The truth about the Law of Attraction has luckily come out over the years. However, many people around you still tie the Law of Attraction to The Secret, written by Rhonda Byrne, released in 2006. However, that was not the first time people had heard about it, as Tony Robbins in the 90s wrote about it in his book, The Power of Positive Thinking. Also, let’s not forget about Napoleon Hill’s book Think And Grow Rich from 1936. Hill wrote that book and launched it right after the Great Depression, and the focus was on making money and becoming rich. Along with The Power of Positive Thinking, that book provided some excellent advice on attracting the things you want.
All written in different generations, those books share the same message: pay attention to your thoughts, remain positive, and stay focused on your goals. Never give in to any self-criticism or doubts, and keep concentrating on what you want, visualize, and before you know it, you will have it. However, Byrne, who released The Secret right around the time social media became popular, perverted the Law of Attraction. That is why you cannot make a great comparison to that book to the previous ones written in that niche. Before delving into why let’s firstly talk more about The Secret.
What Is The Secret, And What Is The Message From The Book?
Byrne’s The Secret is essentially about the Law of Attraction, but the book has it all wrong. The basics of the Law of Attraction are that whatever you focus on in life expands, and whatever you allow to consume your thoughts will come into your life. Therefore, if you focus on the things you do want, you will attract them, whereas if you focus on the things you don’t want, you will end up with them too.
The previous authors of any books about the Law of Attraction and manifestation did not delve into how it works. However, Bryne did this by conjuring up misinformation and nonsense about how it works. For example, she stated in her book that the principles outlined in The Secret are because the Universe consists of energy which all has a frequency. Therefore, she said that your thoughts send out a frequency behind her, saying, “like attracts like.” That means the frequency of your thoughts will attract other energies that resonate with them. That is how you will attract good things if you send out positive energies through your thoughts or bad things if you send out negative energies through your thoughts from the Universe.
An example of what was used in The Secret was is if all you think about is not having enough money, you will constantly have debt and remain poor. But, on the other hand, if you only think about being rich, you will become wealthy. Or, if you think you will always struggle to lose weight, you will remain overweight no matter how much you try to lose it. Or, if you imagine yourself slim no matter what you eat, you will end up slender. Does that sound realistic to you? Not really. There is a grain of truth in The Secret. But, there is always a grain of truth in anything that spreads disinformation and misinformation. Let’s now talk about how The Secret gets the Law of Attraction wrong and how it can damage you.
How Can The Secret Cause Harm To Those Who Want To Improve Their Lives?
Let me ask you this question. If you feared negative thoughts because you feared that one negative thought or feeling would cause you to manifest the very thing you don’t want, what planted that worry in your mind? If you think back on that, you would likely remember it was from The Secret.
That is because Byrne sent the message that for you to manifest what you want, you must always think positive thoughts and always stay focused on the thing you are manifesting into your life. If you sway away from that and allow one negative thought into your mind, you will ruin what you attempt to manifest. That is dangerous because you are human, you will have positive and negative thoughts, and the healthiest thing to do is acknowledge those thoughts and release them. Then, after removing them, you can focus on your prize.
However, instead, you will resist having a negative thought come to your mind, which will make you suppress it and ignore it. Stored negativity in your body will not only cause you to lose your focus on what you want to manifest, but it can cause a lot of health problems.
Not only does The Secret cause you to fear having any negative feelings or thoughts, but it also causes you to ignore anything negative in your life. For example, it sends a message that if you think you are sick, immediately imagine yourself healthy instead of acknowledging that you are and that you may need to see a doctor. It also sends a message to you to avoid any confrontations because that is negative when the healthiest thing you can do to resolve any conflict is to go through with it.
Additionally, The Secret sends a message to imagine what you want and puts less emphasis on taking action. That means if you imagine becoming a millionaire because of earning a lot of money through investments, you are told to write yourself a check for $1,000,000 and to make an investment no matter how risky it is so you can make it happen. But, unfortunately, the reality is that you could make a risky investment without looking into it first or talking to any financial specialists and end up taking a devasting loss instead.
Therefore, The Secret sends you fearful thoughts about having any negative and human thoughts and emotions. But, it does not emphasize that you have to take action on manifesting what you want, but it is so devoid of reality that it is frightening. So, now, let’s look at a scenario of someone utilizing The Secret, which harms them.
A Scenario Of Someone Using The Secret To Attract Their Ideal Partner
A woman who has been tired of being single for years, Sarah wanted to attract someone good-looking, charming, and wealthy. Sarah read The Secret, and now she knew what to do. She knew that by imagining her dream man and visualizing him all of the time, she would once and for all attract him. So one night, she went to a bar with her friends and found a very handsome man who had a high position at a company making six figures a year. Sarah got excited and thought that she had attracted her dream partner at the bar. She approached him and found that he was incredibly charming and confirmed that The Secret worked. The man’s name is Charlie.
However, after having a few dates with Charlie, which were dream dates because he loved everything she loved and treated her like a queen, he started changing for the worse. Charlie began to devalue Sarah and became abusive towards her. Little did she know, she ended up hooking up with a true narcissistic man and only cared about Sarah because she was his supply.
Therefore, The Secret caused Sarah to only focus on the delusional aspect of what she wanted. Indeed, Charlie presented red flags each time he went on dates with her, but she ignored them because The Secret sent the message always to ignore anything negative. Thus, The Secret perverts the Law of Attraction by causing delusional positive thinking by omitting reality and necessary negativity. That is not how the Law of Attraction works! If you have The Secret and have not yet read it, it is best to toss it away.
