We are our own best Valentine!
I had a beautiful thought in the middle of a gym workout (2/1/2006) that I want to share with you. Out of the blue it occurred to me how nice it was that I have a really lovely vision for a high level love filled romantic relationship. Then I thought about how I sometimes (more often than I care to admit) get into low level thinking about why I’m not manifesting that for myself. Why have I found myself in the position to help other people with their relationships but yet I don’t have one of my own? You probably know; the what’s wrong with me, pity pot thinking that is so insidious.
In the next moment I realized that every time I sink into that sort of thinking I also have the opportunity to remember how great it is that I even have a vision for a positive, loving relationship in the first place. Ah, the flexibility and fluidity that is inherent in the power to think never ceases to amaze me. I didn’t always know this however. Before I learned about the human, psycho-spiritual, design from some remarkable teachers, I would ruminate and marinate in my pity party - believe me, it was no party!
It’s far better for me to be grateful for my imagination than to be disappointed that my life doesn’t match it. Then it occurred to me how much luckier I am to be single with great vision than married with a poor vision. Gratitude feels so much healthier than disappointment. There is not a person alive who can’t feel the difference - it is one of the miraculous aspects of our human design - aka: our birthright.
It is our thoughts, coupled with consciousness, that create an experience for us, in each and every moment, asleep or awake. No matter what happens to us, we are the ones who give us the EXPERIENCE of it.
If we get a speeding ticket on the way to work we can either give ourselves the experience of a terrible awful world that makes us pay for our mistakes or we give ourselves the experience of gratitude for being stopped before something really awful happened to us. The choice is always ours, whether we realize it or not. We have the ability to believe in or ignore what we think! What an amazing design we are!!
When my clients complain that their husband works too long and too hard outside of the home they can give themselves the experience of having a husband who cares enough about his family to work hard and long for them instead of sneaking out to a bar with the guys. I’m not suggesting positive thinking - you’ll never believe yourself if you tell yourself what you wish you could think- that’s outside-in. It’s about our ‘out of the blue’ thinking that we believe to be true and accurate, which never is because there are always variables we are clueless about. However, what we believe to be true is up for grabs.
Have you ever thought one thing was true one day and then the very next day you saw it very differently? I think if we all reflected on that question we could come up with at least one instance to prove the point. What about that email you wrote in a moment of anger but luckily wisdom led you to leave it as a draft and the next morning as you re-read it before hitting send you felt enormous gratitude for the wisdom that kept you from hitting send the night before. You realized that would have led you down a rabbit hole no one would want to dive into.
Our thoughts change and then our experience of reality changes. Which one is the right thought? Whatever thought we’re having in the moment seems to be the right one. But it’s just our personal reality masquerading as a static, never changing, always true and right reality, which is not true! The only thing on this planet that is always true, right, and unalterable is the FACT that we think.
The Principles of Mind Thought and Consciousness explain why thoughts appear real and accurate. Whether we know about them, understand them, or care about them, they are always true, right and unalterable. Principles come before thought. We can think about them but our thoughts don’t create them. The Principle of gravity would be one example. It has always existed but humankind did not always know it. At one time the world was thought to be flat and no one paid attention to the fact that things dropped rather than floated.
The Principles behind the human experience are another example: Mind, Thought and Consciousness were not created by anyone’s imagination. They are not a theory. They are not a prescription for how to live. They are a description of the human experience of life. We are not cameras or recorders walking through life taking in what is out there (outside-in) in some stagnant reality. We are like artists with invisible thoughts acting like brushes and a paint palette.
Your thoughts are like the artist's brush. They create a personal picture of the reality you live in ~Sydney Banks
These Principles have always been here. How else have we been able to experience ourselves and the world around us? Understanding how they work in tandem opens up all sorts of possibilities for humanity. They help us understand why we and others behave the way we do - because thoughts appear as reality, in the moment we have the thought on our mind. They help us realize how innocent people are, when they don’t understand how this works. It’s easier to forgive them. We don’t have to forgive the act nor trust them in the future even though they are not inherently bad people they just don’t understand (psychologically innocent) the difference between reality and their thinking. I could go on and on about the advantages to gaining this understanding for yourself but perhaps the most important is the realization that we are already LOVE. We are already that which we seek from others. LOVE comes from us not at us. The only thing that can cover up the feeling of love is our negative, judgmental, critical thinking, of ourselves or of them!
Once Gravity was discovered, all sorts of things were possible to attain. Aeronautics made it possible to travel distances never before imagined. Once the Principles behind human experience were uncovered (1973) it became possible to recognize that thinking was an ability; and that we could use (freewill) this ability, like a tool, for our betterment or our demise.
We can think that we’re unlucky in love or we can think that we just haven’t connected with someone who resonates with us yet. We can love our imagination that conjures up a beautiful relationship full of loving kindness or we can long for love that is missing from our lives. The choice is always there whether we recognize it or not.
Now, I’m not suggesting that you make up a pretty thought or some other form of positive thinking. What I am saying is that we are free to accept our healthy, happy thoughts and dismiss our unhealthy, torturous thoughts. It’s not even a matter of accepting or dismissing. It’s a matter of understanding how thought works and then we realize there is literally no personal thought that is worth paying attention to. It is WISDOM that tells us what is TRUE. Wisdom is quiet but grounded in truth which always takes into account what is best for everyone involved. Wisdom is impersonal and filled with common sense, and failsafe. Personal thinking, will often lead us astray if we pay attention to the thoughts that cover up our inherent feelings of love, understanding and compassion.
We have an amazing gift of thought to be used any way we choose. Again, I’m not referring to the personal thought process thinking that I, Lori, am wonderful. I’m referring to the impersonal Universal Mind that we are all a part of and we all partake of. To be a part of Universal Mind is awe-inspiring. How can anyone resist loving this aspect of one self? It’s who we really are. It’s the spiritual nature of what everyone on this planet is a part of.
When we look at it this way, who wouldn’t love themselves? When we look at it this way, it’s easy to love ourselves with all of our personal weaknesses and short comings. Then, it is also easy to love others with all of their personal weaknesses and all their personal shortcomings. Because underneath, is pure consciousness, uncontaminated by personal thinking (beliefs, judgements, criticisms, desires, imagination, etc. etc.)
Lori Carpenos
2/1/06
Edited: 2/12/2022
