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April-June, 2019

Getting Out of My Head

by Rev. Myron Jones, O.M.C.

“Illusion recognized must disappear. Accept not suffering, and you remove the thought of suffering.” (W-pI.187.7:1-2)

The next part of this lesson is focused on the idea of suffering. The fact is that all events are neutral until we impose our thoughts on them and thus give them meaning. Nothing that happens here is innately sacrificial and seems so only because we insist upon it. I am not saying that it is easy to see the neutrality of certain events, but how we choose to see it does not in any way change the facts. And the good news is that if we decide upon suffering then we can use that same power to change our mind about it.

What makes this hard is the narrative we tell ourselves. This narrative comes from the ego and the ego always wants fear and guilt. It always wants drama. It is uninterested in peace so it is not going to give us a narrative that will lead to peace. We have to learn to discern the ego thoughts and to reject them if we want to be at peace and if we want to stop suffering.

We can do this in a couple of ways. The first thing we have to do is to become aware of when the ego thoughts of sacrifice enter our minds so that we can do something with them. What I did was to take these thoughts and their effects (the feelings and emotions) to the Holy Spirit. I would let the feelings come up, the fear and guilt, the rage, the hatred, the blame, all of it. I would feel it completely, recognize that I was sick of it and ready to be free and then I would give it to the Holy Spirit.

After a lot of the thoughts in my mind were healed, or when I noticed that I had gone from looking and feeling all of this for the purpose of healing to just wallowing in it, I changed my tactics. I learned to shift my attention. We know how to do this. We do it all the time. I am interested in getting some work done in my house and then I get the thought that I could go to the store and suddenly I have no interest in housework. I shifted my attention from housework to shopping.

I use this same ability to shift my attention from the thoughts in my head to something that is actually happening. Let’s face it, these meaningless thoughts, the constant chatter is most likely about something that already happened or something that could happen. They keep us from the reality of the moment and so we never actually live the life we came here to live. I have discovered that I can change that and at the same time, I can stop suffering. I don’t sacrifice anything in doing so.

Here is one way I have learned to accomplish that shift in thinking. I will start paying attention to the sounds around me, and to the sensations on or in the body. This takes me out of my head. The chatter in my mind will take me to an imagined world of pain and suffering. Getting out of my head is a good way of stopping the endless cycle of thoughts. Another way of doing this is to place my attention on a better thought.

I might start thinking about how there is nothing to fear. A good fifteen seconds of focus on that thought lifts me to a higher level and at the same time, it begins to rewire my brain which is good news as my brain has a bad habit of falling into fear. An additional benefit of this process is that it helps me to identify with the Self rather than the self. The Self is calm and peaceful. It is curious and accepting of whatever arises. On the other hand, the self is frantically judging and trying to control and this is suffering.

The thing is, we cannot actually sacrifice. Sacrifice is a lie. The only place we can sacrifice is in the ego mind, the world of imagination, not reality. It is a decision we make and then quickly decide to forget we made it and we pretend that life is the problem, the cause of the suffering and that we are helpless before our suffering. Without those thoughts, the idea of suffering would not exist because it doesn’t, in reality, exist.

What is in my mind is also in the mind of the sleeping Son, the mind we all share. I don’t want to do anything to reinforce sacrifice and suffering. This is not what I want to receive, so I must not give it.

© 2019, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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