The Secret According to Emma

I’m back. It’s been a month since I last wrote. I lost some numbers on the calendar –around 7 of them-- due to a pulled/strained/f-ed lower back or specifically the SI (sacro-ileac). Not something I’d recommend. After the excruciating pain subsided about four to five days in, I could at least settle down enough to read while I lay on ice then heat packs in between naturopath and acupuncture treatments (thank you, Doc Bergie). It’s bad when you have to call a friend over to get the landline phone out from under the futon where it had rolled impossibly out of reach. The worst though was when I had to muster up all my determination to sit and then stand up knowing the sharp pain that was going to immediately shoot through my body. It was about a six step process. Roll on side, curse; lift on elbow, call on the sharpest profanity; up to sitting, ow, ow, ow, ow; the final though requiring-the-most-intake-of-breath stand; don’t pass out because I’d have to start all over again; and then try to remember why I got up in the first place. This was not fun.

But here was the worst part. I had watched The Secret DVD a couple of days before I reached for the fateful water bottle in the backseat of my car, felt a snap then shooting pain and found that I could no longer stand erect. The Secret is a documentary that has gone from word of mouth and finally tipped over into wide media attention a la Oprah and thus become the latest embraced and mocked quantum physics, “you create your own reality” trend. Months ago a friend since grade school called me to insist that I get the DVD. I had every intention to look it up on the web but then forgot. Then I came across Bev at the Myrna picking up her loaner copy that had been dropped off there. She said that I could borrow it. Now, this is a very The Secret thing: set the intention (sure, Tricia, I’ll get it) and even though I forgot about it and didn’t do the next few steps of imagine and feel the result, the DVD fell into my lap. So I finally watched it. Once I got past the (to me) very hokey visuals and the idea that this principle had been lost and denied the masses until now, I had no argument with the basic point, the Law of Attraction. However I had a hard time believing that a starving child in Africa could accomplish what the little white, well-fed boy in the documentary did: cutting out a picture of a red bicycle from a catalogue, obsessing/imagining his ownership of it, and then finally getting it. Then again, it’s context, I suppose, that creates one’s greatest desire is (i.e. bicycle v. food, bicycle v. bringing your child back to life). The steps are straightforward: ask, believe, receive. What one puts out there is what one gets back. Put out negative, get negative.* Put out positive, get positive. Keep your mind and attitude in check and you will attract what you ask for. Fostering gratitude is crucial as well.

(* Insert: there is fundamental problem to imply that a parent "asked for" a child to be killed by a stray bullet or millions of people drew to them by negative thoughts devastating hunger or AIDS.)

I watched the DVD, thought positive thoughts, felt gratitude and what happened?! I ended up with a sprained back and laid up for a week. For one, on my best days, these kind of Secret deals including intercessory prayer and "you are what you think" philosophies really make me paranoid. I get obsessed with chasing the thoughts around my brain trying to catch up with the negative ones to beat them into submission and find and rally the positive because my life and all good things depend on it. (BTW, is there a difference between negativity and sophisticated sarcasm?) So when something like a thrown back comes flying out of left or right field, I rack my brain figuring out what I was thinking but knowing it’s too damn late, all the while saying, “I’m bloody grateful, okay? I am. I know I’m lucky and privileged and don’t take for granted that I can move, think, laugh, all righty roo? I am grateful already SO WHAT’S THE FUCKING PROBLEM?” This I yell to the universe.

My wise counselor/spiritual director, after ranting about my back and The Secret for about $40-worth of my session, told me, “Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” And since it was phallic Freud that described the cigar, it had to be true. Maybe bad-backs happen and I hadn’t somehow drawn it to myself. It took about five days to accept that, coinciding with the day my doc said that it very likely wasn’t a disc problem and just a hell of an outraged bundle of nerves out of whack. Let me throw in here that I have had times in my life that can be described as “a hell of an outraged bundle of nerves out of whack” but I’m not there anymore and haven’t been in a long while. I’ve got a great, relaxed, creative life here. So what gives?

I must put in here a couple of quick examples of paranoia-reinforcing experiences. Twenty-three years ago I fell asleep reading Something More, a book about claiming joy in life, and about three hours later I awoke to my apartment building on fire. I had to jump out of my second-story window to escape. I definitely got something more than I bargained for and don't believe it was joy. So either a cigar is just a cigar or I’ve got a dyslexic relationship to the Law of Attraction. I’ve also worked for two organizations that I ended up with an employment lawyer to broker mutual severance, organizations with lofty names including words like human understanding and reconciling. The shadow side lurks. In fact, key people who participated in the development of The Secret documentary are in conflict over who gets credit for the film and its origins. To one couple’s great credit, they are not suing because it takes “energy away from their own pursuit of the law of attraction.”

As my back got better, I was able to go out more. It was when I was sitting outside a bakery/cafe with Emma that I realized that Emma had mastered The Secret. I had spent about an hour of sipping my latte and reading the New York Times Book Review when out of the blue one of the young women from the bakery came out with a little doggie treat for Emma, “the very good dog.” I looked at Emma sitting so charmingly to receive her treat and realized she constantly draws treats to herself. (It helps that she is a golden retriever. If she was a wild boar, I don’t think she would be as successful.) I know Emma puts out a lot of treat energy and she does attract the biscuits back to her. “Treat, treat, treat,” she pants. When we go to the bank’s drive-up, she adds drool to the “believe and receive,” cocks her ear to the voice coming over the speaker, and leans forward when I get the treat-carrying capsule in the car to receive her beloved baked bones and my deposit slip. She is also pro-active in her search and retrieve of goodies (she does not retrieve balls by the way). At work, Ed does not give her treats when she begs, but later he comes in my office to give Emma what he calls “random reinforcement.” In actuality Emma may be still calling the shots with her power of attraction. For even when she sleeps, she imagines and believes, “treat, treat, treat, treat.”

Now two weeks after my bent-over pain, I realize that the week prior I had been tuned into people going on vacations or taking time off to hang out. Could my desire for time off attracted my back ailment? If so, I need to not only chase down the negativity but also clarify the positive desires. Vacation without pain. I’ve projected more monthly expenses over income before (many times) and wondered where the dough would come from only to have the above-mentioned fire or legal settlements bring in cash. Again, checks without lawyers or insurance companies. Cigars that are just cigars.

I don’t belittle The Secret. Being in tune with the universe, with one’s desires, and aligning oneself accordingly is a great way to live along with a fine dose of gratitude. But it is also good to recognize and allow anger, grief, frustration and indignation. These seemingly negative emotions are signals, process, storytellers, and essential warning signs. Other than that, what’s the harm with “pant/chant-ing, drooling, and receiving?” Gulp.