TLC Assignment for the week of January 26-February 1, 2012
Step Two in the 12&12 of AA says “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” This helps us to recognize that we are a power and therefore need a Power Greater than Self to restore us to sanity. Sanity is described as soundness of mind. The 5th paragraph in Step Two talks about quitting the “debating society” and says that all we need is an “open mind.” We invite a Power into our minds to quiet the mind, and open the mind to something other than the Power of Self. Read the TLC Applications below and then write on the assignment given here. Post your realizations, findings, in the Comments section below this post.
Every 15 minutes ask a Power-Greater-Than-Any-Human-Power to open your mind, kick Self out, and come to believe in a Power Greater than yourself. We invite God in and go quiet.
Give credit for the good things to God, the one who provided them. Acknowledge and affirm with your creator that you can’t wait for the next great thing to happen.
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 cant 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 than I have been doing all my life, which is carrying on a dialogue within me, accept 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 then 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.
Spiritual Checklist…
If you’re feeling a little off-track… things have been a little dull lately… nothing seems exciting at all… you find yourself arguing and feeling kind of irritable… everybody’s bothering you…
We should all have a spiritual checklist that we use from all the way when we feel like we’re getting caught up to a scared realization that we have fallen into depression… and we wonder how long this bout of depression is going to last this time… or maybe it seems like in the last few years it’s just been overall a sad state of depression that you’ve been going through… and you can’t even remember the last time you’ve been happy.
Of course, this is an opportunity to look at both spectrums from I’m a little off kilter to I haven’t been happy in years. “I haven’t been happy for years” means you have lost all perspective and is a total lie… and this is what is called absolutely Pride In Reverse… where we can beat ourselves into an extremely unhealthy state of life. As far as losing perspective do not evaluate your life in big brush strokes about how you have been feeling for years when you are in a negative or dark state. This is not the time to do a moral inventory… as a matter of fact this is the time to not do a moral inventory. After all, you’re never going to solve a problem in your worst state that you created.
So, let’s get back to a reasonable perspective… and let’s say you’re a little off track right now. First things first: How is your communication in your mind with your Creator been lately? How often have you been feeling for the presence of your Creator in your mind? How often have you been asking for thoughts from your Creator… what kind of thoughts from your Creator that you should be having in your mind? When was the last moment that you checked your feelings with your Creator… to ask if these are the feelings that your Creator would want you to have right now about this person or that relationship? How has your spiritual reading been… how much spiritual reading have you been doing lately? How much quiet time have you been giving yourself lately to meditate? Who have you been talking to about your emotional state in your life right now… have you been reaching out for help? Have done an asset list lately? Are you recognizing positive things when they happen and maximizing the good feelings out of them? Have you been talking to people about good things going on in your life? Is there anything that you’re passionate about or are you creating anything in your life… like what is your current creative endeavor right now? Have you been expressing love to the people you love in your life lately? Have you been living in regret about something in your past?
Have you done anything nice for anybody lately? If you’ve answered yes when you should’ve said no… and answered no when you’ve should’ve been answering yes…. Then you now know what to do.
First Action First is get back to talking to God right now in your mind. Maintain as much communion as you can on a conscious level for the next few days…make a conscious list of the assets in your life that have come together over the last year. Ten assets a day for seven days is what the doctor is ordering. Start your reading today… read some form of a spiritual book today. After your reading leave yourself equally the same amount of time to contemplate what you just read… for you will learn more in contemplating one principal for a half-hour than the information you could gather from a reading a book full of a thousand principles… the knowledge you gain in the half-hour of contemplation would not even fit into a thousand books of information. Make sure that you make a connection to somebody who knows you and knows what you’re about… and let them know about the commitment you have made to raise your conscious contact and to improve your spiritual growth. Let them know the checklist you’ve created for your life and make a commitment with them to stay updated on this checklist. Make sure you do something nice for somebody else today. Trying to get back on track on your own is next to impossible since you’re the one who got you off-track. We all need outside help… plus when you ask people to join your endeavor to be happy and grow spiritually you help others to want to do the same thing. So, don’t be shy about including other people on this kind of endeavor… you’ll be surprised at how many people have been waiting for you to reach out to them.
We all need a checklist that gets us back to where we want to be… have fun and don’t ever be too hard on yourself. Remember… nobody should love you more than you have learned to love yourself and nobody should be giving you more love than you have learned to also give yourself.
Much love,
K.C.
Sometimes I feel like I need to shut my brain off…
Question from e-mail: Is there any brain “science” yet that explains why we have obsessive thoughts? Sometimes I feel like I need to shut my brain off from always being focused on subjects of concern that are yesterday’s news! In other words, letting go…why is it so hard?
Answer: As far as what is going on with your head, as in being negative and still wanting to escape, this is a good thing because you are, for the first time, becoming aware of your injured fault-finding mind… Your mind is doing nothing different than it has always done. You’re just becoming aware of it for the first time…. You can’t be free from something you can’t see…
The next step is treatment… Going to God with your thoughts and asking them to be redirected to the thoughts that God would want you to have…. Good thoughts, good feelings and good actions can now be put where the bad stuff is by just asking for the God thoughts when you become aware of the bad ones… So don’t panic when you start to become aware – be happy. For the first time you are seeing what has blocked you all your life… Now the thoughts can change, with the help of God, by taking them to God and asking God to give you the thoughts that you should have….
Much love,
K.C.
