en*light Life

(photos courtesy of christoperhoward.com)

The great thing about Christopher Howard’s three-day Breakthrough To Success weekend is that his passion for helping others live their lives to their fullest potential shines through.  Chris has a very thorough knowledge of his topics, and he infuses his transformational teachings with charisma and humor.  During the weekend Chris:

• Brings together the worlds of psychology, quantum physics, and spirituality to help participants experience true transformation over the course of the weekend. 
• Utilizes hypnosis and Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) techniques to help participants to break through the barriers that prevent them from living the lives of their dreams and achieving their full potential. 
• Keeps participants engaged through active participation. 
• Teaches the importance of showing up and participating 100%, for it is through total and active participation that transformation becomes possible.

Christopher Howard has a very ambitious and humanitarian mission:

• To get these tools for transformation to everybody on the face of the planet. 
• To have people leave the weekend with a new vision for their future and a plan for achieving their vision. 
• To help people change their thinking, and in doing so to change the world.

To achieve his ambitions mission, Chris makes this transformational weekend available for no cost through referrals.  We decided to attend the weekend on the assumption that we had nothing to lose by checking it out since it was free.  We had no idea that the weekend would go so far beyond our expectations. 

• We witnessed the transformation of ourselves and of hundreds of others over the course of three days. 
• Suddenly things that have held us back from achieving our visions and living to our full potential seemed to disappear, and all of our dreams seemed possible. 
• The weekend went far beyond being simply motivational by providing real tools for creating the life and the future we desire.  We are now using these tools to take action and make our dreams a reality—and we’re bringing you along for the ride!

If you are interested in attending the Breakthrough To Success weekend free of charge, you can go to www.chrishoward.com/register and enter the code 400500 to register.  This code can be used to register as many people as you would like.  You can find out more about what Christopher Howard is about and the courses he offers at www.chrishoward.com.  He offers courses in the U.S., Australia, and the UK.

Also, by Christopher Howard:

Mitch Albom, author of Tuesdays with Morrie,  and The Five People You Meet in Heaven, comes back with a new solumn tale that although is a quick read, offers a profound message. The narrator is introduced to Chick Benetto, who tells his tale of a second chance, or one more day with his mother, Posey Benetto.  Chick is a broken man that is an alcoholic, divorced, has-been baseball player, who hits rock-bottom when his daughter doesn’t invite him to her wedding. During a suicide attempt, Chick has a profound experience that saves not only his life, but provides him with a second chance to make things right with a lost loved one.

Overall, this was a great, fast read that is featured here on our site for it’s great message. It’s a little something “for the soul”. Curl up with this book over the weekend, and you start the following week with more purpose and appreciation for those loved ones in your life. Enjoy!

The Secret opens with a story about a woman (Rhonda Byrne narrating her past) who, down on her luck, is given a book from her daughter that unlocks the secret to abundance in the form of wealth, health, and anything desired. 

In The Secret DVD, the “secret” is unraveled cinematographically with a cheesy montage including a genie, secret societies, and messengers/keepers of the “secret”. Despite the dramatic opening, the film goes on to include noteworthy writers such as Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen (Chicken Soup for the Soul), and Dr. John Gray (Men are From Mars, Women are from Venus) and now famous (thanks to the DVD’s promotion, and appearances on Oprah) teachers of the secret, discussing how to obtain money, health, happiness, and abundance in you life – simply by asking for it.  

So, how does The Secret work? The answer, according to The Secret teachings is via the law of attraction. It works like this:

1.) Proclaim to the universe what you want

2.) Believe that you will obtain what is asked for

3.)Visualize obtaining what you want

4.)Remain optimistic about getting what you want

And then, like magic, (or via the law of attraction), you will receive what you want. Sound a bit like prayer? Ask and you shall receive kind of stuff? It is, but with one key difference – prayer insinuates that you have to ask a higher god/being for what you want, and he/she decides if your prayer will be answered.  The Secret implies that if you ask, visualize, and believe, what you want will manifest via the law of attraction.

The Law of Attraction is defined as the universe working to give you what you want, simply because you asked (and believed) in it’s ability to respond to you request. The universe, therefore, is the source of abundance that is attracted towards your energy, and like a genie, is ready to grant your desires. Yeah, ok, but it gets better…

In the book, which is mostly a transcript of the DVD, Rhonda Byrne promotes “there isn’t a single thing that you cannot do with this knowledge. It doesn’t matter who you are or where you are, The Secret can give you whatever you want.” Unfortunately, it is those kinds of statements made throughout The Secret, which have lead to a growing amount of criticism, and cynicism about the teachings.  

Since the release of the DVD and book, the handful of teachers featured on the film, have spoken out about the simplistic nature of The Secret (aka ‘ask and you will receive’). In two episodes on Oprah back in April 2007, The Secret teachers explained that a common misconception of The Secret was that people assumed that they could materialize millions of dollars from thin air, or cure cancer by simply lounging on their couches eating bon-bons visualizing money, health, etc. They went on to explain that in addition to visualizing and believing in your success, you have to follow-up with action to achieve what is sought.  In other words, you have to work for that million dollars. Oprah’s response: “I didn’t know that was a secret.”

 Fortunately for us, however, the teachers of The Secret provide a solution: they are promoting their seminars and personal development programs designed to finally teach people how to manifest The Secret into their lives, and promise to provide the missing/ additional information not taught in the DVD and book. In the fall, we will review one of the instructors, James Arthur Ray, and is seminar.

The take-away: although The Secret offers a simplistic message, it is a profound message. When striving to achieve success, it is important to believe that you can achieve it. The power of positive thought and prayer is common practice that we often forget, but it is in no way, like Oprah pointed out, a secret. I think the biggest secret behind The Secret is that mysterious book that Ms. Byrne obtained from her daughter. Fortunately, she leaves a clue in the book version of The Secret by relinquishing that the book is almost 100 years old. So what is it? Stay tuned for our upcoming review of this classic work that has been quoted from throughout the years by such greats as Anthony Robbins, Mark Victor Hansen, etc, etc….