Yes, but…
Those of us who work in the field of Innate Health are unconditionally certain that all people have innate health, vibrancy and resiliency always accessible, even if rarely accessed. Why are we certain? Because everyone in this work has seen it for themselves, through moments of inner quietude in which we experienced insights that are deeper and more compelling than the intellect.
These are not apocalyptic moments. They are simple. We find ourselves with a quiet mind in a positive feeling state into which the logic of our spiritual nature tiptoes and whispers, “There’s nothing wrong with you, or anyone. It’s your thinking about what’s wrong that seems real, but it isn’t.”
We often find ourselves hearing a chorus of “Yes, but …” as we point in the direction of the simplicity and ease of the world that originates from our spiritual strength, neutral, pure and impersonal, empowering the creation of our lives on this earth through Mind, Consciousness and Thought.
“That’s a nice idea, but what about people diagnosed with mental illness? There’s something fundamentally wrong with them, isn’t there? ”
“It sounds good, but I’m not like other people. I have had a horrible life. I don’t know anyone in my circumstances who could be happy.”
“I wish it were easy, but I’ve tried and tried and tried to understand the Principles and I just can’t ‘get it.’ I think my brain is wired differently.”
I have come to see this as a figure-ground problem. We’ve quite innocently grown up assuming that being upset, anxious, insecure — feeling bad — is the ground, the fate of humanity, on which we try to impose a figure of feeling better. The Principles describe a total reversal of that assumption. Being at peace, calm, secure — feeling good — is the ground, the very spiritual essence of who we are as human beings, and feeling bad is a figure we impose on it with our own thinking. Feeling good is the essence of the human spirit; feeling bad is what we think up to cover up that good feeling and become temporarily dispirited. But our essence can’t be eliminated, only obscured, because it just is. And we can’t think our way back into it because it is both before our thinking and at the source of our ability to think at all. Our thinking is always changing; it is the way we define our lives. Our core spiritual nature is unchanging; it is the formless energy that generates our lives and our ability to create them.
So there’s a paradox in our work. On one hand, there’s nothing to fix, or to do. Everyone has what they are looking for. Peace of mind is a natural psychological state. On the other hand, people who have come to believe in their thinking about what is wrong struggle mightily to look beyond that, and we respect their struggle, even though we know it could dissolve into thin air at any moment with the flicker of an insight. How do we find the balance? We don’t support the struggle, but we understand that it feels very real to the person who is struggling, that the isolation and hopelessness of all the “Yes, buts” is a painful emotional state not subject to rational discourse. Once we acknowledge it, the less we talk about it, the better. The only “tool” we have is our certainty that Innate Health cannot be lost, and that no one, at the core, is damaged. So we see the health in everyone, regardless of the state of their struggle, and we know that we are all the same. No one gets through life without struggle, without moments of losing touch with the strength at their core. No one gets through life without moments of lightness, when the strength shines through. It all seems equally real at the moment it is paramount in our thoughts; it all disappears as soon as our thoughts naturally move in a different direction.
We are set up to generate fresh thinking, moment-to-moment, but we are able to hang onto old thoughts, too, because we are the thinkers of our thoughts. We have the power to use our own minds, our ability to think. Recognition of that power, of the changeable, optional nature of thinking, sets us free and leaves us at peace, no matter what is on our minds.
Seeing that is the key to peace of mind. We are never stuck in any one state because our thinking is always subject to change, but our spiritual nature is constant. The figure is always the illusion.
MapMaker Mike
very nice 🙂
Catherine Earnshaw
Good to be reminded that everyone gets off track BUT can easily get back on track. Your posts sure help do that.
Mark Abrahams UK
Thank you for helping me to see, more deeply, that we are set up to generate fresh thinking and may flex-ably hang on to old thoughts. Because we are the thinkers of our thoughts, we have the power to use our own minds, to realize our ability to think in terms of our changeable, optional innate thought.
Such realization and recognition sets us free, leaving us at peace and, no matter what is on our minds, this presents us with our key to the peace of mind we seek.
We are always free, in flex-able state of mind with our thinking always naturally changing. Our spiritual nature, though, is constant. The trick is to sort illusion from delusion, given that all that we manifest as our perceived reality is only ever ‘Thought’ experienced as conscious feelings.
Wise words, worthy of repeating to reinforce understanding. I trust that my additions or adjustments are aligned with the fundamental truth towards which the principles point. As always, when we use words in substitute for insight and realization, more questions are generated, which fire us up to forge ahead in our experience of our principled journey.
Dita
Hello Judy,
I hope you had a nice Holidays. I’m looking forward having you back in our Women’s group..:)
Dita
Rob
And yet, month after month of engagement with 3P yields none of the good effects others claim to have had. How can I or someone with the same experience of the 3P come to any conclusion other than it doesn’t work for some people, or that its not “innate”? One can go on faith only so long.
Judy Sedgeman
Rob,
When I first became intrigued with this work, I tried and tried to “learn” it. Having an academic background, I was very skilled at analysis and thinking things through and research. I really had no clue how to reflect, how to leave my usual thinking alone and allow for insight. I thought if I kept trying, something would happen TO me. I was angry at all the peaceful people around me who would not answer my incessant questions, but kept turning the conversation elsewhere and engaging my good feelings. Then one day, when i was going around in circles over a decision and ruminating incessantly, one of my Innate Health friends asked me, “Judy, if a doctor told you today that you had one month to live, is this how you would use your thinking for that month?” That stopped me in my tracks and turned me in a new direction. That’s when it dawned on me that nothing was going to come TO me – my thinking comes THROUGH me. But until I actually had a moment in time where my head cleared enough to even question what i was doing with my own power to think, the whole thing made no sense to me. So I understand where you’re coming from. And I know there’s nothing anyone can say or do speciically – for each person, the message comes from their own wisdom in its own way. We can’t engage “with” the Principles because we ARE the principles in action, creating our thinking and seeing it as real.
Rob
Sorry it took so long for me to reply, but thanks. I still don’t get it though.
Mark Abrahams
Hi Rob – here’s just a thought.
Drop every thought and opinion you ever had and listen up as if you were listening to one of your favourite bits of music …no analysis, nothing ….just pure enjoyment.
In such open minded state, with our thinking quietened down, an insight will come.
You will realize something you didn’t previously understand.
And, as you’ll understand, it’s not WHAT you think ….it’s THAT you think.
It sounds like you know 3P intellectually ….you know your stuff.
And our intellect is what gets us in to situations we may seek to change … so we can’t use intellect to solve problems it created.
3P is spiritual …. it’s not faith.
We are faith … we are love …. spiritually, inside out (for you, for me and for all 7 billion of us) MIND giving us THOUGHT which we feel with CONSCIOUSNESS are the only divine principles we need to understand that we are love. How could it be other-wise?
Trust your Universe to allow you to grow into what your inner Universe wants you to be.
So, in responding to your comment:
“How can I or someone with the same experience of the 3P come to any conclusion other than it doesn’t work for some people…”
In understanding 3P, there is no HOW. It is the wrong question … so, to realize the answer you seek, I suggest that you ask the right or a better question … such as:
“What is an insight?”
“What does realizing (a paradigm shift) mean to everyone?
There is no conclusion. The metaphor which is the Three Principles (which I think of as Intelligence) is generative in perpetuity…. there are no limits – there is no bar which can be set to regulate effortless evolution …. or love.
Think with compassion and you will begin to better understand.
If you happen to be in low mood state, simply hold onto anything that resonates …. like a train, there’ll be a higher mood state along in a while …. a much better state of mind for thinking about stuff.
Rob
Thank you for taking the time to comment Mr. Abrahams. I have to admit though, I cannot even conceive of seeing life the way you do. The Universe to me is at best indifferent. If I imagine that it is alive and intelligent my experience tells me that it is malevolent, feeding off suffering; holding out hope then yanking it away; creating desires for love and acceptance then denying it, year after year……decades.
My interest in the 3P was in hopes of finding something to help me cope with what years I have left; but it seems just like everything else, it either doesn’t work or I’m just incompetent.
I won’t post anymore since I have nothing positive to contribute, but thanks again for your kind attempt.
Judy Sedgeman
I hope you find peace, Rob. It comes from the same energy we use to create all our thinking about why we have no peace. Universal energy is neutral; we use it to power all our imagination about what life is and what we are and how we relate to our own experiences. I don’t want to hold out false hope, but the energy behind our thinking is the power, not the intensity of what we create with it.
Mark Abrahams
Hello Rob. Please call me Mark.
You remind me of one of my good buddies from way back (I’m 60 and looking forward very much to the next 40+ years).
Please do come back and comment.
Feel compassion not sympathy – ignore words and notice your inner thoughts and moods.
I want to hear of just one good feeling from you (please), one simple thought you have which helps you realize something that, only a moment ago, you couldn’t see.
Listen well to yourself _ not to anyone else. Try it for just one day…for me…like an experiment. Think only positive thoughts.
I reckon that the thinking you think is yours isn’t your inside out understanding talking.
It is maybe HOW and WHAT other people are thinking, feeling, sharing and talking e.g. the media.
The key to the door is THAT you think …and that you (and all 7 billion of us) can change our Mind.
Within the 3p community you will find a marriage of mind.
I welcome you to the community and look forward to meeting you one day.
For me, understanding that, if I am in low mood that it is not my life that sucks but that it is the quality of my thinking that sucks is just one insight that rocked my world.
And, when the world and life looks and feels good to be in to me, I realize that I am in a higher state of mind and mood.
And when I meet people who present as if they are experiencing low mood, then I am full of compassion and understanding, not sympathy and certainly not pity….and all that helps make a difference I promise you. Trust me….please
And if my happy mood also gets moaned at and about…then I am certain, as with my friend Paul, that his state of mind and mood is not at its best …. and it is a good time to get quiet minded … wait until the mood shifts and lifts.
I look forward to seeing you then.
All the best, MarkA_UK
Mark Abrahams
Hi Rob, Since we last communicated I have changed. How about you? I want to thank you for sharing your thoughts. You have helped me change me for the better. I just wanted you to know that I am still thinking about you. I’d really love to hear your story. How did you first get in touch with the Three Principles – and who introduced you? All the best, Mark (PS I’m in Norwich, UK – where are you?)
Mark Abrahams
Hello to all.
With Rob in mind (even though he has clearly decided not to contribute further) I thought to publish this Q & A (via Pransky & Associates)
Question:
I have been studying the principles and I can’t help feeling like I don’t get it.
When will I get it and what if I don’t?
Answer:
Believe it or not, I have had moments of feeling like I don’t understand the principles, too.
Here is what I’ve learned with my experience of my own uncertainty and insecurity about learning the principles (and everything else for that matter!).
The principles simply are a logic that explains how our feeling comes to be and sheds light on the common misunderstanding that there’s something outside ourselves that makes us feel the way we feel.
You have the thought “I don’t understand this,” and that thought creates a feeling, perhaps of confusion or discouragement.
You either understand it or you don’t but discouragement is not inherent in the fact that you don’t.
The discouragement comes from you, not the fact that you don’t understand.
You are living in a reality such that there’s something to get, you don’t get it and hence you feel bad.
You have created a logic that makes discouragement seem appropriate and validated by something outside of yourself (as if there is some hard standard).
It helps to know this because it brings some humility to our experience.
It challenges our assumption that our thinking is right and valid.
That brings space and in that space new thinking can emerge.
The new thinking might be that you indeed DON’T understand but without the weight of the feeling of discouragement and consequence that looks really different.
All of that happens in the moment and in that moment we have some understanding and we get a sense of what understanding feels like.
That is what learning looks like.
The more moments we see that and the more profoundly we see it, the more our orientation changes from “outside-in” to “inside-out”.
That orientation is the only way that we can “get” the principles.
That you are even still a student of the principles suggests to me that you have gained some understanding of them.
Otherwise you would have written them off as irrelevant or something you already know.
The infiniteness of the principles in our quieter and more reflective moments is wonderful and comforting, in other moments it is evidence that we “don’t get it”.
Understanding the Principles is not an “it” to get, it is simply a moment when you realize the Principles at work and the more we have that insight, big or small, we put another brick in the foundation of our understanding.
As we continue to see the fact that our experience only works one way (from the inside-out) we relate differently to all of our experience and we begin to shift our understanding of how life works from an outside-in to an inside-out paradigm.
That doesn’t mean we won’t forget how it works, we certainly will, but the more often and profoundly we see it, the more solidly we find our footing in the paradigm that is actually true, that everything comes through our thinking.
I hope that this may help someone, sometime, come to more deeply understand our inside out potential and so further realize that their thought of ‘not getting’ the principles were or are simply that …. a thought. There will be another thought along in a moment …. where did that come from?
Love and Wellbeing