 It seems like when you really start to go on this journey, it's like so much gets exposed and you feel out of your comfort zone and confused and, you know, just turned around. It's just a lot of the ego interpretations of what's happening, even though there's like a loosening in the mind occurring, it's perceived as a very dark thing, a very frightening thing. It's just symbolic of the Divine Law that all that you give, you give to yourself, that giving or receiving are the same as you so socially reap. We've heard about it, karma comes in different names, and that just is the Divine Law, and it's pretty symbolic of what's going on because, you know, when you come here, it is kind of getting out of the familiar, out of comfort zones, starting to expose things, emotions are raw, and the past associations was always to shut it off, go hide, just leave. You know, if you visited a group and you went, I don't know what they're all talking about, but it's a little bit too transparent and everyone's a little too open, you just either would leave or you would sit there and be polite, and then when you got out of the door, you know, not going back there again, hour after hour, day after day, you know, it's like your mind is getting exposed and there's just no quick, easy escape hatch, you know, to just change, you know, move away in proximity or just get away, and you know, I know I've worked with a lot of people over the years, you know, it's just so clear and straight and direct, but that's oftentimes the reaction, it's like closer, closer, closer, closer, yipes, just they vanish, they're gone, not Thomas who was here today, I mean he would come, go, come and go, come and go, one time he was at the peace house for a number of months, I think, and he just left with just a little post-it note, thank you. You told me, you told me. But that's the fear of losing the self or what will I become if I continue on with this questioning and listening and exposing and this preferred self, you know, wow, I can't even imagine where this is going to even go if I keep emptying and emptying and emptying, so yeah, it takes a lot and that's the thing is, you know, with movies like The Secret or manifesting movies and so forth, you know, the big attraction is, you know, create your own universe, you know, create your own reality, create the world the way you want it and that's associated with empowerment and then the deeper you get into spirituality you start to realize that, well, that's not going to give me peace of mind, but to the ego, that's a tough pill, you know, the ego got into this whole thing with a little bit of improvement in mind. Okay, all right, let's do this. It's going to be some hard work and going to be some difficult times, but it will improve and then you start to go deeper into, you know, this whole improvement idea, self-improvement and self-help and all that and then at some point it's like, oh my gosh, this isn't about improving yourself at all. This is about letting go of everything that I've known, thought I've known and whatever and that, you know, brings up a lot of terror, you know, because it's a sense of letting go of the familiar, letting go of the known, even a sense of misery seems better than complete unknown, you know, which is the way the journey starts to feel more and more like what's going to be left of me. You know, while I'd be like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz after the Flying Monkeys had got hold of me, you know, with just a bunch of, you know, shirt and just laying there, you know, in the road with the straw all over the place and it's nice in that movie where symbolically the mighty companions, you know, just say it's going to be okay and they stuff and straw back in the sleeves and everything and it's going to work out, but the terror is a sphere of loss. So it does take a lot of practice, you know, you can use the word purpose, get into your purpose, get into your calling, get into your function, but really most people when they start to go into this, you know, function, calling, purpose, what's that? Like, oh, you're not telling me I'm going to have to be like a rabbi or something like that, no, but it's this emptying out and letting it kind of infuse you or come through you and, you know, tapping into that flow and that current, you know, seems to be, take a bit of practice. So there's the gap between the letting go and this purpose seeming to kick in and that gap can be quite a frightening disillusioning, disorienting, you know, gap. In this relationship it feels like it's much more infused with emotion and fire and feelings, just raw feelings and it seems to wreak havoc and destruction. So if I can let it go, is it worthwhile to let it go or is there some value in it? Oh, it's the attraction to guilt, but it's like when you talk about how when you're wound into something you get unwound from it, but it's, you know, whether we talk about sexuality or for some it's body image and for others it's issues around food or particular cultures, climate, you know, so forth. It's like an addiction to preferences and then every topic you talk about has that same preference underneath it that is being loosened into the ego. It feels like it's an attack. It's like a loss of something that was had or that was valued or that was possessed and now is being taken away and so it's progressively over time you might say the Holy Spirit brings you deeper and deeper into purpose and washes the mind of the sense of need and the sense of lack, the sense of grasping, trying to get something, you know, it just washes away, washes away as you go deeper with it. It also seems like a loss of control. The whole spiritual journey just seems like you're losing control as you go further with it because if you had control in the first place and now it's being taken away and so in one sense it's like the emotions have to come up and there has to be that intensity and otherwise the mind will just go back and forth feeling seemingly wanting things, craving things versus being repulsed, feeling never again, you know, just wanting to wipe your hands clean and something and so forth and just kind of swinging back and forth and back and forth and so, you know, that's what you're in for in this sense with the journey. It feels like, you know, it's about communication so on one hand when the intensity is there and it just seems unmanageable or too raw, too intense, the one option seems to be just no more of this, just, you know, get rid of the partner, just end the thing and then the ego will come in really hard with that one and then it will come back round with this other voice which is like, oh, you need not part entirely. You still make this work. You just retain areas of fantasy, retain areas of privacy, you know, compromise and so, you know, either there's this intensity which seems to be a hatred and a repulsion that comes in or the much more subtle compromise, you know, it's like, okay, I'm not even going to bring that topic up and when we do, then that happens. I'm just going to keep it hidden. I'm just going to have certain aspects of my life and of my mind which I will not expose and that's, again, part of the human condition of having secrets, things that are kept private, hidden and guarded, quite guarded because it's like, it's a feeling like it's too charged, like, as they come up it will just rock the boat and it will crack the relationship open so, hence, a lot of compromise can seem to come in and that can take the form we call it, like people pleasing. Yeah, there's a part in the Course when he's talking about the special relationship and handing it over to the Holy Spirit, giving the relationship over to the Holy Spirit in and he said, and what comes after that is is that, you know, those that have done this are appalled. He uses the word appalled. You know, this giving over a relationship to the Holy Spirit or inviting in the Holy Spirit is just absolutely appalling what seems to come after that because the Holy Spirit accepts the invitation and the purpose for the relationship has just been shifted and the form of the relationship does not fit the new goal. I mean, the shift of the purpose is so strong that it just seems to be totally appalling so I think that you're going through a bit of that you're starting to really call upon in your heart a sense of true, deep peace of a sense of holiness and everything unlike the peace and everything unlike the holiness is kind of like a reaction or a revulsion to this call for the peace and the holiness. It seemed to be easier to just go through and compromise or hide and just pick your spots but it just seems like it feels almost unmanageable like, oh my gosh, if I'm really going to start exposing and not holding on to areas of fantasy and private-ness and separateness it just seems like it's so full on and that is what you seem to go through. I mean, I think everybody who goes on this journey faces a period where it just seems overwhelming highly sensitized you know, just you feel like you want to escape or I've heard people say, turn it back, turn it off or get it back the way it was I don't know what I did, what I invited what I called upon, but stop it it starts to dawn as awareness because you can't really go back there's nothing really to go back to it