No psychological reaction is a call to action; it is merely a momentary manifestation, and therefore part of the revelation of the level of consciousness from out of which it has come.  Each such negative reaction is meant to "die," having completed the purpose of its temporary existence.  Otherwise our unconscious identification with these dark reactions turns them into the seeds that sow our next sorrow.

Being renewed by Life, and starting life all over are one and the same superior, interior action: it starts with becoming aware of, and then bringing a conscious end to any lingering relationship we may have with old thoughts and feelings that want us to keep seeing our life through their eyes.

Nothing in the universe can make you relive some painful moment from your past as long as you choose to live in a self-renewing awareness that remembers the following truth for you: no old dark thought has the power to define you, let alone drag you down.

Use the following three practices to bring the light of a higher awareness into any negative reaction so that in its revelation a reconciliation can take place that will effect new and real change in your life.

#1: Rather than live with the pain of a thousand regrets, we must work to remember what we always seem to forget any time we're "tempted" to relive some pain from the past: no number of visits into our past has ever changed one thing about it, let alone the suffering we find waiting for us there! The light of this higher self-awareness IS the new choice that changes our life, because within it we see who and what we can no longer agree to be!

#2: Rather than look to anxious thoughts to help put whatever we fear behind us, we must work to remember this one spiritual truth we always seem to forget until too late: Fearful thoughts are powerless to free us from any dreaded time to come. Why? Because no anxious moments exist without the fearful thoughts that create them. To see life in light of this higher self-understanding IS the new choice that changes our life, because within it we see who, and what we can no longer agree to be.

#3: Rather than struggle to escape, or try to overpower our negative states - let alone identify with some old excuse for them - we must work to remember that all dark states are the spawn of an unseen dark master. Its power over us is that we believe its promise that things will change IF we do as it bids us to do. To see the truth of its lie is a new order of awareness that not only releases us from its dark influence, but places us in the hands of a living Light that can't act against itself.

Because we are conditioned from birth to see, and experience ourselves as separate from -- “other than” -- what we imagine is needed to make ourselves whole, our search for this missing sense of holiness that we believe is somewhere “outside” of us... ensures we never realize it.

The real journey back “home” begins with a necessary shock: the painful end of this deceptive perception, along with the false sense of self imprisoned within its imagined realm.

So that, when all is said and done, our first step toward a conscious, “real-time” relationship with the Divine requires we not only agree to enter into this ensuing, unwanted sense of emptiness, but that we remain there until comes what has always awaited us within it: a realization that we have never been apart from the Holiness we seek, and that all along, the only thing missing from our search was the faith to prove the same.

1. To grow into a new and higher order of peace we must remember at the first sign of resisting some unwanted moment that we must work to detect and dismiss any tendency we have to identify with that negative reaction. HOW? Instead of being the passive instrument of those dark thoughts or feelings that have come to justify that pain, we work -- in deed -- to be the active, impersonal observer of it... that we might embody a new Will that can’t act against itself.
2. To grow into a new and higher order of faith we must work to remember this truth, and then ground ourselves in it as best we can: the limit of our present view in these moments is not the limit of our possibilities; and then deliberately, consciously test the reality of any resistance we may feel to that moment. HOW? Work -- in deed -- to at least attempt to take one step past what we are sure was the end of what we can do. The way out is through. Find out!
3. To grow into a new and higher order of compassion we must work to remember that we are not the only ones who suffer. HOW? Work -- in deed -- to practice being consciously patient with whatever may be the unpleasant manifestations of others. So that before we blame anyone or anything for our negativity, to bring that painful reaction into the awareness of ourself... that we might suffer ourselves before we blame others.
4. To grow into a new and higher order of wisdom we must remember to be fully present to the lesson in every moment, especially the ones we don't want... that have come to give us an insight intended to reveal, and then help release us from our dependency on failed, or otherwise incomplete beliefs. HOW? Work -- in deed -- to remember, no matter what, our first task is to work in the garden of the revelation, rain or shine.

Now is an incorruptible, ceaseless awareness, inseparable from the celestial opposing forces of creation within which, and for which it appears. It is a divine level of awareness that reveals, without conflict, all seemingly opposing forces -- the influence of what is active upon the passive body within and upon which it acts -- as being totally complementary in the moment of their interaction.

It is at once the consciousness capable of realizing its own existence, as well as the creator of that consciousness as it is made self-aware.

There is a door that swings both ways... where the difference between open and shut can be as narrow as the threshold over which that door stands guarding it. So it is with the weakness of fear, and the strength of grace.

Our choice, if it can be called that, is to recognize this ever-present “razor's edge” within us and, whenever we can remember to do so, to move in the direction of what we know is good and true for us, and for others. We can do no more or less than this, and it is this (silent) action that determines whether we enter the higher worlds within us, or find ourselves shut out of those Divine possibilities.

Persist with your wish -- and work -- to understand this life you have been given, and your role within it. If you will remain true to this, your new intention, then in time your interior work becomes choiceless, and you are set free, accordingly, because now you live in this world, but you are no longer of it.

1. I have and hold the hope of being able to know I am walking into the kitchen, or down a country road, awake and present to myself enough to not just be aware of thoughts and feelings calling for my attention, but the temptation to identify with them, and become a captive of imagination.
2. I have and hold the wish to be able to remain present to what is, and to allow what is being revealed within me to be a guide and counsel that leads to whatever action that awareness deems as needful, or necessary.
3. I have and hold the wish to never again be the source of suffering for anyone in any relationship into which I enter, and that should I fail, to have the awareness needed in that moment to realize the pain born out of my forgetfulness, and to take full responsibility for it.
4. I have and hold the quiet hope of being able to help those in a time of need, and to be able to suffer -- with patience -- what I must to put the need of others before my own.
5. I have and hold the quiet hope of becoming what I am given to see, and to be, in each moment.

The great axiom: as above, so below.

In nature, because every creation is at once incomplete, and yet is always being completed (at the same time) -- one can see that every creature is a living need; where as surely as a rosebud opens its petals to receive the life-giving light for which it asks -- each creature is a living question that never stops “asking” for what it needs to realize its highest, created possibility...

...So that there is a ceaseless reciprocity between creature and Creator -- where a living need in time is fulfilled by the Life of what is essentially timeless.

And so is it true for us.

We are each a living question that is never apart from the Light that answers it.