A dear friend came to me not too long ago with a concern, one that was spurred by The Secret. Trust me when I say that I am not wishing to beat a dead horse here, but her concern was an important one, one worth addressing.

The concern was two-fold 1) If you have negative/bad thoughts, bad things will happen. and 2) If you don't manifest the things you want, you are not thinking about them in the right way.

It saddens me to think that there could be many people, similar to my friend, who are scared of their own thoughts. Afraid that if they think bad thoughts bad things will happen. Wouldn't that be tantamount to telling the mother who's child was diagnosed with a life-threatening illness that it was because she thought bad thoughts that her child became ill? I shudder at the thought!!

1) When you focus on the negative, you are not aware of the positive potentials that surround you. Why? Because the negative thoughts and fears overtake positive thoughts and experiences. When we focus on the negative, we see the negative around us.

2) Positive feelings and negative feelings help us to decipher what we want and what we don't want..what's in alignment with who we are. Once we understand the feelings, we often then decide the action we are going to take. (Remember Esther Hick's EGS example in The Secret?)

3) I believe it was James Ray who said something along the lines of...that just because you think about and visualize millions of dollars landing in your lap that does not mean it will. You have to take ACTION.

The operative word is ACTION!

4) Negative feelings/thoughts around something you desire often prevent taking positive action.

So in short, just because you think something, it does not mean that the something will happen. Action must be involved in order to make things happen.

From my own experience (and as someone who has learned some good things from The Secret) just thinking negative thoughts does not create bad things or negative situations. It is the action one may take based on those thoughts which can bring about the negative.