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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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 eCoursesSeveral times a week the Foundation receives emails from people who are bitter, broken-hearted, or just plain angry because of what happened to them while growing up and going through the myriad miserable relationships they had no choice but to go through (especially as abused children).
In short, these people feel almost fully defeated in their effort to put a painful past behind them. I say "almost fully defeated" because (clearly) something lives in them that still understands there's something wrong with remaining bitter, broken-hearted, or being consumed by flames of anger...regardless of how their mind is "telling" them they have every right to be enraged. In fact, in a recent email the person asked: "What am I supposed to do when I am in a house that's on fire...enjoy the heat?"
The following thoughts are for all of us who have ever been hurt, which means the following insights are for the whole world.
Here's what to do whenever we find ourselves wrapped in the flames of that burning house called our painful past:
Get out of it!
Here's the "how" part...although each of us must see the following truths (that help free us) for and from ourselves.
The present moment cannot "burn" anything; it is the past that punishes those unwary enough to wander back through it searching for answers that can't be found there. The pain we feel (in the now) is due to being identified with a mind that is asleep to itself and its own activities. As such, this level of mind has no real direction; this fact should be clear or it wouldn't wander off and fall into a ditch by "deciding" to relive a painful memory. Nevertheless, in the same moment this negative image (replete with dark emotions) is recollected, it is resisted (by the same sleeping mind that resurrected it!). This unconscious reaction makes the unwary a victim of nothing other than unconsciously revisiting the past; and though the pain is real, no doubt, it is a pain born of resisting a dream whose dark content creates misery for anyone caught in its realm. This is the key idea for those who wish to leave a conflicted past behind. Who we really are doesn't live in the past, and therefore cannot be punished by anything that happened there. If anything, the repeated pain of reliving whatever the problems may have been should be showing us we are in the wrong place, we are in the wrong parts of us.
Imagine sleep walking into a rundown dangerous neighborhood, and suddenly awakening to your situation. You would get out of that place as fast as you could. So is it intended for us when it comes to our spiritual lives: what was, what once happened to us is a "neighborhood" of a sort we no longer belong in; and when we find ourselves suffering the hoods and haters, the bums and thieves that live there, we need only wake up and "walk out" of there by "waking up"…by bringing our attention back into the Presence Moment (where it belongs).
No one can "teach" us to leave what amounts to our "selves" behind; we must see them, their world, and the pain of their reality as being something we no longer wish to walk with or through. There lives nothing in a dream (in our past) that can delay our departure, anymore than dark shadows have the power to keep us from walking into the sunlight.
The Power to Put Your Painful Past Behind You (Blog)
Posted by Guy Finley in 459 Galice Road, Merlin, OR 97532 on , and updated on .
BEST-SELLING "LETTING GO" author Guy Finley's encouraging and accessible message is one of the true bright lights in our world today. His ideas go straight to the heart of our most important personal and social issues -- relationships, success, addiction, stress, peace, happiness, freedom -- and lead the way to a higher life.
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