In spite of the common bulls#!t recently spouted by the authors of The Secret, I do understand and believe in the power of positive thinking. A person can make huge changes in their thinking just by choosing to focus on something they want rather than something they don’t want.
What’s wrong with the book? The idea that the law of attraction exists:
To put it in the most basic terms, if someone is overweight, it came from thinking “fat thoughts,” whether that person was aware of it or not. A person cannot think “thin thoughts” and be fat. It completely defies the law of attraction. (Stupid quote from the book)
The refutation of the irrational law of attraction is simple: look at the cases in which it is simply not true. Some examples:
- People do not “attract” car accidents
- People do not “attract” being born in an impoverished country
- A baby does not “attract” sexual abuse
- People do not “attract” congenital diseases
And people do not lose weight by ostracizing fat people:
If you see people who are overweight, do not observe them, but immediately switch your mind to the picture of you in your perfect body and feel it. (Insultingly idiotic quote from the book)
Here they take a made-up factoid, and apply their irrational principle to create an even more insane principle:
The most common thought that people hold, and I held it too, is that food was responsible for my weight gain. That is a belief that does not serve you, and in my mind now it is complete balderdash! Food is not responsible for putting on weight. It is your thought that food is responsible for putting on weight that actually has food put on weight. Remember, thoughts are primary cause of everything, and the rest is effects from those thoughts. Think perfect thoughts and the result must be perfect weight.
Let go of all those limiting thoughts. Food cannot cause you to put on weight, unless you think it can. (Utterly irrational quote from the book)
Food being “responsible” for weight gain is not the “most common” thought people hold. How did they find out what “the most common thought” is? People sometimes synthesize desired statistics using surveys skewed to provide the answers they want. I don’t know if that’s what happened here. They could have taken the even easier path of just assuming it’s true, or who knows what else.
People know that EATING food in excess of what the body can metabolize puts on weight. It is the decision to eat more than you need that causes weight gain. And boy, is it hard to make different decisions on a permanent basis.
The principle that IS true is that you can change your thinking and change your life, within certain limits. Some of the limits include
- Your past – you cannot change what has already happened, but you can change how you react to it
- The randomness of life – you can avoid risk and pursue what you want, but sometimes shit just happens
- Other people – if you encourage someone to change, they may or may not do it, but they make the change, not you
- Physical limits – you cannot survive in outer space without a pretty damn good spacesuit, although I’m quite willing to suggest the authors of “The Secret” give it a try
Moving past the stupidity of The Secret, visualizations can really improve your ability to make good choices. I certainly used visualizations in a negative way for decades to beat myself up for not being perfect. Now, I’m learning to use them in a positive way.
A year ago, my thoughts were filled with questions and fears surrounding hunger and fullness. I didn’t have much experience with physical hunger. After a lot of practice and convincing myself that hunger is nothing to fear, and after working on the reasons for the fear, I don’t fear hunger. Instead, I’m now choosing to look forward to, and visualize, the time in which I regularly eat the amount of food that is in correct proportion to my metabolism and my (lower) natural weight. This is a successful process, and it doesn’t require that I ostracize fat people. Hell, I AM fat people! And I would never pass up a chance for a hug or interaction from any of my loved ones who happen to be fat.
Links:
About the stupidity of The Secret:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17314883/site/newsweek/
The overweight quote from the book:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17317691/site/newsweek/
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