Just Do The Worksheet

This week the Mindshifters group watched the first half of the lecture titled, "Purpose, Personal Power, and Commitment", by Dr. Michael Ryce www.whyagain.com. The thing that struck me most about the lecture this time around was the statement that we need to make a choice between playing the world's game or choosing to build a strong spiritual self. Dr. Ryce makes the point that we have been conditioned for centuries to be good commercial consumers and obedient citizens, by people who want to collect all the material goods for themselves.

Dr. Ryce proposes a way to get clear about what your purpose is, and then use that purpose to focus your energy so that you are much more powerful and productive. He states that each of us has a purpose for being here, and specific talents that will allow us to fulfill that purpose. He also states that each of us has access to the same personal power as everyone else! This means that each of us is potentially more powerful than we can even imagine. This is why we each need to tap into our own internal intelligence, and not try to follow anyone else.

When we were finished discussing the lecture we turned our attention to the work people had done during the week and in last week's group. After some discussion I asked if anyone wanted to do a Reality Management worksheet to demonstrate the process for some of our new members. Since no one else wanted to volunteer, I decided to do a worksheet to demonstrate. I chose what I thought was a very minor topic related to something I had done over the weekend. As I stepped through the process I identified that I had felt sadness, and worry during the events described in the worksheet. As I thought and wrote about the events, I was able to get in touch with the sadness, and the worry, and the specific thoughts that gave rise to each of them but I was not feeling particularly upset. This was, as I had expected, a fairly simple issue which had very little emotional intensity for me, and was only mildly uncomfortable.

As I worked through the worksheet, I reached the step where I created a positive goal for the person whom I identified as the trigger for the emotions I was feeling. Then comes the process of cancelling the goal I hold for the other person, so that I can see the hidden and projected parts of myself.

Much to my surprise when I did this, about this "safe", "little" interaction I had over the weekend, I was moved to tears. I realized that the sadness and worry I felt about the situation were really easy to experience compared to the intense feeling of helplessness that came flooding through when I cancelled my goal for the other person. I shed tears and discussed feelings I had no idea were hiding behind my thoughts, emotions, and punishment thoughts - as outlined in the first few steps of the worksheet process. Feeling helpless is not fun! I had hidden this very effectively, and rationalized feeling sad and worried. Don't worry I feel much better now.

The point of my telling this story is that, once again, I was surprised by the power and effectiveness of the worksheet process, even when I thought the issue was simple and trivial. So, no matter how small the upset, or how trivial the interaction that sparked it, JUST DO THE WORKSHEET! You will often be surprised at what you find. It is seldom what you thought it was upon first review.

We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love. Everything else is false.

Expansion of Step Nine in the Reality Management Worksheet

Reality ManagementWorksheet - Expansion of Step 9 of the 12 step form.

9. A. The first casualty of desire is the Truth! Perception, which was meant to be the light for my earthly life, is the servant of purpose. If I hold any purpose more important than Love, my mind distorts my reality! [My mind will show me “evidence” to “prove” how those things I want are more important than Love.]

[My perception is also distorted whenever I am feeling any form or hostility or fear. When I am aware of feeling any form of hostility or fear, I am perceiving things inaccurately, and reacting from false negative perceptions from the past, as well as creating false, distorted realities in the present moment.]

In order to collapse my false reality, (anything based in hostility or fear), and get back to the Truth, I cancel my goal for #1A to (copy exactly from #6) _______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

_______________________________________________________________

9. B. I invite ________________ (Rookha d’Koodsha – Holy Spirit – God), to incline me toward healing __, restore me to my original nature, LOVE __, assist me in keeping LOVE present __, and help me to see and own the inner, deeper, hidden and projected parts of myself __.

[These deeper, hidden parts of myself are what gave rise to my goal for #1A in step #6. I recognize that cancelling my focus on a desire for something outside of me to change, opens up a window for me to see inside myself to the part of me that feels I am not whole and complete, or believes in some way that I do not deserve to have what I am asking for with the goal in step #6. I now take the time, and ask for assistance in seeing how the negative feelings and beliefs I have hidden from myself have actually caused my pain and given rise to the need for me to do this worksheet process today. ]

An Introduction To A Course In Miracles With Advanced Understanding Part 2

Last night the Mindshifters group watched the second part of the lecture by Dr. Michael Ryce www.whyagain.com and iforgive.net The thing that struck me most in this presentation was the following statement, "Exempt no one from your Love, or you will be blocking Love from your own experience." You are the one who suffers from a loss of Love when you withhold your Love from others. "You will not see the true light of your Love until you offer it to All others."

It has taken me several years of working with this material to get to the place where this statement jumped out at me. I am beginning to understand how the many times I heard this statement, and others similar to it, my mind immediately began to throw up objections and rationalizations that gave me permission to withhold my Love and stay in the energy of anger and fear towards others. It is now almost shocking to me that I could have resisted this so strongly when all it does is open the possibility of seeing more of the Love that is already in my life. I am amazed that I wanted to resist this so strongly for so long. I have been thinking since last night about what it is that has had me running away from Love, while convincing myself that all I wanted was Love.

The only answer I have found is that I must be unaware of holding on to negative beliefs about myself, or beliefs about negative things which will happen, if I stay consciously connected to Love. This baffled me. What could possibly be bad or negative about staying consciously connected to Love? So I sat with the thought and tried to reason through this. If I come from Love, am made of Love, and I am Love, then what could possibly be bad about staying consciously aware of that truth? I did not have any luck reasoning through this, so I went about my daily activities and then it hit me.

It is related to one of the quotes from the lecture last week and last night. "All you are asked to do is let the truth in. Remove the false and all blocks to the truth." The truth must be that I am holding on to negative beliefs which have nothing to do with Love and my actual value as a person, but which are so painful and so hidden from my conscious awareness that I am blocking myself from even seeing them. I must be so afraid of them that I won't even let myself see them.

With this in mind I went into a session with a friend of mine, in which we trade services and do energy work on each other. I could not think of anything consciously that was bothering me so I asked her to test my energy system to see if she could find anything. When she found something and we processed it, I was led to remember one of the "worst" times in my young life. I had gone to college reluctantly and ended up at a small catholic college where there was, what I thought of as, a ridiculous amount of alcohol, drug and sexual abuse. I was a "young for my age" freshman and sophomore, and I was mentally and spiritually agonizing about "my faith", God, the priests and other clergy, the bible, etc., etc. This time in my life is what many would call, "a dark night of the soul", because I was so unhappy and felt so hopeless about ever resolving those dilemmas and issues. For me it went beyond simple questions like, "What is the meaning of life?".

The real problem for me was that I craved Love, compassion and a way to spread that around, and create a community of Love and compassion. Yet, the people who were supposed to be the guardians of Love and compassion, those who were supposed to be teaching the tools for creating a community and spreading it around, were some of the most angry, prejudiced, deceitful and unhappy people I had ever known. Today as I was letting myself remember that time of my life, I cried and breathed. As I did so, I began to remember more and more about how sad and trapped I felt. I began to remember how almost every attempt I made to read, study, discuss, listen and explore those issues, was met with ridicule, deceit and disappointment. Today I let myself remember some of the conclusions I reached and then buried in my thoughts about how I must be doing something wrong. Conclusions about how I must be unworthy to have the Love and compassion in my life that I yearned for so strongly.

Now that I have let myself look at those memories and conclusions, it is easy to see how I was just a nineteen year old "boy", who was being driven by idealism and "blockage of personal error", to reach false conclusions about myself and the world. Now that I let myself remember the painful internal events of that time, it is easy to see how they are silly and false, because I also remember other immature or "unripe" conclusions I held at that time, which seem silly to me today. As is the case with so many of the things I have remembered from the past, which were scary to get myself to examine, they seem trivial and obvious once I bring them to the light of day and my conscious awareness.

As I write this note today I feel a little more connected to the Love that is in all things. I feel grateful to the people in the group last night who each did their own work at exploring hidden negative feelings and choosing to consciously connect to the Love that they are made of. I am grateful to people like Dr. Michael and Jeanie Ryce who have devoted their lives to spreading the knowledge of the tools which can help anyone uncover the false realities they have created which block them from feeling and living in conscious awareness of the Love they are made of.

Thank you all!

We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love! Everything else is false.

An Introduction To A Course In Miracles - With Advanced Understanding!

This week the  Mindshifters group watched the first half of the lecture by Dr. Michael Ryce titled An Introduction to A Course In Miracles with Advanced Understanding.  Some of the statements made during the lecture which caught my attention were: 

"The world of separateness is an optical delusion.", and

  

"To experience the world we must begin to suspect that what we "know" is limited or false.", and

"Our distorted perceptions produce a dense cover over actuality.", and 

"By perception we have lost sight of the real world.", and 

"You don't have to seek for Love, but merely seek to find within yourself all the barriers you have built against it."

The power of these statements shook me in ways I did not feel in the several previous times I have watched this lecture.  The idea that we try to relate to the world as though nothing exists unless we can perceive it, is ludicrous.  I say this because scientists tell us that we can only hear a small range of the auditory spectrum and we can only see a very limited range of the spectrum of energy we call light.   Yet those same scientists will argue that nothing is real unless they can measure it with their tools and technology.  This just does not make sense!

As I watched the lecture I kept thinking about how so much actually happens around me, and how I am only able to be consciously aware of a tiny fraction of what actually exists.  I am only able to be aware of a tiny fraction of all that exists around me because I am limited by what my senses can perceive, and I am limited because I choose to screen out many things that my senses are able to perceive!  I am limited by everything I believe because when I believe something, I am certain I know the answer.  Whenever I am certain I know that answer to something, I am not questioning it.  If I am not questioning something, I am not open to new information.  If I am not open to new information, I am screening it out.  If I am screening out new information I am not learning.  If I am not learning, I am not growing and I will simply get more of what I already have.

The tools we use in the Mindshifters group are designed to help us become aware of the unconscious beliefs we hold, which limit and distort our perception and keep us locked into repeating the same unproductive patterns which we and our ancestors have repeated for centuries.  These tools are made available for free at www.whyagain.com  Dr. Ryce has also launched a new website for people who use his tools and  do this work, to be able to connect with others who are working this process - www.iforgive.net

We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love.  Everything else is false.