By Cathy Eck
Warning: In this article, I’m exposing a common belief. Please note that common beliefs feel true. When we realize that our belief is in fact a lie (not true), we can let it go. It is never in your best interest to adopt a counter belief or deny what you believe. Those techniques only work on the surface and ultimately make the belief even stronger. If you need some assistance with letting go, I have more information on beliefs on the website www.nolabelsnolies.com. Letting go of beliefs or lies is the most powerful thing you can do. It ultimately reveals your true Self, which is all knowing, all powerful, wise, and unconditionally loving.
You are watching a comedy show, enjoying the levity, when a news bulletin flashes on the screen. Someone has been killed in an accident. In that moment, sadness engulfs you. The lightness that you felt while watching the comedy is gone.
What just happened here? One of our beliefs has been triggered. Often that belief is something like “This could happen to me.”
This belief is so pervasive that we consider it an act of kindness when someone warns us of the terrible things that could happen to us. But in truth, the way to freedom and real security is to challenge this belief every time our emotions warn us that it is speaking its mind.
Our mind thinks and reacts very quickly. So in order to find the causal thought, we must slow down this event. First we turn our mind inward. We bring the news flash back on to our mental television screen. But this time instead of putting our attention on the news anchor, we put our attention on our own mind. A thought arises, “Oh that is terrible.” We have just believed that this accident could happen to them. It is now in our mind as a possibility. Next, another thought arises, “I wouldn’t want that to happen to me.” Even though I’ve stated it as the opposite of “This could happen to me,” the meaning is the same. Emotions are arising within us because we have just identified with the person in the story. We believed the lie that this could happen to us.
The good news is that if we know how to decode and clear our mind, we can now see that the thought “This could happen to me” doesn’t feel good. That feeling is our inner guidance saying, “Ignore that thought. It is not true.”
There are two types of so-called bad events that happen to people. Those that are truly meant to be part of their experience and those that people falsely create because they are identifying with the experiences of others. When the experience is a meaningful component of the person’s life, the person usually doesn’t feel pain, emotion or suffering. They don’t even describe it as a bad event. Some part of them knows that this is a necessary element to their earth experience.
On the other hand, observers of the incident don’t realize this. They don’t have the big picture of the person’s life. The observer feels great pain as they witness the experience because they are describing it as bad, tragic. The emotion the observer feels is a reminder not to identify with the other person’s experience. Often the emotion is labeled sympathy or empathy. This is a trick of the mind to keep it from letting false thoughts go. We can’t let a thought go if we think it is true. We also can’t let a thought go if we identify it with another person’s mind. The false self doesn’t want to disappear, and so it uses many tricks to hold on to its beliefs.
It is the job of our emotions (our nervous system) to keep this all straight. Our emotions relate to our own thoughts. When we feel emotion in relation to a thought, our job is to let that thought go. Our job is to realize that the thought that just crossed our mind is not meant to be part of our experience. If we hold on to it, we’ve start the process that could eventually bring this unwanted event into our life.
Obviously, this example just scratches the surface because for most of our lives, we have been taught that our emotions prove our beliefs to be true. That is just another big lie that we’ll address in a future post. So when that news anchor comes on, listen and watch your inner world. See how fast you can grasp the belief (or lie) that arises, and let it go. See if you can return to laughing at the comedy before the end of the commercial. When you can let go of a false thought that quickly, you can more effectively live in a world where people have the right to believe their own lies and create a complete mess of their lives without you losing your joy.
