Healing Yourself By Learning to Love the Ones You Hate

I received a note recently with a comments about work that is  happening as a result of this group process and the tools Dr. Michael Ryce offers.

"I have been making it too hard (again).  I have taken my role as a Warrior to mean "hard work", but I forgot that even though it may be harder for some to dive into their deepest wells of darkness to look for layers to peal away, it is not so for me.  I chose this.  I agreed to it.  I came equipped with all I need to face whatever comes my way with Love, gratitude, peace, and acceptance of self.  I do not need to look for it anywhere...I already have it.  It is this process of presencing Love and removing those things which are not for my best and highest good that pave the way to my purposes....my growth..."

Then another individual fowarded a note which builds on something I wrote about in a previous blog post titled, "A Question of Boundaries and Anger", where I talked about healing yourself by giving love to those  from whom you withhold your love.  The following is an excerpt from the Daily OM which you can view at www.dailyom.com.

"December 19, 2008
The Great Transformer
Loving What You Hate

Hatred can be irrational, and it has a greater impact on the individual who hates than the person or object being hated. Yet overcoming hatred is diffic ult because hatred reinforces itself and causes greater enmity to come into being. The most powerful tool one can use to combat hatred is love. Deciding to love what you hate, whether this is a person, situation, or a part of yourself, can create a profound change in your feelings and your experience. There is little room for anger, dislike, bitterness, or resentment when you are busy loving what you hate. The practice of loving what you hate can transform and shift your emotions from hatred to love, because there is no room for hatred in a space occupied by love.

Granted, it is difficult to forgo judging someone, love your enemy, and seek the good in situations that seem orchestrated to cause you pain or anger. But in deciding to love what you hate, you become one less person adding negativity to the universe. On a simple level, loving what you hate can help you enjoy your life more. On a more complex level, loving what you hate sets you free because you disengage yourself from the hatred that can weigh down the soul. Responding with love to people radiating hatred transmutes their negative energy. You also empower yourself by not letting their negativity enter your personal space. Rather than lowering yourself to the level of their hatred, you give the other person an opportunity to rise above their feelings and meet you on the field of love.

Gandhi once said, “Be the change you want to see in the world.” Loving what you hate sends a positive, beautiful ene rgy to people while spreading peace and harmony throughout the planet. Instead of reinforcing hatred, you become an advocate for love. Hatred responds to hate by causing anguish. But hatred responds to love by transforming into blissful peace."

There are many ways to trick ourselves into seeing others as being responsible for the pain, sadness, anger, and confusion in our lives.  The truth however, is that each of us creates our internal experience and each and every emotion we experience.  If I am experiencing hatred, I am creating it. I have the choice, once I learn the truth of how my emotions and experiences are created, to create a different emotion, Love for instance.  When I choose to feel Love, I experience a completely different reality and I heal and change whatever is less than Love which is present at the same time.

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

Empowered To Heal Part 2

Last night we watched the second half of the lecture titled "Empowered To Heal".  The focus of the  first half of the lecture was the way our thoughts send energy waves out into the world and how those thoughts change the way our world appears to us, and effects others in our world.  The first law for living a long and happy life was reviewed, "Hold the condition of Love in your mind for God, Neighbor, and Self."  So once again we are directed to focus on our internal feelings and to maintain awareness that we are creating our internal feelings.  Whenever our internal feeling is anything less than Love, it is within our ability to choose to reconnect with Love and bring about healing for ourselves and others we have contact with, either physically or in our thoughts.

The original Aramaic definition of Neighbor was reviewed, as being anyone we think about.  We were reminded that in the sixth century the definition was changed to mean anyone who was physically close to us, but that in the original Aramaic there was no way to distinguish between someone we were physically close to and someone we think about.  This is a reflection of how clearly the creators of the ancient Aramaic language understood the power of our mind energy and the connectedness of all creation.

As I watched the video I was struck by a deeper level of realization that the world can be seen as a loving energy system which is designed to help me identify any negative energy I have stored in my mind and body.  I can only heal those energies if I know they are there, and since I naturally try to hide them, escape from them, or deny them, I am often not aware of their existence.  So, once I learn that, "If I am in pain, I am in error.", I can view as a gift any events which trigger pain, sadness, anger, shame, guilt, or any other negative emotion in me.  I can view these events as a gift because without the event I would remain unaware of the negative energy I had stored in me, and therefore be unable to dismantle it and heal it.  The longer negative thought/emotional energy is stored in my mind and body, the more it works to disintegrate my energy system and the more likely it is to be expressed as a physical pain or disease.

There was just something about watching the lecture this time which helped me realize at a new level, everything that happens is a gift for me, if I choose to use it to help me identify, and dismantle the negative energies in me which have been triggered.  It reminded me of another lecture in which Dr. Ryce describes the way Laws function, and how if someone jumps off a 500 ft cliff, there is no god of gravity who says, "Well, this person ignored the law of gravity, so I will punish them by breaking their bones when they reach the ground.", or "Well, this person ignored the law of gravity, but they have been good most of their life, so I won't punish them by breaking any bones when they reach the ground."  The point is that the law of gravity works the way it works and those of us who recognize it and work within its functioning have a much easier time of it than those of us who try to ignore the way it works.

In just that way, if I look at everything that happens which triggers negative emotions in me as something that is helpful because it lets me know where I still have work to do to dismantle negative emotions in my life, it can be a tool which will help me love and enjoy life more, and perhaps even avoid disease and live longer.  If I look at everything that happens which triggers negative emotions in my life as someone else's fault, or the natural result of living in a dangerous and hateful world, it will increase my stress, my fear, anxiety and anger and make my life much more difficult.

We were reminded inn this lecture that even the medical community these days believes that 80%-90% of all disease process is stress related.  This means that if I can remove the negative energy which causes the negative emotions in my life, and if I can increase the amount of time I spend with the energy of Love in my mind and body, I will decrease the stress and disease in my life.

The lecture also reviewed the Beatitudes from the ancient Aramaic translation which tells us that each Beatitude begins with words which can be translated as; "A latent neuro structure, implanted in your brain by God, to lead you to truth and health, will become your conscious possession, you who..."  This means that the Beatitudes are a set of instructions for how to activate and become aware of the hidden tools for perceiving the world accurately and staying in the energy of Love, or living with the mind of God, or the mind of Love.

There is more available on this topic at Dr. Michael Ryce's website www.whyagain.com, including a summary of some of the translation work that has already been completed of the ancient Aramaic texts of the oldest known copy of the New Testament.

The support group portion of the meeting found several members reporting on the successes and struggles they have met throughout the week.  Two members experienced some intense synchronicity as they went through the week with the theme of Love and fear being presented repeatedly.  

Then the group helped a member work through a Reality Management Worksheet to heal some anger and aggravation the member had been experiencing during the week.  As usual this process was healing for the entire group.  The focus on this worksheet was the process of thinking and feeling a loving thought about the person who was the trigger for the negative emotions, and also thinking and feeling a loving thought about the person doing the worksheet. This is Step 5 in the 12 step Reality Management Worksheet (available free at www.whyagain.com).  

Many of  us race through this step in the process or get stymied by it because we are not able to FEEL loving feelings about the person or thing who/which triggered the negative emotions in us.  The group spent extra time and energy focused on tapping into the loving energy in each of us and working to hold that space of Love while thinking about the trigger for the negative emotions.  This produced a much greater result for the person writing out the worksheet last night.

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

My Favorite Quotes From "The Mirror Theory" Vol. 2

"Don't I get more holy by putting the needs of others first?" Since you can't get any holier than you are, the only game is to recognize holiness."

"As soon as you think
Someone else has to change
To make you happier,
The answer to happiness
Is lost."

"I hate ego Charlie! Then it is winning its battle with you. Ego doesn't care what makes you hateful, only that you are."

"A person only suppresses when coping is difficult, but coping is equivalent to acceptance. Healing comes as soon as you ask why a certain emotion is horrible in the first place? Yes, I know its probably because someone told you it was. But who is that someone else? Isn't it just another soul searching for Love? Why would that somebody else be more of an authority on okay feelings than you are?"

"Some are better at letting in light than others, but all have the free will to do it. Some look within to find it; some look without. But just because a soul belongs to this or that organization doesn't mean its light is any brighter. Awareness has to do with how well you know yourself, not how well you tell others what you know."


"As soon as life is appreciated, the wonder is understood. Philosophical questions are helpful or not depending on how you feel while pondering them. The soul in appreciation looks for all the good reasons it exists. The soul in doubt looks for the opposite, and if that isn't masochistic, I don't know what is."


"...nothing is a gift if the giver isn't loved in the process."

Some of My Favorite Quotes From The Mirror Theory: by Betsy Otter-Thompson

"Fear is created by refusing to face the truth about our lives.  But as soon as we do, fear disappears.  It only lives in a soul that refuses to make a decision.  To heal is to walk right into whatever we think is paralyzing us."

"It may seem to you that some people are more gifted than others, but gifts are chosen for the wisdom they offer the soul. ... How many you have is not what makes or breaks your journey.  How you deal with the ones you have is."

"Didn't Jesus' friends become wise as a result of knowing him?  No, they become wise from  knowing themselves."

"Eventually he realized that excellence wasn't about how well he did something; it was about how well he felt in the doing.  As soon as he started loving the process he started loving the continuity."

"Jealousy gains a foothold

When you lose a grip on

The only solid footing you have -

Your own tender expression""

"Nothing valuable goes from one person to another, unless that transfer carries love."

"What am I supposed to do with all my garbage history?  The first thing you can do is to give it a name with reverence instead of mockery.  Call it the  love of God in search of self."

"Then what's the good of going back to my youth as a means of therapy?  The good comes from finding all the good reasons for living it.  Hasn't it gotten you to this moment of greater awareness?  And isn't that worthy of praise?"

"How easy it is to forget that what I perceive as a handicap has been leading me to the true purpose for which I came here to live; how easy it is to forget that I don't take anything with me when I leave the body behind except for the love I found while in it.  And how easy it is to forget that although the picture I experienced was often hard to endure, the inspiration that followed truly changed my life."

A Letter From A Friend You Should Read!

I have often told people I have been blessed with magnificent friends in my life.  Here is a letter I received today from my friend Joe.  I think after reading it you will see why I make such a claim about my friends.  

Joe wrote:

"Most of us have had many discussions about the topic of forgiveness - especially as it relates to ‘A Course in Miracles’ or Michael Ryce’s teachings and the forgiveness worksheet.  This is a brief recap. 

The mind is an evidential device; it gives us evidence of what we focus on or ‘want’ to see at some level of our being.

The mind is about 10% conscious, the rest is either sub-conscious or un-conscious.

What we focus on with emotion, we create. If we focus on one thing with the conscious mind but sub-consciously/un-consciously we want the opposite the sub-conscious/un-conscious generally wins because there is more mind energy there [90% vs 10%].

Forgiveness is defined as letting go or releasing the sub-conscious/un-conscious mind pattern that gives us pain [physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual]. 

If we do not have a sub-conscious/un-conscious mind pattern for something it will not resonate in is. So something that someone or something does will not upset us if we do not have a mind pattern to resonate with it. This leads to the statement:

“If I’m in pain; I’m in error” and its corollary “If you are in pain; you are in error”

So I’ve been working with the forgiveness/releasing process for about 5 years through ACIM & Michael Ryce’s work. Something bothers me about this work, and that thing is that it seems like there are some issues that at least for me forgiveness work does not work on - or at least it does not seem to ‘stick’.

I’m going to use my back as an example - because it is an easy example - NOT because I’m looking for someone to tell me how to fix my back [that is not the point here].

There were several times in 2007 when I was in Tennessee and my back was really painful and stiff. On these occasions I’d do 4 or 5 Forgiveness Worksheets a day for several days, and after this the pain wold ease up and I’d feel pretty good. Then a couple of days later I’d wake up with a twinge in my back and I’d say, “Why is my back hurting again?” And then it would get worse and later in the day I’d ask “Why doesn’t the benefits of the work on my back seem to last?” And maybe the next morning I’d wake up in pain and ask “Why is this happening to me again?” And pretty soon my back was as bad or worse than before. And again I’d thing “Why doesn’t the benefits seem to last?”

I went back a number of times and listened to “Why is this happening to me ... Again?” and the answer I gleaned was I was just getting into deeper levels of the negative mind patterns that caused the back pain - and these also need to be forgiven. 

So that is what I’d do and the whole thing would happen - Again. 

I was pretty diligent but frustration would set in, forgiveness seemed to work real well for some issues but for some issues it did not work or if it worked the issue would come right back. And again I thought “Why is this happening to me ... Again?”

So about a month ago I read an article and part of the article was about questions; more specifically the questions that we ask ourselves all the time in our ‘self talk’. The article posed the question - “Are we asking ourselves the ‘right’ questions?”

The article went on to explain that a big job of the sub-conscious mind is to get answers for the questions that we ask ourselves through self talk. We pose questions and this massive, massive computing power goes to work looking for answers and then it presents the answers to our conscious mind. The sub-conscious mind cannot discern a ‘helpful’ question from a ‘harmful’ question, to it a question is a question and its job is to answer the question. 

SO when I asked “Why is my back hurting again?” my sub-conscious went out to find a million reasons why my back was hurting, and at some level my conscious mind ‘heard’ the answers and was influenced by them. And then I asked “Why doesn’t the benefits of the work on my back seem to last?” and the subconscious wet to work again to provide me with answers to this. And I begin to think the work does not work for me. And I ask again with lots of emotion this time “Why is my back hurting again?” and I get back answers with the same high emotion and power - your back will always hurt - you do not deserve a healthy back - you cannot do anything to change your back - and so on and so on.

So I’ve RE-CREATED the situation or a painful, stiff, out of alignment back with a few simple unhelpful questions. Wow.

So the article went on to say that if we pay attention to the questions that we ask and ask ‘power questions’ instead of harmful questions; we can get our sub-conscious to answer questions that we WANT ANSWERS to. What a novel idea. 

So using my back as an example again; after I read this article I got up from my chair at work after sitting a long time and a pain shot through my back, and I asked “What can I do to have a healthy, strong, flexible back that is in perfect alignment?” And then I went on with my day. And each time the pain in my back came to my awareness I’d ask a similar power question. The next day I got up from my chair and my back hurt again and I asked “How can I relieve the pain in my back?” and on my way to the bathroom I thought “I need to be sitting on a Body Ball instead of a chair.” So I went out and bought a Body Ball and took it to work and started to use it instead of a chair. I also got some insights about what kind of exercises to do for my back, and some things to do with my diet to lower inflammation. 

By the way I’ve been doing this for about 3 weeks and my while back is still sore it is about 75% better than it was a month ago.

I’m asking questions I want answers to and then listen for the answers - the answers may come any time and you need to listen.

I try to pay attention and whenever something comes up that I feel negative toward I make a point of asking myself a question to turn it around. For example. 

I do not feel like going to work today, I ask “What can I do today to make work feel fulfilling?”

I do not want to get up early and exercise, I ask “How can I feel energized in my morning exercise?”

I’ve got a project at work that is stuck in the mud and going nowhere, I ask “What can I do to give this project energy and move it forward?”

I do not always perceive an answer but I know the sub-conscious is working on it and just asking a question that I really want an answer to seems to give me an energy boost. 

Here are some guidelines about questions; if you are interested give it a try.

The Purpose of Asking Questions: 

1. Direct behavior in a positive way

2. Direct a thought process in a positive way 

3. Build positive emotions as it pertains to valued outcomes and behaviors 

4. Collect useful information 

General Rules of Thumb: 

1.Only ask questions you want answered

2. When asking yourself positive questions, give yourself some time to come up with the answers 3. Keep asking the positive questions until you begin to perceive the answers 

One more thing, these ‘unhelpful’ questions seem to come natural to me, it is as if I’m preprogrammed to ask questions that bring me down. Historically I seem to ask them all the time with a lot of energy, so I get unhelpful answers back with a lot of energy too. 

Before I read this article I thought a question like “Why is my back hurting again?” would give me an answer that would help fix the problem. I did not think that I would get answers back that would support the problem and actually make it worse. 

I also think that some people come preprogrammed to ask ‘power questions’ - or questions that are helpful and that they really want answered. I think that a person like that would read what I wrote about power questions and say - “Well shucks I do that all the time.” More power to them. 

To those of us that tend to ask questions that are unhelpful [like I did], knowledge is power - if you use it. What have you got to loose --> except maybe all of the ‘wrong’ answers. 

You may want to start by thinking about something that you would like to change and write down a power question or 2 about it. Then put the paper in your pocket and review it during the day. Then before you go to bed write it again and see if you can write any answers to the question, just see what comes up, you may be surprised. 

Have a good journey

Love

Joe"