Connected, Congruent and Flowing

Dr. Hayes is Teaching EFT at Relax 4 Life In Barrington, IL

2012-01-30T11:24:00.003-06:00

I will be teaching a class on EFT The Emotional Freedom Technique on February 25, 2012 from 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM at Relax 4 Life in Barrington, IL. This class will teach you a powerful technique for giving yourself an acupressure treatment for anything that bothers you either physically, mentally or emotionally. This powerful technique empowers individuals to activate and strengthen their immune system and emotional energy system, by "tapping" into the acupuncture meridians and allowing the natural healing response to proceed without blockages.

This class is suitable for professionals and non-professionals alike. All that is needed is a willingness to learn and apply some new concepts to some old problems and patterns. Many past participants have been therapists, (ranging from social workers to massage and occupational therapists), and many have been individuals who want to learn the technique for use on themselves annd their family members.

Relax 4 Life in Barrington, IL is a wonderful place to relax, and learn in a beautiful facility run by caring professionals who offer a wide range of programs and classes. Check out their website for more details. www.relax4life.com or go directly to the page to find out more about this class http://www.relax4life.com/eft.htm

There is limited space so don't delay, sign up today.

Mindshifters Group - Empowered to Heal

2011-10-26T18:10:00.001-05:00

Last night the Mindshifters group in Crystal Lake watched the second half of the lecture, "Empowered to Heal" by Dr. Michael Ryce. This lecture looks at how we create not only our emotional experience of life moment to moment, but also our physical dis-ease. The lecture discusses a collection of ancient wisdom and modern science which describes the process of denying and suppressing "negative" or disintegrative Mind energy, which eventually causes physical pain and cellular decomposition. This was a particularly timely presentation as several of the people who attended the group last week had mentioned issues with aches, pain, or discomfort of some sort. Then on Monday the Mindshifters Internet show featured a discussion of the role of emotional upset in physcial pain, especially back pain. The work of Dr. John Sarno, http://www.healingbackpain.com/, was discussed as well as some personal stories of people who have learned that different specific physical pains are related to mental and emotional energies they have yet to deal with.

"Mindbody medicine pioneer, Dr. John E. Sarno, is Professor of Rehabilitation Medicine at New York University School of Medicine and attending physician at the Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine, New York University Medical Center.

Since 1973, Dr. Sarno has conducted research and clinical practice on disorders relating to musculoskeletal pain. Through his ground-breaking experience, Dr. Sarno has identified the cause of most common back, neck, shoulder and limb pain, and has developed a revolutionary Mindbody treatment program which has helped many to become free from chronic pain."

I have had numerous personal experiences and worked with many patients in my clinical psychology practice who have experienced the quick and sometimes total relief of pain which results when the trapped emotional energy which is behind the pain is released or dismantled. I have personally had the experience of intense hip pain, which was making it nearly impossible for me to walk, be resolved immediately when I used a Mind/Body energy technique which identified the emotion I was holding and released it.

The Mindshifters Radio internet show about this topic from Monday is available at the following web page. It is the October 24, 2011 show: http://www.whyagain.com/mindshifterradio_October2011Archive.php
And you can listen to the show each weekday from 12:00 Noon to 1:00 PM Central Time by calling
1-646-200-4169 or logging on to http://www.blogtalkradio.com/earthangelsradio/2011/10/27/mind-shifters-radio-with-the-forgiveness-dr-michael-ryce

Once again, this is a free resource - like so much of the work done by Dr. Michael Ryce and his wife Jeanie - offered to make these tools available to anyone who needs them.

The power of the reality management worksheet to dismantle and remove painful "realities" from one's mind is truly a wonder to behold. Try it for yourself. Download the worksheet and use it to dismantle and cancel any "reality" or belief you hold which is related to any uncomfortable mental, emotional, or physical experience you are having.

I would love to hear about your experiences.

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

An Aramaic Definition of Forgiveness

2011-10-10T17:38:00.001-05:00

This coming Sunday, October 16th, 20011, I will be giving the sermon at the Unity Church in Crystal Lake, IL. Then following the service, I will be giving a two and a half hour workshop titled, "Why Is This Happening To Me Again?". The workshop will not require a fee, but a suggested donation of $12 will be accepted for those who are able to pay. There will be pot luck at the church between the service and the workshop. For details you may visit the UCCL website at http://uccl.org/dr.timse.html.

The talk during the service will introduce the concept of the difference between the ancient Aramaic definition of forgiveness and the modern concept of "pardoning" someone who has "wronged" you. Then during the workshop, we will explore and question how the processes of anger, fear, and blame drive many of our human interactions and what we can do about it.

I will present a tool as offered by Dr. Michael Ryce for cancelling and removing any thoughts and beliefs which result in negative emotions within the human mind/body system. This time-tested tool is available for free from Dr. Ryce's website. Please feel free to visit this site if you are not able to attend the workshop. Simply visit www.whyagain.com/worksheets.php and download the first four links on that page. These include an explanation of the tool, with step by step instructions, the seven step worksheet itself, and two hour-long audio files of Dr. Ryce's internet show in which he works with two different callers to complete the worksheet process.

This tool has the potential to change your life. I say potential because it only works if you pick it up and use it.

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

"You Can't Handle The Truth!", Or Can You?

2011-10-05T22:05:00.001-05:00

For years now I have been trying to explain to people in therapy how there is a part of my mind which believes it is being protective by hiding from me things which "it" has determined are too intense, too painful, too scary, too anger producing, too overwhelming, etc. It is as though this part of my mind, which is outside my own awareness, is consantly monitoring everything that happens around me, and my internal response to those events. Whenever it feels that the outside event, or my response to that event is too much for me to handle it quickly and effectively hides it from me by pushing it into my unconscious.

The difficulty here is that it is my own mind energy which has been used to block my awareness of the event and my reaction to it. It is also my own mind energy which has to be used to keep this event and my reaction to it, hidden from my conscious awareness. Now, when I am young, and have lots of energy, and not very many events and reactions that "have to be hidden from me", I don't really notice the drain on my mental energy system, and the added weight of the unconscious material I am carrying around with me. However, after I reach my third or fourth decade of using my mental energy to hide things from my awareness, and I accumulate more and more unconscious baggage to carry around with me, I begin to run low on resources. I become more easily overwhelmed, tired, irritable, and inflexible because I have less energy to think through and respond to situations and events, and to process my emotional reactions to them.

It came to me the other day that I avoid looking at the material stored in my unconscious because "I" have placed it there following the conclusion reached by a "protective" part of my mind, saying, "You Can't Handle This!!!" This reminded me of the movie, A Few Good Men, in which Tom Cruise plays an attorney in the military searching for the truth, while Jack Nicholson plays an officer who is hiding the truth. In the most memorable scene in the movie Jack Nicholson's character shouts, "What Do You Want From Me?" to which Tom Cruise's character replies, "I Want The Truth!" and then it happens... Jack Nicholson's character replies "You Can't Handle The Truth!!!"

It dawned on me that each time I hide something in my unconscious, it is as though I create another Jack Nicholson character who will shout at me whenever I am about to look at that hidden material, "You Can't Handle The Truth of what I have hidden from you!!!" "So turn around and look the other way!" It is as though I have used my own mental energy to create a "guard" for each element I store in my unconscious and that "guard" is my own mental energy yelling at me to turn away from the Truth of my experience and memories and reactions. It tells me to run toward some form of distraction or escape, or blaming of someone, or something else for what I am feeling.

The solution to this false dilemma is for me to begin to develop that part of my mind which can monitor this process and strengthen the part of my mind that Loves Truth. Just as in the movie the character played by Tom Cruise decides to fight to uncover the Truth, despite the fact that no one wants him to do that. He fights to uncover the truth despite the fact that he is threatened with the ending of his career as an attorney, and possibly the end of his career as a military officer. I must Love Truth enough to face down that part of my own mind which screams at me that, "You Can't Handle The Truth!!!", and remind it that not only can I handle it, I have already lived through it! I have also continued to function in life despite spending a considerable amount of my own mental energy to keep that Truth hidden from myself.

Contrary to what I have been taught by the culture and society, no one else can make me feel anything. The Truth is that: "My reality is strictly internal, is unique to me, and is created out of my own thoughts." I am causing my own pain and frustration, fatigue and overwhelm, by continuing to believe the false notion that "I can't handle the Truth" and that I must keep it hidden from myself. I would offer that there is a way to live life which is much lighter, and more energized if I can only teach myself to Love Truth and test the words of the man you said: "Know the Truth and the Truth shall set you Free."

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

Dr. Michael Ryce is Coming to Cary, IL - August 21st - 27th

2011-08-15T14:06:00.002-05:00

Dr. Michael Ryce will be appearing at the Center for Spiritual Evolution:
The Center for Spiritual Evolution is located at 204 Spring St. in Cary, IL 60013

Sunday August 21st from noon until 3:00 PM he will be doing the workshop titled: "Why Is This Happening To Me Again?"

This will begin a series of Free workshops which will then move to Monday through Friday from 7:00 PM - 9:30 PM.

Monday night will be: "On Creating Consciously",
Tuesday night will be: "Healing Through Relationships",
Wednesday night will be: "Circle Of Life And How To Play It",
Thursday night will be Codependence To Interdependence", and
Friday night will be: "Naturopathic Keys To Health".

All these workshops are being offered for free. Donations will be accepted but are not required.

Saturday August 28th Dr. Ryce will offer an "Intensive on Mindshifters and StillPoint Breathing", if there are enough prepaid participants. There will be a $125.00 fee for this intensive experience which will run from 8:00 AM - 6:00 PM on Saturday.

Again the address is 204 Spring St., Cary, IL 60013

To get a sample of Dr. Ryce's work you can follow the link below.
http://www.youtube.com/user/PlanetaryHealing?blend=13&ob=5

Please email me if you have any questions. thayes@ch4cs.com

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

A New Audio That Will Help Give You Tools To Change Your Life

2011-08-08T13:53:00.003-05:00

On Tuesday August 2, 2011 on the Mindshifters Radio Internet Show, a woman called the show and worked through a Reality Management Worksheet, with the host Dr. Michael Ryce. The audio from that show is available at www.whyagain.com/worksheets.php. This audio is a powerful example of how the worksheet process and several other tools offered by Dr. Ryce can work together to dismantle the roots of negative emotions and resentments that many of us carry for years, if not decades.

I highly recommend this audio and the worksheet which are both available for free download at the web page shown above. You can also listen in, and call in to the Internet show which airs five days a week at 1:00 PM Central Time, find more info at this location http://www.whyagain.com/mindshifterradio.php

In the audio file of this show you can hear an outstanding example of what can be accomplished in a very short time, if one has the proper tools and willingness to face things that seem unpleasant and emotionally intense. The results are beyond words. Listen in to hear for yourself.

Thanks again Lynne!

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

Blogging About Anger - Or - How To Really Stir Up Your Audience's Reaction

2011-08-04T09:55:00.003-05:00

Just two days ago I wrote a blog entry about the purpose and usefulness of anger. Since then I have received more comments than any other blog entry I have ever written. It seems that just bringing up the topic of anger stirs anger and defensiveness in people. It truly amazes me how much emotion was stimulated by the words I wrote in my blog. It makes it much easier for me to see how people could go to war over money, property, religion or perceived physical threat, when simply typing some words about thoughts regarding the proper usefulness of anger can stir such intense emotion.

Thank you to all who read those words and responded. Thank you to those of you who disagreed with what was written, and thank you to those of you who agreed with it and were appreciative.

I would offer that it is instructive for all of us to realize just how much denied and suppressed energy of emotions we carry within our mind/body systems, which is just laying there waiting to be stimulated by a word, picture, action or event from the outside. I would also offer, once again, that the only way to deal with that energy constructively is to understand and accept that I have been carrying that energy within me and that it was not caused by the word, picture, action or event from the outside. I would refer here to another recent blog post regarding the chocolate syrup in the glass of white milk. http://ccandf.blogspot.com/2011/07/it-is-all-inside-job-or-hersheys.html

If I accept that I am the only one who can create the internal reality I experience, then I can begin to work with what I am experiencing and learn to create something more pleasant and loving. The tools offered by Dr. Michael Ryce and others like him are designed to be applied to my daily life to help me create a more loving and peaceful life for myself, regardless of the external situations and the choices of those around me. This is not a philosophical debate or theoretical exercise. This a set of tools for practical, effective change in the experience of life which I create for myself, day after day.

Thanks again to all those who have commented. I would offer that for anyone who has become aware of a strong emotional reaction to the words written in this, or any other, blog post or article it could be very useful to dismantle the thoughts, beliefs and traumas in your mind/body energy system which are creating that reaction within you. Dr. Ryce makes his reality management worksheet available for free on his website at the following location, for this very purpose. www.whyagain.com/worksheets.php The first three links on that page provide the tools you need to rid yourself of any negative emotional energy you are experiencing.

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

Emotions As Valuable Warning Signals

2011-08-03T12:23:00.004-05:00

In the work we do in the Mindshifters group, we teach tools for dismantling the thoughts and beliefs which lead to negative emotions. There have been times when people visiting the group have been vehemently opposed to dismantling the thoughts which lead to their anger. They have made statements like, "I need my anger because it protects me.", or "I use my anger to fuel my creativity.", or "I don't want anyone judging me and telling me that my thoughts or feelings are wrong. If if is a part of me then it is not wrong and I don't want to get rid of it, I want to embrace my anger and pain."

Well, in some ways I have to agree with part of those protests. Emotions are a natural part of my experience and they serve a valuable function in my life, if I know what that function is, and how to use my thoughts and emotions to my advantage. The difficulty arises when people want to use their emotions to solve their problems, or to pressure someone else to do, or stop doing something. This is like using a perfectly good tool for the wrong job. I run the risk of ruining the tool and either failing to complete the job, or taking a lot longer than necessary, and creating other problems along the way.

I would offer that my negative emotions are a warning system to notify me that I am doing something wrong. As Dr. Michael Ryce teaches us, "If I am in pain, I am in error.". In this case, my anger, frustration, confusion, hurt, sadness, are like the alarm system for my mind/body energy system. They are telling me that I am in error, or I have 'missed the mark' with whatever I was trying to do. Often this warning system tells me that I have made the mistake of thinking that I can and should control things that I cannot control. At other times the warning system tells me that I have judged myself, someone or something as being wrong and thereby set up a belief that I am right and I need to fight whatever is happening.

Guy Finley offers that when I am angry at someone, the degree to which I am angry with them is an indication to me of how right I am and how wrong they are. How can my pain, prove that I am right? He goes on to say that, "My anger and pain does not prove that I am right. It only proves that I don't know what "rightness" is."

If I were right, wouldn't I be feeling happy and loving?

The following insight came to me last night while listening to Mindshifters Radio - the replay of the August 2, 2011 show -

"Anger is only as productive for resolving a situation I don't like, as a fire alarm is for putting out a fire. Clinging to my anger and raging at another person or situation is like blasting the alarm at the flames and expecting the fire to be extinguished."

This is not to say that a fire alarm is useless or should be eliminated. It is simply recognizing that the role of the alarm is to mobilize me to take corrective action to find the source of the problem and remedy it. The alarm is not the solution! It is only an indication of the presence of error and the need for a solution!

My negative emotions are very valuable, but only in their role as an indication to me that I am in pain because I am in error. When I become aware of my negative emotional states, I can then choose to apply the many tools which are available to dismantle the false realities in my mind which are causing my pain. By doing this, I restore my awareness to my original and constant source as the energy of Love, and temporarily end the dream of separation.

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

We Must Forego The Protection Afforded by Judgment

2011-07-25T17:42:00.002-05:00

In order to grow and heal,"We must forego the protection afforded by judgment."

What does this mean? This means that whenever we judge another we are hiding from ourselves the things within us that we don't want to see. We cannot judge another without declaring that the same is true about ourselves. It is not possible for me to even recognize something outside of myself, if it does not resonate with or stir up something that is already inside of me. I cannot be upset about something I see, unless I am already judging myself negatively for having said, thought, or done the same thing at some point in time.

So, when I judge someone or something else as being wrong, I am hiding from myself the things I am unhappy with in myself, by focusing my attention outside of myself. This "protects" me from the discomfort of dealing with those aspects of myself which are uncomfortable for me.

That is why I say that in order to grow and heal, I need to "Forego the protection afforded by judgment.

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

It Is All An Inside Job - Or - Hershey's Chocolate, A Key To A Spiritual Truth

2011-07-23T13:32:00.009-05:00

One of the most horrific lies ever forced upon us as human beings is the idea that other people cause our thoughts and feelings. This one simple lie changes our view of ourselves from creator to victim. This one simple lie is the source of all unnecessary psychological and emotional pain.
The fact is that our thoughts create our emotions and that our emotions simply shadow our thoughts. Since we are each endowed with the infinite capacity to choose the focus of our conscious awareness at any given moment, we have the free will to choose our thoughts.

This means that we create our emotions by choosing the thoughts which produce those emotions. Now, I realize that for almost everyone reading these words, their cultural and family conditioning goes directly contrary to what I am offering here. That does not make it right or wrong. This is simply something for each of us to observe in our own lives, as it is happening. If one observes that thinking happy thoughts leads to happy feelings/emotions, and that thinking sad thoughts leads to sad feelings/emotions, and that thinking angry thoughts leads to angry feelings/emotions, then one has demonstrated the truth to one's self.

Most of us have been conditioned to think that other people offend us, and that other people hurt our feelings, and that other people make us angry. What has happened here is that we have been trained to mistake "the trigger" for the cause. The cause of one's emotions, as we can easily observe, is the choice of one's thoughts. When we choose to believe that what happens outside of us, or what someone else does, is the cause of our emotions we simply mistake the "triggering event" as the cause. When this happens we see ourselves as having been "made" to feel a certain way. Without realizing it we have defined ourselves as victims. We then quickly try to avoid the uncomfortable feeling of being the helpless victim by blaming, or attacking the person, or thing, we think has caused our internal discomfort or emotional pain.

I would offer that blaming someone or something outside of me for causing my psychological or emotional pain is mistaking the trigger for the cause. I remember when I was younger how we used to get a large glass of cold milk and pour Hershey's chocolate syrup into the glass. The chocolate syrup would pool at the bottom of the glass, leaving 95% of the glass filled with cold, white milk. If I took a drink from that glass, I would taste nothing but the cold, white milk. Now let's imagine that I have two nice tall glasses of white milk and I pour chocolate syrup into one glass and leave the other as just plain white milk. When I taste these two glasses of milk they will both taste like cold white milk. Now imagine a spoon coming into my posession and I vigorously stir the milk with the chocolate syrup pooled at the bottom. The glass will soon be full of dark, rich chocolate milk. However, if I use that same spoon and vigorously stir the glass of white milk, without any chocolate syrup in it, it stays a nice cold glass of white milk.

The spoon is just a stimulus, a trigger, for the chocolate to be disturbed from its resting place at the bottom of the glass. The spoon did not cause the milk to be chocolate. The spoon can only stir up what is already in the glass. I could stir the glass with the white milk in it for hours, and it will not turn chocolate. So we can plainly see that the spoon is simply a stimulus, it is not the cause for the milk to turn brown and chocolatey.

Blaming someone else for the anger I feel is like blaming the spoon for making the milk chocolatey. Blaming someone else for my choice to think sad or bitter thoughts is like deciding to spend days and days stirring the glass of white milk, hoping that if I stir it enough it will turn to chocolate milk. The spoon only stimulates and stirs up what is already in the glass.

To continue this analogy, let us imagine that I had the willpower to refrain from drinking the chocolate milk once the syrup had been stirred up and spread evenly throughout the glass. Let's imagine that I am able to put it back into the refrigerator, (where no one else drinks it either), and I let it rest, without any exposure to the spoon for several long hours. When I finally take the milk out of the refrigerator I will see that 90% of the glass is filled with cold white milk, and the syrup has once again settled to the bottom. If I take a drink from the glass, I will taste only cold, white milk. Does this offer me proof that the spoon caused the milk to be chocolately, because when the milk was away from the spoon for several hours, it returned to its state of being mostly cold, white milk? Do I prove that the spoon caused the milk to be chocolatey by re-introducing the spoon to the milk and stirring it up once again until it becomes chocolate milk once more.

In much the same way, we have been trained to think that other people, who by the way only introduce us to parts of ourselves which are hidden from our awareness, are causing our anger, sadness, hurt, insult, offense, confusion, etc. Then when that person goes away, and we are alone or with other people, we feel much better, more calm, happy, focused, loving, etc. This seems to prove to us that the other person was responsible for our negative emotions, because we only feel those things when we are with them. REMEMBER THE SPOON!

Other people, places, situations and events can only stir up within us what is already there.

Please don't believe me about this. Observe for yourself the way your thoughts and emotions interact and what is happening in your thought process when you are feeling happy, sad, angry, confused, or fearful. Once you are armed with accurate observations about how your thoughts and feelings interact, and your ability to choose the focus of your conscious awareness, you will be better able to make the choice to Teach Only Love.

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

Blog Post From Jayem about ACIM and The Way of Mastery

2011-05-11T16:17:00.000-05:00

This topic came up again last night in the Mindshifters group and so I thought I would re-post the blog from Jayem. The point is that one should not get caught up in the words, thinking that words are truth. Words cannot tell us Truth. Words can only point us in the direction of experiences which show us Truth.

A student recently asked: "What is the difference between ACIM (A Course in Miracles) and Way of Mastery and where do they conflict?"

Teaching is an art, not a science,

and all forms of teaching but serve to sever

the mind or soul from its infatuation with the illusions

it has generated, and then entered into.

The wise teacher speaks the language of the student first, then leads them beyond the very limits they do not know imprisons them.

Both ACIM and The Way of Mastery (WOM) are expressions of this teaching art aimed at reaching downward into the labyrinth of where the student is, and providing ways and means to enter and – depending on the devotion, desire, and commitment of the student – to move through the process of enlightenment.

I am not an ACIM student. I am a disciple of Jeshua, who is the Master Teacher ‘in charge of the Atonement.’ He has selectively led me to small segments of ACIM, and – as far as I can tell – there is no conflict at all if one goes far enough in the enlightenment process. I have had many, many Course students come to me – and to WOM – who, frankly, seem to be suffering in a ‘stuckness’. It appears that they get stuck in a purely mental approach to waking, and this is a very common malaise that can occur if one doesn’t have access to teachers who have themselves gone beyond the level of purely mental/intellectual understanding, for they will be limited to meeting the student’s deeper obstructions with little more than recourse to ideas and statements about Reality, but don’t necessarily have the skillful art that can operate at subtle/deep levels of soul itself, nor even know how to “seduce” the mind out of its ruts of thinking/perceiving.

In a nutshell, SOME students, following the lead of some ACIM teachers, say the body and world are simply unreal (there is a sense in which this is true) and thus tend to discount feeling, breath, and any need to participate in growing one’s capacity to serve others.

Personally, I know that phase of the waking process. It’s actually found in many forms of spirituality around the world. Unfortunately, it can be a clever way to avoid any really ownership of egoic patterns, as well as submission to real transformation. Seeing the unreality of world, self, and purpose of Creation is actually a first step; as extraordinary as it may seem. What is often missed is the overall context of ACIM and a lack of understanding of where it fits along the spectrum of awakening, and the audience it relates to. There are certainly passages in it that reveal what comes once the radical correction in what I call the ‘seat of the soul’ is truly completed.

This correction, by the way, has already been mapped out and described in certain universal spiritual pathways, and has been already spoken of by countless mystics and masters. Here, let’s just call this non-duality. There is a radical and absolute reconciliation between what seems to be the duality of spirit / matter, eternity / time, God / self, form / formlessness, without falling into the temptation to explain all realms of form away!

Many ACIM students have found their way beyond this first step, and gone on to share and teach from deeper levels. For example, Brent Haskell’s Journey Beyond Words is one example. Marianne Williamson’s work can hardly be said to be limited by this first step in waking. Rather, she models a much deeper level which we find permeates WOM, and the PathWay Jeshua has led me to go through and develop for others over the past twenty years. He calls this ‘servantship’:

being moved by such compassion

that one’s whole life is submitted to

personal transformation;

is moved by, and for, the very love of God/Reality.

And you know what? Everybody who takes up the path of genuine spirituality committed to fully waking is going to struggle, get lost, and find themselves in dilemmas they couldn’t possibly imagine before their journey begins! It’s part of the ‘rights of passage’ inherent in the waking process itself.

WOM contains the "ascending current" and absolute metaphysic found in ACIM, that yes, this is a dream, but in the sense of how we perceive it from contraction into the duality of a self separate from God/Reality. It also emphasizes feeling as central to the process of turning Mind back upon itself to penetrate the roots of separation/duality itself, and ends in a very radical non-dualism.

You see, Mind has depth. It is more that just the component that forms mental concepts affecting perception. Feeling –in the context of cultivating presence, witnessing, and a growing capacity to meet all arising with Love itself – is a deeper level of Mind! Working at this level broadens profoundly the waking process, revealing revelation, insight, and capacity to enfold Creation not available at the limited level of thought and concept.

One way, I think, to show the broad stages of genuine awakening is to borrow Ramana Maharshi's famous mystical syllogism. Here, we can see three distinct domains of consciousness, and gain some insight into what some students of ACIM (and some teachers) may be doing with it, and why:

ACIM (as it tends to get interpreted in what I feel is a bit unfair to ACIM itself) would say with the first domain stated by Ramana:

Brahman (Reality/God) alone is Real.

The world is illusion.

An absolute dualism, and not uncommon in world spiritual traditions to certain stages of development. Note, it’s the first step referred to earlier! And then Ramana takes the shocking leap that requires stages of awakening beyond the levels of mind dealing with subject-object perception and interpretation, or ‘intellect’ as we commonly use the term, to reveal:

Brahman is the world!

This just cannot be grasped from the first step of awakening (one which, by the way, the spiritual ego just loves to latch onto!) This final and extraordinary leap is probably found in ACIM, but just won’t be seen until the student has matured the capacity to be able to see it! It’s made explicit in WOM, in the final chapters of Book Three, The Way of Knowing, namely, that there is only God.

ACIM says of itself that its purpose will not answer every question a teacher of god will have, and that its goal is a return to peace SO THAT one is willing to turn every decision over to the "Holy Spirit" (which, of course, is the most natural of the natural where the distortion of separation contracting awareness into separation is gone…. that is, spirit leads, not ego). Logically, this implies it is NOT any kind of final word, nor a complete explanation or pathway in itself. Its fundamental modus operandi is to use reason to defeat our ideas about ourselves, and to point to higher possibilities.

But a spiritual journey isn’t about ideas and words. Its about becoming the ‘living Word’, which is about a quality of Being that, in the end, really can’t be contained in any teaching device, and that includes ACIM and WOM!

I have a sneaking suspicion that if Jeshua had felt "complete" with ACIM, there would have been no need for The Way of Mastery. I don’t quite see WOM as just another form of what ACIM calls the universal curriculum.. Many curriculums share common goals, but not all curriculums share all goals, or revelations. WOM and ACIM both serve the skillful art of assisting the Mind/soul to;

1) wake up from false identity

2) to see Reality/Creation more and more clearly

3) to serve and participate in and as Creation itself.

I hear often from ACIM students (and beginning WOM students) say that ‘its all just illusion. It’s unreal. I am only dreaming.’ I, too, entered and was identified with that, too. After all, we all pass into the First Step sooner or later. Hoping the beginning equals the end is a temptation to guard against! Those statements are true enough at their own level, but are only partial revelations of a full enlightenment.

In essence, if I insist an object (thing, person, experience) is illusion in the sense of not real at all, I have JUST MADE my idea of it VERY REAL and am actually what ACIM refers to as ‘twice removed from Reality’. What does that mean? Something is arising. Mind forms an Idea about it, and then formulates a statement to represent the Idea. This is where we live incessantly until we begin to awaken from the Dream of Separation. And then the ego aspect insists upon it, and argues for it!

And what is Reality?

If we are to say anything at all, it is immediate and immediately known by being it, not by arguing about it or against what is immediately arising by calling it ‘illusion’, or ‘unreal’. What is unreal is the need to move two levels away from Reality in the first place! This is to recapitulate the primordial Separation in this moment. What ACIM refers to as the ‘Holy Instant’ simply isn’t available in any mediated level of attention/use of awareness.

I feel that a common obstacle all students (and many teachers, especially if they cease being students!) risk is the hope that what they are studying is the ‘final word’ about Reality, unaware that they are settling for a new ‘translation / understanding’, rather than entering the way of radical transformation which opens one’s very being to the immediate apprehension in, of, and as, Reality as such.

And the one word that is a symbol of the Idea that most perfectly reflects Reality has only four letters:

LOVE

God IS, Love.

It is QUITE true, of course, that as ACIM says, "what is real cannot be threatened, and what is unreal does not exist." Yes to that!! What IS real is not opposed to, or in conflict with anything at all. This is why Jeshua teaches us that Love “allows all things, trusts all things, embraces all things, (and in this way) transcends all things.”

Love is not a dreamer, for it is not a separate "one". And only Love is real. And it’s everywhere as the only thing that is actually real. We just aren’t seeing it, being it, allowing it because we are contracted in fear and guilt at the core of our deepest core. I have come to see into this radically in my own case, and in the case of thousands, even many who have been intellectual students, meditators, etc for years:

Until one can feel fully all the way into this core grip of fear and guilt, one will unconsciously defend it, and project a defense by ‘going up’ into the mind, clinging to ideas about the Big Three: Self, Reality/God, Creation. My ideas give me a place to hide as it were, but Love is never fully realized behind the buffer of ideas, no matter how lofty they may seem.

We are contracting into mediating – and thus separating from – Reality, or (and this is the goal of all genuine spirituality) we are directly knowing the radiant, shocking, liberating, infinite immediacy of Reality. We are in, and being moved by, Love!

There is an immediacy of Presence that drops the soul into eternity, and opens creation infinitely, in a simple raindrop on a roof, or the falling of a tear, or a vision to end world hunger, or to write a love song to God, or cook the most loving meal your friends have ever had.

ACIM says it very clearly, actually:

Heaven is here, there is no other place.

Heaven is now, there is no other time.

WOM may go farther than ACIM in making it abundantly clear that this is true, and therefore, creation is already timeless and infinite and ceaseless in its unfolding, and invites us all to go all the way BACK INTO A CREATION UTTERLY TRANSFORMED and renewed and enfolded, and celebrated!

The key theme of ACIM is essentially forgiveness, and of course, it is also a necessary condition of WOM. What WOM adds is the call to join the dance of creation without reservation anymore; to discover what it means to know GOD IS, and that heaven is here and heaven is now. It invites us to see more deeply that our waking requires us to come back down and into this world just as it is, for we do not fully awaken until we take up what he refers to as Servantship. This arises only as we come to see that our true Nature, and the nature of Reality are but one: Love.

As Love is restored or re-membered, compassion for the whole of creation arises, and the very energy of desire goes through its final quantum shift: from desire for egoic safety, fulfillment, and meaning, through the desire to awaken from ego, and into the desire to serve Love’s healing of God’s ‘one Son’; every being yet imprisoned in the suffering of a fully illusory separation, fused to the vicious cycle of guilt, fear, and projection of these.

This is why there is no liberation FOR the self, but only FROM it, INTO, Reality. Behold! For God looked upon all He created and said, "It is very good." And when there is seeing with God Consciousness, what is seen is suffused in Holiness. And what is Holy drips and oozes with Beauty. The sipping of a cup of coffee becomes what it could never be while the veil of a separated ego-self seemed to yet demand contraction in fear and guilt.

To become ‘ego-less’ is not to see that nothing really exists, but that what ego projected was unreal. It is to awaken as Love itself in and under all conditions. It is not to be finally obliterated, but finally and fully Existent as the essence of Existence itself. What we all need to do is, I think, give up the notion that one form of teaching is complete, and then cling to it doggedly, thus confusing the very purpose of the teaching as a tool with the real goal the teaching was designed for. Let us all be ceaselessly devoted to learning the power of innocence, of deepening Presence in wonder and curiosity, letting every moment teach us more deeply of the Love that God IS, of the potential of Love for dissolving all that may yet impede the extension of True Creation in, as, and for, this moment; this one, precious, eternal, Moment. For it IS heaven itself.

Do we yet see it? Do we yet live it? Are we yet lived in it and by it? Are we really the presence of Peace, Trust, and Power? Are we truly liberated from the grip of fear and the need to ‘save’ a self that never was? Are we ceaseless students, eager to learn more and more of how to truly be helpful? Are we given fully to Love’s extension, or are we yet moved by our ‘love’ of our personal comfort? If not, regardless of one’s treasured from of spirituality, there are clearly further steps to be taken, a further depth to be plumbed, a further purification from illusion to be lived.

In the end, ACIM and WOM are not the least bit important. What matters is the fruit they blossom in us, as us, through us, and for all beings in every single moment, and with each and every breath.

I am only interested in the journey of all souls into their own immediate and fulfilled enlightenment. I will leave it to the academically inclined to compare and contrast ACIM and WOM. I think, somewhere, Jeshua has stated that is exactly what ego does!

Jayem

Comments (5 posted):

Pasted from <http://www.wayofmastery.com/jayem/blog/3328.html>

Thought for each moment of each day.

2011-05-02T08:45:00.002-05:00

On this day when so many are celebrating the death of a human being -

Please remember that you have the infinite capacity to choose the focus of your conscious awareness in each moment, and that these choices create your experience of life.

Please remember that only Love heals.

Please choose to spend part of each moment remembering that your true nature is Love.

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

EFT Class At Relax 4 Life April 30th

2011-04-06T16:02:00.002-05:00

I will be teaching The Emotional Freedom Technique once again at Relax 4 Life in Barrington on April 30, 2011. The class runs from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM and is held at the beautiful and fragrance free setting at Relax 4 Life, where they have a spacious facility and three labyrinths on the property for those who are inclined to walk and relax during the lunch break.

I love teaching there because of the wonderful energy and the beautiful view. It is a wonderful way to gain exposure to, and practice, one of the most simple, efficient and powerful healing tools I have learned in my 36 years of doing therapy. Learning The Emotional Freedom Technique is learning to give yourself, or someone else, an acupressure treatment for anything that bothers you either physically, mentally, or emotionally.

I teach this technique to any of my patients who are willing to learn it and I highly recommend it as a therapeutic tool for physicians, physical therapists, massage therapists, psychotherapists and anyone who regularly works with clients in a therapeutic setting.

I hope you will consider joining us for this fabulous learning experience.

For more information or to register click here: Relax4Life EFT

Something Completely Differrent

2011-03-23T19:23:00.003-05:00

I usually write about the Mindshifters Group meeting here, but today I would like to share three short videos from TED.com which have a very strong relevance to the work we do in the Mindshifters Group and the goal of all that work, which is: To make the world a better place by making ourselves better people.

The first video is only four minutes long:

http://www.ted.com/talks/mark_bezos_a_life_lesson_from_a_volunteer_firefighter.html?utm_source=newsletter_weekly_2011-03-22

The second video is about the need to bring back the Golden Rule and actually bring it back to life in our daily lives.

http://www.ted.com/talks/karen_armstrong_let_s_revive_the_golden_rule.html

The last video is yet another real life example of what Guy Finley describes as, "Lessons Ride In On The Back of Events", "And the intensity of my resistance to an event is in direct proportion to the importance of the lesson I need to learn from the event."

http://www.ted.com/talks/stacey_kramer_the_best_gift_i_ever_survived.html

Enjoy!

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

Dr. Michael Ryce - Communication: "Did You Hear What I Think I Said?"

2011-03-18T17:18:00.003-05:00

Tuesday night the Mindshifters group listened to the first half of the lecture by Dr. Michael Ryce on Responsibility Communication. Dr. Ryce clearly defines Responsibility Communication as being distinctly different from what most of our culture practices. Most of us are taught to use projection communication, which is based on blaming other people and situations for what we are feeling and experiencing.

Responsibility Communication is only possible when we realize that we are creating what we call our "reality" and that this "reality" is unique to each of us, and is caused solely by where we choose to focus our conscious awareness. When I create an experience for myself and then choose to blame someone, or something else for what I experience, I am practicing projection communication. Any communication which "blames" is projection communication. Any communication which clearly identifies me as the creator of my experience is Responsibility Communication.

Dr. Ryce introduces us to a Responsibility Communication worksheet during the lecture and it is available for free to download from his website at:www.whyagain.com There is also a wonderful book by Robert Bolton titled People Skills, which details much of the same essential skills for effective communication and can give some assistance with the mechanics of "Reflective Listening". Dr. Ryce however is able to add depth and power to the process of Responsibility Communication by integrating the knowledge of the Forgiveness Process and difference between what actually happens and "the reality" I create in my own mind about what has actually happened.

I highly recommend the lecture for the examples he gives of two different letters which were written using Responsibility Communication, one for a personal issue and one for a business issue. These two letters and an understanding of the principles behind their construction make this video a must see for people who want to be empowered by their communication rather than frustrated by their mis-communication.

Once again the group provided a loving and supportive atmosphere for discussion and the space for me to work through a Reality Management Worksheet. My thanks to all those in attendance for your support and holding the energy of Love as I worked through the worksheet.

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

Forgiveness: Who Really Needs It?

2011-03-15T15:54:00.002-05:00

On Sunday I had the honor of addressing the congregation at the Unity Church in Crystal Lake, IL.
This Unity Church is the host of our Mindshifters Group, for which I am most grateful! www.uccl.org
To listen to the meditation and or the talk, follow this link. Click Here

Your Comments are welcome as always.

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

Dr. Hayes Teaching EFT Class April 30th, 2011

2011-03-14T14:11:00.002-05:00

EFT is a remarkable self-healing technique that uses your body’s natural stress reduction points to produce rapid change. Stimulation of these points by touching or tapping has been scientifically demonstrated to quickly reduce anxiety, depression, and phobias often leading to the reduction of physical symptoms like headaches, muscle stiffness etc. EFT also has the potential to improve your mood, boost your vitality, and dramatically improve your performance at work, school, sports, losing weight, stopping smoking or other habits, and managing anger. EFT has been written about in national magazines, the Wall Street Journal, and on national TV.

I will be teaching this class once again at the fabulous facility at Relax 4 Life in Barrington, IL on:
Saturday, April 30th 2011 $100 9:00 a.m. - 4:00 p.m.

If you are a social worker, counselor, teacher or massage therapist and want 6 CEU's for this workshop ($5 additional processing fee per class date).

Click here for more details
http://relax4life.com/eft.htm

Dr. Michael Ryce - Prayer - An Ancient Definition

2011-02-25T13:30:00.007-06:00

Dr. Michael Ryce is the director of an institute which is charged with the translation of the oldest known copy of the New Testament, directly from the ancient Aramaic into English. One of the most powerful concepts I have heard him speak about is the definition of the word prayer. From the ancient Aramaic one interpretation of the meaning of "prayer" is, "to set a trap for God". This does not make much sense in our western way of looking at things, but in the ancient world, God was understood to be the energy of creation, or Love. If God is thought of as energy then it makes sense for me to "tune" myself to be able to receive and express that energy.

In this way I may think of myself as having the ability to tune myself to certain thoughts and energies, much like a radio can be tuned to different frequencies of radio waves which are always there and available for reception. In my mind/body energy system I can think of my spiritual faculty of Choice as the tuning mechanism. I can make conscious choices to "tune" my thoughts to Love, and the thoughts and behaviors which are compatible with that energy of Love. I can choose to engage in behaviors and interactions with people that express that energy of Love and extend that Love in every relationship I have with every person and everything in my life. When I choose to do this, I set myself up to receive the energy of Love, or God, much the same way that I would tune a radio to receive the signal of my favorite station.

I would like to echo Dr. Ryce's call to all of us to make a choice for Love, to choose the thoughts and behaviors which reflect and extend the energy of Love that we are made of. In this way it is possible to make one's life a prayer, by choosing to "tune" ourselves to the energy of Love and God and in that way, to "set a trap for God".

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

A Course In Miracles - A New Beginning

2011-02-23T17:35:00.002-06:00

Last Tuesday night the Mindshifters group watched the Dr. Michael Ryce lecture, A New Beginning. It was very well received and sparked a lot of conversation and introspection as all these lectures do. Today I received an email from one of our regular Mindshifters attendees and I was so moved by it that I asked her permission to share it on this blog. She graciously agreed. She begins with the core idea of the lecture which resonated with her the most deeply.

If I really want a day of Love, Gentleness & Respect I must give that day away!! I must give that day away with My Actions, My Words (keep words positive) and with My Thoughts (mind energy).

This has been going through my head over and over again since last week. Since I heard it from Michael Ryce on Tuesday, Feb. 15th.

Would not everyone want their day to be a day of gentleness, of love and one of respect? What would that day look like? The people I would encounter would treat me with kindness & helpfulness. People would treat me, my feelings & ideas with respect, which doesn't mean they would always agree with me, just respect my differences without judgment. I would feel the love and respect of the Universe in a quiet & gentle way. In the way of oneness.

Now, how would I give that day away? How would I treat the people I meet? How would I be loving, gentle & respectful to everyone, everything, every creature, every situation and occurrence of my day? The same way I would want to be treated of course is the easy answer. I keep rolling this around in my head and in my heart & soul. It feels right...it feels good...it feels loving & gentle & respectful of myself & of the universe. Ahhh, the ego tries to tell me that this will be too hard to do for one whole day let alone every day and with everyone in every situation. After all, others won't treat me that way so why should I treat them gently & lovingly, treat them with respect when they will not respect me back and after all I am RIGHT!! But...my heart & soul still like this idea. The softness of it. The way it makes me feel, all warm and safe inside. Yes, it makes me feel safe, like being home after a long, hard day. Like being in the arms of Spirit...Mother Earth. Here is the other thing I realize. If I treat others with love, gentleness & respect that means I must also treat myself with love, gentleness & respect, and I deserve it, I need it & I want it. Everyone of us deserves it, needs it and wants it. No matter who or what they believe about themselves or others.

I heard this in a lecture on the same evening I had some huge challenges come up. Isn't that the way it often seems to work? When we need something the most, If we are listening, paying attention we will hear what we need to hear to grow, to learn, to change & hopefully become more then what we were before. When all of life seemed to be falling around me (once again) I just kept repeating it to myself and while it wasn't always easy and I didn't remember it every time or seem able to use it or implement it every time, to keep the love & gentleness, much less the respect present I did my best and it felt easier & I felt calmer and I think I made better decisions and behaved more lovingly, less judgmentally. Even after the waters have calmed, I still keep repeating this to myself because it just feels so right, it feels so good and I feel myself soften. I feel myself become more accepting, less judgmental of others and myself. I feel myself open a little and the universe open a little more for me. I just wanted to share this with you because it feels so important to me and I believe we all could be a little more loving, gentle & respectful of each other, the world and ourselves.

Namaste

Kris Blum
www.inspiredart.us

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

Dr. Michael Ryce on the Radio Today at 1:00 PM Central Time

2011-02-22T10:01:00.004-06:00

Today, live on the radio and internet, from Florida, Dr. Ryce will work through the latest version of his Reality Management Worksheet, with a woman who has volunteered to work through an issue.

There is a live link on his website at www.whyagain.com which will allow you to listen into the show through the internet. http://www.whyagain.com/mindshifterradio.php
or directly on the radio station's online feed at: http://radio.securenetsystems.net/radio_player_large.cfm?stationCallSign=WWNN

Dr. Michael Ryce on Blog Talk Radio

2011-02-07T11:30:00.002-06:00

Dr. Michael Ryce is beginning a radio show everyday 1:00-2:00PM EST and the link is:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/earthangelsradio/2011/02/07/why-is-this-happening-to-me-again-with-host-dr-michael-ryce

News and further information is available at Dr. Ryce's website : http://www.whyagain.com/mindshifterradio.php

Please spread the news to anyone you know who may be interested.

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

A Wonderful Documentary on the Mystery of Water

2011-02-07T11:24:00.002-06:00

I have now watched this twice and probably will watch it again soon.

The implications for daily life practice are many and varied. For instance, I now try to remember to bless my water before I drink it. It does not change the chemical make-up of the water, but it changes the structure of the molecules and imparts and energy which was been "driven" from the water by all the processing it goes through before it gets to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o39v0uwxyig

Mindshifters Group - Getting The Stress You Need

2011-01-26T14:54:00.004-06:00

This week the Mindshifters group watched the first half of the lecture by Dr. Michael Ryce titled: Getting the Stress You Need. The essence of this lecture is that the human mind functions as a stress management system. The simple definition for stress in this instance is "the tension which is produced within me, by the difference between the way I want things to be, and the way things are, or appear to me to be". When there is a difference between these two things, it creates a discomfort within me, and I experience it as stress. Then, whether I realize it or not, I create a goal based on the way I want things to be and this goal determines my behavior.

Dr. Ryce cites research from ancient texts which discuss the fact that there is a filter in the mind over intention which can be set to Fear, Hostility, or Love. Whenever the filter is set to fear or hostility it distorts my perception and I do not see actuality clearly. Whenever the filter is set to Love I see actual events more clearly and I have the best evidence for how to proceed in the world. If I have the filter over intention in my mind set to Love, this allows only intentions keyed to Love to be used as the raw materials for forming my goals. This means that my goals will be Loving.

If the filter in my mind over intention is set to hostility or fear, then my intentions will be keyed to hostility or fear, and my mind will create a picture -("reality") - of the world as being a hostile or fearful place. Then my goals will be formulated by the raw material of those hostile or fearful intentions, and my goals will be based in fear or hostility.

The first exercise in the first part of the lecture focused on creating different emotions and letting yourself experience them. After doing this we are asked to examine how we were able to call-up the various emotions and feel them. The conclusion is that in order to feel the different emotions, we had to think different thoughts which produced those emotional feelings within us. So we were led to discover that as we choose our thoughts, they create our emotions and the physical sensations which accompany them. We are then asked to watch this process in our daily lives and to actively choose the thoughts which leave us feeling pleasant emotions.

The second exercise is the process of generating a strong feeling of Love and then to imagine sending that Love out through our eyes to a partner. Our partner then works to feel and experience the effect of that energy coming toward them. We then traded roles and let our partner generate a strong feeling of Love and imagine sending it out their eyes to us as we attempt to focus on whatever sensations it stirs in us, to be on the receiving end of that energy.

This exercise is crucial in this work because the active force for healing in this work is Love. The key is the ability to hold my awareness on the energy of Love and keep that awareness present and active in my conscious mind when something unlike Love comes up. The more familiar I am with how I feel when I am able to focus my conscious attention on my actual nature as Love, the easier it is for me to shift my conscious awareness to that actuality. The more I practice this, the easier it becomes and eventually it develops into a habit, which I can strengthen to higher levels. The more I do this the easier it is to shift the focus of my conscious awareness to Love whenever something unlike Love gets resonated within me. Each time I do this, healing takes place. Love is the true healing force. Love is the energy of creation, that which reconciles opposites and creates anew.

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

Purpose, Personal Power and Commitment Part 2

2011-01-19T11:00:00.005-06:00

This week the Mindshifters group watched the second half of the lecture by Dr. Michael Ryce titled Purpose, Personal Power and Commitment. In this half of the lecture Dr. Ryce traces out a predictable path of discomfort, disease and death which results when one's natural enthusiasm for life is denied and suppressed. This process of denial and suppression leads to increased tension, frustration, projection, externalization and conflict which has us focusing outside of ourselves for the solution to our pain.

This pathway makes clear how the denial and suppression of mental/emotional energy begins to interfere with the functioning of the physical organs, and eventually shuts down such important systems as the endocrine system of the human body. When the endocrine system is not working properly it leads to fatigue and eventually a complete shut-down of the mind/body energy system.

This is just more detail and more confirmation about how the mind/body energy system works and about how we each create our own internal reality, both physically and mentally. This also helps to explain the phenomenal success of The Reality Management Worksheet process. The reason for the power and effectiveness of The Reality Management Worksheet is that it clearly helps us focus on what we are doing to create our thoughts, which produce our emotions and thereby either build up our energy system, or tear it down.

We are made of the energy of Love and designed to contain and extend that energy and that energy alone. Anytime we engage in thoughts which produce an energy unlike Love, we begin to degrade the mind/body energy system and create dis-ease, which eventually results in break down of the physical energy system we call the body.

If we want a different experience of life, we must choose a different reason for living. Once we are clear about our reason for living and our purpose in life, that purpose can be the focusing lens with which we choose our goals. When we are paying attention and choose to let only Loving intentions be used as the building blocks of our goals, then only Loving goals and Loving behaviors will result.

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

Purpose, Personal Power, and Commitment

2011-01-12T13:58:00.002-06:00

Last night the Mindshifters group watched the first half of the lecture by Dr. Michael Ryce titled, Purpose, Personal Power, and Commitment. In this lecture Dr. Ryce highlights the fact that when we are not clear about our purpose, we scatter our energy and dissipate our power. When we are clear about our purpose, we focus our energy and magnify our power and effectiveness. Dr. Ryce details a process for creating a personal purpose which can then be used daily to focus our energy and increase our effectiveness.

Dr. Ryce recently posted an audio file on his website which I think is one of the most clear and precise summaries of the work he does in all of his seminars and intensives. You can listen to it here or find it on his web site under the heading of Media.

http://www.whyagain.com/media/YshuasAramaicWisdom.mp3

I won't try to summarize the talk here. I just strongly encourage you to invest the 33 minutes it takes to listen to this audio, to hear a master teacher/student summarize the work he has been living for the past 30 plus years.

I wish to thank all of those who have been contributing to the group and using the tools provided by Dr. Ryce to help themselves act in a more loving and compassionate manner in their daily lives and thereby making this world a better place to live.

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

The Laws of Living Part 1

2010-12-17T10:41:00.005-06:00

This week the Mindshifters group watched the first part of the lecture by Dr. Michael Ryce titled, The Laws of Living. In this lecture Dr. Ryce makes the distinction between the many rules that man creates, which are arbitrary and constantly changing, and The Law which governs our existence as human beings in the physical and spiritual realms. The Law is something which cannot be broken, it is simply the description of the way things work. For a simple example one can observe the Law of gravity. If I lift a pen from the desk and then let it go, it will always fall toward the desk or the floor, or whatever is directly below it. It will not float off to the left or up to the corner of the room on some days, or at different times of the day, it will always fall straight down, unless something or someone acts on it to change its course.

The Laws of Living as described by Dr. Ryce in this lecture are not arbitrary rules set out by some group, government agency, or religion in order to establish a pattern of behavior between people, it is simply a statement of the observation of the way the world works. These Laws have been known by the great spiritual teachers for all of recorded history. They have not changed and there is no reason to believe they will change with the passing of time. If we learn to live our lives in harmony with these laws, we will be assured of happiness and contentment. If we live our lives without regard to these Laws, we will be assured of frustration, anger, bitterness, disappointment and resentment.

If this is seen clearly then the choice seems obvious, to learn of the Law and live our lives in harmony with the Law. However, we have been conditioned to think that there are no absolute laws, and that the rules which men have constructed to help them gain power and authority over others, are the same as The Law. We have been taught that thinking and talking about absolute Law is a bad thing, since it often conflicts with the desires of those who would have us focus completely on the physical world. It has long been said that The Law, and the knowledge of how to live in harmony with it, will set one free. Setting the people free is not in the best interest of those who wish to accumulate wealth and power, using the labor and servitude of others. This being the case, it is seen by some as risky to even talk about The Law, and about setting people free to live the life they were born to live on all levels. People were not born to live lives of servitude and to be controlled by others for the accumulation of wealth and power. People are born to learn, and grow, and expand the possibility of what they can be, by learning to take responsibility for all that they think, feel, say and do.

Another key portion of the lecture focuses on the idea that words do not have meaning. Words are simply vibrations and those vibrations trigger memories, beliefs and sensations within the person who is touched by those vibrations. The word itself has no meaning other than that which is held by the person who receives the vibration created by the word when it is spoken. The simple truth of this can be seen by observing a room full of people who speak only English, when someone who speaks Greek comes into the room to make an announcement in Greek. While the person speaking Greek has an important message to impart, and while the room full of people who speak only English are able to hear the sounds being made, they are completely "deaf" to the message. Only those who have been trained to interpret the sounds made by the person speaking Greek will be able to receive and understand the message. This is because the sounds being received by their ears, will trigger the memory of meaning stored in their brains and then those people will be able to attach meaning to the sounds they hear.

This is what was meant in the scriptures when they talked about how people did not have the eyes to see, or the ears to hear the message being given. It is fairly certain that everyone in the audience, at that time, had physical eyes and ears. However, they did not have the past experience or the frame of reference which would allow them to understand the message which was being taught. Therefore the messages were given in multiple ways, as in a parable, which means a story with parallel meanings. Then with repetition and intervening life experience, people were able to build their own internal understanding of things which could only be hinted at in the words which were being used. True spiritual teachings and stories and parables are not designed to get someone to believe in anything. They are designed to point an individual toward an experience which will open that person to new levels of understanding which can only be achieved through direct contact with a new level of being.

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

The Existence of The Field and Emotional Cure of Cancer

2010-12-06T16:40:00.003-06:00

I recently came across a fifteen minute video of Gregg Braden talking about the very thing that Dr. Michael Ryce talks about each week in the lectures we watch in the Mindshifters group. In this lecture Gregg Braden shows a video of a woman being treated in a medicine-less hospital, for a three minute procedure which eliminates her bladder cancer tumor.

He then goes on to explain the "technology" behind this experience and at the end of the video he reports on a scientific study which demonstrates the presence of the field of energy which connects all things. I highly recommend this short video as an introduction to the larger field of work which can transform lives, both physically and emotionally and which is the foundation of the work we do each week in the Mindshifters group.

Gregg Braden wrote the book The Divine Matrix in 2007 and the video clip in this link, refers to just one story he tells in that book. See the clip here

Gregg Braden is just one of the many people who are lecturing about the existence of a different Actuality which gives each of us the power to control the way we experience our lives. The work that Gregg Braden cites in many of his books is the blending of ancient knowledge with modern technology. Modern science is only now, slowly, catching up to what has been known to spiritual teachers for thousands of years.

Dr. Ryce's work gives simple, practical tools for applying this knowledge to the task of creating a different experience of life for each person who is willing to apply those tools. It does not take great intelligence, strength or power to remake one's experience of their life. It takes some simple tools and the Willingness to apply them daily.

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

Thanksgiving and Giving Thanks

2010-11-24T15:54:00.003-06:00

The Mindshifters group has been meeting for five years now. I realized today as I ran "last minute" errands to prepare for the Thanksgiving meal tomorrow, that I am very grateful for many things in my life and that the Mindshifters group is near the top of that list.

There are no adequate words for the gratitude I feel for the people who have given of themselves as teachers. People like Dr. Michael Ryce, Guy Finley, Yahem, Meher Baba, Krishnamurti, Gary Craig, Dr. Scott Walker, and many others who have dedicated their lives to learning what it takes to become a different order of human being, and then shared that knowledge so that others may find their own paths.

When I look back at the past ten years of my life, I cannot imagine how I would have gotten through the changes, challenges, losses, injuries, successes, new relationships and "re-directions" I have experienced, if I had not had these teachers and their lessons to help me. I know only that I would not be where I am today, and I would not be able to be as grateful as I am today, if it had not been for people who have dedicated their lives to learning, growing and teaching.

I am also very grateful for the many people over the past five years who have taken the time to attend the group. I am especially grateful to those who attend the group on a regular basis and give of their time and emotional energy to help make the discussions so productive and helpful. I am grateful for the many people who have shared testimonials about how the group has contributed to them making significant, positive changes in the way they experience their lives.

I am grateful for the loving and supportive attitude which is expressed by almost everyone who attends the group, and by ALL who attend on an regular basis. The expressions of Love, support, respect, tolerance and compassion are truly powerful. It is these qualities, expressed by those who attend the group on a regular basis, which facilitate the healing that is referred to in the testimonials.

Thank you one and all for making me a better person and supporting each other in being more of what human beings can be. Thank you for learning to be more response-able, more aware of your nature as Love, and for being willing to extend that Love to others rather than insist that others "make you feel loved".

I wish to take this time to honor each of you for the work you are doing to make this world a better place, by being a different order of "human - being" in the world.

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

An Interpretation of The Beatitudes from the Ancient Aramaic

2010-11-04T15:11:00.003-05:00

This Tuesday the Mindshifters group watched a video of a new set of interpretations for The Beatitudes, by Yahem from www.wayofmastery.com

Our Tuesday night Mindshifters group is dedicated to the work of Dr. Michael Ryce because he offers practical tools for improving one's life in terms of emotional states and relationships. I continue to work to keep the focus of the material presented in this group to Dr. Ryce's work, and any other practical tools for understanding how the mind/body energy system works and how to improve our experience of life. It is from this perspective that I would like to share some of the quotes and highlights from this video about The Beatitudes.

Yahem begins by stating in the Ancient Aramaic, a phrase which Yeshua would have often used as a greeting. He stated that it translates as an invitation to open one's self to the Divine and to being penetrated by the Divine.

He then talked about how words in the Ancient Aramaic were more important for their vibrational quality than for the specific meaning that each word carried. This is important because the meaning of the word was determined as much by the mental state and level of understanding of the person who received the vibration, as it was determined by the word itself. So that if thirty people heard the same phrase or paragraph being spoken, there could easily be thirty different meanings taken from that same phrase or paragraph.

Yahem talked extensively about how The Beatitudes are more like a practical form of yoga than just a set of ideas or instructions or religious beliefs. He highlights the idea that "Beliefs don't work. What works is staying open to the moment."

He repeatedly talked about how disturbance is a blessing. This is so because when I am disturbed by anything, I am being given a chance to bring a new presence to energies which once defeated me. The way to do this is "to make a home in the breathing Unity" and to soften the places within me which want to go tight and become rigid and defensive.

"All suffering is rooted in my contraction into the illusion of separation. All healing is but a correction and a remembrance." (that there is no separation)

The first Beatitude encourages us to make our home in the breathing Unity, and let the fertile soil of the Queendom birth our clear guidance.

The second Beatitude encourages us to allow our inner pain to surface and to soften what has been rigid within us.

All grasping outwardly is driven by a lack of embracing and integrating what is already within us.

The whole of creation has been arising and falling away within you. Your heart is breathed by the presence of the Divine and through you the Divine is made manifest.

Restored are they who have been planting peace with every breath.

You need to dig deep to find the primordial oneness that is breathing you now.

It is a blessing when beings push you out of your comfort zone and you become disturbed, because you then become aware of a tightness and contraction within you which was hidden from you before the disturbance. This is an opportunity to return to the breathing and soften what is tense or rigid within you and integrate that part of you that has been newly discovered, with Love and acceptance for all parts of yourself.

This ties into the directive to Love your enemy. This is important because they have given you the gift of disturbing something within you that needs to be Healed. It is also important because, only by generating the feeling of Love within you, and extending it to the other can you Heal that within you which gave rise to the disturbance.

When you withhold your Love from anyone, you must automatically withhold it from yourself first. You are the one who suffers and is denied Healing when you extend anything less than Love to anyone or anything in your awareness.

I highly recommend this DVD for its power and beauty. Available through www.wayofmastery.com

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

Fabulous Time at Heartland & The Way of Mastery VS ACIM

2010-10-28T17:19:00.005-05:00

October 14th thru 17th I attended the Intensive at Heartland Healing Center outside of Theodosia Missouri. It was every bit as powerful, challenging and rewarding as it was two years ago when I went there for a nine day Intensive. I strongly recommend doing an Intensive program at Heartland to help you reach deeper levels of understanding about what is keeping you from staying consciously aware of your essence and your source - Love.

Thank you Michael, Jeanie, the entire Heartland staff and all of you who attended this Intensive as participants!

Visit www.whyagain.com and sign up now for one of next year's Intensives to secure a space and receive a special bonus for early registration.

Just before I left for the Intensive I received a blog entry from the gentleman who "channeled" The Way of Mastery. He was responding to questions he receives about the differences and perceived conflicts between The Way of Mastery and A Course In Miracles. I thoroughly enjoyed the article and wanted to share some of it with you and provide the link for the blog in case you are interested in reading the entire article.

Here is the beginning of the blog entry:

A student recently asked: "What is the difference between ACIM (A Course in Miracles) and Way of Mastery and where do they conflict?"

First, perceived conflict - when looking upon teachings that come from the very highest levels of Wisdom - is not in the teachings themselves, but reveals the current limit of our own limit of awareness. Having said that, let me begin by sharing a critical, universal truth that all seeking awakening must begin with. This is the way Jeshua put it to me many years ago:

Teaching is an art, not a science, and all forms of teaching but serve to sever the mind or soul from its infatuation with the illusions it has generated, and then entered into.

The wise teacher speaks the language of the student first, then leads them beyond the very limits they do not know imprisons them.

To Read the entire blog go to: http://www.wayofmastery.com/jayem/blog/3328.html

Enjoy, and remember -

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

Fall Colors Intensive at Heartland Healing Center

2010-09-29T15:12:00.007-05:00

Please pass this along to anyone you feel may benefit!

Dr. Michael Ryce is holding an Fall Colors four day workshop at his Heartland Healing Center in Theodosia, MO. It begins on October 14th and runs through the 17th, with the option for extending your time at the center, up to a nine day workshop.

I will be attending at the least the first four days of this event from the 14th through the 17th and I highly recommend Heartland and the work that is done there. I attended a nine day workshop at Heartland two years ago and I have repeatedly told people that it was the most beneficial workshop for personal growth and rejuvenation that I have attended in my 35 years of attending trainings, workshops and retreats, as a therapist/psychologist.

To visit Dr. Ryce's website click here: www.whyagain.com

To view a flier for the Fall Colors Intensive Workshop click here: Fall Colors Intensive

Please pass this along to anyone you feel may benefit!

Healing Through Relationships Part 1

2010-09-29T14:45:00.002-05:00

Last night the Mindshifters group watched the first half of the lecture by Dr. Michael Ryce titled, Healing Through Relationships. Dr. Ryce begins by telling how the lecture used to be titled, Healing Your Relationships, until he discovered that there is no such thing as a broken relationship, since each relationship and interaction can be seen as a tool for uncovering anything that is less than Love within ourselves. Once we discover that we have hidden something less than Love inside of ourselves then we can use the tools we have learned to dismantle that false and negative reality and restore our awareness to the fact that we are Love.

This process is made even easier by the fact that once we recognize that we are the ones creating whatever negative emotion or reaction we experience, we stop blaming others, and then we are free to ask them for support as we explore and heal our negative realities. Approaching relationship in this way is completely foreign to most people, but results in a collaborative approach to communication and relationship, rather than a competitive approach to communication and relationship. When there is a competitive approach to relationship I find myself thinking, "I am much more balanced and emotionally stable than you are." "I am right about this and you are sadly mistaken."

When there is a collaborative approach to relationship and "Responsibility Communication", I take responsibility for everything I am feeling and I stay focused on my ability to create what I am experiencing. So that when I am uncomfortable, or sad, or angry, or hurt, or confused, I realize that I need to focus on how I am creating that experience if I am to change it. Then I can ask for the Love and support of my friend or family member as I take the time to change and heal the false negative reality within my mind.

I can tell you from personal experience that it is much less stressful to explore my hurt with a collaborative partner, than it is to confront my hurt by attacking and blaming the person I feel caused it!

This lecture tied beautifully into the lecture by Guy Finley which we listened to last week. One of the key points in Guy Finley's talk was that because we have become so focused on acquiring what it is we think will give us peace and freedom from fear, we have come to the point where we view everyone else as either a suspect or a prospect. We either want to blame others for causing our emotional pain and frustration, or we see them as someone who can take away our emotional pain and frustration. This leaves us with the following summary statement; "All attempts at acquisition are the bitter fruit of an imitative life". When one realizes that there is nothing missing within the Self, there is no desire for acquisition.

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

Operation Emotional Freedom

2010-08-04T10:57:00.002-05:00

If you know anyone suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, (PTSD), you need to send them this link.

The video from Gary Craig, the creator of The Emotional Freedom Technique, (EFT), is now available at the following website:
http://www.operation-emotionalfreedom.com/dvd.php

This powerful video documents the story of veterans suffering from Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and how they are being helped by learning to use EFT to eliminate the symptoms of nightmares, flashbacks, rage, confusion, paranoid thoughts, alcohol and drug abuse, broken relationships and more. This movie began in 2008 with veterans volunteering to try this approach. These veterans and their families thought there was no help for the life threatening symptoms they had as a result of being in combat situations. The movie documents the results they got in five days of treatment and the benefits which lasted a full year later when they were interviewed for followup.

Please help spread the word about this low cost, highly effective, self-empowering tool for resolving the effects of a past trauma, whether the trauma was combat related or from any other situation. This tool and its powerful healing benefits are simply too important to be kept secret, or to be ignored.

You can also go to the EFT website, www.eftuniverse.com to learn more about the actual procedure and download a free manual which shows you how to perform EFT for yourself or a loved one. Please note that if someone has been in a combat situation, or any other severely traumatic situation, they may need to support of a therapist who is trained in EFT or other Energy Psychology, or Mind/Body energy techniques in order to benefit from this process.

Please help those who have served our country and sacrificed more than any of us can truly know, by helping to spread the word about this powerful tool which is transforming lives and healing the effects of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, (PTSD).

Dr. Michael Ryce - A New Beginning, and Guy Finley - Leaving Happy Valley

2010-07-21T08:53:00.005-05:00

Last week and this week, the Mindshifters group watched a lecture by Dr. Michael Ryce titled A New Beginning: A lesson from A Course In Miracles, www.whyagain.com, and we listened to a story by Guy Finley about a woman who lived in "Happy Valley" and was trying to leave and "move on" with her life, www.guyfinley.com.

One of the essential messages from Dr. Ryce's talk was the idea that if I want things to be different in my life, I have to find a way to do things differently. Therefore, if I rely on the same processes of my thinking and logical mind which produced the situation I am in, I am not likely to find a result that is any different than what I have already produced. My unhappiness or discomfort in any moment is the result of what I have chosen to focus my awareness upon. If I keep focusing my awareness on the outside events and what others are saying and doing, and assume that these things are causing what I am feeling, then I am doomed to continue feeling the same kind of pain and discomfort.

Dr. Ryce relates that A Course In Miracles suggests that I decide "Today I will make no decisions by myself. I will make decisions with my life today, instead of my past." Then throughout the day I should tell myself the kind of day I want to have, and keep reminding myself of the kind of experience I want to have. Then when things begin to happen that don't seem to produce in me the kind of experience I want to have, it is suggested that I say to myself, "I have no question. I forgot what to decide." This will keep me from the pattern of automatic response based on my past experiences, which has produced discomfort and unhappiness within me, every time something like this has happened in my past.

It is also suggest that when I am unhappy or uncomfortable in any way that I say, "I hope I have been wrong." Because the Truth is that happiness does not depend on being right. Happiness depends on being Love! If I can get myself to realize that no matter how hard I have worked at proving that "I am right!", it has not led me to being happy, then I can begin to suspect that there may be another way to look at my situation.

Guy Finley tells the story of the woman who lives in Happy Valley and is no longer satisfied with her life. She decides to "move on". She tells her friends that she is going to leave Happy Valley and they tell her she can't because there are guards. She thinks this is silly because she has never seen any guards. She then realizes that she has never tried to leave before and so maybe that is why she never noticed any guards. She decides to think about this for a while and gives up the idea of leaving Happy Valley. But eventually she gets tired of all the tension, frustration, gossip, competition, anger, pride, and sadness which define her life in Happy Valley and once again decides she needs to leave and "move on".

When she finally tries to walk out of the valley, she is confronted by someone walking towards her from a distance. This scares her her and she decides to go back to her house and think it over. Eventually a number of years have passed and she has gone through several attempts to leave the valley and each time she did, the person confronted her sooner and sooner, until she finally saw that the person was actually someone who looked just like her. Finally she decided to confront the person face to face and when she did she realized it was just a mirror. She was relieved at first, but then scared again when she tried to walk around the mirror and it moved to be in front of her. Eventually she gave up trying to go around the mirror and went home.

After many attempts to sneak out of the valley and finding that the mirror was confronting her sooner and sooner each time she tried, she opened her door one day to leave and the mirror was in her doorway. She got so angry she threw a stone at the mirror and the mirror was not harmed at all. In fact, the stone bounced off and hit the woman. With great fear and frustration, she reached out to touch the mirror and when she did her finger passed right through the mirror. She instantly felt all manor of strange sensations - many of them were not comfortable. She wanted to run away again but there was nowhere left to run. So she pushed her finger further into the mirror, fighting back the fear and "pain" and realized that this mirror was a passageway to some other place.

With great fear and doubt she pushed forward and walked right into the mirror. Instantly she was transported to another place, outside of Happy Valley.

Guy Finley then talks about how the resistance we feel is greatest just before the moment of transformation. He discusses how we have been tricked into thinking that emotional pain is the same as physical pain and that the proper thing to do is avoid it, rather than sit with it and explore it. This simply leaves us in the same cycle as the woman who wanted to leave Happy Valley, repeating the same useless escape mechanisms over and over again. In truth, the resistance, emotional pain and discomfort we feel is the signal that something has come along to reveal to us something about ourselves which is keeping us from moving forward and knowing Life more completely. The Truth is that we can release those things within us which keep us from knowing Life more completely, only by accepting them as simply self-caused, by the process of avoiding and denying resistance.

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

Dr. Michael Ryce's lecture on "Healing Through Relationships"

2010-06-18T09:01:00.005-05:00

This week we watched the first half of Dr. Ryce's lecture on the healing power of relationships. The lecture makes the point that relationships are not bad, broken, or diseased. Relationships are sacred tools which reveal to us what it is, inside each of us, that we have denied and suppressed. We deny and suppress things because they are painful or scary, and these are the things which will keep creating pain and fear in our lives until we own them, and dismantle them from our thought. Dr. Ryce suggests that the traditional purpose for relationships in our world has been to see how much stuff we can accumulate, and who can be proven to be "right". He offers that the way to begin using the healing power of relationships begins with adopting a new purpose for relationships; "I want to heal." This changes everything about how we approach relationships, and what we can learn from them.

Guy Finley states in his Seven Steps to Oneness program that: "Before we can change our experience of life, we must change our purpose for living."

This is a fundamental truth which arises from the awareness that we each create our own realities from the selective attention we place on the actuality of life which happens around us. When we choose a focus for our attention and we decide to set a goal or a purpose, that goal or purpose filters what we see, hear, and feel, and motivates our behavior in an attempt to accomplish that goal or purpose. Once we set a goal or purpose, it stays active in us until we achieve it or consciously cancel it. Therefore a goal or purpose can be driving our behavior, and experience, long after we have shifted our conscious awareness away from it and onto something else.

This makes it very important to consciously choose the purpose/goal we have for being in a relationship, and to frequently remind ourselves of that purpose/goal. When we do this with the understanding that we are creating our own experiences and our internal realities, and that no one else is causing any of our emotions, or thoughts, whether positive or negative, we can begin to make good use of the tool of relationship for healing those thoughts and emotions that "come up" within us that are less than Love. Dr. Ryce offers a tool for using relationships to heal at www.whyagain.com/commitment.php

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

Guy Finley's talk - Your New Authority Over Anything That Disturbs You!

2010-06-09T17:54:00.003-05:00

Last night the Mindshifters group listened to the one hour audio lecture by Guy Finley, (www.guyfinley.com), before working on Reality Management worksheets. The purpose for this departure from our normal routine was that Dr. Ryce himself talks about how beneficial it is to hear the same message from a variety of different perspectives. If you hear about a new concept from several different sources and perspectives, it shortens the amount of time it takes you to integrate the material. It tends to produce more neural connections and can lead to more flashes of insight.

So with this in mind, we listened to Guy Finley discuss the ways in which everything that stimulates a disturbance in me is truly a gift. Every person, interaction, and situation which produces a disturbance in me is Revealing to me something about myself which I was unaware of, prior to the disturbance. He talks about the situation in which I am just having a wonderful day until someone gives me the wrong look, or criticizes me in some way. Then suddenly there is an irritable little person who erupts from me. I wasn't an irritable little person until that situation occurred. My immediate thought is that someone just put an irritable little person into me. I then blame the other person for what I am feeling, saying and doing.

The fact of the matter is that I had those irritable feelings and thoughts within me, long before the other person gave me the look, or criticized me. I was simply not aware of that irritation, because I had chosen to focus my awareness on other things. Just because I don't choose to focus my awareness on my frustration, irritation, anger, blame, guilt and shame, does not mean I don't have any of those thoughts, feelings and energies hiding in my mind/body energy system. And as Dr. Ryce so often points out, every dis-integrative energy in my energy system is wearing me down and will eventually cause physical dis-ease and eventually death, if it is not seen, acknowledged, and removed.

Guy Finley closed his talk with a description of how a disturbing event produces resistance within me, which could Reveal to me something about myself, which is keeping me from being in direct contact with all that I am. The key to this process is that I accept the Revelation and integrate the realization that I had this energy within me. The problem is that in our current culture and system, we are conditioned to reject the Revelation and lose the realization, but insisting that someone else or something else is responsible for the resistance we feel when we come into contact with a disturbance.

This is the heart of Dr. Ryce's Reality Management Worksheet, (www.whyagain.com) which steps a person through the process of identifying exactly how they are blaming someone or something else for the Reality they are creating in response to a disturbance in their lives. The worksheet helps a person reclaim their power, by taking responsibility for all that they are thinking and feeling, and by helping to uncover the hidden, deeper, projected parts of the mind, which are truly creating the discomfort.

Guy Finley states that with each disturbance we feel, the world is asking us, "Would you like to see what is keeping you from being closer to me?"

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

Dr. Michael Ryce Lecture: Did You Hear What I Think I Said?

2010-06-08T12:23:00.004-05:00

The Mindshifters group spent the last two weeks watching the video lecture by Dr. Ryce about Response-Ability Communication. This lecture outlines a process of communicating which is built around Dr. Ryce's observations that we each create our own internal reality and that if we are in pain, we are in error. So this model for communicating is designed to allow me to let others know what reality I have created for myself, in a way which makes it clear that I know I have created this reality for myself. This means that I clearly transmit the message that I understand that no one else has done anything which created any discomfort in me.

This model of communication blends Dr. Ryce's awareness of how each of us creates our own pain and then projects that pain onto the image we create in our minds about the other people and situations around us, with solid communication skills which have been promoted by experts for centuries. The value of using a system like this is that it keeps me focused on the things I truly have control over, and this leaves me with the power to create change in my life.

The reason most of Dr. Ryce's lectures have such power is because, at some point in the process, they run counter to the way our traditional culture, or "common sense" would have us think or react. This lecture is no different. Most people think that effective communication is getting other people to agree with them, or believe what they believe, or to accept that what they did was wrong or somehow harmed us. The definition of communication which is given in this lecture is, "To accurately re-create the "reality" in my mind, in the mind of the person I am trying to communicate with." This can only be accomplished if it is known and agreed upon that I am completely responsible for everything that I think, feel, see and hear!

In this model of communication, when I tell the other person, "what I want", it is not about what I want from them or what I want them to change or do differently. In this model of communication when I tell someone "what I want", it is a statement of how I want things to change within me, which only I can do. It is followed by a request for support from the other person in my own process of changing the reality I am creating which is causing me pain.

When I realize that I am the only one who can cause my emotions and that any sense within me that another person has caused my emotions is simply a distraction driven by my fear about what I would have to look at within myself, I am opening a new door to limitless possibilities.

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

The Circle of Life and How to Play It - Part 1

2010-04-28T13:43:00.011-05:00

This lecture by Dr. Michael Ryce focuses on the use of a tool which amounts to a map of the choices we can make when we respond to events in our lives. Dr. Ryce described two possible paths, "The Upper Path" and "The Lower Path. "The Lower Path" leads eventually to pain, loneliness and dis-ease. "The Upper Path" leads to comfort, healthy loving relationships and health. A key idea in this lecture is that in order to get where we want to go in life we must know to things; we must know the destination, and we must be willing to honestly accept, and accurately define, where we are.

So, Dr. Ryce describes two separate patterns of responses to whatever events occur in life. One is focused on the knowledge that each of us creates our own internal realities and the other is focused on blaming others and the world around us for our internal realities.

People on "The Lower Path" deny and suppress their feelings and thereby block any useful information from coming into their awareness. These people fall into the cycle of being the victim and the hero in their interactions with others, and they are always blaming others for what they don't like in their lives.

The people who choose "The Lower Path" are focused on Right vs. Wrong thinking and they are always willing to tell people how they are right and everyone else is wrong. When these people bump into the truth, it causes them stress and they blame the truth or the one who showed them the truth for causing their discomfort. Their adaptive mechanisms are all about denial, suppression, drug and alcohol use, and holding their breath.

For these people their personal code is "If I am in pain, you did it to me!" Therefore these people feel dis-empowered and they live in a state of destructive dissatisfaction. They throw tantrums and the adults on this path get depressed or full of rage. For these people things are important and they are takers who don't care about how their "taking" influences others.

People who "Take The Upper Path" work to stay open to their feelings and don't deny and suppress them. The are therefore able to use information from a variety of sources to learn how to respond differently. These people take response-ability for what they are feeling and how they choose to respond to what happens in their lives and they refuse to see themselves as either victim or hero.

The people who choose "The Upper Path" are focused on "Right"(for me), vs. "Not Right" (for me), thinking and they refuse to judge others as being wrong because they don't want that energy in their system. When these people bump into the truth, it causes them stress and they welcome the truth, or the one who showed them the truth, for helpful the information it provides, so that they can make corrections within themselves. Their adaptive mechanisms are all about acceptance of Truth, self-correction, the energy of Love, forgiveness work, and breathing.

For these people their personal code is "If I am in pain, I am in error!" Therefore these people feel empowered and they live in a state of Constructive dissatisfaction. They accept response-ability for what they are feeling, and work to use their tools to dismantle and cancel the false realities, they have constructed, which have caused their pain. For these people, relationships are more important than things. These people know that giving and receiving are two sides of the same coin and that neither is truly possible without the other.

The people on "The Upper Path" are working to realize the actuality in their lives that:

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

The following is being supplied because of a request from several group members this week.

The mental short form for The Reality Management Worksheet:
1. My mind convinces me that my trigger _____ causes my feelings ______.
2. My reality is my responsibility, strictly internal, unique to me, and is created by my personal and genetic mind energy.
3. I locate and CANCEL my goal ______ (clear my mind).
4. Rookha d' Koodsha /Holy Spirit - please assist me to reset Rakhma & Khooba, change my reality, its effects; and learn the TRUTH.
5. I reconnect with my source, ask for restoration to Love, and send Love to, ______ (trigger). I offer you, (trigger) ____(a loving goal).

Rakhma - is a filter in the mind over intentions, which allows only intentions keyed to Love to be available as raw material for use in setting my goals, which are drivers for my realities.

Khooba - is a filter in the mind over perceptions that allows only units of perceptual memory keyed to Love to be available for structuring my personal Reality, my guidance.

Rookha d' Koodsha - The active force from God in the human mind that breaks off the effect of errors and teaches us the truth. The force for that which is proper for humans, the denial of which leaves us in un-forgiveness! The "SuperProcessor."

More information is available at www.whyagain.com

Laws of Living part 2

2010-04-23T11:23:00.003-05:00

This week the Mindshifters group watched the second half of the Dr. Michael Ryce lecture titled: The Laws of Living. What struck me most this time was a comment that Dr. Ryce made about how the Love of Truth produces a tension in the mind which focuses the mind on input and shows the mind the errors of its ways.

I remember from another lecture where Dr. Ryce explained his interpretation of the bible passage that says something like, "The eye is the lamp of the soul, if your lamp goes dark, how deep will your darkness be". Dr. Ryce explains that the ancient Aramaic when translated directly into English says something more like, Your perception is the light for your earthly life, and if your perception is distorted by anything, you will create and experience false realities.

These false realities will always cause you pain and discomfort, and disrupt your relationships. Dr. Ryce explains, the mind is an evidential device, it shows you whatever it is you tell it to show you. So if you believe someone else is wrong or has "wronged you", your mind will show you the evidence that they are wrong. You will literally perceive things that never happened, or twist things that did happen so that they have the meaning you have instructed your mind to give you.

Dr. Ryce repeatedly reminds us that the only way to perceive things accurately is to first hold the condition of Love in the mind. If I hold the condition of Love in my mind, I will Love Truth and desire only to see the Truth of what is. If I hold a desire for anything other than Truth, or if I hold any energy other than Love in my mind, my mind will distort the data that it shows me so that I construct a reality which is based on some form of hostility or fear, and is false! If I desire to be right, the first casualty of that desire will be the Truth. My mind will arrange the data it shows me to prove to me that I am right, and others are wrong. The Truth of the situation is not changed, I am just not able to use it to construct my reality.

If I desire to be right, my mind will show me how I am right, and it will shut down my ability to perceive anything which would conflict with that conclusion. When I desire to be right, I am not able to accept help, insight or input from friends, family or mentors. It is only when I accept that what I perceive may be inaccurate or incomplete that I am willing to accept input.

The Love of Truth literally produces tension and attention in the mind which focuses the mind on input from actuality, and allows the mind to see the errors of its ways. I desire to Love Truth. I frequently forget that desire and replace it with the desire of the Ego which longs to be right.

One important way for me to know when I am in error, and have lost my focus on The Love of Truth, is that I begin to feel tension, contraction and discomfort in my body. Whenever I become aware of this I know that I am in error. I know instantly that I am focusing my energy on something other than Love of Truth. I know instantly that I have shifted my awareness away from the fact that:

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

The Laws of Living Part 1

2010-04-15T09:47:00.002-05:00

Last night the Mindshifters group watched the first half of the Michael Ryce lecture titled "The Laws of Living". This lecture tries to make a clear distinction between rules, man's "laws", and The Law. The difference between a rule and a Law, is that a rule is something which has been created by man, and if you break a rule there are consequences imposed by men. The Law is something which simply is, and it is not possible to break The Law. You either work within The Law or you "get broken". For instance if you step off a 100 foot cliff because you choose to ignore The Law of gravity, you suffer the natural consequences once you land. There is no one imposing a consequence for your choice to ignore The Law.

The point was made that while many people say they have done things they regret doing, there is only one reason why we do anything, and that is because we had a "reality" in our mind which directed us to act in that way. Since we are the authors of the realities in our minds, it is possible to be mindful of the realities we are creating, and change them so that we don't keep doing things we regret. The tool for removing a false reality from the human mind is what was called "Forgiveness", in the ancient Aramaic. The worksheet titled The Reality Management Worksheet is the primary tool for doing this work in Dr. Ryce's teachings. http://www.whyagain.com/worksheets.php

Once again this lecture discusses the need to build slowly and in stages, the understanding of how the energetic system of the human body/mind works. When we first begin to get exposed to this material it is so foreign and unusual, compared to what most of us have been taught and experienced, that it is impossible to understand the material fully. This is why it is important to keep reading, listening to, and practicing the application of this material, so that the foundation of understanding can be built, and eventually the deeper meaning of the material can be grasped.

The first and most important step in the process is to learn to hold the energy of Love, conscious, active and present in the mind, at all times. It is only when we are holding the energy of Love in our minds that we are able to see clearly what the world actually offers us, and who and what we actually are. Whenever we hold the energy of hostility or fear in our minds, our minds distort the information we receive, and we then construct a false reality in our minds, which leads us to more fear, more hostility and more pain.

The tools provided in this work are all focused on one thing, the removal from the human mind/body energy system of anything which is less than Love. It is not necessary and in fact absolutely futile to look for love from anyone or anything in your life. However it is absolutely possible and highly recommended to extend Love in all of your relationships with people and things.

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

Co-Dependence to Inter-Dependence

2010-04-07T08:34:00.002-05:00

Last night the Mindshifters Group watched the second half of the lecture titled: Co-Dependence to Inter-Dependence. The definition of Co-Dependence for this lecture is the process of believing that someone else is responsible for anything I am feeling or experiencing. The process of projection was explained in even more detail. The process of projection requires that I have denied and suppressed thoughts and emotions within myself. Once this happens, and I have made the decision, often at the unconscious level, that I won't accept or deal with things in my mind, I doom myself to projecting them onto the world I see. The world I experience is not the actual world. The world I experience is the product of my mind and the thoughts, memories and emotions that get triggered in my mind, most of which is unconscious and comprised of things I have denied and suppressed. Once these things get triggered, they make up my experience of the world, as I project them onto the image my mind creates of the people and things in my world.

What I "see" in others and the world around me, always tells me more about me than it does about others and the world. Until I have uncovered and dismantled every thought, emotion, and conclusion which I have denied and suppressed, I cannot hope to "see" the world accurately. My internal reality is driven by the process of "Blockage of Truth". Until I make "Love of Truth" the most important thing in my life, I will have no hope of seeing the world accurately. Perception is the servant of purpose, and when I tell my mind that I am right, my perception will organize the evidence to show me how I am right. The only hope I have of seeing Truth, is to value Truth more than being right. This is a very tall order for us as humans, raised in a culture which values "being right".

Another point which jumped out at me about this lecture is the definition for the word "Decide". The root of the word means "to cut off, or kill". It is the same as the words, homicide, suicide, genocide, etc. The word "decide" may be said to mean: "To cut off choice". In this way it is the end of the spiritual faculty of "Choice". The ability to be "In Choice" requires that we be able to see what is actually happening in the world, without the effects of personal distortion and the effects of denial, suppression and projection. The process of forgiveness is a tool for dismantling the process of denial, suppression and projection. See www.whyagain.com for the free download titled: The Reality Management Worksheet.

This lecture once again reminds us that the root of all healing is the ability to hold Love conscious, active and present, and hold this state whenever anything unlike Love arises. When anything unlike Love is exposed to the energy of Love, the energy gets transmuted and the energy of Love is all that is left.

This lecture also describes the process that all of us have gone through, in which a parent becomes a power person for a child, and the child gives up her connection to her source of Love, in order to seek the approval of the parent. When this happens, the child learns to define the approval of the parent as Love. This leads us to be human doings, rather than human beings. We get busy doing things trying to gain the approval of those we want to "love" us, rather than focusing our awareness on the reality that:

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

Mindshifters Group - Empowered To Heal

2010-03-10T09:11:00.006-06:00

This week the group listened to Dr. Ryce describe the process of how our thoughts send out energy which interacts with the world of energy potentials around us and literally creates effects in our world. The first part of the lecture discussed how this energy effects us personally within our body/mind system. The second part of the lecture discussed how the energy we send out also affects the world around us, and influences what it is that "shows up" in our lives.

One of the things that struck me most about this lecture is the balance between the observation that I literally create my own internal reality, and the fact that what other people think and feel, and the energy they send out, can also affect me. While the thoughts of others creates very real energy which radiates out from them and interacts with the world around them, it is nothing compared to my infinite ability to choose what I will focus my consciousness on and what I will create as my own internal reality.

So, I may walk into a situation at work in which people are being rude, angry, blaming and even aggressive to one another, and I still have the ability to choose to see only the highest and the best in each of those people, and to choose to cooperate only with that part of them. I have the ability to choose calm and Love and to create my internal reality from that. No matter what someone else does, or chooses to create as their internal reality, I remain infinitely free to create my internal reality from an awareness of my connection to my Source, the energy of creation which has also been called, Love, and the mind of God.

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

A Lesson In Repetition

2010-02-25T10:44:00.003-06:00

The Mindshifters group watched the first half of the lecture by Dr. Michael Ryce, "Empowered to Heal". This lecture discusses observations about how we are energetic systems and not "physical bodies". This week my learning is about the value of repetition for the material I find most valuable. Dr. Ryce talks a great deal about the value of "building new brain cells" to be able to understand new material. The only way for this to occur is to provide numerous repetitions of the material, combined with the ability to question everything that one thinks one "knows". Both of these factors are needed in order to "build new brain cells".

Even if I am able to question the validity of everything I think I know while reading a good book about a new subject, or listening to a lecture about a new approach to an old topic, I will only get a small amount from that material. I will need to read that book, or listen to that lecture, time and time again in order to fully understand what is being offered. The first few repetitions merely lay the foundation for new levels of understanding which will occur in future repetitions of that work. Likewise, if I listen to a lecture 37 different times, and my entire focus is on denying and refuting what is being said, by comparing it to what I already "know", I will not gain anything from the experience.

Recent research reveals that a person's ability to "learn" new material, or "accept" new findings is directly related to whether those findings are similar to what that person already believes. If a person reads a scientific paper which presents findings that are in alignment with what that person believes to be true, they are much more likely to "believe" the new findings. If a person reads a scientific paper which presents findings that are not in alignment with what that person believes to be true, that person is much more likely to reject the findings. This is a prime example of the need to "build new brain cells" before one can comprehend and accept new information. The point has been made that historically we, as humans, build our cultures and our belief systems on many things which eventually are proven to be wrong. Recent examples include, "The world is flat.", "The earth is the center of the solar system.", "The atom is the smallest particle of matter.", "We are determined by our DNA - The Primacy of DNA", and "The laws of physics as presented by Newton".

If in our history each of these things has been called into question and proven to be at least partially wrong, what might we find out in the future about some of our current beliefs? Which beliefs will prove misguided or even totally wrong, and how will that affect our daily lives? The point is, that if one is not able to question the validity of everything one knows, and open themselves up to direct observation with a "less" biased mind, then the process of "building new brain cells" cannot even begin.

And so, I strongly recommend the frequent repetition of whatever material challenges your thinking, opens you to new possibilities, and leaves you with a good feeling in your mind/body energy system. You will probably be amazed at "how the material has changed", since the last time you read or listened to it, (Just so you know, the change will have been in you, not in the material). The material may be even better than you remembered. There may be whole chunks or key points which you do not even remember from the first reading/hearing. There may be points that you remember, but upon reading/hearing it again it has an entirely different meaning for you. There is also the possibility that with the changes in you and your experiences, since the last time you read/heard the material, you decide that you don't like the material or the conclusions nearly as much as you did the first time.

What if it is soon possible to "prove" that we are "energy systems" and not simply "physical bodies"? How would that change the way you live your daily life? Would it have as much impact on you as the realization that the earth is round did to those who believed it was flat? Would it have more impact on you than the realization that Newton's laws of physics don't seem to apply below the level of the molecule?

What if the way I end each blog entry is Truth and not just a nice thought? How would that change the way you live your daily life?

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

Introduction To A Course In Miracles with Advanced Understanding

2010-02-21T16:27:00.002-06:00

Last Tuesday evening the Mindshifters group watched the second half of the lecture by Dr. Michael Ryce titled, "Introduction to A Course In Miracles with Advanced Understanding". While we have watched this lecture several times already, there is always something different which catches my attention. This week I was struck by the observation that, "Limited perception causes us to experience things which never happened." The point here is that each of us as individuals choose to focus our attention on different things and use those things to create our realities. Each of us as individuals have basically the same ability to perceive things as every other human being, and yet we still choose to focus on different parts of what there is to be perceived and use those parts to construct our realities.

Beyond the set of limitations which we impose upon ourselves, by choosing only certain things to be aware of, there is the limitation of what our senses are able to perceive. For example we cannot hear a dog whistle, yet we know that it creates a sound because of the effect it has on dogs. Just because we cannot perceive it, does not mean that it does not exist. In truth, there are many things that are having an effect on our world, which we cannot perceive directly, such as ultraviolet light and infra red light. Well, if there are sounds we cannot hear, and light we cannot see, how many other things exist in our world which we are unable to perceive? The point here is that the only way for us to learn something new, is to be open to the possibility that everything we "know" is wrong, or at least incomplete. If one is not able to admit that they don't know something, one can never learn anything new.

Another quote from the lecture is, "By perception we have lost sight of the real world." This sounds ridiculous unless you start putting the pieces together of all the "things", energies, sounds, effects which we can only become aware of through indirect observation, or with the help of technology, or the observation of our animal friends. When we look through our eyes and hear through our ears, and begin to assemble a "picture" of our world, we are "blind" to ultra high and low pitch frequencies, light energy above and below the "visible" spectrum, (I put visible in quotes because other animals and insects can clearly see those light energies), and probably countless other energies and experiences that we have not yet become aware of. But in truth, just because we cannot hear the vibration of a dog whistle does not mean it does not exist.

So just imagine what we are cutting ourselves off from experiencing because we are telling ourselves that we already know what the world is like. We already know this person or that person. We already know what a tree is like, etc.

Imagine how our world might expand if we approached everything with innocent observation and questioning. Imagine walking through life observing and questioning everything. Not with a forced insistence on knowing what is real, but with an open willingness to experience things as new, each time we encounter them. This could be applied to people as well as animals and things. Sounds like a challenging exercise for learning and growing!

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

Why Is This Happening To Me Again?

2010-02-03T08:42:00.008-06:00

Last night the Mindshifters group watched the first half of the lecture, "Why Is This Happening To Me Again?" by Dr. Michael Ryce. The points that jumped out at me during this viewing were the following:

1) In the period of time that it takes for my brain to fire 10,000 units of electrical activity, I am only able to be consciously aware of 9 bits of information. It is estimated that in that same period of time, there are over 25 billion bits of information available in my immediate environment. This means that my unconscious chooses only 10,000 bits from the possible 25,000,000,000 bits that are available and that my conscious mind chooses only 9 bits from the 10,000 that my unconscious has chosen. This begins to explain the terribly restricted way that I choose and construct my own reality from the actuality which is occurring in each moment, and how my experience can be so dramatically different from others who witness the very same events.

2) There are only two types of energy relative to my body/mind energy system: integrative energy - that which builds the system up, and dis-integrative energy - that which tears the system down. Whenever I am feeling any form of hostility or fear, I am choosing thoughts that are putting dis-integrative energy into my body/mind energy system, and unless I work to cancel or dismantle that energy it will stay in my system and work to dis-integrate my body/mind system and eventually lead to physical illness and disease.

3) The germ theory is called the germ theory because it is not proven. Some believe it will never be proven because it is not able to account for the lack of the spread of disease. What is meant by this is that if a germ was the cause for an illness, infection, or syndrome, then everyone who was exposed to that germ would automatically get the illness, infection, or syndrome. But that is simply not what happens. Some people who are exposed to the germ become ill, while others who are exposed show no signs or symptoms whatsoever, and never become ill. The discussion point in the lecture was that when tissue breaks down it "triggers" nature's clean-up crew to dismantle and dispose of the dead tissue. This clean-up crew is made up of the "diseases" and "germs" and "viruses" which have mistakenly been seen as the cause of the decay and death in the tissue. This mistaking of the "trigger" for the cause is the next point to be discussed.

4) Many people in our culture have been taught that other people make them angry, other people hurt their feelings, other people make them sad, and other people make them happy, etc.

This lecture asserts that each of us create our own internal reality by choosing what thoughts we will focus on, and thereby creating the feelings and emotions we experience. It is not possible for someone else to make me angry, happy, or afraid. In fact, if I know that someone is just doing something to "try to make me angry", that is the time that it is easiest for me to ignore them and refuse to give them the response they want. In truth, when someone does something and I choose to respond with anger, fear or sadness, what is happening is that I already had the energy of anger, fear or sadness within me, and this energy was simply "triggered" by the actions of the other person, the way I interpreted them, and the thoughts I chose in response to those actions. So what has happened here is that I mistake the "trigger", (the other person's actions and my thoughts about them), for the cause, (my stored and unacknowledged emotional energy of sadness, fear or anger.)

Let's look at the example of the person who knows nothing about draw bridges, or mechanics, or motors of any kind. If we take this person and sit them on the bank of a river near a draw bridge and ask her to discover what makes a bridge go up, she will begin to observe that every time a boat approaches the bridge goes up, and that every time the boat moves away, the bridge goes down. She will likely come to the conclusion that boats make the bridge go up. In reality it is not the boat that makes the bridge go up, it is the motor and the pulleys and the chains attached to the bridge which cause the bridge to go up. The appearance of the boats are just the events which "trigger" the person in the bridge tower to start the motor which lifts the bridge and causes it to go up.

Now then, suppose we offer her anything she wants if she prevents the bridge from going up again, she will assume she needs to change the direction of any boat that heads toward the bridge. Potentially she may end up trying to change the direction of hundreds or even thousands of boats, because she believes that the boats cause the bridge to go up. If she knew about the actual mechanism, she could prevent the bridge from going up by simply cutting some wires feeding power to the motor which lifts the bridge.

Have you ever gotten tired of trying to make everyone else change, so that you did not have to experience a negative emotion or reaction?

5) Lastly the observation was made: "Feelings are a gift to alert you to the quality of mind energy you are engaging in."

Whenever I have a feeling, it is because I have chosen certain thoughts. Thoughts, when invested with enough energy and focus, produce emotions. This is the only cause of emotions. Only my thoughts can cause my emotions. Therefore, when I become aware of feeling an unpleasant feeling it is a wake-up call to alert me that I have chosen unproductive and dis-integrative thoughts.

Fortunately for us, Dr. Ryce teaches a simple tool for dismantling and canceling the negative thoughts and their resultant negative emotions. It is called The Reality Management Worksheet, (available free at www.whyagain.com), and we teach people how to apply this tool to their negative thoughts and emotions, in our Mindshifters Group.

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

The Living Matrix.

2010-01-27T13:34:00.007-06:00

Last night the Mindshifters group did something we have only done one other time in the last four years. We watched a movie which was not one of Dr. Michael Ryce's lectures. We watched the movie, The Living Matrix, which talks about the integration of the science of Quantum Physics into the science of biology and medicine. The point is made in the movie, as in a book by Bruce Lipton, that the science of biology and medicine are the last sciences to hold out against accepting, and integrating the findings of Quantum Physics. The movie makes the point in many different ways, that our insistence on seeing the body as being only solid matter, and treating "illnesses" by attacking symptoms on a physical and chemical level, is what is keeping us sick and making us sicker.

This is a very interesting movie and it makes the case for opening a person's belief system so that they are able to "believe" that they can get healthy, even without, or in spite of, surgery and medication. The film introduces a new way to think about "The Placebo Effect", and even re-defines it as "The body's ability to heal itself", or "The Belief Effect". Both of these terms are more positive and descriptive of what is happening when someone gets better after taking, "a placebo". Bruce Lipton is quoted in the movie as saying that fully one third of all healing that takes place in our medical system is attributed to "The Placebo Effect". He goes on to say that at a time when we are drowning in health care costs, it is remarkable that the medical community does not acknowledge this and begin to actively use "The Belief Effect", which would immediately reduce health care costs by at least one third.

I highly recommend the movie for anyone who is questioning whether they should try an "alternative" approach to traditional medical care, or anyone who wants a nice refresher, and an optimistic update about where medical science and research is possibly headed in the near future.

However, I must say that as I watched the movie for the second time, I was struck repeatedly by the thought that it is a shame that they are still so focused on the physical and the "scientific" proof of this and that energy, etc., etc. I kept thinking that what they are talking about in terms of healing and health and wellness, has been known for centuries and is found in a number of "religious" and healing traditions. As I watched this movie about the latest in scientific advances and the theory of "fields" of energy which govern the physical body, and its expression and response to thoughts and emotions, I kept thinking about a friend of mine who was raised as a Christian Scientist, and who has seen dramatic, powerful, "miraculous healings" all her life, and knows that they are completely ordinary!

I kept thinking about how ridiculous it would sound for someone who was raised in Christian Science, or Religious Science, or any of a number of other Healing traditions, to watch a movie today which talks about how "New" and "Amazing" and "Powerful" this new science of healing is. It would probably sound about as silly and useless as the words of an ice salesman to an Eskimo.

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

Getting The Stress You Need Part 1

2010-01-08T15:35:00.004-06:00

This week the Mindshifters group watched the first half of the lecture by Dr. Michael Ryce titled: Getting The Stress You Need. What struck me most about the lecture this time was how Dr. Ryce described how my intentions are the raw materials of my goals. When I hold a number of intentions and eventually elevate one of them to the level of a goal, that goal then organizes my energies and my behaviors to guide me to the accomplishment of that goal. Therefore, the quality of my intentions determines the quality of my goals.

Dr. Ryce described how each of us has a filter over the intentions in our minds, and a filter over the perceptions in our minds. These filters can be set to fear, hostility, or Love. Whenever the filters are set to hostility or fear, they distort our perceptions and show us a false set of data. We then take that data and build our perceptions of reality based on that false data. This is why we were told that the first and most important instruction is to keep the filter of Love set in our minds whenever we are thinking of God, neighbor, or self. The reason is that if the filter is set to hostility or fear, it will distort our perception and show us false data. So we are encouraged to frequently monitor our emotions and mental state and act quickly to reset our filters to Love, whenever we notice that we are feeling something other than Love. By definition this means that we are perceiving things falsely, and therefore we will not be reacting to actuality, but we will be reacting to the false reality we have constructed from the corrupt data that is created by the filters of hostility and fear.

Another critical concept that was introduced is the definition of stress as: "The tension within me that is created by the difference between the way things actually are, and the way I perceive them to be". The greater the difference between these to things, combined with the amount of energy I pour into wanting things to be different, determine the level and intensity of my stress.
This concept alone is worth the entire time I invested in the lecture. The more I monitor my own thoughts and emotional responses and catch myself earlier and earlier in the process, the less time I spend in the tension of stress. As soon as I catch myself feeling tense, angry, frustrated, confused, irritable, or unhappy I ask myself some version of the following question - "I wonder how this is all going to work out for the better?", or "I wonder how this is going to help me learn a critical lesson I need to master?", or "I wonder how this will work out to be a blessing?"

This one process alone has improved the quality of my life more than I can even begin to describe. In the last five years that I have been practicing and applying this process, I have seen that it does two important things. First, it stops me in my tracks when I start thinking negative thoughts which generate negative feelings in my body. I find that since I have started this process, I have spent much less time feeling negative emotions in my daily life. Second, it leaves me more open and observant to see the ways in which things do turn out for the better. I find that I see positive "coincidences" much more often than I ever did before. My hunch is that these positive "coincidences" were always there, but because I was angry, fearful, or frustrated when things did not happen the way I had planned, I was not able to see or notice the positive "coincidences".

Dr. Ryce presented one more very important quality of goals, which is that once a goal has been set in the human mind, it keeps running until it is either attained, or consciously canceled. This is absolutely true, even though it may be running in the unconscious part of the mind, it is still active and the mind is looking for ways to achieve or satisfy the goal despite the fact that the person may be completely unaware of it. This leads to some very confusing and unproductive behavior in people, as their unconscious mind is working to satisfy un-achieved goals, while the conscious mind is unaware of the motivation or the goal.

It is suggested that we take time to consciously cancel all un-achieved goals from the past, with a focused visualization exercise. Then we can implement a nightly routine which has us reviewing the day, and canceling any un-achieved goals before going to sleep each night. In this way we can rid ourselves of some unproductive baggage and prevent ourselves from creating more of it each day.

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

Purpose, Personal Power and Commitment

2009-12-31T11:46:00.002-06:00

On Tuesday, the mindshifters group watched the second half of the lecture by Dr. Michael Ryce titled, "Purpose, Personal Power, and Commitment". The theme of the second half of this talk was about the process of denial and suppression and how it leads to discomfort and dis-ease within the human energy system. Dr. Ryce traces a path beginning with the suppression of ENTHUSIASM and resulting in total unconsciousness. Throughout the process, the suppression of the natural expression of our connection to our source, Love, and the subsequent reactions to that suppression, build stronger and stronger negative reactions within the system until the system is almost totally shut down.

The process begins when a child is innocently spending time fully engaged in whatever feeds her soul, and then a parent or teacher comes along and demands that they stop being focused and engaged in ENTHUSIASM, and do what the adult thinks they should do. When this ENTHUSIASM is suppressed it results in PAIN for the child. When the child tries to express her PAIN she is punished, and this results in an ANTAGONISTIC response from the child. This is punished and suppressed and that results in OVERT HOSTILITY from the child. This is punished and suppressed which results in ANGER from the child. This is punished and suppressed which results in COVERT HOSTILITY from the child. This is punished and suppressed which results in PROPITIATION, (doing the right thing for the wrong reason), from the child. This is punished and suppressed which results in SYMPATHY from the child. This is punished and suppressed which results in GRIEF from the child. This is punished and/or suppressed which results in APATHY from the child. This is punished and/or suppressed and results in UNCONSCIOUSNESS from the child.

At each stage of this process the negative energy which is denied and suppressed gets stored in different organs in the body and the energy system, and each of those organ systems begin to shut down, or struggle to function fully. The end result is aging and dis-ease and death. Another way to look at this process is the gradual denial of our connection to our source of Love.

During the first half of the two hour lecture, Dr. Ryce details how the Primary Purpose for each of us is to develop a Viable, Conscious, Spiritual body, and in doing so, we need to tithe, or commit ten percent of our; time, intelligence, money and energy to those activities which help feed and nourish us spiritually. He is clear that this is an individual path and that it will be different for each of us, but that the goal is the same for all - to develop and strengthen a Viable, Conscious, Spiritual body.

He then proposes that each of us develop a Secondary Purpose which will be unique to each of us. He proposes making two lists and then writing out a statement of "What the world will look like, to me, when it is perfect." The first list is a list of ten unique talents, or ten things that I am really good at, just naturally. The second list is ten things that I just love to do, whether I can make money at them or not, and whether anyone else thinks it is a valuable or productive use of my time. Once these two lists are completed and the statement of how the world will look to me, when it is perfect, is written out, then I compose a declaration in the following format. "I now choose to use, ( one, two or three things from the first list), in order to do, (one, two or three things from the second list), in order to help the world become, (insert your statement of how the world will look when it is finished).

Then when I move through my day, and I am faced with a choice of what to do, or a decision about how to spend my time, I can ask myself whether the activity is in line with my Primary Purpose. If it is, then I can ask if it is in line with my Secondary Purpose, and if it is then I should move forward with it. If it fails to be in line with either my Primary or my Secondary Purpose, I should drop the activity and move on to something else.

In this way I will focus my personal power, and become more of what I was created to be.

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

The Circle Of Life And How To Play It

2009-12-10T10:19:00.004-06:00

Tuesday night the Mindshifters group watched the first half of the lecture by Dr. Michael Ryce titled, The Circle of Life and How To Play It. The lecture describes two different patterns of observing, interpreting and responding to the events in one's life. Following one path makes us Winners in life and following the other path makes us Losers. The key point at the beginning of the lecture is that in order to get where we want to be, we first need to know where we are. The list of traits, behaviors and response patterns for those who choose "the high road", and those who choose "the low road", offers a kind of a road map which we can use to determine exactly where we are, and what we need to change in order to get to where we want to be.

My impression of the central characteristic of those choosing "the high road", is their ability to understand that they are creating their internal reality, and therefore if they are in pain in any way, they are in error and can therefore make a correction. The people choosing "the low road", are essentially blaming others or their circumstances for anything in their life they don't like, and they are busy either playing the role of "victim", or the role of "hero". These people believe that "If I am in pain, you did it to me!" Therefore they are always externalizing their problem and therefore looking for external solutions.

When people who are choosing "the high road" become uncomfortable or experience a negative emotion, they take this as an indication that they need to make a correction because they are somehow creating a false reality which is causing them pain or discomfort. These people welcome the information that comes to them from their discomfort because it offers them an opportunity to learn and grow. When people on "the low road" become uncomfortable or experience a negative emotion, they either deny it and suppress it, or blame it on someone or something outside of themselves. This reinforces their belief that they are powerless and that they are being victimized.

The discussion after the video led to many interesting areas. The area that stood out most for me was the idea of looking to someone else as being a "master" or a "guru". It is common for those who are trying to improve their lives to study, read, listen to, or even "follow" a "master", "teacher", or "guru". We discussed how this pattern creates a sense of "one-up" and "one-down", or "better than" and "less than". I mentioned that the teachings that have resonated most with me, are those in which it is understood that the only significant difference between any two people, is the degree to which each understands that "We are all the same!".

We also discussed how the book of The Way of Mastery frequently mentions that "It takes one to know one.", which means that I cannot recognize the truth taught by a great teacher unless that knowledge already resides somewhere in me. I suggested to the group that rather than talking about how someone else is such a great teacher or great master - it would be interesting to see how it feels to simply say, "What this person teaches, really resonates with me." This leaves the space for recognition that we are all the same and that in order for me to be able to recognize Love, and Wisdom in another, it must already be within me. The work we are engaged in then is simply to continue to uncover, and dismantle, anything within my mind and energy system which is less than Love.

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

Mindshifters Support Group Watched "The Laws of Living"

2009-12-02T12:45:00.006-06:00

This week and last, we watched the video of a lecture by Dr. Michael Ryce titled, "The Laws of Living". In this lecture Dr. Ryce points out the dramatic difference between a natural law and the laws of man. A natural Law is simply a description of how things work. When we function with the knowledge of natural Law and keep our behaviors in accordance with those Laws, we flourish. When our behavior deviates from those described by the Law, the Law does not get broken, we get "broken", or "injured".

The laws created by man, on the other hand, are often in conflict with the natural Law, and therefore result in a very conflicted and dysfunctional society. For example; the natural Law states that your body is an energy system and that there are only two types of energy relative to that system. Integrative energy which builds the system up, and dis-integrative energy which tears the system down. The positive, loving, integrative energy which comes from the positive emotions and Love, are what the energy system is made of, and what it is designed to contain and expand with. The negative, fearful or hostile emotions are energies which disintegrate or tear down the energy system.

Now, our current legal system is based on holding other people responsible for what happens in one's own life. We are encouraged to "press charges" against others, and "sue" others for things that happen in life. Then while the legal process is churning away, the negative emotions are also churning away in my mind and body. I will be angry at the other and feel justified in my anger. I will want revenge, or financial compensation, and again feel angry or hurt if I don't receive it. The longer I hold these negative emotions in my body and mind, (my energy system), the more damage there is to that energy system. I am the one who gets hurt, in any way that really counts, when I choose to blame others for what I am experiencing. "The vessel in which anger, fear and vengeance are stored, always sustain more damage than the object upon which they are poured."

This lecture starts with the question about what is the greatest commandment. The answer to that question is that we need to hold the condition of Love in our minds, whenever we think of God, neighbor, or self. In this context the word neighbor means, anyone we think of. So the first and most important law for healthy living is that we hold the condition of Love in our minds whenever we think of God, neighbor or self. This is a Law. The result of not acting in accordance with the Law is not that the Law gets broken, it is that we get "broken", or damaged or injured, because we are not acting in our own best interests.

Whenever I hold any energy in my body, or my mind, other than Love, I am putting negative and dis-integrative energy into my system and it begins breaking down my energy system. This is not helping anyone else, but most importantly, it is hurting me. This is why we are encouraged, not to just "let go" of negative energy, but to actively dismantle the thought structure and belief system which creates the emotion and the intense negative energy which damages our minds and bodies. This is the reason for all of the tools Dr. Ryce teaches and makes available for free on his website, http://www.whyagain.com

The discussion after the video was once again very lively and wide ranging. There are several group members who are coping with health challenges and others who are coping with relationship challenges. There were a number of different book titles mentioned by different members related to the nature of physical and spiritual health and healing. The crux of the conversation for me was whether one puts more emphasis on the belief of themselves as being a physical being or a spiritual being. We emphasized yet again in the group that we support people in reading and doing any work which leaves them feeling Love and compassion for themselves and others, since that is the energy they need to hold in their system to get and stay healthy, physically and spiritually.

Next week we will watch the lecture titled, "The Circle of Life and How to Play it."

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

Mindshifters - The Shadow Effect and Codependence to Interdependence

2009-11-11T08:00:00.007-06:00

Last week the Mindshifters group was without our usual DVD collection and a member brought in the DVD The Shadow Effect from Debbie Ford. While this movie makes several of the same points that Dr. Ryce makes in his lectures, the whole tone of the movie was dark and rather pessimistic. The key to the movie is that each of us has negative thoughts and judgments, and if we suppress them they come out in stronger, and more negative ways that we are not consciously aware of.

If I am not aware of something, there is nothing I can do to fix, change, or avoid it. So there is great value in increasing my awareness of the unconscious processes in my mind and my emotional beliefs. This is the primary focus of all the lectures by Dr. Ryce, and the practical tools he offers with each of his lectures.

I much prefer the positive and optimistic focus presented by Dr. Ryce, in which the energy of Love is the agent of change, with the realization that we are made of that very energy of Love. So, the process of change and self-improvement can either be seen through the lens which says that we are all filled with dark, negative emotions and beliefs about ourselves which need to be faced and owned - or it can be seen as recognizing that we are made of Love and then beginning the process of removing all of the roadblocks to seeing and living from the energy of Love that lives inside us. I prefer this second option.

The video we watched last night was the first half of the lecture titled "Codependence to Interdependence. This lecture begins with the focus on the beauty and Loving energy that is present when a baby is born. Most people who have been present at the moment of birth, or held a newborn baby, describe the infant with words like, Love, beauty, blessing, joy, etc. Dr. Ryce poses the observation that this is because we are made in the image and likeness of a creator, which is Love. We are made of the very energy of Love and it is our source, and what sustains us. He then describes the process in which we try to hide or change what we are, or how we appear to others, in order to gain or maintain their acceptance and approval. As we do this, we hide our true nature from others and eventually ourselves, as we try to be what we think others want us to be.

The entire process of hiding who and what we are is rooted in denial and suppression. Whenever we deny and suppress something, we give it more energy and store it in our bodies and emotional energy systems. The longer this negative, hidden energy stays in our bodies and emotional energy systems, the more damage it does to our relationships and our physical health. The more damage we do to our relationships and our bodies, the more physical and emotional pain we feel, and the greater chance that we will use people, substances, and behaviors to avoid or numb our selves to the pain. This is offered as an explanation of the process of addiction. It is offered that we use drugs, alcohol, food, sex, hostility, and a host of others substances and behaviors to either avoid pain, or numb our selves to the pain.

The solution which is offered is to remove the pain at its root cause, which is to remove the unconscious negative thoughts, beliefs, and false realities which we have stored in our systems through denial and suppression.

I highly recommend viewing this lecture for anyone who has difficulties with addiction of any kind. It is very empowering to realize that we are the Love we seek!

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

Healing Through Relationships - Dr. Michael Ryce

2009-10-21T15:14:00.002-05:00

Last night our Mindshifters group watched the first half of the Dr. Ryce lecture titled, Healing Through Relationships. The things which jumped out at me were Dr. Ryce's definition of a Bias, as being "unperceived brain cell energy". He went on to say that any Bias becomes the most powerful creative force in a person's life, as when a Bias becomes active, it blocks us from reason and effectively turns our I.Q. to zero. This is powerful in many ways, but the simple explanation is that whenever something is having a powerful effect on us, and we are unaware of it, there is nothing we can do to change the situation or correct it. When a Bias becomes active in our minds, and remember this means that we are not able to perceive it, the Bias becomes the thing that drives our perception, words and behaviors.

The question then becomes, "how do we learn to break the effect of a Bias if we are unable to know it is there? One way is to monitor our feelings and to understand that "When I am in pain, I am in error." This means that I need to learn to monitor my own thoughts and feelings, as though I were watching myself from the outside. Then whenever I am blocked, or feeling a negative emotion, or thinking negative thoughts, I will be able to catch myself and say, "If I am in pain, I am in error.", and begin looking for the source of my error.

The discussion in the second part of the meeting kept coming back to the need for me to watch my thoughts and emotions, with the innocence of a child, and to catch myself whenever I am judging anyone or anything, including myself. When I develop the habit of watching my thoughts and emotions from a distance, and with the peaceful innocence of a child, I am able to see the error of my ways and to choose another thought or another feeling.

If I see that I am judging someone else and then get angry with myself for being in judgment, I am judging again and adding contraction, pain, frustration and fear, to contraction, pain, frustration and fear. The goal is to be able to watch all of my thoughts and emotions without judging them as good or bad, and to understand that I can choose be in the energy of Love or the energy of fear. I can choose to be in innocence or judgement. Love and innocence are of healing and growing. Fear and judgement are of dis - ease and death.

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

Getting Into The Feeling

2009-10-05T12:15:00.003-05:00

On Friday October 2nd I went to see Dr. Wayne Dyer give a talk. I have been reading and following his works and writings, off and on again, since 1976. I felt as though I was going to see an old friend speak. The talk was very nice. He mentioned at the beginning that he was going to share new material from a new book he is writing, and that this new material was so powerful that we would be able to see the changes in him as he talked about it.

The essence of the new material Dr. Dyer presented is that one needs to see themselves having achieved whatever they want to achieve, and then feel the feelings associated with having already achieved that goal. Now, for many who have watched Dr. Michael Ryce's videos and worked with the Reality Management Worksheets, this is not new material. In fact, there was a book written by Lynn Grabhorn titled, Excuse Me, Your Life Is Waiting!, in which the primary message of the book is that, 'just thinking positive thoughts is no where near as powerful as letting yourself truly feel the energy of the positive emotions flowing through your body'. So Lynn suggests that we let ourselves "turn-on" the energy flow and be in the energy flow several times a day. All one has to do is to remember a time when you felt a strong positive emotion, and then let yourself remember the moment fully, remembering as many little details as possible about the scene and how it felt until you can actually feel the energy of that emotion flowing through you again.

This is excellent advice and, I believe, it is also the only way to have lasting shifts in your energy and behavior, no matter what form of therapy or tool for self-help one is applying. The power of the energy of your emotions and the energetic shift that happens when we allow ourselves to feel the energy of positive emotions running through our bodies, and our energy systems, is infinitely more powerful than just thinking, passing positive thoughts. This also coincides with the work we do in the Mindshifters group, which acknowledges that Love heals, and that exposing anything that is unlike Love, to the positive energy of Love, results in transmuting/healing anything that is unlike Love. As The Way of Mastery reminds us, "Only Love Is Real", and only Love can heal.

So, it is good to monitor one's thoughts and choose carefully what one allows into consciousness, realizing that we are choosing all that we think, and therefore all that we feel. It is also highly recommended that we use the power of our creativity, and the energy of our emotions to choose to feel good about all the things we will bring into our experience when we have created consciously.

The Way of Mastery talks about the need to choose each thought very, very carefully because each thought we think sends ripples of energy through the field of our consciousness, and those ripples return to us with similar energy. The analogy is that of dropping a stone into a still, clear pool, and watching the ripples bounce off the edges of the pool and return to the center. The book also talks about the farmer who chooses each seed individually, and considers the energy of the seed as well as the physical appearance of the seed, and refuses to plant any seeds until he feels all the conditions are just right and each seed is one he would want to have growing in his garden.

As Mike Dooley always says at the end of his emails, "Thoughts become things. Choose the good ones!"

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

Building New Brain Cells - An Example/Analogy

2009-09-01T08:37:00.004-05:00

So, we have discussed the idea of needing to question whatever it is we think we know, in order to be open to learning new things. We discussed how the lecture on A Course In Miracles makes a major point about how it is our limited perception which causes most of the pain, suffering and misunderstanding in our world. An example in the lecture is how limiting and destructive it is to look at another person and believe you know them. How limiting and incorrect it is to look at someone and believe that they are just a body. The act of looking at someone and making the decision that you know them, without even being able to see, hear, feel, or perceive in any way all the energies which emanate from them, is truly silly.

Our scientists are just now developing scans which can begin to map the processes of the human brain. Within the past twenty years the physical sciences have been making discoveries which bring into question or downright disprove things which I was taught as "hard science" when I was in high school and college. So the fact that we are still discovering new levels of understanding about our physical bodies and the world we live in, should give us all the evidence we need to understand that we do not know enough to say we, "know" a person. We have barely begun to understand the true nature of our physical world and the energies which comprise our physical experience.

During our last group one of the members commented that the act of looking at someone and labeling them a person, or believing you "know" them, or thinking that they are just a body, is like taking a cup of water from the ocean and studying it and then saying you "know" the ocean. It is ludicrous to think that by looking at a cup of water from the ocean we can understand the experience of the ocean, with all of its life forms, its depths, waves, tides, and power. Yet we do something similar each time we look at a person and label them based on what we perceive as their body. The limited perception allowed by our senses does not allow us to see much more of who a person is by looking at their body, than we can see of the ocean by looking at a cup of ocean water.

I challenge us all to question our perception and our conclusions each time we look at another person, and open to the possibility that what we see in the person's body and their actions is no more the total of what they are, than the cup of water is the total of what the ocean is.

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

Building New Brain Cells

2009-08-29T11:01:00.003-05:00

This week we finished watching the lecture by Dr. Ryce (www.whyagain.com) and the thing that struck me the most as I watched this lecture, yet again, was the level of understanding that I received on several key points, which I had "missed" or only partially understood during the many other times I have watched the lecture.

When I think about the process of counteracting the decades of conditioning I have received through my education, family, and culturally biased experiences, I am reminded of the song by Paul Simon in which the lyrics say, "When I think back on all the crap I learned in High School, it's a wonder I can think at all." We are all programmed to think that what we have "learned" is correct, and that challenges to what we "know" are to be seen as an attack upon us. One of the most critical points in this lecture is how we need to be able to bring into question what we already "know". We must be open to the possibility that what we "know" may be wrong, or at least limited. If we are not willing to accept that we don't know all there is to know, we will not be able to learn anything new.

We are limited by what we think we know in all of its forms. We are limited by bias and prejudice, as well as limited perception. Take the example of the person who grows up in a culture that has no technology or machinery and does not know anything about electronics and remote controls. This person is likely to think you possess some kind of magic if show them a television, which they will view as a box with people inside. Or they may view you as some kind of god if you change the channel and volume with a remote control. The reason for this is because they don't know anything about the electronics which are used to make these events happen. In similar ways, we are just discovering new technologies which would have seemed magical just a few decades ago. Many of us can remember when no one had a cell phone, and it was science fiction to wave your hand at a television screen and have the picture on the screen respond.

The same process is in effect in all our systems of thought, philosophy, science, spirituality, and even personal experience. So as we learn from others and our own personal experience, we open ourselves to new possibilities, but we always run the danger of thinking that what we have learned is "right", or "the truth", and "all there is to know". Each time this happens we create prejudice and bias within our thinking. In order to be open to learning something new, we need to first accept that we do not know all there is to know, or that what we know may be inaccurate, or limited.

As we do this we open ourselves to deeper and deeper levels of understanding of "old" knowledge. It is amazing to me how much more I understand about relationships in families than I did when I was twenty-five and considered myself very knowledgeable. What is even scarier is how I realize now that I understand much more today than I did when I was forty and considered myself an expert. I look at family relationships now and wonder what new things I will learn and come to understand in the next ten years. In some ways this is unsettling because I am beginning to realize how much I do not know. In other ways it is exciting because I look forward to learning more.

In similar ways, I think back to how I looked at this lecture from Dr. Ryce the first time I heard it several years ago, and how different it feels to listen to it today. I have a deeper appreciation for the words and concepts today than I ever could have imagined just a year ago. As I build new levels of understanding, I build new levels of appreciation and new levels of possibility. It reminds me of the quote from the book "The Way Of Mastery" where it says, "The difference between a student and a master is that the master knows, one must always be a student."

I join with you all in questioning everything we think we know, so that we may learn everything we need to learn to continue to grow.

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

Introduction To A Course In Miracles - With Advanced Understanding.

2009-08-20T18:01:00.006-05:00

This week the Mindshifters group watched the first part of the lecture by Dr. Michael Ryce titled, An Introduction To A Course In Miracles - With Advanced Understanding. Dr. Ryce uses the analogy of a person who lives in a two dimensional world, trying to experience and understand a three dimensional basketball. He tries to help the audience imagine the difficulty of getting someone from a two dimensional world to understand something they have never experienced before and something that goes against every experience they have ever had, as well as all of the known history of their family and their culture. He makes the point that if one has limited perception, it will dramatically limit their ability to comprehend something or someone.

In a world where there is only length and width it is not possible to describe height, or thickness. In a world where no one has ever experienced a three dimensional object, there are no words for describing a three dimensional object. If I am only able to see things in two dimensions that does not mean that the third dimension does not exist. Just as my limited vision does not mean that ultra violet light and infra red light do not exist. Just because I cannot hear a dog whistle does not mean that it does not make a sound. In the same way that the limitation of my sense organs filter out much of the light and sound around me and limit my ability to perceive the world, my limited ability to perceive the true nature of people does not mean that they are limited to my label or judgment of them.

One of the keys points of the lecture is that when I judge someone, or look at them and see only a body, it does not change their nature. It simply keeps me from seeing them as they truly are.

If I want to have any hope of perceiving my world accurately I have to begin by accepting the possibility that what I have already seen, or judged, may be wrong. If I am not willing to accept that there may be more to a person than what I have previously thought, I will not be open to new information and I will not be able to change my belief. The first step toward learning anything is the acceptance that there is something I do not know or understand. A mind that "knows" is not able to learn. A mind that is questioning is the only mind that is able to learn.

If I look at someone and believe that I see a body, and I believe that I know who that person is, I have, in that moment, judged them and done them and myself a serious injustice. I have chosen to believe they are only a body, and only a person, and that they are not an infinite energy system made of Love. I have, in that moment, chosen to disregard the miracle of life, and the many miracles of growth and healing that the physical part of their energy system carries out on a daily basis.

This lecture challenges us to question our perception of the entire world, but perhaps most importantly to question our perception of people, and open to the possibility that each person we see is an expression of the infinite energy we call Love, and God.

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

Getting The Stress You Need - Part 2

2009-08-13T06:12:00.005-05:00

This week the Mindshifters group watched the second half of the lecture, Getting The Stress You Need, by Dr. Michael Ryce. One of the primary messages of this lecture is that once the human mind sets a goal, it remains set and active, even if unconscious, until the goal is reached, or it is actively, consciously cancelled. The ability to cancel a goal is one of the functions of the spiritual faculty of Will. The importance of cancelling unfulfilled goals is that each time I set a goal and do not reach it, I continue to use some of my mental emotional energy to maintain that goal. The energy needed to maintain an unfulfilled goal takes away from the energy I have to focus on and accomplish my goals for today.

The analogy used is that of the logging truck which is capable of pulling two or maybe even three loads of logs at a time. The logging company who uses this truck wisely will be very successful. If the logger only hooks up one or two loads of logs at a time, the truck will easily make the needed deliveries and have plenty of power and resources to spare. But imagine that one morning the logger receives an order for three loads of logs to be delivered next week and immediately hooks those loads up to the truck. Then later in the day he receives an order for another load to be delivered three weeks from now and immediately hooks up that load as well. Later he receives an order for two more loads to be delivered tomorrow and immediately hooks those up to the truck. Finally, he receives an order for two loads of logs to be delivered today. He hooks those up to the truck as well, and then tries to make the delivery, but the truck won't budge! He has used all the power and resources of the truck with orders for tomorrow and further in the future, and has nothing left for what needs to be done today.

In the same way, when we set goals and they are not met, they keep running actively in our minds, even though we are not conscious of them, until they are achieved, or actively cancelled. The more unfulfilled, uncancelled goals we have running in our minds, the less resources we will have to do the things we need to do each day. There is an exercise in the lecture in which Dr. Ryce guides the audience through the process of reviewing past, unfulfilled goals and cancelling them, thereby freeing up resources in us for accomplishing the goals we consciously choose to set.

This part of the lecture was the most powerful for me this week. Despite the fact that I have listened to this lecture and done this exercise at least ten times in the past, I came face to face with an entirely new set of unfulfilled goals. This exercise was also interesting because I found myself integrating several pieces of other lectures, and the book; The Way of Mastery, while doing this exercise. The exercise consists of relaxing, getting comfortable, closing the eyes, and breathing gently while reviewing a series of people and events from your past, about whom/which you may have unfulfilled goals. When Dr. Ryce instructed us to think about any unfulfilled goals for education, my mind flashed on a series of events which surrounded the oral defense for my dissertation in graduate school. For many years now, those events have stood as some of the most traumatic and distasteful events of my entire adult life. As I flashed on those events and the people involved and told myself to cancel any unfulfilled goals related to those people and events, I found myself thinking about another exercise and the Forgiveness Process which Dr. Ryce teaches. I realized that if I was upset about something those people had done, it was only because I recognized that energy in myself. I realized that if it still upset me it was because I had not forgiven myself for having that energy in my thoughts and behavior, whether currently or in the past.

I chose to cancel any goals for those people and those situations, and I chose to cancel any judgement of myself for the times in my life when I had been dishonest or deceitful. As that happened it seemed like the vision of that situation and those people just disappeared with a puff of smoke. I felt myself smiling slightly as I watched that "horrible" series of events just fade away. I was left in awe of the process.

The group process this week was exceptionally lively as members wrestled with their conscious and unconscious goals related to food, body image, relationships, family of origin and other issues. The group showed its usual reverence and respect for each other as we each explored our individual reactions the questions raised and the beliefs explored. I remain unspeakably grateful for each of the individuals who have chosen to participate in making this group one of the most productive and rewarding group experiences of my life.

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

Getting The Stress You Need

2009-08-06T14:51:00.003-05:00

The Mindshifters group on Tuesday watched the lecture titled: Getting The Stress You Need. While this title sounds contradictory because some would say we don't need stress in our lives, the truth is that without stress, as defined in the lecture, we would not survive long. For the purpose of this lecture, stress is defined as the difference between the way we see things and the way we want them to be. By way of a simple demonstration, if I want my body to be comfortable but I happen to sit on a thumb tack, I will immediately experience a difference between the way I want things to be and the way I perceive them to be. This is a good thing because it will motivate me to move off of the tack.

The lecture also talks about how I select certain intentions and elevate them to the level of goals, which is what organizes my behavior. This is how I accomplish everything in my life. It is suggested that I don't do any behavior without first having elevated an intention to the level of a goal. If my goals are determined by my intentions, then the quality of my intentions will determine the quality of my goals and therefore the nature of my behavior. This is why it is important to monitor my intentions and choose only loving intentions. If I choose only loving intentions then my goals will be loving and my actions will be loving. If I hold hostile intentions then my goals will be destructive and my behavior will be destructive. If I hold fearful intentions, my goals will be negative and my behavior will be avoiding.

The discussion in the group included the difficulty some people have in giving up their habit of holding fearful and hostile intentions and perceptions of the world. Many of us have become so familiar with feelings of anger and fear, that we feel these intentions and perceptions serve a useful purpose in our lives. The key here is that any tool can only produce a result which is like the tool. So if I use my anger to accomplish a goal, I am creating negative energy in my body's energy system and sending out angry energy into the atmosphere and relationships around me. Whatever "good" results I believe I have accomplished with the use of anger, I am also creating stress and negativity in my interactions and relationships with others.

I am also creating distorted perceptions for myself whenever I engage in angry or fearful energy. The only way to perceive the world accurately is to hold the energy of Love in my mind. When I am holding the energy of Love, I will be able to identify the highest and the best in another and choose to cooperate only with that part of the other person. When I am feeling fear or hostility, my perceptions are distorted and I will be using inaccurate data to form my "reality". When I am in a potentially dangerous situation and I am triggered to feeling fear, the most productive thing I can do is calm myself down so that I can see actual events more clearly and think more clearly. One of my favorite quotes for difficult situations is, "This is way too important to panic about!" This is because if I move into the energy of fear or hostility, I am distorting my perceptions and leaving myself with bad data to formulate my "reality".

The goal of this work is to teach only Love. The process of this work is to be vigilant about anything in my thoughts and beliefs which block me from recognizing that ...

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

Still Point Breathing Session

2009-07-29T08:53:00.002-05:00

Last night the Mindshifters group held a special meeting and did a Still Point breathing session. I just want thank the participants who invested their time and energy to make this a most wonderful experience. I have been doing different trainings and experiential workshops for a number of years and I must say that last night was one of the most relaxed, loving, smooth-running, and productive sessions I have ever been privileged to attend. The hosting facility, Relax 4 Life in Barrington, IL, is a wondrous place with a beautiful view and tremendous energy. (www.relax4life.com)

The participants were mostly regular attendees to our Mindshifters group, which means that they are loving individuals who are diligently working to improve their experience of life and the quality of their relationships. This resulted in a very gentle, loving and supportive atmosphere which held us all in Love as we went through the exercise. The Still Point breathing exercise itself is a very gentle breathing exercise which facilitates the process of moving, releasing, and increasing the flow of energy through the body's system in whatever way the innate wisdom of the individual's body sees fit.

I wish to thank Dr. Michael Ryce for his work and for introducing me to this technique and the Mindshifter process which produces such wonderful results for me each time I use it.

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

The Power Of Forgiveness

2009-07-22T17:53:00.003-05:00

The core tool of Dr. Michael Ryce's work is The Reality Management Worksheet, and the process he refers to as Forgiveness. The definition of Forgiveness in this work is very different from the definition I grew up with. I was raised to believe that to forgive someone meant that I knew they had done something wrong, or bad, to me or someone I loved. I was taught that this action caused me pain, sadness, anger, fear or some other discomfort, or problem. As a result, when I "forgive them" I agree to be the bigger person and "let them off the hook" for what they have done to me. I agree to no longer "punish" them by blaming them for what they caused in me.

The work Dr. Michael Ryce promotes is based on the idea that no one has ever caused me to feel any negative emotion, pain, sadness, fear, guilt, or shame. Since I am a creator of my own reality, there is nothing to forgive anyone else for doing or saying. If I create anger in my reality in response to something someone else does, there is nothing to forgive them for. In this work the term Forgiveness refers to a process by which I dismantle and cancel any false realities in my mind which have given rise to my negative emotions and discomfort.

The primary tool for this, as mentioned, is The Reality Management Worksheet, by which we are reminded the we create our own reality, and we are guided step-by-step through the process of dismantling the false reality which is creating our discomfort. I have encountered only a very few approaches to this process which maintain the same level of strict adherence to the observations that, "My thoughts create my internal reality and the emotions I feel.". One such book is The Way of Mastery, ( www.shantichristo.com ), which states with excellent clarity, and gentle appreciation, the process by which I deny and suppress the negative thoughts, energies, emotions, and judgments in my mind. Once I have done this, I inevitably project them onto my image of others around me. I come to believe that they are the cause of my pain and discomfort, and that they are bad, negative, or wrong.

The process is described by which I can not even identify jealousy, anger, judgment, insult, or any other negative in another person's actions or thoughts, unless I have experienced that very thing. It is because I have experienced that very thing, and passed judgment upon myself for having experienced it, that I have suppressed it and denied it in myself. Once I have suppressed and denied that thought, feeling, or experience in myself it must be projected onto other people and things as a way of rationalizing my experience. So it is that everything I judge another for doing, I have done myself. Every negative thought or action that I take offense from in another is something that I have experienced in myself and judged myself negatively for having experienced it. It is because of this that I need to "forgive" others, because in reality it will be canceling and dismantling the negative judgment of myself in the process.

The goal of this work is to teach only Love. The process of this work is to become perpetually vigilant to anything I create which distracts me from the realization that I am inexorably connected to the Source which created me, Love. It is suggested that when we see that we have judged someone, instead of getting upset with oneself for having judged, we can say:

"Oh, I see that I am judging someone. That is an interesting cloud passing through the sky of my awareness. I wonder if I might be able to make another choice."

It is suggested in The Way of Mastery that we understand that each of us is a conduit of energy, and the degree to which the conduit is clear and open determines the ability for us to radiate the light of Love. When one makes a judgment it is as though one contracts and closes down the conduit, and the flow of energy becomes less and less. As one forgives judgments it is as though one is opening the conduit and thinning the walls so that the conduit which is carrying the liquid of God's Love is expanding and becoming transparent.

"Judgment is contraction."
"Forgiveness is relaxation, peace, trust, and faith."

"Should you then judge yourself if you have noticed you have been in judgment? No. That is a judgment in itself. Only Love can heal. Therefore, when you know you have judged, simply say:

"Ah, yes! That is that energy.
I recognize that cloud that has just passed through the field of my awareness.
But I can choose again."

The goal of this work is to Teach Only Love.
The process of this work is to become aware of everything we create which distracts us from the realization that;

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

To Become a Great Teacher

2009-07-12T12:52:00.002-05:00

Last year I heard myself tell someone that "To become a great teacher, one must learn to become a perpetually avid student." Then recently I was reading a wonderful book and read, "The difference between a master and a student is that the master knows, one must always be a student."

I have been ending each of my posts with the statement that came to me when I began this blog, "We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love. Everything else is false."

It keeps coming to me in all of the books, and lectures, that speak to my soul, that this is the actuality we need to accept if we are to live to our full potential. To me this means staying "a perpetually avid student" about how I block myself from staying aware of this Truth. This means studying my own thought to discover any blockage to accepting my source as Love. This means that all I really have to do is watch to see how I create false realities of things that are less than Love in my mind. When I stop creating my realities from fear, there will be nothing to block my awareness that we are all connected, we are all the same, and that we are all created from Love.

The book I am currently reading which sings to my soul is The Way of Mastery, available through www.shantichristo.com

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

The Circle of Life and How to Play It!

2009-07-12T12:06:00.002-05:00

This week the mindshifter group watched the first half of the lecture titled The Circle of Life and How to Play It, by Dr. Michael Ryce. In this lecture Dr. Ryce talks about two different approaches one can take to the events in one's life. The high road, or the low road. Whenever an event occurs in one's life one chooses to take one path or the other. The low road may be summarized as denial, suppression and blame, while the high road may be summarized as responsibility and openness to learning.

When an event happens the choice is always there to take the high road or the low road.

The low road is the path of denial and suppression.

The high road is responsibility.

The low road is loss of information because of denial, and belief that the source of experience is external.

The high road is to accept input and gain information, and know that source of the experience is internal.

The low road takes the role of either victim or hero, and often flips between the two.

The high road gains information and sees things as neutral and lives knowing we create our own realities.

The low road strives for more and more self-esteem no matter the cost.

The high road values source-esteem and wants to maintain awareness of their connection to one's source.

The low road is full of confusion and doubt.

The high road realizes that if I am in pain, I am in error.

The low road focuses on right vs. wrong thinking and is constantly judging self and others.

The high road focuses on right and not right (for me) thinking and thus avoids judging self and others.

The low road experiences the Truth of things as causing stress or them and tries to get rid of the source of the truth, and feels others need to change for them to be comfortable.

The high road sees Truth as desirable, and the source of valuable information, and engages in self-correction to become comfortable.

The low road tries to block stress by using drugs of all types to help deny and suppress feelings, even holding the breath.

The high road stays open to feelings of stress and breathes and engages in self-correction like "forgiveness" to remove false realities from their energy system.

The low road says "If I am in pain, "you/they" are in error." They feel dis-empowered!

The high road says "If I am in pain, I am in error." They feel empowered to make self-corrective change.

The low road feels "destructive-dissatisfaction". They feel that being right is most important and they engage in tantrums and depression.

The high road feels "Constructive-dissatisfaction". Being connected to Love and Truth/Actuality is most important.

The low road craves control and wants total freedom.

The high road exercises their liberty while functioning within the Natural Laws.

The low road feels they know it all - making learning from feedback impossible.

The high road acknowledges their error and welcomes feedback to help make self-correction.

The low road feels things are most important.

The high road feels relationships are most important beginning with awareness of connection to source.

The low road only has fleeting moments of satisfaction and lives to pursue satiation.

The high road feels satisfaction by learning to accept what is.

The low road feels anger and clings to it, and feels that discipline means punishment.

The high road feels love and realizes that is its source, and knows discipline means "properly taught".

The low road engages in all the trappings of pettiness and worrying about everyone Else's business.

The high road provides the strength to mind one's own business.

The low road does not acknowledge self as creator - They are takers and become thieves living in poverty.

The high road acknowledges their role in creating their reality, and knows that giving and receiving are the same, therefore they live in abundance!

The low road always wants something for nothing and they suppress their creativity.

The high road celebrates their creativity and creates from their connection to their source - Love.

So we see that every time an event occurs, we have a choice about how we interpret and respond to that event. Whether we choose the high road or the low road will determine the quality of our lives.

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

Just Do The Worksheet

2009-06-25T20:04:00.004-05:00

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

2009-06-17T18:48:00.002-05:00

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

2009-06-17T09:08:00.006-05:00

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!

2009-06-11T09:05:00.005-05:00

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.

The Emotional Freedom Technique - An Added Benefit!

2009-05-28T13:11:00.011-05:00

The Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) - created by Gary Craig

http://www.emofree.com

“It’s In Here!”

Some Thoughts About An Important Aspect of EFT

In America, for decades, we have been conditioned to think that other people are responsible for how we feel. The literature, the television shows, the movies, all tell us stories about how one person offends another, hurts another, makes another angry, sad or frustrated. Our song lyrics, even the “good ones” say things like, “You light up my life.”, and “You make me so very happy!”, and “You broke my heart when you walked away.”

There are many people who work in the field of psychology and philosophy who study the actual process of thoughts and their relationship to emotions, who have for many decades known that this is not the way the system works. In reality each of us creates our individual, internal reality. Each of us makes choices, on a regular basis, about what to focus on, and how we will interpret what we see, hear and feel.

In actuality thoughts lead to feelings and feelings are the shadows of thought. If you are to feel an emotion of sadness, you need to focus on thoughts that you interpret as sad, or thoughts about a time in the past when you experienced sadness. If you wish to feel joy you need to think about things that have happened which you interpret as being good and joyful. There is nothing inherent about the thing you think of, which makes it a joyful thought. It is how you think about it and interpret it that makes it joyful for you.

For example, when asked to let themselves feel joy, some people focus on the first time the held a baby kitten. For others the thought of holding a baby kitten brings up thoughts of responsibility, expense, and cleaning the carpets and furniture which will be soiled by the kitten.

One of my favorite quotes from the book The Mirror Theory by Betsy Otter-Thompson is; “The moment you think that someone else has to change for you to be happy, the key to happiness is lost.”. This is just one of many wonderful quotes which highlight the actuality that, “I cause my own pain, joy, sadness, contentment, frustration, elation, anger, guilt, and shame and joy.”. I do this by choosing to focus on something and then interpreting it in a way which leads to one of those emotions. Dr. Michael Ryce writes “If I am in pain, I am in error!” and he has created self-help worksheets which step people through the process of identifying exactly which thoughts are connected to which emotions and how that is causing pain and discomfort in their lives. www.whyagain.com

Each time I say to someone, “You make me so angry.” I am choosing to focus on them and their behavior as the cause of my anger and discomfort. In doing this I prevent my self from seeing the true cause of my anger, which is always inside of me. It is my thoughts which cause my emotions, not the actions or reactions of anyone else. Each time I tell someone that they have offended me, I block myself from seeing the actual process of how I have chosen to take offense and then feel offended by what they have said or done.

Gary Craig, in his EFT DVD’s, repeatedly talks about how the source of all the discomfort a person feels is “a disruption in the body’s energy system.” He teaches people the process of The Emotional Freedom Technique, (EFT), to help them remove the disruption in their body’s energy system. This is a powerful process which I describe as; "Giving yourself an acupressure treatment for any physical, mental, or emotional discomfort".

I have discovered an added benefit of the EFT process. When you are tapping or rubbing on the acupressure points on your body, and repeating an affirmation which pairs the problem with acceptance, love and forgiveness of self, you are physically pointing to the source of your discomfort! You are continually tapping on YOUR body. You are not tapping on the body of the person who did something you chose to get angry about. You are tapping on your body, as if to say, “It’s In Here!”, “The source, and therefore the solution to my pain, Is In Here!”

I have found that adding, “It’s In Here!” to my affirmations has helped reinforce the knowledge that I am creating, and therefore can eliminate, most of my pain and discomfort, whether it is physical, mental or emotional. I alternate using this affirmation in addition to, and instead of, the standard affirmation format recommended in the EFT manual. When I focus on the anger I am feeling, about something someone said or did, I begin tapping and say The Setup Phrase, “Even though I am angry about what they said, I deeply and completely love, accept and forgive myself, and I know, “It’s In Here!” Then my reminder phrase is something like, “This anger, that’s In Here”.

Remember that whenever you are using the Emotional Freedom Technique, you are physically pointing to the source of your pain and discomfort. It may help to verbally remind yourself that, “It’s In Here!”

Thanks for reading, and Happy Tapping!

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

Healing Through Relationships Part II

2009-05-20T15:18:00.004-05:00

I want to dedicate this entry to the wonderful people who give up their Tuesday nights to come to the Mindshifters group, and roll up their proverbial sleeves to work on the difficult, scary, and painful issues that most people run and hide from. It is an honor to be able to work with you all!

Last night our Mindshifters group watched the second half of the Michael Ryce lecture titled: Healing Through Relationships. Dr. Ryce talks about how he used to call the lecture: Healing Your Relationships, but changed the title when he realized that relationships are not sick or broken. He describes how the process of conflict in relationship is actually a vital process which brings our awareness to negative energy and emotions which we have hidden from ourselves, until such time as our partner in a relationship triggers that negative energy. He focuses on how this is a blessing because we are not able to dismantle or heal that negative energy unless we become aware of it.

Dr. Ryce details the two things that are necessary for healing. 1) A negative, false reality must come into conscious awareness. 2) Conscious, active Love must be brought to awareness at the same time. The presence of Love is the mechanism which transmutes all other energy, thereby healing the negative energy, negative emotion, and pain connected with the negative, false reality. This is critical because it is the negative energy which we store in our bodies and energy systems which end up disintegrating our energy system and creating the physical pain, and illness which eventually leads to aging and death.

In light of this Dr. Ryce makes the statement that "A lack of communication is the major cause of death". He explains that every time we refuse to acknowledge and dismantle a negative thought, emotion, or "reality", we refuse to communicate about it and work it out. When we do this we store the negative energy in our system and it stays hidden there until it begins to disintegrate our energy systems and eventually our physical bodies.

Another point in the lecture talks about "The Commitment", which is the tool they have created for navigating through relationships, in both good times and bad. The commitment is a tool which helps people interact from the space of Love in a relationship. Before beginning to use the tool of The Commitment, it is important to decide to have a new purpose for being in a relationship. For most people raised in this culture, the purpose for being in a relationship is usually two-fold, 1) Deciding who is in charge, 2) Determining how much stuff we can get.

The suggested new purpose for being in a relationship is:

"We want to heal!"

Summary:

1) We are creating our realities!

2) Any emotion we feel is something that comes from inside of us, not from outside events or the actions of other people!

3) The fact that we did not feel this emotion until the other person "did what they did", means that this negative energy was hidden from us!

4) The fact that the energy was hidden from us means that it was hurting us without our knowledge and would eventually lead to further breakdown in our energy systems and physical bodies.

5) The fact that we are now upset means that we can see the negative energy/ false reality, and do something to correct it and heal from it.

6) The fact that someone "did what they did" that resulted in us getting upset, is a real blessing, and the only way for us to heal those hidden and repressed parts of our energy system.

7) The more we work to find and eliminate the negative energy, negative emotions, and painful realities we have hidden from ourselves, the more easily we can see that;

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

Gregg Braden's Idea of the Biggest Dogma

2009-05-09T06:04:00.007-05:00

A few weeks ago the Mindshifters group watched the Mayan Calendar lecture by Ian Lungold in which Ian stated that the biggest unquestioned belief on this planet is the answer to the question,"What Day Is It?". In Gregg Braden's book, The Spontaneous Healing of Belief, Mr. Braden proposes that there is another, even more insidious, unquestioned belief which may be the root cause of most human suffering. That belief would be the answer to the question I will paraphrase as, "Is there such a thing as Good versus Evil, outside of the human mind?"

Gregg Braden provides reports on research and scientific theory which supports the idea that human mind energy, the power of our thoughts and beliefs, may be the greatest force on the planet. The power of the human mind to create realities for each of us and to effect our physical bodies and our environment, is being understood more completely than ever before, in recent history. So if it is true that human thought can effect the energy which makes up our bodies and our world, and that we create the reality we experience, then it would be critically important to understand how that process works.

One of the Bottom Line Observations I wrote about in an earlier post is, "The events that happen to me and around me in my life, are not nearly as important as how I interpret and respond to those events." So if I create my own internal reality and chose to believe that there are good and evil forces in the world battling for control and supremacy, then I will be convinced that I live in a "war zone". If I am convinced that I live in a "war zone" I will be constantly on guard and in a state of tension which will negatively effect my physical health and emotions. If I buy into the idea that there are evil spirits, or a "devil" battling a "god" for possession of my soul, I am creating a reality of ultra high stakes danger and fear within which I then live.

What if everything in the world I experience comes from the same source and is connected by energies I can't yet see or understand? What if there is no good or evil except as human interpretation makes it so? What if everything that happens on the physical plane is just exchange of energy at different levels? What if my job is to learn how to monitor, and how to raise the vibration of my energy to the level it originally came from? What if my only real job in this world is to learn to stay in the higher vibrational energy that some have called God, and some have called Love. What if I am creating all the stress, anger, and pain in my life by wanting things to be different than they are?

More and more sources are coming to light which point to the ancient knowledge that the world is all connected and from one source, and that the energy we "see", and "feel", and "hear" is the tiniest fraction of what truly exists.

What if I am creating all the stress, anger, and pain in my life by wanting things to be different than they are?

What if my only real job in this world is to learn to stay in the higher vibrational energy that some have called God, and some have called Love.

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

Mindshifters Group 4-21-2009

2009-04-22T17:52:00.002-05:00

This week's group meeting began with discussing reactions to last week's video and the introduction to the book by Gregg Braden, The Spontaneous Healing of Belief. I just began reading this book and I have enjoyed and greatly benefited from several of Gregg Braden's books prior to this one.

The book has an opening page which sounds as though it could be taken directly from Dr. Michael Ryce's lecture titled Empowered to Heal. Dr. Ryce talks in that lecture about how the content of our brain's cells resonates with an energy dependent upon the content of our stored realities. If I have anger stored in my mind it will resonate and send out vibrations which will interact with the world and I will see the world as angry, or as something be angry about. If I have fear in my mind it will resonate and send out vibrations which will interact with the world and I will see the world as fearful or as something to fear. If I have love in my mind it will resonate and interact with the world and I will see the world as loving and lovable.

Gregg Braden has clearly been studying some of the same works as Dr. Michael Ryce, as witnessed by the following paragraphs from the preface to his new book.

"In the instant of our first breath, we are infused with the single greatest force in the universe--the power to translate the possibilities of our minds into the reality of our world. To fully awaken our power, however, requires a subtle change in the way we think of ourselves in life, a shift in belief.

Just the way sound creates visible waves as it travels through a droplet of water, our 'belief waves' ripple through the quantum fabric of the universe to become our bodies and the healing, abundance, and peace -- or disease, lack, and suffering-- that we experience in life. And just the way we can tune a sound to change its patterns, we can tune our beliefs to preserve or destroy all that we cherish, including life itself.

In a malleable world where everything from atoms to cells is changing to match our beliefs, we're limited only by the way we think of ourselves in that world.

This book is dedicated to our acceptance of such an awesome power and our knowing that we are never more than a belief away from our greatest love, deepest healing, and most profound miracles."

So far the book is shaping up to be a real eye opener and a blessing.

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

Mindshifters and Mayan Calendar Lecture

2009-04-17T08:08:00.006-05:00

Last night the Mindshifters group watched the first part of a lecture by Ian Lungold, explaining the nature of the Mayan Calendars, (www.mayanmajix.com). The biggest thing I took from the first part of the lecture is the validation from a wide variety of cultures that as human beings we are more than just our physical bodies. The talk begins by explaining how the calendar is the exact dead center of any culture. This is because the calendar is the culture's agreement about what day and time it is, and how and when business, rest, and recreation should be conducted. Ian discusses how our current culture is built around a calendar which was introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory and is therefore called the Gregorian Calendar. He explains that this particular calendar tracks the physical movement of our planet around our sun, and nothing else. Therefore the use of this calendar forces our entire culture to focus on nothing other than the physical aspect of our existence. Ian points out that many previous cultures had multiple calendars and most of them had calendars with 360 day cycles. When 'modern' scientists discovered these calendars they assumed that the culture was primitive and that the calendar was inaccurate and only a rough approximation of the time it takes our earth to travel around the sun, (365.25 days).

The reality is that most of those cultures knew about the time it took our planet to travel around the sun, and some of them had separate calendars for that purpose, but many of them also had 360 day calendars. It is just that those cultures had determined that there were other realities which were just as important, or even more important than the physical aspect of their existence. Ian raises the question about what those other calendars were measuring and tracking for those cultures. He proposes that those other calendars were tracking different cycles of energy and motion, other than the purely physical and very specific movement of our planet around our sun. He points out that every planet spins, or turns 360 degrees, and that every circle has 360 degrees, and that since so many cultures had calendars with 360 day cycles, it is worth investigating what those calendars had in common and what they may have been tracking.

Ian also points out that once the Gregorian calendar was adopted by the Catholics, the Spanish and the Catholics went out to "save" and convert different cultures which they conquered. They had to kill many people in those cultures before they were able to force the culture to give up their existing calendars and adopt the Gregorian calendar. He points out that much of the spiritual and energetic knowledge from each of those cultures was lost as they were forced to accept a calendar that focused exclusively on the physical motion of our earth around our sun. Ian goes on to discuss two of the three calendars which were used by the Mayan culture for more than five thousand years before they were "discovered" by "modern" scientists in the jungles of South America.

Two of the Mayan calendars were related to larger, spiritual, energetic forces, other than the physical energy of our bodies and our planet. The Mayans believed that souls chose what day they were going to be born, and therefore the first name of every Mayan was the name of the day they were born. This served as a constant reminder to the person about what they wanted to accomplish in their life. This means that within the Mayan culture there were constant reminders of the energetic and spiritual aspects of existence. This got me to thinking about how different life would be if there were as many daily reminders on television, radio and in the movies about compassion, gratitude, service to others, energetic connection to all things, and Love, as there are daily reminders about material wealth, accumulation, competition, 'physical beauty', greed, one-up-manship, and sex. As I let myself think about this possibility I got very emotional and felt chills running through my body. I realized that I have no idea what a world like this would look like. I can only say that it would be radically different from the world I was raised in and the world I am living in today.

I have often heard the quote from Gandhi which says, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world". And it seems like an overwhelming task when I realize how much the culture invests in sending out messages about the physical world and the material possessions and the instant gratification from external sources. I started to long for a culture which would honor all things equally, both the energetic/spiritual and the material aspects of our world. Then I realized that it was up to me to work on my own focus and continuously strive to achieve that balance within my own consciousness, and the focus of my conscious thought and intention.

I felt a bit overwhelmed at first. Then I thought about the people who attend the Mindshifters group and people like Dr. Michael Ryce, Bruce Lipton, Gregg Braden, and countless others who are working, writing, blogging, lecturing and working on themselves to help change the focus of those who are willing. I am grateful to be living in the age when the Internet and media, which is spewing so much of the message of materialism, greed, and instant physical gratification, is also available to spread the message of balance, energetic and spiritual awareness, and Love.

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

Empowered To Heal Part II

2009-04-08T15:54:00.005-05:00

In this week's meeting of the Mindshifters group we watched the second half of the lecture by Dr. Michael Ryce titled, Empowered To Heal. The first part of the talk focused on the difference between the physical body and the "mind" that accompanies the physical body, and the soul, and the "mind" which accompanies the soul. The idea was presented of the physical mind being survival oriented and unable to do anything other than react to circumstances in a programmed way, much as the robin that builds the same kind of nest each year, or the salmon which returns to the place of its spawning to lay eggs and die. The point was made that we have both the physical, "carbon based" memory which is reaction based, and the spiritual, energetically based mind, which allows us to choose our own actions. The soul and the energetic mind are seen to be the seat of real intelligence and the freedom of choice, or free will, which we have come to view as one of the things which separates us from the rest of the natural world.

One of the most powerful lines in the lecture for me was related to the fact that, "If I don't know how the world works, and how my mind energy influences the world, it is easy for me to see myself as a victim.". As one of the lines in the Reality Management Worksheet states, "With blame, I hide my power." If I am blaming others for what I feel and what happens in my life, I am not able to see how I influence the events in my life and how I create all of my emotions and reactions.

I create my own reality, (my internal experience), and my interpretation and reaction to the events in my life is infinitely more important than the events themselves. As I mentioned in the last post, the research evidence is clear, we choose to be happy or sad, regardless of the events in our lives. This is seen clearly in comparing the happiness ratings for people who have won the lottery and those who have become paraplegic, and finding that one year after each event the happiness ratings are nearly identical for those two groups of people. How could it be that those who became paraplegic a year ago, are just as happy as those who won the lottery a year ago?What could possibly explain this finding? This is as powerful an example as I can imagine, to demonstrate that we choose to be happy or choose to be sad, and that the external events in our lives are not nearly as important as how we interpret and respond to those external events.

There is substantial research which demonstrates that we create our own happiness and some of it is reviewed in the book Happy For No Reason, by Marci Shimoff. In this book, Marci gives examples of people who have every external reason to be sad, angry or depressed, and yet they choose to be happy. Marci gives a list of exercises which anyone can use to develop the habit of being happy and maintain a positive outlook through the ups and downs of life.

The last 90 minutes of the Mindshifters group was spent working on Reality Management worksheets. This is the tool for canceling and dismantling a false reality in our minds. The tool is available for free from www.whyagain.com. This is a powerful tool for improving one's quality of life by relieving negative emotions and the energy that goes with them. I did my worksheet on the anger that I felt when a file cabinet was delivered late, and turned out to be the wrong cabinet. This left me 90 minutes to completely re-arrange and re-organize my office and clean up the resulting mess, before I had to start seeing clients again. Near the end of this clean up routine and just before my next client was scheduled to arrive, I got angry when I tried to open a garbage bag to put something in it and found it was tied closed with a knot.

My anger at inanimate objects proved once again to be a difficult challenge for me to overcome. I realized as I completed the worksheet that I have been trying to hide my anger from others and that this was contributing to my difficulty in resolving the problem. It is our secrets which keep us sick, and I became aware that my desire to hide my anger was feeding my conclusion that I was unlovable because I had anger. The real good news is that now I can actively work to end the secret and resolve the problem of my anger response to inanimate objects. I feel a noticeable relief at recognizing the pattern of trying to keep my anger a secret and realizing that I no longer need to hide the fact that I get angry when things don't work the way I think they should.

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

Why Are We Happy? Why Aren't We Happy?

2009-03-27T10:53:00.005-05:00

Dr. Michael Ryce spends a great deal of time in his lectures explaining to people the process by which we create our own realities and how the actual events in and around our lives, has little or nothing to do with the reality we create in our minds. Dr. Ryce offers numerous examples of this process and encourages people to observe this for themselves and to increase their awareness of this process, so that they can work with the process to cancel and change the false realities which create our negative experiences in life.

One of my favorite ways to spend quality educational time is to watch talks on TED.com. This blog entry is about one of those talks by Dan Gilberts titled "Why Are We Happy? Why Aren't We Happy?" In this talk Dan Gilberts describes the research which demonstrates how we choose our happiness, and the circumstances under which it is easier for us to "manufacture" happiness. He also discusses those factors and situations which make it more difficult for us to "manufacture" happiness. The research shows repeatedly that most of us think that "Getting what we want", is the thing which will make us happy. The reality is that "Getting what we want", has almost no correlation to our long term happiness. Dan Gilberts explores in his talk the process our brains go through in projecting into the future and trying to predict what will make us happy, and how this process is so often wrong in its conclusions.

I strongly recommend watching this talk and learning more about how we make ourselves happy and how we make mistakes in trying to make ourselves happy. The more we learn about how our brains work and how we create our own reality, the more we can do to create positive, loving and happy realities for ourselves. Click here to watch the video of Dan's talk.

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

Mindshifters Meeting 3-24-09

2009-03-25T18:26:00.009-05:00

The Mindshifters group met last night as usual on Tuesday evening, from 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm in Cary, IL. It was a smaller group than normal, but as usual, the perfect people were there, to accomplish exactly what needed to be accomplished for those in attendance. I won't go into the topic, and the specific work that was accomplished because, despite the incredible power and intensity of the work that was done last night, the most impressive thing for me about the group is the process, not the content.

I have had several conversations with people over the past week about the group, why I continue to go each week, what exactly gets accomplished, and what makes it worth my time, talent, and energy. The answer is complex in some ways, and powerfully simply in others. The simple part of the answer is that I have observed that we are all the same. If we take all of the differences we find between ourselves and every other person on the planet, and compared those difference to the ways in which we are the same, the differences would be like a grain of sand, and the similarities would be like the Milky Way Galaxy. In short, I have observed time and again, that the most important difference between me and any other person, is the degree to which each of us sees that we are all the same.

So, if we are all the same, that means we all have to face, and resolve the same basic issues. It also means that we all have fears, and that for each of us our greatest enemy is our self. It also means that the thing each of us fears the most is facing the truth about ourselves. I have observed that this is true, no matter where one is on the path of personal growth and enlightenment. This means that for Gandhi, it would have been more fearful for him to face a hidden truth about himself, than to face down the guns of the military in his country. It means that no matter how much work I do on myself, it will always be easier for me to help someone else with their problems, and facing their deep dark secrets than it will be for me to face my own.

Since it is so scary to face our own personal issues and put an end to the secrets we keep, it is often necessary to have help and support in that process. The value of a support group for doing personal growth work is difficult to over estimate. There are countless people who have listened to a great teacher, or read a wonderful book on the topic of spirituality or psychology and personal growth and truth, who have been moved to "do their own work", and then never followed through because the support for this terrorizing prospect simply was not there. Often people begin the work only to drift away from it for various, valid, concrete, realistic, really important reasons. Most of those reasons boil down to, "the fear of facing the truth about myself". It has often been said that "It is our secrets that keep us sick." One of the reasons this is so true is that for every ounce of energy I put into keeping a secret, from anyone, (no matter how trivial the secret might seem), I unwittingly put an equal amount of energy into the conclusion that I am not worthy or lovable. I also feed the conclusions that if the other person knew my secret, they would be angry at me, or worse, they would want nothing to do with me.

So, in one of life's great paradoxes, I create, and work to keep a secret because I fear that if people find out about the secret they won't like me, love me, or want anything to do with me. I create and keep the secret, and feed my own conclusion that I am not likable, lovable, or worthy. The longer I keep the secret the more energy I put into hiding it, and the more energy I put into the negative conclusion about myself. The longer I feed this negative conclusion about myself, the worse I feel about myself on the inside, and the harder it is to let people get close to me. I come to believe that if they get too close they will see the secret, or discover just how unlikable, unlovable, and unworthy I am. The longer this pattern continues the more real it seems, because I have spent so much time feeding the belief, often without even knowing it.

Imagine if you learned something in school in the eighth grade and the science teacher taught it just as it was written in the textbook, and you believed it because there was no reason to doubt it. Then in your sophomore year of high school your science teacher taught you something that directly contradicts what you learned in eighth grade. This might come as a shock and you might even question the teacher and do some independent research to confirm what the new science teacher was trying to get you to believe, but eventually you would probably come to realize that the eighth grade teacher, and the old textbook were wrong.

Now imagine that you grew up in a family where you lived by the ocean, and everyone believed that world was flat. All of your relatives for five generations lived there and believed this, and all the people in your town believed this. They could see that the ocean extends just so far and then ends. They have known for centuries that anyone who sails too far from shore does not return. Because the world is flat, everyone knows that if you sail your boat too close to the horizon, you will fall off the face of the earth and die a horrible death. Everyone knows this is true, and they have always known it is true.

Then one day when you are in your late twenties, working on the dock and serving as the crew on ship, someone asks you to be a crew member on a ship that was going to sail around the world and prove that it was round. Just try to imagine the resistance and fear that would be generated in trying to change your belief.

Well in truth, the negative beliefs that each of us hold about ourselves, are every bit as difficult to change, and fear inducing to face, as the fear of the sailor in our previous example. How many sailors would have been brave enough to sail off alone, to disprove the belief that the world is flat? It is easy to see how it would take an entire crew, or support team, to maintain the courage and fortitude to push through the fear and challenge the long held belief.

Most of us need a support team, or community, in order to stay the course, face our fears, "do our own work, and end the secrets that keep us sick.

I give my time to this group because I get as much out of it as anyone who attends it. I give my time to this group because I have been lucky in my life to have wonderful parents, exceptional friends, and good mentors. I continue to have phenomenal friends and support groups, on this journey of "doing my work".

I wish for everyone, the friends and support groups they need to face their deepest fears, and to see their personal lies, and false beliefs for what they are. I wish for everyone that they could have the love and support I have been lucky to find so far in this life, which makes it so much easier to be brave in facing the fear of looking honestly at myself.

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

The Movie: Try It On Everything!

2009-03-18T09:07:00.006-05:00

Last night the Mindshifters group watched the movie "Try It On Everything". This movie takes ten people with real problems and sends them to a house for a four day intensive with Emotional Freedom Technique, (EFT), therapists. The ideas behind EFT are discussed by experts in energy work, healing, and personal growth, interspersed with actual footage of the people in the movie using EFT for their specific problems. The movie ends with a follow-up meeting six months after the original four days, in which seven out of ten people return to tell of their fantastic results.

The Emotional Freedom Technique is a simple but powerful tool for giving yourself an acupressure treatment for any physical, mental, or emotional discomfort. The founder believes in the power and value of this technique so strongly that he has made the manual available for FREE on the Internet at www.emofree.com. He also makes available a FREE email newsletter which is full of articles written by therapists and other individuals who are using EFT to improve the quality of their lives.

I have been teaching EFT to any of my clients who are willing to learn it for over three years now. I have recently begun to recommend this movie to people as a tool for learning and practicing EFT. It can be highly beneficial to watch the movie and "tap" along with the people on the screen. It is amazing how tapping while someone else is working on their issues, can help me resolve emotional and physical issues of my own. In the original training DVD's for EFT this was called Borrowing Benefits. It refers to the observation that if I tap on myself while watching someone else tap on themselves, and work on their issues, I get benefits for myself which, can at times be even more powerful than if I was just tapping on my own. My guess about why this may be so, is that if I am tapping while watching someone else work on their issues, my conscious mind can get confused and distracted, and that leaves an opening for my unconscious to do what it knows needs to be done to help me along.

After we watched the movie, there were plenty of questions and discussions about what members experienced while they watched and tapped on themselves throughout the movie. It was unanimously decided to be very beneficial, and several group members talked about buying their own copy of the movie. I am including this in the Mindshifters blog because I believe that EFT is simply a tool for helping me to remove anything that is less than Love from my energy system. I believe this technique to be completely compatible with the work that Dr. Michael Ryce does with people, and with the goal of all the worksheets that he makes available on his website. The more I can defuse, discharge, clear, release, or eliminate negative emotions and energies from my system, the more readily I will see and recognize the Love that I am made of.

EFT is a tool just like "Ho'oponopono" is a tool and the "Sedona Method" and "Release Technique" are tools for identifying and then releasing any negative emotional energy I am experiencing, or holding unconsciously.

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

The book - "Outliers" by Malcolm Gladwell

2009-03-16T18:41:00.004-05:00

An outlier is a person or an event which varies a great deal from the norm, or the average. This can be someone who is much more successful than almost everyone else, or someone who is "luckier" than almost everyone else, or richer than almost everyone else, etc. In this book Malcolm looks at patterns which can be seen with almost everyone who is more successful, richer, more musically talented, etc. than almost everyone else. What he found is amazing! When we talk about people who are richer and more successful we usually talk about them being amazingly more talented, or amazingly more lucky. The truth is that there are predictable patterns which can be observed, and for almost every situation in which someone excels at their work, their music, their craft, or their art, these patterns are there to be seen.

What are the factors Malcolm Gladwell discovered? The first thing is to realize that people who are really successful, are actually intelligent and talented. The amazing thing though is that they are not that much more talented than many other people. They have had three things which the rest of their competitors did not have as much of. These three things are "Opportunities", "The willingness to take advantage of those opportunities", and ... "TEN THOUSAND HOURS of practice!" That is 10,000 hours of applied hard work in real life situations, practicing their skills.

I recommend this book because it offers hope to many of us who are average or just slightly above average intelligence, or skill in a given area. This book shows numerous examples of how this pattern can be seen to be behind the phenomenal success we have seen throughout history in almost every area. This means that there have been people who had much higher IQ than Einstein, but they did not achieve as much, or even nearly as much as Einstein did. There have been people who were probably much more musically talented than The Beatles, but they did not achieve anywhere near the success that The Beatles did. What Malcolm Gladwell shows time and again with the patterns he uncovers is that you only need to be "just smart enough", or "just talented enough", and then you need opportunities, the willingness to grab those opportunities (motivation, interest, dedication), and 10,000 hours of practice. This pattern can be seen to be in place for all of the most successful people in the computer industry, including people like Bill Gates, and for The Beatles, and for the most successful athletes, etc.

Why am I writing about this book and these patterns in a blog about spirituality and the mind/body connection? Because I believe we can all reach the levels of connectedness and awareness of our spirituality which we have read about the great masters achieving in the centuries before us. I believe we can all reach these levels if we have the opportunities, take advantage of those opportunites, and we are willing to spend the TEN THOUSAND HOURS it may take us to reach mastery. Just to be clear, I don't hold strongly to the belief that everyone needs to practice for 10,000 hours in order to reach enlightenment, or mastery. I just believe that most of us will require that level of practice and commitment and that nothing will block us from reaching our goals if we are willing to take advantage of opportunities, work diligently, and put in the 10,000 hours.

One of the three critical factors in the pattern Malcolm Gladwell has described is the factor of opportunities. Today the Internet, and blogs like this one, make those opportunities available to many more people than ever before. You can look to your favorite search engine to find just about anything you ever wanted to know about spirituality, spiritual teachers, and practices to help you advance your awareness of your spirituality. But, all the opportunities in the universe will not help you unless you are willing to take advantage of the opportunity and put the work into the process of practicing! The ancients have long described the process of "spiritual practices", simply because it takes practice! Practice, Practice, Practice! And Malcolm Gladwell is not the only one who thinks that in order for one to master what they practice, they need to practice for 10,000 hours!

It may take a lot of practice for me to unravel the conditioning that has me feeling anything less than Love! I don't know yet if I am up to the task. When it comes to being aware of my spirituality however, I know these two things for sure; that I haven't given up yet, and I'm no where near my 10,000 hours.

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

Why Is This Happening To Me Again - Continued

2009-03-04T11:08:00.005-06:00

Last night in the Mindshifters group we listened to another half-hour of the four hour audio recording of Dr. Michael Ryce's lecture titled, "Why Is This Happening To Me Again?". The thing that struck me during this session was the realization that this work gives me a whole new way to understand, "Keep your thoughts on God!". As a child being raised in a Roman Catholic home and attending Roman Catholic schools, I was frequently told to keep my thoughts pure and think about God. As I listened to the lecture last night, I had the realization that when I think of God as a person, a father, a powerful being, etc., I have a difficult time staying focused on God while going about my daily activities. However, when I think of God as Love, and as the energy of Love, and realize that I was designed as an energy system to contain that energy, it is much easier to keep my thoughts focused on God.

I can't explain exactly why this hit me so strongly, but it is often the case as I read, or listen to those things which contain powerful material, that when I am exposed to the material time after time, it takes on new levels of meaning, and I gain new insights time and again. This time it just struck me that I have been working with this material to the extent that I am beginning to think about my energy and my emotions much more often during any given day. While I am focused on my emotions, I am striving to hold the energy of Love and return to it whenever I find myself feeling anything less than Love. This is the basis of the work that Dr. Michael Ryce is spreading through his teachings, and it is the goal of all of the tools he provides on his website.

While listening to the audio last night, it struck me that I was indeed thinking more about (God / Love) throughout the day, than ever before in my life, and in ways that reminded me about the old Catholic admonitions to keep my thoughts focused on God. It occurred to me that with what I have been learning through the Dr. Ryce audios and videos, I am able to use anything and everything as a trigger to help me focus on Love. I either focus on the energy of Love and feel the positive effects of that energy, or I recognize that I am feeling something less than Love and start using one of the many tools I have learned to restore myself to the awareness of my source in Love.

During the support group portion of the meeting the members worked on Reality Management worksheets, (www.whyagain.com), and several members realized they were dealing with related issues in their worksheets. One of the powerful common themes was that of fear. As we processed the worksheets at the end of the group, the comment was made about how we get triggered to feel fear and then we avoid dealing with whatever triggered that fear. We discussed how this builds a pattern in our minds which grows stronger every time the pattern is repeated. Each time I avoid something which triggers fear, my mind has told me that the trigger for the fear is not safe, and that if I move toward it I will not survive it. Then each time I avoid the trigger for my fear, and I survive, my mind says, "See, you survived! That means you needed to avoid that fearful trigger, (person, place or thing), in order to survive! You see, I told you, you would not have survived if you moved toward that terrible thing, or person!" The fact that I survived is used by my mind to reinforce the conclusion that I needed to avoid the fearful trigger.

As we have learned in this work, anytime I am feeling anything less than Love, I am getting distorted, inaccurate data about what is really happening around me. My mind will use whatever data it gets to show me what I have told it to show me. In the example above, when I am triggered to feel fear, the data my mind receives is distorted and it tells me that the trigger is dangerous. Then my mind goes to work producing evidence that proves to me that the trigger is dangerous. My mind gathers and creates evidence to feed the conclusion that my trigger is dangerous, and that I will only survive if I avoid it.

This reminds me of a quote by Benjamin Franklin, "I have experienced many horrible difficulties in my life; most of which have never happened." This quote speaks to me of how I torture myself with fear and procrastination as I dread confronting someone or something, and how the actual confrontation is never as bad as I feared it would be. This is also related to a quote I mentioned in an earlier post, from The Mirror Theory, "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."

I am grateful to all the people who attend these groups and share their energy, stories, and Love.

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

I Don't Like Myself. I Want To Be Different!

2009-02-23T20:38:00.005-06:00

I have run into a pattern recently in working with people. These people do not like themselves, or something about the way they are as people, and they are angry or resentful about it and want to change. This has led to numerous discussions about what is needed in order for people to achieve the change they want make in themselves. Many people are operating under the false impression that they need to be unhappy with the way they are, and make changes in the way they are, in order to be able to love and accept themselves. The truth is that we need to love and accept ourselves in order to be able to change!

If I am angry and resentful of the way I am, I am rejecting myself, and "beating up on" myself. If I am rejecting, and "beating up on" myself, I am not seeing myself clearly, or even looking at myself at all. If I am not seeing myself or looking at myself, how can I work with myself in order to change.

There is a sign hanging in my office which acknowledges this age old wisdom. It reads, "To be content and growing, embrace yourself as you are, celebrate yourself as you long to be." - Mary Anne Radmacher The first step here is a necessity. "Embrace yourself as you are" means to accept yourself. Once I have accepted myself I have the ability to examine myself closely and truly see myself accurately. Once I see myself accurately I will be able to work with the different aspects of myself that I like and those I don't like.

The fundamental truth here is that I cannot work with something I refuse to accept and examine. I cannot change something that I cannot see clearly.

If I am willing to face the pain and sadness that are contained in my misperceptions and negative beliefs about myself, I will then be able to see them clearly as the mistakes and falsehoods that they are. Once I see them clearly my negative assessments of myself, and the negative emotions they generate will fall away and no longer have power over my me.

The truth is -

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

Why Is This Happening To Me Again 4 Hour Audio Part 2

2009-02-18T09:20:00.005-06:00

Last night in the Mindshifters group we listened to the second half-hour of the four hour audio lecture titled Why Is This Happening To Me Again? The thing that struck me about the material this time through was the statement that, "My mind can only show me the past, until I cancel and dismantle all the old false realities which I have stored in my mind, and my body's energy system by the process of denial and suppression."

The definition for "the devil" was once again covered and the point was clarified that "the devil" is the past and it lives in the mind of man. "The devil" in this definition is the process of living in the past which keeps us from living in the mind of God. The mind of God is the mind of Love. The only way for me to get an accurate picture of the world around me is for me to be viewing the world through the filter of Love.

Anytime I am feeling anything other than Love, I am getting distorted data about what is really going on in the world around me. Anytime I am feeling any form of hostility or fear, this is a gift which is telling me that I am making an error, and that I have moved out of the mind of Love.

Since the mind of Love is the only thing which can show me an accurate picture of the world around me, I need to stop what I am doing and restore the energy of Love to my mind.

We would not think of walking around blindfolded, or driving a car while blindfolded, because of the dangers to ourselves and others. In just the same way, we should make the commitment to stop whatever we are doing when we feel fear or hostility, and use whatever tools we have to dismantle that false reality before doing anything else! For we are just as surely blinded from the truth whenever we are feeling hostility or fear, as we would be if we were wearing a physical blindfold!

Several members discussed their new understanding of the difference between the trigger for an event, and the actual mechanism which causes the event. In the lecture Dr. Ryce gives the example of the person who comes from a primitive area, with no idea about motors or machinery of any kind. If you put this person on the side of a river near a bridge, and ask him to figure out what makes the bridge go up, he will watch as a boat comes by and the bridge goes up. Then the boat goes away and the bridge goes down. Then another boat comes by and the bridge goes up - the boat goes away and the bridge goes down. Before long the person concludes that boats make the bridge go up.

This is a classic example of mistaking the trigger for the actual mechanism. Those of us who know about mechanics and draw bridges know that there is a person inside the bridge house who sees the boat, and then switches on a motor which drives a series of gears and cables which make the bridge go up. We also know that nothing about the boat being next to the bridge causes the bridge to go up. A boat can sit next to the bridge for days without the bridge ever going up, either because there is no one in the bridge house, or because the boat does not have authorization to travel through that part of the river, etc.

Imagine though, that the person who was unaware of any kind of mechanical workings or automation has decided that boats make the bridge go up. Then you tell that person that you will give them a very large prize or salary if they will keep the bridge from going up, ever again. That person will probably conclude that they need to change the course of every boat that comes onto that river, to keep it away from the bridge in order to win the prize, or be paid the salary you promised. Now before you go thinking that this person is silly, or stupid, think about how many times in our lives we have talked about, wished, or tried to make someone else change their behavior so that we won't have to be angry, sad, hurt, or frustrated!

If indeed we are truly aware of what causes our emotions, we will not be looking at the actions of others for the cause and the cure of our negative experiences. We will be able to recognize that we create our realities and that we cause the emotions we are feeling at any time, and in every way.

The members of the group worked through two rounds of doing Reality Management Worksheets last night and the process was productive and emotional as it usually is. The process last night highlighted the difficulty some of us have of defining what the trigger is for a particular worksheet and the difficulty we have at times in clarifying which thoughts cause which emotions.

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

What Attracts You To Other People?

2009-02-13T14:48:00.003-06:00

Dr. Michael Ryce talks about how it is helpful to hear the same material stated in different ways and from different points of view and different disciplines, such as science, psychology, theology, etc., and that this helps us integrate new material. This post is about how we give up on the true nature of ourselves sometime between the time we are born, and the time we become adults. Dr. Ryce describes this process in some detail in his lecture titled "From Co-dependence to Inter-dependence", in which he discusses the role of the Power Person in each of our lives. A Power Person is anyone for whom we "gave up" our conscious connection to our true nature as Love, in order to win the acceptance, and approval of the Power Person. Clearly each of us can have more than one Power Person in our lives.

Identifying who those Power People are, and discovering the patterns we have developed in our behavior in order to try to please them, is a very useful part of the process of returning to the conscious awareness of our true nature as Love. The more we can identify the things that trigger us to feel anything less than Love, the more we have the opportunity to "Forgive" or "Cancel" and dismantle that part of our stored memories and false realities.

Gregg Braden has written a book titled The Divine Matrix which is all about the invisible energy that connects all of creation. It is called different things in different cultures, but it all boils down to the realization that we are all connected, and that nothing, and no one, is truly separate from the rest of creation and existence. In the last quarter of the book, Gregg Braden describes a co-worker he knew who was frequently "falling in love" with people despite the fact that he was happily married. This person used to "fall in love" with the waitress at lunch, or the bank teller, then come back to the office and obsess about the latest person he was attracted to, and wonder if this person was supposed to be his soul-mate.

In the book Mr. Braden offers the following explanation for why this happens, and why each of us find people to whom we are instantly and powerfully attracted. He suggests that each of those people are exhibiting traits, characteristics, and skills which we have denied, repressed, or buried in ourselves. He suggests that we deny, repress, and bury those traits in ourselves in order to fit in with, or be accepted by, different people and groups in our lives. He suggests that most of the time this is a process we are not consciously aware of, but that some people make conscious choices to "give up", or hide parts of themselves in the pursuit of career, and other goals.

He suggests that those traits, qualities, and skills are not gone, they always remain part of who we are. We cannot be otherwise. What is needed is for us to recognize, and willingly accept the challenge of facing the fear of being who we really are. So why not try this as a challenge? Why not begin to notice the people you admire, and are attracted to, and let yourself question how that person is displaying a part of your personality, skills, and traits which you have buried, denied or repressed? Make some mental or even paper and pencil notes about those qualities, and then examine;

"How would my life be different if I fully owned and lived from these qualities and traits?",

"How do I imagine this would challenge or change some of the key relationships in my life?",

"Who in my life, was I trying to please, or appease by hiding this part of myself?"

The goal, IS THE PROCESS of learning to love and accept yourself as you truly are!

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

Why Is This Happening To Me Again? 4 Hour Audio

2009-02-11T08:44:00.001-06:00

Last night the Mindshifters group listened to the first part of a 4 hour audio version of Dr. Michael Ryce's lecture titled; Why Is This Happening To Me Again? We decided to listen to the audio version because it is more detailed than the two hour video lecture of the same name, and in it Dr. Ryce takes more time explaining the underlying reasons for why our emotional system works the way it does. In this version the first thing that stuck out for me was the comment about Blockage of Personal Error, which is a condition from which we all suffer. The greatest threat to our ability to see the truth in any situation is our Blockage of Personal Error. Blockage of Personal Error is the direct result of our denying our creator-ship. For if we accept that we are creating our internal reality, and all of our emotions, and all of our reactions, then we will have nothing to blame on others, and nothing to blame on our circumstances.

As I explained this to a friend she commented that this was "very deep". That shocked me because it seemed completely obvious and crystal clear. Then I realized that the only reason it seems completely obvious to me is that I have listened to this 4 hour lecture at least nine different times over the last three years. Then I realized that this is the first time this statement jumped out at me as being critically important. So why is that? What happened the first eight times I heard this lecture to block me from understanding or even hearing this statement? Or what happened during the first eight times I listened to this lecture which allowed me to hear this statement and feel its importance, the ninth time I heard the lecture?

This is what Dr. Ryce calls the process of "building brain cells", for understanding new concepts. Another way to talk about it is the building of a framework for understanding new ideas and experiences. If someone has never tasted wine before and a wine expert starts talking to them about a wine being "dry", or "fruity", the person will have no idea what is being talked about. But if the person is given a taste of several different "dry" wines, and told that these are "dry", and then given a taste of several different "fruity" wines and told that these are "fruity", then the person will have some basis for comparing other wines they may taste in the future. Then this person will be able to understand and converse with other people about these basic qualities of wine.

So, last night a new aspect of the lecture jumped out at me and made perfect sense. If I create all my own internal realities and I create all of my reactions to people and things around me, then I have no reason to be angry at someone else. If I am angry at someone else, I am in Blockage of Personal Error, and I am actively denying the fact that I am the creator of my experience! Simple! Logical! Blatantly obvious! So why didn't I see this so clearly until last night, the ninth time I heard the simple, logical, blatantly obvious statement? The answer is to be found in the decades of personal, family and social conditioning which has taught me that other people are responsible for hurting my feelings, and making me angry and making me feel guilty, etc.

It is shocking at times to realize how much I still function from the position of Blockage of Personal Power, and how much I actively deny my creator-ship!

I am beginning to realize at a whole new level how my goal is to love myself despite my imperfections, whether they are physical, intellectual, or emotional. This is captured in one of my favorite quotes from the book, The Mirror Theory,

"...the ultimate love is appreciation of self. Look around you. God is living the ultimate wherever you see people loving their lives. Once you tap into that love, you want to expand it. No permanent state exists however, where you wouldn't want to reach for more. God is a light that is forever growing in breadth and depth. But then how can I reach perfection if it's always in a state of flux? - For that very reason. Perfection is simply the love you find in THE EVERY MOMENT you exist. There is no other perfect to find."

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

Healing Yourself By Learning to Love the Ones You Hate

2009-02-09T09:35:00.003-06:00

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

2009-02-04T07:40:00.006-06:00

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

2009-02-02T12:50:00.003-06:00

"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

2009-01-31T10:25:00.003-06:00

"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."