First ask your self:
1.IS THIS A PROBLEM I SHOULD FIX,
2.PUT UP WITH
3.WALK AWAY FROM.
A student of ACIM was concerned with high blood pressure. He could fix it, put up with it or walk away from it. He could change the way he lived. He could take some magic (aka medicine). He could deny it. He could ask himself “how is this benefiting me”. No matter which of the 3 you choose you are going to have to engage yourself.
Most people react with fear. Challenges are part of everyone’s life. No one escapes. The outcome of your life depends on how you deal with its darkest moments. Will they be set backs or turning points.
From ACIM: Everyone who has ever tried to use prayer to ask for something has experienced what appears to be failure. The Course states that the purpose of the Course is to escape from fear.
Lets suppose that what you really want, you are still afraid of. An individual may ask for healing, because he is fearful of harm, but if he were healed the threat to his thought system might be considered more fearful than its healing. In that case he might be asking for removal of the symptom that he himself selected.
Fear cannot be controlled by me (Jesus-God-Universe) but it can be self-controlled. You would not excuse insane behavior by saying you could not help it. Why would you condone insane-thinking? You may believe you are responsible for what you do, but not what you think.
What you do comes from what you think. The correction is always the same. Ask for help in the condition that has brought about the fear. Before you do anything ask me (your higher self, Jesus, God, whatever, you get to name it.) if your choice is in accord with your higher self. If there is no fear you can be sure that it is.
Discomfort is aroused to bring correction into awareness.
Corrective learning begins the awakening of Spirit and turning away from the problem.
Corrective learning accelerates right action.
You are only one person away from your solution. When you turn your attention toward correction the right person will appear that will have a thought, a word, a condition that will add to the solution. You may find yourself thinking, why didn’t I think of that sooner.
As long as you believe what your physical eyes tell you, your attempts will be delayed. Correction belongs only at the level where change is possible. Change does not mean at the symptom level,
You are in an impossible situation only because you think it is possible to be in one.
Are you willing to accept that healing is necessary? Are you willing to go deeper into yourself than the problem? You have more than one level of awareness. You have more that one level of insight. YOUR HIGHER BRAIN HAS THE POTENTIAL FOR CREATING HIGHER LEVEL SOLUTIONS. BUT YOU MUST COOPERATE. You must find a way to disengage in the crisis. The higher brain is capable of separating the mind from emotions. Remember your brain is the computer that stores information for you to use in “your world”, aka your body).
How do we disengage with the ego… by engaging with Spirit.
How do we engage with Spirit? Start becoming aware of what you are thinking…
1. Set up the right conditions for a connection.
To ACIM students this will probably mean connecting with your higher self/God… but this is not the only way.
2. Find a quiet place.
3. Close your eyes, quiet your breath until the body begins to settle down. Physical stress blocks the access to higher levels of thinking.
4. Start your practice period. I find the more I honestly share my feelings with myself the less fearful I become. In this quietness ask for the answer. . Now back off, yield and relax. Giving the problem to God/Holy Spirit/Universe stimulates the universe to respond.
First stage: you fear will subside. You feel strong enough to meet the crisis.
Second stage: you see what to do.
Third stage: you will see meaning in the whole experience.
Keep away from people that trigger your hot spots until you are ready to handle them.
Holy Spirit 24/7… There is no order of difficulty. This is familiar, but do you believe it. This is the real foundation of the course. The Holy Spirit takes what you have made and will translate it into a learning device.
Do you ask the wrong Questions?
1. Do you rehearse the worst-case scenario?
2. Whom can I blame?
3. What’s wrong with me?
Are you asking the right question?
Problems aren’t solved in isolation.
You are one person away from the solution.
Depression isolates you.
Isolation is different from detachment. Detachment according to ACIM is when you take a moment and step away from the problem and ascend into your higher awareness.
Being mindful of your thoughts and feelings, you begin to create new pathways that register not just anger, fear, happiness, and curiosity but all the spiritual feelings, such as bliss, compassion, and wonder.
Take a moment to finding a fix. Don’t trap your self through judgment or moral attitudes. Because this will take effort. Most people just walk away from the crisis. What in your life is causing you pain that you are tolerating. Are you hoping for a fix from the outside, which would absolve you from resistibility if it doesn’t work out correctly? If you are serious about a solution, sit down and write out what you think the problem is.
Every emotion plays its part in the whole; they are needed to attach meaning to events.
Emotion is the glue that binds a painful experience to your memory… If you didn’t have emotion to your actions you could not find your way home. (Its not so important if you cant remember where you put your keys, the bigger problem is when you don’t know what your keys are for).
Who is the enemy of self-awareness… the ego.
Once new experiences have registered on the brain your ego assimilates them.
But you are not your brain.
You are not your mind.
You are the I/Self/ to whom things are happening. You use the mind circuits.
You are the person that thinks, “What I am feeling… what do I think about, what I am feeling? Where is this going? What does it mean?
You can continue on in a habit for years. Without self-awareness you wont see what you are doing. Once self-awareness dawns on you can ask yourself how you feel about what you are dong. Self-awareness questions are the keys that make consciousness expand and when that happens the possibilities are infinite.
Ending. What is the one thing you would like to talk to God about right now? Take a breath. Follow that breath. Say, I will not be tempted to let this block interfere with my awareness of the Source of my freedom.
1. Gods plan for me will work.
2. Right now I choose between pain and joy. Bondage and freedom.
3. I open my awareness and allow Gods law to work.
4. I am under no law but Gods.
5. I see only the laws of God in this.
6. Take a brother into your awareness. The light that I see in him is all that I wold see.
7. Let me not hold a grievance against him.
8. Behind this grievance is a miracle that I am entitled to.
9. I need not wait for this to be resolved.
10. The answer to this problem is already given me, if I accept it.
11. Time cannot separate this problem from its solution.
God’s angels hover near and all about. Gods Love surrounds me.