DanielRoach.org

The Secret has swept the nation in last couple of months, spreading the ideas of the Law of Attraction from coast to coast like wildfire. It’s no real surprise either; Oprah said it was good, so everyone went to find out for themselves. The film is a documentary put together by an Australian producer giving a quick overview of the “Law of Attraction” and how it can change your life. But what you’re told in The Secret is not all there is to the story, and it’s what you don’t know that makes The Secret so dangerous.

Before I go any further with this, I want to point out that the law of attraction is indeed based in some form of reality; it’s not all new-age snake oil. The concept has been talked about for nearly a hundred years by such respected names as Napoleon Hill and Ernest Holmes. There are many people all around the world, including Oprah, who claim that the law of attraction has worked for them long before they ever heard of The Secret. I don’t want to turn you away from the idea of the law of attraction; don’t dismiss the idea simply because of the presentation of The Secret. There’s more than meets the eye.

I was one of the people who saw The Secret back when it was strictly a pay-per-view online film, back before everyone and their mother was toting the virtues of the law of attraction. I watched it and was instantly blown away. This to me seemed like the Holy Grail of personal development that I had been looking so long for. I was instantly impressed and jazzed to get started trying this out. It floored me and gave me a huge boost to start making things happen. I instantly went out and began to go through as many books as I could get my hands on about this new law of attraction, reading not only the authors I mentioned above, but also metaphysical writers and teachers like Deepak Chopra and Esther Hicks. The more I read, the more I began to realize the stark horrors that The Secret carried.

The Secret’s deception, you see, lies in its simplicity. It’s given millions of people false hope that they are suddenly going make huge breakthrough and create the lives they’ve always wanted. It shows people that all they have to do is imagine having that brand new car hard enough and eventually they will get it, which is tantamount to saying that if I think about flying long enough, eventually it will happen. Here’s the hard truth behind The Secret:

Thinking will get you nothing.

The idea that your thoughts travel all around the universe and bring back to you what you are looking for is only partially true. Does the universe respond to your thoughts and your feelings? Yes. Just think about all those times when you’ve experienced something you dismissed as a coincidence. That’s the universe tapping you on the shoulder. Will the universe make a brand new car materialize in your driveway because you thought about it hard enough? No.

Now I don’t want this to turn you off of the idea of Metaphysics and the law of attraction, that’s certainly not the point of this article. The point of this article is to encourage you to go beyond simply watching The Secret. The point of this article is to show you the other side of the law of attraction: the Law of Action. And yes, I just made that up.

The Law of Action says that the Universe responds only to those thoughts which are somehow acted upon.

This means that you will only get your new car by taking action, and this action comes in many forms, hence the words “somehow acted upon.” You can earn the money to buy the car outright. You can earn enough money to make a down payment on the car. You can steal the money, or you can steal the car. All of these actions, combined with aligning your thoughts toward obtaining that car, will eventually get you the car you wanted.

The danger of The Secret is the false hope that it gives people and the susceptibility it creates within them. Suddenly they start seeing signs everywhere and believing that the Universe wants them to plunk down their money to be taught how to attract their millions. It makes people feel as if they’ve created the diseases they suffer from and that they are at fault for all the bad things that happened in their lives. The Secret’s simplicity and materialistic message is a dangerous thing, be wary of it but do not shut it out all together.

Beware of what doesn’t ring true with you. The old adage that if it looks too good to be true, it probably is has never been more apt. Be wary of falling into the trap of believing that manifestation is anything like magic. The law of attraction works, but there is more to it that The Secret lets on.

If you’d like to read more on the reality behind The Secret, I suggest you check out the following books. You may disagree with much of what you read in them, but that will always be the case with any subject. What is important is if it rings true with you. Take what makes sense to you and throw the rest away, but never dismiss anything without further investigation.

Suggested Reading:

The Science of the Mind by Ernest Holmes

Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

The Law of Attraction by Jerry and Esther Hicks

The Science of Getting Rich by Wallace D. Wattles

The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire by Deepak Chopra

So it’s been 35 days since I began my P90X journey and I’m thrilled with the results. Not only can I already tell a huge difference in how I look, but an even bigger difference in how I feel and how I move. I wanted to write a new post for the P90X journey, since I haven’t updated that lately. My hope was to give a day by day or maybe week by week update of P90X, but I soon realized that there really wasn’t much of a point. There wasn’t a hell of a lot of difference between day one and day seven. There were only so many times I could say that I was sore, but enjoying myself. Having realized this, I decided to change my tactics for my online P90X journal. I’ll give updates for the pinnacle moments, the exercises themselves and some of the tips, tricks and dangers for anyone who might be thinking about attempting this themselves.

Day 35 finds me at the end of the first week of P90X Phase Two and one recovery week down. It’s been an interesting journey; harder at times than I expected, yet easier at other times. I’ve begun to see incredible changes in my body, having lost eight pounds worth of fat and put on quite a bit of muscle. I’m nowhere near where I want to be yet, but the gains I’ve made in a short 35 days have been more than worth my efforts. It’s an incredible morale booster to get to see changes happening in such a short amount of time. What’s been even better than the visible changes, are the improvements that I can feel. When I move now, I feel so much stronger than I ever have before and I don’t have anywhere near as many back problems as I used to. At this point I can even feel new muscles in my back being used that have never really be utilized before. Best of all I have more energy when I wake up in the morning, feel far more productive during the day, and sleep much deeper at night.

My sleep habits recently have been some of the biggest changes. I used to stay up until all hours of the morning, going to sleep when I decided (not when I was tired, but when I decided it was time to sleep) and waking up after twelve hours feeling just as tired as I did when I went to sleep. It wasn’t healthy, but I figured I was a young guy, entitled to some lying around time. I have to say that I much prefer the way I feel now. Now I wake up feeling incredibly refreshed, having slept like a log the night before. I’m usually sore, but a few quick movements and stretches take care of that problem. I still stay up pretty late when I can, just because I’ve always been something of a night owl, but now I’m limited to how late I can stay awake because I’ve begun to get really tired. This may not sound like much to most people, but it’s something new to me; I’ve never felt truly tired at night. I’ve always just gone to bed when I thought I should, without really being sleepy, taking at least thirty minutes to fall asleep and hardly ever sleeping soundly. Now I find myself suddenly exhausted at the end of the evening, am asleep within seconds and sleep like the dead all night long.

Phase One of the X is now over, leaving me to take on Phase Two. I was hoping that I would shed some of the less than lovable exercises, but no such luck. I still find myself staring down the barrel of Yoga and Plyometrics every week; in fact I got all of those I could stand during the first recovery week. I’d just like to point out right now that “recovery week” is something of a misnomer. It sounds like it will be easier, but even the P90X booklet says flat-out that this will not be the case. If anything, it’s the same level of difficulty, just a different brand of difficult. There are no resistance exercises during the recovery week, much to my annoyance. I’ve been doing weight lifting off and on all my life. I can’t get enough resistance training, so the recovery week is like being chained to the dog house and not being able to get out and run. Needlesstosay, by the end of the week I was leaping at the end of my chain to pick up some weights.

I’ve also decided at this point in the program to add a fat burner to my work out, just to try and help give a boost to my workout calorie burning. I don’t want to mention it just at the moment, because I don’t want to seem like I’m giving it an endorsement and if it doesn’t work, I don’t want others to waste their money.

I’m going to be following up this 35 day update with some reviews of more supplements I’ve been using during my exercise time and all of the exercises that are included in the P90X package. For now I just wanted to let everyone know that I’m still going strong, still in the thick of it, and that it’s working like a charm.

35 Days and 8 Pounds Gone. 55 Days still to Come.