Hello

My Story

Making My Mind My Friend

The Inside Job

"You may believe that you are responsible for what you do, but not what you think. The truth is that you are responsible for what you think because it is only at this level that you can exercise choice. What you do comes from what you think."

 "You are much too tolerant of mind wandering and are passively condoning your mind's mis creations." You are free to believe whatever you choose, and what you do attest to what you believe." A Course in Miracles.

It has taken years to understand where my troubles begin and where my healing occurs, my mind and my thinking. My perceptions (the way I think) have dictated every happening and its outcome in my life.

Out of desperation, I have learned to seek more profound healing. Perception is the great determiner of feelings, and feelings drive us to act. If I remember to exercise how I allow myself to perceive (think about) life, I have recovered control of my life.

In the early years of my 'recovery,' I often heard in the Twelve Steps rooms, 'healing is an inside job' or 'addiction is a disease of perception'. Both were confusing initially, but they had a ring of truth and provoked the thought, 'I do not understand what that means, but there is something in that for me.'

The Inside Job; Perception

Perception is how we think about a particular thing, person, or situation. If we perceive something that creates a disturbing response, we can change how we see the problem, person, or thing. If we can change how we see it, our feeling about it changes and our response to it alters, leading to a new life.

Changing how we think takes a lot of work, commitment, and effort. BUT… It is worth it. It is an inside job because no one can see the way we change our thoughts. I think of it as what happens to the caterpillar within the chrysalis. No one sees the process of changing perception, just the result.

I grew up believing my dad was some monster and his purpose in life was to make sure I never enjoyed my life, had fun, or felt loved. My freedom came from changing my outlook on him and his purpose.

Through a lot of cognitive therapy, healing your inner child workshops, A Course in Miracles studies, Twelve Step work, and a ton of reading, I have found personal freedom. Forgiveness! I learned to look for, "Your true healing lies in your identifying with your sameness." I do not remember where I read those words. They, too, became the words I did not know the meaning of for a long time but knew intuitively to hold onto them.

In the beginning, I looked for the places where my dad and I were alike in all the things we had done wrong and all the fear that we shared. It wasn't easy because there were things my dad had done that I would never do. I landed on the idea that it wasn't the 'act' that I was to identify with but the fear that evoked the act. It brought me relief. I had been looking with my ego's eyes.

It wasn't until I realized that even though we did share the same fears, that was not the pearl I needed to find. WE WERE BOTH CHILDREN OF GOD, AND AT OUR CORE UNDERNEATH ALL THE FEAR, WE WERE, AND WE ARE THE LOVE THAT GOD CREATED US TO BE. With that, I began to heal. No one got to see any of the process, just the man I've become as a result.