Hi. Firstly I would like to thank The Secret team and all the wonderful people who post stories on here making it one of the most positive and uplifting sites on the internet!

I’d like to share a story about my experience about 3 years ago when I first read The Secret. A couple of years before I had been working as a musician in London for 6 years. I was on a pretty good salary but let myself become more and more dissatisfied with life. I had a string of bad relationships, I am gay BTW, I was feeling frustrated at work and was spending a lot of money on going out and drinking. In the end I felt so anxious and unhappy that I woke up one morning and felt I could no longer go into work. I left that day and moved back to my home town, Lincoln.

At first I felt relief, but soon after reality kicked in. I felt emotionally and physically exhausted, and pretty much spent the next year curled up just wanting to escape life and sleep. I realize now that I was suffering from depression. To make matters worse, while I was in London I had built up about £12000 worth of debt. It wasn’t a problem when I had a good salary but with no income, it quickly became a nightmare. I had people calling me several times a day from debt recovery agencies which I found frightening, and only served to make matters worse.

After about a year I heard The Secret mentioned on a TV channel and was intrigued. I bought a copy of the book that afternoon and read it very quickly. It was a revelation!! For the first time I realized that I had created my bad experience through my negative thoughts and so, rather than blaming myself, I no longer felt like a victim but realized that if I had created that bad experience I could also choose to create a better one! It was an amazing insight and I began to feel some positive feelings for the first time in ages.

My outer circumstances didn’t change straight away, but inside I began to feel much happier and more hopeful. Eventually I felt ready to begin to put my life back together and I started to visualize paying my debts off and finding a lovely boyfriend. I could actually feel my energy levels rising to the point where I knew that things were going to start happening, and they did. I was offered a job playing at a holiday resort with free accommodations. This meant that I could use most of my wages to start paying off my debts. To cut a long story short, with a bit of commitment from me and a big blunder by the bank, (They never explained what happened but it seems as if they accidentally closed one of my loan accounts), I was debt free in six months. At the same time I met a lovely young guy who fit my visualization brilliantly. It was an extraordinary time. It made me realize that, no matter what state your life seems to be in, NO state is permanent and things can change incredibly quickly. All we have to do is feel like the change has already happened.

Anyway, thanks for taking the time to read this. I hope it might inspire someone who is feeling a bit like I did at the beginning. Love and respect, Phil.