Mind Tools in Action
Using the Forms When Watching a Movie
Watch this video and listen afterwards as a woman having a reaction about the scene fills out an Instrument for Peace form.
Her responses are shown below on a Levels of Mind form and an Instrument for Peace form, along with more in depth information about how the forms are working to release the mind from unsettling thoughts to experience a state of present peace.
Levels of Mind: Taking it off the Screen Back to Desire
The Levels of Mind takes you inward from what you perceive is happening on the screen all the way back in your mind to the desire that something be different than it is right now. Once you see that you are desiring something other than peace of mind, you can choose again.
The Instrument for Peace is a way of working through upsets and healing the mind. You want to do it because eventually you start to realize that the pains and the pleasures are two sides of one coin, and they are both capable of distracting you from the peace of nonjudgment and just being still. The Course is very different from that old saying: accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative. The positive and the negative are two sides of one continuum of judgment and you have to release the whole continuum.
This is a good way of working with the metaphysics of A Course in Miracles in a very practical way. It doesn’t matter if you feel mild irritation, annoyance, or an intense emotion. You might even work with this on a daily basis, start with some of the smaller upsets and build some confidence with it before you go after the jugular of the ego. It’s like anything else. You learn how to ride a bike. You gain some confidence balancing and peddling before you enter a triathlon.
Put it down on the paper as honestly as you can. If you have something that’s troubling you or upsetting you, it doesn’t matter what it is, how strong it is or how intense; you start off with what you’re thinking about.
It can be your thoughts or thoughts about specific persons, places, and events. Thoughts about what is coming next in your life or thoughts about something that happened very recently in your life. Something that seems to be bubbling up in your consciousness and you would like to use this instrument to work through it. That’s what we mean by very practical.
Fill in A: When I think about ___, which can be a past or future action, situation or event. It could even involve persons. Feel free to write anything that comes to mind for A.You’re just trying to name the specific upsetting emotions. A list of specific upsetting emotions can be found here to help you dial in to what you are feeling.
As soon as you’ve got your action, situation, event or person and your feelings that are associated with that action, situation, event or person, then try to name who or what seems to be to blame in C1, and/or, in C2, what you’re afraid will occur in the future. You are going into the specifics of what you’re afraid will occur in the future or who or what seems to be at blame. This could even be blaming yourself. For many people it seems there’s nobody to blame in their lives so they blame themselves for the feelings. You could fill in both of them if you have someone to blame and you still have ideas of what could happen in the future that is part of the worry or concern.
We’re going to go a little deeper into your mind. We look again at what you’re perceiving and thinking, what you’re feeling and the justifications and reasons that you’re telling yourself. All of those prove that I am right about D, and D is basically what we have been calling in our workshop the self-concept: everything that you think and feel and believe about yourself that’s related to images of the world. Not only your personality self, the persona or the mask which seems to be who you are, but everything that’s part of the mask. The environment that seems to surround you is also part of that mask. So you can write D out in anyway that you feel comfortable. You could call it your self-concept, your self image, the self you made up to take the place of the Self that God created. B and C prove that I am right about D, this construct or this image. I put underneath it (my belief in lack taking the form of an image of self, other, the world). Because inevitably when you make a concept up to take the place of your true nature, your spiritual nature, this construct or this concept is lacking in some way. It’s never really fulfilled. It never reaches the place where it says, “I am an ego and I have no needs.” You just never get there.
Then it says, I do not like how I feel now, in B, so I’m ready to consider the possibility that the way I am perceiving this is not the way it really is. As part of the healing process I am willing to look beyond my perception of this upset, the meaning I have given it, and look within my mind.
#3
I want to learn that there is a way that I can, without guilt, see the part that I play in thinking A, and feeling B, and in blaming C1 and/or fearing C2.
You’re starting to bring it back to the mind, to trace it back and see without guilt the part that you play in these things; that you’re not a victim; that there’s actually something that you’re actively engaged in that’s bringing about these emotions, these perceptions.
#3 is just bringing it all up to the content of consciousness and laying it bare, exposing it.
#4
I release my wanting to be right about my perceptions of all of this: A, B, C, D. This comes back to willingness, willingness to look beyond your perception of this upset and look within your mind. So, I release my wanting to be right about my perception of all of this because: I want instead to be happy. Through the ego’s distorted thinking and seeing I perceive the cause of my upset and its resolution as outside my mind. This projection seems very real. Its purpose is to distract my mind from looking inward. So, we’re making the connection that the upset seems to be related to something in the world and the resolution also seems to be something that’s related to the world.
For example, if somebody seems to have a stressful job it’s quite common to think, “Well, I just need to quit my job and as soon as I’ve left the job I’ll be happy.”
That’s the way the mind works. It sees problems and solutions in form.
“I will be ok if… I’ll be happier when…”
It’s looking for a geographical solution or shifting something around in form.
All this is leading to the realization that the solution is really going to have to be a change in your mind, a change in your perception that’s actually going to work. It takes courage to change the things that you can. It takes lots of courage to change your mind.
#5
If the cause of my upset and its resolution were outside my mind, I would, in fact, be powerless to change my state of mind. It’s because of projection that C seems to be the cause of the upset.
Seeing outside what you don’t want to see inside is one way of understanding projection. One of the ego’s defense mechanisms when you’re feeling anger, hurt, shame or guilt is to just get rid of it by seeing it outside of you. It takes the pressure off if you point the finger and blame someone or something else, including the body. “Ah ha! We’ve got the culprit. He’s right there!” That’s the dynamic of projection. If you still believe in something, but you don’t want to confess to your belief in it, then you can point the finger and say, “I have a lazy roommate.” Instead of seeing that you believe in laziness and that your mind is holding onto the concept of laziness, you’re projecting it out and saying, “I’m not lazy. I am trustworthy and hard working. My roommate is lazy.” It’s a sneaky trick to think that the roommate is lazy while you are the one holding onto the belief. So that’s how it works. You could always look at D as my belief in lack taking the form of image of self/other/the world. The ego itself, the ego identity is the belief in lack. God is perfect fullness. There is no lack in God. There is no lack in Love. But, the ego is lacking. This belief in lack gets buried and then it gets projected out.
#6
Thinking A, feeling B, and blaming and/or fearing C results in my belief in lack taking the form of an image of self/other/the world. So, we’re making a connection now between A, B, C, D. We’re saying that A, B and C come from believing in D. Everything I’m thinking and feeling or fearing and blaming is actually a direct result of D. D is the cause.
#7
When I blame something in the world it is to avoid seeing the upset and the resolution as they really are, a decision in the mind. It is instead to maintain an image of self/other/the world as I wish.
This is a big one. It’s saying whatever’s going on here, it’s really a decision in your mind that you’re making and not caused by something that’s happening in form. So you’re starting to see it’s not anything outside yourself that has to change, it’s a decision in mind. If you’re feeling upset, it’s because you’re choosing to feel upset. It’s not because something in the world is making you feel upset. So, every time you feel like the world is doing it to you, you’re wishing to maintain the ego’s self-concept, which God did not create. This mind trick seems to displace guilt and fear but actually maintains feelings of upset. It’s a decision that you’re making in your mind and you must get back in your mind and choose again. It’s not going to help you to project and it’s not going to help you to repress. To blame or fear an image of self/other/the world requires that I believe I am limited to a body and a world of bodies and denies the spiritual abstract reality of my being. As a first step in letting go of all upsets I want to see in my mind what I thought was outside it. Being upset about A ___, bringing it back to your specifics, is only another attempt to make C the cause of my guilt and fear. It’s a trick.
#8
Now, we’re ready to bring in E for expectations. We’re getting down to the release point, to the point where you can really release it from your mind. #8 Upset seems valuable and justifiable when A runs counter to what I wanted. So, it could be something as simple as that: E is something that I wanted or expected. That’s what we’re calling E. It’s an action, situation or event. It’s something that could be different in the script. If you really want to put words to E you could say, “I expected something to be different in this script.” Whatever seems to be occurring, you’re saying, “I wish it was different.” You’ve got some ideal and the script is not meeting that ideal. So, you can see that E is very important on this worksheet because all this work was just to start to get in touch with E. What is that expectation down there that you had that is not being fulfilled. Whatever it is: action, situation, event or person, you still believe in some form of lack, D, so you think you need E to be happy, complete and at peace.
Now we’re getting down to the real nitty-gritty. You still have a self-concept, an identity image that you believe is lacking and you think you need E to be happy. You think you need an outcome. You think you need the world to turn out a certain way or the script to go a certain way for you to be happy. Is this belief in lack and the resulting expectation more important to you than Peace of Mind? That’s a real interesting question. That’s when you are really getting down to where the rubber meets the road.
“Is this belief in lack and the resulting expectation more important to me than Peace of Mind?” Basically D is your belief in lack taking the form of an image of self/other/the world. That D is the past. D is generating E. So, because you believe in D, which is the ego, you’re generating E (expectations). It happens over and over. That’s why the Serenity Prayer is really the whole Course boiled down into one prayer. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.” God wants you to be happy all the time, eternally happy and that’s what God’s Will is for you, to be happy all the time, and it’s only this ego and these expectations that block it, like dark clouds that aren’t real, and that’s what gets in the way, keeping you from happiness.
#9
Now, we’re ready to bring in E for expectations. We’re getting down to the release point, to the point where you can really release it from your mind. #8 Upset seems valuable and justifiable when A runs counter to what I wanted. So, it could be something as simple as that: E is something that I wanted or expected. That’s what we’re calling E. It’s an action, situation or event. It’s something that could be different in the script. If you really want to put words to E you could say, “I expected something to be different in this script.” Whatever seems to be occurring, you’re saying, “I wish it was different.” You’ve got some ideal and the script is not meeting that ideal. So, you can see that E is very important on this worksheet because all this work was just to start to get in touch with E. What is that expectation down there that you had that is not being fulfilled. Whatever it is: action, situation, event or person, you still believe in some form of lack, D, so you think you need E to be happy, complete and at peace.
Now we’re getting down to the real nitty-gritty. You still have a self-concept, an identity image that you believe is lacking and you think you need E to be happy. You think you need an outcome. You think you need the world to turn out a certain way or the script to go a certain way for you to be happy. Is this belief in lack and the resulting expectation more important to you than Peace of Mind? That’s a real interesting question. That’s when you are really getting down to where the rubber meets the road.
“Is this belief in lack and the resulting expectation more important to me than Peace of Mind?” Basically D is your belief in lack taking the form of an image of self/other/the world. That D is the past. D is generating E. So, because you believe in D, which is the ego, you’re generating E (expectations). It happens over and over. That’s why the Serenity Prayer is really the whole Course boiled down into one prayer. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.” God wants you to be happy all the time, eternally happy and that’s what God’s Will is for you, to be happy all the time, and it’s only this ego and these expectations that block it, like dark clouds that aren’t real, and that’s what gets in the way, keeping you from happiness.
Now, we’re ready to bring in E for expectations. We’re getting down to the release point, to the point where you can really release it from your mind. #8 Upset seems valuable and justifiable when A runs counter to what I wanted. So, it could be something as simple as that: E is something that I wanted or expected. That’s what we’re calling E. It’s an action, situation or event. It’s something that could be different in the script. If you really want to put words to E you could say, “I expected something to be different in this script.” Whatever seems to be occurring, you’re saying, “I wish it was different.” You’ve got some ideal and the script is not meeting that ideal. So, you can see that E is very important on this worksheet because all this work was just to start to get in touch with E. What is that expectation down there that you had that is not being fulfilled. Whatever it is: action, situation, event or person, you still believe in some form of lack, D, so you think you need E to be happy, complete and at peace.
Now we’re getting down to the real nitty-gritty. You still have a self-concept, an identity image that you believe is lacking and you think you need E to be happy. You think you need an outcome. You think you need the world to turn out a certain way or the script to go a certain way for you to be happy. Is this belief in lack and the resulting expectation more important to you than Peace of Mind? That’s a real interesting question. That’s when you are really getting down to where the rubber meets the road.
“Is this belief in lack and the resulting expectation more important to me than Peace of Mind?” Basically D is your belief in lack taking the form of an image of self/other/the world. That D is the past. D is generating E. So, because you believe in D, which is the ego, you’re generating E (expectations). It happens over and over. That’s why the Serenity Prayer is really the whole Course boiled down into one prayer. “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.” God wants you to be happy all the time, eternally happy and that’s what God’s Will is for you, to be happy all the time, and it’s only this ego and these expectations that block it, like dark clouds that aren’t real, and that’s what gets in the way, keeping you from happiness.
