TLC Application 06|24|2011 “Allergic Reaction”

Most people understand that certain substances can trigger an allergic reaction in the body. What far fewer people understand is that negative thoughts — anger, worry, self-pity, depression — can produce the exact same phenomenon. Once they get into the body, they take over. And your human willpower alone will not break them. Understanding this is not a reason to despair. It is a reason to stop fighting with your own limited resources and reach for something greater.

The Double-Edged Sword of Negative Thought Patterns

Not only can a person be the victim of a mental obsession so powerful that their human will cannot break it — but they can also be the victim of their own thoughts that change the polarity of their body. This is what we call a physical allergy. If you put alcohol or drugs in your body, your body is going to take over. But by the same token, if you put anger, worry, self-pity, or depression in there, the same effect is going to happen. You are going to have an allergic reaction to it. And then you have no will to resist its demands.

Once negative thoughts get into your body, they have completely taken over. And by yourself, unaided, with your human will, you will never break it.

The Surrender Point

For a period of time, it seems like the sole job is to not go to the past, not go to the future, and stop listening to any negative opinions that arise internally. Which basically means: stop listening to the old self. Stop trusting what the wounded mind tells you. Too much has gone on, too much trauma has taken place — too much of whatever it is that has gone on — where we really, truly cannot trust what comes to us automatically.

When that understanding is there, that is the surrender point. That is the “end of the old and the beginning of the new” — where we are now reaching for something outside of ourselves, trusting a Power that we are coming to believe in as a guide for life. And that is a whole trust. It does not require any action. It is just: live and let live.

Live and let be what is there. Stop fighting and resisting it for a period of time.

Self-Confidence as a Liability

Self-confidence, in this context, is a liability. Because self-confidence means we are still relying on the same mind that produced the problem. What is needed is God-confidence. The only way to get God-confidence in there is the removal of self, and the removal of the opinion of self. Stop listening to yourself and the opinions that you have of yourself or of this life, because they are destructive.

Unless it is positive, you have no purpose in listening to whatever is coming into your head.

When destructive or anxious thoughts — this life of worry and prejudice and anxiety — becomes the dominant frequency, that means we are in the wrong realm and listening to the wrong voice. We are listening to the character that got us to the point of needing help. So we have to stop going to that character for guidance.

How Long Does It Take?

Pick a window — say, one year — of no longer going to yourself for direction. It might take six months before you get one day where you do not enter into the picture. You will have to work hard for six months on a conscious effort to feel one day of genuine relief. But that day comes. And when it does, there is a recognition: “I have stopped listening to me and I am engaging with a Power Greater than me. What a relief! What a joy! This world is a good place that I can live in. I do not need to resist anybody or anything.”

How can you trust your opinion anymore? And where would a change take place — where could a philosophy or a way of life enter — if you still rely on what comes to you automatically? The decision to stop listening to the negative self is a vow. Weigh it on your own scale: does what is currently coming to you produce good results or negative results? If the scale is more on the negative side, why not take the step and say: “I am no longer going to listen to me” — and see if something else cannot happen here?

See if some kind of energy — which we call a Power-Greater-Than-Any-Human-Power — can start to show you the miracles that can take place if you just get out of the way.