You create your own reality, but-

It's true that when you think about your hearts desires of love and comfort and care, it will come to you, I have seen this in action

But isn't it also true that destiny and our higher selves have a stronger hand in what we do?

We can manifest much good things, but there are still lessons to be learned

The reason I say this is because I have begun using "the secret" But from under my feet things will still come up and hit me and I know that they are doing it for some reason for me to learn something,

So what i'm saying is, the secret works, but to what extent would we go to use it?

I think it's possible to say that if you are thinking love and light in a situation where you are supposed to learn a lesson, perhaps you are ignoring the pain and passing up on soul experience/evolution