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April-June, 2020

The First Five Lessons & Relationship Healing

by Rev. Cathy Silva, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

For me the journey of this lifetime is all about relationships — my relationship with myself, with others and ultimately my relationship with God. It’s through our relationships that we can experience tremendous growth and healing, if we are open and willing.

I seemed to have known this for quite some time and could clearly see a need in my own relationships. I felt a Call to help heal relationships through my coaching work. I didn’t quite know how but I did have the willingness. Not just the ‘little’ willingness that Jesus mentions in the Course. I was determined to experience a healing and find a way to bring us all back to love, peace, and harmony.

For years I muddled through seeking ways to achieve ‘my’ goal to heal. When things got to the level that I can only describe as a ‘war zone’ with my relationships, it was my breaking point. That’s when the Course found me. I do believe the Course finds us somehow. When we are ready, it finds us. Through the Course and the related Pathways of Light courses, the way to heal my relationship with myself and others has led to an experience of Love, Oneness, and true purpose.

I think it’s important to note that we are not actually ‘working on’ our relationships when we engage in this work. We are healing our mind through the process of undoing the fearful ego thought system that has been running the show in our relationships and life for long enough. It’s time to remove the blocks and let the Love that we are be revealed and extended in the world. We are healing the way we see ourself and others, which shifts our way of seeing, being, and interacting in the world. Ultimately we experience inner peace.

The goal of the Course and any relationship healing work is healing the mind and removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence.

The first five workbook lessons in the mind healing process applied to our relationship healing journey.

Lesson 1: Nothing I see in this room (on this street, from this window, in this place) means anything. 

This first lesson has us looking slowly around at objects in the room. I think this is a way to begin looking at everything I see with the body’s eyes as neutral. So we can apply this to anything we see and any actions or behavior in others as well. This can be particularly difficult when what someone does or says is triggering a negative emotion for me or I am perceiving them to be causing me harm in some way. At this point it’s easy for me to predict, judge, or psycho analyze what their motivation or intention is. But if I am able to simply observe and see that what they are doing is nothing, certainly nothing to do with any ill intentions against me, it opens up a space in my mind to another way of seeing them and their behavior. This leads us to:

Lesson 2: I have given everything I see in this room (on this street, from this window, in this place) all the meaning that it has for me.

This helps me see that I am interpreting what others do according to what I see from my ego mind. I have given it a meaning — good or bad. For example, if my partner doesn’t pick up his socks, it means he doesn’t care and further more he doesn’t care about me or respect me. I’ve noticed that I can go into a whole big ugly unloving story about the littlest things that are really nothing, but I’ve made them something.

Lesson 3: I do not understand anything I see in this room (on this street, from this window, in this place).

In the instructions for this lesson I am told specifically not to exclude anything in the application of this idea. It says, “These are not exercises in judgment.” It recognizes that some things I see will have emotionally charged meaning for me. It’s good to recognize what I am feeling and then do my best to lay those feelings aside.

We very often judge others’ actions and behaviors in relation to the past — specifically our judgments and ideas of the past. If we are invested in those ideas and judgments and stay focused on them, it blocks the ability to see the good in others and the true loving intentions they have.

No matter how covered or deeply buried, we all have the desire and intention to love and be loved. This exercise is to help us clear our mind of those past associations and blocks to see our brother and the situation as it is now and realize that there is so much we don’t know or understand about them or the situation. Ultimately the goal here is to keep an open mind.

Lesson 4: These thoughts do not mean anything. They are like the things I see in this room (on this street, from this window, in this place).

In the instructions it states, “The aim here is to train you in first steps toward the goal of separating the meaningless from the meaningful.” I see this helping me separate out or letting go of any idea or thoughts that are not aligned with the Love we are as God created us. Another way to put it is we are sorting out the True and the untrue. Somewhere in the Course Jesus says, “Only loving thoughts are true.”

Since I am still not fully awake and there is so much I do not know, I depend on Jesus or Holy Spirit to show me what I am missing. I simply need to step back from making any thought about myself and others mean anything. This is another way of clearing my mind of the clutter so the truth of love and oneness with God and my brother can show up in my experience.

Lesson 5: I am never upset for the reason I think.

This idea is one that comes up over and over in my relationship healing work with clients as well as my own relationships. It is so tempting to place blame and judgment for our upset on people and circumstances outside ourselves. From our perceptions, the cause of our upset is what others are doing or not doing. And referring back to the prior Lessons, we have thoughts and ideas about what they are doing means.

The meaning we give it results in attack and defense and thinking we are justified in that. This is how the person that we love seems to become our enemy. This is done to defend a faulty, fearful thought system that has hurt me and others and keeps us in hell together. We are beginning to realize it’s just not working anymore. We want to live in Love not fear. We are willing to let go of the need to attack, defend, and get love. We are open and willing to find a better way. From here our relationship journey begins.

© 2020, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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