My aunty introduced me to The Secret five years ago. I watched the DVD of The Secret and wondered, “How does this work?” I watched it over and over again, and then I thought, “Elaine, give it a try .” Within a few weeks, my dad also introduced me to The Secret book. I could not believe my eyes; it was like I had to use it before. As I did not get to see my dad very often, he had no idea that he had even heard of it.

Our dream was always to emigrate to Australia but I never had the chance or the money or the actual guts to get things moving. About a month after using The Secret, my husband was reading the local paper and spotted an article about emigrating to Australia. It seems that Australia was in great need of carpenters. Before we had time to think about it, he was on the phone arranging an appointment to attend. My mum had the kids and off we went. I was thinking, this is it. This is the dream we have always wanted, and it is really about to happen.

The people we met with gave us lots to think about: selling our house, moving furniture over, finding somewhere to rent when we got to Australia, schools for the kids, etc. We got back home and had a long talk with both parents. The look on their faces said it all: Please do not go! However, they gave us their support and their blessing.

In my head, thoughts of what I had read about and watched from The Secret started to become things in my life. We got our visas, we had a rental sorted for when we got to Australia, and we had bank accounts set up. It was not easy going through the process. Gary had to do a lot of paperwork, which was quite stressful, but we got there in the end.

Then, the final day came to ship all of our stuff over to Australia. It was sort of heartbreaking and also very exciting. Our new life was about to begin. I believed in my thoughts, and I believed I was happy even though sometimes I was not. What were we doing taking the grandchildren away from their grandparents, taking them away from their cousins and aunties and uncles? Every time I felt myself feel negative, I would go get The Secret book out, and go over parts of it again and again until I was on track with my thoughts and I had no more doubts.

We said our goodbyes to family and friends. That was when our lives changed, and our new life began.

The kids love it here! We both have jobs, the boys love the schools, and we all have made lots of lovely friends here. Nearly three years on, we love our new life, and it is all because of The Secret. Thank you, thank you, thank you!