Student Q&A with Guy on "Step Back from Your Old View of Life and See a Whole New You" (06/14/26)

• Without knowing it, something in us sets out each day with the secret intention of remaining the same as it was the day before.
• We say that we want peace and freedom, or a relationship with the Divine, but psychologically speaking, we spend our time defending old beliefs so that what is old and familiar remains in place.
• You can't transcend the nature that wants to remain as it is unless you first SEE it. You must have an interest in seeing what remains hidden within you.
• If you could see that you were voluntarily in prison, you would never agree to stay there. If you could see that you were trapped in a negative pattern of thought, you would never agree to contribute to strengthening the pattern.
• The pattern that you are stuck in is looking outside of yourself to find blame for the pain of the pattern that you are stuck in.
• Take a step back before stepping into the moment. The reactive nature -- which IS the painful pattern -- wants to jump in with what it knows.
• Stepping back reveals a larger picture that the pattern-making-machinery cannot see because of the conclusions it has already reached.
• What do we step back into? We step back into a larger field than the one that is defining us in the moment.
• The awareness of what is larger releases you from the limitation of the smaller. Awareness sees more than what the mind can hold.
• When you "step back" you are stepping back into awareness itself. You are stepping back from the former perceiver.
• There is a definitive relationship between what your attention is placed on, and your experience of life.
• Negative reactions never question whether or not they are seeing the whole picture. The character that judges never questions itself.
• You would not rush if you could step back and see the bigger picture that the rushing nature cannot see.
• The capacity to step back restores proportion and returns us to an awareness of scale.
• Stepping back is not an avoidance. It is how we enter into life more completely. Stepping back is a return to awareness of the pattern and its corresponding self.
• Exercise: Look at an object and be aware of it, then notice that there is a background behind the object, and that you wouldn't be able to see the object without the background. Then notice that there is yet another background that you were not aware of before. There is always a background that you are not aware of. The real background is the seer.
• You do not struggle with thoughts that you really see. You struggle with thoughts that you can't see and therefore do not understand the nature of. 

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