Summary of Lesson One

What I have chosen to see has cost me vision. Now I would choose again, that I may see.
-ACIM, Lesson 52: 1

Finally!!!!  I am going to do what I promised to do weeks ago...summarize Lesson One so we can move onto Lesson Two.  Now, after all my distracting side roads and add ons I need to remind myself what the lessons were in the first place.  What were we even talking about? lol

I am joking.  I do remember.  I decided way back in early January to share some of the amazing things I have been learning in an organized lesson plan.  Though I may have strayed from the "organized" part, the plan still exists. These were the lessons I wanted to cover:

1. We need to change the way we think.
2. We need to get beyond thought to the truth of who we are.
3. We need to know who we are and from Whom we came.
4. We need to understand what the ego is so we truly see it as the "nothing" that it is.
5. We need to detach ourselves from our physical world clinging, including  our attachment to body.
6. We need to see fear for what it is so we can get beyond it.
7. We need to be open and willing to accept Love in our lives.
8. We need to know that our purpose here is to extend Love.

As for Lesson One of these lessons, "Changing the Way You think", this is what I covered in summary version:

1.  We begin by changing the way we choose to think. In order to do that we need to be aware that our thoughts are choices and we need to recognize when we are choosing wrongly.  Every time we are choosing wrongly we will feel it in fear or a sense of victimization. The entry on January 5th, offers steps to correction.
2. We then need to choose to see the world differently. We open ourselves up to the idea that we can change the way we perceive the world because our perception is a product of the mind only. I offer steps for correction on January 8th.
3. We can also change the way we think by using opposites and contrast. When we catch ourselves using terminology that expresses the things we do not want...we rephrase our thoughts into what we want.  I speak of this contrast thing many times in my entries but the entry on January 11 will tie it into this lesson.
4. Entry on January 13th better explains the mini lessons above.
5. We also need to focus on changing what we have control over.  The only control we have is in our minds and that is the only thing we need to change.  We really cannot change the things around us unless we change what is going on in our heads.
6. I offered an entry and a video on three powerful words to avoid in the process of changing the way we think: You!! Should!!! and Can't.  January 18th has that covered.
7. On January 19th I added a personal example of how I incorrectly used those words and caught myself in the process.  What a difference it made to the experience to speak and think differently
8. Words are just pointers.  We need to see beyond them to what they are pointed at. (January 19th)
9. I used the words of others to validate my idea that we need to change our thoughts to improve our lives on January 20th.
10. I brought it back to letting things be instead of resisting our thoughts  on January 25th.
11. And on February 2nd, I mentioned the importance of avoiding the human tendency to narrate our way through life.

So there you go...lesson one, "Changing the Way You Think, "in a nutshell.

All is well.