Self-observation is the key to a higher order of awareness; it is how we learn to become inwardly vigilant to our own thoughts and feelings, even as they pass through us. When we can observe ourselves in this new way, our higher nature naturally prevails over any troubling thoughts or feelings that want to drag us down into their lower world...

What happens when we see things about ourselves that we don't want to see? In order to avoid looking at itself, the mind will seize on the anger, impatience, grief, loneliness, or anxiety it has seen... and it will try to explain it. It will take the initial darkness, the negative energy, and because it seems to be so bad, the mind will make something out of it that it can deal with...

In this short talk, bestselling "letting go" author Guy Finley talks about how we can understand painful tension in a new way so that, instead of being tormented by it, we use it as a source of revelation and release from the false self that blames everything outside of itself for its pain.

Do we not try to escape the stress we have by further imagining ways to relieve ourselves from the circumstances held responsible for it? And the more we do to create for ourselves an enclave in which we will no longer be confronted with the trouble, the more we isolate ourselves, and the greater the problem becomes because we increasingly resist anything not part of what we've..."

Human beings walk around in a kind of self-made suffering that is the expression of something in us that is afraid of seeing ourselves as we are. We've come to think that avoiding a unwanted fact about ourselves is the same as escaping the effects. Our lives should be a ceaseless realization of where we miss the mark, because that is the only way to transcend the idea that...

There are unique challenges for the human being who wants to have a relationship with the source of his or her being. We try to control events outside of us in a futile attempt to find a fearless life, when our energy would be better spent attending to our inner lives. Yet at the same time we are in a body and we do need to take care of our basic householder responsibilities...

Topics covered: We live under the government of an order of being that makes sure we do not understand that the Divine knows what we need before we know that we need it; We have wishes that we think are our own. But not one wish that we have originated with us; We have the capacity to manifest some of the things that we desire, but the things that we desire never come with the peace and fulfillment...

Topics covered: The last thing your mind wants is peace. The only thing that keeps you from understanding the real peace of Heaven is what you do not yet understand about yourself; The peace of Heaven is a "time and place" without "you" in it. It is not a time and place "you" are going to reach and be applauded when you get there; What is the most rare form of self-knowledge?

Topics covered: The fallen state of humanity is such that it has fallen from the real into imagination, and imagination is where fear thrives; The fear in your life is inseparable from the life you have imagined; We have lived with fear for so long that we believe the lies fear tells us are true and necessary; There is a natural, necessary fear that is instinctual and has no sense of 'I' in it.

Topics covered: Everything in creation is being acted upon by that which is greater so that it can be brought into the greater whole; Every creation is made more resilient by forces that might seem to oppose it or work against its own best interests; Negative reactions gather associated thoughts that justify those reactions; Useless suffering does not exist outside of the consciousness that creates it...