Psychology Has It Backwards

A listener of this podcast asked us to explain what we mean when we tell people to "reflect."  When we're trying to understand ourselves and life, we tend to ask ourselves "why" questions.  Why is this happening to me?  Why can't I come up with an answer?  Why did so-and-so do this to me?  The list is endless.  "Why?" takes us in the wrong direction because...

We are all "lifelong learners" but we are taught early on to "figure things out."  Everyone can remember being told as a child, "Think about it.  You'll figure it out."  As we move through life, we spend more and more time going over and over life situations in our minds, trying to come up with answers, or asking other people for answers and then trying to figure...

We are very dependent on our intellect (everything we already know that is stored in our brain) for a lot in life.  It allows us to remember how to run things, where we put things, what we've learned, how to find our friends' houses, how to do our jobs, phone numbers, people's names, etc.  Sometimes people hear us talking about looking to live from original thought, wisdom, and comm...

We might awaken from nightmares frightened or sad, but as soon as we wake up we realize it was just a dream.  Even if we find our dreams disturbing, we know they are dreams.  Yet when we fall into low mood thinking or get stuck on troubled memories or entertain fears during the day, we don't call them "daymares."  We don't realize we can "wake up" and put those though...

Low mood thinking is always compelling because it generates strong feelings and it arises from insecurity.  So it looks like we have to do something about it.  It is habitual thinking that comes to mind from our memories with a familiar feeling, which gives it more weight.  People complain about being "plagued" or "haunted" or "frequently visited by" negative thoughts...

People are often confused by the power we have as thinkers to create our experience of reality.  It does NOT mean that we can stare at a new car in a showroom and manifest it in our life; it does not mean we can wish for an outcome of a situation and make it happen.  Life is happening; there is actual reality in which we live.  But what WE see of it, we see from our own thinking.  So in a low stat...

When we recognize the simplicity of living in the now, following our wisdom as things come to mind, we live at peace.  We benefit from a flow of insight which allows us to see more clearly our own power to think and create our experience of reality and understand life.  We learn as we go, finding the lessons and blessings in disappointment as well as in great outcomes.  We are inspired by fresh th...

The definition of changing our minds is "having a new thought."  It is natural to allow thoughts to come and go, responsive to the moment, without attachment to any thought.  If we get stuck on a thought, though, we hold onto it.  We think some things so often for so long that they seem more "real" to us.  We all have ideas we assume are true because we've always thought t...

Each one of us is always creating our own experience of reality with our unique power to think.  So there really is no such thing as objective reality.  We all see what we see; someone looking at the same situation will see it differently.  Indeed, in a different state of mind, WE may see it entirely differently.  So our experience of life is unique to each of us, and what we see for ourselves loo...

A lot of people talk about "doing the Principles," or "using the Principles," or "combining the Principles with other 'approaches,'" or thinking the Principles are a "really interesting method."  That downplays the power of Principles as words that stand for and describe formless power, the essential energy, from which all creation takes form.  We...

When you hear about the Principles, you hear of "Levels of Consciousness."  What does this mean?  Our ever-changing "level" is the degree to which we have insights that lead us to realize that all thought is illusion, merely what we make up in the moment.  All of it, even though early on, much of it seemed "real."  The more we realize that the power to think is what s...

Listening to others in neutral is difficult until we understand how thinking works in all of us.  Everyone is creating their own experience of every moment in life.  No two people see anything exactly alike; we all think our own thoughts and draw information from our own memory and see things in our own way.  And we express what we see to each other.  Knowing how the power of thought works allows...

Many people ask us whether encouraging people to find a calm state of mind and contentment isn't just positive thinking.  Our state of mind is BEFORE what we think; when we are at peace and our minds are quiet, the quality of thoughts we produce is a much higher level than the thoughts we produce from a negative or upset state of mind.  The problem with the technique of Positive Thinking is t...

The Principles describe the way the formless energy behind life manifests in the creation of form.  They describe the way creation works.  Divine Mind, formless intelligent energy, is the force behind all of creation.  Divine Thought is what allows us to bring ideas and images to life within our own minds.  Divine Consciousness, the energy behind awareness, allows us to see our thoughts as true, a...

Discernment is not judgement.  We can speak up if we see a friend heading down a dangerous path, or if we notice a client shading the truth, etc.  The difference between the negativity of "judgement" and exercising our common sense with good will and a loving feeling is the difference between harboring negative opinions and speaking from wisdom when we see something of concern.  It would...

Not being judgmental does not mean not using common sense to speak up or act honestly when we see people we care about or people we serve doing things that are contrary to living at peace, in harmony with life.  Syd says "a non-judgmental mind is a mind at peace."  That refers to things like personal judgments -- resentments, attitudes towards certain types of people or negativity, thing...

People often express confusion about Sydney Banks' advice to "just be yourself; be ordinary."  They hear it as if it means "mediocre" or "not realizing your potential."  Actually, the deeper meaning of "ordinary" is "part of the order of things," and that is what we point to with the Principles.  Everyone comes into life with extraordinary gif...

It's that time of year again when we're all expected to be joyful and enthusiastic, and a lot of people just feel stressed, pressured, and anxious about doing all the things they think they have to do for the holidays. We forget that we're making it up. It's our own thinking about holidays, our own exaggerated ideas of what we need to get done, our own pressure to make everythi...

(We are re-sharing a podcast from last year during the holiday season because it feels timely to us to remind ourselves and all of us that love and understanding are the answer to to human suffering and the problems of the world.) The universal energy of creation finds expression in human beings through our ability to think and experience our thinking.  It moves from perfect formlessness into the...

Many people struggle with the painful feeling of shame.  Perhaps we were told as children that we "should be ashamed" of something.  Perhaps we suffered mistreatment that we interpreted to mean we were not worthy of love and care.  Perhaps we did things for which we harbor shame.  Shame is nothing more than a negative thought about ourselves.  As we understand that people are always doin...

People tend to define themselves according to the outside world.  We try to "be" something or someone, pursuing the ideas we and others have made up about ourselves, and react to events and people.  The Principles show us we are guided by our spiritual power of Thought and, when we have peace of mind, by the quiet wisdom beyond our personal knowledge.  Once we find stillness of our own m...

We are often asked, "Why is my child hanging out with 'bad' friends?" Or "Why do I keep falling for abusive men?" Or "Why do I keep doing business with people who cheat me?"  Those questions arise from one deeper question: "What is it about the state of mind I live in that attracts me to the 'wrong' people?"  Everyone lives in a range of...

Everyone has guilty thoughts. Some people get stuck in guilt and never lose the feeling. Others experience guilt and make amends if possible, or learn from the experience it's related to and move on. Guilt is a feeling that informs us we have done or said something that we realize was not right or caused harm. It is healthy to experience the feeling, reflect on the source, and clear it up. It...

Psychology is a product of early 20th century interest in studying the soul and the mind.  The word psychology has its origins in Greek words meaning "the study of the soul."  As scientific methods -- focus on the measurable -- became the focus of study, Psychology abandoned the immaterial, immeasurable soul, calling it the purview of Religion, and focused on behavior, which is measurabl...

The essence of The Three Principles is that everything in the world originates from Spiritual Energy formed into thought.  The Principles belong to the Spiritual realm; they describe how the energy of life works and what creation is.  Often, when people hear "spirituality," they think religions, but religions are the form the energy of spirituality has taken.  Often people mistake spirit...