Getting Off My Own Hook


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
Published 30 January 07 09:47 by 21st Century Reality

Comments

# Paul M. Helfrich said on January 31, 2007 5:28 PM:

Hi Bill,

An interesting exploration of the "you hurt my feelings" beliefs. I learned from Elias to understand the 180 degree opposite, as you point out. WHEN my feelings are hurt, I create that.

Still, I create that based on an energetic projection of someone else's beliefs. So this is how I define co-creation a little differently than Elias does in some contexts where he speaks in absolute terms "there is no co-create." I realize he means that no one else is co-creating MY perception of hurt feelings, but they DO influence my perception. So in THAT sense, there is indeed co-creation, and it's actually very important in terms of relationships and accepting self and other. So I'm suggesting that an over-reliance on Elias' "there is no co-create" leads to solipsistic and narcissistic interpretations of his information. We each create our perception, but we do it together, not in isolation. So that WE dimension, or intersubjective exchange is how I'm using co-creation. It's different, and actually complementary to Elias' intended meaning.

Paul

# Emmy van Swaaij said on February 1, 2007 4:56 AM:

Hi Bill,

This was a very enjoyable read! thanks!

Kind regards!

Emmy

# William Marshall said on February 1, 2007 6:34 AM:

Hi Emmy,

Thanks for your comment. I'm glad you enjoyed it and I hope it was helpful as well.

Bill

# William Marshall said on February 1, 2007 6:43 AM:

Hi Paul,

 I don't think my position conflicts with what you posted here. My view is that both parties involved in an interpersonal conflict create the conflict for their own reasons and will get from that conflict what they are trying to communicate to themselves. I don't think I was saying that each of us exists in isolation, as there is ultimately no separation within consciousness. The energetic projection of someone else's energy is something I invite into my experience and then configure based on my own beliefs and acceptance or non-acceptance thereof. If I have accepted myself and the other person then the likelyhood is greater that I will not have to draw conflict into my life.

Bill

# Emmy van Swaaij said on February 1, 2007 6:50 AM:

Hi Bill,

It is very helpfull indeed! It made me think about how I responded to the constructionworker who drilled holes in the door of our rented appartement and how I upsetted myself over this: imagening the landlords possible reaction when he would figure out what happened to the door (even though we have no plans of leaving this place at the moment and the landlord is nowhere to be seen). So my imaginative reaction of this landlord (my thoughts about that) upsetted me quite some bit ....

Thanks for reminding me of that I was the one causing these emotions...

Thanks!

Emmy

# William Marshall said on February 1, 2007 8:14 AM:

Hi Again Emmy,

Sorry about your door. some pretty cool abstract imagery there. "Holes in my door." For me the communication of that scenario to myself might be something like. "I am beginning to open; to let some light in." I have found that treating the objective (the physical) creation as I would a dream I often can find the communication that the scenario was created to bring me.

Bill

# Paul M. Helfrich said on February 7, 2007 9:41 AM:

Hi Bill,

I was really commenting on some other interpretations of Elias' information that I've seen over the last 9.5 years (geez, has it been that long?), and agree that we're on the same page. I continue to explore the concepts of creation (I-space) in relation to simultaneous co-creation (We-space) in the context of this "wave of perception." And your latest missive got me thinking, feeling, dreaming....Good stuff.

# Sally Staehle said on March 28, 2007 1:08 PM:

Hello Bill- It has been some time since anyone commented here but I want to share this- I have found that ANYTIME something hurts me and I cannot immedialy (or at least pretty quickly) respond in love, then my upset feelings are coming from a place of woundedness. If there were no wounded or sore spots with in me, then an outward event would express into a field of love and then return compassion, thereby emitting healing energy to the "offender". I have spent the last 8 years cleaning myself up and healing all of my wounded places and I tell you it is a whole new kind of power. I almost never put my power into fueling an upset and when I occasionally do I recognise it and send compassion to myself and then to the other. Its a pretty good technology....I learned it from a star energy.....    Sally

# William Marshall said on March 28, 2007 3:47 PM:

Hi Sally,

Thanks so much for adding your story to this particular blog post. As you said, "it's a pretty good technology." Keep on trucking on.

Love,

Bill

# Sally Staehle said on March 29, 2007 7:57 AM:

Thanks Bill- And now having shared that, I want to say somthing about the prior exchanges related to "creating". It seems important to note that you can create or not create any reaction that you have. Because we have so many parts to us (and some parts are not yet activated) we can have a reaction triggered with-in that we can respond to in a number of ways. The reaction itself can be more mechanical and then we infuse it with a vital life force (either negative or positive). It is consciousness that begins to give us the choice to infuse the reaction with a more elevated intent. Choice begins to enter into the picture when we bring our own consciousness to our own behavior. Being willing to know yourself as more than what you see yourself doing is a starting point for changing a pattern.  Also skill at invoking love energy for yourself. Love is an energy that has astonishing generating and regenerating ability. And it is surprising the degree to which humans mistake attachment (little power, determined outcome) for love (free flowing regenerating power).

So adding in and beginning to discern the uses and functions of other parts of us brings a new light to the discussion of "creating". Any event can be both "choreagraphed" (by history and temprament) and created (by the consciousness you infuse it with). And because we as humans are so delightfully full of features and options we can mix these to bake an astonishing array of loaves and rolls and sweetbreads and biscuits. Our ingredients are our gifts to explore here on this earth plane.... So what do you think of that?    Sally

# William Marshall said on March 29, 2007 12:10 PM:

Hi Sally,

I think you have a thoughtful post. I have found that many of my reations are done before thought can engage. They are often without thought and therefore automatic. I have also found that when I truly pay attention to me and accept me in each moment I can catch myself before I react automatically. If I am fully accepting of me then if someone insults me (something I drew to myself for a myriad of possible reasons) I do not have to react in anger. SDomeone ekese may have been the trigger, but my emotional response is self created. They are not the cause. As you say, I can change my automatic reaction once I have noticed it. Noticing is the key and paying attention to our strong belief in cause and effect (you made me do this) can be helpful in getting all of us off our own hooks.

Love,

Bill

# Sally Staehle said on March 29, 2007 1:04 PM:

Thanks for sharing with me.  Love Sally

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