I just spent three days planning a workshop for November.
After "choosing" an exercise for us to do, "What I don't want you to know about me,"  I had the thought "I shouldn't do that exercise."
This didn't feel like a little thought. It felt HUGE and terrifying!
How do I react when I think the thought, "I shouldn't do that exercise?" (and I've spent three days planning and I've sent the curriculum in to be approved by "Katie.")

I feel debilitated, literally. My body is completely drained of energy. I am terrified: I have images of people leaving, walking out, refusing to do the exercise, feeling alienated. I think I should at least wait until later in the workshop than do it first thing. I fear I'll get a bad evaluation. I fear Katie will hear about it and not approve and I will get decertified. I won't be able to do The Work I love. I'll be a failure. I'll alienate people. They will ask for their money back. The will be turned off to The Work. People will be angry, upset, disappointed, confused.
They will fake it and not be real. I am so in their business.
I see it is the death of the workshop. It's the death of my relationship with these people.
I feel terrified--almost paralyzed. There is huge pressure in my chest and tension in my whole head. I am sure that if this keeps up I am going to have a headache. I feel depressed, incapable and unqualified.
I betray myself.
I feel literally like I am cutting off  my own legs.  I feel like I am slitting my own throat. I see me as asking for rejection. Image:  walking naked in front of the courthouse--making a fool of myself. Of course people are going to "freeze up"--image of a cat with its furred raised up when it's terrified.
I see participants feeling undermined, betrayed, tricked, not trusting. I project they think they came for something else. I see them as unwilling, closed, defensive, just wanting to "be spiritual" and "take the pretty path".

I also see the people as something I am trying to "get" from.
I am dying for their approval.
I'll do anything--lie, pretend, lie belly up to make me "look good", to "make people happy" which proves to me I am okay.
I betray the participants by not "staying Home" in my business, by not being true to myself, by not sharing my depth and my willingness to be totally open and hide nothing. I deprive them of this priceless gift, to witness it.  I deprive myself my Self.

I deny the gift of my humanity--pretending to be something else, someone else, some cardboard, "spiritually evolved" facilitator image.  I want to look good--oh yes..."I've" done my work. I deny them my complete honesty and vulnerability. I deprive myself and them of the simple direction from my Heart--the Value of this Exercise.  It's not personal, Joy! It's not about you. (I make it personal when I believe the thought "I shouldn't do this exercise." It becomes all about "me"/Joy.) It's not even "Katie's exercise" (found in her book, I need Your Love, p. 208).
It's a timeless passage we all must at some point confront and surrender to completely. What are the dark spots that still keep "me" living the lie that I am anything but Love?
That's why it feels like jumping off a precipice....it is the end of the ego's ruling. "Don't do that, Joy, if you want to have friends, survive, and get what you need to be happy."

Who or what would I be without the thought, "I shouldn't do that exercise?"
I see how it chose me--how attracted I was to it when I first encountered it. There was no "decision". It lit me up. I recognize the power, value, and potential of the exercise. I recall how healing and compelling it felt for me when I shared my shameful thoughts I had kept to myself for SO long. How else could I ever realize how innocent I was? How could I ever receive all the love, compassion and support I was met with. I HAD to jump ship to experience for myself that the Ocean of Love would support me... To find out, It was the hiding that was killing me.

Without that thought, my whole body opened up. My whole mind opened, opened, opened, relaxed, dilated.
I am really curious and looking forward to doing the exercise. I see they are just thoughts, words on paper...and I see how much power I can give them, and how silly I am to be afraid of a thought.

Without that thought, I see the participants are my perfect mirror image--My Heart. Sparkling eyes, ready, willing, precious, 100% wanting to experience the exact same thing I do...freedom, honesty, kindness, love, deep inner peace and the end of judgment. I see they "get it". They, too, are no longer fooled by the idea that hiding from ideas is freedom.

I am so honored and  grateful to be in their presence. I see they are supporting me and this Work. They, too, are grateful. My sense of humor has returned. I actually laugh at my terror. I am so grateful for this Work that can literally move me from disabling, debilitating fear to laughter and gratitude in a few pages of writing or even while I am in the shower or laying in bed.

"...it is only the hidden that can terrify, not for what it is, but for its hiddeness."
(A Course in MIracles, p285)

I warmly invite you to join me. Embracing the Blocks to Love: or There's Gold in Them Thar Judgments. Friday, November 1, 7-9:30 p.m. and Saturday, November 2, 9:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m, 2013.
Rocky Mountain Miracles Center, Denver, Colorado. For more info please check my services page.

Peace and love to all of you,
Joy

I have been so blessed to do The Work with people with "chronic, serious, physical conditions" which they have experienced since childhood. One evening a woman called who was experiencing a lot of physical pain. She has had multiple sclerosis her whole life with at least 50 "serious" attacks, 2 of which took her several months to recuperate. We worked the thought "my body hurts".

Another man who had been suffering severe bouts pain in his legs since childhood worked the thought "The pain is back again."

Is it true? 
Many of us may not/would not even consider "pain" as questionable--and might even be angry at anyone that would suggest it is so. We see it as a physical fact, and do not recognize it is a thought.

I once heard Katie say that those who are in the greatest pain, seem to be the ones who can have the deepest most profound realizations. They have constant and huge motivation.

"My body hurts."
Is it true?
How could this possibly not be true?
I direct my attention to the "place" I believe I am sensing "pain".
I just did this as I was typing this.
I had a painful spot in my upper back.

What I am going to tell you now, 
you may want to reject and gloss over....
but my experience was 
that when I did this simple thing
the pain literally vanished.

I had the same experience after doing the work with the woman mentioned above. It was after 11 pm when I got off the phone with her. I had the signs I have had many times before that I was getting a migraine.
How do you react when you believe the thought "my body hurts" or "the pain is back again"?

I head straight for the Excedrine.
I see images of the past of me having a terrible headache and nausea and having to cancel my classes. I project it will last several days. I hate it. I feel helpless. I am depressed. I imagine the pain. I try to avoid it. I think I've got to head it off/prevent it. I am very fearful it will go on. There's definitely "something wrong with me".

4. Who would you be without the thought "it hurts"?

Normally I would have headed straight for the Excedrine. 
After doing the work with this woman I was so ready to "test it" (Katie always says...don't believe me...test it yourself)  So ...I took no Excedrine or any medicince. I got into bed and as soon as I started to feel the sensation in my head start,  I gave my attention directly to it without labeling it as pain. Just curious. Asking it: What are you without the thought/label of pain, and just noticing the sensation without trying to relabel it or attack it or change it or wishing it would go away. In other words I gave it attention without judging it as bad or resisting it .

And it simply vanished.

I repeated this throughout the night every time the sensation came to my awareness again. And every time it vanished. In the morning--no headache. End of story.

In the past, even with medication, headache still there. For days...with even more medicine, even with ice on my head. And me telling myself I have a migraine. This hurts. 

The woman above observed that when she rides her bike there is no pain.
The  man above noticed that while watching a tv documentary the pain simply did not exist.
"The pain was back again" just before he watched.

With the thought "the pain is back again", 
he felt defeated. 
He believed "I can't do anything to get rid of it.
I want to get out of the pain.
There is no end in sight.
I am not going to enjoy tonight.
I'm cursed.
He blamed himself..."if only I had taken better care of me..."
He felt alone and scared.
He noticed that he terrified himself.
He dwelled on the pain.

Without the thought, "the pain is back again"...
(it's hard to describe the experience I shared with him)
He was really kind of speechless.
Something so new happened.

He could no longer understand what "pain" was...

It was a "wow" space...

like truly seeing/wondering...well, what is "pain" if it just vanishes like that?

It simply doesn't exist when I am watching this documentary.
There is no thought of it.
It doesn't exist when I am sleeping.

It's simply gone.
Did it ever really exist...?

This is a man who has "suffered" from "pain" all his life up until this moment...

With the thought...terror...past images...proof of childhood pain and mother massaging his legs.

Without the thought...completely pain free

He said something like, "I have never experienced this before"...and there was a lot of silence as he really experienced his mind being blown...

the story 
of pain...
busted