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Enlightening articles by Guy Finley on a wide range of topics address practical life issues and deepen your spiritual understanding.
Short but powerful quotes by Guy Finley will inspire you throughout your day.
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Enlightening articles by Guy Finley on a wide range of topics address practical life issues and deepen your spiritual understanding.
Short but powerful quotes by Guy Finley will inspire you throughout your day.
Heartfelt inner-life questions from people around the world, and Guy’s enlightening answers, will shed light on your own issues.
Read Guy’s newest insights as he jots them down, spontaneous and uncensored.
Watch or listen to the specific talk we will all be discussing during this week’s Online Study Group meeting.
If you have a few minutes, and want a burst of enlightenment, watch or listen to these brief talks by Guy, filled with concentrated wisdom.
Hearing Guy interact with an interviewer is a delight. Listen as he makes deep spiritual principles easy to understand.
Be encouraged by hearing fellow members share their experiences and discoveries as they bring higher ideas into their daily lives.
The Life of Learning singers and instrumentalists perform beautiful music that will inspire and uplift you.
Join us for exclusive live broadcasts of select Guy Finley talks.
Start your day off right with a nugget of wisdom that can transform your experience with everything you do and everyone you meet.
Inner-life exercises and special writings deepen your understanding.
Longtime local members speak for 10 to 15 minutes on a special topic. Hear the explorations and discoveries of others on the inner journey.
Dive deep into a subject on your own! Work at your own pace with a series of talks by Guy on topics critical to your inner development.
Catch Guy Finley’s weekly message that focuses on spiritual and personal breakthroughs. This is updated weekly and is available in video, audio and text.
Join a lively online discussion with other members each week of “This Week’s Topic” – a new Guy Finley talk selected for in-depth study.
You are not alone on the inner journey. Listen to lively, weekly online discussions between members.
Every Saturday Guy leads an open discussion. Local members share their discoveries, and Guy’s comments deepen everyone’s understanding.
Guy regularly holds open Q&A sessions. Often members of our global community send in questions, or speak directly to Guy online.
Access to all our private Facebook updates, student Facebook discussions, and our LIVE Saturday lunch roundtable discussions.
This member forum is where you can write in your observations and experiences, and receive feedback from fellow members. Read-only access for Free and Basic members. Full access for Premium & All Access members.
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Shop eCoursesThe more you imagine a problem, the more real it becomes.
One early evening when he arrived home from his job at the studio where he worked as a television director, Steven noticed that his young son, Timothy, was sitting outside all alone on the back porch. There wouldn't have been anything so unusual about this except that this was the hour of Tim's favorite TV show. Nothing in the past had ever kept him from this appointed time in front of the television.
Quietly opening the screen door, Steve walked out onto the porch and sat down next to his son. He could see that Timmy was visibly upset over something, and so, putting his arm around him, he asked his son what was wrong. After a few minutes, a sad story emerged. Tim was upset and frightened because at school that day all the children had to get up in front of the class and say what they wanted to be when they grew up. Timmy went on to explain that everyone seemed to know who they wanted to be. His pals all gave enthusiastic reports on growing up to become firemen, doctors, or sports players. He was the only in the class who didn't know what he wanted to become, and his classmates teased him about it all day.
A few quiet moments passed, and his father looked at him and asked him if he wanted to go somewhere special. Twenty minutes later, Timothy found himself on one of the large sound stages where his father was making his newest movie. The next thing he knew, his dad had lifted him onto the high-backed, slick, black chair of one of the cameras. After throwing a few switches and making some adjustments to the lens, he told Tim to look into the camera's eye.
Tim leaned forward and put his right eye against the soft rubber cup that covered the eyepiece and, when he did, he let out a high-pitched yelp. All he could see was a monster looking back at him! His father smiled and told him to look again--but this time to keep his eye there, no matter how scary it was.
He was frightened, but he trusted his dad, so he did as he was instructed. The monster was still right there and just as terrifying as before. But this time, as he looked through the camera's eye, he felt his father slowly moving the camera back and away from the monster. As the camera and Timmy pulled back, the scene that Timmy was looking at through the camera began to change. At first there was only the monster, but now Timmy was beginning to see more of the set. Funny old windows and velvet curtains, oak tables and chairs, and lots of other props filled in the picture that only a moment before had just been the ugly monster.
To Tim's surprise, his father kept rolling the heavy camera back until now he could see all kinds of lights and microphones suspended over the elaborate set where the monster had been. Back farther still, and now Timothy could see some of the other studio sets and heavily wired ceilings. Way in the distance stood the scary monster.
Timmy knew that his father was teaching him something very important. He already felt a lot better, even though he wasn't sure exactly why. On the way home they stopped for a snack, and his father explained the lesson to him. Let's listen in.
"Sometimes unpleasant or scary things happen to us, like when you looked into the camera and all you could see was the monster. Whenever this happens, all we can do is think about what we saw and how to get away or protect ourselves from the threat. Like what happened with the monster, you didn't want to look again because you didn't want to see it again. The problem with this choice, Timmy, is that even though you don't look at it again, you are still living in and with the original frightening moment, only now this fear has become a fixed point within you as a memory and you take it wherever you go. Even more amazing is that this unpleasant fixed point within you--this scary memory--is more than likely determining where you go and what choices you make, since you are probably, unknowingly, trying to get away from it."
He paused for a moment to see if his son was taking in the important lesson. Timmy's eyes were sparkling and that was a good sign. He gently continued, "You were out on the back porch when I got home. You were feeling worse and worse the more you tried to make the day's events go away. Trying to make any unpleasant thoughts or feelings go away only fixes them in you. Try to understand this. That's why I made you look at the monster again and again while I kept pulling the camera back. The wider the view became in the camera's eye, the less frightening what you were looking at became. Finally, when we pulled all the way back, you could see there was nothing to be frightened about because you could see the whole picture. This is what you must do with every event, every thought and feeling that crosses your life. Whenever you feel scared or anxious, remember this important lesson: mental or emotional suffering takes place only when you have become fixed in the partial. Break your temporary wrong focus and pull back from yourself. The wider you can extend your inner view, the less disturbed you'll be by what you may be seeing."
Timmy looked at his dad and asked, "But what about when I grow up--don't I need to know now what I want to be?"
"Listen carefully, son. The more you could see in the camera's eye, the less frightening everything else became, right?"
"Right, Dad."
"Well, that holds true for who you will want to be as you grow up. There are great possibilities in this life that are going to take time for you to discover. Life will show itself to you, and as it does you'll know just what to do and who to be. There is never any good reason to worry about anything. Treat those kinds of scary feelings like we did with the monster and just quietly pull back from them; make the scene wider and wider until you see them within the whole picture. Then you will know there was never anything real to be scared about. Will you try to remember this the next time you feel bad?"
"I'll do my best."
"That's all that's necessary."
Comments (0)
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The cost of peace is what we bear within us when we cease blaming others for the conflict we feel. --Guy Finley This is a special talk that Guy gave to a small group of students that was thought-provoking, liberating, and shocking, all at the same time. It provides deep insight into the real causes behind escalating global conflict, using the Israel-Gaza war as a model to reveal the unse...
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A Technique That Makes Fear Fade
Posted by Guy Finley in 459 Galice Road, Merlin, OR 97532 on , and updated on .
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