Open Mouth insert Britney

Lord I apologize, but I just can't resist a comment on the recent Dr. Phil, Britney Spears debacle. For those of you who have been lost on a Pacific Island for the last few weeks, let me bring you up to date. Britney, it seems, had some sort of mental issue and ended up in Cedars-Sinai for what I assumed was a 72 hour hold. This is what we call in the shrink business a 5150. Whatever it was, the family reportedly asked Dr. Phil as a personal favor to visit her in the hospital and see if he could lend her a hand.

Two things happened that prompt my need to comment. First, Dr. Phil made plans for a TV show featuring Britney's misery. Second, he issued a statement to the press on leaving the hospital that assessed her mental condition. Both of these actions were huge mistakes and an incredible breach of trust in any one's book.

Let me just say that Dr. Phil is no longer licensed as a psychologist. So he can trample all over some one's privacy and confidentiality with impunity. So he is not subject to sanction by some licensing board somewhere. He is a private citizen behaving in what ever way one behaves these days.

But let me comment on the two things he did. First of all, planning a TV show was grossly premature. The respectful thing to do would be to tuck that idea in Dr. Phil's back pocket until such time as Britney had recovered. Then a show about the whole affair would be helpful to people going through similar issues. But to plan a show as some kind of intervention is a little like allowing Frontline to do a special on your wife's visit to the gynecologist. All this could do is further Britney's pain and embarrassment.

Secondly and perhaps equal in importance was Dr. Phil's commenting to the press. The bottom line is that any comment is a gross breach of faith and trust. He should have kept his mouth shut if he really wanted to help. He should have known that anything he said would have just made the situation worse. I understand that as I write this, he is vehemently defending what he said. Well, if he had remained silent, there would be nothing to defend.

As a licensed therapist, I take my legal and ethical obligation for confidentiality seriously. But as a human being I know when I am stepping one someone else to move up the ladder. Dr. Phil may not have set out to exploit the situation with Briney, but he did - pure and simple.

The Secret without The Sacred

Life has its ups and downs. Life has its pleasure and pain. But it is all the Divine Expression. I hate to use the word God since so many have a reaction to it, so let me use the term the Divine Expression. The Divine Expression is life. There is nothing in existence that is not the Divine Expression. What we like is the Divine Expression. What we hate is the Divine Expression. Everything – the infinity of the present moment, the expanse of the universe, the neighbor that irritates us – all is the Divine Expression.

To say that Life is Sacred is accurate. It is like the ocean. The ocean has depth, but on its surface there are waves and swells, highs and lows. When the ocean is active there are white caps and steep drops to the furrow between the waves. Regardless of the surface of the ocean, all is still the ocean. To say that waves are the ocean and the troughs between waves are not the ocean is nonsensical. The ocean is the ocean and the Divine Expression is the Divine Expression.

Our lives have highs and lows – pleasure and pain – blessings and misfortunes. All of these things are the Divine Expression. The question here is really our willingness to allow the Divine to be the Divine. This leads me to the Secret, the Law of Attraction and all of that.

Without the Sacred, the Secret, goal setting, and attracting wealth – all moves us away from the Divine Expression of Now. They become the ego’s efforts to gain the upper hand, get an advantage. Until we realize the Divine, all of these other efforts move us away from What Is. In fact, it is a clever way the ego has of saying “no” to the Divine. “Yes, Lord, I realize the present moment is the Divine Expression, but I am waiting for a better moment. Thank you very much.” It is hard to express in words the arrogance of this attitude.

The Divine Expression can be realized through surrender, radical humility, and true acceptance of What Is. These are characteristics that are totally foreign to our thinking. So we want the Secret without paying any price for the Sacred. Surrender, humility, and acceptance don’t help us advance or get what we want. After all, if God didn’t want us to get what we want, why would he give us two big hands to grab it with? Right?

The fact that the Secret is secondary to the Sacred as a principle of life should be self-evident, but sadly it’s not. To discover the Sacred the destruction of everything “we” hold dear must take place. The false self, the ego and its tricks must be exposed for what they are – diversionary tactics.

There is sweetness to the Sacred. It satisfies fully. Mastering Thought through Witness Thought Transformation™ opens the portal to the Scared. Without the Sacred we are convinced the problem with our minds is negative thought and self limiting beliefs. Through the lens that we get from Witnessing our Thoughts, we realize the problem is the mind itself and our fascination with thought.

Can we still set goals? Work hard for our dreams? Try to change the world – our personal world? Of course. But paradoxically, there is something about realizing the Perfection of the Sacred that makes the effort all the more satisfying. It’s like a horse and carriage. The Sacred is the horse that pulls the carriage containing the Secret. You can’t have one without the other. The Sacred is the Secret of the Secret.