I was watching the Oprah Book Club and started to take a few notes on my computer and I suddenly lost the feed. Seeing that over 700,000 people were in this class via internet, I am not surprised. In the few minutes I had until I lost the feed, I was in awe of the messages that were in my mind. The messages I have been getting since I was first introduced to “The Secret.” Eckhart Tolle has taken the principal of “The Secret” to new heights for me. Some experienced it differently, by reading his book and then discovering the movie “The Secret.”
In preparation for this viewing I had in front of me, a note book with questions in it, and the outline that I printed from the class preparation materials, the book, and my mother’s bible.
My mother passed away 25 years ago, and I lived believing that she left after spending time with her minister everyday, preparing herself, I suppose, for her journey to heaven, and saying goodbye and I love you to all family and friends…except me. I was the person who turned their life upside down, gave up the business I was opening, and just packed up and went to live with my mother so she could be released from the hospital. I took her for her radiation and chemotherapy treatments until she chose to stop them. I then took over her nursing care, learning to take care of all her needs, because she was very private about her body. I would never have done these things for anyone in my lifetime, but I did this for my mother, and yet she left the earth without even saying, Thank you or I Love You to me.
I wrestled with these thoughts for so many years until shortly after my sister’s passing, when I saw the cast of “The Secret” on Oprah one day and immediately began to absorb “The Secret” and live the Law of Attraction. One of the days I was watching the movie on my television, which is on an entertainment center in my living room; I glanced around for a moment and noticed that my mother’s bible was on the shelf in front of me. I had not put it there and my children certainly did not, they would not have known what it was. I was still mad at God for my mother’s passing and for so many things that took place in my life after that. I still prayed every night and tried to be a good person and raise my children teaching them the right things to do. I just didn’t focus on my spiritual relationship with God anymore. But I got up off the couch, picked up the bible and opened to the first page, and inside it said:
Proverbs 22:6
Train up a child in the way he should go; and when he is old he will not depart from it.
And then this:
Acts 17:28
For in him we live and move, and have our being; for we are also his offspring.
My mother had said good bye…. but she left my message in her bible, which is why she wrote in her notebook, the things she specifically wanted each person to have to remember her by. I was so lost in my hurt and anger that I didn’t look for the message. I believed it was too late. She was gone. But there was the message 25 years later. How did I not look in the bible? How did I not treasure it as something that was hers? I was too lost in the pain of her leaving without ever…saying, I love you to me, my whole life. I heard her tell the grandchildren when they were young. I heard her tell every family member and friend that came to see her before she passed, but I never heard her say it to me.
About 6 months before my mother died, I buried my six mo nth old daughter Gillian. Most of my family did not even know I had her. My mother was embarrassed that I had a child out of wedlock. She got a leave from the hospital to come and see Gillian before she (Gillian) went in for surgery. My mother left that day with these words. “Well, I guess if Gillian makes it I will too.” Well, Gillian did not make it and I had to go to the hospital to tell my mother. When I called to talk to my Uncle, who was a Funeral Director, my Aunt got on the phone and said to me, “Ann-Marie, I didn’t even know you had a baby.” I’m sure the fact that my mother was embarrassed by me just added to my hurt. She was in the hospital the day that my daughter died. I went from the hospital my daughter died in, to the hospital my mother was in, to tell her the news. When I got there, she already knew, someone had already told her. I was upset that I had to actually go there and tell her, then to find out that she already knew, was even more painful.
I buried my daughter and then packed up to go and live with my mother until she passed away. I didn’t really even think about these losses for quite a few years later. When I did, the other issues in my life were just too much to even think about these things. I married an abusive man that cheated on me for ten years and I allowed myself to be victimized by his abuse and by turning a deaf ear to his philandering, even when it was with, what I considered, my best friend.
Five years into the marriage I was finally strong enough to put my ex husband out and get on with raising my children. I worked three jobs and did whatever it took to make sure my children never knew we were poor. We moved, by the grace of God, into subsidized housing in a beautiful rural town and I was finally able to pay all of the bills and manage to not work so many jobs all of the time. I took a job driving a school bus for special needs children so I could be home when the children were. When I first started I would take them with me and we always had the same days off so it was the perfect solution. I did that for 10 years.
When I started to obsess over “The Secret”, everyone around me began to think there was something wrong with me, that I was having a nervous breakdown. I began to have issues with just about everyone around me. Despite all of the disappointments and anger, I was feeling stronger, because none of the things that were upsetting me, were anywhere close to the pain I felt for all those years, thinking my mother never loved me. I quit smoking after 40 plus years, I lost 47 pounds and stopped using the excuse that I needed to drink alcohol every night to sleep. I found for awhile, that I had little tolerance for people with drug and alcohol issues, and severed some very difficult relationships. One of those relationships was my youngest son.
I believed that when I began to change that my children would follow me, but I found that not to be true. My youngest son seemed to get worse and it seems now, like it got worse as I got better. Maybe it was the same, but I just never saw it until I stopped abusing myself. My mind was clearer than ever and I began to get over the illness that was keeping me trapped in the house. I started walking again and I would walk and listen to James Taylor, with tears in my eyes, just for the beauty of walking. Just for the beauty of breathing, how energetic and happy I felt. I could see people around me starting to see me change, some resented it, and others wanted to have it themselves. It still is that way. Not everyone will see things the way I do, I would now, never expect them to.
When I began reading “A New Earth”, I immediately felt that I was attracted to it, and understood Eckhart Tolle’s purpose in writing the book. There are many more people in the world, just like me that are seeing things this way. Some people call it new age religion. A woman asked Oprah about that tonight on the show. Oprah’s response was perfect; she said “A true path of spirituality enhances what your religion already is. Jesus came to earth to teach us the Christ Consciousness. The kingdom of heaven is here within you.” I have said that to myself since I first started to apply the principles of “The Secret” to my life. God is within me. I have always believed that my relationship was with God not so much the church.
When Eckhart Tolle talked about whether this book was waiting for him to write it or asked himself what life wants from him, I already had that in my mind. I have been asking God for the past year what my purpose is, and I am still waiting for the answer. I’m not sure if this is the answer but I am learning to quiet my mind so I can hear the answer. Everything in my life is The Law of Attraction in action. I can see it all around me, in everything I say, do, see or hear. I am learning to live within, so what I see without will be me.
This to me is the most amazing part of this whole experience, when I heard about this book and Oprah having the book club online, I was actually doing a search for a new business idea to see if people were doing online book clubs. So I was definitely attracted here. I will just have to keep quieting my mind until God speaks to me, or I discover it by Law of Attraction. I feel such a genuine attraction to everything, and the expectancy I feel, waiting for the answer, is both frightening, but also exhilarating, neither of which I plan to give up, until I know the answer. What my purpose is. I know this much, my purpose is in service, and I will soon be shown the way.
Make a choice to watch it, read it or live it…but at least try it, and remember this:
THE SECRET
Thoughts do become things.
There are no coincidences.
Miracles are all around us.
Ask, Believe and you will receive.
It all begins with baby steps.
Image by dannie4852 via Flickr
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