Gentle Healing Year 1 Tip For Lesson 23

In yesterday’s tip, I shared the loop of experience. That loop is a type of conditioning that runs on autopilot in the brain. It works like this:

We receive thoughts in the mind. Those thoughts are like thoughts we’ve given believing-attention to before. Out of habit, we give believing-attention to those thoughts again, which leads us to see and experience the world in a certain way.

If we want to experience true perception, the perceptual loop of experience needs to be healed, which means it needs to be corrected or put right. Fortunately, today’s workbook lesson gives clear instructions about how we can heal the loop of experience:

1. “You must learn that it is [attack thoughts] you do not want.”

In other words, you must learn that you want to heal the perceptual loop of experience. It is very good to put effort into increasing your desire to heal this conditioning. You can do that by noticing how much you suffer or by asking questions like, “Is this the world I want to see?”

The mind heals best when it’s given a positive goal. So, as you notice that you don’t want to suffer or don’t want the world you currently see, it’s helpful to restate those realizations as positive goals. For example:

I want freedom, or
I want consistent happiness, or
I want to be the presence of love, or
I want truth realization, etc.

Focus on a positive goal that motivates you to heal the perceptual loop.

2. “This change requires, first, that the cause be identified and then let go, so that it can be replaced.”The cause is giving believing-attention to attack thoughts when they show up in the mind. Therefore, instead of giving believing-attention, you need to give a different type of attention. That takes us to our next step.
3. “Hold each attack thought in the mind as you say [the workbook lesson for the day].”One challenge is that conditioning materializes as neural pathways in the brain. Those pathways are like waterslides that enable attack thoughts to slide by quickly without conscious awareness. It’s as if our brain is on automatic pilot, processing attack thoughts with believing-attention whenever they are received.

However, the autopilot can be overridden by awareness. When you hold an attack thought in your mind as you say the workbook lesson, you are overriding believing-attention and giving the thought healing-attention instead.

Look at that for a moment and notice how simple the resolution is:

When an attack thought shows up in the mind, instead of believing it, simply look at it as you repeat the current day’s workbook lesson in your mind.

As it says in NTI Luke Chapter 5:

“Old habits must be let go, for old habits will not usher in a new day. With old habits, all things remain the same. But with new habits, all things are possible. …

“You will catch yourself practicing the old habits, for this has been your way until now. Slipping into old habits does not ruin the new ones. So when you find yourself doing this, forgive yourself your attraction to the old by stepping away from the old and stepping into the new. Each time you do this, you help yourself to unlearn the old and to learn the new.”