I have always wanted to drive. I started taking lessons as soon as I was 17, and failed three times in a row. I left it a couple of years, booked an intensive driving course, and was so nervous during my fourth test that my legs were shaking so much my feet were literally slipping off of the pedals. No surprise, I failed again. It got to the point where the thought of taking another driving test would make me feel panicky and filled with fear.

Anyway, after having my daughter we moved to the other side of London. Every time I wanted to visit my family, it meant that my dad would have to drive over to pick us up and then repeat the journey to take us home again. There were so many things that I wanted to do with my daughter which were not within easy reach, and I was becoming increasingly frustrated at not being able to drive. I decided to start my lessons again, and in October 2007 began driving once a week with a fantastic driving instructor. My lessons were going really well, but was I still scared and panicky about taking a test.

In January my mum made me watch The Secret DVD when we were visiting one weekend. It had been a long week and I only managed an hour or so before falling asleep, so she gave me a copy of the book to take home. When I began reading it, I couldn�t put it down. I got to the end and re-read it and re-read it again. I booked my driving test and began visualising an examiner congratulating me on passing my practical driving test. I focused on The Secret and was determined to do everything right. Every night before I went to bed I visualised passing. I did the same thing every morning when I woke up, and any spare moment I had when I remembered. I practiced being grateful for passing and having a car.

A week before my test I suddenly realised that I was following old habits and not telling anyone about it �in case I didn�t pass�. So for the next week, every time I saw someone that I knew I told them about my test. I also told them that I was definitely going to pass. People would say, �You�re brave telling people� or �Don�t worry if you don�t pass�, and I�d reply, �I am going to pass� – and mean it!

The day before, I wrote a text on my mobile phone saying, �I have just passed my driving test. I am so, so, so happy. Cannot stop smiling.� and saved it to my draft box ready to send out the following day.

Anyway, what happened the next day was nothing short of a miracle, and there is no shadow of a doubt in my mind that it was wholly due to The Secret! I started my driving test well, but as soon as I made a mistake my nerves set in in full force. My driving examiner spent the whole test calming me down, reassuring me and reminding me! He kept saying, �Stay calm, everything is ok� and distracting me from my nerves by talking about other things. At one point he offered me the opportunity to get out of the car to stretch my legs, calm down, and �Come back when you�re ready�! When approaching an unusually shaped roundabout he told me the course to take! At another very busy roundabout, rather than give me a minor fault for hesitancy, he told he, �You might want to edge out and hope that someone will be nice enough to let you through�! Every time I felt that I�d made a mistake he told me everything was ok, and when I made a mistake that I thought had cost me the test he said, �At the moment you are being very self critical and you are noticing things that haven�t happened yet, but you are in danger of making mistakes because you think that you have already made them, so just calm down� – just as I thought I had failed he was telling me I hadn�t!! At the end of the forty minutes, he asked me if I had taken a test before and I told him that this was my fifth. He smiled and said, �Well this is the last one that you will take – congratulations.� I was so happy that I burst into tears! I told him that he was a fantastic person and said, �At the risk of sounding very bizarre, I would like to recommend a book to you.� I was fully expecting him to know all about it, but he just said, �Ok, The Secret,� and agreed to read it. So I feel as though I have given a little back.

It still doesn�t quite feel real after all these years, that I have a driving license – it is so fantastic and I am so, so, so happy and grateful! Being able to drive is literally going to change my life and open up a whole other world for my daughter and I. I am now visualising my ideal car and am going to read this record every night to remind myself of the power of positive thought!! Thank you to everyone involved in The Secret!!