What Would Rhonda Do?

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Taken by Biscione (http://www.sxc.hu/profile/Biscione)

Around this time on 12/08/07 I was going on about The Secret creators and how they conveniently, and now I’ll add wisely (legally), neglected to add a few pointers on how to successfully apply the law of attraction when it’s physically and mentally impossible BECAUSE YOU’RE IN HORMONE HELL!

If you didn’t just read that sentence in the crescendoing manner of the late Sam Kinison (http://www.samkinison.org/home.html) and you know and like his style, I invite you to go back and read it again that way. It’ll make all the difference in the world perception-wise, because that’s generally how a sentiment of that nature would be expressed by the majority pre-menopausal mind if not mouth.To continue, comedy spawned more comedy and an image formed in my mind of a cult, The Secret Cult, and a Branch Davidian-style compound where disciples would dubiously study and apply the law of attraction and ask, “WWRD?” when faced with particularly tough universal challenges.From that came the idea to really ask Rhonda what she would do, or at least what she would recommend doing. I mean, at age 52 or so, she’s got to be going through some hormonal transitioning… And I want to know if the starter of The Secret fire keeps her cool through that kind of life disruption such that she’s able to generate the positive thoughts and feelings that will attract the positive outcomes she desires.

So on 12/10/07 I visited The Secret website (http://thesecret.tv/index.html) and, as directed, used the website’s Contact Us form to submit my query. To my surprise I received no cozy confirmation that my labored-over text had truly been sent to somewhere besides nowhere. No e-mail notification, just a well camouflaged one-liner that I had to scour the semi-refreshed page for, “Your message has been sent. Thank you!” What the? The Secret is a multi-million dollar operation that can’t be bothered to divvy up some funds for an auto-responder at least? Now I feel like I should send another missive to the black hole to suggest they shore up their website a bit. My work is never done.Anyway, I sifted myself through the drop-downs—category (communications with teachers), topic (teacher comment or question), and the like—and wrote the following letter:Subject: What to do about Mother Nature?
Sent: 12/10/07 5:49pm ET

Good day,

Here’s an inquiry for Rhonda or one of the female teachers…or Ben Johnson, MD, since this is a chemically-oriented issue: hormones/PMS vs. the law of attraction. Being one who has been considered a glass-is-half-empty type, I’ve found switching “thought channels” from negative to positive challenging enough, let alone when hormone levels and serotonin activity go haywire once per month! During that time I experience overwhelming symptoms that seem to disable the choice for positive.

In the interest of exercising good, comfy protocol, please know that I’m not leaving my OB/GYN out of the loop. He and I have been ‘round the block with the likes of PMS. Rather, I’m looking for suggestions from you—based on your experience of successfully using the principles covered in The Secret—that may point me toward effective solutions to apply individually or in conjunction with familiar remedies.

If this topic was touched on in The Secret, in the book and/or DVD, I missed it, and could use a briefing in that regard. If it hasn’t been addressed, here’s a request to do so, certainly to me, and perhaps en masse via your website or scrolls, etc. This, based on the law of unoriginality, that is, if I have a thought, chances are thousands of others have had the same or a similar thought!

In all seriousness, the monthly hormone battle is a marked hindrance to my progress in incorporating The Secret’s principles into my daily pattern, and I’m looking forward to hearing what you have to say. Another protocol nicety: I may quote all or part of your answer in a blog entry broaching the subject of PMS and the practice of applying the law of attraction. Inquiring minds want to know, so any one helpful thing you can contribute will be appreciated tenfold.

In gratitude in advance, thank you,

Alister

Wait! You forgot something…

Katrina aftermath photo from stock.xchng (http://www.sxc.hu/)

Taken by coletta (http://www.sxc.hu/profile/coletta)

A little history: I gave in to Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret hype sometime in April of this year. UPS delivered the goods, the book and DVD, at the end of May. Fortunately I’d been briefed by friends and prepared by reviews regarding the mostly shallow, materialistically-oriented presentation. So I pressed into the wind of it with senses pricked for deeper truths. Instead, I ended up buying into Easy-and-Effortless so consequently crashed and burned sometime in the reality of June.

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But a lot of the principles mentioned in The Secret continued to kick around my head. There’s some potentially powerful stuff to be had there. Trouble is, it doesn’t come with a whip-cracking dictator or a programmable, success-achieving micro-chip injection kit. In my opinion, The Secret creators’ unpardonable sin is the Star Wars-style zinging and zapping delivery of one of the grandest illusions of easy prosperity.

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Creating a destiny is work, people. Cutting a “new and improved” path through the comfortably overgrown jungle of the brain is bed-of-nails, hot coals, vat-of-acid hard work. I think the number one MacGyver trick in The Secret kit that works best for that kind of fast action, high adventure is the letter opener-and-matchbook suggestion that you can break the circuit of a negative thought and arc over to a positive one. But that technique isn’t yet 100% successful.

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It doesn’t work a flaming lick in the bowels of hormone hell. There, you just have to hunker down, hold the fort, and hope you get spat out in tact. The good news is that I’ve been thinking about the circuitry thing so hard and for so long now that even in hell I get taps on the shoulder, “It doesn’t have to be this way you know…” I do know, but I hit the snooze button anyway. Nine minutes later, “It doesn’t have to be this way…”

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Now that I’m back from that trip I realize there’s not one comment or suggestion or even a BPG (Bob Proctor Guarantee) in The Secret that tackles the application of the law of attraction during a severe bout of PMS. This almost makes me want to say some unfair thing that implies the admission of impossibility in their omission. But in the spirit of the “new and improved” me that’s supposedly being worked up like nerve, and in the manner of the “WWJD?” motto, I’ll ask myself, “WWRD?” What would Rhonda do, anyway? I think I’ll contact her. If she answers, I’ll be ready for next time.

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This time I took some ibuprofen and read an article that journalist Barry Yeoman (http://www.barryyeoman.com/index.html) wrote for AARP The Magazine, “Katrina: The Untold Story” (http://www.aarpmagazine.org/people/katrina_untold_story.html). Two years after the fact and the current stats are still a nightmare with what looks like no end. The combination of that and the stories of those Barry interviewed busted through some tucked-away place within me that leaked out this mixture of hollow, wailing sadness, anger, sympathy, sorrow, compassion, thankfulness. That was days ago and it’s still with me. That’s a good thing. Means it shifted more than just a hormone-racked attitude.

Thus Spake Zagajewski

Photo by Alister 11/22/07

Anyone see the following poem in the 11/26/07 The New Yorker? Wow. Pretty much captures the human dilemma…

“Our life is ordinary,
I read in a crumpled paper
abandoned on a bench.
Our life is ordinary,
the philosophers told me.

Ordinary life, ordinary days and cares,
a concert, a conversation,
strolls on the town’s outskirts,
good news, bad—

but objects and thoughts
were unfinished somehow,
rough drafts.

Houses and trees
desired something more
and in summer green meadows
covered the volcanic planet
like an overcoat tossed upon the ocean.

Black cinemas crave light,
Forests breathe feverishly,
clouds sing softly,
a golden oriole prays for rain.
Ordinary life desires.

–Adam Zagajewski
(Translated from the Polish, by Clare Cavanagh)”

“YES!” the captured, tormented thing within me leaps in solidarity from its place which, if I knew exactly where it resided, I’d do up good like the USA is doing Iraq and the war on terrorism in general. I would make pitiful headway, become hopelessly embroiled in controversy and entangled in bad press, lose respect, and the thing would, in the end, still be quite alive and well. Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, Freddy K…

Desires are nuisances from hell for sure when you’re a divided front. And reprogramming human conditioning is like chiseling the ten commandments off their stone tablets in mere preparation to begin chiseling on new ones with no guarantee that they won’t be obsolete by the time you finish.

And you ma’am, what would you like to order?
I’ll just have what Randle McMurphy’s having, please.

Can ANYONE successfully work the LOA?

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Taken by Dovile Cizaite (http://www.sxc.hu/profile/Peleda)

You’ve heard of the Law of Attraction (LOA) by now, no doubt. If it somehow escaped your attention, it’s this: like attracts like. Applied specifically to humans it’s this: we bring about what we think predominantly and most strongly about. If you want more of a fanfare, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_attraction and get a dose of TMI.  I can’t deal with it right now.

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Those who know the LOA know the controversy surrounding it: is it scientific law or not, does it work or not? For La-la Land residents not in touch with that mumbo-jumbo, here, eat this funnel cake: http://mrfire.blogspot.com/2007/02/is-attraction-law.html. Then go on these rides: http://skeptico.blogs.com/skeptico/2007/02/the_law_of_attr.html and http://blairwarren.com/blog/item/does_loa_work/. And I hope you don’t barf. Because I’m fixed on the idea of adding to the drivel on this LOA topic and it’d be more pleasant if those who chose to stick around here were strong, downright stalwart, or at least good sports. Take a Pepcid® anyway.

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And then check out these statements by the late, successful businessman and author, Charles Haanel:

“The Universal Mind is not only intelligence, but it is substance, and this substance is the attractive force which brings electrons together by the law of attraction so they form atoms; the atoms in turn are brought together by the same law and form molecules; molecules take objective forms and so we find that the law is the creative force behind every manifestation, not only of atoms, but of worlds, of the Universe, of everything of which the imagination can form any conception.”

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“To become conscious of this power is to become a ‘live wire.’ The Universe is the live wire. It carries power sufficient to meet every situation in the life of every individual. When the individual mind touches the Universal Mind, it receives all its power.”

This posthumous material and some of the stuff that living physicists John Hagelin and Fred Alan Wolf contributed to the book The Secret interested me the most. These guys insert strangle-proof words like “tend to” and “begins to” in their statements:

“So we may be very positive in our outlook and orientation and we tend to attract positive people and positive events and circumstances. When we’re very negative in our orientation or very angry, in which case we tend to attract negative, angry people and negative, angry circumstances.”  Hagelin

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“Quantum physics really begins to point to this discovery. It says that you can’t have a Universe without mind entering into it, and that the mind is actually shaping the very thing that is being perceived.”  Wolf

These words pussyfoot more palatably amongst reality-thinkers and truth-seekers. They are more the ushers of ideas for consideration than the plaid-jacketed pummels from plastically self-made-and-titled self-help and spiritual gurus. Philosopher Bob Proctor, god love him, is The Secret’s worst offender in that area:

“See yourself living in abundance and you will attract it. It works every time, with every person.”

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“You will attract everything that you require. If it’s money you need you will attract it. If it’s people you need you’ll attract it…it literally moves into physical reality with and through you. And it does that by law.”

Ack! Now them’s some strong words that put me on the snake oil defensive. So in that respect, a “Good on ya!” to Rhonda Byrne, the compiler of The Secret, for strategically balancing her material in purporting the scientific-ness of the LOA by injecting titled physicists into her multi-millions-reaping Petri dish! I don’t buy it. Come clean like mud: the LOA is a New Age theory. And Ms. Byrne is a businesswoman who saw an opportunity.

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I have to say I’m glad she did. Because there’s a part of me that wants Haanel’s ideas to be truths, that wants the LOA to be a psychological tool that works. In addition to Hagelin and Wolf, I want to be open to what other of The Secret’s degreed and/or hard-working believables like Ben Johnson, Loral Langemeier, John Gray, and Denis Waitley have to say. I want to believe that the Chicken Soup for the Soul-man, Jack Canfield, might’ve been an $8,000 per year loser if not for learning about the LOA from his mentor, W. Clement Stone. And I want to believe it could work for me as well.

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Roll your eyes or nod in agreement, it matters not. I’ve already made the decision to throw myself wholeheartedly into my own Petri dish which will cost you nothing…financially. Everything else is at your own risk. And right up front, in case this site catches the eyes of any jot-and-tittle sticklers who have a tendency to annoy with their sterile scientific semantics, I’ll emphasize the obvious, that this is no controlled experiment. It’s a whimsical foray for my edification and probably mostly your amusement.

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The creators of and participants in The Secret suggest (except for Bob who is certain) that anyone can successfully work the LOA, that is, apply the LOA theory to their everyday life practices such that they achieve what they desire to achieve. The experiment will revolve around that suggestion and my reaction to it which is, very basically, “Oh, really?” Because right away I see a big ol’ red flag flapping.

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Since a prerequisite of the LOA is that its practitioners predominantly generate genuinely good, positive, loving, and abundant feelings, I admit doubt as to whether someone with really bad DNA could work it successfully or even at all, i.e. if depression, addiction, ADD, ADHD, obesity, aggression, etc. were in our genes and affecting our thoughts and behavior, what then are our odds of success? In these cases I would imagine even the first sense of the word success, “the achievement of something desired, planned, or attempted” could be a challenge, never mind the second sense, “the gaining of fame or prosperity” (definitions courtesy of my favorite on-line dictionary at http://www.thefreedictionary.com/).

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So for now I’ll restrict the question, “Can anyone successfully work the LOA,” to the averagely DNA-challenged middle-of-the-road realm of Joe Blow, the King of Mediocrity. Are there individuals or factions therein who are on the brink of success, that have the right physiological and psychological constitution to, with application of the LOA theory, enable themselves to set and get their goals, to pursue their greatest desire to the point of achieving it?

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I live and work in Mediocrity, so my conditioned response would be just to laugh. Because here in this vast kingdom I’d say most of us are running a perpetually losing racket of negative thinking. Probably one of our most positive thoughts is that things could be worse, and therefore most of us are just happy we’re not lying toothless and diseased on a park bench covered with a newspaper. Here, looking backward and resting on the laurels of any past glory that just happened to have fallen into our laps, is almost good enough to live on forever, but for the occasional forward glance. Yet the light hurts our eyes! My god what would we do with success? We can’t imagine it so we just don’t bother to entertain the idea of it unless we’re falsely bolstered by Budweiser. It’s a cruel impasse! Or is it? I mean, we do entertain the idea…

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What’s real? Can a person like me, who tends more toward negative thoughts, toward the darker, glass-is-half-empty side, yet has no history of psychological intervention requiring anti-depressants, successfully work the LOA? Can I switch to a positive mental “channel” as soon as I notice I’m on a negative channel and keep practicing that technique until I’m mostly and then nearly always or always on a positive channel? Can I regularly visualize what I want so artfully and vividly that I feel like I already have it and so begin to glow with a gratefulness that leaves me wide open to attract and notice the people and situations that will accommodate it? Can I do that groundwork that will earn me a ticket out of Mediocrity? Dream on? Wax on, wax off.

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Think about evolution and human uniqueness. Then recall some of the really far-flung, whacked-out stuff you’ve seen go down during your lifetime. Make sure you check political history during your mental review. Anything’s possible. Stay tuned…if not here, in your head.