Monthly Archives: January 2009

Some of My Favorite Quotes From The Mirror Theory: by Betsy Otter-Thompson

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“Fear is created by refusing to face the truth about our lives.  But as soon as we do, fear disappears.  It only lives in a soul that refuses to make a decision.  To heal is to walk right into whatever we think is paralyzing us.”

“It may seem to you that some people are more gifted than others, but gifts are chosen for the wisdom they offer the soul. … How many you have is not what makes or breaks your journey.  How you deal with the ones you have is.”
“Didn’t Jesus’ friends become wise as a result of knowing him?  No, they become wise from  knowing themselves.”
“Eventually he realized that excellence wasn’t about how well he did something; it was about how well he felt in the doing.  As soon as he started loving the process he started loving the continuity.”
“Jealousy gains a foothold
When you lose a grip on
The only solid footing you have –
Your own tender expression””
“Nothing valuable goes from one person to another, unless that transfer carries love.”
“What am I supposed to do with all my garbage history?  The first thing you can do is to give it a name with reverence instead of mockery.  Call it the  love of God in search of self.”
“Then what’s the good of going back to my youth as a means of therapy?  The good comes from finding all the good reasons for living it.  Hasn’t it gotten you to this moment of greater awareness?  And isn’t that worthy of praise?”
“How easy it is to forget that what I perceive as a handicap has been leading me to the true purpose for which I came here to live; how easy it is to forget that I don’t take anything with me when I leave the body behind except for the love I found while in it.  And how easy it is to forget that although the picture I experienced was often hard to endure, the inspiration that followed truly changed my life.”

A Letter From A Friend You Should Read!

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I have often told people I have been blessed with magnificent friends in my life.  Here is a letter I received today from my friend Joe.  I think after reading it you will see why I make such a claim about my friends.  
Joe wrote:
“Most of us have had many discussions about the topic of forgiveness – especially as it relates to ‘A Course in Miracles’ or Michael Ryce’s teachings and the forgiveness worksheet.  This is a brief recap. 
The mind is an evidential device; it gives us evidence of what we focus on or ‘want’ to see at some level of our being.
The mind is about 10% conscious, the rest is either sub-conscious or un-conscious.
What we focus on with emotion, we create. If we focus on one thing with the conscious mind but sub-consciously/un-consciously we want the opposite the sub-conscious/un-conscious generally wins because there is more mind energy there [90% vs 10%].
Forgiveness is defined as letting go or releasing the sub-conscious/un-conscious mind pattern that gives us pain [physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual]. 
If we do not have a sub-conscious/un-conscious mind pattern for something it will not resonate in is. So something that someone or something does will not upset us if we do not have a mind pattern to resonate with it. This leads to the statement:
“If I’m in pain; I’m in error” and its corollary “If you are in pain; you are in error”
So I’ve been working with the forgiveness/releasing process for about 5 years through ACIM & Michael Ryce’s work. Something bothers me about this work, and that thing is that it seems like there are some issues that at least for me forgiveness work does not work on – or at least it does not seem to ‘stick’.
I’m going to use my back as an example – because it is an easy example – NOT because I’m looking for someone to tell me how to fix my back [that is not the point here].
There were several times in 2007 when I was in Tennessee and my back was really painful and stiff. On these occasions I’d do 4 or 5 Forgiveness Worksheets a day for several days, and after this the pain wold ease up and I’d feel pretty good. Then a couple of days later I’d wake up with a twinge in my back and I’d say, “Why is my back hurting again?” And then it would get worse and later in the day I’d ask “Why doesn’t the benefits of the work on my back seem to last?” And maybe the next morning I’d wake up in pain and ask “Why is this happening to me again?” And pretty soon my back was as bad or worse than before. And again I’d thing “Why doesn’t the benefits seem to last?”
I went back a number of times and listened to “Why is this happening to me … Again?” and the answer I gleaned was I was just getting into deeper levels of the negative mind patterns that caused the back pain – and these also need to be forgiven. 
So that is what I’d do and the whole thing would happen – Again. 
I was pretty diligent but frustration would set in, forgiveness seemed to work real well for some issues but for some issues it did not work or if it worked the issue would come right back. And again I thought “Why is this happening to me … Again?”
So about a month ago I read an article and part of the article was about questions; more specifically the questions that we ask ourselves all the time in our ‘self talk’. The article posed the question – “Are we asking ourselves the ‘right’ questions?”
The article went on to explain that a big job of the sub-conscious mind is to get answers for the questions that we ask ourselves through self talk. We pose questions and this massive, massive computing power goes to work looking for answers and then it presents the answers to our conscious mind. The sub-conscious mind cannot discern a ‘helpful’ question from a ‘harmful’ question, to it a question is a question and its job is to answer the question. 
SO when I asked “Why is my back hurting again?” my sub-conscious went out to find a million reasons why my back was hurting, and at some level my conscious mind ‘heard’ the answers and was influenced by them. And then I asked “Why doesn’t the benefits of the work on my back seem to last?” and the subconscious wet to work again to provide me with answers to this. And I begin to think the work does not work for me. And I ask again with lots of emotion this time “Why is my back hurting again?” and I get back answers with the same high emotion and power – your back will always hurt – you do not deserve a healthy back – you cannot do anything to change your back – and so on and so on.
So I’ve RE-CREATED the situation or a painful, stiff, out of alignment back with a few simple unhelpful questions. Wow.
So the article went on to say that if we pay attention to the questions that we ask and ask ‘power questions’ instead of harmful questions; we can get our sub-conscious to answer questions that we WANT ANSWERS to. What a novel idea. 
So using my back as an example again; after I read this article I got up from my chair at work after sitting a long time and a pain shot through my back, and I asked “What can I do to have a healthy, strong, flexible back that is in perfect alignment?” And then I went on with my day. And each time the pain in my back came to my awareness I’d ask a similar power question. The next day I got up from my chair and my back hurt again and I asked “How can I relieve the pain in my back?” and on my way to the bathroom I thought “I need to be sitting on a Body Ball instead of a chair.” So I went out and bought a Body Ball and took it to work and started to use it instead of a chair. I also got some insights about what kind of exercises to do for my back, and some things to do with my diet to lower inflammation. 
By the way I’ve been doing this for about 3 weeks and my while back is still sore it is about 75% better than it was a month ago.
I’m asking questions I want answers to and then listen for the answers – the answers may come any time and you need to listen.
I try to pay attention and whenever something comes up that I feel negative toward I make a point of asking myself a question to turn it around. For example. 
I do not feel like going to work today, I ask “What can I do today to make work feel fulfilling?”
I do not want to get up early and exercise, I ask “How can I feel energized in my morning exercise?”
I’ve got a project at work that is stuck in the mud and going nowhere, I ask “What can I do to give this project energy and move it forward?”
I do not always perceive an answer but I know the sub-conscious is working on it and just asking a question that I really want an answer to seems to give me an energy boost. 
Here are some guidelines about questions; if you are interested give it a try.
The Purpose of Asking Questions: 
1. Direct behavior in a positive way
2. Direct a thought process in a positive way 
3. Build positive emotions as it pertains to valued outcomes and behaviors 
4. Collect useful information 
General Rules of Thumb: 
1.Only ask questions you want answered
2. When asking yourself positive questions, give yourself some time to come up with the answers 3. Keep asking the positive questions until you begin to perceive the answers 
One more thing, these ‘unhelpful’ questions seem to come natural to me, it is as if I’m preprogrammed to ask questions that bring me down. Historically I seem to ask them all the time with a lot of energy, so I get unhelpful answers back with a lot of energy too. 
Before I read this article I thought a question like “Why is my back hurting again?” would give me an answer that would help fix the problem. I did not think that I would get answers back that would support the problem and actually make it worse. 
I also think that some people come preprogrammed to ask ‘power questions’ – or questions that are helpful and that they really want answered. I think that a person like that would read what I wrote about power questions and say – “Well shucks I do that all the time.” More power to them. 
To those of us that tend to ask questions that are unhelpful [like I did], knowledge is power – if you use it. What have you got to loose –> except maybe all of the ‘wrong’ answers. 
You may want to start by thinking about something that you would like to change and write down a power question or 2 about it. Then put the paper in your pocket and review it during the day. Then before you go to bed write it again and see if you can write any answers to the question, just see what comes up, you may be surprised. 
Have a good journey
Love
Joe”

A Question of Boundaries and Anger

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Dear David (not your real name),

You say that just seeing the picture of a particular person makes you feel angry; “Physically, I could heave, and mentally…ouch! …How invasive!  I am so ticked!  What the heck gives him the right to invade my space?  Dang…I am so mad!”

Your comments remind me of another group member’s story on Tuesday, when she described how she felt when someone she knows invited someone to her church, with whom she was very uncomfortable. Betsy (not her real name) was so disturbed because she felt her space had been violated and that she would not be able to keep going to the church she liked, for fear of having to interact with that person.  

 

I think you will find that you have fear as the emotion which underlies the anger.  Usually it is necessary to resolve the fear before the anger can be seen to be unnecessary.  What is the fear that gets generated when you see that picture?  How does your mind tell you that you are in danger because of this?  What is it about him, or your interaction with him, that you feel you cannot handle?  How old do you feel when those emotions are triggered?

 

I want to remind you of a more advanced notion in the Dr. Ryce works which is,  “The people you withhold your Love from, are the ones you most need to give Love to, in order to heal yourself.”  This is related to but not limited to the dynamic at work in the “Codependence to Interdependence” worksheet, where we list people who “have hurt us” and then give them advice, only to realize that this is the very advice we most need to follow.

 

You have everything you need, to deal with someone who is not respecting your wishes.  You have strength, knowledge and resources aplenty to deal with people who have poor boundaries, and still stay centered in your true nature of Love.  Remember, whenever you move away from the knowledge of your true nature as Love, it is you who are doing it, not someone else doing it to you.  You cannot be separated from your true nature, you can only forget it, or refuse to see it.  There is no need to re-connect to your true nature because you cannot be separated from it.  See the game that your mind, and your years of conditioning are playing on you, and it will cease to have any impact on you.  

 

Don’t forget to practice generating Love and then sending it to yourself, and sending it to “the trigger” who is your current focus.

 

Remember that when you are viewing things through the fear filter, you are not viewing things accurately.  You are getting distorted information and bad data, and that is what you are using to create your reality.

We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love.  Everything else is false.

Empowered To Heal

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Last night we watched the first half of the Dr. Michael Ryce lecture titled: Empowered To Heal, which focused on the idea of health rather than disease.  Dr. Ryce discussed how the current medical model and advertisements for drugs and medical treatments are so strongly focused on the disease process.  He reminded us that advertisements for drugs begin with an intense, emotionally loaded story about the person who is suffering with the symptoms of the disease, and then they present the supposed solution, their drug or treatment.

Dr. Ryce suggests that we begin working with a focus on health and he proposes a definition for health as; “When we are living in and from our true nature of Love”.  He reminds us that the most ancient texts on this subject tell us that we are made in the image and likeness of the creator and that the creator is Love.  So it makes sense that we are made of the energy of love and that for us to be healthy we need to be living in and feeling this energy of Love at all times.  Dr. Ryce went on to quote Einstein on the nature of matter when he said that “What we have heretofore called matter is energy.  Energy that has been so slowed as to be perceptible to the senses.  There is no matter.”.  This modern scientific mind seems to be telling us what ancient texts have long described.  God is the energy of Love and we are made in the image and likeness of God, which means we are made of the energy of Love.  Therefore anything that is unlike Love which we create and store in our bodies and energy systems, will cause dis-ease and eventually disease in the physical sense.
The lecture went on to review the major question in physics about  how energy sometimes behaves like a wave and sometimes behaves as a particle.  There is evidence to indicate that energy exists in wave form unless or until it is observed, at which point it behaves as particles.  This means that as we think about things and observe them and focus our mind energy on them, we change them in very real ways.  So if we hold an energy of fear in our minds we send out vibrations of “fear” and that energy interacts with the world around us and the world shows us things to be afraid of.  When we hold an energy of anger in our minds, that sends out vibrations of “anger” and that energy interacts with the world around us and the world shows us things to be irritated with. 
So our job is to remove any energy in our system which is less than Love and we are given tools for this process such as The Reality Management Worksheet.  In the support group portion of our meeting tonight we each worked on a Reality Management Worksheet and supported each other in the process and then shared the results.  The worksheet I chose to do focused on a recent incident of my getting angry when the computer and printer would not work properly.  As I did the worksheet I thought about the pattern I have in my life of getting angry with objects that don’t “work” properly.  During the worksheet process I thought about how I have always gotten more angry at things than people and that I allow myself to get more angry at things when I am alone, than when other people are around.  This showed me in a new way, how I am really angry at myself in each of these instances.  So the worksheet changed focus before it was finished and I finished the worksheet with a realization that I get angry with my inability to make things work correctly, or angry with myself for not planning things better, and giving myself more time to complete tasks and projects.  I realized that most of the anger I generate is in situations where I feel time pressured, and I fear failing.
By the end of the worksheet I saw that I was getting angry with myself for not being perfect, and for procrastinating, or not being smart enough to figure things out.  My goal for myself at the end of the worksheet was to accept myself as I am and see the Love I am made of.
We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love.  Everything else is false.

The Mirror Theory – A Favorite Book

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People frequently ask me about what I am reading and why.  I often hesitate to share the titles of books I am reading until I have finished them and can whole-heartedly endorse them.  The book I have re-read the most times and marked with the most underlines and post-it note tags is titled, The Mirror Theory by Betsy Otter-Thompson.  This book describes the idea that we see in the world only what we need to see, to be shown the work we need to do within ourselves.  The concept of mirrors in this book, relates to emotions.  The idea is that we will only feel negative emotions when we are carrying them inside of us and we need to heal the judgement or belief which is creating that negative emotion.  We will only have a negative reaction to the negative emotions, or actions, of others when we need to heal that emotion within ourselves.  So for instance if I am feeling intense fear or anger when I am in the presence of someone who is acting out anger, it means that I have fear or anger within me that I need to heal.  If I don’t have fear or anger within me which I need to heal, then I will only feel compassion or Love when someone is acting out anger in my presence.

When I first started reading this book I almost put it down and never picked it up again.  It started with, what I thought of, as a very sensationally, contrived premise and that was a turn-off for me.  But, because I had been referred to the book by someone I thoroughly respected, I kept reading and after about fifty pages, I was hooked.  As I continued to read I started highlighting statements and sections of the book, which is very unusual for me.  When I was about halfway through the book I found a statement which struck me so powerfully that I did not want it to get lost in the mass of highlighted areas so I went out and bought some post-it note tabs.  When I finished reading the book I didn’t even put it down, and just started reading it again from the beginning.  At this time I can’t even tell you how many times I have read the book from start to finish, because I quit counting after five or six repetitions, (that does not count the many times I have picked it up and re-read some of the  highlighted and tabbed entries).
Now, I know that books are very personal things.  Books I love are often viewed as trash or completely uninteresting to people I love and respect.  Also books which have excited me at different times in the past can seem rather bland or even ridiculous to me today.  This says more about me and my struggles, growth and setbacks than it does about those books.  I realize that The Mirror Theory came into my life at just the right time and showed me just the things I needed in a way that resonated with me, to help me keep a Loving perspective on life and  my journey. 
The premise which almost made me throw the book out, is  that it tells the story of Jesus and his family.  His brothers, sisters, biological father, step-father, grandmother, cousins, etc.  The book uses the story of Jesus and how he learned to recognize the Mirrors in his life, to illustrate how Mirrors work and how they show us exactly what we need to heal within ourselves.  In the  story Jesus learned from his interactions with his family as they struggled to learn the lessons from the Mirrors in their lives.  As he grew to understand himself,  he was able to heal himself and be a role model for others who wish to heal.
As I have studied and  come to understand the work of Dr. Michael Ryce, I feel The Mirror Theory is completely compatible with these teachings and it gives some wonderful metaphors and stories to illustrate the way Love works in our lives.
We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love.  Everything else is false.

Creating A Viable, Conscious, Spiritual Body

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One of the themes of the last two lectures we have watched in the group is the idea of being clear about our purpose so that our intentions and therefore our goals can be “on target”.  If we are not clear about our purpose, our goals will be vague, and our energy will be scattered, and therefore less productive.  In the teachings we are studying, the primary purpose for everyone on the planet is the creation and strengthening of a viable, conscious, spiritual body.  This means a recognition that we are first and foremost eternal spiritual energy systems, made of the energy of Love.

Knowing this helps make it clear that all we really need to do in order to fulfill our primary purpose is to monitor our emotions and work to identify and eliminate any energy which is less than Love. The tools we can use to accomplish this can come from a wide variety of sources.  One key is to understand that it is our thoughts which create our emotions.  Another key is to understand that when we create negative emotions, negative energy is stored in our bodies and  energy systems.  It is this negative energy which is getting triggered and expressed whenever we are in pain, or emotional discomfort.  Whenever we are feeling pain, it is a gift that lets us know we have unresolved negative energy in our system, which we did not know was there.  If we do not know it is there, we cannot dismantle it and  remove it from our systems.  The longer the negative energy stays in our systems the more it dis-integrates our energy system, and eventually the physical body begins to break down.  This is the cause of our dis-ease and our disease.
With this in mind, the primary task for each of us can be said to be; “Watching how we feel and taking full response-ability for having created, and being able to dismantle, our negative emotions and pain”.  One theory holds that “The Universe” wants us to be whole, integrated, happy expressions of Love. As such IT continues to “kick us right in our limitations”, so that we become aware of what negative energy we have created and stored in our systems.  This gives us the possibility of dismantling it, and returning to Love and ease.
We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love.  Everything else is false.

The Effects of This Work

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This morning it occured to me that whenever someone becomes more self-aware and finds a way to make Love more conscious, active and present in their lives, it changes them and therefore it changes their relationships.  For most people the changes are overwhelmingly positive.  The range of responses from others when someone they love begins to do this work is;

1) “Wow! You seem different.  What are you doing?  Can I learn that with you?”

2) “You seem different and happier, but I don’t want anything to do with that stuff.”  

3) “What are you doing?  I want to learn it to.  I’m really interested in what you’re doing.” (The real message is: “You’re changing and I want to know how so I can sabotage it and get you back into our old comfortable pattern.”)  

4) “You have changed and you’re not the person I got into this relationship with so I’m leaving.” 

What occured to me this morning is that the more we work to stay focused on our responsibility for our own emotions and pull our energy away from trying to control or be responsible for the emotions of others, the more different this will be for the people in our lives.  Sometimes this is very difficult for the people we love, and they can be very upset by the change, even though we see the change as positive.   One of the  most common patterns is for the people we love to feel either angry or abandoned by our refusal to play the game of trying to be responsible for their emotions.

The goal in this work is to increase our awareness of the Love which is our lives.  When we are successful in doing this,  it changes our daily experience in powerful ways.  It is important to realize that this will change the lives of those who live with us in powerful ways as well.  What is needed here is compassion and the ability to hold the space of Love for ourselves and the others in our lives, without retreating to the old pattern of blame and shame. There will be times when this is really difficult, but it is well worth the effort.  

We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love!  Everything else is false.

Getting The Stress You Need Part II

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Last night we watched the second half of the Dr. Ryce lecture titled “Getting The Stress You Need”, (www.whyagain.com).  The focus of this half of the lecture is the idea that each time we set a goal, it remains active in our minds and whenever it gets triggered it drives our behavior, even if the goal is many years old, our life situation has changed dramatically and the goal is no longer logical.  For example if I set a goal as an eight year old for my father to love and accept me, and I was never able to achieve that to my satisfaction, then years later when someone reminds me of my father, this goal can become activated and I can behave in seemingly irrational ways in an effort to gain of the favor of the person who reminds me of my father. 

Once I set a goal in my mind, it remains active until the goal is achieved, or the goal is actively cancelled.  

The exercise in tonight’s lecture asked us to close our eyes, relax and feel the presence of love.  Then visualize a series of people and situations in our past where we may have set goals that did not get achieved and consciously cancel all those goals.  With the conscious cancelling of goals and a prayer to the higher consciousness to assist us in cancelling all un-necessary and unachieved goals, we relieve a tremendous amount of stress on our minds and bodies.

Once the unachieved goals have been cancelled and our mental and emotional resources have been freed up to handle our daily challenges, we can then frame, select, set and maintain goals which will be appropriate for each day.  When we use this technique and tool, we will choose only those goals which we can accomplish within the next day.  Then each night we will review the goals we had for the day and decide whether we accomplished them, choose to cancel them, or move them back into the category of plans or intentions which can then be elevated to a goal on another day when appropriate. 

Dr. Ryce presents a tool for the framing, setting and evaluating of our goals on a daily basis, and we reviewed the how to use this tool and the benefits of using all the parts of the tool.  Then the discussion in the group moved to review the work several members had done over the past week.  The theme that emerged for several members was the difficulty keeping the focus on ourselves when we feel a strong negative emotion, which has been triggered by the words or actions of another person.  One of the difficulties here is our need to overcome the decades of conditioning which have conspired to make us believe that others control our emotions and “Make” us feel sad, angry, shamed, guilty, afraid, etc.

We reviewed the process and observation that I can only feel the emotions which are in me, and that it is My thought which causes My emotions.  If someone treats me “disrespectfully” and I feel anger, it is because there is a part of “me” that feels “I do not” deserve to be treated with respect and I am angry about that part of Me.  What needs to be healed is the part of me, or the feelings and beliefs I hold, which believe that I don’t deserve to be treated with respect.  If I am coming from a space of Love, and I feel completely comfortable with the fact that I am lovable and worthy of respect, I will probably not even notice if someone treats me “disrespectfully”.  Or if I notice it I will not be offended and probably feel nothing more than compassion for the other person.

We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love!  Everything else is false.

A Wonderful Song!

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Today I heard a wonderful new song and I just could not wait to share the lyrics!

I heard the song performed by a folk music duo called Small Potatoes.  The song is called Simple Faith and is written by one of the members of the group Mustard’s Retreat.  I will give you the words here, and then list the youtube address where you can hear Mustard’s Retreat sing the song. In my opinion, Small Potatoes performed a much more lively and refined version of the song when I heard them today, perhaps because there is one male and one female voice in Small Potatoes and two male voices in Mustard’s Retreat.  
Here is the address for Mustard’s Retreat Singing Simple Faith.

Enjoy!


Simple Faith By Mustard’s Retreat

Ours is a simple faith

Life is a short embrace

Heaven is in this place

Every day

Hope is the ground we till

Make each day what you will

Thankful for dreams fulfilled

Every day

No room in this heart for fear

No judgement day drawing near

Trust that inner voice you hear

Every day

Life’s not a goal or race

Its about heart and faith

And living a life of grace

Every day

Ours is a simple faith

Life is a short embrace 

Heaven is in this place

Every day

Hope is the ground we till

Make each day what you will

Thankful for dreams fulfilled

Every day

Trust is an open hand

Making an honest stand

Rooted here in the land

Every day

Living the mystery

Seeking the harmony

Here between you and me

Every day

Ours is a simple faith

Life is a short embrace

Heaven is in this place

Every day

Hope is the ground we till

Make each day what you will

Thankful for dreams fulfilled

Every day

Mindshifters Group 1-13-2009

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Tonight we watched the first half of the video titled, “Getting The Stress You Need” by Dr. Michael Ryce, (www.whyagain.com).

The essence of this talk is that the human mind can be seen as primarily a device for managing stress.  In this work the definition of stress is “The tension that is created in the human mind and body by the difference between the way things actually are, and the way one wants them to be”.  If the mind is our primary way of managing stress then it makes good sense for us to understand how this system works and how it is that we are creating and relieving stress in our lives on a regular basis.  
A key concept in this talk is the idea that we have two lenses in our minds, one lens over intention and one lens over perception.  Each lens can have only one of three possible filters set at any one time.  At any given time, the lens over intention must be set to either the filter of Hostility, the filter of  Fear, or the filter of Love.  It is important to know that the only time I will be seeing the world accurately is when the filter over my intentions is set to Love.  Any time the filter over my intentions is set to fear or hostility I will be seeing a distorted and inaccurate view.  So it is important for me to monitor my internal feelings and actively work to reset the filters over my intentions and my perceptions to Love on a regular basis.
Another key concept in this talk is the idea that our intentions can be many, varied and contradictory and they do not determine our behavior.  It is only when I choose an intention from among the many I may have, and elevate it to the level off a goal that it begins to organize my perceptions, thoughts, and actions, and determines my behavior.  So if I have a thought that I would like to attend the Mindshifters group, and a thought that I would like to go to a movie, and a thought that I need to get some paperwork done at home, all of these can be said to be intentions.  When it is time to go to the group, or attend the movie, or do the paperwork, one of these intentions gets elevated to the level of a goal and my perceptions and thoughts work to show me how to do the behaviors which accomplish the chosen goal.  Soon, I am either sitting in the group, or sitting in the movie, or working on my paperwork.
Since my goals are always chosen from my intentions and the quality of my intentions is determined by the filter which is set over the lens of intention and perception, it becomes even more important to monitor the filter I have set and continuously choose to reset my filters to Love.  If the filter over my intentions is set to Love, I will see positive, creative and Loving ways to interact with the world and this will give me positive, creative and Loving intentions to choose from when I select a goal.  

The quality of my intentions determines the quality of my goals.  My goals determine my behavior.  If I want my behavior to be positive, creative and Loving, I need to be vigilant about my intentions and the way I am perceiving the world.
In the discussion during the group tonight a fundamental theme emerged again.  This is the theme of understanding that I am the one who creates my emotions with my thoughts, and that I don’t cause the emotions of anyone else.  Some of our members have been working on taking responsibility for causing their own emotions and this is helping them detach from some of the unproductive patterns in their relationships.  However, while they are able to see that their partner does not make them angry, they still want to blame themselves for making their partner angry.  
It is very difficult to change the life-long conditioning of our culture which makes us want to blame others for what we feel, and accept the blame of others for what they feel.  This is one of the most important points of all in understanding ourselves and how our mind/body energy system works. 
 “If I am in pain, I am in error!”  
Tonight we tried to help ourselves remember that, “If someone else is in pain, someone else is in error!”  In this situation we do not do them any favors if we try to change the way they are feeling, or accept blame for their feelings.  The most productive thing we can do in this situation is hold a space of love for them and for ourselves. 
The basis of the work we are doing is that when anything that is less than Love gets exposed to the energy of Love, it is healed and transformed.  So if I can generate the energy of love and hold to that for myself and the other person/people whenever someone around me is angry, sad, confused, hurt, or blaming, I will be doing the best possible thing for all of us.
We discussed how each of us has a device which helps us know when we need to change what we are doing.  This is our emotional center and whenever our emotional center is sending us strong, negative, or confusing signals we know we need to stop and change what WE are doing, because WE are causing ourselves unnecessary pain.
We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love.  Everything else is false.