I tried to show Connie that if she could see that her husband cares, even when he yells loudly that he doesn’t, that she would wake up from her nightmare. Self-realization has to come first. If there is anything that we value more than self-realization, then all we have is another form of idolatry, another form of dependence, another form of the story. I can say that I believe in my client because I do not believe in her story. If I believed in her story as much as she does, I could not believe in her, and I would be suffering as much as she is.

Goody Two Shoes is as much a distortion of the truth as Bitch. All stories include an opposite, and each opposite is stuck with its pairing, but the truth is free of opposites. There are no opposites within the truth; there is no judgment in truth, nor any polarization. No good guys or bad guys, no just or unjust. The rain falls and the sun shines on both. Connie said she does not want to be a martyr, she does not want to sacrifice herself for her husband. I said that she has already sacrificed herself and become a martyr to her story, whether she stays with her husband or leaves him. You don’t need to be a martyr any more. We have sacrificed ourselves for our story. We are not even being asked to sacrifice our story for ourself. Our story will disappear of its own accord, when we see the truth, and then another layer of our story will appear. Confront it with reality and it will disappear also.

A Course in Miracles

How can you consider a limitation, when released, to be a sacrifice? When you release a burden or a pain, is that a sacrifice? When you are freed from prison, is that a sacrifice? When you wake up from your nightmares, is that a sacrifice? It is no sacrifice of self to let go of our story. Is it a sacrifice to let go of hatred? Fear? Guilt? Self-defense? Pain? Grief? Terror? Nightmares? Entrapment? Inadequacy? Loneliness thinking? You cannot be a martyr for the truth. Jesus only appeared to be a martyr to those who thought their story was reality.

What is the function of a story? To prepare the way for self-realization. Our stories do that admirably and effectively, because they entail symptoms and suffering, which are built into the very nature of the story. The shortcomings of the story whet our appetite for the truth. There has to be more than what is apparent. The belief that I am not enough is a painful belief and no one can stand it or accept it. That is why everyone is so angry. Poor Me can never be acceptable. Nor will any other judgment we make of ourselves or of one another. You cannot accept any judgment of anyone. You will argue with it, you will debate it, you will try to prove or disprove it, but you cannot be satisfied with any human judgment of anyone or of anything. There is a deep, deep disatisfaction with human opinion, human advice, human judgment. You will take the opposite and even the opposite will not satisfy you. No polarity will satisfy.

When I say I believe in you, I do not mean that I believe in your polar opposites, in your story. The only faith I have in your story is that it will prepare your appetite for the truth. Everyone is disgusted and bored with their story, whether we realize it or not. Neither Goody Two Shoes nor Bitch works. Neither Coward nor Bully works. Neither Dominator nor Pleaser works. Neither Conservative nor Liberal works. Neither hostile nor fearful. None of these opposites satisfy. And so any opposite is perfect preparation for self-realization. Any story you have about marriage, separation or or divorce is perfect preparation for self-realization. Whether you are the Sacrificer or the Taker, your story is a perfect trigger for the hunger for truth. Whether you think you are the selfish one or the unselfish one, the faithful one or the unfaithful one, these experiences are preparation for self-realization. Any story can be valuable for self-realization. The real issue is story-hypnosis or self-awareness. There are layers and layers of story-hypnosis and brain-washed programming.

Our work is to become de-hypnotized in our lifetime. We cling to our story and it clings to us. We cling to our identity and it clings to us. We play our role to the hilt. We are actors and actresses. We need to realize that this is a drama. We need to be able to join the audience, to go behind the scenery and meet the director and the playwright. We need to be able to shake ourselves awake from our part. In a well-developed drama, every player has to play his part well. We play victim and villan very well. In this particular drama, you may be a star or just a bit player. You may be the victim, the villan or the rescuer. Whichever you are, play your part with awareness. Judas forgot that it was a drama and hung himself. Some mini-series cover three generations, grandparents, parents and children. Some dramas go on longer, just witness the ongoing wars in some countries, old hatreds which never end. This current drama, the Piscaen Age, has been going on for 2000 years. At the end of two milleanea, we ought to raise the curtain and clap for the players. 

Jerry described his major problem as demons. I asked him to visualize a door with a sign on it saying "Demons" on it. He said that the lettering of the word demon was weird and electrified. Scary. He had moved from 6 feet to 50 feet from the door when he saw the word "demon". I asked him to say outloud: "This is my door" and he did. I asked him to say outloud "This is my sign on my door" and he did. I asked him to say "What is on the other side of the door is mine, " and he said it. I asked him how he felt when he said these things. He said that he felt stronger each time he heard his voice. That gave me a clue that this was a power dilemma. I asked him if what was on the other side of the door was strong, and he said it was very powerful. I asked if it was more powerful than he is. He said he is feeling stronger. I asked if he had ever experienced power as harmful. He sees himself as weak, sensitive and caring, and he sees demons as powerful and mean abd uncaring. He said that the font size on the door had changed and was now less scary.

I asked him what this door experience means to him and he said that he has always been fascinated with but afraid of the unknown. Oftentimes he is walking down the street and feels that he may be attacked. That something is out of control. I was quiet for awhile. He began to slowly approach the door. He said that under the door, there was a shaft of light. Out here where I am, he said, it is dark. I asked him to turn this wooden door into a transparent glass door. He exclaimed that on the other side of the door there is only dazzling, bright light. He wasn’t so sure any more that he wanted to remain out here in the dark. I was quiet. He put one hand through the door into the light. He said that the light was warm, misty, comforting. He went into the light and exclaimed "It is infinite!" I interpreted that this is his infinite world, and that outside the door it is a world of black and white, shadows and murky light. That we come and go daily between these two worlds, but that we are not aware of it. We come and go between the known and unknown, between our story and reality, but we call the unknown our demons. Demons only exist in our story. We have to confront, examine, enter and experience what our projected story is really about. We do not know until we gather the courage to inquire. In the finite world of our story, there is black and white, but in the infinite world of light, there is no shadow. In this session we had not attempted to find out what his specific demons meant. We do not have to.

He did tell me that one of his idols, Bruce Lee, had experienced demons, and took medication for it, and died from the medication. I told him that he, Jerry, had confronted the meaning of his demons here and transformed their energy.

Debbie is married to Jay They have been married for one year. They both have grown children. He had an affair and it shattered her. She feels that she should forgive him but she can’t. She asked if trust can ever be rebuilt. I told that we will need to explore what trust and distrust mean. I also told her that an affair is a symptom, just like her anger about the affair is a symptom, and that we don’t know the cause of either. If we don’t find out the cause, we will be treating the symptom. We would be treating the symptom as though it was the cause, and then the therapy becomes as cyclical as their relationship.