No one likes to be chained to bitter resentment, hopelessness and powerlessness.
It hurts, it burns, it’s maddening to twist in fury and despair while feeling unable to control
nor change a situation. Ego mind loves the drama as it demands what it thinks it needs,
insisting that a situation be different than what Life is offering right now.

Since we know our Truth is Peace and Unconditional Love, how can this be arising within our experience?
Why can’t we shake it off? Why does this seem to show up in behavior that creates guilt? Where’s the relief,
why does it not make sense, what is going on?

We know we don’t want to feel this way, yet it’s happening. We try to blow it off, we attempt to push this boiling steam onto something “out there”: another person, a situation or event, God, Life, something… has to take the blame. Someone or something “out there” has to be responsible. Does it work?

If it did, all negative feelings would go away, but do they? They cycle, circle and come back with renewed fury. So, we blame, again. Negative feelings return. We’re bound by the chains of blame. The resentment doesn’t
go away, that’s our clue. This doesn’t work, we know it, we feel it but we don’t know a better way to step out
of our own imprisonment.

Relief is close by, closer than we’ve imagined, it’s not “out there”. It’s waiting deep inside us.
We’re not at fault, we’re just misinforme d.We’ve been innocently confused and have misunderstood.
No one can cause our feelings. No situation, no event, no other person, not God, not the Universe, not Life.
This is good news. This means we are not the powerlessness that we feel. A suffering process of bondage is happening and we’ve been asleep on our prison cot. We’re quivering, tossing, turning in a nightmare.
We can awaken from the pain.

Mind is Creation in motion and it generates thought. Sit up and notice. What thoughts are running
through the mind when negative emotions are intense? Write them down, put them to paper as you
catch each one. “They should, he shouldn’t, she shouldn’t have, I must, I can’t, he’d better…, if she wouldn’t…
I should/shouldn’t”. They’re all there, little sour bites of mental confection tumbling down the conveyor belt of the toxic candy factory called ego-mind.

Without a negative thought, where is the negative feeling?

“But…they/he/she caused it!” How can it be? Where is the thought and feeling arising?
In “them/him/her” or within our own experience? Where it’s generated is where it is felt.
This is owning our power. It starts and ends within our experience, nowhere else.

As long as we believe something “outside” has the power, we twist in helplessness.
We cut off our Awareness of Life’s vitality that flows from within us to and through our world.
No wonder we feel helpless, powerless and vulnerable. We’re innocent. Mind is doing what mind does,
it “goes out”, but we are not the mind. We are That which sees the mind, see mind’s thoughts, feels mind’s vibrations in the physical body called feelings. This is the True Power Generator, the Spaciousness
within our Beingness, so much bigger than mind, thought and feeling yet encompassing them all.

We’re ready to recognize the Source of Power and it is not the mind, thought nor feeling.
It’s not a person, a situation nor an event. It is the Awareness which can see mind, thought
and feeling; people, situations and events. This has always been with you and will always be.

“Okay, I caught the thoughts. What do I do with them? The situation’s not changing!”
Leave the situation alone for the moment. Consider, just for a second, that the interpretation offered
by the thoughts is causing the stress, not the situation. “That’s crazy, I know the situation is making me upset.” Watch the negative emotions build, they’re responding to ego-mind’s proof, all of the thoughts which are building momentum. Breathe. Could it be true, just consider for one tiny moment, could it be true this interpretation
of the situation is creating this pain?

Before believing any “answer”, just wait. Sink down into the deepest part you can reach.
Breathe. Wait and trust that your deepest Wisdom will respond to relieve the pain.

Isn’t this why we want the situation to change? We want the Peace that somehow seems to be gone.

Wait for it, listen with every cell of your body, wait for Peace to rise into Awareness.

Breathe, slow down, feel the hot and cool areas within the physical body.

Watch, wait, breathe.

This is the deep dive below the boiling steam to reach the cool inner core.

“But…he/she/they…” Wait, it’s just a bubble, let it pass. “If they’d just…” Wait, let it pass.

Breathe. Feel the heart beating, feel the blood pulsing, find the most open peaceful point deep inside
and hold to it with attentive focus.

Thoughts aren’t personal but they feel very personal. Thoughts are mind, they just come. We don’t do it
on purpose. We can’t help it that thoughts burst upon our scene. We’re innocent. We get swept into the momentum of thoughts so quickly we don’t even know it is happening.

Are we okay, right now? Breathe. Just this moment, is the body supported? Is air flowing through our lungs? Just right now, am I okay? Not later, just right now? This is the Present Moment. Ego-mind’s thoughts take us away from Here. Just for now, sit in the okay-ness of this moment, right now.
In this moment, without the situation having changed…are we okay?

Could thought’s interpretation be creating this stress?
Breathe. Stay with being okay.
No one to blame, nothing to blame, just negative thought creating negative emotion.
It’s just a process called ego-mind and it has no more power than this. It hurts.
Without thought, where is our nightmare?

We’ve stepped out. We’ve stepped into True Power, the okay-ness of the Present Moment arising from within. This Presence is always here, always available, a standing invitation, ready to burst forth as Awareness.

To see interpretation as the cause of stress and pain, rather than the situation, is to allow the Power of our Wisdom to inform Awareness. Now, we’re open. The chain of ego-mind’s momentum of blame is broken.
This sliver of Freedom will grow. Expansion can “step us” beyond the temporary limitation of egoic thought.
It’s natural to want to expand into our full potential, this is Awakening. The Realization of All that we’re created
to Be.

It may occur to us, in the form of a question, what should I do?
Byron Katie describes 3 kinds of business:
*Our business
**His/Her/Their business
***God/Life/The Universe’s business

A mental health counselor, Shawn Eves, describes our business as that which extends from the tip of our nose
to our out-stretched fingertips. This includes the thoughts and feelings which arise in our own experience;
the words we voice, the actions that move through our own physical bodies. That’s it. That’s our business.

Anything else is “his/hers/their” business or the business of God/Life/The Universe.
What she thinks/says is her business. What he does, is his business.
The weather is God/Life/The Universe’s business.
All outside of our business is egoic-thought playing games of interpretation to create stress.

Where are the thoughts going through our minds jumping their fence into another’s business outside of our own? Do we give those thoughts power by believing them? Do we give the power over thought/feeling arising in our own experience to someone else or to a situation or event “outside of” our own experience? This is how vulnerability and helplessness take hold. We’re “outside of ourselves”, lost in thought, this is a vulnerable
place to be. Who’s living our life when we are “over there”?

Come home, back to the inner experience. Back to the place of business where stress is created so we can address it from where it is “born”.

If we drink soured milk from a milk carton, do we yell at the cow that produced the milk in order to get rid of the yukky taste in our mouth? No, we spit out the sour milk. We handle it, where it’s happening, within our own experience.

Negative thoughts, when believed, become sour feelings, no matter the situation, person nor event.
This sour experience is our business. Awareness can show us ego-mind’s attachment
to thought. We can explore the ego’s identification with a “me”, a personal self.
This is the starting point where sour feelings can be resolved.
This is awakening to our True source of power.
We can live free from the ego’s chains of blame.
It starts within, informed by the okay-ness of our own peaceful Presence.

With You as Awakening Unfolds