What’s Going On
Written by Donna, from #91 MARCH 2002
ALONG THE WAY:
I make nothing important.
THIS MONTH’S THOUGHT:
Anytime we make something important, we are anxious.
MAKING UP THE MIND:
(Excerpts from School Talk #25 by Dr. Bob Gibson. Continued from last month)
Now I’ll make another suggestion. Basically when you make up your mind for somebody else you’re not emotionally involved in it. Let’s say you have a pain in your knee and you want to make up your mind it would be gone, you would probably make it important that you get it gone. Consequently all you would be reporting to X would be anxiety and your knee would probably be worse tomorrow morning. Until you get kind of used to it, it is always well to ask somebody else to make up their mind for the things that relate closely to you.
Now just saying the words is not making up your mind. You’re saying the words with a feeling of confidence. Or otherwise you are not being confident, which is another way of saying you’re anxious. X, no doubt, responds to the feeling as well as the words. If we say, “I’m making up my mind,” whatever it may be and I’m not putting any anxiety in it, I would have a feeling of confidence on it. When you’re trying to do it for yourself, most often you would make it important and therefore you would be anxious. Whenever we make anything important we are anxious about it. Let’s get somebody else to work with us when there’s something very close to us, at least for the first few months, until we get more confident. You see, the more times you see it does work exactly as you say, the more confident you become. At first get somebody who you consider has a reasonable degree of confidence to sign your paper with you, your little note, so to speak, your little co-signer. If the co-signer has a feeling of confidence, even if you don’t, it will still happen. That’s the reason for having two or more to work on it.
Anything that you would choose to make up your mind singly with confidence is going to happen. This is what has been called faith in certain books that been written through the ages and says the most powerful force is human faith. Faith is the ability to make up the mind. The ability to make up your mind singly is the most valuable asset you can have. It will work whether you’re shipwrecked on an island or out in the water. It would be only thing that would survive and you wouldn’t need anything else– the ability to make up the mind singly.
When we talk about Not-I’s, where there’s the complainer, the sticker-up-for-rights, the blamer, pleaser, improver, believer of authorities, the reason we study those is to get conflict out of the way so it might be possible we could make up our minds singly. Knowing we have very little ability to make up our mind singly is why we give you the technique of writing it down and having someone you like, someone who is around and you trust a little bit, to co-sign with you. This is what we have our mind made up to. It’s an excellent little technique in order to get where we can make up our mind singly.
We also show you about “what we are, where we are, what is going on, and what we can do.” The ultimate in what you can do is whatever you can make up your mind to do. So, if I make up my mind to be what to me is a good guest I have used faith that I can do that and I can do it consistently. If I’ve made up my mind that I can contribute to a pleasant harmonious mood at all times, I’ll find that I can do it. I make up my mind then X carries it out.
So we are involved in the ‘what’. X takes care of the ‘how.’ And the one thing we can have that will survive the shipwreck would be the ability to make up our mind singly.
A STORY:
Paying attention to the inner state is basic to knowing ourselves. I have been watching the moments when I have a sense of urgency. This anxiety is a signal that I have set up an ideal. I have made something important. The struggle toward an ideal is the disintegration of the physical body.
I have found hundreds of these moments. Dinner guests are coming at 7:00 and the meal is not ready, the house is messy and the commodes need to be cleaned. The car has a funny noise in the engine. What am I going to wear to that fancy party tomorrow night? The stock market continues to fall. I’m stuck in traffic and therefore late for an appointment. The computer has a rattle in it.
Last year my brother gave me an electronic piano. I used to be a decent piano player 50 years ago. Friends asked me to play a song for them. My hands became sweaty, my pulse increased and I felt uncomfortable. One of the four dual basic urges called the struggle for approval swung into action. I clearly wanted to play the song perfectly so they would approve of me. What an illusion. If they liked me only because I could play a song on the piano, they probably wouldn’t be guests in my house anyway.
All anxiety develops because I am still operating from the first decision—that the whole purpose of living is to be non-disturbed—which is an illusion.
Once an illusion is seen for what it is, then there is no tendency for the self to identify with that illusion.
Any anxiety, sense of urgency or feeling uncomfortable is a gift. They are signals that I am making something important. As Dr. Bob used to say, “The world was doing fine before I got here and will do fine after I leave. So how important is it. Everything is interesting.”
OBSTRUCTIONS TO SUPER IMMUNITY:
(From a lecture by Dr. Bob Gibson in 1987)
When one is concerned with wellness instead of illness, then there is concern as to what one does to manifest super immunity to all types of undesirable states of being. It has been recognized for ages that there is resistance to illness when one is living a healthy life style and that resistance can be lowered due to a dissipating life style.
If environment, inner feeling, activity and nutrition are somewhere in the range of optimum the immune system or resistance function takes care of stressful situations and various invasionary forces and well being is experienced.
Let us now consider some obstructions to super immunity or excellent resistance, then perhaps these obstructions can be removed and a state of extreme well being can be experienced.
- Belief that illness is something that just happens or something that attacks person, instead of the normal balance to ones life style in regards to environment, inner feeling, activity and nutrition.
- Belief that a chemical can correct the condition instead of a change in life style.
- Unhappy domestic situations.
- Unsatisfying life style, work, etc.
The first step to having acquired super immunity is to accept responsibility for ones environment, inner feeling, activity and nutrition.
Environment refers more to the mood surrounding one than it does to the area one lives or works in. The best way to have an optimum environment is to remember that: “ONE LIVES IN THAT WHICH I RADIATE.” If I radiate doom and gloom—that is the environment. If I radiate enthusiasm, joy, love, thankfulness and peace—that is the environment. Environment is the responsibility of self. Do not expect that others will or should provide it. This is the way to optimum environment.
INNER FEELING: If one doesn’t take charge of the inner feelings, most often there will be feelings of anger, resentment, self-pity, worry, inferiority, sadness, blaming, boredom, etc. However one can feel as one chooses by starting to act as though one is feeling as one would like to feel. Think first how would I like to feel? Then how would I be acting if I already felt this way? Then begin to act that way. If one acts angry one begins to feel angry. If one acts enthusiastic one will feel enthusiastic. This is the way to optimum inner feeling.
ACTIVITY: No need to jog three miles daily. No need to pump iron. No need to cycle 50 miles per day. Just ACT happy, enthusiastic, vital, energetic. This is the way to optimum activity.
NUTRITION: First be hungry before eating. Then eat for the requirements of the body, not just for taste sensations. Eat plenty of fruit and vegetables low in concentrated carbohydrates, low in protein, low in starches. No so-called snack foods. This is a natural form of nutrition, not a diet, not a fad, just nutrition for the motor function of mankind. This is the way to optimum nutrition.
It is here recognized that this is a change in life style for most, but that is the way to acquiring SUPER IMMUNITY, to experiencing wellness, to being a joyful, healthy contributing being.
Surely no one wishes or intends to live a life style of misery, illness and gradual disintegration when by being responsible to choose a different, simple to do life style that only requires attention and recognition of the RESPONSIBILITY FOR SELF to actualize.
