Three Principles Living

Judith A. Sedgeman, EdD

Mental Health Education

Right and Wrong: Painful Thoughts

Many of my clients are intensely engaged in a fruitless, frustrating effort to prove others wrong, or to get others to say or do what they expect. They come in angry and resentful because these people are “ruining” their life or “making” them miserable. They hang their happiness on getting what they think they “need” from people they who have “let them down”. “When”, I always ask them, “is the last time you complied with an angry, accusatory person who insisted that you do or say something?” The usual response is, “Huh?”...

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Cure Seriousness! Lighten Up!

Avoid being afflicted with Seriousness. It's debilitating. It brings people down. It hurts. It takes all the fun out of life as long as you have it. It can linger a long time. It can lead to health complications. It's much worse than the flu. I talked to a client recently who clearly manifested that he had suffered from Seriousness for more than 40 years. He had the medical and life history to prove it. He cried a lot in the beginning of our session. His story included abusive parents, painful childhood, two abusive marriages;...

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Is It Easy to Be Happy?

Recently I saw a new client who sobbed at the outset, "I don't see how I will ever be happy again!" An hour later, as she left, she was laughing. "I've sure been a big drama queen with all that serious thinking, haven't I?" she said. How does a shift like that happen? In the simplest terms, it is the natural outcome of what Principles practitioners do that is new to treatment. We don't take unhappiness seriously. We point people to the true, constant, unfailing, spiritual source of human happiness that nothing can touch....

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Listen for a feeling

I will never forget the first time I sat in a big conference where Sydney Banks was speaking and heard him say, "Don't listen to my words; listen for a feeling." It was very early on in my exposure to the Principles, and I came close to fleeing the room.  As a hard-working, hard-charging business person in a service business, who had been a tough-minded newspaper reporter, I was highly educated and well-trained to listen to and pay close attention to words. Every word mattered. Getting people's words "right" mattered.  I had a Master's...

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Spiritual? Practical? Both?

During a recent webinar, a participant thanked me for sharing "the practical" side of the Three Principles, mentioning that she had recently been exposed to a different speaker who focused on "the spiritual". It had never before occurred to me to make that distinction when discussing the Principles of Mind, Consciousness and Thought. To me, the universal, spiritual truth of the Principles is exactly what makes them practical. So I've been reflecting on that. How could I do better at assuring that point is obvious? Why does clarity about a spiritual truth lead to...

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Gratitude: a route to inner peace

Without any plan to do this, I have slipped into the habit, as I lay down to sleep, of thinking of something or someone from the past day for which I am grateful. And then, when I awaken, thinking of something I am grateful to look forward to in the new day. Often, I am surprised by what comes to mind. Almost always, they are small things, or momentary unexpected encounters with people, that elicit a smile and a peaceful feeling. Sometimes, they are big things -- pivotal moments in my life...

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