Living A Course in Miracles Healing Self-Esteem Week 2 Homework Class Jennifer Hadley
Living A Course in Miracles Jennifer Hadley Healing Self-Esteem Homework Class... 4 Opening Remarks... 4 Opening Prayer... 5 Excerpts from A Course in Miracles... 6 Invitation to Commit... 9 We Defend and Attack... 11 Are We Keeping the Commitments We Make?... 13 Sharing These Tools with Others... 17 Joel Goldsmith: The Thunder of Silence... 20 Changing Patterns of Spiritual Immaturity... 21 Healing with Extreme Self-Care... 23 Where Are We Hoarding?... 24 Holding Ourselves Accountable... 26 Closing Prayer... 27 `
Copyright 2012 by Reverend Jennifer Helen Hadley. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher. Published by JenniferHadley.com. Printed in the United States of America. For more inspiration to live a life of love, visit JenniferHadley.com.
Week 2 Healing Self-Esteem Homework Class Jennifer Hadley Friday, September 14, 2012 Opening Remarks Jennifer Good Morning. Hey, everybody. I m so happy to be with you this morning. What a blessing to be the two, or more, who are gathered in the name and the nature of the Christ presence. And I'm so grateful. I m just very excited about our topic and what we get to share. I am just going to do a little tiny bit of housekeeping here for a moment. It s to let you know that I'm reminding you that you have 48 hours to listen to your replays for every single one of these calls, all 16 classes. You always have 48 hours to listen to those replays. I also want to invite you to take a look at the video collection. I've placed there a bunch of videos that people have let me know that they find helpful. These are inspirational videos. And you can watch them. Of course, there's no charge for that. And then, also just to remind you, there are just a couple of things going on that you might be interested in. If you go to my website, JenniferHadley.com, you can see all of my events there that are coming up. For instance, yesterday with Gabrielle, last night I was sharing that we're going to both be at the A Course in Miracles Conference in April next year in Chicago. So will Gary Renard, so will David Hoffmeister and Jon Mundy and a lot of the folks that have participated in the Living A Course in Miracles series. With Jennifer Hadley 4
We're all going to be gathered in Chicago, Regina Dawn Akers. I'm going to see her there. You can join us in Chicago if you like. And downloading the registration form, all of that, is available on the events page. I have it at JenniferHadley.com. Also there you will see the information about the three retreats that I'm doing with David Hoffmeister. I'm doing three, one-week retreats with David Hoffmeister. And our focus is A Course in Miracles. We've got a Christmas retreat, a New Year s retreat and those are in Utah at his Living Miracles Monastery. They're going to be a beautiful, beautiful way to end the year and start the new year. You can do them back to back, or separately. And then in February, we've got a week of fun in the sun in Hawaii. So, we're going to have a good time in Hawaii with David. He s got a class coming up in a few weeks, oh, maybe three, four weeks from now that we're going to do together. I guess it s just about a month from now actually, together in Hawaii. We ll both be in Hawaii together next month preparing for our retreat in February. Those are just some things coming up and some ways to find out more. It s JenniferHadley.com on the events page there. You can get the registration form for the Chicago conference, and more. Are you ready? I know I'm ready. Let s begin. Opening Prayer We begin by turning within. And we start with a breath, a holy breath of love and gratitude. We use gratitude to lift our vibration into the awareness of the all good. All things work together for our good, and we're willing to open our heart and mind, and to consistently see and know and feel and hear the flow of good in our life. We're opening our heart and mind to an awareness of profound love. And we are grateful and thankful to declare ourselves available. We consciously partner up with the higher Holy Spirit self. Healing Self-Esteem Homework 5
And we give the Holy Spirit the heavy lifting of any sense of unworthiness, any sense of lack or limitation, any sense of not being good enough, any idea that there's something wrong with us, we're placing on the holy altar right now. And we're opening our heart, opening our mind to the power and the presence of divine love. We are grateful. We are thankful to know that love is all that there is. We invoke divine grace into our awareness. And we give thanks for divine grace operating in our life. We're willing to know ourselves as we truly are, and recognize and remember our true identity, and value that above all else. We are grateful. We are grateful. We are grateful. Taking this holy breath of love and gratitude, we share the benefits of our healing and our expansion with everyone. We're so grateful that we're one with them. We're so grateful right now for this holy life of love that is ours to live and to share. In gratitude, we let it be and so it is. Amen. Amen, Amen. Excerpts from A Course in Miracles Right now it s early morning for me in Los Angeles. And I'm so grateful that you're joining me at whatever time you're joining, listening live, or on the replay. I so appreciate that we can now use technology to transcend time and space, and to be the two, or more, who are gathered in the name and the nature of the Christ presence. Truly we are invoking the Christ presence into our awareness right now. And we're calling forth a healing. That's the intention. That's my aspiration in these homework classes. It s that we're bringing on our breakthrough, and we're having a healing. A whole lot of healing going on. I'd like to begin with A Course in Miracles Lesson 68. You probably know it. It s one of my all time favorites, Love holds no grievances. Love holds no grievances. With Jennifer Hadley 6
And it s truly key to our understanding of how to heal self-esteem. I m going to take a sip of my yummy Rainforest Tea here and clear my throat. Love holds no grievances, Lesson 68 says, Perhaps you do not fully realize just what holding grievances does to your mind. It seems to split you off from your source and make you unlike Him. This is really important to understand, that our grievances are judgments and our opinions. The thoughts of lack and attack are the source of our sense of feeling separate from God. And they are what creates the sense of not being good enough, unworthy, that there's something wrong with us. This is how it begins, our grievances. And the more we hold our grievances, the more it festers, the more it expresses itself in our life. Those thought patterns express in our life as our suffering, as our attachment, as the experience of fear and worry and guilt and blame and shame. It all begins when we give ourselves permission to hold grievances. Because, what is a grievance, really? It is a thought that something is not good, right? When we give ourselves permission to think something s not good, we are saying that God isn't good. But the truth of the matter is that our experience in this illusory world, within the illusion, everything that we're experiencing, every situation, every circumstance that we experience is a projection of our mind. It s a projection of our thinking. What we're really looking at is our thinking. It s our collective thought and our individual thought. And what we're doing when we hold a grievance, when we're saying something s not good, is we're really saying our projection isn't good. The illusion isn't good. But what we're training ourselves to do, through working the Workbook and the lessons of A Course in Miracles, is come to the awareness that we can change our thinking and stop projecting the Healing Self-Esteem Homework 7
thoughts of lack and attack, limit and separation, blame and shame, resentment and regret. And then we have a different experience. And we have a different awareness because we have a different focus. And then we can see and hear and feel and know truly that it s all good. Everything works together for our good. So, even the things we don't enjoy, even the things that feel so yucky and ugly, are perfectly designed for our good. This is what it tells us in Lesson 135. You hear us say it all the time because it s so helpful to us to understand. Lesson 135, Paragraph 18, What could you not accept if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by one whose only purpose is your good? We're opening our minds through our spiritual practice. We're gaining clarity and a return to the pristine awareness that is our natural state, so that we can see that every circumstance For instance, that betrayal, or seeming betrayal, was a wakeup call for us, was a projection of our own thoughts of lack and attack. If we choose to energize thoughts of lack and attack, then our experience in the world of effects is going to demonstrate to us that which has been caused by our thoughts of lack and attack. If we think thoughts of lack and attack, whether we're finding the lack in ourselves, or someone else, we're going to see it projected on the screen of our life. When we experience betrayal, it s a wakeup call. It s a forgiveness opportunity. It s an opportunity to choose love and compassion. We begin to look at everything as either an opportunity to share love and be love and express love and extend love, or we know that it is love, you see? It s a cry for love, or an expression of love. But even a cry for love is an expression of love because love is all that there is. We're training our mind to look for the love rather than the complaint, rather than the grievance. With Jennifer Hadley 8
Now it also says here in Lesson 68 And this is so valuable to us in Paragraph 2, He who holds grievances denies he was created by love. And his creator has become fearful to him in his dream of hate. Who can dream of hatred and not fear God? When we hold grievances, we forget who we are. We forget that we were created by love because, if we're projecting grievances onto others, thinking thoughts of lack and attack about others, because there's only one, we are also going to be thinking those thoughts of lack and attack about ourselves, because what is true for anyone is true for everyone. That's how the truth works. If we believe that there's a lack in someone else, it s really a projection that we're seeing. If we're seeing a lack in ourselves, then we're going to think that about God. It really is what I've been thinking about so much lately. The way you do anything is the way you do everything. Whatever you're thinking about anything, you're going to experience everywhere because that's how this 3D world of effects operates. And we can't change the way it operates. But we can change the way that we think. Hallelujah. Therein lies our salvation. It says here in Lesson 68, Paragraph 3, It is as sure that those who hold grievances will forget who they are, as it is certain that those who forgive will remember. Invitation to Commit I'm inviting you to make a commitment to do the forgiveness work. Do the forgiveness work. To that end, I've given you a tool. It s there on the website. It s the forgiveness letter. I you purchase the transcripts, then in the book of transcripts, it s there in the book at the back. I'm giving you this forgiveness letter tool. Thousands of people have used this tool. So many have let me know that it profoundly changed their life. I teach some classes, my seven week spiritual boot camp class, Finding Freedom, which I offer a couple of times a year. Healing Self-Esteem Homework 9
And then there's my Masterful Living class which is my year long, practical, mystical course of healing and awakening. In these two classes, over and over again people will say, I am still experiencing the suffering. I'm still experiencing the lack of self-esteem. I'm still experiencing challenges in my finances. I'm still experiencing these challenges in my relationships. It seems to be relentless. What can I do? And I ask them, Did you do your forgiveness letter? And invariably, people have not done that forgiveness work. They do the forgiveness letter. They report back miraculous healing and breakthrough. I'm offering you this forgiveness letter to download for free off the website. You can either do the work, or not. If you find yourself complaining and complaining and complaining and complaining and complaining, know that you have tools and resources that you're not choosing to accept and use. Forgive yourself for that. Start with that. Start with compassion. Perhaps there are people you know in your life that are complainers. I used to be a complainer. And I still can fall into complaining and I have to pull myself up. It s a very thick pattern in my mind, and I've done a lot of unwinding on it. What my beginning of healing that pattern in my mind was to move into love and compassion for myself for being more interested in complaining than I was in healing. It is as sure as those who hold grievances will forget who they are, as it is certain that those who forgive will remember. And then it says in Paragraph 4, If you succeed even by ever so little, there will never be a problem in motivation ever again. We're cultivating the motivation to choose love in every moment. If we're not motivated yet to choose love in every moment, it s because we don't understand the value of it. We don't understand, yet, that love is our healer, or we are more interested in our grievances. It says here in Paragraph 6, this beautiful thought for us to use as a mantra when we move into grievances about others, or even ourselves, With Jennifer Hadley 10
I would see you as my friend that I may remember you are part of me and come to know myself. I would see you as my friend that I may remember you are part of me and come to know myself. Let us come to know ourselves as worthy, as confident, as lovable. In Lesson 69, it s called, My grievances hide the light of the world in me. And then it says, No one can look upon what your grievances can feel. If you're thinking thoughts of lack and attack, you're going to experience them. Remember, the attacker always feels attacked. The judger always feels judged, and the lover always loved. This is the truth that sets us free when we begin to recognize, Oh, I'm expressing it, that's why I'm experiencing it. You are of God. You are one with God, one with the creator. In every instance, with every being in this life, every sentient being, if you feel unworthy, if you feel you're not good enough, remember. No one is better than. No one is less than. No one is equal to. We're all one. That's the miraculous equation. If you feel privileged to call anyone, or anything, less than yourself, or better than yourself, you don't understand that you're one with them. Begin, on a daily basis, to value an awareness of the oneness. Pray to know the oneness of all life. Pray to know that. Pray to feel it. Pray to experience it. For me, what I began to do when I really began this journey in earnest, was I began to pray to have a realization of the Christ consciousness, the Christ presence as my very life. And to me, that is a prayer to know the unity of all life. We Defend and Attack Let me ask you a question. Do you focus more on your own opinions and judgments than you do on your gifts and talents? Do you focus more on your own opinions and judgments than you do on your gifts and talents? Just make an assessment of your day. Where is your focus? Healing Self-Esteem Homework 11
Do you focus on your amazing opportunities to shine the light of God s love that you have? Do you focus on looking for where people are making a cry for love? They're acting out in anger and resentment and hurt and fear and doubt and worry. And you're recognizing it as a cry for love, and an opportunity to shine the light of love in this world. Are you looking for that? Is that where your attention is, or are you looking to how you can defend yourself? Are you looking for how you can attack? Remember, if you defend yourself And again, this is Lesson 135, If I defend myself then I am attacked. When we move into that defending ourselves in our mind, that hamster wheel of defending ourselves, what we're actually doing is we're making the attack real. Isn't that interesting, that when we go into defending ourselves, there's an undercurrent of thoughts of attack? We're justifying the attack. We're really energizing the attack and making it real when we go into that hamster wheel thinking of defending ourselves. We're using this beautiful teaching of A Course in Miracles to retrain our mind to only think the thoughts of love. And when we begin this in earnest, it can feel excruciating because we begin to recognize how much more we value the thoughts of lack and attack. If we're defending ourselves we're thinking that we're lacking, right? If we're thinking we're better than, or less than, anyone, it s all the same because we're all one. Whether we're thinking someone is less than, or someone is better than, it s all the same. It s all the same pattern of separation. Consider this. Do you complain of your misery and ask God to lift it from you when the misery is actually of your own making? Do you complain to God about the misery that you have made that's the result of your thoughts of lack and attack? Do you feel afraid and worried because you choose to energize grievances? You choose to believe the thoughts of blame and shame. And so you feel miserable as a result. And then you beg God for mercy as though God has created this life of lack and limitation. With Jennifer Hadley 12
It s our thoughts of lack and limitation that create the suffering and the separation. The feeling of limitation is the result of the meaning that we have made of things. All things work together for our good. So when we're experiencing betrayal in the world, it s a projection of our inner betrayal. In my counseling experience, I've been a spiritual counselor for 12 years now, working one on one with people and with couples. And what I can absolutely tell you is that people will come to me for spiritual counseling and they'll say, I would like to make a commitment to live this life of love. I'm done with the suffering. I'm done with the limitation. I'm ready to begin in earnest. Will you help me? Yes. Are We Keeping the Commitments We Make? They'll make a decision. They'll make a commitment, some commitment to their spiritual practice, some commitment to their self, something that they can comfortably manage and keep. And then they'll come back in a couple of weeks, a couple of months, whenever it is, and I'll ask them, So, what s it like for you now to be living inside that commitment that you made when you were here last time? And they'll look at me. And I can see in their mind that they do not remember the commitment that they made, right? It s like we make a commitment, I'm not going to eat ice cream anymore. I'm not going to eat ice cream late at night. I'm not going to have that glass of wine, or two, or three, or four. I'm not going to do that anymore. And then the next day, it s the same thing. Oftentimes, we wake up in the morning and we say, Ugh, I'm hung over from the whatever I did to myself yesterday. I'm hung over from it, right? And we say, I'm not going to do that today. But then as the day wears on, we make the same choice of selfmedication and self-sabotage. And by the way, I'm just going to say something for you here about self-sabotage. I'm offering a bonus class on healing self-sabotage, directly addressing healing selfsabotage. Healing Self-Esteem Homework 13
It s a bonus class. It s free if you purchase the Gold or the Platinum packages, but you can also purchase that as a separate workshop. The bonus, Healing Self-sabotage. If that interests you, you can get that. We are on this hamster wheel of self-medication and self-sabotage. At least I know I was for the longest time. People come in. They say they're experiencing betrayals in their life. And I say to them, Well, how are you doing with that commitment you made to yourself last time you were here? And they can't even remember it. They ask me to remind them, or they'll look back in the notes they made in their journal when they were in the session. And then they remember and they realize that they forget about it the second they walked out the door, right? They had no real commitment. The commitment was a fantasy. Isn't that what we do? I've done that so many times. The commitment was a fantasy. So, we fantasize about keeping a commitment. We fantasize about holding ourselves accountable. We fantasize about deepening our spiritual practice. We fantasize about taking better care of ourselves and ending the self-sabotage. We fantasize about all that. We fantasize about winning the lottery. We fantasize about having the perfect life and the perfect lover and the perfect body and the perfect career and the perfect amount of money in the bank, and all of these things. It s all an illusion within the illusion. And we become much more interested in spinning around in the illusions within the illusions. We so value that. And we completely forget the value that the truth has to set us free. It s of no interest to us. We're not really cultivating an awareness of the truth. We'd rather read a book about the truth than cultivate a true awareness of the truth. The true awareness of the truth comes from cultivating the actual habit of love and compassion. We have compassion for ourselves. With Jennifer Hadley 14
So, check this out. I was sharing this in the class with Gabrielle Bernstein. I had the realization, and this was a huge turning point for me. I had the realization that, if I make a mistake, something I'm calling a mis-take, something that, in hindsight, I look at it and I think, Oh, tactical error. I could do that over. That was a mistake. Instead of berating myself, instead of chastising myself and telling myself, I'm a loser. I'm a stupid idiot, a moron, a jerk, blah, blah, blah Instead of getting on the hamster wheel of attack at myself, finding myself lacking, finding myself limited, if I instead go right to compassion, right to forgiveness, these are expressions of love. If I go right to love, compassion and forgiveness, all the same thing, then there's actually more love being expressed in the world, in my life, in my heart, in my being, than if I'd never made a mistake in the first place. And now the mistake becomes a benefit to me. And this is how I came to understand that all things work together for my good. It s because I make mistakes all day. I don't know about you, but I have yet to have a day where I don't have a mistake. And I learned to go into love, compassion and forgiveness. Now I understand that forgiveness is non-judgment. Forgiveness is nonjudgment. If I don't make a judgment, there's nothing to forgive. I can just go right to compassion. I can just go right to the sweetness and the light. Every day I make a mistake. I learn to myself, Darling, Sweetheart, you made a mistake, a mis-take. Looking at it now, you can see, Oh, I would do it differently if I had it to do over. So, let s call it a tactical error. Let s call it a learning experience. And let us invoke love and compassion. And let us remember this mistake so that we never make it again. And now we harvest the learning from our experience. There's nothing to forgive because I'm not going to judge it. Healing Self-Esteem Homework 15
And so I'm grateful and thankful to extend the love of God in all directions of time and space throughout my life. And allow me please, God, to share the benefits of my learning and my healing with everyone because I'm one with them. So, let anyone else who makes this mistake, let them also have a healing. So, I just learned to call my mis-takes, tactical errors, opportunities to experience more love and more compassion for myself, and to be in a living, spiritual practice. This is living A Course in Miracles. I began to practice this because I had such an aha! Oh, my gosh, this is how I can learn to live a life of love instead of berating myself, instead of creating more negativity, more grievances, more shame, more blame, eroding my self-confidence, my self-esteem. I'm going to use my mistakes, of which there are plenty, to build a practice of self-love. And this was foundational. This was deeply and profoundly transformational. Within just a few months, people began to notice that I was a more loving person. It s because the more loving I could be with myself, the more loving and compassionate I could be with others and vice versa, because there's only one. Our thoughts of lack and attack, whether they're directed at others, or ourselves, create that feeling of lack of self-esteem. When you see lack in others, you will see it in yourself and vice versa. All you will ever see with your eyes are your projections. The thoughts that you're thinking are projected on the screen of your life. Your misery is evidence of your investing your precious time, your attention and your awareness in thoughts of lack and attack. Your misery is the symptom of thoughts of lack and attack. Love is the healer. And misery is the feeling that results when we put up barriers to love, blocks to love. And that s what thoughts of lack and attack do. With Jennifer Hadley 16
When we cherish the thoughts of lack and attack, when we really value them and invest in them, they are blocks and barriers to love. And they can become very thick, thick patterns, especially after many, many lifetimes. That's why A Course in Miracles teaches us that we can undo time. We can get out of the cycle of reincarnation through forgiveness which is the practice of non-judgment. This is why Gary Rendard s work is so valuable to us. His books Disappearance of the Universe and Your Immortal Reality help us understand these patterns of lack and attack and reincarnation, and what we have been experiencing. In truth, the healing is really so simple because love is the healer and love is not complicated. It s amazingly powerful. And it is relentless, right? God is relentless. Love is relentless. In every moment, all things work together for our good. If we're thinking thoughts of lack and attack, we're going to experience upset, hurt, fear, doubt, worry, betrayal, the experience of limitation in our health, in our finances, in our relationships. Now, we don't need to go into blame. There's no one to blame. We're harvesting the wisdom from the mistakes we've made in the past, the tactical errors, the mis-takes, so that we can choose love now and have a healing now. Instead of looking at the past and holding grievances about it, we're looking at the past with the eyes of compassion, the heart of compassion, and we're extending love. Releasing the judgment, that's true forgiveness. Sharing These Tools with Others And the forgiveness letter tool will support you. The videos in the video library, my You Tube channel you can subscribe to. I'm often putting out videos to support you. It s all free. It s all free. Take advantage of it. Healing Self-Esteem Homework 17
Share it with your friends. I'm inviting you to invite a friend, a loved one who s challenged with thoughts of lack and attack, to join you to relisten to this class, to do the forgiveness work. Have a forgiveness party. Make it fun. Why not? Get a group of people who are going to do the work with devotion. Come together. Print out copies of the forgiveness letter for everyone. Make it a beautiful, sacred space. Say prayers together. And give yourself plenty of time to do the forgiveness letter. Start with the forgiveness letter for yourself. You don't need to read them out loud. Just write them together. Maybe you want to do it by yourself. Maybe you want to do it with one other loved one, your spouse, your best friend, where two, or more, who are gathered, the Christ presence. Invoke the Christ presence. Invoke the Holy Spirit. Give the heavy lifting to the Holy Spirit and demand of yourself that you focus on your healing. There's no need to keep suffering. You can have a healing, right? When you no longer value the thoughts of lack and attack, then they can be lifted out of your mind. But as long as you keep choosing to invest your attention, your energy and time into them, then you're going to continue to experience the effect that they bring. And the effect that they bring is the reminder, the suffering, the misery is the reminder that you still value thoughts of lack and attack. And you can change your mind and set yourself free. Give thanks. Go into gratitude because gratitude is the healer. Choose to realize and celebrate and be grateful that you can be a love bug. That's your true nature, to be a love magnet. It really is. You can be a love magnet. Everything you need is preinstalled. It s about not getting anything. You don't need to get anything. It s about shedding your mental investment in believing things that are not true like, You are lacking. You're not lacking. With Jennifer Hadley 18
Now, check this out. You can choose to be a lover. From this moment forward, you can decide, From this moment forward, my focus is on love. I've had it with being miserable. I've had it with suffering. I ve been there, done that. I have got all the experience I need. I'm going to harvest the learning now. I'm going to move into compassion and forgiveness, which is non-judgment. I'm going to give up the grievances. I'm going to give up the patterns in the mind. I'm going to give them up to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, your higher self, the I Am presence, are all the same thing. All of Heaven can remove these thoughts from your mind when you're not interested in them anymore. And I went into these practices in depth in the Homework Class last week. We're placing them on the holy altar fire of God s love. And if you would like daily prayer support with this, you can sign up for my free daily prayer at JenniferHadley.com. So, if you'd like free daily support, go to JenniferHadley.com. I call it my Spiritual Espresso. And you can sign up to receive it every day. I'm inviting you to stop offering your misery to God, and telling your sad story to God. Choose to be a loving presence in your own life. You can do this. Stop telling your sad story to God. Do you know what I hear all the time from spiritual seekers, I'm just waiting for God to tell me what He wants. I'm just waiting for God to tell me what to do. I'm just waiting for my marching orders from God. God is not an old man in the sky who has preferences and who is hopin and a wishin that you would do something different. God is an infinite intelligence, an infinite presence. You are the presence of God in your own life, and in this world. And what this whole experience is about is, what will you choose? You have free will. What will you do with it? God has no preference for you. It s only your decision to value love, more than your thoughts of lack and attack. Healing Self-Esteem Homework 19
Joel Goldsmith: The Thunder of Silence I would like to share with you a reading from one of my favorite teachers. And that is Joel Goldsmith. He s a tremendous mystic. And this is from his book, The Thunder of Silence. Again, if you get the transcripts, all of this is in the transcripts and you can read it and study it. I just love this so much. This is The Thunder of Silence, and if you happen to have Joel Goldsmith s book, this is on Page 49. He s such a beautiful, beautiful mystic. He was a Christian Science Practitioner from the last century. And he says here, this is his prayer. And he s teaching us about prayer here. He says, actually on Page 48, he says, It is only those who are ready to give up all their concepts of God to stop dreaming, thinking and outlining, who in that complete surrender can let God reveal itself. Here s the prayer: Reveal yourself, Father. Show me your will. Never again will I dishonor you by trying to tell you what I need and then attempt to coerce you into delivering it. Never will I expect you to do my will, or my bidding, to be my messenger boy. I place my life, my hand and my being, my body in your keeping. Do with them what you will, Father. Take my sins, my fears and my diseases. Take my health and my wealth. Take it all. I ask only one gift, the gift of you, yourself. Let us rest in that a moment. Let us open our hearts and minds to treasure only the one gift of God as our very life. Let us surrender the need, the wanting, the grasping, the craving to get anything. With our hand on our heart, let us make a pledge to seek the kingdom first, and to recognize willingly and gratefully with divine grace, that the kingdom is within and all else is added unto us. Let us value this, and only this. And let us set ourselves free from trying to get anything. Let us remember that we have. We have that connection with source. It s our true identity. And truly, the gift has already been given. With Jennifer Hadley 20
Let us value this gift above all else and release any craving, any thought, any desire to make God our messenger boy and deliver us the stuff that we think will make us happy. Let us stop asking God to help us cherish the blocks, the thoughts of lack and separation, the needing, the wanting, the endless craving and grasping. Let us release any attraction to a false idol, and making anyone a false god in our life, including ourselves. Let us place all those patterns of lack and attack, limitation and separation and suffering and misery onto the holy altar fire of God s love right now. And let us value that which is truly valuable. Let us accept our healing, knowing that love is the healer now. We are grateful and thankful for our healing. We accept it fully and we give thanks for it. We share the benefits with everyone because we're one with them. In grace and gratitude, we let it be and so it is. Amen. Amen, Amen. Let us continue to realize that when we look at our life and feel it s unfair, or unjust, and we're a wishin and a hopin that our material experience of life is easier and better And if only, if only this could change, if only this could manifest, then we could be happy. Let us recognize that in all of those things, we're deluding ourselves. The Holy Spirit is saying to you, If only you would awaken from the dream that this is happening to you, the misery is happening to you, the suffering is happening to you, the lack is happening to you, the betrayal is happening to you. If only you would partner up with the Holy Spirit and realize you are the projector and change the thought that you are thinking, and align with love. Changing Patterns of Spiritual Immaturity This is our prayer today. You can decide today to change these patterns, because you have an unlimited supply of support in the invisible. You're Healing Self-Esteem Homework 21
never alone. The only power there is is with you, always with you and for you, never against you. When you are aligned with love, then you are at peace because you feel and know and see and hear that all there is is divine will. And every experience you have is perfectly ordered, perfectly aligned to support you in seeing the benefit of choosing love. When there's suffering, when there's hurt, when there's upset, it s because you forgot to choose love. And now you can say, Oh, tactical error. I made a mistake. I will choose love and compassion now, instead of trying to work your little ego, selfish will in your life, and make things happen, right? In the New Testament, Jesus says you must lose your little life, the selfish, to have life eternal, to have an awareness of your true identity. You have to give up cherishing this idea that there's not enough, that you're not enough. Think of this. Think of a little child, and immature being. And what do they do when they can't get their way, when they can't work their will? They throw a tantrum. They pout. They take it out on others. Isn't that how people with low self-esteem and feelings of unworthiness often act and operate, right? They throw tantrums. They pout. They go into, waa, waa, waa, right? I'm inviting you to turn within, to place your hand on your heart and look at where are you in that pattern of immaturity, spiritual immaturity, and you give yourself permission to throw a tantrum, thinking that God is an old man in the sky who s going to go, Oh, look at her. I used to do that, throw a tantrum thinking that God was going to look at me and go, Oh, look at Jennifer, that poor girl. Look at her. She has made a mess of her life and she is miserable. She doesn't know what she s doing, so I'm going to go in there and fix things for her. She really wants to have the perfect soul mate and the perfect job and more money in her bank account. She wants to win the lottery. She wants to lose 20 pounds over the weekend. I'm going to make that happen for her so she can be happy. She has suffered enough. With Jennifer Hadley 22
God is not a Santa Claus. God, it doesn't work that way. This is about us choosing to invest our free will. Whom will we serve, God or mammon, love or separation, unity or separation, love or lack? What will you choose? It s about choosing to do the inner work. And then we see the difference in our life, so I'm inviting you right now to look at just some really simple things you can do here. Healing with Extreme Self-Care Okay, turn within. Put your hand on your heart right now. Look at where you're throwing a tantrum, you're being spiritually immature. Make a decision right now that you are not going to give yourself permission to throw a tantrum anymore. You're not going to give yourself permission. Now, some healing is required. Love is the healer. I'm going to invite you to take some time with yourself and be loving, be compassionate, extreme self-care. How does a child know that you love them? It s because you take good care of them, okay? If you're acting spiritually immature, throwing tantrums, you must not know that God loves, that you are God s love. It s time for you to be loving to yourself. It s time for you to cherish yourself, not making a false idol of yourself, not thinking that you're better than, but simply to be in loving kindness with yourself. It s time. That means spending some time with yourself. Isn't that how a child knows that you love them? It s not that you buy them toys, right? Don't people try to buy love all the time? It s not that you buy yourself stuff to know that you That's not extreme self-care. Extreme self-care is investing in doing the forgiveness letter, investing in your spiritual practice, investing in taking a day off and doing self-nurturing, going for a walk in the woods in nature, on the beach, and doing the journaling with love, not allowing yourself to move into complaining, but doing the journaling Healing Self-Esteem Homework 23
work that is healing, like the self-forgiveness work. That is extreme selfcare. Where Are We Hoarding? Here is another thing to look at. Again, I'm inviting you to listen to the replays. Make notes. If you get the transcripts, make notes. These classes, if you purchase the audios, the transcripts, the unlimited replays, the CDs, or any of that, it s really incredibly inexpensive if you look at it per class. And then you have these tools to share and to revisit. The more you listen, the more you'll hear. Think of this. Where in your life have you been hoarding? Where in your life have you been hoarding? Look around your kitchen. Look around your closets. Look around your basement and your garage. Where are you hoarding? What are you hoarding? Any place that you're hoarding stuff, where you're holding onto things for years and years that you don't make use of, ask yourself, Am I holding onto this because I think sometime in the future, I might not have enough, that I am going to be in lack and limitation in the future? And I need to hold onto this stuff? Are you thinking that you might make some stupid mistakes and ruin your life and end up all by yourself in a rented room alone, and that this is the worst thing that could happen to you instead of, perhaps, the best thing that could happen to you? What are the thoughts of hoarding and lack and limitation that you continuously energize through the ways that you live your life? What are the foods that you buy that you wouldn't buy if you were loving yourself? In extreme self-care, what would you eat? What wouldn't you eat that you currently give yourself permission to eat? What are the things that you do that you wouldn't do if you were taking good care of yourself? Who are the people that you have conversations with that you wouldn't have those conversations if you loved yourself? Where do you give yourself permission to be spiritually immature and unloving? With Jennifer Hadley 24
Yes, where are the places where you are in cycles of craving and selfmedication? Remember. All temptation is of the body. All craving, all temptation, all compulsive behavior is related to the body and body identification. The more we begin to see ourselves as creatures of love and light, the more that falls away. The healing of those cravings and those temptations and those compulsions is through choosing love, self love, extreme self-care. Start with gratitude. Be grateful that you're one with God. It s being grateful that, when you make a mistake, you can forgive yourself. Be compassionate and loving and recalibrate to love every time you make a mistake. The one who does not value God, the I Am presence, the higher Holy Spirit self and that relationship through cultivating spiritual connection and spiritual practice, meditation, contemplation, prayer, the one who does not have a spiritual practice, does not truly value the divine connection because that's what feeds it, if you don't value your God self, you won't have self-esteem. It s because your true identity is your God self. It is your higher Holy Spirit self. It is the I AM that I am. That is your true identity. If you don't value that and cherish that, and spend time investing yourself in recognizing it and recognizing it, remembering it through spiritual practice, of course you'll have low self-esteem. You don't know who you are. You've forgotten your true identity. You've become identified with someone who s miserable and bitter and lacking and limited and judgmental and craving and ashamed, who feels helpless to turn things around. You're never helpless because you're never alone. The one who cuts themselves off from their divine connection feels alone and helpless, so the antidote is partnering up. The antidote is partnering up. If you choose to be unloving, if you choose to believe that love is conditional, that is has to be earned, and it comes and goes, then you don't know love. Healing Self-Esteem Homework 25
If you choose to be unloving, then you declare that you do not value love and you don't wish to have feelings because love is the healer. Instead, you prefer to miscreate your own dark and dismal false reality of lack and limitation, suffering and separation. And this is living in density. This is living in a stuck state of living in the illusion of separation. This is choosing the cycle of embodiment, incarnation, what the Buddhists call samsara. Holding Ourselves Accountable And, at any moment, you can choose liberation. Do the self-forgiveness work now. Print that letter out. Do it this weekend. Invite a friend to do it with you. Do whatever it takes. Keep your commitments. In your accountability is your self-esteem. Hold yourself accountable. I've got a video on the video page for you about that. Heal the habits of lack and limitation, separation and suffering instead of energizing them. You know what they are. They're miscreations. You know what they are. How low will you go? When is it enough? We're your bottom? Have you hit it? Are you willing to say, Okay, now I'm going to choose to focus more. I'm remembering my true identity instead of energizing and adding to the sense of false identity through holding grievances, I am going to partner up and recognize my true identity. We're all miracle workers. An unlimited supply of miracles is our birthright. It s our inheritance. It s our destiny. You can stop playing small. Give up the fantasies. Whatever they are, give them up. Fantasizing is cherishing your false self. Do the inner work. Allow yourself to feel your feelings. And when you feel them, instead of cherishing them, look at them as pointing the way to remind you they're the divine alarm clock going off saying you forgot choose love and it s time to choose love now. Partner up and choose love. You'll be amazed. You'll be amazed. People come into my Finding Freedom class, my Masterful Living class, the yearlong class, these two classes. People come in all the time and they're With Jennifer Hadley 26
amazed at how, in just a few weeks, in just a few months, they can have extraordinary transformation. They recognize that they've been spinning around for years talking about spirit without doing the practice. This is what the Living A Course in Miracles series is all about. It s about studying together and having a living practice of love. Love is the healer. This is how we heal a sense of lack of selfesteem. We remember our true identity. Closing Prayer Right now I'm inviting you to place your hand on your heart once again and take this breath of love and gratitude with me. Once again we partner up with the higher Holy Spirit self and we are dedicating ourselves right now to truly valuing this relationship with the divine. This is our primary relationship. This is all that matters. And we are grateful and thankful to set ourselves free right now. The truth liberates us. We are the truth. This is our true identity. We're releasing any false identity, any attraction to a false identity, releasing the cravings and the aversions and cultivating the pristine awareness of love. We're valuing that which is true, true and truly valuable, purification, clarification, cultivating the pristine awareness so that we literally can ascend in our awareness and see through all directions of time and space, instead of making negative meaning of everything in our life. We're willing to see that all things are working together for our good and we are never alone. We're always one. And so in grace and gratitude, we gratefully and gracefully share the benefits of our healing and our expansion with everyone. We let it be and so it is. Amen. Amen, Amen, Amen. I encourage you to listen again and again. The more you listen, the more you'll hear. If you get the transcripts, make your notes. Keep working it. Invite a friend. Share in Facebook. Healing Self-Esteem Homework 27
I love you. I thank God for you. You are my answered prayer. I'm so grateful to be the two, or more, who are gathered in the name and the nature of the Christ presence with you. God Bless. With Jennifer Hadley 28