Nicola Mannering

A friend and I were discussing our relationships with ourselves and with others, and what projections we might be making that could be holding us back from realizing our full potential. I was musing about the fact that I could never understand why my husband often could not hear me, especially when it came to some things that were very important to me. It took me years to figure out that he was simply a mirror and that at times, I was not listening to my inner voice, allowing it to go utterly unheard! My friend had recently separated from a several-year relationship and was commenting on the puzzling pattern that had emerged for her once again. She noted that at a recent meeting with her ex she had felt criticized and belittled. She had maintained silence, but the following day had defended her position, yet again feeling hurt and wrongly read.

We discussed how she might be holding an attitude of criticism toward herself – something most of us seem to do frequently – without being fully aware of it. From what she had said, it seemed her inner male voice was continuously critical and harsh. She had thought the problem was her inner feminine. However it was the opposite situation that caught my attention. We talked about her father, and how he had responded to her as a child. And what do you know! He was often critical and rejected her opinions and ideas. He was also often distant and appeared uncaring! It was not that he meant to be this way. Most likely it was a mimicking of some relationship in his own distant childhood.

This is what my friend had learned about the masculine. This modelling is what she had drawn into her masculine archetype. And lo! It was being mirrored back to her in each of her relationships. Old conditioning, old modelling, no longer useful, but now brought to the light to be forgiven and released. It was a huge ah-hah, and immediately she knew what she would do to help heal the situation.

She would hold a ceremony of acknowledgement and thanks for the old, along with a letting-go. Then she would plan for a different focus on a newly appropriate role model for the masculine within.

We are all peeling back the layers now and allowing the light in, as the cleansing energies of the new age make themselves felt in every aspect of our lives.

A friend and I were discussing our relationships with ourselves and with others, and what projections we might be making that could be holding us back from realizing our full potential. I was musing about the fact that I could never understand why my husband often could not hear me, especially when it came to some things that were very important to me. It took me years to figure out that he was simply a mirror and that at times, I was not listening to my inner voice, allowing it to go utterly unheard! My friend had recently separated from a several-year relationship and was commenting on the puzzling pattern that had emerged for her once again. She noted that at a recent meeting with her ex she had felt criticized and belittled. She had maintained silence, but the following day had defended her position, yet again feeling hurt and wrongly read.

We discussed how she might be holding an attitude of criticism toward herself – something most of us seem to do frequently – without being fully aware of it. From what she had said, it seemed her inner male voice was continuously critical and harsh. She had thought the problem was her inner feminine. However it was the opposite situation that caught my attention. We talked about her father, and how he had responded to her as a child. And what do you know! He was often critical and rejected her opinions and ideas. He was also often distant and appeared uncaring! It was not that he meant to be this way. Most likely it was a mimicking of some relationship in his own distant childhood.

This is what my friend had learned about the masculine. This modelling is what she had drawn into her masculine archetype. And lo! It was being mirrored back to her in each of her relationships. Old conditioning, old modelling, no longer useful, but now brought to the light to be forgiven and released. It was a huge ah-hah, and immediately she knew what she would do to help heal the situation.

She would hold a ceremony of acknowledgement and thanks for the old, along with a letting-go. Then she would plan for a different focus on a newly appropriate role model for the masculine within.

We are all peeling back the layers now and allowing the light in, as the cleansing energies of the new age make themselves felt in every aspect of our lives.

Life is a bit like a stack of pancakes, all of a similar flavour. As I understand it, we pretty much have a main theme each lifetime that we are working with. We draw to us (usually we’re not aware of this) situations with a similar flavour or theme, to help us clear this particular thing. It keeps on happening until we understand it is for healing, nothing to do with anyone else really, but to help us.

The top pancake (situation) is the one we see that has done the damage. But this is only the latest in the stack, even though it is apparently the most painful. This one is just a replay of a major wound, probably from our childhood, or from a previous life or lives, or both.

If, for instance, we are devastated by a loved partner leaving us, most likely, we will have had love withdrawn from us as a child - maybe one major event, or lots of small ones - or both. Not only was love perhaps withdrawn, but there could also have been anger - none of which was anything we did – it was not our fault, and we weren’t to blame. Most likely it was our mother or father who withdrew love, or both. They probably came up against a situation and they just couldn’t cope - very likely a re-run of their own childhood.

So we naturally looked to our parents as our source of love, just as plants look to the sun. And suddenly, love is withdrawn. Then grief and fear is deeply experienced and not understood, because we are too young to understand why this terrible thing could happen! On top of that we learn anger, because anger is there too, and it’s being used to mask the grief. We see it going on, so we learn to do it too. We all learn these things by osmosis.

So now there is a pattern set - of the withdrawal of love, unbearable pain and grief, and then anger. We were dependent on our parents’ love then. We were too young to realize that we are the source of love. We were dependent on someone else for it.

If we go back even further, we would find that our soul chose these particular parents for this particular lesson, this particular set of conditioning, so that we could unravel it when we are ready - undo it, forgive it, cleanse it, and turn it back into love. This is our task.

There are many ways we can do emotional clearing work - the Journey, EFT, Avatar, and others. The cancer my body has, is most likely a manifestation of emotional patterns stored in the subtle bodies for so long, it finally became crystallized in the physical. It’s part of my work for this lifetime. I take full responsibility for it. Even if I don’t “cure” it in the physical, just realizing how it came about, and approaching it with love and compassion, is healing. What we’re doing is transmuting. All situations are a test in the art of transmutation into forgiveness, healing, and love.

Doubt is one of the things I struggle with the very most! It is often ‘on top’ for me. I always considered it to be an important part of the discriminative process – “should I be doing this? Is it right to be saying this?” I thought this questioning was all part of a ‘healthy’ dialogue which would eventually lead to making sound decisions about the way I think or act.

And, in my experience, this internal dialogue finds a way of creeping in at any given opportunity!

But doubt is never experienced by the silent heart!

Doubt is a function of the ego mind. The ego, in order to exist, needs us either to think we are special, so that we become clouded with what the Tibetan calls “glamour”, thus separating ourselves from others, or to think that we are in some way not good enough, so that guilt and doubt arise in our mind.

Doubt is a close friend and ally of guilt. In fact, doubt is a way the ego mind can take us into guilt. We wonder if what we are doing is right, good enough, useful enough, and so on, and then the mind slips right on into guilt – maybe this really is not good enough, maybe I’ve been too over the top, etc., etc. Guilt and doubt are both perfect opportunities for the ego to attack.

Because today I have been attacking myself with doubt, I decided the sensible thing to do would be to look at what A Course in Miracles had to say about it. I found no reference to doubt*, but I went to Chapter Twelve – The Problem of Guilt. As always, the Course went to the very core of the issue of that which lies behind guilt.

First, we must assume, or recognize ourselves, to be the silent heart or the soul, or as A Course of Miracles says, a Son of God. This is the phrase that is used in the book to describe our true Self. The rest we must assume is illusion, and belongs to the world of bodies (form). The ego thought system of course, resides in the latter.

In reality, a Son of God is never guilty, therefore there is no need for doubt!

And so we experience the pull of two forces – the one being the Real – that is, the pull of Source, calling us to return, and the other – the pull of the ego, insisting that we are guilty, in order that the ego can survive. This pull of two forces creates a deep and painful split.

We can either reside in the silent heart, or we can be in guilt, but never at the same time. We cannot believe the two ideas at once. We can choose to identify with either the concept of the Son of God and sinlessness, or with the concept of the ego mind. Both are concepts still, because the mind exists in the phenomenal world (the world of form). However, when we pass beyond the mind and into the silent heart, here we find the guiltless Son of God resides, and has always done so.

*A friend has just informed me that there are many references to doubt throughout the Course, since she has the Ken Wapnick Glossary-Index for A Course in Miracles, and is able to look up terms and references. I will get a copy!