Last night the Mindshifters group held a special meeting and did a Still Point breathing session. I just want thank the participants who invested their time and energy to make this a most wonderful experience. I have been doing different trainings and experiential workshops for a number of years and I must say that last night was one of the most relaxed, loving, smooth-running, and productive sessions I have ever been privileged to attend. The hosting facility, Relax 4 Life in Barrington, IL, is a wondrous place with a beautiful view and tremendous energy. (www.relax4life.com)

The core tool of Dr. Michael Ryce’s work is The Reality Management Worksheet, and the process he refers to as Forgiveness. The definition of Forgiveness in this work is very different from the definition I grew up with. I was raised to believe that to forgive someone meant that I knew they had done something wrong, or bad, to me or someone I loved. I was taught that this action caused me pain, sadness, anger, fear or some other discomfort, or problem. As a result, when I “forgive them” I agree to be the bigger person and “let them off the hook” for what they have done to me. I agree to no longer “punish” them by blaming them for what they caused in me.

The work Dr. Michael Ryce promotes is based on the idea that no one has ever caused me to feel any negative emotion, pain, sadness, fear, guilt, or shame. Since I am a creator of my own reality, there is nothing to forgive anyone else for doing or saying. If I create anger in my reality in response to something someone else does, there is nothing to forgive them for. In this work the term Forgiveness refers to a process by which I dismantle and cancel any false realities in my mind which have given rise to my negative emotions and discomfort.

The primary tool for this, as mentioned, is The Reality Management Worksheet, by which we are reminded the we create our own reality, and we are guided step-by-step through the process of dismantling the false reality which is creating our discomfort. I have encountered only a very few approaches to this process which maintain the same level of strict adherence to the observations that, “My thoughts create my internal reality and the emotions I feel.”. One such book is The Way of Mastery, ( www.shantichristo.com ), which states with excellent clarity, and gentle appreciation, the process by which I deny and suppress the negative thoughts, energies, emotions, and judgments in my mind. Once I have done this, I inevitably project them onto my image of others around me. I come to believe that they are the cause of my pain and discomfort, and that they are bad, negative, or wrong.

The process is described by which I can not even identify jealousy, anger, judgment, insult, or any other negative in another person’s actions or thoughts, unless I have experienced that very thing. It is because I have experienced that very thing, and passed judgment upon myself for having experienced it, that I have suppressed it and denied it in myself. Once I have suppressed and denied that thought, feeling, or experience in myself it must be projected onto other people and things as a way of rationalizing my experience. So it is that everything I judge another for doing, I have done myself. Every negative thought or action that I take offense from in another is something that I have experienced in myself and judged myself negatively for having experienced it. It is because of this that I need to “forgive” others, because in reality it will be canceling and dismantling the negative judgment of myself in the process.

The goal of this work is to teach only Love. The process of this work is to become perpetually vigilant to anything I create which distracts me from the realization that I am inexorably connected to the Source which created me, Love. It is suggested that when we see that we have judged someone, instead of getting upset with oneself for having judged, we can say:

“Oh, I see that I am judging someone. That is an interesting cloud passing through the sky of my awareness. I wonder if I might be able to make another choice.”

It is suggested in The Way of Mastery that we understand that each of us is a conduit of energy, and the degree to which the conduit is clear and open determines the ability for us to radiate the light of Love. When one makes a judgment it is as though one contracts and closes down the conduit, and the flow of energy becomes less and less. As one forgives judgments it is as though one is opening the conduit and thinning the walls so that the conduit which is carrying the liquid of God’s Love is expanding and becoming transparent.

“Judgment is contraction.”
“Forgiveness is relaxation, peace, trust, and faith.”

“Should you then judge yourself if you have noticed you have been in judgment? No. That is a judgment in itself. Only Love can heal. Therefore, when you know you have judged, simply say:

“Ah, yes! That is that energy.
I recognize that cloud that has just passed through the field of my awareness.
But I can choose again.”

The goal of this work is to Teach Only Love.
The process of this work is to become aware of everything we create which distracts us from the realization that;

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

Last year I heard myself tell someone that “To become a great teacher, one must learn to become a perpetually avid student.” Then recently I was reading a wonderful book and read, “The difference between a master and a student is that the master knows, one must always be a student.”

This week the mindshifter group watched the first half of the lecture titled The Circle of Life and How to Play It, by Dr. Michael Ryce. In this lecture Dr. Ryce talks about two different approaches one can take to the events in one’s life. The high road, or the low road. Whenever an event occurs in one’s life one chooses to take one path or the other. The low road may be summarized as denial, suppression and blame, while the high road may be summarized as responsibility and openness to learning.