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Down the Rabbit Hole - Again

You know how you can have one of those days when, spiritually, you are just on a high? I was having one of those days. I had asked the Holy Spirit for a new way to see something that morning and had received an answer.  I had shifted from a problem to the answer, not through thinking, but through grace. I asked and it was given, and I was flying! Just in joy and peace.

I was driving down the road having visited a customer and on my way to see another. The customer I was planning to see next had a problem I was going to have to work out. It was, potentially, a serious situation depending on how things went. As I was thinking about how to handle this I had several thoughts really fast. I thought that this customer was putting a damper on my mood. I thought that if I did not do this right I was going to be in trouble with my boss. I thought how unfair that was and how much I resented him for putting so much pressure on me in a situation over which I had little control. I thought how I wish that I was home writing an article or talking to a student.

All of those thoughts took only a few seconds and I might not have paid much attention to them ordinarily. Just ego monkey chatter, the random firing of neurons that goes on all the time. The reason I noticed this day is because suddenly I was no longer feeling happy and peaceful. It was the change in my feelings that caught my attention. Since feelings always follow from thoughts I went back over the thoughts I just listed to see what changed my mood.

I began to see that it was like I had been walking on clouds and suddenly I fell into a hole. My immediate thought was Alice falling into the rabbit hole. Now I was following strange roads which were leading me deeper and deeper into a fantasy world of danger, fear, doubts, and blame. How did I get here? How could it happen so quickly? More importantly, how do I get out of this hole? And then suddenly, I was out! Just like that, I was out. I laughed to think of how easy it is to fall into ego stories and at the same time, it can be just as easy to let them go if that is what I really want to do.

I started paying really close attention to my feelings and my thoughts the rest of the day. Each time I realized that I had once again fallen into a rabbit hole, I looked around at the landscape to see what got me in there. Something that became very clear to me is that noticing quickly where I am and making a different decision is a lot easier than wandering through the illusory landscape for a while before I decide I want out. The longer I stay in the illusion the harder it is to find my way out.

If I stay in the story long enough it starts to feel so real and so compelling that it is difficult to let go of it. After awhile I become lost, and confused. I think vaguely of extricating myself but something else in the illusion grabs me, or I am hooked by the certainty that someone is wrong and must be punished, or at least admit their culpability. Or I begin to enjoy that little surge of adrenaline I get when I feel righteous and decide to enjoy it while it lasts.

There are so many distractions and so many hooks in this fantasy land. It is just one drama after another, and when I am no longer able to sustain the rush I get from feeling like I’m right, and the drama loses its glamour, I look around and wonder what to do now. It must be what one feels coming off a bender. Where am I, what happened? I feel a sense of shame and guilt and fear that I’m stuck. If I have stayed long enough and gotten too hooked into the story I might doubt my self worth and think I don’t deserve Holy Spirit’s help – again. Do you know that feeling?

No matter what ego thoughts are racing through my mind, the only way out is to want out. I have to want out of the hole more than I want to stay in it. That’s all there is to it. I become very aware of what I am thinking, I ask the Holy Spirit to help me see it differently, I allow that change, and poof! I’m out. I practiced this all day long and it got easier and easier. In fact by the end of the day I was no longer falling in the hole, I was standing over it and noticing it without any temptation to fall into the story at all.

I enjoy finding these little visual aids to help me go quickly from the story to the truth. Now when I become tempted to believe in an ego story I just picture Alice falling down the rabbit hole and this takes me right through the process of deciding differently.

© 2008, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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What is it?

I have had a rash for a couple of days now. It is on my right arm and around the waist on my left side. It is not horribly itchy but annoying and last night it was painful. I figured the pain was the result of being constantly irritated by my waistband on my pants. Then I thought about someone I know who had shingles and I wondered. So I googled shingles and learned very little except that it is usually on one side of the body. Uh, oh. It can also be painful. I looked for pictures of both shingles and poison ivy. They looked too much the same for me tell for sure. So I got out my pendulum and held it next to the affected area and it moved freely so I thought it couldn’t be anything so serious as shingles. But still, it was on one side and it was painful.

Finally I got dressed for bed and as I am laying there I realized that it doesn’t matter what this is. First, I didn’t get it from anything outside me. I chose this. I may have used the poison ivy plant to get the desired effect, but I cannot have anything in my life that I don’t want. So I looked at the rash again and thought what a grand rash it is. I loved myself for my creative ability and called it good.

Then I thought about the timing. Just recently I have been moving toward another shift and yesterday I made the commitment toward it. When I am threatening the ego thought system I often (on an unconscious level) set up something to bring myself back to its “reality” and the most compelling way to do this is to make the body sick. I checked in with myself and saw that it was not working. I don’t feel like a body. This is happening to the body, but I recognize what is going on and I see that I have not grabbed hold of that total identity with body that sometimes happens when the ego is saying, “see, you feel that? you are a body.) Yay for me!

Then I felt a gentle thought in my mind. It said “allow all things”.  So that is what I did. I accepted the rash and knew that it is what it is. I sprayed it down with some benedryl spray and went to sleep. I still have a rash, but I don’t have fear, doubt, and anxiety.

© 2008, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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I Am Not the Victim of the World I See

I am not a victim of the world I see is a familiar lesson. I have been studying this lesson for a very long time. Over the years I have peeled that onion until I am nearly to its core. I understand that I call to me everything that makes up my life. There is no one to blame and I waste my time looking for the guilty party. I also understand that my experience of my life is a choice. Never is the experience of it outside my ability to choose. There are no exceptions to either one of these facts.

I have also been practicing this lesson so I am generally willing to be fully aware of what I am choosing. Victimization is so pervasive in the ego thought system that I have not yet been able to move completely out of it, but I tend to notice when I am in it. I can then give my willingness to seeing the situation differently and so become stronger in my belief that I am never a victim of the world.

Sometimes victimization is not so obvious and I have to be very alert to its more subtle forms. Once I begin to look, however, it shows itself. For instance, this morning I checked my bank account to see if my commission check was in it yet. Since I get paid commissions on my accounts and they vary from month to month, I never know how much money I will make. Generally it is within a certain range, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. About once a year it is much lower than usual because it is affected by the seasons as well as other things.

This month turned out to be a small commission month. It is always a shock to see such a small check deposited in my account, and it brings up for me my fears of not being able to support myself, my belief in lack. At first I just felt the unease and move on since it is not going to devastate me, but then I realized that not to look at this with the Holy Spirit would be a lost opportunity. So once again I am able to look at my belief that I am a victim of the world I see. I think I can only be happy if I make a certain amount of money so I believe my happiness is dependent on my paycheck. I think I am safe only if I am financially secure and so am victim to the world of finances. I think that I am worthy only if I am successful in my job and the measure of success is the size of my commission check, and so when it is small I feel less than.

Whew! It is amazing how thoroughly I still believe in victimization. No matter how much I reason with myself that this is just one month out of twelve and that I still have enough money and will not starve or even be truly uncomfortable, I still feel like a victim. And my ego mind starts frantically searching for the responsible party. I notice uncharitable thoughts about my competitors and customers who quit buying. I notice thoughts about my boss and my company that are wild attempts to find them responsible. I even notice angry thoughts toward the people I owe money to as if my discomfort is their fault for wanting their money. In my fearful mind I see mother nature as working against me. I sell chemicals for water treatment and this rainy month has meant far less water used and so far less chemicals used.

At one time I would have felt the panic, looked for someone to blame and focused my attention there. Now I just notice what is going on in the ego mind. I notice the fear, the blame, projections, and anything else that pops up. I notice it and ask the Holy Spirit to show me another way to see. I notice and become willing to allow all of it. I notice and am willing to accept the situation just as it is. This is a very different way to be.

It is as if the thoughts and feelings wash over me and then drain away. I feel the emotions, but at the same time, I am watching and witnessing and that part of my mind is not involved in the emotional reaction. That part of my mind knows that I called to myself with my beliefs and desires exactly the circumstances I am experiencing. It also knows that seeing the situation as a problem and fearful was just a decision I made and is not the only decision available to me. The witness knows that this is a neutral event and that all of those emotions stem from my decision to give value to certain ideas and beliefs, including the belief that I protect myself when I make someone else to blame or when I give my energy to controlling the situation.

I get to decide how I want to be in this situation. I can stay in fear and see myself as victim to the world, or I can use this moment to remember the truth. And in fact, just noticing what is happening is helping me to wake up to the truth. This noticing is breaking the old cycle of thinking, and allowing new thought patterns to emerge. My day is filled with opportunities to do this and each one is a blessing if I care to use it as such.

© 2008, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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