The Horizons Approach to Counseling Pre-Release

The Horizons Counseling Approach to Helping A Guide to Understanding Your Experience with Horizons Dr. Reece. W. Manley, DD, M.Ed., MPM速

We offer a unique approach to understanding the helping professions by including a theory of the Trinity of Human Beings. This includes the body-self, mind-self and spirit-self. We focus on the fact the spirit-self is eternal, has been created by the I Am and can influence and change our lives in the here and now.

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Table of Contents Introduction and Key Concepts

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The Trinity of Human Beings

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How Our Trinity Interacts Within and Without

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The Big Questions

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Why I Do What I Do

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An Introduction to the Spirit-Self

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Beginning to Experience Prayer

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Inspired Thinking and Consciousness

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Part Two – Changing Your Life

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Nature, Natural and Inspired Beliefs

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Natural Beliefs

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Inspired Thinking and Natural Beliefs

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Initiating Changes in Your Life

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Where Does Inspired Thinking Come From

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How Inspired Thinking Works

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Inspired Thinking to Inspired Beliefs

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An Example of a Client Using the Horizons Approach

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Closing

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Introduction: Horizons Counseling Approach approaches the art of the helping professions in a unique way. No other counseling center provides our approach to therapy because it is based on a combination of a traditional school of cognitive theory combined with the undeniable connection of ourselves to a loving, compassionate, inclusive Creator and Source.

From the traditional, we borrow heavily from what is known as cognitive therapy.

This theory holds we can change our ways of thinking about situations, behaviors and actions by looking at things from a different logical viewpoint. Then, we add our connection to our Creator and to each other through a universal spirit. We believe all things are connected, there is a plan for our lives, there is an endless supply of love and acceptance available to us, and finally, we have the ability to change our feelings and behaviors through this connection to the Source.

Key Concepts: The Trinity of Human Beings.

We as people are made of three parts. This Triad of Human Beings is composed of body-self, the mind-self and the spirit-self.

The Body Self The body-self is that which provides touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing. The body-self is made up of all our tiny cells from the big toe all the way up to the hair on our head. The job of the body-self is to provide information to the mind-self.

The body-self also provides all of the neurochemicals and vast array of nerves and receptors that interact with the mind-self to bring about behavior, reaction and other response.

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The Mind Self The mind-self is our seat of learning, remembering and experiencing. The mindself is a construct in that it has no physical presence. Although we naturally think of the mind-self as being the brain, it is not a physical thing. It is, rather, an incredible interaction of chemistry, energy and substance we have not yet discovered. We know it exists because we can learn and remember past experiences. For many, it is also the seat of emotions. And, to the point, that is true. It is the source for emotions which have not been subjected to the consciousness of the spirit-self.

The Spirit Self The spirit-self is the eternal part of our self. It is the part of us which exists forever. Our spirit-self has a creation point, but has no end point. The spirit-self is felt in our intuition and a small inner-voice before we turn our attention to it.

The spirit-self is also connected to our Creator. We have a connection to our

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Creator, our concept of God. As we begin to explore our interaction between body-self, mind-self, spirit-self and the Source, Creator or God, it will be important to keep these key concepts in mind. Again:  The body-self is all of the physical, observable cells, organs, ears, eyes and other body parts. The function of the body-self is to deliver information to the mind-self.  The mind-self works in a way we don’t fully yet understand. The mind-self is the part of us which learns. It acquires information from the body-self and then stores it as an experience and then provides a reaction to the situations we come across with a response which is as close as possible to previous experience.  The spirit-self is the eternal, everlasting part of us full of love, compassion and the strength of the Creator. It exerts influence over the mind-self, which in turn, changes what we would consider natural thinking.

How Our Trinity Interacts Within and Without Key Topics Natural Thinking – The communication between the body-self and the mind-self is “natural thinking”. It is the hardwiring all humans have and the way many people make it through their entire lives. Natural thinking occurs based upon a signal from the body-self, such as the hunger. The mind-self responds based on past experience, such as a little rule like ‘hunger means I need to eat” and sends this back to the body-self to seek out the nearest Taco Bell, combo meal number 4, upgrade to large coke. Hmm, it must be near lunch time.

Consciousness – This is the action of the spirit-self on the mind-self to share information from the spirit-self and information from the Creator, God, Source 5|Page

the Universe-whatever name you decide. This is a hard concept to get down for many people because the idea of consciousness has long been tied to constructs of the mind. And, consciousness is an important part of the mind-self, however, it does not come from the mind but the mind is the receiver of consciousness created from the interaction with the spirit-self.

Prayer – Although it is not in interaction within ourselves, it is essential to the way we function as a trinity. The spirit-self has no power except the power pulled into it by its interaction with the Source. The Source has unlimited resources for us, simply waiting for us to call upon it in prayer to provide the strength to us. It is the power which brings meaning to seeing ourselves as a trinity, not just as flesh and blood and thinking.

Achieving the essentials of our communication terms is essential, so let’s review again briefly.  Natural thinking. The interaction between the body-self and the mind-self.

It is all that is necessary to existing, but fall far short of what we need to live life.  Consciousness. The action and influencing of the mind-self by the spiritself. It is the pathway by which thinking is changed.  Prayer. Our interaction between our spirit-self and the Source. It is the drawing of the power from the Source and the giving of praise to the Creator.

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Whether you are considering counseling or just curious about how the Horizons Counseling Approach approach can help you understand human behavior, it’s time to answer some of the basic questions. These answers may only help you to ask more questions, but that’s okay. Everyone can find something useful in the Horizons approach.

The Big Questions Who am I? You are an eternal, spiritual being operating a human body combined of a bodyself and a mind-self. You were created with the idea of being loved and lovable, being accepted exactly as you are because you fit into a plan. Finally you are the only you who can live the path you have in this life.

That’s a lot of very simple answers and may not be very helpful unless we expand them.

Who am I? I am tall. I am rich. I am huggable.

The physical. You are your eyes, ears and your chin you got from your greatgrandfather. That might or might not be good but you are the genetic legacy of your parents.

But in addition to what you wake up with and go to bed with, you are also physically defined by all of your stuff. Your bank balance sheet to your favorite old tee shirt, you are defined by your physical items you have direct control over.

One last thing, you are defined physically about how you touch and physically interact with your environment and with others. Hugs, fists, touches and kisses.

Your body-self is often considered the most powerful part of the trinity of yourself in dealing with others.

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Who am I? I am smart. I learn from experience. I can direct my body.

The mental. Your mind-self is capable of learning and retaining knowledge using your brain and its incredible, intricate networks of neurons, chemical transmitters and billions and billions of cells.

An important part of who you are is the grouping of past experiences into a unique, internal road map of your past life. These memories of what happened to you under certain circumstances begin to form a belief system. This part is very important to remember, so make a note. My beliefs start in the mind-self and they are based upon my past experiences.

Finally, you are defined by your actions. Your mind-self is the control center of your body’s actions, many of them done automatically. That is, they have been done so many times it almost reflex. However, remember that when your bodyself arrived on the planet, it was Who am I? I am spiritual. I was created. I am eternal.

Here’s the one that’s a new thought to many people. That has always surprised me. Even many people who go to church regularly don’t stop to think about this part of who they are. Perhaps, they think as this of part of their mind-self?

Certainly, almost all mental health professionals have declared the spirit-self as unimportant or off limits in counseling.

This is the biggest change in the way Horizons approaches counseling. Instead of thinking the biggest power lies in the mind, we believe it belongs in the spirit-self. Don’t worry, we’ll explain that in more detail soon.

Who am I? I have roles to play in life. I am a mother. I am a son. I am her fiancé’.

It is almost impossible to talk about who we are without talking about our relationships.

We play many, many different parts in the lives of other people. We are not 8|Page

islands to our selves. From our first arrival, we are a son or a daughter. We are a brother or sister. We then move on to playing the roles of playmates, friends and associates. Our life spins out a wonderful web of interacting with the world around us through a series of relationships.

Why I Do What I Do In any counseling theory, including the Horizons Approach, the main concern is why people act or behave in certain situations.

Let’s begin with the body-self and mind-self interacting. Sometimes, the way we act may no longer be working for us, or getting us into trouble.

There may be times when other people are acting in ways that we find hurtful or harmful. Or, we may just want to learn new ways to act which will make our life better or happier.

It begins with the mind.

Actions, thoughts, beliefs all start with the body-self. That’s right, all things begin with our perception of things.

Even if we are doing a visualization, it begins with the mind’s eye. Some trigger on one of the five senses has to happen to begin the machine of our trinity moving. And, then it is immediately brought into the awareness of the mind.

Our mind-self, as you recall is the center of all our knowing. It is the chair of all of our experiences. Although some of the oldest “recordings” in our mind may not apply to our lives because of the changes we have gone through in our lives. The 9|Page

older files are still living there among the reactions and experiences to your new nephew last week or the experience of your boss telling you she hates your knew shoes.

One of the goals of the mind-self is to be as efficient as possible. Efficient is a nice word for easiest. When the impulse comes in, your mind-self looks through all of the events like the one currently being experienced. When it finds a match, it sends this response back out to the body self.

Let’s look at an example: “I see an apple and I am hungry,” says the body-self to the mind-self. The mindself immediately looks for apples and finds it had a good experience in eating an apple to take care of hunger. The mind self says to the body self, “In the past, we’ve eaten apples to take care of hunger. Eat the apple.” The body self complies and picks up the apple and eats it.

The mind self receives a little note of satisfaction back from the body as the hunger subsides. The mind-self makes a little internal note: “Apples still good for taking care of hunger.”

The magical thing comes in the fact the mind does this little interaction with the body-self millions of time each day. And, it instructs the body-self to take some action of sets of action millions of times per day.

Natural thinking and acting are the two activities of the body-self and mind-self.

Without plugging into the spirit-self, this is all we know as a person. It is enough to get by and indeed, some people even live to make millions of dollars and collect many degrees and awards.

The Results of Natural Thinking The main problem of Natural Thinking, the using of only our body-self and mindself, is that it is very hard to change behavior once it’s established.

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The results of Natural Thinking are called Natural Beliefs or natural truths. These are the paradigms established by the results of repeated stimulus-response models. To the school of natural thinking you are little more than a lab rat.

I do not want to belittle the concepts of learning or of holding a belief system.

Truly, learning is important. And, a belief system is absolutely necessary.

However, anything based solely on the body-self and mind-self is very limited.

I mentioned the term “natural truths” and I want to touch on this just for a moment before going on. The term refers to the set of beliefs that come out of repeating the same natural thinking.

From our earlier example, we can see the person probably holds the following natural truths about apples:    

Eating reduces hunger.

Apples are good to eat.

Apples are red.

I prefer to be full than hungry.

And, based on the specific experiences, the person is bound to have from very specific, more complicated beliefs about apples. These might include:  Apples are Mary’s favorite fruit and I bring in apple to her whenever she is angry with me.  Apples are used to make applesauce which Rick hates. I can use apples to pick on Rick by serving applesauce for dinner this evening.  Apples can be dangerous. I was head in the head by an apple while I was standing under an apple tree.

So, natural thinking and natural truths can get quite complicated, quite quickly.

But, it can all be boiled down to this: Natural truths are the beliefs that result of the mind=self’s experience with natural thinking. Natural truths or beliefs provide the “instructions” of how people react to people, situations, places, things and relationships. These natural 11 | P a g e

beliefs can be very, very complicated in their nature however; they become more and more stable as more and more life experience is added to the mind’s experience of life. Beliefs are what we look at to determine our reactions to new stimulation.

If a bulldog were to suddenly start speaking English to you, your mind self would have several problems. What are some of the beliefs that would be called into the experience?  Bulldogs don’t talk.  I speak the language so I can understand this dog.  I must be on Candid Camera.  This must be a joke.  This dog is probably worth a lot of money.  I must try to catch the dog.

As you can see, the beliefs get very complicated depending upon what your experiences have been with dogs, the English language, past money issues, past embarrassment and whether or not you like dogs!

All of this happens without the advantage of the spirit-self. And, it happens billions of times per day, but the big idea to walk away with is: I am a product of my experiences. I act and react according to my past experiences.

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An Introduction to the Spirit-Self The Horizons Approach does not believe we end at just being physical, thinking machines destined to replay each experience based on old experiences and rigid belief systems. Yes, the body-self and mind-self do compose an organic machine capable of wonderful things. However, the machine is only the shell for our eternal spirit-self.

We believe your spirit-self is the “who” of “who we are”. We are not our feet, our thoughts, our hair, our car, our job or even our spouse. We are, rather, unique, created, beloved expressions of the Creator. We are eternal. We have a beginning point but no end point. We are loved by our Creator deeply, completely and perfectly.

We are bound to our Creator. We have an eternal spiritual connection to our Creator. We may know this Creator by different names – Jehovah, Allah, the Source, God – but It is the same great I Am. However, we have Free Will. As much as our Creator loves us and wants all things good for us, for some reason, from some powerful command given eons ago, we have the ability to make choices as to whether or not we honor our spirit-self and its connection to the Creator.

Once the spirit-self is acknowledged, it cannot be unknown or forgotten. It stands ready to experience this life, using our body-self and mind-self, as fully or as limited as our Free Will dictates.

The spirit-self is much more the puzzle piece that completes the connection between God and humankind. It is in fact the connection itself.

Who Is the Creator, God, Source, I Am? When I was first training for my ministerial credentials, one of the first questions we were asked was to describe what God was like?

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My reply was: God is the Source of all things. God has been since the beginning and will be throughout the ages. God is that which all religions have passed down through history, yet none totally describe God. God is good. God is Light. God is the Father. God is the Spirit. These are things our faiths teach us. My experience of God adds on to these, however.

As the Source of us all, God wants a connection with all of us. His Spirit wishes to connect to our Spirit. God loves and accepts us without question. God continually reaches out to us, to bless us and love us. His reaching never fails.

We, however, easily fail. We often do not reach back for God. We want to ignore that part of our trinity - the body, mind, spirit - most needing the connection with God, the human spirit.

If we think of God as a great powerful light such as the sun, we can easily see ourselves as smaller lights drawing from the Source. God is not simply a name for the collective consciousness of Spirit, rather the collective consciousness reflects God. It is the mirror of God we as humans can become. It is the Source that connects as all together.

Like Christmas lights on a string, God is the plug and the power and is passed along to each of us that we might shine. Unlike a string of lights, we can and often do choose to "unplug" ourselves from God and his light. The whole chain of lights suffer when one is unplugged. God keeps surging out to us, however, when we are unplugged ,we simply need to revisit our place in the chain of the Spirit and we can plug in.

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God is that which blesses us greatly once we are "plugged in". God is endless in God's ability and power. Nothing is beyond God. Because of this, nothing is beyond any of us. How could a Christmas light not be as good as its Source?

God is the great I am.

I stand by this still to this day. When we have considered what the Source is, then, we can begin to define the spirit-self.

The Advantages of Recognizing Your Spirit-Self Once you recognize your spirit-self, your life changes forever. You become aware of the real you! Chances are your spirit-self has made itself known to you by intuition, an “inner voice” or through just thinking in terms of yourself as being eternal as you might have done at Church or another House of Faith.

Your spirit-self is often confused with you consciousness by many people.

However, consciousness is an action or being state of the spirit-self.

Consciousness is a part of the spirit-self, just as speech is a quality of the bodyself. Consciousness is just one of the functions of the spirit-self.

The advantages of the recognizing your spirit-self include:  The ability to experience contact with the Creator.  The ability to change behavior through the strength of your connection to the Source.  The ability to incorporate the power of the Source in your life!  The ability to have relationships with others in the true way we are meant to be together.  The ability to experience overwhelming love, acceptance, peace and joy.  The ability to live a full life filled with purpose and daily challenges.  The assurance of your eternal being and its home in Paradise.

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You can see why the Horizons Counseling Approach lets us become excited when it comes to providing a new way of looking at things that can change your life and that begins with your spirit-self.

Beginning the Exploration of Prayer Prayer is the communication between the spirit-self and the I Am. At this point, you should be aware of the concept of yourself as a spiritual being and also be aware of the concept of the Creator, Jehovah, I Am, Source or whatever you feel comfortable labeling our Greater Power.

While both are eternal, the spirit-self was created by the I Am; whereas, the I Am has always been. While the spirit-self exists using a body-self and a mind-self, the I Am exists without any need for such selves.

These are just two basic differences between we, spiritual, eternal beings and our Source . We are not the same as the Source. The Source exists apart from us and we exist apart from the Source while we are here in this life. Although our spiritself shares with the Source, they are two distinct things.

That is to say, human beings and God are different things. We are not the same.

We are children of the Father. I would even go so far as to say we share a similar “genetic� make up with our Parent. However, there must be a line drawn somewhere in seeing the difference between ourselves and God. We are not God, even though we are very God-like in our best, eternal selves.

Overcoming Separation from God Because we are separated from the Source, we use prayer to reach the Source.

Prayer, again, is the communication of the spirit-self with the Source. It is initiated by the spirit-self whenever we choose. Many of us stay in prayer in a constant basis almost. Some of us strongly regulate and structure our prayer time. Some do both.

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Prayer will become an absolute necessity once you have discovered your spiritself. Because the spirit-self draws its power, our power, directly from its connection to the I Am, conversation and exchange with the Source has to take place.

Consider this statement: You cannot travel far in your car without gas.

True or false?

False! Your car may be up on a car carrier, attached to mule team or be rolling down a hill at break neck speed and be completely out of gas.

To make the statement true, we must add a few words. You cannot drive and direct your car very far without fuel for the car. Just as in this world, we cannot direct our lives very effectively once we are aware of our spirit-selves without prayer.

Prayer is a deeply personal thing with no one right way. Historically, all major faiths have instructed the faithful in how to pray. In these rituals and approaches you may find some which work for you very well. In others, you may find some that do not work. Keep trying different approaches until you feel you have made a connection to the Greater Power.

Be assured, the I Am wishes to communicate with you. The Creator not only waits for you, oh no, He seeks you and is waiting for you to make the choice to make a connection. This makes things so much easier. It is as if all of your communication devices, your phone, your cell phone, your Internet connection and even your fax machine are just waiting for you to pick up any or all of them with the connection already made.

An Easy Way to Begin Prayer A quick-effective way to remember a way to approach prayer from the JudeoChristian background can be found in the P-R-A-Y exercise.

First, is the P which stands for Praise. We acknowledge the Creator as being our Father, the Power from which we draw strength and give thanks for all the gifts we have active in or lives.

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Secondly, the R is for Repent. We acknowledge we have had missteps and we have relied on the thinking or actions of this world to guide us. We acknowledge that sometimes we may misuse our Free Will.

Third, the A is for Asking for Others. In seeking answers to our relationships and to bestow blessing on other people is an important function of the communion of prayer.

Finally, the Y stands for Yourself. Last because it shouldn’t be forgotten, is the seeking of guidance, strength, blessings and a closer relationship with the I Am. The Almighty stands ready to bless and fulfill your ever want and desire. He waits to strengthen the spirit-self to influence the mind-self and body-self.

Again, this is a simplistic approach to such a powerful and intimate concept as prayer. However, it provides an easy place to begin. Some of the greatest prayers said each day from this Earth go up in this format and are received and acted upon by the Source. Truly, at sometime, someplace every second on Earth, prayers of good will are being lifted. Is it any wonder miracles are just waiting for us?

An Introduction of Consciousness and Inspired Thinking Consciousness is a state of action between the spirit-self and the mind-self. It is the exchange of spirit-self ideas with the mind-self ideas, the challenging of mindself beliefs and the introduction of new material to replace or supplement the previous experiences of the mind-self developed from the mind-self’s interactions with body-self stimulation.

Let’s say, two new friends are talking and they have gotten together to have an iced tea and chat about a few things they have in common. Being new friends, the subjects are pretty light and care free. After all, very few new friends want to hear your entire life story the second they meet you.

As mind-self and spirit-self are talking and enjoying the sunshine and the iced tea, a pretty little girl walks by, stops, waves hello then skips off in a different direction.

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“Oh, no! That little girl is going to get in trouble! We’ve got to do something, quick!,” says the mind-self. This startles the spirit-self.

“Why do you say that,” asks the spirit-self?

“Well, you see, I know a pretty little girl once who waved at two strangers then was abducted. It has happened in the past. We absolutely must do something,” says the mind-self to the spirit-self. Before the spirit-self can respond, the mindself is up and on the cell phone to the body-self.

“Wait, just wait, now,” says the spirit-self. “I happen to know that little girl. She is my little girl and she’s just fine. We can see her and she enjoys skipping, so let’s just let her skip for a while.”

“But,” insists the mind-self, “I know a little girl that looked much like this one, who was abducted and horrible things happened! Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure. She is my little girl and she is fine,” says the spirit-self. “But, I thank you for being so alert and concerned about the little girl.

I tell you what, in the future, when you see that little girl, give me a call and we’ll see if it’s my little girl and she’s okay, before you do anything, okay?”

“Okay,” says the mind-self, “in the future, when I see that little girl, I will call you and be sure the girl I’m seeing is really you’re little girl and I’ll ask if she’s okay.”

“Great! It was very nice to meet you. I’m here if you need me,” says the spiritself.

Okay, what have we seen here? Well, among many things, we have seen consciousness at work. The spirit-self has initiated communication with the mindself and has applied consciousness to change the way the mind-self believes about one very specific thing. The mind-self has accepted this consciousness as being the truth from the spirit-self.

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Consciousness requires at least four things to happen:    

The spirit-self must make itself known to the mind-self.

The mind-self must present a belief to be challenged by the spirit-self.

The spirit-self must have a way to challenge the mind-self’s belief.

The mind-self must be subject to the action of consciousness to accept it and change.

Back to the Beliefs The most advantageous way of looking at things through the Horizons Approach is the power it brings to challenging natural beliefs. We’ll talk more about beliefs and challenging them later in this work. For now, we can find some “natural beliefs” in the example we just considered.     

Mind-self’s natural beliefs: Little girls should not be alone.

Little girls should not smile at strangers.

Little girls should not change their direction quickly without reason.

Little girls are in danger.

However, through the act of consciousness, the spirit-self was able to challenge these beliefs before the action command was given to the body-self by the mindself.

The spirit-self was also able to make its first of millions and millions of potential acts of consciousness upon the mind-self. Of these acts, some will be focused and some will be passive.

As you spirit-self develops, it will become as natural to your being as the interaction between the body-self and the mind-self.

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Bringing you to the path leading to that state of being, the state where consciousness is being applied both in a focused and in a passive manner is the goal of the Horizons Approach.

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Part Two The Changing of Your Life Introduction In this second section, we focus on how the principles of the Horizons Approach to Counseling can change your life. Changing your life sounds like a grand, dramatic objective, but sometimes it can be something small. Regardless of the change you need to make, whether it is how you feel about yourself or think about others, or whether it is how you behave or attracting more good things to your life, these principles will show you how your Horizons helping professional will be approaching your sessions.

Key Concepts    

Review of the Part One Natural Beliefs versus Inspired Beliefs Little “t” truths versus inspired Truths in your life Applying Truths to your life for change

Quick Review of Part One If you’ve skipped ahead to this section, you’ve missed out on much information.

The basics can be wrapped up in a few simple statements.

Human Beings are made of a Triad: Body-Self,` Mind-Self and Spirit-Self. Each side has unique duties and abilities. We are eternal, spiritual beings and our core is our spirit-self which relies on the body-self and mind-self to live and work in this world. Our inner communications include natural thinking, natural beliefs, consciousness and prayer. Our behavior is based on natural beliefs before the introduction of the spirit-self. Once the spirit-self is introduced, true change can take place.

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Nature Beliefs, Natural Beliefs and Inspired Beliefs In part one of this little book, we talked about natural thinking and natural beliefs.

As we begin to look at behavior a working definition of what behavior is will be helpful. For our purposes, we are going to define it as the following:  Behavior - Any internal or external act including emotional feeling, thinking or relating of any kind is behavior. Sometimes behavior is targeted at others, sometimes it is directed at one of our three selves. Behavior includes any reaction or action. Behavior is based on a belief.

Nature Beliefs As you sit in your room, even if you are very still, you are still exhibiting many, many behaviors. There is the behavior of your internal dialogue, perhaps thinking about what to have for supper. There is the behavior of your heart beating, nerves coursing and your internal organs working. If you are reading, you are engaged in not just reading, but symbol recognition, learning, thinking, understanding, consideration, etc. You may be having an emotional reaction such as hope or love or humor. All of these are behaviors as well.

There is a fine line in what we are going to nature beliefs and natural beliefs.

Nature beliefs result in behaviors such as your heart beat, blood pressure, and body composition. After all, we need something in place to keep all of your molecules from spinning out into a billion different directions simultaneously.

We call these behaviors nature based because they don’t seem to be placed on a belief of which we are aware. They are based on a supernatural, predefined system we don’t truly understand. Because these beliefs are based on something we don’t yet understand, we are going to allow these to be for now and not try to address them in our concept of change. In other words, we accept some beliefs are just nature in origin. However, some belief does exist to govern these things they are just beyond our influence and understanding at this time.

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Now that we have established our heart is going to keep beating and gravity is going to keep working without our worrying about it, it’s time to turn our focus to the beliefs we can control. And, if we can control a belief, we can control the truth of it for us and, thus, we can modify the behavior.

Natural Beliefs Many of the beliefs we currently hold are natural beliefs. That is, they are based on the natural thinking that occurs between our body-self and our mind-self. For example, when we approach an elevator and we wish to go to a higher floor in a building, we press the Up button because we believe it will bring the elevator.

Why do we believe this? Because we have observed this happen hundreds of times. When we were young, we might not have known how to operate an elevator. But, we observed others doing it. We became excited and probably delightedly pushed the button when we got the chance! We’d soon learn not to push all of the buttons (as I once did to stall an elevator while I enjoyed the doors open 16 times to the top floor of our hotel) but only the button that led to our floor.

Now when I approach an elevator, a have a natural belief that a truth exists the elevator will come when I summon the elevator by pushing the up button. Let’s look at what happens in our inner selves during this process.

1. I am in a building and I want to go to a higher floor.

2. I notice there is an elevator by my body-self giving my mind-self the information of the elevator location through sight and then my mind-self checks to see if indeed what it is seeing is an elevator. It checks within itself and finds a small truth written “This is what an elevator looks like” and “elevators take us up to higher floors” and finally “it is safe to approach an elevator” and then off the body-self goes to the elevator.

3. I arrive at the elevator via my body-self and send a “what now?” to the mind-self. The mind-self sees the up button and does a quick check “up buttons look like this one” and shoots back to the body-self, “press the button”. “What now,” queries the body=self and on and on it goes until we finally get that button pushed!

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Of course, all of this happens without us really being aware of it. It is just a part of our natural thinking and a part of our natural belief system.

But, did you know some people suffer from a fear of elevators called sursumdeorsumphobia? It literally means the fear of going up and down in an enclosed space. Now if you suffer from this condition, something has happened in your natural thinking that has gone awry. Rather than seeing elevators are a safe, convenient way to reach higher floors, you see them as a terror to be avoided at all costs? Why? There is a natural belief formed somewhere in your experience with elevators or elevator-like things which has led to a truth in your belief system that elevators are dangerous.

How could this have happened? Looks look at someone who suffers from the condition named Amy. Amy was ten years old when she and her mother were riding down in an elevator from their hotel room. During the descent, the large hotel lost power. As lights and escalators around the building stopped, so did the elevators. The elevator jolted to a stop and went dark with only the emergency lights on. Amy did not know what to do and neither did her mother. Her mother tried to push the alarm button, but it did not sound. Then, her mother tried the emergency phone – no answer! Amy’s mother panicked and began screaming for help! Amy began crying and hid in a corner which only added to her mother’s panic. “Help!

Heeeelp! We are in here!!,” screamed Amy’s mother, before fainting from the stress. Amy was left there, all alone, in the dark, the alarm finally ringing loudly and her mother unresponsive.

Of course, workmen were eventually able to rescue Amy and her mother from the stalled elevator. Amy’s mother was still rushed to the hospital and Amy was thrown into the ambulance with her. Eventually, all was okay, but Amy still avoids elevators.

Now, we may have considered Amy silly at first, but we certainly understand where she is coming from now. Her fear is has been justified by her experience

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and it’s no wonder when her body-self reports an elevator to the mind-self a natural belief finds a truth that says, “Elevators are to be avoided. Period.”

Amy might live the rest of her life afraid of elevators. And, she could function in this life without using an elevator ever again. However, she would most likely be limited by this natural belief to avoid elevators, especially if she is also not fond of stairs! So, how does Amy resolve her problem? There is where we begin to explore inspired beliefs.

Consciousness: Challenging Natural Beliefs with Inspired Thinking When a natural belief, large or small begins to limit our lives, or make us act in ways we don’t like, it is time to take a look at the natural belief, challenging it with an inspired belief and then replacing it with an inspired truth which will bring about a permanent change.

Challenging natural beliefs begin by first identifying the belief which is bothering us. For Amy, the natural belief has to do with elevators. For us, it might have to do with something external, like elevators, something to do with a relationship or something to do with our self. Sometimes, these beliefs are very harmful. You may hold a belief you are not as worthwhile as other people. You may hold a belief you are not worthy of love as other people. Or, you may believe you cannot form friendships.

All of these beliefs are the result of some experience you have had in your life.

Probably, early in your life you were either told by someone you trusted the belief was true or you experienced it by someone else’s hurtful actions. Although, they are called Natural Beliefs, there is nothing natural about not feeling loved, wanted, confident and happy. These are some of our birthrights as children of the Creator. This is where we must learn to reach beyond the limits of the 26 | P a g e

Natural Thinking of the body-self and mind-self and give the power to our true self – our spirit self.

In our Amy example, we know Amy has a belief about an inner truth that elevators are to be avoided. While we can understand the truth she holds, we realize Amy’s “truth” is indeed a truth with a little “t”. It is based on a belief that is not really a universal Truth for all of us.

Let’s help Amy by beginning to challenge her Natural Belief about elevators. After Amy identifies the belief, she will challenge the belief with Inspired Thinking that comes from her spirit-self. Through actively challenging the belief with Inspired Thinking, Amy will eventually replace the Natural Belief with an Inspired Belief.

The process sounds complicated, but it can be broken down into easy steps.

Initiating Change in Your Life Identify the Belief For Amy, she has identified the belief. But, what does she do with it. We all learn best in different ways, but there are some basics to learning that seem to apply to all of us. Part of learning is to get the parts of what you want to learn down to simple, concrete things to review. We begin in identifying the belief by simply writing it down.

“Elevators are horrifying.” Amy would write this. You will need to identify your own beliefs. These may range from “I can’t get a raise at work” to “I will never be loved”. Some beliefs are very, very powerful and encompass your life in very painful ways. Other beliefs are smaller, just annoyances. Where you begin is up to you. But, do see how things work from the Horizons Approach, give yourself permission to start with something smaller.

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Above, we see how Amy has written out her Natural Beliefs her Inspired Thinking and her challenges.

Consciousness As Inspired Thinking Where Does Inspired Thinking Come From?

Inspired Thinking comes from our spirit-self. It’s time to focus on the action of consciousness. Part of the action of consciousness is inspired thinking. Let’s focus on the spirit-self and learning how wonderfully powerful this part of you is in changing in your life.

In order to learn more about your spirit-self you need to look to your origin. You were created by a great Power, the I Am, God; whatever name you need to place on the Source. We’ll use these terms interchangeably in our review of the spiritself. The Creator endowed your spirit-self with certain qualities just as your parents endowed your body-self and mind-self with certain qualities. Because you are created of the same things as everyone else, I deeply believe there are qualities to your spirit-self to recognize and to claim.

The Spirit-Self is eternal, loved and powerful. The qualities of the spirit-self include that it is:  Eternal. Our spirit-self is forever lasting and forever strong.  Loving. We are deeply cared for and we deeply care for others.  Intelligent. All knowledge that is or is to come is accessible.

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      

Powerful. We draw our strength from the One who has no limits.

Insightful. We know wrong from right, and how to apply it.

Supportive. Lifts us up when we are tired, alone or ill.

Empowering. Give us the ability to act in ways that are powerful.

Challenging. Growth never rests and opportunities come daily.

Patient. Try, try again, there is no getting it wrong, only closer to right.

Joyful. Deeper than happiness, joy is the simple pleasure of being.

Our spirit-selves are the powerhouses of who we are and they our spirit-selves begin growing when we first acknowledge them. Of course, the power of our body-self and mind-self were limited when we were young. So, is the spirit-self?

When it is first embraced, first realized and first called upon, the spirit-self is young and requires nurturing and attention to grow powerful in our lives.

Think of the Qualities of the Spirit-Self we reviewed above as being the DNA of our spirit-self. When our body-self is born and begins living, its full structure, how tall it will be, what color of hair it will have, etc. All of the millions of different qualities of the body are already written by the DNA before the body-self even begins to develop.

This is how with the spirit-self and its qualities. What the spirit-self will become is already written in its qualities. To begin to seek out these qualities is to begin to prepare you for inspired thinking.

How Inspired Thinking Works Inspired thinking is part of the action of consciousness and it is the challenge of the natural thinking by the spirit-self. Natural thinking occurs from the mind-self reacting to information from the body-self. Inspired thinking is the equivalent of the spirit-self saying, “hey, wait a minute, this isn’t right.” But, the mind-self will protest this interjection. It will insist it has information showing it is thinking correctly. This is where the spirit-self has to call a time out and bring forth a challenge.

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Challenges are the cornerstone to launching inspired thinking. That is why we have to make them so simple and so concrete as to actually write them out.

We’ve already identified how to write out a natural thought and how to write out challenges to them.

Now we’ve got to add the inspired thinking to the challenges. If, for example, the natural thinking was a certain fear, we would need to find the quality of our spiritself which challenges the specific fear.

In Amy’s elevator case, we see she wrote out a specific challenge to her fear.

When she wrote down the belief, Elevators are terrifying, she had to go to the qualities of the spirit-self to see which ones could add a challenge to her natural

thinking which had created the natural belief.

From the qualities of the Source, Amy found that the spirit-self was intelligent, loving and eternal. She decided it made sense to challenge her natural belief with these qualities and wrote out her challenge. Did she do those in a matter of seconds? No, probably not. Chances are she had helped from a helping professional using the Horizons Approach or from a clergyperson who understood how the spirit-self works to influence our lives in the here and now as well as forever and ever. However, if Amy has been working the Horizons Approach in her life for a few weeks, she is very capable of looking at the process and completing it.

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The opportunity to apply inspired thinking in your life presents itself hundreds of time each day. If you think about it, we face new challenges and opportunities in life ever day. In fact, hundreds and thousands of them come our way each and every hour. Successful use of inspired thinking requires us to slow down, look at more situations more critically and begin to refuse that which has become natural for us and long to replace it with the divine qualities of spirit-self.

The life you have now may really be a pretty good life. You may be happy most of the time. You may have nice things and a good relationship. You are to be congratulated.

If you are in a suffering life right now, fighting the grips of addiction or having a horrible divorce pending. Well, you need the power of your spirit-self even more, because within it exists healing. And, in addition to healing, within it you find how you need to live each year, day, even second, as a fully empowered spiritual being.

Inspired Thinking to Inspired Beliefs Before now, you have been in a car made up of your body-self, mind-self and spirit-self. Now you will be DRIVING a car made up of your body-self, mind-self and directed by your consciousness, the inspired thinking of our spirit-self. There is a huge difference between riding in a car and driving a car. Through your experience of the Horizons Approach you will be learning to “drive” your life. You will be getting your driver’s permit, then a license and then your certification as a certified driver. Okay, we don’t actually issue permits, but you will be receiving a powerful reminder of your journey!

As we move through the steps of applying inspired thinking to natural thinking and natural beliefs, a wonderful thing will happen. The natural beliefs that have been the cornerstone of your life will begin to be replaced by inspired beliefs from the spirit-self. This takes place a little each time inspired thinking happens.

Let’s take another look at our graphic explaining how this works: So, you can see how our challenges work visually.

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In every situation we face, we begin with a set of [1] Natural Beliefs. Our Natural Beliefs keep us stuck in Natural Thinking which is the limited life offered by the body-self and the mind-self. Our Natural Beliefs are not our fault and they are not our destiny. They are simply the result of life experience of when we were children, in our lives when we were weak, our when we were out of control of the situation. However, at some time our Natural Beliefs either fail us or limit us in a way that demands a new set of thinking. Whether it is Amy’s elevator fear or a drug addiction. Whether it is thinking we don’t deserve love or refusing to take

compliments. These Natural Beliefs are just a few samples of how life could be limited by relying on the body-self and mind-self only.

However, our spirit-self is ready to challenge these Natural Beliefs with [2] Inspired Thinking and, eventually, change these into [3] Inspired Beliefs based on Inspired Truths. The qualities of the spirit-self become the Inspired Truths of the whole Triad of Who We Are.

A Review of the Changing of Your Life Changing your life is a process and a journey. A journey that will not happen overnight, but can have an impact on your life very quickly is found in the Horizons Approach.

We have identified three types of beliefs. Nature, natural and inspired are the types of beliefs we are living under in our trinity of being. Beliefs eventually become truths. Nature beliefs have been in place since the beginning of time and 32 | P a g e

they are truths for us as physical beings. These truths include things like gravity, molecular cohesion and the color of the sky. They are of nature and are not things we can change with our current understanding of how things work. Nature beliefs just are.

Natural beliefs come from the interactions of our body-self and mind-self with the outside world or between themselves in our inner selves. Natural beliefs come from natural thinking which is thinking without the inspiration of the spirit-self.

These natural beliefs eventually become natural truths, however, addressing the changing of truths is a long process. Changing natural beliefs which come from natural thinking is relatively easy.

Inspired beliefs are beliefs based on the spirit-self and its qualities of being eternal, loving, intelligent, powerful, insightful, supportive, empowering, challenging, patient and joyful. From these beliefs we derive challenges in the form of inspired thinking to the natural thinking which is limiting our life.

These inspired thinking challenges are applied directly against the natural thinking belief statements. We followed Mary as she faced down her fear of the elevators by applying challenges in the form of inspired thinking against her natural thinking fear of elevators. While there was a reason or belief for Mary to be afraid of elevators, it was a natural belief. Since natural beliefs are made up of interactions between only the body-self and the mind-self and our experience of life, they are subject to challenges from the spirit-self, the true seat of our power. The spiritself is, after all, the you of who you are.

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A Client’s Experience with the Horizons Approach

40,000,000 Americans suffer from fear and anxiety in their daily lives. As I have begun to include the Horizons Approach in my pastoral counseling practice, I have been approached by an increasing number of people needing to work on their feelings of uncontrolled fear, anxiety and panic. Anxiety can range from feelings of slight unease to absolute, life-freezing panic. I believe these fears can be greatly relieved by applying the principles of the spirit-self influencing the mindself by being in touch with the gifts from the Source. If you are experiencing anxiety and fear on a daily basis, you should seek the help of a qualified psychiatrist. And, always remember, you can dial 911 and be placed in contact with emergency psychiatric care.

Here is the story of such a client and how she faced her fears using these ideas.

Client Profile: A Caucasian lady, 55, under the care of a psychiatrist who has prescribed anti-depression medication and advised her to seek adjunct talking therapy. Unable to stay with the impersonal style of her previous psychologist, she has sought pastoral counseling.

Jill, not her real name, is one of my clients. In her recent years, she has been working through the feelings about her brother passing away with cancer. Her brother was “everything to her” and had been since early in Jill’s childhood.

Her brother was several years older and had been very protective of Jill. Jill had been the victim of physical abuse at the hands of her father. Her brother had provided protection for her, coming to her defense and deflecting Jill’s father’s rage when they were young. Jill’s parents had also been very cruel in other ways.

To punish she and her siblings, her parents would remove their basic necessities from them including their beds, clothing and schoolbooks for days at a time. She 34 | P a g e

reports having had to sleep on the floor, unclothed for many nights with only her siblings for warmth.

Throughout her life, she had turned to her brother to take care of the big decisions in her life. Even though she had been married, twice, she had always had her brother handle her money and micro-manage her life.

“I just trusted him. He had stopped Father from hitting me. He had helped me through the fear I had in ending my marriages. I just don’t know how I’m supposed to live without him to help.”

Jill has, however, gone on living. Because she also has a disability, her family helped her to move into a retirement community even though she is just 55. Her community has individual apartments but common dining facilities, exercise area and a library full of not just books, but Internet capabilities. The facility plans resident outings to public places on its bus, taking residents shopping, out to eat and other activities.

Jill has neighbors on either side of her and there are several people her own age as well as many residents who are older and more dependent on the facility for their care and assistance.

In our counseling sessions, Jill has been dwelling on the first anniversary of her brother’s death. She has been experiencing more and more fear about going out with the facility’s transportation, making it to meals and even visiting the common areas. She had gone from using words like “fearful” and “afraid” to using words such as “terrified” and “overwhelmed.” This has been important insight for me, as her pastoral counselor, because different weights are attached to different words. The stronger the word, the stronger the mind-self and spiritself are struggling.

I asked Jill to define what the word anxiety meant to her.

“Fear,” she began “kind of, like, a free floating feeling that nothings is okay and never will be again. I feel just horrible. I can hardly go outside my apartment.

What’s wrong with me? I was doing so well,” Jill began to cry.

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It was time for Jill to revisit her spirit-self on the topic of her brother. I had three objectives for Jill. In my notes, I wrote down:  Jill must visit examine her spirit-self’s bond to the eternal spirit-self of her brother and put it in the right place.  Jill must open her mind-self and allow new information to come from her consciousness and spirit-self to change the way her reactions are forming and being expressed.  Jill we rejoin her community and begin to interact with others again.

Jill will set goals to show achievement results of these three objectives.

As is often my practice, I share my notes with my clients. I never hide them from them because it creates a wrinkle in the trust relationship one must have to help clients.

Jill read through the objectives and began to cry some more. “How can I be bound to him and still be alive?” I noted she used the word bound rather than connected and we got down to the business of influencing Jill’s mind-self with the correct information from the consciousness and the spirit-self.

Fear is something we all face. It is hard wired into our make up of our physical bodies with the options of fight, flight or total submission being the only options open to us without the benefit of the spiritual-self.

Fear is one of the reactions we can have to both known and unknown circumstances. If the stimulus has not been experienced before, then there is no immediate information authored by the spirit-self to respond to the file. This causes brain chemistry to be released that makes our system prepare for fight or flight.

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Secondly, we can experience fear if the mind has information on file about a negative experience associated with the stimulus or a situation very close to the stimulus.

The most important thing is to bring the stimulus – the person, place or thing – out of the mind-self and into the consciousness where the spirit-self can begin to be empowered to work on the situation and give the mind new information to share with the body so a different reaction can be expressed.

Remember, stimulus goes from body-self to mind-self. The mind-self will want to react immediately, however, we bring the stimulus to our consciousness and to our spirit-self so the stimulus can be considered.

In the face of anxiety, a good prayer to offer up to the Source is: “Creator. I am afraid and I know fear is not of you. Come and help me express your courage and your peace. I know these things are abundant to me. I claim this now. Amen.”

I stopped Jill, and we prayed this prayer twice.

“Okay, Dr. Reece, but what am I supposed to do? What is going on?”, Jill implored.

I thought for a moment and began, “Jill, you believe we are all eternal beings, correct.”

“Yes,” Jill said.

“Good,” I continued, “then you, your spirit-self is eternal and your brother’s spiritself is eternal. But, for a minute I want to focus on you. You know you’ve mentioned the anniversary of your brother’s death is approaching. I’m wondering how often you are thinking about your brother. Would you say more or less since this date is approaching.”

“Much more. I’ve been thinking about how wonderful it was when he was alive.

How we would go to lunch here at [the facility] when he would come to visit.

How he’d even stick around and play games. He made me popular around here. I 37 | P a g e

felt safe meeting new people and two new residents have moved in. I’ve wanted to meet them but have been to scared that they won’t like me. If he was here…,” she sobbed.

“I know you are hurting, Jill. It’s very frustrating to feel afraid of things, especially if we’ve never been afraid of them before,” I reflected. “Let’s look at some things going on. Let’s take out a pen and view some of this on paper, okay.” Jill got a piece of paper and prepared to follow along.

“Okay, Jill. Draw the three circles representing the trinity of your being. Bodyself, mind-self and spirit-self. You know the drill.”

Jill laughed. “Yes, I should have pre-printed sheets as often as we do this!”

“Well,” I said, “Practice makes perfect.”

“Or, obsessive-compulsive,” Jill joked.

Jill drew three circles with her name written above them. She labeled them bodyself, mind-self and body-self. I then had her draw a strong line above them. I had her draw one large circle and one smaller circle above the line and label one Creator and the smaller one brother.

“Okay, Jill. Talk to me about what we’ve drawn. What you think from our sessions before.”

“I am made up of three parts. There is my body-self, my mind-self, and my spiritself, she started. She drew a line between the three circles and made a triangle connecting the three to the word “me” she had written above them. “My spiritself is connected to the Creator so a line goes there and then, I’m, I am,” she fought through some tears, “I am connected from my spirit-self to my brother.

And, my brother is connected to the Creator as well.”

I let her sit with this information for a minute. “Okay, Jill, where is the fear coming from. What part of this is making you afraid?”, I asked.

“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

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“Let’s write down some things you are afraid of, Jill. Some of the things you mentioned early in the session. Do you remember some of them?”

“Yes,” Jill said. She wrote down, “Meet new people” and “Going places on the bus”.

“Okay, good. You’re doing great, Jill. Now where are these coming from? What part of the self are expressing these fears?”

“Well, they are physical actions so they’re coming from the body-self. It takes the body-self to meet people or go on the bus.”

“Right,” I said. “Now what does the body-self listen to?”

“The mind-self,” Jill recounted from our first sessions. “The body-self is controlled by the mind-self which can be influenced by the spirit-self. I know this, Dr. Reece.

But, I’m still feeling these feelings. It’s so frustrating.”

“Yes, I know it feels like a brick wall, Jill, but you’re doing good. If these actions are coming from the mind-self, let’s bring some of those thoughts into your spiritself’s consciousness. Can you think of statements your mind-self must be making for you to feel afraid?”, I asked. “Just write them down.”

Jill thought for a long moment. Becoming tearful again, she wrote down.  I am unsafe without my brother.  People like my brother not me.  I don’t do things the right way.

“Wow. Those are some pretty big statements, Jill. What you run those through your spirit-self, what does it say about the above?”, I asked.

“They are wrong,” said Jill, hopefully, “I still have the strength of my brother available through the Creator. My spirit-self says the Creator loves me, strengthens me, wants good things for me.”

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“Great, just great, Jill,” I interjected. “Yes, you are still very much connected to your brother and the Creator. You connection to your brother has just changed.

Your mind-self is expressing this anxiety because you are thinking of your brother more often but not processing the thought more often. Let’s challenge those statements you wrote above. Look at the three statements you wrote down and write, ‘False, because…”

Lea wrote down: False, my brother’s spirit-self is still connected to my brother through the Creator.

False, people like me and like my brother. It’s not an either or situation.

False, I can do some things very well because my spirit-self is connected to the Creator.

“Fantastic, Jill,” I complimented. “You see your anxiety is coming from having more and more stimulus about thinking about your brother. Your mind-self has been waiting for you to run the issues through your spirit-self. After a while, you mind-self decided to go with some old information and stop waiting. Now that you’ve got it back into your spirit-self to review, the statements are not true and the anxiety is a false feeling.”

Jill breathed a sigh of relief. “What do I do?”

Let’s do this, Jill, let’s set some small goals for the body-self and some for the spirit-self to deal with this anxiety.

1. I will say Hello to three people every day.

2. I will make one outing on the bus this month.

3. I will look up the daily affirmations on CrossingTwice.com.

“Now, when you have an opportunity to do one of these things, I want you to take a moment and state to yourself one of the following statements.”

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My spirit-self is eternal, perfect, strong and loving.

I can change my mind-self . My spirit-self is in charge.

I am connected to my brother still. It has only changed but it will be whole and perfect again soon. Until then, I invite his spirit to abide with me in life.

I noticed our session time was almost up so I began to wrap things up for her, “Okay, Jill, we are about to run out of our time together but you’ve done some very good work today. You have remembered we are made of three-selves.

You have remembered your body-self obeys your mind-self.

Your mind-self can be influenced by your spirit-self.

You identified your fears and wrote them down in statements that can be challenged by your spiritual self.

I want you to work on these goals and we’ll review them and see how you are feeling next time.”

Jill and I closed with prayer bringing the Creator into the relationship between us, “Creator. We thank you for our eternal being. We thank you that we are your children and you want only the best for us. We claim ourselves as being eternal and capable of reaching for your gifts when times challenge us. We ask you to bring more awareness to us of our spirit-self where You and Your Power dwell.

Creator, we pray you alleviate Jill’s fears. We claim our right to live boldly and confidently. We go forth from here with confidence and love. Amen.”

Restating some of the parts of the session in prayer helps attune the spirit-self with the Power that exists for it and in it.

Much of the time, our anxiety and fear are caused by our mind-self not fully working with influence from our spirit-self. I believe anxiety can be relieved by: 1. prayer, 2. identifying negative statements coming from the mind-self, 41 | P a g e

3. challenging these statements with the spirit-self’s statements, and 4. claiming our power the Creator has destined for us.

The next session, Jill has been able to easily meet her goals as well as add making a new friend with one of the new neighbors. Did all of Jill’s fears disappear or all her anxiety dissipate completely? No, of course not. However, she did manage to bring the thoughts causing the fears into the presence of her spirit-self’s statements. This helped bring a new light into her thinking and made it the work of the spirit-self in conjunction with mind-self.

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Closing In counseling, I often begin asking the client what it is they most want.

Then I simply ask them what is stopping them.

It’s usually a difficult thing to define and often requires a couple of sessions to identify, first, what they really want to change. Next, finding the reason, the natural thinking or natural belief that is stopping them from changing is difficult as well.

Often, there are a number of smaller natural thinking beliefs contributing to a larger belief. After these are identified, challenges must be generated to challenge each part of the natural beliefs and thinking.

Challenges are also generated from the spirit-self. It is very important to remember the qualities of the spirit-self. The qualities of the spirit-self are that it is eternal, loving, intelligent, powerful, insightful, supportive, empowering, challenging, patient and joyful.

Why these qualities? These are the qualities of God or the Source of our spiritself. They are the Holy DNA we are made of as spiritual beings. We have different amounts of each qualities that make as up as an individual spiritualbeing. Some of us have spirit-selves who are very insightful. There are those who are very intelligent.

As we forward in our lives, using our spirit-self as the driver rather than just a rider in our lives, we become aware of what are stronger qualities are and how they are balanced in our spirit. This is accomplished through prayer, spending time before the Source and seeking our spirit-self.

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. [Philippians 4:13]

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Self Esteem and Affirmations through the Horizons Approach Addressing Self-Esteem with Challenges Self-Esteem is defined as confidence in your own merit as an individual person. It takes in nuances such as our ability to believe we can accomplish things as well as our fears we should be accomplishing things we cannot.

Imagine if you were a student and walked into a vast classroom. There are lots of different things written on the boards. On one board there is information about math. On another board you see paintings and pictures of sculptures. On yet another board, you see instructions on how to build a boat.

As you are sitting in this cavernous classroom, others are filing into the remaining desks. There is much chatter going on about you. You finally pick up on the fact there is going to be a test. It seems no one knows for sure what the subject is going to be. Everyone seems to be taking all of this in different ways.

The lady in front of you is calm, cool and collected. She almost looks like she’s already done this before and is simply expecting to do it again. The man next to you is so nervous he is actually sweating. He raffles through a collection of papers he has brought with him and is trying to write down notes from the information and picture on the boards.

The couple behind you are happily talking about their date last night and sharing a laugh about how the waiter had dropped the wineglass full of red wine on his white shirt. They are giggling and cooing, very much the couple in love.

Finally, a man walks into the classroom wearing a very professional suit. It is clear he has spent some time preparing for this appearance. His hair is freshly styled and even his shoes reflect the light from the heights of the ceiling.

The man begins to pass a single sheets of paper down the rows with a single set of instructions written. As your copy of the sheet arrives, you are a bit apprehensive as you unfold and read the following: “Please assign yourself a grade of 1 to 100 and return to the head of the class.”

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In effect, this happens to us every day. As we go through our lives, in whatever profession or home we walk in, we are constantly being asked to give ourselves a grade. So, who is this that’s asking the question anyway? What right do they have of us to demand a score from us!? After all, how are we supposed to know?

Who the heck is asking this “grade yourself” question? The answer is simple. You are the asker.

You are also the answer.

The score is a little something we like to call self-esteem.

What score should we give ourselves then? Do we aim for a low number and hope we get by unnoticed. Do we give ourselves a 99 and run the risk of seeming arrogant. Or, do we flat out simply assign ourselves a 50 and assume it’s as good as it gets?

The number is important. It is important because it represents the amount of self-esteem you are willing to honestly put out there to the world. There is no right number, but I do think we may die when we get to 100!

Seriously, though you are already at a 100 with the Creator. The Source of all Life and of All Things looks at you, connects to you and knows you intimately and assigns a 100 to you.

If God thinks you are a 100, who are you to argue. Well, you are you a trinity of being. The mind-self has unlikely thought of any part of us as a 100. Maybe a 72 on a good day.

So, what are you doing walking around with a C- when God sees you as an A++?

You are human and human do things that are in human nature. The natural thinking and natural beliefs we have built up about ourselves limit not only the way others see us, but the way we see ourselves as well. Self-esteem is concerned with how we see ourselves.

If you think back to all of the boards up in the classroom, you probably identified something you were familiar with and had some knowledge about. For example, we talked about math instructions being on one board. For those of us how are 45 | P a g e

proficient in the science of mathematics, we may have seem long calculus equations. But, what if the board were to suddenly switch to the topic of Art History, chances are mathematicians would be perplexed by Attican-influences on Mediterranean art. However, art lovers would be greatly relieved.

We are going to change the board to simply being human. We have to look at the board of from a being human point of view. What we’ve been told and told over and over in our life. The board would probably be headed with things we know are wrong about us. Somebody, somewhere along our life path told us we weren’t good at this or that. Somebody else told us we weren’t as good as someone else.

And, as with all things, we begin to define anything, any action or any situation based on the body-self. As our trinity-self, body, mind and spirit, we are made up of three different selves. The body-self is made up of all of our physical structure.

Hands and toes, nerves and neurons, anything that is physical is a part of our body self. The body self has one job, to report the outside world to the mind-self.

The mind-self has two jobs, it has to receive all the information sent by the bodyself, look for similar places, people or situations and see if there is an exact match or at least a match which is close. The closest match is the first thing given back out to the body self. The interaction between the mind-self and body-self, as we have learned, is called natural thinking. New information comes in, is checked to see if it’s familiar to the mind-self’s vast storage of our experiences and then provide a reasonable response.

When we are looking at ourselves we first begin to gather the impressions we get from our physical self. We automatically compare ourselves to others. We compare how well we do something to the way we observe other people doing the same thing. We listen to what others have to say about us. These comparisons, these pieces of information are gathered by the mind self and, before we know it, we have begun to inform an opinion of ourselves.

The solution? To use Inspired Thinking to work on our Self-Esteem just as we would to handle any other object or situation.

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We know the true “who” of “who are we” is our spiritual self. It is the source of our connection to our Creator. The spirit-self is the place where we need to turn to find all the qualities of the source and apply in our lives. Let’s look at a simple example.

Julie is an attorney. She is new to the business but graduated from Harvard Law School with top scores. She has been recognized for her research abilities and has received a number of accolades from her professors. Julie is up for her very first job and is interviewing against another attorney named Kyle. Both Kyle and Julie have been invited by the selection committee to interview.

Kyle graduated from an online law school and he passed the bar exam by just one point. Kyle drinks heavily and he even shows up to the interview with the smell of whisky on his breath. Both Julie and Kyle complete the interview and are told to wait outside while the committee makes a decision.

Surprisingly, the interview committee emerges from the interview and announce they have selected Kyle to join their team. Julie walks away from the building shaking her head in confusion while Kyle heads out to his favorite bar and celebrates his win.

Most of us, at this point, are thinking the selection committee has completely lost their collective minds. However, we don’t know that Kyle happened to handle a case last week which brought in over $10,000,000 to his firm. In fact the selection committee had to seek out Kyle in order to fill the position. All along, the interview had simply been a formality as required by the firm’s bylaws.

Suddenly, the committee’s position makes sense.

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Our self-esteem can resemble this because our selection committee already has its mind set on answering to our body-self. No matter what wonderful, star powered person is presented to our mind-self, it already has its own agenda working. It may go through the motions of an interview of running it through its natural thinking. But, because the committee has already made up its mind, it’s not really going to matter.

For our self-esteem to improve it’s time to fire the committee!

Now it’s time to select a new committee and form a better way of looking at your selfesteem.

First off, it’s time to find the head of the committee.

Because we are looking for the strongest most powerful team member, I recommend the Creator. After all, He seems to know a thing or two.

Next we have to find a second on the board. The spirit-self. Now, if the candidate is our self-esteem, it’s time to think about interviewing.

It is time to begin to think about self-esteem as being built from the spirit-self up instead of the body-self up.

Currently, self-esteem has been built upon Natural Thinking and Natural Beliefs.

If you graded yourself less than 100, ask yourself “who said?” Who said the things you are using to define your self-esteem? Try to listen and identify a few of them.

For one client, we’ll call her Lisa, the statements about self-esteem responded with a the voice of her mother’s SHOULDS over and over.

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“It’s like I keep on hearing her voice using the word SHOULD over and over. I should come over more often. I should have thought about getting married earlier. I should focus only on my baby’s wellness,” reports Lisa.

Lisa continues, “I hate myself. I cannot give myself anything better than a 50.

Every time I try to think a good thought about myself I am blocked by Mom’s ‘I should’. I just can’t think myself into doing this. I need some help.”

“Lisa,” I began, “There is nothing wrong with what you are experiencing. You are trying to apply inspirited thinking to a very built up natural belief. Your mind-self has been listening to your Mom for so long, it’s really a challenge to break out of it.”

“Well if that’s the case, how do I work this out.”

Lisa and I began where you have to begin with anything you want to change with the spirit-self. You first have to determine what is limiting the change. It begins with making belief statements from which we are operating. For, Lisa the challenges are going to be here feelings about her abilities to be a good mother.

On a piece of paper, I had Lisa write out the following: Natural Belief Statement, Challenge Using Spiritual Qualities and New Inspired Thinking.

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Okay, Lisa, let’s think about the statement you are hearing which is coming from your mom. Any one statement you are hearing that is bringing down the score you can give yourself, write it down. Lisa wrote down a belief; “I am not as good of a mother as I should be”.

Next, it’s time to challenge the belief through inspired thinking. In order to challenge our natural beliefs, we have to use a statement from the spirit-self.

And, in order to use the spirit-self we have to look at the qualities of the spiritself. Of the spirit-self’s qualities, Lisa selects knowledge and patience. Our spiritself contains unlimited resources because of its connection to the Creator.

Lisa writes out a challenge; “I am a good mother and can meet the needs of my child. I have knowledge and patience to be a good parent.”

Next, her inspired thinking is written out as; “I am a good mother. I meet the needs of my son easily!”

After doing this was Lisa automatically giving herself a 100 on her self-esteem scale? No. But she did move to beginning to open the door to the spirit-self to “speak” to the old beliefs through challenges. She has also introduced us to Affirmations.

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Affirmations and Self-Esteem An affirmation is a powerful tool in the Horizons Approach to Helping.

An affirmation is making a statement, either aloud or written, which presents information from the spirit-self to the mind-self using traditional channels of accessing the mind-self from the body-self. In other words, an affirmation is a written or spoken statement originating from the spirit-self. However, it is presented through either written or oral format so the body-self provides the information to mind-self. From the mind-self, the affirmation is assimilated into natural thinking. This feeds directly to our self-esteem by placing spirit-self statements into our learning and experience.

An affirmation sneaks around the mind self and makes an entry through our body-self. An affirmation in effect hijacks the natural thinking and natural learning we experience by placing a positive statement about ourselves into our natural thinking.

This process is why journaling is such an effective method for helping people deal with emotions. It is the reason why we like to keep diaries and other documents.

It gives us a chance to present divine information in a third way. Instead of using 51 | P a g e

prayer or inspired thinking, we can get into the hard wired body-self and mindself. This gives us a powerful way to access ourselves because it presents the inspired and the divine as natural thinking.

Affirmations are powerful. Because they are so powerful, it is very important to use them correctly and to use them often. Affirmations must be from the spiritself and our inspired thinking. We must be careful they contain no negative language because we are opening up a direct connection to our mind-self which is very strong. We will be taking advantage of the way our natural thinking works.

So, once presented to the body-self, we cannot take what we say or hear back.

Once it’s perceived, it’s automatically filed away in the mind-self for consideration in similar situations.

Affirmations begin with the statement “I am” or “I can”. When we are using affirmations, we can either be general or be very specific. For example, “I am a loving person and I am worthy of love” or “I can ask Jim out. I am worthy of being accepted.”

Both of these are going to be immediately perceived by body-self and sent to the mind-self. The affirmation is going to be filed away in the mind-self. Once the mind-self has labeled it as a piece of information it is stored to be used in the future in any situation close to the information contained in the affirmation.

If we decide to say, “I am a lovable person.” The body-self presents the information to the mind-self, the mind-self quickly accepts the information and files it away to be recalled later. The next time someone tells us, “I love you” the mind-self checks to see if it has information on file. It finds it does. It finds information about a divorce and a man shouting, “You are a bitch and not worthy my love.” It also finds, “I am a lovable person.” If the affirmation has been repeated over and over, the mind-self finds more and more of these files.

Instead of responding to the person with “this person is lying and is unsafe” the mind-self responds with “I am lovable so I may be able to trust this person.

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The more an affirmation is repeated, the more powerful it becomes. The more times it is presented to the mind-self through the body-self, the more your natural thinking begins to match your inspired thinking.

Affirmations make challenges much more effective, because they provide supportive material already present in your natural thinking. Remember, inspired thinking is the process of presenting challenges or statements from the spirit-self to beliefs held by the mind-self. The beliefs held by the mind-self are completely based on learning about the information presented to it from the body-self. The more positive information you can make available to your mind-self, the better you will feel and perform.

The power of affirmations comes from making a positive statement about you.

This statement, either spoken or written, must come from the qualities of the spirit-self. The qualities of the spirit self, remember, are eternal, loving, intelligent, powerful, insightful, supportive, empowering, challenging, patient and joyful.

Affirmations should be used daily to help increase self-esteem. We simply need to be kind to ourselves in making the affirmation. Even if we don’t really feel the way we state in an affirmation quite yet, the more we make the affirmation, the better our self-esteem.

Again, we must be careful in the wording of affirmations. If you would like to find a daily information to use in your life, just visit www.myhoirzons.org or www.crossingtwice.com and you will find a link to our blog.

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Five Steps to Applying the Horizons Approach to Your Life One: What do you want?

Begin at the beginning...what do you want? Asking this question of your mind self and your spirit self will uncover what can be changed and what cannot.

Two: What is stopping you?

You are a direct descendent with a direct connection to the Creator. Why are living your life like a second-class citizen? Power it up!

Three: Review your beliefs.

The beliefs you have been built in your life can be changed Four: Change your thinking.

Learning to flex your spiritual “muscles” comes in form of changing your thinking. Break through the past and connect to a new way.

Five: Put It into action How are you holding yourself back? Here’s out to make the changes your own personal call to action!

Applying the Horizons Approach to Your Life Welcome to your first session of therapy. The word therapy comes from an Ancient Greek word for “ritual king” or “ritual substitute”. You see, some of the gods the Greeks worshiped demanded the occasional sacrifice from time to time. Kind of a hard order to fill, but the people tried to do their best.

One faction decided it would be a good idea to go one step further and offer up their king, the very best of the best of their people. After all, if a shepherd was good a king had to be prime rib. The King, however, decided this might be a rather bad idea. Part of being king should have some perks such as being able to continue breathing. So, the King decided he would abdicate his throne one day a year, which just happened to be the day the gods happened to be in the mood for a tasty roast. The people 54 | P a g e

would parade around the substitute King and let him be King for the day. Then, up the pyre the king would go, and with his death, the real King could resume his throne. Now, which ever Greek leader figured out this “ritual substitute” idea, wasn’t a stupid king. He knew there was a better way than to experience unpleasant things then to do them yourself. You could have someone else go through it for you and keep everybody happy at the same time. Happy gods, happy Greeks, happy shepherds and one unhappy stunt double.

As you begin to consider the help offered in these pages, feel free to throw in your own stunt double and then play it out. For example, what would happen if you were afraid of elevators? How would it work to help you keep from dating bad people? What is going on when you feel out of control with your anger? Using “what if’s” can be of great help.

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What do you want?

In the beginning, this is the big question. What do you want? What do you want to change? In looking through the files of clients I have the wants range from wanting to reduce anxiety to wanting to date a millionaire. For me, they range from wanting to be more organized to wanting to shed ten more pounds. We all have wants. The questions is, is what you want within your control or not?

I want to work on the way I express my anger.

I want to win the lottery.

I want to stop the media from talking about Brad Pitt.

The Horizons Approach can only help you with one of these. Millionaires and Mr. Pitt I’m afraid are left to their own devices. However, working on expressing anger is a great undertaking.

I want to be a better mother.

Again, we can help. Sure, we’d have to break it down quite a bit, but we could find great ways to increase your effectiveness as a mother.

The want you identify in this step has to be within the sphere of influence of your spirit self. While the influence of your spirit self reaches far out to the Creator and beyond, here, at this place and time, you are limited by your body self and mind self. All of your trinity of being will always be involved in successful change.

Because of the limits of the body self and mind self, we are limited to dealing with things that ultimately come down to either being within ourselves or directly connected to us, such as relationships.

Now you know you are working within the limits of your, what are you going to work on? What do you want? If you’re not for sure, here’s an easy exercise to generate some ideas. Write down the phrase “My life would be better if...”. Now, generate as many things as you can. Look for things you can control. Remember, things which are Nature we just have to accept. But, a lot of people mistake Nature for things Natural. Nature is things that really cannot be broken down and belong to the fields of medical science, for example. The good news is there are wonderful thinkers like Greg Braden who are applying principles similar to the Horizons Approach to the physical world. Dr. Braden is especially 56 | P a g e

concerned with applying spiritual principles to the physical body. His work is exciting and promising and speaks to applying the spirit self changing the body self directly. It is beyond the scope of our work; however, you may want to pick up a copy of The Biology of Belief.

Back to the list you have been generating. Many people have listed things like “My life would be better if...: 

I could speak with people I like.



I could stand up for myself in certain situations.



I could find love.



I didn’t feel so controlled.



I wasn’t afraid all of the time.



I was a better listener.



I wasn’t so stupid.

Let’s take, “My life would be better if I could stand up for myself.” The steps will be the same regardless of what your statement happens to be.

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Step Two: What Is Stopping You? In order to move forward, we must identify what is stopping us from progressing in our desires. It’s always a hard question to generate an immediate answer for most of us. In fact, we often think, “well, if I knew that what in the world would I need help for?” when we are asked the question: What is stopping us?

The root answer to this question is always the same. You have generated a belief about a certain situation, place, thing or person which is keeping you from acting in such a way you can obtain what you want. So, we have to address the belief behind the statement of what you want and what is stopping you. For our example, we have decided to use the statement “My life would be better if I could stand up for myself in certain situations.”

What beliefs are being expressed in the phrase? To find the belief we have to look at the statement. In this case, because it is a limiting belief, we are going to have to flip the statement around to look at it to find the belief. So, let’s do that by just using the last part of the statement of, “I cannot stand up for myself.”

Do you see where this is coming from in our original statement? My life would be better if I could stand up for myself. We can tell from looking at the step there is something that is an abiding belief underneath the surface. Obviously, it is found in the second half of the statement. But we have to turn it into a belief statement before we can challenge the belief. The belief itself is I cannot stand up for myself. What does that mean? What does it mean to be able to stand up for myself?

It means different things to different people. We need to get to a specific belief as possible, so it is important to look at the different shades of meaning. For some of use, standing up for our self means stating our ideas clearly. For others, it mean saying “no” to certain requests. Again, it’s going to be helpful to generate some specific beliefs by writing them down.

Simply right down, “Standing up for myself means ____________________________ . Now generate as many phrases as you can. 

Being able to say no when I want to.



Stating my beliefs and opinions.



Making myself number one in some situations.

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

Addressing my boss directly when he makes me angry.



Taking fewer assignments from my supervisor.

As we look at these statements, we see the different beliefs that lie beneath the surface. Every statement is a belief. Let’s choose one of the above to work in our example. Let’s choose, “Being able to say no when I want to.” So, what’s the belief in this statement? All together the statement is now: My life would be better if I could say no when I want to.”

Okay, now that we have our statement, we are ready to find the underlying belief. We can see the belief must be in found in the second half of the statement “if I could say no.” So, we have to ask ourselves why not?

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Step Three: Identify the Belief What is stopping us from saying no? What belief or beliefs are at work here in this statement? First, we have to make the statement into a form of a belief. We can tell it is not a positive belief because it is limiting us in some way we do not wish to be limited.

I cannot say no.

We have found a working statement now. However, we can see this statement probably has several beliefs lying underneath it. This is how most self-statements work. So, it’s not surprising this statement has many layers to it as well. Our work here is to focus the statement down to some specific beliefs.

The best way is to again generate some idea from writing down the statement. With a little brainstorming, we’ll find some more specific beliefs.

I cannot say no to other people _____________________. 

I don’t deserve to put myself in front of others.



I will get hurt.



Other people will hate me.



I’ll just mess up the opportunity.



Other people are more worthy than I am.



My needs don’t really matter.

All of the above beliefs and more are lingering underneath our statement of “I cannot say no to people when I want to say no.” When you are trying to change, it’s important to be as complete as possible.

You need to generate as many beliefs as you possibly can. Yes, it’s going to take a while to look at each belief; however, the rewards of change are very great. It takes time, but it is worth it.

Let’s just choose one of these to work with for now. How about, “I will get hurt” as our belief we want to change.

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Step Four: Change Your Thinking I will get hurt is a belief that has come from natural thinking. Natural thinking is the result of interactions between the body-self and mind-self. A belief is generated by thinking which comes from information outside of ourselves and is based on interactions with the outside world. Someone has told us, you will get hurt if you say no. Or, we’ve observed that when we tried to say no in the past, bad things have happened to us. Perhaps we were called arrogant. Or, we were told we were being selfish.

Perhaps when we said no in a past relationship our partner left. Even if it was completely appropriate to take care of ourselves by making our needs paramount, we received negative feedback and our mindself made a note of it: It is bad to say no. The mind-self eventually generated enough natural thinking recording saying no to other people is a bad thing and should be avoided. I believe it is wrong to say no to people because I just get hurt. So, we believe the statement “I will get hurt if I say no.”

This is our thinking we must change. How do we change our thinking, we challenge the belief with thinking for our spirit-self.

Yes! The spirit-self! The source of the true power in our lives! The I of “Who am I? The Power in our lives! Our connection to the Creator! Our connection to all of life! Our spirit-self with all of its wonderful, incredible qualities! What a wonderful part of our self the spirit-self is and how very, very powerful it is to interrupt natural thinking with Inspired Thinking! Remember, inspired thinking takes place when the spirit-self is used to challenge a natural belief. Natural thinking is overwhelmed by the power of the inspired thinking. Natural thinking has come from the outside interactions with the world or interactions with our earthly body self and mind self.

The qualities of the spirit-self include it is Eternal, Loving, Intelligent, Powerful, Insightful, Supportive, Empowering, Challenging, Patient and Joyful. Why these qualities? Because, these are some of the qualities of the Creator! We are children of the Creator and we share the “DNA” of the Creator. It gives us the divine right to live from our spirit-self!

So, let’s bring on our natural belief and challenge it with the a quality of our spirit-self and see what changes we can make!

I will get hurt if I say no. That’s the natural belief we are calling in front of the Power of the Spirit-Self.

The spirit-self works by exerting a challenge to the natural thinking. The challenge to the belief we are

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considering can come from any qualities of the spirit-self. So, for example let us look at the quality of Supportive. Supportiveness implies not only approving of taking an action but of protection of ourselves. When we support something, we are willing to fight for it. We are talking the kind of Support that inspires passionate advocacy of something. The feeling of support you have such as supporting a political figure or a favorite social icon. More importantly we support the ideas of things which are important to us. We support our family. If someone were to attack someone you love and support, your reaction would be to get into the middle of the situation and take care of the loved one why giving the attacker a good piece of your mind.

So, in this challenge we are going to support our self against this belief “I will get hurt if I say no.” What are some supportive things we can say to changing this believe? 

No, you will not be hurt if you say no because you deserve to take care of yourself.



No, you will not be hurt if you say no because you have a right to control your life.



No, you will not be hurt if you say no because I will keep you safe.



No, you will not be hurt if you say no because you have a right to state your boundaries.



No, you will not be hurt if you say no because, regardless of the outcome, I will still love and support you.

Our spirit-self, in its Supportive quality, quickly generates these challenges and prepares you to apply Inspired Thinking. Let’s just take the first challenge above: You deserve to take care of yourself.

The next thing to do is to bring it all together. Let’s go back to our first statement of how we want to change our life.

My life would be better if I could stand up for myself.

What is stopping us? I can’t say no to other people.

The limiting Natural Thinking or Natural Belief: If I say no I will be hurt.

Challenge: You deserve to take care of yourself.

All together our challenge statement is going to be: I can say no because I deserve to take care of myself.

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I can say no because I deserve to take care of myself.

I can say no to requests when I don’t agree with them my where my life is going to move forward because I will be able to I be able to stand up for myself because I deserve to take care of myself.

How does it feel to say it? It feels a little awkward doesn’t it? That’s because this is new information for your mind-self to consider. It goes against what your mind-self has been told by information it’s received from your body-self. Remember, body-self information includes everything heard or said to you. Every situation you have observed. That’s probably quite a bit of information which supports the belief “If I say no, I will get hurt.”

So, how is the challenge, I can say no because I deserve to take care of myself, going to possibly overpower this natural belief, If I say no, I will get hurt, in order to move us forward in life?

First, you are going to let you spirit-self stretch itself. Let it expand to its full power. Its divine overwhelming strength is going to flow through and change the belief. After all, the inspired belief comes from not only your spirit-self, but also from the Creator of all things, the Creator, God, the Great I Am, Allah, Jehovah...whatever name you have given the Great One. God says, “You can say no because you deserve to take care of yourself”, through your spirit-self. Now, think how powerful that is to you. The Creator of the entire Universe says versus what a few interactions between the mind-self and body-self says. What is an Inspired Belief worth over a Natural Belief?

There is no doubt the Creator is more powerful than a few words you heard from, say, your Aunt Beth.

But, until now, your mind has only been gathering things from the body-self. Now, it has to accept things from the spirit-self. The difference is amazing. It is like trying to resist a punch from a three-year old girl versus an oncoming freight train. This is the power of the spirit self.

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Put it Into Action So, you’ve got your challenge. You’ve written it out. It’s now time to try it out. It’s amazing some people forget to give this part of the equation much thought. But, because you are overcoming hundreds of old messages, probably thousands. And, just because you wish a thing so, does not make it immediately a truth in your life.

Just as you have been practicing the natural thinking apples are good to eat for most of your life, you will have to put the new inspired thinking into practice.

What’s the best way to accomplish this? Like many things, it necessary to put it into action in the outside life. This is going to be best achieved through essentially having successes with smaller parts goals that make up the large overall goal.

For example, let’s say you’re big goal is to ask your friend Michelle out on a date. There are a number of smaller goals that will need to be accomplished before you feel the courage to ask out Michelle. Plus, there may be larger issues than simply asking Michelle out. When we identify a goal or something we want to accomplish, it is often simply a thread to the natural beliefs we have which are holding us back in the first place.

What goes on when a person asks someone out on a date? What are some of the fears and the thinking that goes on behind it? 

I don’t know how to ask people out.



What’s the use, they’ll just say no.



I don’t deserve to have a relationship.



The person I want to ask out is too good for me.



I’m not worth his or her time.

Those negative natural beliefs generate pretty quickly, don’t they. Even though they may be painful, identifying them is the first step to challenging the beliefs. And, the ability to identify them is a very important sign you spirit-self is working to stretch itself. “Behold, you were once blind but now you see,” was how Christ quantified the experience, I believe.

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The next step, of course, is to take the negative natural beliefs, the beliefs made up of the thinking between the body-self and the mind-self, and run them through the spirit-self’s wisdom and qualities. It is the beginning of the process of challenging those old, old voices you has heard from when you were a small child. Perhaps it was your mother, angry and stuck in her own troubles, when she told you, “you’ll never add up to anything.” Perhaps it was the birthday party you attended as a child and they ran out of cake before you got a piece. Yes, these little, seemingly insignificant things, become huge things as they live unchallenged in the mind-self.

The mind-self will hold on to any belief or thought, regardless of how maladaptive it is, until it receives a challenge to the belief. We are unlikely to challenge the belief in our natural activities. Why? Why would a maladaptive, negative, limiting belief or thought be held by the mind-self? Mostly because it seeks to always supply the thought to any similar situation automatically. You have probably been living out the belief in your life for the convenience of the mind-self. It’s not the mind-self is lazy, not at all. However, it is terribly efficient. It seeks sameness and it seeks to match the input from the first time the situation, relations or experience was encountered again and again.

To begin the change, you come up with the challenges. Then you find a way to prove the challenges true.

In asking someone out, you might first get feedback from saying “hello” and receiving a “hello” back.

Just in passing, a simple “hello” may not mean much. However, when you are opening up your mindself to new proofs the smallest successes mean a new possibility.

That “hello” you just received should convey a whole guest of new thinking. You are worthy of being noticed. You are worthy of courtesy and respect. You are worthy of simple kindness. All of this just because someone said “hello”? Yes. Now that you know you can say “hello” with success, you may want to step it up to another exchange.

“How are you”, you may ask. Chances are you will get a “Fine. And, you?” Yes, another brick to put in the confidence pile has just been supplied.

Next, you may move on to asking a question about some topic in which you have in common. “Did you enjoy the rain last night?” The response goes down to another little brick in change when the answer, “Yes, very much. How about you?”

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It is important to continue to take smaller steps, incorporate the success to support your challenge and then move a little further along!

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Review, Renew, Regenerate Again, it takes practice. At this point, you don’t truly believe the spirit self has the unlimited power of the I Am. However, as you practice prayer and visualizations along with affirmations and inspired thinking, these things will change. Let’s review these topics again for a little deeper understanding.

Prayer is the communion of the spirit self with the Creator. Prayer is as natural as breathing and just as important for us. If you are new to prayer, you will probably want a few points though which help prayer happen.

Prayer is simple yet powerful. You are speaking with most powerful force in the whole Universe. And this Power is waiting for you, desperate to communicate with you. A simple way to begin is simply to sit quietly and simple say, “Dear God, hear me.” Repeating the words like a mantra will begin the process.

You will find yourself feeling a warm, relaxing sensation. You will begin to feel a peace as God begins to be as one with your spirit self. Then you will feel a great presence. The presence will be glowing warm and you can be assured you are surrounded by love, acceptance and perfect understanding. There will be no feeling of guilt or shame. It is the same sensation as being a small child held by someone who they love and trust and is worthy of that love and trust.

In Prayer, the Creator has no agenda except to be present for you and meet your needs. The Creator knows them before you speak them. God instantly knows your agenda and your whole heart, again, with perfect love and acceptance.

A good, simple method for reaching out to God is to use the PRAY acronym. Praise, Repent, Asking for Others, Asking for Yourself.

Praise includes your acknowledging God and God’s role in your life. Glorify the Father and His power which lies within you spirit-self. Praise includes our gratitude for all the gift we have in our lives. Praise includes the glorification for the Creator for instilling in you the qualities of the Creator.

Repenting is something many people become confused about. Let me again say, your Creator loves you just as you are just where you are right now. Repenting is not done for the Creator. It is done for ourselves. Prayer is a place to confess missteps and seek the strength to live on the path of love and 67 | P a g e

light in the future. However, the Creator loves you whether you repent or do not repent. However, to live a life full of missteps and mistakes, hurt and pain is of your own choice. Repentance also shows our respect and humility. It is truly amazing how wonderful one feels after spending time repenting.

Asking for others shows how wonderful the power of our spirit self is in connecting with other people’s lives. If we ask for the spirit self to awaken in others or for the blessings of others, we are engaging in a powerful process of the energizing of the Creator’s connection to ourselves and to others. Asking for others is another way we show love and concern for our fellow mankind. It is a burden to lift from others through our actions.

Now for the most important element of prayer, the Y; Asking for yourself. This almost makes some people feel guilty. Again, the I Am already knows all of our needs and wants. By asking, though, you are stating the belief you are worthy. You matter as well. Your need, wants and dreams are important to God. He cares and loves you deeply and completely with the love of the very best parent taken to an infinite level. He holds for you unwavering compassion and acceptance. His entire power is at your disposal just for asking.

So, what do you ask for when you are sitting in prayer with the Creator. I pray for strength to meet challenges and the insights to accept blessings. I prayer for the wisdom to make the right choices in my life. I ask for the power to know how to best live my life and bless and love those around me. I praise the Creator for my gifts and ask for the guidance to use them. Finally, I ask for my material needs with the covenant to use material things just for what they are. They are temporary in nature, making our lives a bit more comfortable, but with no real meaning. Being human, however, does make us want things. Our Creator knows that and is ready to bring the material blessings we seek.

As you pray more frequently, you will find yourself almost doing it as naturally as your heart beating.

You will feel connected to the Creator more and more each day. I believe it is completely possible to live in constant prayer. A state of just being or abiding in the presence of the One is a wonderful to find yourself.

It happens as any other relationship does. When you at first meet a person, you may simply think of them a couple of times per day. You may call once a week. Then, you begin to have more in common and a warmth comes to you from the other person. Soon, you are thinking of the person several times a day. You are calling every day. Then, suddenly, you are in love. You can’t stop thinking of the person.

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You wonder what they are doing throughout the day. You may call them once or twice per day just to hear their voice. So it is with prayer. When you first contact the Creator, you may only thing about it once in a while. However, as you watch events unfold in your life and you are able to challenge them effectively because of your spirit-self, you will begin to think about your Source of strength daily. Then it will seem you cannot get enough of the relationship. You will want to constantly be in contact. Prayer is simple to remain in all day, just with the invocation of the prayer in the morning and the closing before you go to bed. Your spirit self glows in happiness as you stay in contact with the Creator. You will find your ability to meet challenges, handle people, resolve conflicts and enter into relationships.

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Visualizations Visualizations are a powerful tool in keeping your focus on the important things. They can be journeys of insight, journeys to find strength or journeys just to relax.

Visualizations are essentially your spirit self acting upon your mind self using imagery. Because you are in charge of the imagery, you will be able to stimulate natural thinking between the images and the mind self. However, rather than giving the mind a visualization of a common image paired with a common outcome, you will be providing unique information to the mind self. Visualization use uncommon images about places, situations and emotions. The more unique the visualization, the stronger its ability to make a difference.

You see, if you were to simply work on the visualization of a duck waddling into a pond, your mind-self has plenty of beliefs about waddling ducks already. However, if you imagine a golden light enveloping your body, you mind self pays attention to the uniqueness of the Visualization. Your body self has never naturally been enveloped in a golden light, however, in your mind’s eye your able to make this happen.

This is unique, powerful information for the mind self to consider. If you pair being surrounded by a golden light with the thought of being with a powerful love of self, you’ve really presented your mind self unique information. Your mind self takes this information and stores it, bolstering the idea you are indeed surrounded by light which emotes a feeling of love and fulfillment.

A good visualization is used for one of two things. To practice a new behavior or action and see it succeeding is very powerful. Secondly, visualizations can be used to handle inner issues such as selfimage or healing an emotional wound, say alleviating depression.

The visualization begins with selecting a powerful image and going on to add a mental narrative to the imagery. Let’s look at an example from Meeting Your Spiritual Side. An audio file containing this visualization can be found at www.crossingtwice.com/companion/spiritside.wav Begin by breathing deeply in through your nose and release it out. Close your eyes or focus on the white light of the candle. Take another deep breath, hold it for a second and release it slowly.

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As we begin, close your eyes or focus your eyes on the light of the candle. In your mind’s eye, just using your imagination, imagine a beautiful beach. White sand spreads out to either side of you as far as you can see. The sky is a perfect blue. There are no clouds yet it is cool and comfortable. There is a soft breeze blowing and this adds to you feeling cool and comfortable. The sand is warm under you. Warm and so soft. So, very, very soft.

Take a moment and breathe in the air. Smell the ocean which now spreads out before you. For mile and miles there is beautiful, shallow, brilliant blue water. It starts out the color of dark navy far away and as it approaches the sand, it turns a color almost like a diamond. The waves are gently coming in against the beach. Take a moment in your imagination and see the beach. This beautiful beach and the sand and the ocean are very special. They are the one place in the world where you are absolutely safe.

There is nothing that can reach you here.

As you are seeing your beautiful beach and the rich blue ocean, I want you to imagine a small child on the edge of your beach. The child is very beautiful and you immediately feel great love for this child.

The child is sad. The child is hunched down, their sweet little head is bowed down and there are arms are pulling tight across their knees. Their hair comes down over their eyes, but you can still make out small little tears running down their cheeks.

Now I want you to walk on the sand toward the child very slowly, very gently. You can not explain it, but you love this child very, very much and you do not want this child to be sad so you walk up to the child.

As you reach the child, you can hear sobs. You see some scrapes and bruises on the child. You see the ocean, beautiful and perfect beyond the child. But the child looks far from being okay. You reach your hand out. The child is frightened by your touch and pulls away a bit from your touch. Sooth this child that you are continuing to feel such a building love for. Again, you can’t explain it, but the love you feel as if you have known this child for a long, long time.

Hear yourself saying to the child, “This is a safe place. It is the safest place in the whole world. You are safe here.” Imagine the child turning to face you. Their face is confused but so very hopeful. You sense some very bad things have happened to this child but you know this child needs your love. Here on your warm beach with cool winds sits this child looking at your now for help.

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“This is a safe place,” you say again, and, “You are safe and you are loved here, tell the child.” You can tell by the hope on the child’s face they believe you. Now reach out your arms to the child. Go very slowly. Very gently.

Now allow yourself to see the child taking your hand. You draw the child sweeping them up in your arms. The child feels so very light and so very fragile. You hug the child close and they put their little arms around your back and hugs you very tightly.

Here you are on your cool, safe beach. You are holding the child in your arms and you sit down quietly with the child on your lap. The child begins to smile up at you and your heart swells up with love. You know you must protect this child. You know you must love this child.

See these things in your hand and begin to slow down all the actions. Let the waves move more slowly.

Feel the wind calming down and lifting the child’s hair very slowly. Slowly. Now hold the scene in your mind as if you have a magical ability to slow down time itself. Slower and slower things move until it is a photograph. A photograph of you holding a small child in front of an endless ocean on a perfect day.

Freeze the image in your mind and let it fade quietly.

In this visualization, you have met your spirit self and seen it embrace your body self and mind self.

Other visualizations are available at www.crossingtwice.com.

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If you have questions, please call us at 1-800-936-0812 or email us at info@myhorizons.org.

The author and Copyright© 2009 holder of this material is Dr. Reece W. Manley, DD,M.Ed.,MPM®. An intellectual property of Texas Resarch and Development.

MPM®is a registered trademark of Many Paths Ministry and is used with permission. This carries nationally recognized ordination of ministerial credentials and assures the presenter of the trademark is a fully licensed member of the clergy.

ALL MATERIALS COPYRIGHT © 2009 DR. REECE W. MANLEY, DD, M.Ed., MPM an intellectual property of TEXAS RESEARCH AND INVESTMENT.

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