January Weekend at USM

My peace stayed with me for several days after the December weekend at USM and about two weeks later I had another dream about my mom. In this dream, we were at her house and we were both being healed in this beautiful golden light. It was like her whole house was filled with the light and we just bathed in it together. I woke up feeling so complete and happy.

After New Year's, I went back to LA for the January weekend at USM. I was starting to feel used to the routine and was noticing and accepting the different feel and flow of each weekend. January marked the beginning of a new quarter and our class this quarter is an introduction to the foundational theories of spiritual psychology. This weekend felt a bit more cerebral than the first three. Ron lectured about the different levels of our beings, noting that unresolved issues keep you from knowing yourself at the Authentic Self level. The first four levels (physical, mental, emotional and unconscious) together make up the ego. So Ron's statement makes sense to me because our issues keep us in the ego level: when we're triggered by an issue, we're focusing on our minds or our bodies or our emotions. The Authentic Self transcends these levels and when you reside here you are in a place of love.

The first theory we learned about was Reality Therapy which is based on the physical level, focusing on your actions and behaviors. When examining our actions, we are confronted with inaction. Inaction keeps our hope, our vision of how things could be, alive and protects us from risking failure - while the old saying "nothing ventured, nothing gained" is true, "nothing ventured, nothing lost" is also true because if we never try in our minds we always could have been whatever our dream is. Inaction keeps our dreams alive in our minds but not in our reality. Changing your behavior with Reality Therapy forces confrontation with your issues. As you resolve more and more of your issues, you start to see more positive results in the physical world.

In an in-class exercise in Reality Therapy, I realized that I was a victim of "hopeful" thinking and inaction. I had performance anxiety about trying new things and practicing my newly-embraced psychic abilities. Old scripts kept popping up in my mind : "You're doing it wrong" and "I'm not good enough" and "It's not okay to speak my truth." I wish I could say that these phrases are now gone from my thinking, but they are not. I released a lot of the emotion around them, but these beliefs feel more deeply ingrained than any pattern I've confronted so far. All I can say is that I took the edge off them and when they pop up now I can bring my awareness to them in a way that I couldn't before - I can evaluate them without judgment and make a conscious choice about whether to believe them or not. The good news is that I'm not automatically believing them and getting upset. (Later in the weekend, we each received a bumper sticker from a USM grad that reads "You don't have to believe everything you think" and I can really relate to that sentiment now!)

In a later exercise, I examined one of the phrases that came up earlier: it's not okay to speak my truth. In the past, I have held myself back fearing . . .well, I don't know what I was so afraid of. I just know that I was locked in silence and rarely voiced my opinions unless they agreed with others' opinions. I was rarely the dissenting vote and never played the Devil's Advocate. In this exercise, I realized that recently in a personally challenging situation, I was strong, clear, took a big risk , and spoke my truth clearly and honestly. In class, I recognized and accepted myself as the person I'd always wanted to be when I grew up. Wow. I shed a lot of tears on that one - it seemed it was almost harder to see the beauty and strength in myself than it was to see the weakness and fear. But the objective evidence was there and I was who I wanted to be. I was living it in my world without even trying. And now I saw it for myself. No more damsel in distress, waiting to be rescued, I can do my own rescuing, thank you very much. I was changing before my very eyes.

Our issues come from judgments about ourselves and our circumstances. Based on the number of issues that have surfaced for me since October, I'd say that I have been fairly busy judging just about everything that has ever happened to me. How did I ever get through school? When did I have time to take care of my kids?! Of course, the judging is so swift and unconscious, we could do it in our sleep (and we probably do!). All this judging is just an indicator of where I've been spending my time -- in the ego level of my being. If I'd been residing in my Authentic Self, I wouldn't have been judging myself so completely or so harshly (or at all).

Before the end of the weekend, Ron reminded us that all judgments are a lie. If we are living in acceptance (which is what we are doing when we reside in our Authentic Self), we don't make judgments. Then we act out of love. Here, we can experience more humor, joy and enthusiasm than is possible in the ego level of the personality and our aliveness goes up. I am counting on the cumulative effect of addressing and releasing many small issues to bring me gradually to that place of residing in my Authentic Self. By releasing old judgments and not making new ones, I feel like I'm creating space to be more of my true self. The fewer issues I have, the fewer anchors I have to my ego level of awareness and the more I can transcend my ego and live vibrantly in my Authentic Self.

Based on the changes in my behavior that I'm seeing, it might be happening already.