SELF STUDY

Monthly Focus ~ You call for a rewrite and you as the scriptwriter change the words and change the course of the whole movement of the rest of the play.  

I’ve got to pay attention and pay attention to what it is that I’m saying in every given moment. Be responsible for my words. Be responsible for my thoughts and my feelings that stimulate me into speaking those words.  

You have to go to the root, to the seed of things in your consciousness in order to promote change. If you promote change on the surface for a moment, you see change. But the seed that causes whatever patterns stir within you, deep within that finally surface and come out on the stage, are what needs to be changed.

So by being aware of your thoughts and your feelings, you begin to see the root of your words that you speak, that you think, that you act in and react in, and you can begin to make change at a very deep level. 

That also means being responsible for every thought, for every feeling, for every action, for every reaction. And it means paying attention – 

“What am I doing now? Why am I saying this now? Why am I acting this way? Why am I reacting this way? Why do I feel this way about this person? Why do I say these things and think this thing about this person? Why do I do this to myself?” 

Then you can begin to take charge and truly rewrite the script.  

Full Excerpt ~ Jim Gordon 

The script that you want to change is not about the patterns of how you live the day physically in action here, but it’s about rewriting the script of what it is you’re saying inside yourself. Paul said, I believe, “it’s not what you do with the body, but what you do in the body.”  

That’s really true in this statement.  

What are you doing inside? How are you running things habitually inside? What do you say when you look in the mirror? What do you say when you get behind the wheel? What do you say when you go to order a dinner or a lunch or a breakfast? What do you say when you’re with your loved ones? What do you say when you’re with your boss? What is the attitude in the statements that are running inside of you in all those situations, and is there something you want to change? Is there a new course that you could set for yourself?  

I have found that the easiest way for me to promote change is to bring God into it all. The moment you bring God into everything, the moment changes, the script changes, the wording changes. If I’m upset with somebody and I find myself going into my old habit patterns inside running stuff on me, running stuff on them, all I have to do to rewrite that script is say, “Wait a minute. Where is God in them right now? Who is God in there? What is God bringing to me to learn from them, in them, through them?”

If you bring God into the moment, then the whole script is changed. The whole attitude is changed, the whole approach is changed, and the whole play of the day, the script of that day is altered, changed into a whole new way of existence. 

If you keep changing every moment of every day, or at least a few moments of every day, you’re going to begin to see how you live your life and the script will be different and the outcome will be different. You’ll find yourself being able to keep course-correcting, bringing yourself back on course to where, all of a sudden, you begin to move towards the goals that you’ve set for yourself.  

Or, you’ll be able to change your goals very easily and say, “Well, you know what? Now I know I don’t want that. Now I know I don’t need that. I needed that before when I was doing this whole habitual pattern and I needed to feed the habit, but now I don’t need to feed the habit, so therefore I don’t need this goal anymore. So, I can let go of that, and then I can see where this is going to take me. Or, I can set a new goal for myself that lines up to what’s really present now.”  

So, when you hear us say, “you’re responsible for your thoughts and your feelings, your actions and your reactions,” you really are. And if you want change in your life, this is how you do it. If you want something different, then make it different, say it different, believe it different, create a new attitude and things will be different.  

Maybe they’ll just be different in you. Maybe nothing in the world out here will ever change. You’ll still be with the same group of people, family, friends, and associates. You’ll still be driving the same car, and you’ll still be taking the same route, but everything will be different because your attitude will have changed. Your attitudes toward the people, your attitudes towards the things in your life, your car, your home, and your attitude about how you get to where it is you’re going in your life will have changed.  

It’s a matter of connecting back into the truth of who you are as spirit, as soul. The soul of you is perfect and whole right now, and the essence of your soul is loving, and that’s the truth of who God is in you. But in that mix of the movement of Loving is all these aspects, all these attributes of God that dwell within that movement of Loving: joy and peace and gratitude, enthusiasm, creativity, forgiveness, acceptance, understanding, wisdom, truth. All these and so much more are also dwelling within that movement of the Divine Loving in you as soul. As you begin to live a new attitude, these new attributes, these new aspects of God that dwell within you will also begin to manifest in you, and all of a sudden your attitude inside will change.

All of a sudden you’ll have more joy, you’ll have peace, you’ll have enthusiasm for life, not because things in the world changed, but because the world inside changed. Your attitude changed, your approach to life changed all because of one thing – you call for a rewrite and you as the scriptwriter change the words and change the course of the whole movement of the rest of the play.  

So, maybe you have to call for a rewrite every fifth word for a while. Do it! It’ll be interesting if you really can pay attention that long and that well. “Oops, rewrite that. Nope, don’t want to say it that way. Didn’t mean that way. This is what I meant.”  

That’s also a key. You don’t just say, “I’m not going to do it this way,” because the habitual animal nature in us needs to know, “well then, what way are we doing it? If we’re not doing it this old way, I need to know how we’re going to do it now. Tell me the new pattern so I can begin to live a new habit. I need a habit. Don’t break my habit and not give me a new one.”  

Have you ever seen people give up cigarettes and they’re all over coffee and sugar? It’s because we need a habit. We need to fill the gap. Give up one habit, fill it up with another. Well, if we don’t set a course of what it is we’re going to do with this energy of this habitual nature that’s been running us to get a cigarette all the time, then the animal in us is going to go, “Well, if we’re not going to get cigarettes, we’re going to get sugar and coffee. We’re going to get this, we’re going to get that, because I need something to habitualize myself on.”  

What we have to do is take charge now and say, “I’m not going to do this and I’m going to do it a new way.” And then you may have to experiment for a while and say, “I’m going to try some new ways of doing it. I’ll see if this works, if this’ll be a new routine. And maybe this will become the new habit that’s really more supportive and in line with what I want to be, how I want to be in my life.”  And if that doesn’t work, then you change it again and you just keep doing that.

The key is to always bring forward the new pattern, the new words, the new action, the new motion, and the new way of doing life, inside as well as out. And then your life is changed, is transformed.  

It’d be simple and wonderful if all you had to do is change a sentence in your life one time or one page of the script, and then everything else actually changed. And all you had to do is just keep on course with what’s now been rewritten. But, unfortunately, we don’t have that script in front of us to always be reminded that the pages have changed, the words have changed. I’ve got to read this very carefully now, in order to stay on the new course of the unfolding play. I can’t revert back to what I remembered yesterday from the old script because everybody on stage is going to go, “What? Where are you going? What are you saying that for?” 

So, the key is to pay attention and be responsible for our thoughts and our feelings, our actions and reactions. “How many times is he going to say that today?”

Really do that now. 

If we want to truly spiritualize ourselves in the world, if we want to wake up and live as spiritual beings in the world, this is how we do it. We take action. We take responsibility. We stay present in the moment and do what’s present in the moment. And if we don’t like it, change it. 

If we don’t like what somebody else is saying to us, we are not responsible for their thoughts and their feelings, their actions and their reactions within them. But we are responsible for what that does to us. 

So, we might just have to say inside of ourselves, “Well, I’ll listen, but I don’t have to take it in. I don’t have to begin to be responsible for them, and I don’t have to be taking in what they want me to take in and believe to be mine.”  

Does that make sense to you? That’s what we often do. Oftentimes, somebody will start complaining to us about something and we immediately go into responsibility. “What am I going to do? How am I going to fix this for them?” Or we go into feeling as though, “How am I responsible for this? What do I have to do now inside myself? I need to change my own self. Maybe I need to start thinking the way they do so that they’ll feel good about themselves. Oh yeah, it’s terrible, isn’t it? This is just a miserable life. I didn’t think that five minutes ago. But yeah, it’s just a miserable life, isn’t it? And I just hate the way that they’re doing this government,” and on and on.

Then we walk away feeling really depressed as they were when they walked up to us and started sharing. Then the rest of the day is in depression, their depression that we’ve taken on and made our own.  

We’ve got to be responsible, and we can’t take on other people’s situations, and we can only change our own. We can’t change theirs. You can’t change their attitude about the government or about the world or about their wife or about their husband or about their life. You can only be present with them and share with them your own perspective, your own way of living. And then, see how to move on after that conversation and continue living the life as you want to live it.

Monthly Focus “going Home work” ~

1. 1. Do 2.5 hours of daily meditation, and listen to the talk by Jim Gordon (Part 2): REWRITING INNER SCRIPT 06/10/2007
   2. Listen to the guided meditation by Brian Yeakey (Part 3): REWRITING INNER SCRIPT 06/10/2007
   3. Journal exercises: 

• • • Contemplate your thoughts and feelings and how you are running things habitually inside, and be “responsible for every thought, for every feeling, (for every word), for every action, for every reaction,“ by journaling what comes up for you from any of the following statements: 
      • • “What am I doing now? Why am I saying this now? Why am I acting this way? Why am I reacting this way? Why do I feel this way about this person? Why do I say these things and think this thing about this person? Why do I do this to myself?” 
        • What do you say when you look in the mirror? What do you say when you get behind the wheel? What do you say when you go to order a dinner or a lunch or a breakfast? What do you say when you’re with your loved ones? What do you say when you’re with your boss? What is the attitude in the statements that are running inside of you in all those situations, and is there something you want to change? Is there a new course that you could set for yourself?  
    • In all the things you’re saying inside yourself about yourself and others, rewrite that script by asking, “Where is God in them and in you, right now? Who is God in there? What is God bringing to me to learn from myself and them, in myself and in them, and through myself and through them?”
    • Set a course for yourself! What is your new pattern, your new habit? Write down a new way of being – the new habit or pattern, so you can begin to live in a new way.
      • • I’m not going to do ________________________________________________,  and I’m going to do it a new way. I am going to ____________________________________. And that new way looks like__________________________________, feels like ________________________________, and sounds like ______________________________. *Remember you may have to experiment for a while to find the new habit, the new way.

Contemplation exercise: Journal any awarenesses that come up for you in your contemplation of the following statements by Jim. 

• • • If you keep changing every moment of every day, or at least a few moments of every day, you’re going to begin to see how you live your life and the script will be different and the outcome will be different. You’ll find yourself being able to keep course-correcting, bringing yourself back on course to where, all of a sudden, you begin to move towards the goals that you’ve set for yourself. 
    • So, when you hear us say, “you’re responsible for your thoughts and your feelings, your actions and your reactions,” you really are. And if you want change in your life, this is how you do it. If you want something different, then make it different, say it different, believe it different, create a new attitude and things will be different.  
    • If we want to truly spiritualize ourselves in the world, if we want to wake up and live as spiritual beings in the world, this is how we do it. We take action. We take responsibility. We stay present in the moment and do what’s present in the moment. And if we don’t like it, change it.