I was watching a good interview a few days ago where a Physicist reflected on his relief at refusing to be interviewed on the movie ‘The Secret’ and discussed how two of his colleagues regrettably made the mistake. I admit I never actually watched the film (and never plan to) but am very aware of its content which seems a central example of the dark side of the industry we call personal development and the way it can manipulate individuals vulnerability and not lead to anything we can fairly call personal growth.

The discussion spoke about the field of Quantum Physics and the way the many many unknowns in this can become hijacked and the secret seems to be a quite primary example. The idea that we can just focus on something and by making an energetic match it miraculously appears.

The person being interviewed spoke about someone following this advice with enthusiasm and needless to say it didn’t work.

I think this links to deeper issues in our culture currently. This idea you can literally just be whatever you want to be.

There’s an interesting looking book called SHAM by Steve Salerno who speaks about the damage of the self help movement. I didn’t agree with all he said by any means but could certainly connect with some of his points In his interview I saw.

The idea being used in a school of students all looking at themselves in a mirror each morning with the heading ‘you are looking at the most important person in the world’ titled above. Self help tools such as this certainly weren’t helping grades.

A somewhat cruel but fair discussion was made of the show X Factor and the many somewhat deluded participants having their dreams crushed by Simon Cowell. Did they really just hear themselves though?

As a Counsellor and wanting to help people as much as possible I’m always trying to sift through and find the gold to best help people and it’s fair to say help myself too. I’ve learned the hard way too and have fell victim to much stuff myself.

We live and learn.

I find with things like what I’ve just described there are often some good nuggets of truth mixed in. Something the first interview I mentioned here which I want to expand on discussed visualising mixed with the work obviously being done (omitted from The Secret) and people in sports practicing this.

Then I realised this is exactly what I had studied when I was reading Maxwell Maltz and Psychocybernetics. He discussed why the idea of the grinding it out and pure acts of will doesn’t really get us what we want often.

He discusses the need to nurture the self concept by processes of creative imagination and creative relaxation. By changing our opinions of ourselves (this can be done in therapy) and the locking onto our goal with our more creative mind as more of a step one (rather than the grind) then

the needed action taking place from here.

It is in no way whatsoever saying we don’t need to work or just imagine something and you’ll get it but rather cultivating a constructive sense of yourself, finding your aligned goal and as he put it allowing your cervo mechanism to lock on to the target.

Then almost like a guided missile our actions can follow. He introduces some great studies around the use of creative imagination and how sometimes it can even be better than actual practice as in in the case of sports people can imagine taking the penalty kick in the last minute of a game better in their mind then on a practice field.

It’s not to say any of this is full proof but I see here the useful nuggets to take away which are helpful. I would recommend and happily work with you to help you to cultivate a healthy sense of yourself and try to get some aligned goal of what you really want then maybe we could try to work

to this together using these kind of principles. It’s not to say you’ll get there but a healthy growth journey can certainly occur as you go through the process of finding yourself and your place.