In order to understand what is written here, it should be read in its entirety. Reading the first few lines or paragraphs to try and get the gist of what is being conveyed isn't going to work with this piece, sorry. What is written can't be summarized in tidy little sentences at the beginning and the end. There are no short cuts to knowing what is in this article, just as there are no short cuts to knowing how to change your life for the better.
Everyone these days seems to be talking about the power of positive thinking, law of attraction, how to ask for and get what you want, and believing that if they just "follow the steps set forth below" then whammo! they'll get just what they ask for, money will fall from the skies, their healthy glow will light up the night sky, and the love of their life will fall magically into their laps.
After buying the book, reading the book, buying the movie, and watching the movie, they can't wait to try this secret thing out, and they begin to "preach" this new-found knowledge to their friends, saying things like "if you just believe it, it will be so," and "you have to think positive and your life will change." When time passes and nothing has changed, or their life situation even gets a bit worse, they end up feeling confused and betrayed, and they go about their business and forget the secret because it doesn't work.
But, it does work. It really does, just not the way everyone says it does. It's not an overnight miracle thing. It's not something you can actually learn because you already know it. You've just forgotten it. It's not just ancient knowledge either, it is universal knowledge, and everyone has access to it.
Folks talk a lot about faith. I remember as a child, I went to a church other than the one I usually went to because they were giving out candy to any kids that showed up. So I showed up for my candy. But before they gave it to us, we had to listen to a sermon and then had to swear to everyone that we had faith in God. I didn't understand the concept of faith at the time, so I didn't step forward. I had to leave early, empty-handed, because I didn't say I believed in something I didn't know whether or not I believed in. Faith is not an easy concept for an adult, let alone an eleven year old child. And if you think it is, you're fooling yourself.
I've since found out that I have a strong faith and with faith all things are possible, but it's not because I thought if I proclaimed I had faith that somehow the faith would finally show itself to me. I always had faith and found it by witnessing it in myself. Not in others. Just in myself. That is the only way you can know faith. It is a very personal thing.
So, back to the power of positive thinking, and getting what you ask for and all the things that you're reading this article for in hopes of finding out how it works. I know how to do it-to ask for and receive things-not all things, and not all the time, but when it does happen, and happens so perfectly, you just have to sit back in awe and think, wow. And the thing is, you don't even know it's working when it's working; you don't figure it out until it's done its work and you're the recipient of what you asked for or a version of it you didn't even expect, and at this point, you believe in magic.
The only reason people can't fully manifest what they want in this life is because they've allowed doubt to pollute their belief system. This is the important part. We have always had this knowledge. We all have this knowledge. The only thing we need to do is rid ourselves of doubt and the belief system is once more able to alter our reality in any way, shape or form we desire. Again, we've always had this knowledge, but throughout our lives we've allowed negativity and useless information to cloud our base of knowledge. Doubt is the opposite of belief and is the only thing that stands in the way of our return to the most profound knowledge.
When I first started doing it, I didn't even know I was doing it. I was in my 20's and I started to find myself catching thoughts going through my head, and if they were bad thoughts, I'd give them my attention. I wouldn't just let them pop up and then back down again, I'd pull them up, think about them, and give them a positive spin, and then let them slide back down into my subconscious. I didn't even know I was doing this until one time I had a thought, didn't catch it, and the thought became reality. I remember it very clearly. I was driving down the road and all of a sudden a thought came into my head, just for a second that said something like, "I hope my tires are alright." I didn't catch it; I let it slip back down. It couldn't have been 5 or 10 minutes after that, that one of my tires blew, right there on the freeway. I was able to steer the car over to the side and someone helped me change the flat. That was my first conscious memory of "knowing," but I was too ignorant to understand it or realize I had been doing it subconsciously for quite some time. Some might say it was just my intuition, but it's more than that. If you catch the intuitive thought and re-shape it, you can change your reality. Don't doubt that you can do this.
After that, my way of thinking changed. Little by little, I started to recognize these thoughts that would pop up and I'd catch them, change them, and let them go back down just like before but now I was doing it consciously. Let me explain. Let's use the car tire again. If I had caught the thought about my tires being a worry, I might have said to myself something like "now that I said that, I won't have a flat tire," and although I don't have proof positive that my changing the thought from a negative one to a positive one is the reason I won't have a flat tire, I do have faith that that is what is happening. The universe is listening to me and changing my reality.
This whole thing isn't something that can be taught, I don't care how enlightened a teacher you are. People like Wayne Dyer and Rhonda Byrne know the secret, I have no doubt in my mind, but they can convey it to a million people, and maybe only one or two out of that many might fully grasp what the truth is behind the secret. And the reason is because it is something we knew but somehow forgot, and the only way to remember it is to allow it back into our consciousness. It takes years and years of catching and altering our thoughts, until the process again becomes natural.
For me, it is knowing that no matter what happens to me, I am blessed, and that what I ask for will be given to me IF it is meant to be given to me. I have almost completely erased doubt from my mind. I have so many stories of how my life has been changed by being aware of this gift, I could probably fill a book. Suffice it to say that the secret, or whatever you want to personally describe it as, does work, but it never will be something that can be written, read, and learned. It will always only come from one's complete and total faith in and re-connection to the source of knowledge of all that is.