Last night at the TLC Workshop in North Hollywood we explored how we don’t need to live in the pain of our past anymore by inviting a Power Greater Than Any Human Power into that experience. Thus making us an objective observer of our past and being able to learn from it rather than wallow in it.
Give the pain to God by feeling and expressing the pain to God.
Sometimes we get into a state where we’re in an immense amount of emotions because of the circumstance of our lives. What we must recognize is that our feelings must be honored but we don’t want to wallow in them. This presents a serious dichotomy (a separation into two divisions that differ widely from, or contradict each other).
The riddle is this: how it is that we allow ourselves to feel feelings that we need to process and express without falling into a hole of depression.
First things first, is to remember that emotions are equivalent to throwing a stone onto the surface of a still pond which creates wave troughs. Emotions are like waves… they do not last. They are most intense when they come on in a concentrated way… If you are ever feeling down and in the dumps when you go to bed that night, make a petition with all of your heart to your Creator to be reborn in the morning. For in principle, every night when you lay your body down for its nightly rest, you are completely unaware of your body while you sleep… therefore you are what we refer to as dead. For is not death a termination of your physical form… or the complete unawareness of your physical form… which is the exact process of what happens every night when you lay your body down to rest. When you wake each morning you are, in fact, reborn from nightly death. Therefore, it is your birthright to be reborn mentally, spiritually and emotionally each morning… claim it when you are in need of brand new perspective.
When you awake in the morning fully expect to be refreshed and reborn. Therefore, to fortify the petition your application is to stay away from the concerns that you had the day before, for whatever has happened to get you into the spot where you felt the need to be reborn had to come from your yesterdays… so stay away from pain memory for a while.
By making the claim, know that this is a new day and you wish to experience this day exactly as it is and that you will adhere to each moment… to see each moment… for exactly what it is… no reference to any yesterdays.
One of the principles that you can use to sustain this desire is to be as willing to listen as the dieing can be throughout the day. Say very few words when you need to recharge like this… try to speak as little as possible throughout the day… stay quiet by listening to everything that is happening around you. Even the noises throughout the day can bring you back into the present moment. A horn in the background of your environment… don’t just ignore it, listen to it. A truck making the back-up signal noise – you know, that beep beep beep? – conversations in your environment… just listen… without judgment just listen… hear the unheard of what is beyond what the people are saying around you. See if you can recognize what is going on in their life… in their conversation right now. Listen to their vocabulary… see if you can detect where it is coming from. These little details keep you in the moment you’re in.
Now, how to allow yourself to feel the appropriate feelings in regard to the pain you’re in: This is where you cry on God’s shoulder… you take this opportunity to articulate the pain that you’re feeling to God… like, “God I’m so scared and I know my fear is not normal and I can’t seem to do anything about it. God, I’ve felt so much pain in my life, sometimes I feel like that’s all I’ve every really truly experienced. I am coming to you now, God, to cry and share the pain that I’m in. God, sometimes I feel like I’m a victim. That I’ve gotten a lot of bad deals in life. God, sometimes I feel like nobody loves me. Sometimes I feel like my family broke me. Sometimes my pain gets so strong that I can’t seem to move. So, I am crying now to you, God, to allow this concentrated amount of feelings that are overwhelming me in my life right now to be fully expressed to you as I shed these tears of pain. I take this time with you to allow all of my sadness to be expressed and I ask for your embrace… for your comfort… and for your light to embrace me. And I ask you, God, to make me emotionally reborn as I shed these tears… knowing that I have made my full expression of all of the pain that I just don’t seem to understand… I ask for your help and I offer you my heart and soul. And I ask for you to help me cry in this moment knowing that you are embracing me.”
Much love,
K.C.
This material is copyrighted and owned by Thought-Life Connection (TLC) and is not to be reproduced or used without the author’s consent. © 2012
The difference between solitude and isolation…
It is very important for each and every human being to find a period of time to reflect, look inside their self… Find out what’s going on; find out what path they want to be on… If there’s confusion about what to do with your life and where to go, maybe a career change or a relationship break-up, solitude provides a great opportunity to get deep insight into who we are and where we are at. It is very, very healthy.
Solitude is for the purpose of finding out what’s going on with us, or for creating something and communing with a Power-Greater-Than-Any-Human-Power, or for searching within.
With solitude will come thoughts and memories, so it is very important for each person, I believe, to find time in their life to experience a consistent period of solitude to really find out what is inside of us, who we are and what we want to do. Especially if there is confusion in life… We all get periods where we feel that we are at a crossroad and we’re trying to find the right path… At this point, solitude is wonderful. If you have the opportunity, certainly finding solitude in the mountains or away from home and routine… But, also there is a way to have solitude just by the desire. Doing our nine-to-five work schedules is fine, but when we’re not working we can spend time at home not turning on the TV, but rather doing some reading, some journaling and trying to find out where our path lies. The solitude allows for our inner voice, which is our Creator within, to express itself.
Isolation is very unhealthy. The characteristic of this is that we keep our self from interacting with people because of social anxiety. Anxieties about what people are thinking. The difference between being isolated or lonely and solitude is that in isolation we have a tendency to think that other people are not accepting us, are not interested in what is going on with us, don’t find us appealing, don’t want to hang out with us… This thinking is a by-product of isolation and is extremely dangerous, especially for alcoholics and drug addicts, to feel any sense of isolation or loneliness. This is a place that alcoholics and drug addicts cannot afford to go, and is not safe for most any human being. Isolation and loneliness are also by-products of secrets. When we acquire secrets and don’t learn to relay those secrets to others to clear out of any self-judgment, self-doubt, condemnation, guilt, remorse, or regret, the by-product is isolation. We must get rid of our secrets. Especially in early recovery if you are an alcoholic, but certainly for anybody keeping secrets. Shedding secrets is the best way to get back connected to the world you live in with the people who are in it and to remove the isolation.
When we find our self in that state of aloneness, we must recognize whether we are in solitude or whether we have actually isolated our self and struck our self with terrible loneliness. Solitude should not be confused with isolation and loneliness. We must learn to be okay and happy by our self and find comfort in solitude. But the feeling of isolation is exactly what gets people drunk, or rekindles unhealthy relationships if we are not alcoholic. Again, isolation and loneliness are the by-products of secrets not being expressed… Hidden ideas… Maybe we’re in a broken relationship and we’re not addressing it, but we’re running from it. We’ve done things at work or outside of work that we don’t want people to know about. It doesn’t mean that we’re not around people, but we have a great sense of isolation and loneliness within us because we are not connecting. This is something we must change. If there is a state of isolation and loneliness it is because we don’t connect to people. Isolation and loneliness are absolutely unacceptable and should be always watched out for. It is very hard to help someone who is isolated… Depression will take over so quickly in isolation and loneliness.
It is important to recognize whether we’re isolating and creating loneliness or, in fact, we’re seeking solitude. The difference between the two: one is a healthy search within to hear our inner voice and the other is withdrawal from work, relationships and society into our self. We end up spending great amounts of time watching TV into the late night, escaping on the Internet surfing for countless hours, vowing to get up and do things but not getting anything done. We have incredible feelings of isolation and loneliness, even in a room full of people we know. When we detect this, we need to do some house cleaning and there are probably some secrets that need to get exposed. If you are feeling isolated, find somebody, anybody, and talk to them about what secrets you’re holding onto, or just break the barrier and let people know you’re feeling isolation and loneliness. Just the expression of it to another person dismantles the feeling. Then we get active and start reconnecting.
Isolation and loneliness become unacceptable for anyone on a spiritual path.
Solitude is absolutely a healthy thing that we should all approach at some point in life… Most people are afraid of solitude… That’s why we turn on the TV to become anesthetized to our self. We listen to the radio… We can’t stand it if it’s quiet. We need to learn to be okay with the stillness and the quiet… This is solitude. Solitude can be a very healthy thing for the benefits it brings, the comfort within from knowing our self. We all should seek solitude at times in our life to do some reflection and be comfortable and happy in the company of only us.
Enjoy your solitude but always get rid of your isolation and loneliness. This is an unacceptable condition, one that we must feel deep concern if recognized. If you find your self in that isolated state, get out and connect with someone and let others know what you’re feeling. The probability is that you’ve got some secrets you need to release. Remember you have not done anything that somebody else has not done before… Whatever you’re holding onto, it’s not worth what you think it’s worth… Let it go, so that you can feel connected to the world again…
Much love,
K.C.
This material is copyrighted and owned by Thought-Life Connection (TLC) and is not to be reproduced or used without the author’s consent. © 2012
TLC Application: Soundness Of Mind
Coming to soundness of mind…
Today’s application is to apply the principle of soundness of mind… This is achieved by having an open mind. It is important to know what that means in the context of coming to believe in a Power-Greater-Than-Any-Human-Power. The term “power greater than myself” just didn’t seem to resonate as well with me as does a Power-Greater-Than-Any-Human-Power. This term, we know, leads to that word “GOD” that so many of us just can’t quite get our heads wrapped around and what it means: GOD… I found a great way to start to get to know what that word needed to mean to me… That way has been expressed in three words: Omnipresent, Omniscient, and Omnipotent… These words will be referred to as the Three O’s…
I don’t need to know all the specifics to begin… All I need is to open my mind to something other than me… With the idea that one day I hope to know this Power in a very intimate way. So, to begin, I had to learn that my mind is always Self-Talking, talking to me in my mind, in a very negative way, or Negative Self-Talking. Now I want to turn this into Negative Self-Talking into talking to something positive and powerful, greater than me. So I really am not going to do anything different from what I have been doing all my life, which is carrying on a dialogue within me, except that now I direct that talk to what I am learning to call “God”… But this God is a God that has no reference to any concept of God I have ever had… I must reinvent my concept of what I think is God… My tools are the three O’s…
As I go through the day, instead of talking to me, I talk to something other than me…
Pretty much in the beginning I just invited that Power into my mind as much as I could… Consciously reminding myself to talk to this Power, or God. I also made the decision to ask this Power into my life when I felt fear… This was my first trigger… I use these types of triggers to keep an active conscious contact with My God, a God I am coming to believe in… Triggers are important. The more triggers, the more contact and the more soundness of mind… A trigger is something I use to remind me to reach out for God… I had to get creative and find things that happen throughout the day that would remind me to talk to God… Like when I drive in the car, I put on some quiet music, or maybe none at all, but I use that time to talk to God… My words to this Power were simple at the beginning and honest… Simple like: “Can you be with me, right now? Can you show me how to feel you?” I would ask for help from this Power whenever I got tied up during the day… Here is where my greatest realizations began to take place.
Two things happened when I began to talk to this Power-Greater-Than-Any-Human-Power instead of myself… The first thing I realized is how I was in trouble a lot more than I would have even guessed! The only way I could know that is to reach out for something other than me when I was in trouble. It was at this time I realized what the wise meant when they said, “Of myself I am nothing, the Father doeth the works.” It became apparent quite quickly, even instantly, that when I talk to God I have soundness of mind… My mind goes quiet. The race stops. The second thing I came to understand is my mind goes in the gutter all the time with Negative Self-Talk… The dialogue in my head became clearer and clearer and then louder and louder…. I, by myself, have a very fault-finding mind… I seem to want to find fault automatically with people and places… I am sure this is because I never considered what the price was for these choices and the price is quite clear today: I get miserable… Then out of misery I do it even more…
Don’t panic when your mind goes into the gutter with fault-finding, negativity because you start to see how much your mind not only attacks the world but also attacks you! That is another price we pay: the way we think of others is the way we think towards ourselves When you start to realize how much trouble is in your mind, it means you’re getting better and you’re just becoming aware of what has been happening for a long time… And therein lies your freedom.
Awareness is the first step toward true change, and true change comes from connecting to a Power-Greater-Than-Any-Human-Power.
So be happy when you try this and enjoy the freedom and the great gift of coming to believe in a Power-Greater-Than-Any-Human-Power.
K.C.
This material is copyrighted and owned by Thought-Life Connection (TLC) and is not to be reproduced or used without the author’s consent. © 2012
TLC Assignment More on the Ghosts of Yesterday…
Taking action on doubt and disturbance…
Today’s application is another application of action. We’ve previously covered the principle of faith without action is dead, and equally action without faith is dead. Today we’re going to go a little more in depth about what that principle means and how to apply it.
There are times when we get caught up in our life and feel overwhelmed. We become concerned about external and internal aspects; really, all facets of our life. We don’t know exactly what is going on but we feel overwhelmed, find our selves with very little energy and very few ideas about what actions to take to improve the quality of our life. We must remember that the first and foremost action that we can take in our life is the spiritual action… To grow spiritually is to be able to quiet down the insides. We cannot function to good purpose nor make clear decisions when we’re running all the time in fear, anxiety and worry.
We need to look at certain indicators to help us recognize what actions we need to take that we aren’t taking, starting with where we are at emotionally. If we are riddled with bitterness, regret, vengefulness, or remorse, then this is an indicator of that we are caught up in our past… Trying to change something that has already taken place… Being regretful about situations that have already unfolded, taken place and been recorded in our life that we cannot change today… We wallow back and forth wishing we had taken this action or that action. The action we need to take right now in this moment is to settle with our past. We might not get to figure out all the exact details in the moment, but there has to be a way to quiet the storm right now. The way to quiet that storm is to recognize that this day is the day that we have to change our life, and what is it we are doing this day to not wallow in regret for actions that have taken place.
It’s the action that we take in the day that we are in that matters. If our past is blocking us from living today then we need to let that go.
If we have these emotions of bitterness, regret, vengefulness, or remorse then we are caught up in our past and it is haunting us… When we are caught up in our past and it haunts us, we can’t have clarity… When the consciousness of our mind is going so fast that nothing seems to settle down and we can’t get clarity about actions today, it means that we are focusing too much on what has gone down already. There needs to be the understanding that if we have a way of life now, if we have something now that we can take action in to create harmony in our inner life then everything that happened has lead us to a moment where we can find our freedom now. We all need to look inside and ask, “Do I have something inside of me and in my life that guides me on how to live, on how to be the best person that I can be, to fulfill my dreams, and to allow me to live in a world that has unlimited possibilities?” Are we embracing a way of life?
This is what I have been talking about: A way of life that guides us in the decisions that we make and the actions that we take.
A way of life that allows us to process those emotions, past history and show us the best actions that we can take for our life today. It has to do with spiritual growth… We must grow spiritually inside… We must be quiet internally in order to figure out the actions we should take. The way that we slow things down and get quiet is to have a way to recognize what it is that is disturbing us in our life right now. If it is our past, the best way to settle with it at times is to recognize that we have a way of life right now that shows us how to live that guides us in the day that we are in… Part of that way of life is: no more chaotic emotions! No more erratic emotions that disturb us and take us all over the map. We have to learn to regulate our emotions and one way to do that is to feel good about the way of life that we have today, right now, in this moment.
Embrace this way of life that is being given to us that has a moral code that tells us how to live in the day that we are in, to allow us to manifest a positive psychic change. The true change is in the way that we think and perceive the world we live in. We must perceive this world as opportunity. But, if we are haunted by our past and can’t let go of it, and keep hanging onto victim-hood, self-doubt and regret, then how can we have clarity for today? That is one of the first things that we must start with in a way of life: to let our past go. When the time is right we will settle with it… We will come to terms with it. But the first process must be: Stop engaging with our past and stop reflecting on yesterdays. The discipline becomes: No more thinking about yesterday unless there is purpose or we have a guide. If we are really caught up in our yesterdays then it definitely means that we should not talk or think about our past without a guide… Without somebody there to let us know when we are getting too caught up, looking at it the wrong way, hanging onto the wrong things. That then gives us freedom to recognize that we of our selves and by our selves can’t create that peace and harmony in our past, but we can reach out for guidance. We can then become aware of when we’re having thoughts and memories from our past that are disturbing us and disengage from them. The way we disengage from them is to think about what it is we can do today to bring harmony into our lives. Who can we call to tell them that we love them, to connect to that feeling of wellbeing? Who can we share with and spend time with that makes us feel good? Who can we help and be of service to? These are the actions we can take to quiet the disturbance from yesterdays.
In dealing with our past, initially what we need to do is set it down for right now… Until we can get our selves quiet… Until we quiet that disturbance in our mind, soul and emotions. We do this by staying in the now. We practice what it is like to live in this now as it is. A great key to use to keep us in the now is to learn to listen… Listen like our life depends on it… Listen to everybody and everything, because we are being given indicators all day long about the next actions we should take. But, if we don’t listen then we can’t hear what those actions are… If we are constantly remembering, regretting, in anxiety, feeling overwhelmed, or thinking that the life we have is not going or not gone in the direction we wanted it to go in, then we can’t be clear on what we need to do today.
The best way to quiet the disturbance today is to trust that all our life has lead up to this moment where we are embracing a way of life… This way of life is going to guide us from this point forward… We no longer have to “figure it out.” The job that we have is to be at peace in the day that we’re in.
Even when we are stressed about the future, things that are coming up on the horizon that we’re concerned about, or disturbing conflict or unresolved major issues, whatever it is, we must remember that people transform. There are two types of transformation: people who regress when bad situations happen with anxiety, havoc, and turmoil; and then people who learn how to transform in a healthy way by getting productive, figuring out how to create order out of chaos which is usually done by being present in the moment. When Charles Lindbergh flew across the Atlantic and he didn’t know if he was going to die, he said he was intensely aware of the cockpit and every little gauge, all the instruments, how the screws fit in, where the welds were… every little aspect and detail of that cockpit. Because when we’re in our last moments or even just in adversity, there is so much to see… So much of us looking for answers… When we’re looking for answers in our life they are always right in front of us.
We must apply practicing that intense presence of being in the moment we are in because we are looking for guidance… We are looking for direction… We are looking for signals to indicate what we should do; and, in order to find them we have to be present. Not only are we present but also we are actively embracing the moment we’re in with such intensity and clarity… Because we’re looking for the next little guidance that we need and it could come in the most minute way, but it could be a major component that is necessary. The way we find that component is to search and research again and again always in the moment we’re in with the completely open mind. That is how we settle with the past and stop the concern about the future… We intensify our opportunities in the day that we’re in to completely focus on the moments that are unfolding for our life because we are looking for direction. And it will always come if we stop everything, listen as if our life depends on it and pay attention to everything that happens. We’ll be taken to the next thing that we are supposed to do, and the joy will unfold for our life because the next thing we are supposed to do is so clear because of our presence in the moment we are in. Practicing being present in the moment that we are in will guide us to next steps we are supposed to take.
Much love,
K.C.
This material is copyrighted and owned by Thought-Life Connection (TLC) and is not to be reproduced or used without the author’s consent. © 2012
1. This week find the ghosts of yesterday. Find out if you’re deluding yourself. Realize you may be making an incorrect assessment. Check for realism. “More realism and therefore more honesty about ourselves are the great gains we make under the influence of Step Five.” Read the last paragraph on pg58 to pg59 in the 12×12. “As we took inventory, we began to suspect how much trouble self-delusion had been causing us.” “If all our lives we had more or less fooled ourselves, how could we now be so sure that we weren’t still self-deceived?”(12x12pg59) In Step Five we admit that “wrong thinking and action have hurt us and others,…the need to quit living by ourselves with those tormenting ghosts of yesterday gets more urgent than ever. We have to talk to somebody about them.”(12x12pg55)
2. Build a book of humility. Fill it with Omniscient moments. “That basic ingredient of all humility, a desire to seek and do God’s will…”(12x12pg72) Humility can put us back on track when we get off track. It can change just like that: One thought can get us off track; with one thought of humility, we’re back on track.
1. Corresponding application for the ‘ghosts of yesterday’:
Forming Inappropriate and Premature Emotional Attachments….
Sometimes we end up in emotional states that do not feel good. Sometimes it is because things have happened in our life that just don’t feel good. There are hard times that happen because we need to grow and it is time to walk through some emotions that we have put off or with which we have never really dealt. So, emotions are being attached to areas in our life all the time… That is the way of life… But there are times where we have attached emotions to something that is not happening the way our emotions tell us it is… What then should we or can we do? What happens when we attach emotions to something that is not really happening the way we think it is? That seems a little silly and not very intelligent.
Why would I attach emotions to areas of my life that have not been validated as being true… Or the idea I have come up with in regards to what someone has done or is doing to me… My idea of what is being done can be and is very strong and I am wrong a lot! I conclude bad ideas about people, places and situations. Then there are the worst premature inappropriate emotional attachments… I assume the worst and attach feelings to my assumptions… I attach bad feelings without checking with other people if they are seeing the same thing I am seeing. I have to wonder with self-honesty to self: How many times have I seen someone or something going what I think is the wrong way and it is my mind telling me untruth? After all is said and done I come to find out that I was wrong… None of what my mind was telling me is what was really going on… So, were these situations or people are going the wrong way? This always creates ill feelings in me. Because my ego won’t let me go back and say I was wrong and I held really bad thoughts that were not valid nor were they appropriate… I think no one really knew what I was thinking, or it would just be too embarrassing to admit, so I justify what is and always will be wrong… That is to assume the worst and then act on it… It just feels too unhealthy so I can’t bear to face it.
Or I enter into a delusional state and I get grandiose about how something is going to come about and I tell people about all these great things that are going to happen… Inside I don’t know if that is going to happen but I am on the high side of overly hopeful, only to set myself up for disappointment and the same feeling that things just don’t work out for me… Because I have attached inappropriate emotions to a premature situation. I had to learn not to say things about good possibilities until they were actually coming true then I could let others know… Plus, when something good is in the works I don’t tell people… I have learned that some people don’t like when things look good for you and not for them. They may not want to, but they can give you bad energy towards a very positive area in your life… Coupled with our good fortune may come to pass and others put a spin on our ideas that is not supposed to be there… But it creeps in because we opened the door prematurely and someone else injects his or her doubt in an area that we didn’t have… So keep the good possibilities with God and when they solidify with God others can know… Keep it with God in your heart and stay aware of your own doubt and treat that with God. We don’t need other people’s doubt or fears in our new concepts…
Today commit to being aware of how much you attach emotions to situations that have not been validated as being true…
If you have a question about somebody doing something to you that hurts you or you think is wrong… Ask them if that is what they are doing. If they say no, then until proven otherwise do not attach negative emotions to that idea that you have about them. If you think the boss is unhappy with you ask them if there is something more you should be doing… Don’t keep telling them how much you have been doing because you have concluded they were thinking you did not measure up… Just commit to holding off attaching emotions especially if the emotions are hurtful… You see, we have to learn there are areas in life where we have been hurt and that we are sensitive to and because of that, sometimes (which means most of the time) when it comes to being hurt by people or concluding that I am being hurt by people… it could be because my mind has been triggered by prior injury to think someone is hurting me today when there are not, but my fears are telling me different.
So, I go to God with these negative feelings about situations or people and wait. This I call the Emotional Hold Off… It builds emotional strength and maturity. Remember fears and emotions do feel real, but what if what causes those emotions and fears is not real? Then my emotions and fears, even though I am experiencing them and they are driving me to take actions or not take actions that are hurting my life, are nothing more then the Bogeyman… Therefore they are not real until someone else validates them as real.
So if you get ill feelings, ask a friend if they think the feelings you’re having are validated? Or are you creating them from your own false sense of perception and insecurities? And be prepared to hear the answer with God.
2. Corresponding application for the Humility Journal:
Give yourself “Love Energy” today…
To love ourselves as we are today… Is this not an act of humility? This is an important question we should all ask ourselves each day… “Have I done anything today to love myself as I am today?”
It must be part of humility to stop waiting to love myself as I am… I know that just like other things that I think are going to make me happy later in life, even though I would say I’m happy in life today, have I put loving myself off for later? If I am waiting for other things to make me happy, am I waiting to love me, also?
This is the action… We just need to look inside to answer the question HAVE I BEEN LOVING MYSELF ENOUGH LATELY? If the answer is, “I don’t know,” then that is your mission: to find ways to answer: “Yes, I have been loving to myself enough lately!”
This requires action throughout the day to find things that you love about yourself and ask your Creator to show you things that are there in your life today to love yourself about… The answer will always come… Take note of those answers. Keep them alive with thought energy… Just as we give the ones dear to us “Love Energy” even when they are not present… So we must give ourselves “Love Energy” over and over throughout the day.
If you’re reading spiritual inspiration like this today, then you have the desire to be a better person and have a better life today. Therefore you can say, “I am trying to grow in the image of my Creator today”… Is this not an act of humility?
Is that not the register for being a good person, that you actively try to live a better life each day? If the answer is, “Yes, I am trying to live a better life each day,” then the answer is also, “Yes, I can love myself as I am today.”
We must have the discipline of learning to love ourselves more and more each day… This is humility, too…
Have a moment each day that touches you. Each of us must look for these moments that touch us and makes us feel…This is also an act of humility… Look for something to touch you today to make you affirm…
“I do love me today.”
Much love,
K.C.
This material is copyrighted and owned by Thought-Life Connection (TLC) and is not to be reproduced or used without the author’s consent. © 2012
TLC Application VOCABULARY Find ‘Enjoyment’ in Your Life
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Vocabulary…
I have learned so much about how important my vocabulary is to my life… Take for instance Fear or Afraid – I never authorize those terms any more. I use the term ‘I have a concern’ or ‘I am concerned about that’… Just a simple vocabulary change like using the term concerned instead of fear… I have never had to feel fear again by my own hand and the freedom that has come with that is unbelievable…
Pleasure and Enjoyment have deep meaning for me too… All my life I thought the goal was to feel pleasure… But when you look at what pleasure is you might want to think about what you really want because the only things that please me have to do with my body sensing… Meaning things that please the body… Like it is a feeling of pleasure to eat food… But when I cook the meal I enjoy the event… It was a pleasure to drink booze then one day that changed and pleasure had become a bad habit… I found that the idea of pleasure can be totally manipulated by mind and selfish behavior… But of the things that one enjoys this is not possible…
You see, to enjoy something there has to be a sense of accomplishment. I can enjoy great company after an event, not before. I can feel a sense of pleasure from the idea of getting together with someone special but I cannot know I enjoy them until after the planned goal of having a good time with them. So, I do my best to give all I have to the time with them and when my goal is being achieved I feel enjoyment because the goal is being accomplished. After I go away from them I am able to say I really enjoyed my time with that special person…
Think about this over the week and make a list of things you enjoy… Find out what they are… Look at them… In terms of the things you enjoy… You will find the common denominator to be a planned event with a goal of doing well that requires thought energy then action energy to do well…
Then make a list of the things you find pleasure in and you will know that it is far more rewarding to seek Enjoyment rather than Pleasure all the time… Because it is up to you to feel enjoyment about your goals which come from within….
Pleasure always happens from something outside of you… remember happiness comes from within not without…. Always seek to do the things you Enjoy…
Much Love
K.C.
This material is copyrighted and owned by Thought-Life Connection (TLC) and is not to be reproduced or used without the author’s consent. © 2012
“The most common symptoms of emotional insecurity are worry, anger, self-pity, and depression.” (12×12 pg.52)
1. Look for worry, the first of the four indicators of emotional insecurity. See how worry manifests, go through it with God. It’s all about Step 2 and false dependency. Depression? Who is telling you that? Depression is self-authorized. Learn to recognize worry and turn to God when things start to look less sparkly, instead of authorizing the progression toward anger, self-pity, and depression.
Widen the hoop. Your hoop is wider than others. Realize other people are in a worse spot, and thank God that yours isn’t as tough as others. You’re taking things too seriously. For next 7 days apply this mantra daily “I can’t wait for the next great thing to happen”. Ask God to show it to you, and help you be attuned to it. Ask God to “bring something great into my life today”…and then keep looking for it. Make a daily conscious effort to laugh; remind yourself to laugh.
“Provided you hold back nothing, your sense of relief will mount from minute to minute. The dammed-up emotions of years break out of their confinement, and miraculously vanish as soon as they are exposed.”(12×12 pg. 62) “To those who have made progress in A.A., it amounts to a clear recognition of what and who we really are…”(12×12 pg. 58) “No defect can be corrected unless we clearly see what it is.”(12×12 pg. 58)
2. Look for physical responses; take note of your body as it registers ill feelings, trauma, cell memory, energy, emotional hangovers, spiritual sluggishness. Don’t delay emotional responses, expose the defects. What and who are you? You need to be aware of it, in a defect which is threatening an instinct, in order to have God remove it. God is the only source that can remove the defect and quiet the instinct. It’s a rhythmic balance of interchange that occurs by focusing on the spirit.
Apply the principle of reconnection when you feel a disconnected sensation from God. Use the principle of dependence on electricity as reconnection (12×12 pg. 36). Feel that disconnect and remember this paragraph…reach for that switch, call for God. Literally give yourself back to God. Write about the situation when you felt the disconnect, and what followed after you went to God to reconnect. That will be an application of spiritual principles applied to the mind and transformation of God.
Apply the principle of disconnection when you feel a disconntected sensation from God…Don’t believe everything you think. Discover when you find you want to disconnect from that lower voice. You do want to hear that voice, because if you aren’t aware of it, it’ll get you. Allow that voice to be, but treat it, and disconnect. Know the thoughts and feelings, but just say “Thanks for sharing” and disconnect. “Oh that’s that thing I do”…be objective. Reaffirm you are connected to God. Use the principle of dependence on electricity as reconnection (12×12 pg. 36). Write about the lower voice, what it’s trying to tell you, and how you disconnect from it. How do you reconnect to those Truths. The Truth has continuity and makes sense; then we have a shift. The best way to connect to the Truth is to hear ourselves say it.
“Lord, make me a channel of thy peace…” (12×12 pg.99).
3. Focus on the spirit: Look for the God light in other peoples’ eyes; wordlessly in your mind.Call for the God light to cease confrontation when we see conflict.
The voice of isolation…
We all must learn to become aware of what this voice sounds like within us…
The voice of insecurity is the one that comes from all the injuries that we’ve taken in our lives. It’s a voice that only has the energy of Self in it… the injured self, the sensed self. It’s not the soul of our voice… but it sounds like a soulful voice.
It is a voice of insecurity that is created purely by our selves therefore the only power within it is our own Self, but it is the Self of us that is the most concerning… The Self of us that is full of doubt… the Self of us that has lived a life where things don’t work out… the Self of us, dependent on where we come from, that maybe was looked at like we were the bad person, or maybe we were looked at as though we were the person who didn’t consider other people, or the person who created trouble or started trouble or was always in trouble…
That voice that gets created from our injuries is the voice that we must learn to expose and become aware of… Of what it sounds like in us, in what ways does it come at us, what are the mechanisms that it uses to get to us and drive us. What fears does it strike… what is the typical pattern that it runs… Learning to recognize that voice… It’s a lonely voice, it’s a very lonely voice… That’s how we recognize it. The lonely voice within us… It’s a lonely voice that is soul-ly created by the pain of our lives. That voice does not come from our mother or father. It is built solely by our three-dimensional painful experiences. We are the only ones who can hear this voice. It is the voice of isolation.
What we need to do when we hear that voice is to integrate thoughts with our Creator that disengage us from that voice. We must distinctly recognize that voice. This comes right back to awareness… Once we build an awareness of what ever it is that we want to change…we heighten our awareness of it by focusing on it and then that awareness builds us to the point where we get choice…. Because within awareness is that Third Party Consciousness, and that’s the observer. We become the observer when we decide to create awareness of this kind of thinking… So, you become the observer to the emotionally insecure voice… That voice of insecurity that is within you.
You must become the observer… you must not be concerned that it is you… It is part of you but it is not you… In order to become aware of it we must be not be afraid that we can’t get away from it… We must develop a Third Party Consciousness to it which we ask God to do for us.
That Third Party Consciousness allows us to observe the emotional insecurity voice… the Dark Voice within us that works off of memories and prior experiences that have happened, and also works off of concerns for things unfolding in the wrong way… It is the voice of insecurity, the voice of doubt, the voice of breakage, the voice of destruction, the voice of isolation. The emotional insecurity voice of isolation… that is it: the voice of isolation within all of us.
That voice of isolation…we must become familiar with it. We must go towards it. We have been running from it all our lives… it’s the voice of self-doubt… The running from it gives us a concern inside that it will come true… So we run from it for fear that if we don’t, it will catch up with us and create that which we’re most afraid of. We must run towards it… We must expose it… We must dismantle that voice. We must be able to recognize that voice so that voice has no more power… We give it power by running from it… The voice of isolation, this voice that predicts doomsday, it’s always a voice that tells us that things are going to wrong… We want to immediately be able to recognize this voice when it comes up and go directly to God with it, sooner rather than later. What we do is just start talking to God about something good in our lives or a good memory like a beautiful sunset and ask God to connect the feeling of that moment to the moment you’re in, in order to make a conscious contact right now. As we make this conscious contact we ask God to disengage us from the voice of isolation, which is exactly what happens when you ask God to be with you.
The key in all of this is to take the power out of the voice by going towards it, not away from it… When you hear it laugh at it. When you hear it know that it is just the insecurity… it is not who you are… but it is in exposing it that you take the power out of it. We must expose our weaknesses to turn them into strengths. And to laugh at them at times… That’s what this message is about: About exposing our weaknesses to recognize what to do with them so that they become our strengths.
Laughter… And widening the hoop in your life…
Widen the hoop when you feel tight today… If you have a pressing problem or you get caught up in life. Remember, you might be having a soul experience that your soul signed up for. Meaning, we all have soul experiences but most times we don’t realize it until it has already happened, and then we look back and realize that we had a soul experience … We feel better about it because it was a lesson we needed to learn and we grow from… But, while it was happening we were miserable and we fought and screamed, then we thought, “This is not fair I don’t need this.”
If we can, while we are in it, realize this is a soul experience we’re having because of the impact or intensity of emotions,then we can realize, “I am having a soul experience.” and look for the meaning and what we are supposed to learn from what ever is happening… Sometimes I capture a view of earth from space by the desire of widening the hoop, and look down from space and know that I have made my problems too constraining and I am locked up…When I have this image in my mind, I ask the question: In the scope of this world, and this universe, how big are my problems relative to all that is out there? The answer, of course, is not very big. Then I know I lost perspective. So I realign my point of view and realize I am having a soul experience that I created long ago when I didn’t have a body… So I need to go through this… I set this experience up for my soul to grow.
In the scope of this world, and this universe, how big are my problems relative to all that is out there?
Make an effort to laugh today. It is so important to laugh. I used to wait to have a belly laugh, but in life I have realized that waiting to laugh can sometimes take a long time… I know I have said, and have heard many people say, after a good laugh, “Oh, myy God! I haven’t laughed that hard in so long it felt great!” So why wait? I make a point of thinking throughout the day, “Today I want to laugh.”
Think of when you were a kid and you would fake a belly laugh really loud, then you keep doing it and before long, within seconds, you would really start to have a belly-buster laugh… Try it in front of someone; start to laugh then add to the laugh – make it louder and louder and they will look at you and then they will chuckle… When they do, point at them and laugh even harder from the gut… Then they will start to giggle, and laugh harder until you get them belly busting…
Enjoy this application! It is wonderful to make someone laugh and it will do you some good, too.
Much love,
K.C.
This material is copyrighted and owned by Thought-Life Connection (TLC) and is not to be reproduced or used without the author’s consent. © 2012
TLC Assignment, February 22-28, 2012
This week “choose between character and comfort.”
Take an action to build character and feel humility, rather than feel comfort. Humility is a desire “to seek and do God’s will” (12×12 p72). Align with your new consciousness and New Character. A truly humble person knows that nothing is out of reach. Character building with humility can include: Getting up in the morning and 1st thought is “Good morning God”. When someone asks “How are you?”; connect to God, the good life, and respond “Great.”
The good news: You never lose the New Character and principles you’ve built with God-centered Self. It’s an act of my will to see the good, be excited, exert myself toward the good life, and stay in it (12×12 p40).
The bad news: You never lose the Old Character and lack of principles you’ve built with self-centered Self. It’s an act of my will to look for, and create darkness. Don’t take over or try to control the familiar, comfortable, old darkness. Choose humility and to build the new character.
Make a Thought-Life Connection. Know the difference between thoughts and feelings. Find the feeling and the preceding thoughts. Ask God to show you warped feelings this week. We can’t get out of the dark until we become aware of the thought and the feeling; then show it to our spiritual advisor, to God, and apply spiritual principles (12×12 p75).
Taking your comfort…
Look for when you seek to act in defect believing that there is comfort in it or pleasure in it. “What we must recognize is that we exult in some of our defects. We really love them.” * That’s the riddle of our existence: We really don’t love them, we’ve convinced ourselves we love them. What we must recognize is the discomfort in acting in them… The reverse side of what we believe is comfort.
See your comfort through…. In other words, if you act in way you should not act thinking that there’s pleasure or comfort, ask God to show you the reverse side of the coin: the discomfort. For instance, thinking that if you eat the whole chocolate cake then you will feel better. But how can a cake create or effect your feelings? It is only what the cake represents that creates feelings. Eating the whole cake, in fact, creates another kind of hole: the hole of self-loathing where we are disgusted with ourselves for the action we just took.
This is the discomfort that comes with false comforts driven by our flaws, which represent our fears. So see the defect all the way through to the discomfort and then make a choice about the next action. This is the difference between the adult and the child… The adult asks God to show them the discomfort before they take an action… The child only sees the pleasure and blinds itself to the liabilities.
Exult in the fun of getting to know yourself!
Much love,
K.C.
* – The 12 Steps and 12 Traditions, Alcoholics Anonymous
Today is a day to do the right thing not matter what…
As you go through the day do whatever is asked of you…
Be of service all day with out telling anybody what you are doing…
Go out of your way to help others today if the moment arises… Give up the parking space… Slow down for cars… Hold the door open for the person behind you… be kind even if it hurts…
This is the kind of humility we are to learn and practice… “ Doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do”
Have fun…
K.C.
This material is copyrighted and owned by Thought-Life Connection (TLC) and is not to be reproduced or used without the author’s consent. © 2012
TLC Assignment Feb. 15-21, 2012 “See the Flip-Flop, Flip It Back & No Questioning”
TLC Assignment Week Feb. 15-21, 2012
Look for the Flip-Flop
See how many times you can apply the principle of Step 3, make a decision to turn your will and your life over to the care of God as YOU understood and make a decision to not Flip-Flop. (12×12 p37 ”The moment our mental or emotional independence is in question, how differently we behave.” Where do you question that your self sufficiency or independence is at stake and take back your will?):
God’s will/my will
God sufficiency/self sufficiency
On track/off track
See when you flip-flop and then apply willingness to bring it back. See if you can note when you take it back and when you make a decision to give it back.
Make this week’s goal- No questioning. When we question the things that were brought to us, like a spiritual advisor or relationships; we’re questioning God.
No flip-flopping today…
I am dependent on God until things don’t go my way and then I take it back… Not good… No more. Today I will look for when I flip flop, when I take it back… Ask for your God to show you when you take it back… “The minute my mental or emotional independence is in question how quickly I take it all back”…
Look for the moment when somebody or something does not go your way and you get upset and say something nasty or mean… Look for the feeling of everything being Ok then BAM you’re not Ok and you want to hurt something or someone.
That is the moment of change when you make the decision to stay with God and don’t take it back. Your will is to stay with God… if there is something good there find it. See how fair-weathered you are about your God and don’t be that way anymore… learn to trust. Learn to stay no matter what. Find the asset, there is one there. Think of how many times you have taken it back and started yelling or being upset and not letting it go.. Staying in anger making things worse. This time check your self. trust in your God and stay on the good path, don’t go south… You will be looking for the moment when the fight starts inside. that is the moment of flip flopping…
“Apply willingness” it is the application for treatment on this issue… Willingness is something done without reluctance.
Trust that God is here and do it without reluctance, for it is that quick to enter hell. One moment of reluctance and you may not make it… So apply this kind of willingness and watch what happens. Understand we go into hell in a less than a second and can stay there for a while before we get back all because we flip flop…
Have fun,
K.C.
Awareness of flip-flopping
This is to be aware of the moment that we all have just before we react the wrong way… We all have to learn what the “juggernaut of self-will” feels like in order to stay away from it. When we desire to make life changes we must recognize that in order for a true change to take place self-will cannot be authorized any more. In order to redirect energy we have to learn to be able recognize the negative energy of self-will. When we do this we are directed to pick up the key of willingness…
That means without hesitation we become aware of Self returning to our lives and then we offer our lives back to God or to the Universe of affirmation… Meaning we convert everything into assets.
The first action we take is to start recognizing when we flip-flop in the moment were in… When were cruising along in our day and our lives and then we see something or we hear something or somebody does something we don’t like… BAM! There is that split second to feel the energy, that flash inside our gut and to react and take it all back. This is the moment of sink or swim… you don’t have long. You either do what you always do or this time you stop. You don’t flip-flop… you hold for your God and the universe and do not yield to the negativity - and you do it without reluctance.
You, in this flash moment, trust in your God. That it is as it should be… “thy will not my will be done.” This is the practice of true willingness and when one is willing anything is possible… So think of all the areas of your life that will improve by practicing the art of willingness… Feel the energy of your Creator all around you in these moments. Reach out for your God as though the lights have just gone out and everything has gone completely dark… What do you do? You reach out and your God is there… This is the art of learning to not emotionally flip-flop…
Now you will show true independence from others and true dependence on your God… Practice throughout the day reaching out to your creator as though the lights have gone out and you will begin to know what true desire feels like in action… Learning how to build desire in action, which is willingness, creates the power to choose without doubt… When I learn to get back to God right now, over and over again then I start to also be able to make choices and not question my choice because of self-doubt that comes from continuing to act in self-will. By staying with God or my creator I began to make choices with my Creator and when you make choices with God you need not question those choices…
When I include God in my choices I am always doing the best I can…
Have fun! It can be very comforting knowing that you can choose and not have to look back and wish you did something different…
Much Love
K.C.
This material is copyrighted and owned by Thought-Life Connection (TLC) and is not to be reproduced or used without the author’s consent. © 2012TLC Applications February 16, 2012 The Universe and Perspective
Thursday, February 16, 2012
The Thought-Life Connection (TLC) Workshop on February 15th discussed the Way Of Life found in the 12 Steps that is applicable to anyone who wants to change their life for the better. We discussed the need for our gaining a new perspective, looking out from our center into our universe. Below are two applications that will help in acheiving this goal. Review and contemplate these until the assignment about ‘flip-flopping’ is posted with the new apps in the next couple of days! HAVE FUN!!!
Who are you to the Universe?
Look as far as you can see… Look up and think of what is past your vision – imagine what is out there… Now look left as far as you can see – think past your vision and imagine how far it all goes… Now look right and think how far does it go? Just imagine… Look down through the earth to the other side and imagine, how far does it go?
Now look forward and imagine what’s out there and how far does it go? During the day just think for a second, and imagine the earth just flipping over to the other side and now you can see the night sky with the endless stars…. During the day know always… There past the blue sky that comes from the sun’s reflection of the blue oceans and that’s why the sky is blue… So when a child asks why is the sky blue? You have something to tell them…
And now, look back and realize you have come full circle and seen the entire universe… Now the most important part of it all: Realize YOU are the center of the universe and all of it extends from you… All of it extends from you…
Now who are you? You are ONE with it all because it all extends from you…
Getting a broader perspective…
In terms of the economy right now and what’s happening in your personal life… Sometimes we get caught up in our own little world, and the world gets so small… Especially when we get into our problems and we can’t see any solution… We’re just engulfed in our problems. We’re overwhelmed with stress, we’re walking with anxiety, and we’re shaking inside, we don’t know what to do about it and the world just gets smaller and smaller… All of a sudden we find ourselves irritated by everything and everybody…
What has happened is, we’ve lost perspective… To get a new perspective we widen the hoop and we think about: if you live in America and you were born in America, think about how fortunate you are and the amenities you get to have in your life… Like a vehicle, food and shelter, and a nice home, good clothes… People in Third World countries spend their whole day looking for a meal, maybe even miss a meal a day, and they do this every day, seven days a week. You know, we complain about going to work, we complain about having to work so hard to pay our bills, that we’re not getting paid enough, and there are people out there begging for food… begging for money to buy food… no clothes, no shoes…
We need to get perspective. It isn’t about being imbalanced; it’s about creating balance. It isn’t about feeling self-righteous.
When we get caught up in our own little world, it’s about finding a way to breathe a little bit. And remember that everyone struggles… On page 114 in the 12 Steps &12 Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous it states in there that “our basic troubles are the same as everyone else’s.” It is such an important principle to remember when you are feeling the anguish of life. It is important to just breathe and realize that your troubles are the same as everyone else’s. When you feel that anxiety and you’ve gotten caught up in your emotions, and the world is just getting tight and it’s hard to breathe, you have to recognize that you’ve lost perspective. And, it’s very easy to get perspective. Go on the internet; look up some Third World countries… Find a way just for the purpose of perspective… Maybe send a dollar to a charity…
But, widen the hoop. Think about what other people are doing and then widen the hoop further. Imagine your planet from space and realize this planet has been unfolding for five billion years… In the essence of time what are our problems about based on the unfolding of this planet at five billion years? They mean nothing… Widen that hoop… People struggle every day… Smile and laugh… This is the life you have… Don’t wait for tomorrow. We can’t afford to be stressed today…
Laugh today… Get perspective… Make it a point to see how other people feel… The struggles they go through. Be empathetic…
We sit here sometimes and we lose perspective… It’s always out there… There are people who are living a comfortable life who don’t stress out… Remember that too because you’ve got to see everything. There are people living better than us and worse than us. We’re trying to get balance. Widen the hoop… Consider and ask God to show you that you’ve lost perspective and ask God and let God know that you’ve lost perspective and to show you how to see those things to uplift yourself.
Much Love,
K.C.
This material is copyrighted and owned by Thought-Life Connection (TLC) and is not to be reproduced or used without the author’s consent. © 2011, 2012
