The Real Secret

Before you even think to ask I wanted to get that out of the way.

I not only read "The Secret" but I watched the movie, saw them on Oprah, and pored over the website.

And I felt pretty cocky about it all because I, a graduate of one whole entire upper-level philosophy course in college knew the Law of Attraction was old news.

To be fair, a few theologians, martyrs, saints, Popes, world leaders, civil rights activists and scientists have also, apparently, taken said upper-level philosophy class, but that is not the point.

The point is: I was with it. I was in on the Universe's equivalent of the Vanity Fair Oscar party - I was a celestial socialite.

I was bopping along manifesting parking spaces and loose change in pockets when I realized that I knew the secret, but not the truth.

Unhappy, depressed and desolate I could not figure out why The Secret had not brought me my greatest wish: happiness. I told people I wanted to manifest myself a winning lotto ticket and a trip to Carnival in Brazil but my heart knew the truth.

After eighteen months of death and divorce and illness and comeuppance I want to laugh again.

Not that forced sitcom laugh track kind of laugh either. No, I want to laugh like you use to do when your best friend still chose you over a man, when cute guys bought drinks and when serious laughter caused as much pain as joy. Ever felt sake shoot up through your sinus cavity and out of your nostrils while trying not to choke?

Yeah, I want the joy that kind of laughter hides behind.

So why isn't The Secret bringing me what I want?

I've thought a lot about it and I'm no astrophysicist ostracized by the academic community but I am an expert on me. And my truth is I have not made room for the kind of joy I want to experience.

Sure, my life is empty. With no love interest, no real career, no children, no siblings and no dreams that I can remember, it would seem I have room for all kinds of joy! Hell, I've even got some closets with nothing in them. But while my life is empty my heart and mind are full of regrets, shame and doubts.

My secrets are keeping me from The Secret.

A wise woman with a fancy medical degree from an Ivy League school said to me, recently, that until you can think of those who have aggrieved you and sincerely pray that they be blessed, they are still controlling you.

With a free degree from a second-tier college, I'll add that until you can think of yourself, with all of your dings and flaws, your true self, and wish - with no caveats and no limitations - that you have everything your heart desires; until then the Secret is, for you, a joke.

There's the you that your friends and coworkers know. There is the you your parents and siblings know. Then there is the you that only you and your diary know - the one who stole that thing that time; that manipulated that situation to their benefit; that chose an easy wrong when they knew the right thing to do.

Have you forgiven that person?

Can you look that person eye-to-eye, or rather, spirit-to-spirit and wish for them a future where they are not punished but infinitely blessed?

I'm still working on it. I'm working on loving my penchant for procrastination and my willingness to share every thing I have. I am working on forgiving myself every bad relationship and every third chance I should not have given. And I'm working on owning up to the hand I should have extended, the people I should have invested in and didn't.

The real secret, if you ask me, to having everything you desire in life is to think you deserve it. I'm not talking baseless entitlement here. No matter how much you think it's the Bentley and five carat flawless solitaire you want, if you look beneath the trappings you discover what you really covet: belonging, comfort, peace, freedom, devotion. Those things - if you can divest yourself of the American penchant for packaging things as needs - they are all quite possible for every one, every day.

The secret is making room for all of those feelings in your internal life, tossing out any notions of what they should like and enjoying them when they inevitably appear because you know you deserve them.

That's the secret.

I know that to be true for each and every one of you.

When I know it to be true for myself, I'll be sure to let you know.