Admittedly, I am a gullible person, plus I’m a child of the 60’s, so through my late teens and twenties, I was marinated in the lore and memes of the New Age. Actually, I love being a child of the 60’s, for the late 60’s and 70’s were a wonderful time to come of age, even though we witnessed and were shaped by the tragic assassinations of JFK, Martin Luther King, and Bobby Kennedy in the short space of 5 years.

As part of my cultural inculcation, I have been exposed to, believed, and even practiced the principle of the Law of Attraction for 35 years.

Now just in case, you missed learning the Law of Attraction as part of your education, basically it states that “All forms of matter and energy are attracted to that which is of a like vibration”.

Personally, I do find the Law of Attraction to be extremely useful as a reminder that my mind does in fact have a very powerful effect on my mood, both of which affect my sense of power in the moment, and what kind of actions I am able to take.

[Except when I don’t, which is when I am mired and wallowing in my negative patterns, and I don’t want to take responsibility, for crissake, and get to a better space. No, thank you very much, I’d rather be mad or depressed and hope that someone else will come along and make things better for me. Fortunately, though not for my husband, only he is privileged enough to see this unrepentant aspect of me!]

So when the film, The Secret, came out in 2006, I initially fell hook, line, and sinker for it, and contributed to the viral phenomenon whereby the film swept the globe. Just in case it passed you by, it is a film of New Thought proponents and teachers, teaching “the secret”, in fact an ancient core of belief based on the tenets of “Ask, Believe, and Receive.”

Now the film IS and can be wonderfully inspiring at particular moments; it can offer hope, and help you press the reset button, some of the time. It can help you get unstuck and get to the next level that you are capable of.

The problem though is that faith and/or belief in The Secret isn’t going to do it for most people, it isn’t going to get them to their fullest expression of what success is for them.

For although we can learn new skills and ways of doing things, if they aren’t natural talents and strengths, we often do not use them when the moment requires us to.

Even if we’re pretty good at a lot of things, we will never get the same result, or bang for the buck, if we aren’t naturally wired for that strength, that is, if it isn’t coded into our DNA. The truth is that everything about who we are and what our potential is, is in our blueprint.

It is written, as they say.

Of course, there are a relatively few extremely gifted people who can and do practice The Secret, and have truly extraordinary success [though who knows what dark secrets lurk beneath the visible surface?].

What we’re missing in the public domain is the knowledge that our strengths are coded for in our DNA. Everything about who we are, our physical predispositions and susceptibilities, our cognitive complexity, our personality, our attention to detail, how we do or don’t take action, our emotional and neurologic sensitivity, how we make meaning about the world….you name it, it’s coded in your DNA.

So we’ve got whatever it is we’ve got, and we ain’t got what we ain’t got. And if we ain’t got it, The Secret Ain’t Gonna Allow Us To Get It, because we simply don’t have the means to do so.

[I’ve learned this the hard way more than once I'm embarrassed to say, as I invested sizable amounts of money in others’ people’s programs, who swore that if they could do it, so could we. That’s the biggest marketing swindle there is.]

Thus, the blank slate theory, the scaffolding on which The Secret rests, the theory that we can be anything we want to be, is dead. It’s kaput.

It’s a cultural meme but it’s a myth. And the longer we hold onto it, the longer we will keep running into walls, and then wondering why we’re not being as successful as we want to and as we know we could.

Why is this so?

It’s because we don’t fully know and understand our talents and strengths. A life that works is a life built around your talents and strengths, and the wisdom and strategy to understand how to maximize and optimize those.

There are loads of assessments out there to help you see and understand your talents and strengths. [Note that a strength is a combination of talent, skills, and knowledge, so many of us have talents that haven’t yet been fully developed.]

Of course, I have my favorites that I use with my clients. I love the assessment part of my work as a tool for facilitating self-knowledge, because people suddenly have all these light bulbs go off, and additionally, a new set of levers to pull in how they manage themselves and interact with the world [If of course, they really utilize the knowledge, and this is where coaching can be so useful.]

I really do think there should be an Eleventh Commandment: “KNOW THYSELF!”

If you’re curious to learn more about your talents and strengths, a great place to start is to buy yourself a copy of StrengthsFinder 2.0: A New and Upgraded Edition of the Online Test from Gallup’s Now, Discover Your Strengths , by Tom Rath. In the back of the book, there’s a code you can use to take their online assessment and get a cool report of your top five talents.

Now that I’ve been a professional coach for 10 years, a counselor and therapist for 30 years, and a seeker my whole life, I can unequivocally say that the gold does not lie in The Secret. It lies in knowing and optimizing your talents and strengths, and accepting that you can’t be everything.

What have you learned about strengths?

At one point on New Year’s Day, in a fit of zeal to create yet more order, I found myself lying on the floor cleaning out old wadded up Kleenex and a dense mat of cat hair that had accumulated under the bed (obviously beyond the reach of the vacuum cleaner, and yes, I am not a compulsive cleaner)

So there I was, lying on the floor, arm extended as far as possible, neck awkwardly cricked as I clawed and raked up the cat hair with my hand, compliments of Guy and Chloe, my two spoiled gorgeous long-haired cats.. Not coincidentally, as I was doing this, I was thinking about and feeling down about what I haven’t accomplished yet though have certainly intended.

I guess this habit comes from being Jewish and growing up with the significance of the ten days that begin with Rosh Hashanah, which marks the Jewish New Year, and ends with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

On the Day of Atonement, we seek to become at-one with ourselves and others for the ways we have missed the mark in the previous year. So it can be a time of mourning (even in small ways), giving ourselves forgiveness and seeking forgiveness from others, and subsequently, it serves as a cleansing. It is this cleansing that allows us to begin anew.

But where was I, oh yes, I was on the floor….when I realized what a great metaphor it was to be finding the floor again at this moment in the year when it is our collective obsession to think about new beginnings.

I mean it really felt good, crouching and lying in these awkward positions yet determined to clear out the gunk. Yom Kippur as the Day of At-Onement is all about paying attention to the details. [Not having a habit of yoga, but having done enough of it over the years to know, I think it’s fair to say that being on the floor like this was a kind of yoga.]

So here’s a secret of mine…I know this may sound a little weird but finding the floor is an ongoing life preoccupation of mine.

If there’s any possibility you’ve had less than perfect parenting (despite their best intentions of course), then you may have some holes in your floor or gunk (as in the form of relational, mental, emotional, energetic if not actually physical stuff) making it hard for you to find the floor.

I certainly do, and at times, I suddenly have this panicky feeling that I’ve fallen through the floor, and am quickly being swallowed up by a pit of quicksand. Now even though I’m trained as a psychiatrist (one of my many identities), I’m not sure just how many others have this particular experience, but I know I can’t be the only person who mostly always looks like I have it all together, yet inside we’re still wondering who the heck we are, or who we want to be when we grow up.  [At this point, however, I can unequivocally say that I have never wanted to think of myself as Ms. Peter Pan-nette].

My point is, that sometimes you really have to get back on the floor, clawing away the dirt, the muck, the cat hair, or whatever form of crud is keeping you from experiencing the solidity of your own floor to get back to that clarity and knowing of who you really are, your own solidity. You’ve got to get real. [I have always loved this quote from The Velveteen Rabbit]

And first, of course, you’ve got to look under the bed and to acknowledge that yes, indeedy, there is dirt [aka negativity] there - under the bed - where no one can see it but you.

In order to be a conscious human being, which has always been one of my aspirations (doubtless a legacy of being a child of the 60’s), you simply have to take the time to remember who you are, the Soul You, not the Personality-Wounded You.  And yet, at the same time, you have to acknowledge and have compassion for the Personality-Wounded You.

Connecting to the self, like vacuuming the floor including under the bed (sigh), is an ongoing discipline. It’s a mindfulness practice.

[This is kind of like going to the doctor, and being told that if you really want to feel good, you need to stop eating Kentucky Fried Chicken, stop smoking and caffeine (even if you're macrobiotic), eat lots of vegetables, and start exercising at least 3 times a week.  Now. Right. But hopefully, sooner or later, the pain of what’s not working requires us to let go of the old, accrued, gunk that keeps us from being the best we can be]

Some resistance is normal until, the new habit kicks in, and then, there’s typically a profound sense of relief and well-being that starts to feed on itself. That’s what we’re all looking for, right? More ease, more well-being, whatever those mean to you.

And of course, it’s very possible you will continue to feel resistance, and that’s okay as long as the resistance doesn’t become the habit.

Most of my clients and friends, know what practices keep them connected to who they are, that serve as their floor that supports them. For one, it’s playing her violin. For another it’s meditation and yoga. For another, it’s journaling. For me, I have come to learn that it’s exercise, meditation, and writing.

I talked in my last post about being in the flow, but to have flow, first you gotta get real and have at the floor!

I’d love to hear how you stay connected to who you are!