After years of studying the Seth books and more recently the Elias Transcripts I have come to the conclusion that I have been hanging myself on my own hook by way of how I THINK about things. It was as if my thoughts had invisible hands that were able to put me on various hooks. One hook was called
sadness, another was anger, a third was fear, a fourth was frustration. There were many others and they all had the names of the myriad emotions I experienced, including those ‘good’ emotions such as happiness, joy and tranquility. All of them had hooks, but I only noticed the ‘bad’ ones. And, of course, I didn’t put myself on those hooks; someone else did. Someone else put me on the ‘good’ hooks also, but I paid much more attention to those that brought me conflict.
1-If you insulted me you made me angry and hurt my feelings. 2-If you were late for an appointment you annoyed me. 3- If a plane I was on hit turbulence then the turbulence made me anxious. 4-If my child was late getting home and I worried, then it was my child that caused my worry. 5-I can’t be happy without you. 6-If I only had that new car I would be happy. 7-My world would be better if my kids would pick up after themselves. The list of people/things to blame is quite long; endless even, and our thinking is their progenitor.
Elias and Seth tell me I can only be a
victim, if I believe I am a victim and that if I do believe it then I am a victim of myself and my beliefs. But what about my thinking? How does my thinking play a part in my victim game? Forget for a moment all the esoteric stuff that finds its way, by way of human interpretation, into all this create your own reality stuff. We love to complicate things, and I am finding that it really doesn’t have to be complicated. In this post I’m going to stick with the easy stuff; interpersonal relationships, as they comprise most of my daily experience.
Let’s look at number 1, YOU INSULTED ME AND HURT MY FEELINGS.
Let’s say you’re my spouse and said to me, “You’re a lazy bum.” What is it about those words that hurt my feelings? The words themselves cannot hurt, but what I think about those words and what I think about myself can hurt. Am I a bum? No. Am I lazy? No. Then why are my feelings hurt? They are hurt because I am allowing my spouse to dictate my perception of myself. I have personalized her perception. And even if I was a lazy bum it would be my
choice to be so. It would be my creation of me. It would be my thinking that says “being a lazy bum is not a good thing.” And the thinking follows my beliefs. If I fully accept (not judge) all of me then how can I be insulted? I am who I am. I am my own creation and there is no imperfection in it. I am the perfect ME, laziness, bumness and all. I can change it if I choose to do so, but I need not judge myself for what I have created.
Number 2 – YOU ANNOYED ME BY BEING LATE FOR YOUR APPOINTMENT WITH ME. All you did was be late. In the eastern world being late is the norm. Why was I annoyed? Because I have a belief that being on time is good and being late is bad. It is not your being late that annoyed me. It was my thinking, influenced by my beliefs, that got me agitated. You could be late for an appointment with Sally, who might not even notice that you were late. Her thinking, influenced by her beliefs, is different than my own. Neither Sally nor I have the market cornered on what might be acceptable regarding being on time. So, it is not being late that is the problem. It is my thinking that being on time is some form of absolute. When I
automatically react with annoyance I can be sure that I am holding a belief as an absolute. This limits my choices and I respond automatically through my emotions. My emotions alert me that I am holding a belief in the absolute.
Number 3- TURBULENCE WHILE FLYING MAKES ME ANXIOUS.
Ok, this may not have anything to do with interpersonal relationships, but let’s look at it anyway. What’s going on in the moment? Not much, just a few bumps. Nothing more than hitting a compression bump in the road while driving my car. Do I get anxious when I hit a compression bump in my car? NO. I get anxious in the plane because my thinking tells me I have no control over the situation. My thinking moves from the moment to the possibilities of the future, where no power to create exists. What if I was asleep during the turbulence? No anxiousness. My thinking creates my emotional state, not the turbulence. The turbulence is neutral.
Number 4- I WORRY WHEN MY CHILD IS LATE. Does my kid make me worry or does my own thinking, running its usual tapes, cause me to worry. My kid is out with his or her friends probably having a good time just as I did when I was their age. They are not worried about me because they are very good at being in the moment. When they are late does my thinking say, “Gee, they must be having a really good time.” No. My thinking says, “Something terrible must have happened. It’s time to worry.” I do not know that something terrible has happened and yet my thinking goes there. My thinking pulls me out of the present and what is happening to me in the present (maybe I’m sitting watching TV) and throws me into an unmade future. I can choose to not worry and still take action regarding my children’s whereabouts.
Number 5- I love this one. I CAN’T BE HAPPY WITHOUT YOU. Let’s face it, probably 50% of my day IS spent without you, and, truth be told, I’m quite happy without you. So, what’s the truth? It certainly isn’t that I can’t be happy without you, but that is what my thoughts tell me, and that is what puts me on my own hook. What if you really did leave me? What has changed? You’re simply not in my life for, what, five or six hours a day. Maybe your leaving creates some space for me to get to love me and to work on my thinking that says my happiness depends on someone else. The reality is that you have left. It is my creation/reality and is not wrong. I’m simply letting my thinking hang me up on the wall and have not
accepted my reality.
Number 6- I’D BE HAPPY IF I HAD A NEW CAR.
Also not a personal relationship, although many have strong relationships with their vehicles. I want, want, want….need, need, need. No! It’s thought telling me I want, want, want… need, need, need. If one believes Seth and Elias and the other ghosts then we need nothing. Our thinking creates the emotion of need. Try to feel needy without an adjoining emotion. Does a thing create happiness? Or, does my thinking, as it relates to things/people, give the illusion of happiness/unhappiness. If I create all of my reality and if I do it perfectly for me, then what I create is already perfect as it pertains to my
value fulfillment and
Intent of exploration as this focus of me. When I investigate my thoughts I often find it argues against what it is I have created.
Number 7- MY WORLD WOULD BE BETTER IF MY KIDS PICKED UP AFTER THEMSELVES.
Hello parents; particularly you mothers out there. My kids don’t pick up after themselves and it doesn’t particularly bother me. It bothers my wife much more. If picking up after yourself is an absolute good (which it isn’t, and I don’t think anything is) then my wife and I would react to in the same way. So, if picking up after yourself is not an absolute good then what is it that creates a different emotional response in my wife and I. It’s that snake called thought. I really shouldn’t call thought a snake because of all the negative connotations attached to snake here in the western world. It the east it is often thought of as a symbol of wisdom.
Thought is a mechanism, a tool of consciousness that we have come to misuse to such a degree that we believe it actually creates our reality. I’m aware that there are differing perceptions of what thought actually does. Here I am adhering to the Elias description of thought and how I understand it. But, no matter how you define thought’s function, it is its interpretation of things that puts us on our respective hooks. I’m working at getting off my own hook and accepting the reality that I create.
Bill Marshall
author of
The Forgotten Self and
Gideon McGee's Dream