 A co-worker though, because she doesn't cause me or near the grief this other woman does. Okay, this person is named Nancy. She happens to be my significant other's older sister. And unfortunately that means that family gatherings and so forth, you're thrown into contact with her. She's a very aggressive woman. She's very insecure. She has to parade every item of value in front of your nose so that you're sure to see a new ring, a full length fur coat, the necklace that someone brought back from Egypt. I mean she said, have you seen my? She is very inflammatory in her speech and her opinions. And she expects you to buy into them and affirm that, oh yes, you're right, you're right. And I cannot stand. I just cannot stand being around this woman. To one point, one day I finally just got up from the table and said, I don't care to discuss this. And this is not the way to handle it, not when you're in a family gathering and you just get up and leave. And so I really don't know what to do with her. I have taken a shot of whiskey before I go over there. I have taken tranquilizers before I go over there. I have meditated. And other times I've done nothing at all and they all have the same effect. I still get angry. That's a great one. That's how it'll be fun. To realize that it's not Nancy, I know it's not Nancy, which really frustrates me. I do understand that it's not Nancy, but I haven't figured out how to deal with this challenge for yet. So the first thing we want for number one is when I think about this undesirable scenario. So if you can just think of one scene or scenario you've mentioned. How about being with her? Scenario of going over to a family gathering. Nancy at a family gathering. Being with Nancy. So that would be like when I think about A and you would just fill that in as your A. Alright, got it. Part of that it says I feel B. And you kind of have adjectives describing her as aggressive and opinionated and so on and so forth. But just some of your feelings when you're there and you're at the family gathering. You want to just start with how you're feeling. And it can be a number of them. Just a specific upsetting emotions. Pick out the top three or four. Usually so simple. The top three or four are they listed? Oh, you mean the top three or four? And you might have 10 different feelings that pick out the dominant three or four. So I feel anger. I feel uneasiness. I feel cornered. Emotionally cornered. And total intolerance. Okay, so just fill it in. I feel anger. I feel what you say, trapped or something about something that is uneasiness. Yeah, but I don't want to waste it. Emotionally cornered. So you feel anger, you feel uneasiness. Emotionally cornered. Emotionally cornered. There's more. Does that kind of capsulize the both of it? I think so. Okay. Because I think that C, name is the blank. And or I'm afraid C, negative consequences, not consequences will occur in the future. Yeah, and I don't, I really don't know how to deal with that. The negative consequences, and that's one of the biggest ones, is have to agree with her when I don't agree. Rather than say, I think you bullshit. You know, I just, I can't do that. So I feel like I have to agree and go along with it. How else to put that? Lynette, what are you afraid would occur in the future if you agree or disagree with whichever? What are you afraid of? I guess I'm compromising my values. I'm compromising myself. I'm a very upfront, truthful kind of person, but I don't like confrontation. And to me, there's no point of confrontation in these gatherings. Let the woman just blow off her steam. With me in a different room usually than what you find her, if I can arrange it nicely. Because I don't like to have to deal with her. I don't like being compromised. I don't like having to say, I don't agree with you because I don't feel it's important to do that. It doesn't make any difference whether I agree with her or not. It doesn't change anything. Are you feeling, are you feeling like what's going to happen in the future is just more of the same? Oh yeah. Is that, oh that's what I hear you say. What you think is that more of the same is going to occur in the future. Because you have to continue to see her because she's the part of the family. That's what I was getting at. Are you afraid that it would compromise your relationship? I mean, does that count here? Sure. To be afraid of the future that would compromise your relationship with your significant other? Well, it is a minor consideration. He doesn't care for her too much either. But I can't rest on that too easily. I mean, he tries to avoid her and he doesn't like her show off nature. It's one upmanship. If someone's got something, she's got to have another one that's better. Bigger, nicer, more expensive. So he doesn't have a lot of tolerance for that either. He understands where I'm coming from and that doesn't justify my feelings when I realize that. So any future consequences? I'm very uneasy about it. I don't have a good time. Think about family gatherings where she is. I feel anger and tolerance, etc. Because I think she is to blame and or I'm afraid anything's going to happen over and over again. Now, number two. One of the things we've talked about in the first several days of this seminar is that perception. What we perceive in the world comes from our beliefs in our minds. So if we go back to our diagram that we talked about the levels of the mind, the perception was out here, the outer ring. And the belief is in here, inner ring. And the belief determines the perception. Sometimes it doesn't seem that way. It seems as if our emotions and our beliefs and thoughts are determined by what's happening out here. So this is where number two is coming in. It's saying A, the undesirable scenario, B, the feelings. C, the thoughts. In this case, the thought of who's to blame. I do that I am right about D, how I think things are. Because I believe that the statement in number two for a sentence is not correct. Is that correct? Well, yeah, and that's something we need to look at. It's part of the whole ego system is that everything is backwards and upside down. I mean, these do not prove that I'm right. Am I? D is how I think things are. You know, you're saying the way things are is I get upset whenever I'm with her. And the reason is this is why I am upset. ABC, yeah. One of the things I heard Lynette saying earlier, not just about this situation with Nancy, but you were saying it more in a general context, was I'm always being cornered by that feeling. And that would be something, you know, that you could put in there indeed. Because it's more of a pervasive belief that if it seems like not only with Nancy, but in other situations like at work or other things where it seems like you're being cornered, like you were saying, then that's something you could fill in. That might be after the I am, I always seem to be getting cornered. That seems to fit. Could. Could also it's a lack of peace. And also the big, big, big thing that I kind of forgot to mention is the woman is negative. There is no positive thought in her body except that she is right. But you know, she's a very negative woman. And I don't like having to be with people who are constantly negative and complaining about something. So yeah, I feel cornered and very uneasy and not at peace. So the lack is peace? It's just about everything pleasant is lacking, right? Being cornered or any of those would work. But if you use some of those things that lead in, I'm just sort of trying to put myself in your shoes. I need a peaceful environment, I am upset. I need to be around people that are more positive. I can imagine, since you're so aggressive and overbearing, you know, you may feel a sense of being overwhelmed. Or control, yeah, that's what I was just saying. Well, it could be control because I'm not exactly a wallflower and control is an issue with me. So it could possibly be buying for control. That would be wonderful. I am buying for control. I'm out of control. That's what's lacking is I'm out of control. I need to be in control is the feeling, right? So where does that fit in? D, I need to be in control. So this proves that I'm right about needing to be in control. But that wouldn't have come on your own if you were filling this out would it? That's why we do it together. And it happened to be here. The thing I was going to say, the way I've used this, because I used this a long time ago over and over and I was usually doing it by myself. But I would fill it out initially, whatever popped into my mind. And if I got to the end and I didn't feel a sense of really resolution, I would go back and I would keep working through kind of like we are, questioning myself. Let's see what else is it that I feel like I'm lacking and just kind of talk it through in my mind. And then other things would come to me as I would go through it. And that's the value of saving them too and going back and working with it. Because sometimes I would have a list, I would keep thinking of more things that would come to mind after I would fill this in that would maybe fit in to be like we're saying. Initially it could be lack of control but we've named a bunch of other things and those things might all come to you as you go through it on your own. So it's not like, it does come to you when you get used to doing it. It's not like there's only one right answer. It's like whatever is helpful. So kind of what we came to about feeling out of control, you can see how it's all more basic than saying I feel backed into a corner with just kind of one way of expressing that or one example of being out of control. But if we had, if we worked with that one, it would still work. If we worked with feeling backed into a corner, you'd still get to the same point. Could she have just put a VNC proof that I'm right about the situation, that I'm right about how the situation is with Nancy and me? Well, it just doesn't go, you just don't go any, I don't see that as taking it any deeper than we're. Okay. Almost like you've got to write something down, you don't know how to write it, so get some thoughts out and you can modify them later. Yes. You can keep going deeper with it. Boom. To the ultimate extent of my belief in lack, again, it's that ego we were all talking about just a minute ago, that the ego is the belief in lack. If you really had to give a name to the belief in lack, this is a world of scarcity. Everybody who seems to be here seems to be lacking something. You know, food, clothing, shelter, love, you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs is the lower needs, then you go up above and then there's self-esteem needs and security and you work your way up to self-actualizing needs. But the real basic belief in lack is the self-concept or the ego. And yet, initially, when you're working with it, that may be too vague, you know, so you may say, no, I feel like I'm, like you've been saying, like I'm cornered or I'm out of control and that would be a good way of just another form of the ego, just giving it something, giving it a name. Well, again, it just struck me that my belief in lack is similar to saying my belief in separation again without losing something, having got all of me here. Having got all I need for a happy life. And again, A, B, and C prove that I'm right about that. In other words, the way, what I'm seeing, the way I'm perceiving the scenario, what I'm feeling about the scenario and whether I'm blaming a particular person in the world or I'm afraid of the future consequences, that's all this unpleasant perception. And that unpleasant perception is just proving that I'm right about something that I believe I'm lacking deep within my mind. And that's the metaphysics of the course. The world doesn't cause us to be upset. The world just brings a picture or a witness to what we believe about ourselves in our own minds, which is a turnaround from the way the world sees it. That if Nancy would just be gone from the picture, it would seem like the world would be a better place or it may seem as if my life would be better.