Hello Friends,

Receiving the Holy Spirit’s interpretation of Philippians 3 was very helpful to me. (www.forholyspirit.org/philippians.htm) As I received those words, I went into my mind as the words suggest. I was able to see myself as a mind, separate from the body and the world. And I could see feelings . . . guilt, fear, etc., existed in my mind without any specific cause in the world. It is hard to put into words, but I saw it so clearly. It was what you might call “convincing evidence.”

Then, as we went through the wall (which for me was the wall of personal unworthiness) and entered the room of light, I felt the feelings of light.

What I understood through this experience is that I let my mind (the seeming body of Regina) focus subtly on the feelings outside the wall more than the feelings inside the wall, and so experiences that prove the feelings on the outside continue to come into awareness. I saw that if I watch my mind more carefully by letting go of thoughts that support the outside feelings and train my mind to focus more on the inside feelings, experiences that match those feelings will be drawn into experience.

As the mind shifts, experience shifts also.

This meditation reminded me very much of The Attraction of Guilt section in Chapter 19 of A Course in Miracles. We experience that which we seek, but we are not always aware of what we seek.

Anyway, it was very helpful to me because there is a grievance in my mind that has been very difficult for me for many months now. I have given a lot of willingness to this particular grievance, but it seems to always be there without fail. I knew that this was because I didn’t understand what I was forgiving. The thought that spawned the experience and the grievance hadn’t been discovered within my own mind yet.

Then a couple of days ago, I happened to be talking on the phone with a person who also had a grievance (seemingly against the same person that I experience grievance with) & this person also seemed stuck . . . unable to get passed it. So as we talked freely about our feelings and our desire to let go of this grievance (with healing as our purpose), & I heard myself say, “I feel betrayed by him.”

I had never hit on that word before . . . betrayed. But when I heard it come out of my mouth, I knew I had found the missing key that I was looking for.

I began to look back over my life, and I could see a long chain of “betrayals” that went all the way back to friendships in the 5th grade. There was a consistent pattern that played out over and over in my lifetime. There were people that I had expected to behave according to specific rules (as a friend or coworker or boyfriend or teacher of God), and when the people did not behave according to those expectations, which I seemed to uphold with them, I felt betrayed.

Even speaking of it now, I can feel how deep this feeling and belief goes. This is an important one for me.

The belief in betrayal is in my mind. Based on the metaphysics of the Course, it is there because I believe I have betrayed God. It is a false belief, since we have not betrayed God, and my right-mind is very clear on that. But my wrong mind (outside the wall) still holds to that belief.

I can see how there has been a chain of thought in my mind all of my life that seemed to focus on the most recent betrayal. It never seemed to focus on it with hatred, which is why it was subtle and did not stand out in my mind. It focused on it in confusion. I never felt that I understood why so-and-so would do such-and-such. And I see now that I felt like a victim of the betrayal. (Classic projection).

Making this discovery after receiving Philippians 3 is key, because I can see that I brought the experience of betrayal into my life because the belief was in my mind and thought about consistently. It still is. I think about this most recent experience daily. Not with seeming fervor, which is why I hadn’t caught it. But subtly, it is always there, everyday. And I also see that the expectations that I had of others, which I felt I lived up to myself, were simply a set up for the other person in order to enable them to betray me. After all, they could not betray me if I didn’t have any expectations that I held them to. Right?

So now I see that I do not need to forgive this person that I have not been able to forgive. I need to forgive the belief in betrayal that exists in the mind. If I continue to allow this belief within the mind, the experience of betrayal will continue to play out in Regina’s life. But when the belief is released, the experience will no longer come into awareness. It cannot, because we cannot be aware of anything unless it is a thought in the mind first.

I am grateful for Philippians 3 and for the lessons that continue to come to me through the Holy Spirit.

With Love,

Regina