More dog food - when the dumps capture your spirit...

I'm about two weeks into this 30-day program and hit a bit of an uphill grind. As I got into this, I got a lot more energy, but after some time, simply playing "The Secret" DVD/Soundtrack in the background didn't seem to have the same effect. My spirits sagged.

Now this is just what I predicted: "The situation to watch for is that within the first three days or so, more or less, that habit you are trying to change will kick in much harder than you usually experience. Your cravings will peak and subside, usually in about a week, and then taper off as the new habit takes over."

That "three days or so", isn't a set deal. Not all habits will be changed in three weeks or less. The thing to realize in re-programming yourself is that you are changing many, many interlocked habits all at once. So the defenses these have will kick in and out, trying to shift you back to the old patterns. The trick, as Hill devotes a whole chapter to, is persistence.

Using "The Secret" as a core theme program has a very interesting approach, in that it asks you to feel positive, to feel gratitude, to watch out for things that don't make you feel good, that don't bring you peace.

As your attitudes are completely under your control, you can see that any non-optimal/negative feeling entering your space can be changed. As you can analyze your own scene, it becomes very interesting to take these thoughts apart and find how you may have attracted this into your world. There is a particular person at work, who is a bit critical of everyone around him, likes to play practical jokes, etc. He made a comment which got under my skin. But then I turned the tables on him - I saw that I was in the middle of chewing over some old relationship I had been in years prior when he made that comment. Before that and after that, he hardly said a word to me. So my prior point in re-experiencing negative scenes I had been in had set the stage to attract his comment. I just got back to feeling good about things (found something I was grateful for, as per "The Secret" and you'll note above that "after that ... he hardly said a word to me."

One teacher on this DVD said that when you are feeling good and someone around you comes in in a bad mood, you will actually wind up in another space from that person.

Good feelings attract good manifestations. You are changing your world by getting into habitually feeling good all the time, regardless of the situations which happen in the world around you.

Some interesting thoughts which have been coming in are self-doubt, especially about money. However, I also have had several checks via PayPal show up in my account during this same period - these are based on earlier work I did with my Lulu storefront. As well, I just approved a contract with a publisher from Down Under. While one could simply say, well this is all the result of the hard work you've been putting in - but Wattles points out that these things will come through "the ways of established trade and commerce".

But people are "lucky" to the degree they use gratitude in their life and have faith in themselves. While they may have taking the intuitive step to improve their business situations, all these things really just are happening because a person thinks that way - and agrees with the various systems and cultural organization around that person.

The trick in any 30-day or longer program of reorganizing and re-programming one's life, is to keep to the course you set and re-establish that course as needed while you go. And so the reason for keeping a certain tape, MP3 or DVD playing every day during this period.

Then compare notes at the end of that time period to see what you still need to fix, or what new level you would like to achieve at that point. Some have told me that in this universe, you either go up or go down. Others have held that when you stop learning, lie down brother - for you are dead and don't know it. There is really no limit to what any individual can improve in his/her life.

Why not test this for yourself?