Chapter 8: Being In The Now
You Have Chosen to Remember: A Journey of Self-Awareness, Peace of Mind and Joy by James Blanchard Cisneros.
Sit alone in your room for ten minutes with a clock in front of you. For the first five minutes completely involve yourself in bringing to the surface any and all negative thoughts and feelings you have toward any individual in your life. Bring to the surface any negative thoughts you may be holding on to about strangers you have met, or someone on television, or whomever. Bring to these five minutes everything wrong you think they have done to you and judge, criticize and curse them for it. It is very important to feel how what you are thinking is literally changing your body, mind and spirit. For these five minutes dig everything out that you’ve been holding within the dark crevices of your mind and heart. But be aware of what your thoughts are doing to you physically and mentally. Do this exercise honestly and truly once in your life and you will never again question that your thoughts, even when they are directed at someone else – even a total stranger – will completely affect and change your mental, physical and spiritual state.
Now consider how your judgments of others and yourself throughout the day silently and viciously affect your mental, physical and spiritual state. These individual judgments might have a tenth of the venom of your thoughts during the five-minute exercise, but remember that there are 24 hours in the day. Imagine for a moment how all these “little judgments,” when accumulated throughout the day, end up affecting your mental, physical and spiritual state. Now multiply that by 365 days, and then multiply that by the number of years you have lived. Can you now begin to understand the power of your own individual thoughts and judgments? This is how the ego is advising you to live! These are the tools the ego has used and is using to mold you into who it wants you to be. Is it any wonder why you now question who you have become? Will you not, if only for a moment, consider the ego’s attempt and advice as corrupted, destructive and insane!
But rejoice my friend, for today you have arrived at a place in your heart and mind that desires another way of thinking, acting, being and living. This place has always been within you simply waiting for you to consider it as a possibility. Once this possibility is entered, light will again begin to freely flow from within you. This light, with your acceptance, will begin to fill your body. With your acceptance, it will completely fill you and even begin to overflow. As it begins to overflow, tears of happiness, peace and joy might need to flow. Soon this light will begin to fill and expand to your whole room, your house, your city, state, country and Earth. It will expand to every person, place or thing you set your eyes on, and you will begin to bless every moment and every circumstance. All things you once judged such as hair, skin color, the way people dress, weight, facial features, age, how they act or react, will dissolve in this light. You will put aside the ego’s training and you will exchange it for knowledge, peace of mind and joy, all the things the ego promised you but never delivered. You will exchange all judgments for blessings and see strangers as brothers and sisters.
Quiet the mind, take some deep breaths and invite your guides and angels to be with you for the next five minutes. Completely reverse how the ego has trained you to think. For just five minutes, bring God into the room. Invite God to enter your heart, body, mind and spirit, and everyone and everything you judged in the first five minutes you now forgive, pray for and bless. Regardless of what you think they did or did not do to you, for the next five minutes forgive, pray for and bless them. Do this with every centimeter of your heart, with every ounce of your body, with all the love in your soul. Ask your guides, angels and God to assist you. Give God all your pain, anger and sadness and let it dissolve in His light. Ask your guides, angels and God to fill all those places within your heart that have been hurt with absolute forgiveness, kindness and love toward the brothers and sisters you once chose to judge.
Remember, you are participating in this invitation to assist you in understanding and acknowledging the power of your thoughts, both positive and negative. Once you have forgiven your brothers and sisters, once you have given and seen all the pain and anger dissolving in God’s light, begin to pray for those you once judged. With all your heart and soul, pray for their well-being. Pray for their health, pray for their present and future. With all your heart and soul, ask God to help you hold them. Feel yourself holding your brother or sister and feel God holding you both. Ask and invite God to assist you in seeing your brother and sister through His heart from now on. Ask God to completely retrain your thought system from one based on judgment and pain to one based on forgiveness and love. Ask God to assist you in carrying this new thought system with you wherever you go and to let it touch whomever you see. Offer gratitude to God. Thank your angels and guides for their assistance, then slowly return your mind to the room.
You have now felt what five minutes fully dedicated to thinking negatively or positively can do to your body, mind and soul. Again, think of what a whole day of positive or negative thoughts can do. Think of what a whole day of the ego’s thought system, immediately judging a brother or sister, can do. Think of what a whole day of the Godself’s thought system, immediately seeing a stranger as a brother or sister – as the perfect creation of God, can do. Now multiply that by 365 days and then by the number of years you have lived. That is the power of one positive or negative thought when it is added to the next positive or negative thought and to the next, and so on and so on. Each thought occurs in the moment, and it is in the moment where your life is created.
Next time you judge a brother or sister, catch yourself doing this, and then forgive yourself and your brother and sister. Bless and pray for yourself and your brother and sister. Offer gratitude to them for assisting you in seeing where, through your thoughts, you were taking yourself. Offer gratitude to God and invite Him to remind you that the same light that exists within Him and you also exists within your brother and sister. My brother and sister, our lives are simply a reflection of what we choose to think in the moment.
This text can be found in the book - You Have Chosen to Remember: A Journey of Self-Awareness, Peace of Mind and Joy.
If you enjoyed this, you'll really enjoy the book which is filled with inspiration and effective strategies for letting go of anger, forgiving, and embodying peace of mind and happiness.
Click here to purchase the book.
If you can not afford to buy the book but would like to read it, please click here.
I have lived a live of somewhat traumatic experiences over the course of 82yrs. I have had much counseling and have a PTSD diagnosis.
When I allow my thoughts and feelings to persuade me they are real and true, I am sucked back into the fear guilt and shame, of these past memories.
My best release from PTSD, is to stay present in the NOW, and just be an observer of these thoughts and feelings without judging them in any way.
This frees me from their subjective trap, that otherwise would cause me to get caught up into these memories of the past, by believeing they are real and true.
I use mindfulness meditation to train my mind to pay attention to the present moment.
This has proven to be the best form of therapy I know of, to deal with these old powerful memories of the past.