Are ants running through your mind? Ants – an acronym for automatic negative thoughts. We’re told in A Course in Miracles that we have a choice between two voices, but we really have only one choice because ego is almost always on automatic pilot! The voice of ego is like a chatty Cathy in our mind that chatters away constantly and incessantly about everything we think, say, see or do. So it’s time to do some mental pest control. This inner work of bringing awareness to our thoughts is ongoing, and it never ceases to amaze me that it never ends! In the last several years I’ve felt the inner training of bringing an increasing level of awareness to those ordinary thoughts, those mundane thoughts, those thoughts I think throughout the day. Free will is the freedom to choose what you will allow your mind to dwell on. The workbook of the Course basically teaches us mental pest control. The first half reveals those pests in our mind, and the second half teaches us to choose again. It was a breakthrough moment for me several years ago when I realized that I could let go of “my” thoughts and be available to hear the thoughts of God, which are my “real” thoughts. The problem is that we’re attached to “my” thoughts. We think “my” thoughts are important. We think “my” thoughts are thoughts that really need to be thought. Some of these “my” thoughts are about my body, my bank account, me, myself and I. My thoughts are all about myself. I was prompted to this from NTI: “Think not for yourself. Remember that it is your thinking that has brought you to the point of needing healing. (Yeah, Busted!) Relinquish your own thought, and trade it for My thought. Lay down your own thought now, and I will fill you up with My thought.” It goes on to say, “You will seem to forget My thoughts completely for a time. Do not let that distress you.” This is important because when we are aware of, “Oh My God! My mind is infested with ants!” ---- then we start beating ourselves up: “Oh, I’m such a lousy spiritual student! When am I going to get it? I’ve been doing this for years and my inner teacher is still talking to me about all those ants running through my mind! I mean, really Sheryl, come on!” When we let these thoughts distress us, we’re still listening to the voice of the small, limited, not good enough self. Holy Spirit goes on to say through NTI: “The thinking you do apart from Me cannot hurt you. It can only delay your healing for a little while. Now is a new moment! You help yourself by choosing My thoughts again now.” (NTI Luke 10. 6-22) Our thoughts imprison us, they keep us in hell, and only by letting them go can we experience freedom. These thoughts I am thinking about _____ are keeping me in hell. In these “Oh My God. I’m Free!” sessions, we are learning to allow HS to use these areas of addiction and compulsion to set us free. These areas in our lives where we feel imprisoned, frustrated and stuck can be training tools to heal our mind. We experience freedom through the willingness to bring awareness to the thoughts around these things that we do. Anything that we do compulsively (and yes, listening to the toxic chatty Cathy in our mind is something many of us are addicted to!), here we can learn to ask ourselves: Is this thought about food, my body, money or my neighbor…Is this thought helpful to my spiritual development? Is this thought helpful to experience freedom? If I look in the mirror and start thinking about how I am so fat, ugly, old, (insert your own), are these thoughts helpful to set me free from my small, limited self? No. Such thoughts keep us imprisoned and in hell. Again, no need to beat up on ourselves, we simply recognize that we are listening to the voice of lies. So now we’re ready for the 3 steps to mental pest control: First, I bring awareness to what I am thinking. As I said this in today’s session, I heard the inner voice say, “No, first be aware of what you’re feeling.” Okay, so if I am aware that I am feeling angry, sad, depressed, etc…this can lead to…Ah…what am I thinking about? And, is this thought helpful? The way we can bring Heaven to earth is through the willingness to be truly helpful. The work begins at home, in my mind. Before we can be truly helpful in the world and to one another, we must first be helpful to ourselves, and we do this by bringing awareness to our feelings, which takes us to our thoughts and then, Ah…are these thoughts helpful to my spiritual growth? I like to think of it as spiritual maturity, which is the process of evolving into remembering who I really am. So once I am aware of the thoughts I am thinking, I can then ask myself, “Am I willing to let these thoughts go, or do I want to remain attached to them?” Either choice is okay! Holy Spirit says to us now, “Hey I’m here. If you aren’t ready to choose Me now, I’ll wait until you change your mind.” So, let’s say that right now I recognize that I am feeling angry. Then when I bring awareness to my thoughts, I realize that I’m thinking thoughts about that person who pissed me off! Okay, Sheryl you know what the next step is, so are you willing to let this go? No, I’m not willing to let this go, at least not in this moment! Give me a few minutes! And this is okay. Recognize though, that you have a choice. The 3 steps to mental pest control: 1) bring awareness to my feelings and thus “my” thoughts. 2) become willing to let go of attachment to “my” thoughts. 3) choose again with willingness. Review six in the workbook of A Course in Miracles gives us a wonderful example of this practice. Here we are told that any thought of God can release us from every form of bondage. It essentially says that when you are tempted to forget who you are (and we do this with our fear and limitation thoughts), hasten to proclaim your freedom by saying: This thought I do not want. I choose instead... I am not a body. I am free. I am still as God created me. I can “choose instead” to repeat the workbook lesson of the day, or any thought that redirects my mind to God, and let it take the place of what I thought before. A participant in the session brought up that she would also “own it” as in owning her thoughts rather than projecting them onto others and blaming. That’s great, and is actually inherent in the practice in the sense that, when we’re not aware of our thoughts, then we automatically project and blame. We need all 3 steps in the process because I can be aware that I’m feeling anger, and I can look at my thoughts as to why: “I’m angry because you did this to me!” Here, I am still looking outside my mind for cause. Healing comes through willingness to take the next step: “I don’t really want to listen to this thought about you anymore. This thought is keeping me in prison and in hell. I choose instead…” This morning I read something that a celebrity said, “The first thing I do is look at the news to see what kind of day I’m going to have…what kind of hell I’m going to have today.” She said this in reference to reading news about herself. Her comment suggests that she lets the world outside of her determine the way her day is going to go. My inner teacher brought to my awareness that many people do this. Maybe we let the numbers on the scale, or the numbers in our bank account, or something one of our kids says or does, determine our state of mind and our day. It’s not about the numbers, it’s not even about the thoughts that we think, it is about being willing to let them be used to redirect me to the thought of Love/Peace/God. Again I defer to NTI: “Your goal now is freedom, and you will succeed in your goal by letting go of every thought that would keep you imprisoned. For the hellish thoughts within your mind are your prison, and only by letting them go can you be free. Listen to Me. I am sharing the secrets of your imprisonment and your freedom. It is not My will that you be imprisoned. It is My will that you be free. Listen to Me. Accept my will as yours, and open your prison doors.” (NTI Matthew 5:29-30) If we have ants or other assorted pests in our house, we may call an exterminator. And so it is with mental pest control, we need Divine help but we must make the call. This thought I do not want, I choose instead…is a call. Crying Help! is a call. My point is that free will involves making a choice. GetAntControl may be great for your home ant removal, but for Mental Pest control: Today, Spray your mind with Ants BeGone by GetHolySpiritPestControl
Posted on: Wed, 30 Apr 2014 01:17:28 +0000
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