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 as well 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 miscreations.” 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 for me to understand where my troubles began and also where my healing occurs, my mind as well as my thinking. My personal perceptions have dictated every happening and its outcome in my life.

Out of desperation, I have been driven to seek a deeper healing. Perception is the great determiner of feelings and feelings drive us to act. If I learn to exercise how I allow myself to perceive life I have recovered control of my life.

In the early years of my ‘turn around’ I heard often in the rooms of the Twelve Steps, ‘healing is an inside job’ or ‘addiction is a disease of perception.’ Both were confusing in the beginning but they were accompanied with 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 totally determined by how we think about a particular thing, person or situation. If the way we perceive something creates a disturbing response we have the power to change how we see the situation, 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 called 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 the changing perception, just the result.

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

Finding Hope

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 now found personal freedom. Forgiveness! I have 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 in life and all the fear that we shared. It was difficult as well 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 the evoked the act. It brought me relief. I had been looking for so long with my ego’s eyes.

It wasn’t until I realized that even though we did share the same fears that were not the pearl I needed to find. I REALIZED THAT WE WERE BOTH CHILDREN OF GOD AND AT OUR CORE UNDER ALL THE FEAR WE WERE AND WE ARE THE LOVE THAT GOD CREATED US TO BE. With that, I began to heal. No one actually got to see all of the processes, but they did get to see the man I’ve become as a result.