Sometimes when I’m counseling someone who’s really wrapped up in a negative pattern of self-abuse and self-sabotage, I’ll say something that surprises them.

Look, you’re not ready to give this pattern up yet. I respect that. I have felt that way too.

I mean it. I’ve been right there – filled with resistance, reluctance, not ready.

So here’s what I offer instead.

What about setting a liberation date for yourself?

Pick a date. Any date. Say, okay, my liberation date is October 1st.

From now until then, I’m going to allow the self-medication and the self-abuse and all these patterns to just express, to play themselves out.

But come that date, I’m going to get real.

I’m going to go for the spiritual healing. I’m going to learn to work in the invisible. I’m going to stop pushing density. I’m going to stop playing small.

I’m really going to go for it. I’m going to be the lightworker I was born to be and become truly helpful in this world.

I’m going to accept the atonement for myself then.

Until then, I’m just going to play these patterns out and learn what I can. And when the date comes, I’ll share the benefits of my healing and expansion.

For now, I’ll only share the painful learning.

When I ask people what date they’d like to set for their decision to liberate, to stop playing small, most say now.

Not everyone. Not everyone decides to really, truly go for it right then, but many do.

This is something no one can give us. Only we can decide we’ve had enough.

Here’s the pattern I hear constantly: why am I cycling back down to the same old stuff? This is the world of contrast.

If we’re not done with the pattern, if it’s still there in our awareness, the higher Holy Spirit Self has planned it.

We have planned it, because we are the higher Holy Spirit Self.

Part of our curriculum is to go back in, to spiral down, so it seems, into the darkness in order to bring it to the light. That’s the possibility hiding inside the cycle.

There’s a line in the Manual for Teachers, in the section called Development of Trust, that I ask people to read every day until they totally get it.

“It takes great learning to understand that all things, events, encounters and circumstances are helpful.” Great learning. And great willingness to have that learning.

Which brings me to the pattern that keeps us circling longest.

All doubt is self-abuse and it’s self-sabotage.

It slows down our spiritual growth. It’s re-enlisting with the ego. Doubt is when we believe our judgments and opinions rather than the truth.

Faith is knowing the truth. Faith is investing in the truth. Doubt is investing in our beliefs.

And all doubt is self-doubt. It can look like we’re doubting our brother, our sister, our ability, whatever it is. It’s all self-doubt. We’re doubting that our true identity is the Christ Self.

That’s the only kind of doubt there is.

When we know ourselves as the Christ presence, all doubt will be dissolved. We don’t have to give up anything that’s still of value to us. We can hold onto pain and suffering as long as we’d like.

It’s only about giving up what causes our suffering.

We may think we have to end the relationship, or quit the job, but we don’t. We only have to give up our attachment to our belief. The patterns get triggered in our mind so that we will give them up. They come up for healing so we’ll finally address them and choose to heal them. That’s not an interruption of the path. That’s the path.

If your answer to the liberation date question is now, come do six weeks of this work with us. My End My Self-Sabotage program begins a week from today: Sunday, July 26.

Obviously you don’t NEED my help. You have A Course in Miracles. You have Jesus. You have the angels. You have everything you need.

Yet if you’d like my company and the support of like-minded people traveling this path together, I’d love to have you join us. I promise you that we’re remembering to laugh.

Our liberation date is now.

My End My Self-Sabotage program is six weeks of getting real with ourselves about what’s really going on – and doing it together.

Sometimes when we become overwhelmed and upset by what we think we see we find ways to drown out the intensity of our reactions.  We fall into various forms of self-medication and self-sabotage.  I know a lot about that.  And that’s why I created this program to rise up out of that pain.

End My Self-Sabotage 6-Week Program begins Sunday, July 26th. Self-sabotage is designed to slow down our spiritual growth. But what if I told you that we can dissolve that pattern? When you recognize the pattern, you can interrupt it. And when you interrupt it with Love instead of willpower, everything changes. I used to struggle with self-medication and other forms of self-sabotage, but that’s behind me now – if you can relate – let’s do it together! Click here to learn more.

LATEST PODCAST EPISODE: Learning to Trust Yourself with Author Tama Kieves  My friend Tama Kieves wrote the book on trust I wish I’d had years ago. She’s a Harvard Law honors graduate who walked away from her law career with no plan and no money, following a single voice toward the life that was actually hers. We sat down to talk about her new book, Learning to Trust Yourself, and the thing nearly every A Course in Miracles student wrestles with: how do we tell the voice of love from the voice of fear?