Here’s a pattern from my own life that took me a long time to see:
I was looking for what I didn’t want to find.
Decades ago, I’d go visit my family for Thanksgiving or Christmas, and before I even got in the car, I’d have already started running scenarios. I’d be thinking about how my family might be disrespectful. How they might be unkind. How they might disappoint me again.
I’d arrive already braced.
What I came to understand, painfully and beautifully, is that my mind WANTED to find the disappointment. My mind wanted to find the disrespect.
Why?
Because I believed I was unlovable, and I wanted the proof of it.
At the same time, I didn’t want the proof of it. I didn’t want to be hurt. I didn’t want to feel rejected. I didn’t want another Thanksgiving where I left feeling smaller than when I arrived.
Yet I was looking for that very thing. Because in some hidden corner of my mind, I needed it to be true.
This is what A Course in Miracles calls “seeking what you do not want to find.”
Many of us are doing this. With family. With relationships. With our bodies. With our finances. With our work. We’re scanning constantly for the proof that confirms our worst belief about ourselves.
And then we wonder why our life feels the way it does.
Here’s what made a real difference for me: noticing the scanning.
Noticing the bracing. Noticing the way I’d already decided what was going to happen. Noticing the part of me that needed to be right about the disappointment.
Once I could see the pattern, I could interrupt it. I could ask the Higher Holy Spirit Self for a new way to enter the room. A new way to see the family. A new way to receive whatever showed up.
The pattern dissolves the moment we stop feeding it.
If you’d like to do this work with us, my Change Your Mind About the World series begins May 30. Early-bird BONUSES end Monday, May 25. And if you’d like to start right away, my FREE Forgiveness Workshop is happening that same Monday, May 25.
We can do this!
LATEST PODCAST EPISODE: Annihilated by Love with James Twyman What if we’ve been studying spirituality our whole lives and quietly missing the actual experience? This week I sit down with my longtime friend James Twyman about his latest book – and an inheritance that traces back to 13th century women mystics most of us have never heard of. Why does the path to direct mystical experience still terrify us 700 years later? Who would we be if we let love consume the small self we’ve been protecting?
New Series: Change Your Mind About the World – with Alan Cohen, James Twyman, Michael Mirdad and Lisa Natoli – early-bird BONUSES until May 25th. Click here for more info.
