Lesson 126. All that I give is given to myself.
I called Jacquelyn, I guess it has been at least a year a ago. I was upset about an incident that had occurred. I told the story to Jacquelyn and asked her, “What do you think this means?” Jacquelyn said it meant nothing. Wait a minute. I had already decided it meant a great deal! Jacquelyn explained that it wasn’t meaningful and that only the meaning I was giving it made it seem important. The meaning I was deriving was based on my past–the judgments I had made, made it seem meaningful. I had made a decision that there was value in the experience I had. I have since come to understand you always experience your own decisions.
Regina calls this the perceptual loop. “What I think, I see (perceive). What I see, I experience. What I experience I think.” This might also be called “Mind made illusions.” This occurs when an idea is seen as valuable or important. Once meaning is given the idea becomes manifest. That whole experience is perceived as real and we believe it.
Understanding the concept of ‘giving and receiving as one’ is key to understanding forgiveness. You always experience your own decisions. NTI Luke 17 says, “[Offense] has not come from your brother. It has come from the meaning you have applied to thoughts in your mind.” Thus, “Forgiveness is simply an acknowledgement of the truth of how the offense or hurt has come about.” It came about through a collection of thoughts I had. I thought I knew something so I made judgments about the meaning of the experience.
Once I settled down and could see there was no meaning or that the meaning I was giving the experience was of my own making, immediately, I was able to let it go. In Brent Haskell’s “Journey Beyond Words” it says, “Nothing can be done to you, by anyone, ever. You will come to know that everything you experience is, indeed, your own choice.”
In her original Gentle Healing Year 1 tip for this lesson, Regina asked the question, “Can you come to see that you directly experience your own decision to judge, reject, accept or love?” I would ask, can I acknowledge that I am responsible when I assign meaning to the meaningless?
