The Power [Audiolibro] [CD de audio]

"The Power", by Rhonda Byrne, is a book about the power of love. The author wrote "The Secret" in 2006 and it became a world-wide bestseller. The author promises that this book will add immeasurabley to what you learned in "The Secret".

My father suffered a heart attack and I was spending endless hours at the hospital. One evening, I went to Walmart and I noticed this book on the shelf. I was instantly drawn to it. I spent the next couple of days reading this book as I sat in the hospital. It was a very anxious time but this book helped me gain a different perspective. The "power" in this book is the power of love. Your life is made up of only two kinds of things...positive things and negative things. This book explains how your attitude and way of thinking can make bad things seem better.

Most of the information in this book comes from the New Thought Movement of the early 1900s. These authors taught the principles of positive thinking and the law of attraction. Ms. Byrne quotes many of these authors in this book but she also describes how these principles can be used in everyday life to produce positive results in your life.

My favorite chapter in the book is "Keys To Power". One of the topics in this chapter is the "key of gratitude." Everytime I start feeling down, I think of things that I am thankful for. I am soon feeling much better. Ms. Byrne says, "No matter what negative situation you may find yourself in, you can always find something to be grateful for, and as you do, you harness the force of love that eliminates negativity."

Positive thinking does not always come easy to me. I remember my mom telling me when I was a child, "All you ever do is grumble, gripe and complain." Children tend to live up to spoken expectations so I tend to see the cup as half empty instead of half full. I like this book because it reminds me that changing your mind can change your life. I have a decision to make.

When I was in seventh grade, I made my first "vision board." Of course, that was many, many years ago. Back then, I called it (among other things) my "dream poster." I cut up magazines and newspapers and did drawings of things I wanted to do and places I wanted to see. I also wrote in notebooks with different colored pencils a "diary" of all the things I had achieved in life -- before any of it could have actually happened. I focused on my desires. I read biographies and novels and watched movies about people who did what I wanted to do. I worked on making my dreams come true. I got into the schools I dreamed about. I owned a business -- back when the "glass ceiling" in business was proudly made out of solid cement! I took a trip to Europe, and got a newspaper to foot the bill for all the expenses. I danced professionally. Yep, I was on the stage at Lincoln Center once! Later on, I got yet another job of my dreams.

And, I did this while lots of people spun their wheels in the background telling me what a fool I was, that I should give up -- over and over and over again. I've faced ridiculous obstacles, and conquered them every time.

So, I guess I discovered "The Secret" before Rhonda Byrne made it popular. But, even Rhonda Byrne admits that it is not her invention at all! Dream. Focus on those dreams. Keep going, even when reality and so-called realists tell you that you are wasting your time.

I laugh when I read the one-star reviews for The Secret and The Power. Sooo many people have the answer, they think. It's just that their answer is always "no." No, you can't have more money. No, you can't have that career. No, you can't get into that college. No, you can't dance, can't sing, can't paint, can't..... anything. And, for them, people who keep moving on are stupid, because we can't see it their way.

Enjoy your negativity, folks. I can't imagine what I might achieve next. But, I assure you it won't be sitting on my rump insulting others who dare to dream, and dare to achieve.

The Power, by Rhonda Byrne is an excellent book, and I highly recommend it to anyone capable of thinking outside of narrow limitations.

Ok, before I talk about the book I feel I must share something. I just returned from a full weekend conference given by Hayhouse where their most prominent authors gave lectures, usually about two hours long. All of them write in the self-improvement or new age genres and so all of them were inspiring and uplifting. The thing is, there was SO much information given to me at one time...and so much of it would slightly contradict what the previous author had said...that I left unsure how much I had even absorbed. It wasn't until I returned home that "The Power" popped back into my head and that's when I realized just how valuable a book it really is.

"The Secret" absolutely talks about our feelings being even more significant than our thoughts or words when it comes to attracting the experiences we want. It's in "The Power", though that this is examined even further. For those who don't know, this "power" the author refers to is love :)

When I first picked up the book, I scoffed. You see, I had read and watched "The Secret" years ago when it first came out (ok, I think it was like five years ago...let's not be that dramatic). And while I absolutely loved it, I didn't experience the best results. I also started getting tired of constantly affirming and focusing on manifestion...it just became exhausting. So when I stumbled upon this new book in B&N (sorry Amazon), I thought, "well, here we go again." So I turned to a random page...and forever whatever reason, I was hooked.

I don't know why I didn't understand the whole "feeling" portion of "The Secret" because they DO absolutey cover it...but "The Power" really drills this into your mind. What I love about this book is that the author keeps the concepts very simple and then uses the bulk of the book to give you examples that I personally found incredibly inspiring. The basic concept is that everything in the Universe is either positive or negative...love or lack of love...light or dark. If you want to attract more positive things than negative things, all you have to do is tip the scale of your FEELINGS more to the positive side than the negative side. That's it! (and for anybody who just thought, "what do you mean THAT's IT"...careful...because that's negative ;)

Feelings are REALLY important when working with manifestation and I will tell you why. No matter what it is you want or desire...I really don't care what it is...the ONLY reason that you want to bring that into your life is because you believe you will FEEL better once you have it. Period and end of story. The heart is a huge magnet in the body and the frequency it sends out is POWERFUL!!! So if you want those things that will bring you happiness tomorrow, you must think of them from a loving, joyful place TODAY!!!

Better yet, you don't even have to "manifest" things, per say. Instead, you can simply practice falling in love with everything that is around you NOW. When you see something you love, you can feel happiness deep within your heart for that moment and then let it go. Just don't be surprised if that certain something keeps showing up in your life ;) The bottom line is that whatever emotion starts your day will most likely snowball and that's the emotion that will attract the experience you refer to as your future. So even if you aren't working on manifesting specific things, you can instead use the concepts taught in "The Power" simply to discipline yourself into attracting happier experiences, in general. Interestingly enough, some of the most successful people in this world didn't start out saying they wanted to be famous or make a million dollars. Instead, they just went about life with an open heart and asked themselves how they could help other people be happy. So keeping your heart open and acting from love can STILL bring you the things many people dream about, but without obsessing about manifestion.

One concept that I LOVE in this book is that it's impossible to feel bad in the exact moment you are having a good thought. When I first read this I laughed and rolled my eyes and then made a sincere effort to prove the author wrong...and I couldn't do it!!! The moment I could make myself feel bad, I had already changed my good thought into a bad one. So I continued the experiment the next day and you would have been amazed if you saw what happened. Literally one amazing and happy event and interaction with people was followed by another and another and another! A presentation that I had been anxious about the day before went WAY better than I could have EVER anticipated. My teachers (I was in a yoga teacher training) had given literally everybody else notes and yet after I gave my teaching presentation (after hours of ONLY thinking positive thoughts) they said, "wow...that was GREAT...um, we really don't have any notes for you at all." As I was smiling ear to ear, another student said, "well, nobody's going to want to go after THAT." (and mind you, there was nothing out of the ordinary spectacular about the presentation other than my heart was wide open both before and during!)

As far as criticism is concerned...well, this book is about love and the power behind it. So really, the people who criticize it are simply proving the concepts of the book to be true. If you think, "this book is stupid...all these books are the same....what a bunch of fluff...you've got to be kidding me..." well, all of those thoughts are followed with negative feelings and so people who think and FEEL that will be attracting plenty of negative experiences, hence writing a negative review. So in my experience, it couldn't be a problem with the book but rather how disciplined the reader is in applying the concepts CONSISTENTLY in their daily life. Are they really starting their day with meditation and getting in the most amazing, joyful state before starting their day? When they visualize their dreams are they just seeing pictures or are they adding the emotions on top of the pictures? If something unexpected happens...traffic jam, spilled coffee, long line at the grocery store (all a result of PAST feelings, by the way)...are they able to stay either neutral...or better yet, positive despite what is in front of their eyes?

It does take discipline to apply the principles in the book, but the GREAT news is that it feels AMAZING at the same time! Why? Because LOVE feels AMAZING!!! As "A Course in Miracles" says: everything in the Universe is either an Act of Love or a Call for Love. When you learn to make everything you do an act of love, you will attract more and more of it into your life, in ways you could least expect :)

I recommend this book SOOOOO highly (I mean, clearly)!!! And while I love all of the other authors out there and think that it's great to hear many differnt perspectives, the bottom line is that love is truly what makes the world go round. So if you want to read a million books, make sure this is one of them. And if you only want to read one book this holiday season, buy "The Power"!!!!

Thank you, Rhonda Byrne...you rock my world.

:)