I have been practicing The Secret and now The Magic for six months. Most people in the 21st century have millions of things going on in their heads every second of each day, go around in a kind of cyclical situation, and are never able to look outside this, and I was one of those people. It’s absolutely true; every single person who has contributed to both books and The Secret movie has stated that you have to feel the emotion now. If you don’t do this in your mind, it’s a bit like writing out a shopping list, tearing off the pages, and throwing the list in the bin. Life has many facets and spins on a very deep axis, and I’m just beginning to realize what incredible gifts we have as humans if only we knew how to use them!! It’s not complicated or complex, but you must make feeling and visualizing things a way of life. This can absolutely be incorporated into your daily schedule, even when you’re going about your day at work. It really is like “play-acting” in our minds. Children have the unique ability to do this, but as adults, when we experience life’s stresses and responsibilities, we lose this art.

I’ve had huge support from friends who I’ve told about my new way of life. I write down ten things I am grateful for every day. Then, I visualize each thing for a couple of minutes; the whole process takes about 20 minutes. I meditate for 10 minutes per day. Each time I eat or drink, I mentally feel grateful and then spend 1 minute before I fall asleep thinking of the best thing that happened to me that day. It is not a huge ordeal. Most people can fit gratitude into their lifestyle. A lot of people discuss or dwell on negative behavior automatically, without realizing it, and don’t see the implications of their actions. As like attracts like, the Universe basically says, “Your wish is my command,” and grants a negative thought. I have, over the last six months, switched my mindset around. It’s not an overnight thing. It does take time; there is no magic wand you can wave to achieve this, but I can honestly say that if more people spent as much time programming their state of mind as they do their mobile phones, the world would shift and spin on a completely different axis – guaranteed!!

Once I had finished reading The Magic, I felt truly blessed to be finally practicing a principle so simple, one that people had already been practicing for thousands of years, but was kept “secret”!! The most critical factor, and I cannot stress this enough, is to “feel and visualize” what it is you want, like you already have it. You have to play with your mind and trick it into believing that you already live your desired lifestyle all day long whilst going about your current routine. Your mind is not clever enough to decipher whether your thoughts are real or imaginary, so it has to give you what you want. Like attracts like. It’s true human beings do have power way beyond their imagination or scope, and they also have a way of “quitting” something if they don’t get immediate results. I’m still mastering this, but I have seen some results so far.

A couple of weeks back, I was out and about traveling by train, and a job interview came into the inbox on my mobile. You must log in to the site via a username and password to accept the interview, then choose a time to attend from the list. I was unable to do this from my phone. Ten minutes later, I looked at my phone again and the interview had automatically gone through and a time allocated to me. I was really happy but a bit baffled, so I called the agency the next day, mentioning this to the customer service officer. He told me he couldn’t understand how this automatic time had been allocated without my having been logged into the system and said he would look into it. However, he did congratulate me on being selected for the interview and wished me luck. I had been visualizing getting an interview in this particular organization for weeks straight up!! The more you practice gratitude, the more profound it becomes over time, but it’s not like clicking your fingers. You really have to be persistent, have determination, and, more importantly than all these things, belief in yourself that you can change your life if you want to.

If it suits you better, spend a lifetime practicing negativity and lack if you feel you can accomplish everything this way. I tried this for 45 years of my life. I accomplished nothing, had lack, and was discontented as a result. For the first month, I found practicing The Secret and gratitude very difficult indeed, to the point where I almost gave up. I hated writing ten things I was grateful for, as there seemed initially to be nothing, having been raised in a “ME, ME, ME” society. I didn’t quit, I persevered, and now it’s an automatic thing for me to do, like brushing my teeth at night. I notice stuff nowadays, like tiny details when I’m out and about, that I would literally have overlooked before. When you get your mind and general mentality on the correct axis, such as being grateful for small things from the heart, the rest comes with more practice.

Gratitude has to come from within first; you cannot just demand that you want this and that right now. Unless you practice, you will not perfect it, and what you achieve, you can have more of. I would urge anyone wanting to learn to be more grateful to re-train their mind over several months to think positively and then continue on this new course. I am a newbie at it, but I never miss a day.

I stumbled on The Secret by accident whilst searching on the internet for something else. After reading the book, I then loaned it to my friend’s mother, as she loves to be positive in her outlook. I wish I could share gratitude with the whole world.

Rhonda Byrne lives her life by The Secret principles, and I’m glad to say that I now, too, have this gift in my life. I hope that everyone who reads this true story understands that this is spoken from the heart. My life is still in a transitional stage, but it is changing daily for the better!! Thank goodness!!

Here is a quote from the book The Magic: “We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Thank you to the Universe, and thank you to all of you so very much!