Regina Dawn Akers

Hello Friends,

In the last couple of days, I have written about opening up to miracles. I ended my last post by recommending surrender to Holy Spirit. In my last hours of sleep this morning, Holy Spirit shared a message with me about surrender. The gist of the message was this:

Hello Friends,

Yesterday I shared a thought from Holy Spirit, which helps us to see that we open up to miracles by changing the way we think. I ended that post by recommending we let go of desired specific outcomes in order to fully open ourselves to the miracle. I’d like to talk about that a little more now. I’d also like to talk about what is meant by the statement, “We are co-creators with God.”

Earlier this year I taught about surrendering to the Holy Spirit. As I taught, a friend asked, “What about the thought that we are co-creators with God?” I saw her point. It seems like either we surrender or we co-create, but they don’t seem to go together well. The only answer I had for her at the time was that Holy Spirit told me that if I surrender, I will learn that I am co-creator. Last night as I slept, Holy Spirit came and showed me how we are co-creators and how surrender is the best way to be in this co-creation process.

NTI tries to help us understand what God is by giving us several definitions of God. None of these definitions are total. They are all partial. Put together, they seem to help us grasp the idea of God. But for the purpose of this post, I think my 10-year-old daughter’s definition of God works best. She says God is the love of everyone put together.

I also want to mention the movie, The Secret. Most of us have seen The Secret and we are aware of how our thoughts and the law of attraction work together to create experience. But The Secret also introduces a confusion into the mind, and it is time to talk about that confusion now.

Growing up, most of us learned that God is creator. If you look at my daughter’s definition of God, that means that the love of everyone put together is creator. If we expand the definition of “everyone” to include the seen and unseen, we’ve developed an excellent way of understanding “God is creator.”

The confusion that is introduced into the mind through sources like The Secret is the idea that I am creator of my life. Now, this is somewhat true. Both ACIM and NTI teach us that that we are creator of our experience, but this idea can also be misunderstood. Let me explain using a specific example.

In yesterday’s post I recommended letting go of desired outcomes. The example I gave was letting go of the desire to be with a specific person. Let me talk about that specific example.

I have friends who are suffering because they are in love with someone who is not interested in being in romantic relationship with them. Some of my friends have been suffering with this for many years. Typically the other person is married or has a significant other. My friends tell me that they want to heal their mind because they believe that if they heal their mind, they will get to be with the person they want. They believe that their unconscious guilt, fear and unworthiness is using the law of attraction to keep the person they want away from them, and if the mind is healed, the person they want will be attracted to them.

This example is an error, because it sees the creator as the individual “I” and ignores the co-creation of God, or everyone put together.

Holy Spirit once told me that I do not have individual control over what happens in my life. The key words in that sentence are “individual control.” What happens in my life is co-created. Since this is a fact, healing my mind will not necessarily bring a specific person into romantic relationship with me. And if this is the outcome I expect from healing, I may continue to teach myself that I am failing. This is to teach myself that I am guilty and unworthy. And this learning continues to bring that experience (suffering) into my life.

So what do NTI and ACIM mean when they teach that I am responsible for my experience? They mean just that. Let’s continue with the same example.

Let’s say my problem is loneliness. I seem to experience loneliness because the one I love has left me and is now with someone else. I decide that I am tired of suffering. I accept that my experience comes to me from my thoughts, and I decide to change my thoughts. I recognize that the one I am in love with is my brother, co-creator with me and all of God. My first step is to set him free. I decide that I want only happiness and love for him. I want for him the same as I want for me. I let go of all specific outcomes in form, because I recognize that I do not know what is best. I choose to trust the Holy Spirit completely, watch my thoughts, surrender my will to Him, and keep trusting. (Notice that this sentence is sandwiched in trust.)

When I surrender to the Holy Spirit in trust, I have not surrendered to something that is apart from me. I have surrendered to the part of me that knows God and understands creation. I can imagine that this part of me is looking at the entire universe and all of the data that is coming in on the flow of creation from the co-creators, and this One is arranging everything in the best interests of everyone. By surrendering to the Holy Spirit, I surrender to love.

As a result, things begin to change in my life. My life comes to a new place, and it is joyous and wonderful. The thought and experience of loneliness is gone. My experience has completely changed, and I am gratefully in love with my experience as it is now.

You see, I am responsible for my experience. But I cannot control others, and I do not have individual control over what happens in my life. All of these statements are true. They do not conflict. The ego can’t understand how they don’t conflict, but through surrender to Holy Spirit, we see that they don’t conflict.

The best way to experience miracles is to change the way we think and surrender in trust to Holy Spirit. Let go of specific outcomes in form and trust what comes, because it comes to us from God. It is a gift, and it is through receiving this gift that we realize what we are.

With Love,

Regina

Hello Friends,

One of the most helpful messages that Holy Spirit gave me was a single quiet thought in April 2006. I go back to it in my mind all of the time. Here’s that message:

When I received this thought, I printed it and carried it around with me. I read it over and over and over. I knew that this was a thought that must be learned. Here’s what it means:

Within the world, we believe our experiences. We also believe that we are “victim” of our experiences. In this case, “victim” does not always feel bad. “Victim” means that we believe the situation in the world determines how we feel. That may feel good, if the situation is one we like. But of course, it feels bad if the situation is not what we want. Our response is always a result of what is happening in the world, thus we are victim or slave to the situation in the world.

NTI and A Course in Miracles (ACIM) teach that we are not victim of the world. Learning this is freedom. Really learning this is the truth that sets us free. And this single quiet thought can be very helpful in learning this truth.

Notice the thought teaches a loop.

1. What I think, I see. (In this case “see” means perceive.)
2. What I see, I experience.
3. What I experience, I think.
(Return to step 1).

This loop shows that the mind is cause (step 1). But if we believe what the mind makes, we continue to make it through the loop.

For example, if I worry about being alone or unloved, I begin to perceive loneliness. I notice when a specific friend says she isn’t available to spend time with me. Or maybe I notice when I am in a group and they seem to talk to each other more than they talk to me. As I perceive it or notice how unloved I am, I experience it. I feel it and I believe it, so I start thinking about it again, and soon I am perceiving it again, etc.

Holy Spirit teaches through the single quiet thought: “This is why reversal is needed.” If we continue to think with our experience, we keep repeating the experience. We literally must learn to think apart from our experience if we want to begin to have different experiences.

But how?

The first answer to this question is willingness. We must truly be willing to change the way we think. So many of us are willing for a different experience, but not willing to change the habit of our thoughts. In order to experience the miracle of a new effect, the cause must be changed, and the cause is our thinking.

ACIM says a miracle is a shift in perception. If you look at the loop taught in the single quiet thought, you can see that perception is step 2. What creates a shift at step 2? A willingness to think differently at step 1.

Once the willingness is there, the second answer is consistency. Our thoughts are habits. A habit typically is not changed through one decision. A habit is changed by making the decision over and over and over again. We will notice ourselves thinking habitual thoughts…mulling over the past or having fantasies about the future, for instance. When we catch our self, we don’t want to chastise our self or feel guilty for what we have discovered. Instead, we want to learn to rejoice! We rejoice that we noticed, because noticing provides the opportunity to choose again.

How do we choose again? Each one will find a method that works best for him. Resting the mind and breathing works well. Repeating a mantra from NTI or ACIM can work. Reminding myself of what I truly want (e.g., to let go of these thoughts & be led into happiness) works well. Reviewing the single quiet thought from above is helpful. In my case, it was all of these. I found the variety to be useful.

It’s important to remember that we will have to choose again over and over. We may successfully let go of the thought and feel a bit of peace come over us, and then 30 seconds later notice that the thought is there again. That’s ok. Just practice the choose again process once more.

In the beginning, habitual thoughts will pop up constantly, and we will constantly have to be consistent about choosing again. But as we do this, the habitual thoughts will begin to be spaced out a bit. Then they will come into the mind less and less frequently. Eventually they will disappear completely, and we won’t even notice until the miracle within the mind (step 2) is reflected in experience (step 3). And then we will laugh with joy!

It is most helpful if we can let go of desires for specific outcomes in form. For example, letting go of wanting to be with a specific person. As long as we stay attached to a specific outcome, we continue to provide ourselves with evidence that supports the old habits. If we are willing for a completely new experience, whatever Holy Spirit will bring us, we open ourselves more fully to the miracle.

With Love,

Regina

Trials are but lessons that you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain that what you chose before has brought to you. ~A Course in Miracles, Text 31.VII.3.1

This quote from A Course in Miracles reminds me that everything I experience is a ripple caused by a stone I have thrown into the pool of our oneness. And each ripple provides the opportunity to throw in another stone or to choose differently.

We talked about this when I taught NTI Revelation on May 5. Each thought that we accept is a like a stone thrown into the pool of our oneness. It is also like a stone thrown into the pool of my experience. Each stone thrown into the pool creates several ripples. And each ripple that I create will come back to me.

If I accept a fearful thought and believe it and fear it, that is a stone that I throw into the pool with passion. It definitely creates ripples. I will experience fear when those ripples come back. If I believe the fear that I experience when the ripples come back, I toss in more stones, and there are more ripples, etc.

So every trial is an opportunity to choose again. When fear comes into my experience, it is a ripple that I made through my own previous acceptance. But right then I have the opportunity to recognize that all of my experiences come from me. I have the opportunity to use the ripple to practice forgiveness…to let go of every fear thought that enters my mind as I experience the ripple. If I do this, I move through the ripple without throwing in another stone. Every time I move through a fear ripple without throwing in another stone, my pool of experience becomes more peaceful. And as more and more of us practice forgiveness in this way, the pool of our oneness becomes more calm.

I’ve also learned there is another kind of stone that I can toss into the pool. This stone creates a different kind of ripple. I can throw the stone of trust into the pool and it creates a ripple within experience that is so different that I call it a miracle. But it isn’t a miracle at all. It is brought into experience the same way the fear was. I threw the stone and I experience the ripple. But it seems like a miracle, because it is so-o-o-o different than the kind of stones I have thrown before.

The power in this realization is almost unbelievable. It is almost unbelievable because there is a part of the mind that does not want to accept it. But it is also believable, because there is a part of the mind that knows this is true.

If I can just look at every thought and realize that every thought I accept is a stone thrown into the pool, I can start making choices about what I want to throw into the pool. This is to remain awake. But when I forget about the power of the mind and start believing my experience, I sleep, and I throw stone after stone into the pool without my own awareness. And then I wonder why this experience is coming to me. Surely, I say, it did not come from me! But it did. It comes from a stone that I threw into the pool when I was not being awake.

If you would like to hear the full teaching from NTI Revelation, you can find it in three parts on the Teachings page of this website.