predencia

‘I seek but what belongs to me in truth.’

Today’s idea continues with the thought that joy and peace are not but idle dreams. They are your right, because of what you are. They come to you from God, who cannot fail to give you what he will. Yet must there be a place made ready to receive His gifts. They are not welcomed gladly by a mind that has instead received the gifts it made where His belongs, as substitutes for them.

Today we would remove all meaningless and self-made gifts which we have placed upon the gifts that we inherited before time was, and that will still be ours when time has passed into eternity. His are the gifts that are within us now, for they are timeless. And we need not wait to have them. They belong to us today.

Our longer practice periods today, the hourly five minutes given truth for your salvation, should begin with this:

I seek but what belongs to me in truth,

And joy and peace are my inheritance.

Then lay aside the conflicts of the world that offer other gifts and other goals made of illusions, witnessed to by them, and sought for only in a world of dreams.

It’s been a long day, made even longer by the many hours sat in seminars at the Narrating the Caribbean Nation conference atLeedsMetropolitanUniversity. (More on that in a separate blog.)

I have to confess today that there were times when I thought the language of ACIM easy and fluid compared to some of the language used in the presentations. The day was a vivid reminder of why I got out of academia. Some of the presenters seemed to forget that there are real people out there who do not want to have to deconstruct every sentence to glean even a modicum of meaning.

 I left Manchester early to try and avoid the traffic as the conference started at 9.30, and as a result didn’t have time to do my lesson before I left. I think it’s the first time I’ve done the lesson in the car, and it was a little rushed. I couldn’t even remember what the hourly practice words were, but as I knew it had to do with receiving happiness and joy I just repeated a form of previous lessons, ‘Happiness is my only function.’

I met someone today who also believes that life is not meant to be hard, that when we follow our life purpose (happiness) the resulting freedom makes for a much easier and more smoothly flowing life. We talked about the innate gifts we have and how when we make a decision to uncover them, dust them off and use them, how much the world benefits, and how much our souls sing. She’s a film promoter and has just written her first book ‘The Black British Filmmaker’s Guide to Success: Finance, Market and Distribute Your Film.’ Nadia Denton, it was a pleasure sharing time with you today.

I’ve given the bigCaribbeanbuffet extravaganza going on tonight a miss in favour of a good night sleep and a couple of pieces of fruit (still wedged from lunch).

‘I share God’s Will for happiness for me.’

You do not want to suffer. You may think it buys you something, and you may still believe a little that it buys you what you want. Yet this belief is surely shaken now, at least enough to let you question it, and to suspect it really makes no sense. It has not gone as yet, but lacks roots that once secured it tightly to the dark and hidden secret places of your mind.

Today we try to loose its weakened hold still further, and to realise that pain is purposeless, without a cause and with no power to accomplish anything. It cannot purchase anything at all. It offers nothing, and does not exist. And everything you think it offers you is lacking in existence, like itself. You have been slave to nothing. Be you free today to join the happy Will of God.

For several days we will continue to devote our periods of practicing to exercises planned to help up reach the happiness God’s Will has placed in you. Here is your home, and here your safety is. Here is your peace, and here there is no fear. Here is salvation. Here is rest at last.

Begin your practice periods today with this acceptance of God’s Will for you:

I share God’s Will for happiness for me, and I accept it as my function now.

Then seek this function deep within your mind, for it is there, awaiting but your choice. You cannot fail to find it when you learn it is your choice and that you share God’s Will. Be happy, for your only function is happiness.

This is virtually the whole lesson. I read it and re-read it several times through out the day, particularly as I was developing a pain in my stomach. Louise Hay associates pain with guilt, so I looked at what I developing guilt about. It’s amazing how it creeps up, slide under your emotional radar, slips in between the folds of your insecurities and begins to burrow its way into your fear.

All it takes is for one little thing to raise its head and months of practice can be derailed within seconds. What I realised today is that, even for me who have been at this for so long, happiness is still not the default. Staying in a happy place is like constantly pulling on the elastic to keep it taut. Any relaxation and we can gradually slide back (or even do a more rapid return) to fear and guilt and pain. I welcome the fact that there will be a few more lessons on happiness.

I got some more feedback today on Betrayed and am heartened. It will be with the publishers by the end of the month, and hopefully will be available in book form by the end of June.

I got some inspiration for the parenting book this morning, in that space between dream and meditation.

‘God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.’

Today we will continue with the theme of happiness. This is a key idea in understanding what salvation means. You still believe it asks for suffering as penance for your ‘sins.’ This is not so. Yet you must think it so while you believe that sin is real, and that God’s Son can sin.

If sin is real, then punishment is just and cannot be escaped. Salvation thus cannot be purchased but through suffering. If sin is real, then happiness must be an illusion, for they cannot both be true. The sinful warrant only death and pain, and it is this they ask for. For they know it waits for them, and it will seek them out and find them somewhere, sometime, in some form that evens the account they owe to God.

If sin is real, salvation must be pain. Salvation must be feared, for it will kill, but slowly, taking everything away before it grants the welcome boon of death to victims who are little more than bones before salvation is appeased. Who seeks out such savage punishment?

You need the practice periods today. The exercises teach sin is not real, and all that you believe will come from sin will never happen, for it has no cause. God’s Will for you is perfect happiness because there is no sin, and suffering is causeless. Say:

God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.
There is no sin, it has no consequence.

So much of religion is based on sin. Christians believe that we were born in sin and therefore have to spend our lives paying penance for something this course is actually saying never happened. All my life I’ve been told happiness has to be earned, by being good, by doing good deeds and refraining from bad ones. Things the course calls mistakes were described as evil, wicked, naughty, spiteful, and were punished as a means of correction.

I’ve never, until now, seen happiness as a right. Never accepted that I was born happy and that happiness it is my natural state when all the layers of ‘sin’ and punishment are scraped away. God’s will was never to ‘suffer the little children’ to come unto him. Suffering is instilled at an early age, and to be happy you must first do your share of suffering is what I was brought up with. Maybe this was part of your upbringing too.

Even after going through the course once, it’s still a profound lesson. I am finding new levels of happiness as I let go of residual guilt, guilt that I do not deserve to be happy because of some of my recent actions. In letting go of guilt I find I’m also letting go of judgements. The two go hand in hand for me. I can only judge in others the things I think I would/should feel guilty about if I did them.

I spoke to a friend today about happiness coming from the inside, and things that happen on the outside are only reflections of the inner happiness. The lessons must be creating an internal shift because much is showing up in my outer world for me to be happy about.

‘My part is essential to God’s plan for salvation.’

Just as God’s Son completes his Father, so your part in it completes your Father’s plan. Salvation must reverse the mad belief in separate thoughts and separate bodies, which leads separate lives and go their separate ways. One function shared by separate minds unites them in one purpose, for each one of them is equally essential to them all.

God’s will for you is perfect happiness. Why should you choose to go against His Will? The part that he has saved for you to take in working out his plan is given you that you might be restored to what He wills. This part is as essential to his plan as to your happiness. Your joy must be complete to let his plan be understood by those to whom He sends you. They will see their function in your shining face, and hear God calling to them in your happy laugh.

You are indeed essential to God’s plan. Without your joy, His joy is incomplete. Without your smile, the world cannot be saved. While you are sad, the light that God Himself appointed as the means to save the world is dim and lustreless, and no one laughs because all laughter can but echo yours. God wills perfect happiness for all who will accept their Father’s gifts as theirs. If you are sad your part is unfulfilled…then realise your part is to be happy.

No practice session today – just this lesson to carry around for the day. Whatever happened in that gobbledegook lesson yesterday, today I lived on cloud nine. I substituted ‘happiness’ for ‘part’ in the title and repeated it all day. So instead of

‘My part is essential to God’s plan for salvation’ I said
‘My happiness is essential to God’s plan for salvation.’

Imagine the power of this statement, the permission to be happy, the realisation that being sad does not serve God, it’s not what is required of us. Being happy is not an optional extra, is not a desirable in the job description, it is an ESSENTIAL. It is essential that I be happy, and it’s not essential or even desirable that I be unhappy.

I went for a walk down Long Lane in Kegworth this morning with a spring in my step and a smile a mile wide. Even the blustery wind could not dampen my spirit. My happiness is ESSENTIAL I kept thinking. I can see how I’m much more effective in helping others while I’m exuding the energy of happiness. Happiness is attractive – very attractive.

Someone ought to tell the makers of all those miserable soaps, Eastenders, Coronation St, Hollyoaks, Emmerdale, that happiness is attractive, but more so someone should tell all the people who watch these programmes that misery is not a requirement of life.

A friend of mine who’s just come out of a relationship recently told me quietly, conspiratorially, that he was happy. He didn’t want to make it public because he felt that with his whole world falling apart, he should be unhappy. It made me wonder what kind of world we live in when people are afraid to admit that they are happy. I’m doing Happy in a BIG way. Check out the picture from the party on Saturday night. I’m staying in that energy.

‘Salvation is my only function here.’

Salvation and forgiveness are the same. They both imply that something has gone wrong; something to be saved from, forgiven for; something amiss that needs corrective change; something apart or different from the will of God. Thus do both terms imply a thing impossible but yet which has occurred, resulting in a state of conflict seen between what is and what could never be.

Truth and illusion both are equal now, for both have happened. The impossible becomes the thing you need forgiveness for, salvation from. Salvation now becomes the borderland between the truth and the illusion. It reflects the truth because it is the means by which you can escape illusions. Yet it is not yet the truth because it undoes what was never done.

In the practice sessions today remind yourself:
Salvation is my only function here.
God still is love and this is not His Will.

Hmmm! When I was doing my NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) Master Practitioner training we worked a lot with the Milton Model for taking people into trance. It’s basically a technique where you talk in a way that appears to make sense though actually making no sense. You continue until the person gives up trying to follow the conversation and you can bypass their conscious mind and speak directly to their subconscious mind. This lesson, in my opinion falls into this area. The lesson is nearly three pages long and I struggled to make sense of any more than a few lines at a time.

I have total trust that whatever my subconscious needed to hear has gone in, and no doubt has been reinforced by my constant repetition of the practice phrase, salvation is my only function here and that some of the concepts have found a permanent home, even if I couldn’t understand them. For example:

‘Forgive all thoughts which would oppose the truth of your completion, unity and peace. You cannot lose the gifts your Father gave. You do not want to be another self. You have no function that is not of God. Forgive yourself the one you think you made. Forgiveness and salvation are the same. Forgive what you have made and you have saved.

The above may make sense to you. If it does, please drop me a line and explain, if not at least it may find a way into your subconscious and make a difference to your soul.

‘I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation.’

Today is a day of special dedication. We take a stand on but one side today. We side with truth and let illusions go. We will not vacillate between the two, but take a firm position with the One. We dedicate ourselves to truth today, and to salvation as God planned it to be. All our doubts we lay aside today, and take our stand with certainty of purpose, and with thanks doubt is gone and surety is come.

All our sins are washed away by realising that they were but mistakes. The guiltless have no fear, for they are safe and recognise their safety. The rest in quiet certainty that they will do what is given them to do. They do not doubt their own ability because they know their function will be filled completely in the perfect time and space.

Is it not worth five minutes of your time each hour to be able to accept the happiness that God has given you? Today you practice with Him as you say:

I will accept my part in God’s plan for salvation.

I once read a book by Susan Jeffers (the author of Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway) called Living with Uncertainty, which is basically about waking up each day and being prepared to go with what the day brings, being prepared to be flexible with one’s plans, and willing to surrender them to a bigger cause.

Today was one of those days. One of the things I find hardest to deal with (though I am getting better) is waiting on other people. The thing that kept me going today as I waited with uncertainty for a visitor was the fact that whatever happened would be part of God’s plan for salvation.

In the event the person did turn up and the meeting exceeded my expectations. My colleague’s laid back approach taught me a thing or two about patience and trust.

On another note, the surprise from last night’s party was the amount of fun I had – way exceeding my expectation!! See some of the pics.

‘I am spirit.’

Today’s idea identifies you with your one Self. It accepts no split identity, nor tries to weave opposing factors into unity. It simply states the truth. Practice this truth as often as you can, for it will bring your mind from conflict to the quiet fields of peace. No chill of fear can enter, for your mind has been absolved from madness, letting go illusions of a split identity.

Today we try to bring reality still closer to your mind. Each time you practice, awareness is brought a little nearer at least; sometimes a thousand years or more are saved. You are the spirit in whose mind abides the miracle in which all time stands still; the miracle in which a minute spent in using these ideas becomes a time that has no limit and that has no end.

 Begin these happy exercises with the words:

Spirit I am, a holy Son of God, free of all limits, safe and healed and whole, free to forgive, and free to save the world.

The Holy Spirit gives you peace today.

Sometimes it’s such a challenge to move myself out of the way and listen to God’s voice directing my life. I woke this morning with full intentions of putting in a good stint on the parenting book, but a call mid morning to a meeting with a friend I’ve not seen for a long time was even more tempting. On the one hand I believed the message for today was to work on the book, and that going for a drink would be ignoring the task God had set for me.

Anyway I went for the drink and three things happened.

1. My friend has offered to help market Dare to Love for me.
2. She showed me a book she’s reading which has given me an idea for another book, based loosely on these blogs.
3. We talked about cancer and explored a way she could talk to a friend who’s been given a year to live about alternatives to the allopathic remedies (or lack of them).

I am constantly reminded that the reason you find yourself somewhere is not always the reason you think I went.

It’s Easter Saturday. I’ve been invited to a surprise birthday party. I wasn’t planning to go, but after today I may just go and see whether there’s a surprise there for me too.

‘Salvation comes from my one Self.’

Although you are one Self, you experience yourself as two; as both good and evil, loving and hating, mind and body. This sense of being split into opposites induces feelings of acute and constant conflict,, and leads to frantic attempts to reconcile the contradictory aspects of this self-perception. You have sought many such solutions, and none of them has worked. The opposites you see in you will never be compatible. But one exists.

The fact that truth and illusion cannot be reconciled, no matter how you try, what means you use and where you see the problem, must be accepted if you would be saved. Until you have accepted this, you will attempt an endless list of goals you cannot reach; a senseless series of expenditures of time and effort, hopefulness and doubt, each one as futile as the one before, and failing as the next one surely will.

Problems that have no meaning cannot be resolved within the framework they are set. Two selves in conflict could not be resolved, and good and evil have no meeting place. The self you made cam never be your Self, nor can your Self be split in two, and still be what It is and must forever be. A mind and body cannot both exist. Make no attempt to reconcile the two, for one denies the other can be real. If you are physical, your mind is gone from your self-concept, for it has no place in which it could be really part of you. If you are spirit, then the body must be meaningless to your reality.

Spirit makes use of mind as a means to find its Self expression. And the mind which serves the spirit is at peace and filled with joy. Its power comes from spirit, and it is fulfilling happily its function here. Yet mind can also see itself divorced from spirit, and perceive itself within a body it confuses with itself. Without its function then it has no peace, and happiness is alien to its thoughts.

Yet mind apart from body cannot think. It has denied its Source of strength, and sees itself as helpless, limited and weak. Dissociated from its function now, it thinks it is alone and separate, attacked by armies massed against itself and hiding in the body’s frail support. Now must it reconcile unlike with like, for this is what it thinks it is for.

Today’s lesson is about recognising that Salvation (happiness) comes from an integrated self.

Use the five-minutes-every-hour to say:

Salvation comes from my one Self. Its thoughts are mine to use.

Each time today tell your frantic mind that salvation comes from your one Self, and lay another treasure in your growing store.

I ABSOLUTELY LOVE THIS LESSON! It brings so much of what I’ve experienced and am still experiencing to be true, that a divided mind, a fragmented soul is constantly at war with itself. I had to first believe this myself, before I could see it in others. All of the work I do on myself and with my friends, family, and clients is centred on this concept of separation and fragmentation.

My first real, tangible evidence of this was in 2007 when I attended a Family Constellation workshop inBristol. The principle of constellation work is bringing the fragmented parts of a soul together so that they can move forward as a whole person.

This concept is also used in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) in the technique called ‘Parts Integration’. The signal for the therapist to use this technique is a client’s reference to ‘a part of me wants this, but another part of me want…..something else.’ How many times have you felt this conflict, this internal tug of war? How many times have you been immobilised by indecision because you could not reconcile the conflicting interest within yourself?

This can happen about many things, work, where to live, who to marry, which child to love the most, what to spend your money on, which religion to follow, which spiritual practice will work best for you. Its hard work isn’t it? Sometimes when the conflict is at is greatest you can wake up from a night’s sleep feeling like you’ve done a round or two with Mike Tyson.

When I see a new client I ask them to complete a wheel of life exercise, looking at eight different areas of their life, and rating how satisfied they are with each area. This often shows that the issue they first sought coaching for actually has its origins in something else. Much of the work we do from thereon is centred on bringing all the different parts in harmony with each other so that their ride through life is less bumpy, smoother.

I met with a friend today to receive her feedback on the draft of the novel. We somehow got onto this topic of goals. I’m an avid goal setter, but I’ve had to accept that any goal that I set that is of the body and not of the spirit is meaningless, and doomed to failure. When I’m aligned with spirit my life flows freely, I find ways around obstacles and see the opportunities behind the setbacks. When I’m unaligned I feel stressed, out of control, afraid of failure and ridicule. I know where I feel most comfortable, more grounded, and happier.