. Feel how good it feels to be you. Give gratitude for your healthy body. Do this daily, and over time you will train your mind to give attention to only the people, places and things that will support what you already believe. You will start to attract friends who are healthy and love and care for their bodies. You will notice the organic restaurant around the corner from your job that you never knew was there. You will only see healthy food at the supermarket (and you will find yourself only patronizing health-food markets). You will be drawn to forms of exercise that bring you joy while they strengthen your body. Fitness innovator Patricia Moreno has already discovered this, and has ingeniously combined passionately spoken affirmations with vigorous exercise in her revolutionary class IntenSati (www.satilife.com). You will begin to pay attention to what you say about yourself and would never even dream of calling yourself fat or not good enough. You will choose words that feel good like, "Everything I do is beneficial to my health", "I am beautiful", "I love feeling healthy", or "Thank you for my healing" (from "The Secret", I use that one in the dentist's chair). When you train your mind to focus on nothing but radiant health, the Universe has no choice but to give you what you are focusing on. This works for finance, career, relationships, knowledge, fame and creativity as well.

The system I like best for creating Vision Boards was developed by Marie Diamond, A.K.A the Feng Shui lady from "The Secret". According to her, "Feng Shui is the ancient Chinese wisdom and artful science of how surroundings affect energy for better and for worse. It teaches how to attract positive, successful energy and how to deflect negative, inauspicious energy. For thousands of years, the Chinese emperors guarded this knowledge, using it for themselves to control their empires and build supreme wealth. . .More than the mere practice of interior design, true Feng Shui practitioners work with their clients on the inside as well as their outside surroundings." Marie says that there are actually 3 components to the Law of Attraction:

  • 1) Heavenly Attraction, or karma. The attraction you had when your soul came to your body in this incarnation. We have little to no control over this but can explore it via astrology (go to www.shamanicastrology.com for my astrologer Daniel Giamario) or past-life regression (www.past-life.com, to work with Shala Mattingly who I hear is the queen of this stuff, though I haven't yet worked with her, OOH I'm gonna put her on my Vision Board!). In my experience, having your astrological chart done is like a sanity check. You get insight into why you are the way you are, and why you are challenged by certain things. Although when I talk about my astrologer, most people tell me to have my sanity checked!
  • 2) Human Attraction or what you do with what you've been given via your thoughts, feelings and actions. This we do have control over and can learn about through "The Secret" and hundreds of other authors like Louise Hay and Esther and Jerry Hicks. You get what you think about, say and do.
  • 3) Earth/Environmental Attraction, how our surroundings affect us. Marie believes that our homes and offices have their own Law of Attraction and we can affect coincidences by affecting the energy field within our surroundings. We must express ourselves in our homes and offices to attract what we want. This is often pretty easy to change and is where Feng Shui and Vision Boards come in.

Marie Diamond has developed her own very user-friendly system of Feng Shui called Diamond Feng Shui, available on her website www.mariediamond.com , which I highly recommend for anyone wishing to optimize the Law of Attraction of their living/working space. However, I am going to speak here specifically about her system for vision boards. In her system, there are general directions on our vision boards that attract things like Romance, Abundance and Wisdom. Imagine that your Vision Board is a compass with directions. According to Marie, the top of the board is South, the right is West, the bottom is North and the left is East. Listed below are the general directions and what they attract:

  • South= Fame/Recognition
  • Southwest= Romance/Collaboration
  • West= Creativity/Children
  • Northwest= Friends/Advisors/Mentors
  • North= Career/Journey
  • Northeast= Wisdom/Knowledge
  • East= Health/Family
  • Southeast= Abundance
  • Center= Balance/Peace

This means that you could put pictures of beautiful relationships, the soulmate of your dreams or your "love list" in the Southwest corner of your vision board. You could post a bank statement with exactly the amount of money you'd like to see in your bank account in the Southeast corner, or a picture of Jack Lalane in the East corner symbolizing vital health well into your 90s. The point is, pick images that are meaningful to YOU. In the center of the Vision Board should be a picture of you smiling and arms outstretched, as if to say to the Universe, "I am grateful and ready to receive the gifts You are sending."

We also have 4 specific directions based on our birth date and gender including Health, Relationships, Wisdom and Success. For example, for anyone born between February 18, 1977 and February 6, 1978 (like me), our personal Success direction is Southeast for women and Northeast for men. One should post her Vision Board in the personal Success direction of her living/working space. My vision board is in the Southeast corner of my room. Also, one should post her written short- and long-term goals in the personal Success direction on her vision board. Mine are posted on the upper left (Southeast) corner of my board. Ideally, one should face her Success direction in which her Vision Board is posted while at work at her desk. Since these directions are specific to birth date and gender, one can order Diamond Feng Shui to learn about specific directions (or you could send me an email at jackie@theorganicexperiencenyc.com with your exact birth date and gender and I can tell you what direction to hang your board).

Although Marie's system has demonstrated tremendous results for many people, it is not the only way to do this. Even without your specific directions, you can begin to compose your Vision Board to attract the life of your dreams. Just start cutting pictures out of magazines or printing them from the Web or drawing your own pictures if you like. My personal recommendation is to get a corkboard and use push pins to post your pictures. Here's why: if you are a big dreamer like me, very often people that see your board may pass judgment or laugh or try to talk you out of your most spectacular dreams. With push-pins you can simply take those pictures down while guests are over and then put them back up later. Author Wayne Dyer suggests that we only share our innermost dreams with people who are going to build us up and support our dreams, to share with other big dreamers. The voice on the inside of you is the one that matters most so why invite negative people into your dreams? In addition, sometimes our dreams are threatening to others. Single ladies, I speak from personal experience on this one. NOTHING will send the new man you are dating running for the door faster than pictures of your future big, beautiful wedding on your vision board. I learned this the hard way! There is nothing wrong with dreaming of a beautiful, budgetless, outdoor wedding in a Vera Wang dress with a band, a DJ AND a string quartet, with Brad and Angelina in attendance sitting next to your parents who after not speaking for 5 years are suddenly so overcome with joy that they have set their differences aside and become friends. But for some reason, that I one day hope to understand, men do not find this as exciting as we do and could actually be quite put off. Push pins I say, push pins.

One more note of caution: You know the saying "be careful what you ask for because you just might get it"? This could not be truer for visualizations. There have been several times that the Universe has let me know in no uncertain terms, that what I was asking for was most certainly not in line with my greatest good or that I was not yet ready to receive what I was asking for. I have clients who once they got the body of their dreams, were totally unprepared for all of the sexual attention they were getting. Or the studies that say that 90% of lottery winners go broke within 5 years. They were unprepared to manage their new wealth and so it had to leave. Prepare the field for the changes you wish to see. Learn about managing money. Choose to love yourself no matter what comments others make about your body. Accept the balance of life and that the beautiful relationship you will attract will show you the parts of yourself that need to be healed and will take work, self-awareness, communication, vulnerability, an open heart and a willingness to love self and others. Be grateful for the ability to have this most human experience.

Do you know what Oprah Winfrey said after she saw "The Secret"? She said, "I didn't know it was a secret! I've always done this." People with successful and happy lives naturally choose positive thoughts. Same with Wayne Dyer, even though he grew up in an orphanage in the Depression after his alcoholic father left, he always chose to see the good in every situation and has since sold millions of self-help books. This does not mean that "bad" things do not happen to these people. Even during "bad" times they embrace and honor feelings of sadness as part of the human experience. Sometimes sadness is a demonstration of one's ability to love and to care. I suspect it was their karma to come to Earth like this to teach the rest of us. Even if you were not imparted with Oprah and Wayne qualities at birth, it is NEVER too late to change. You can begin taking responsibility for your creations at any point in your life, and the personal power and joy you will feel from doing so is amazing.