On painful memories

To Spirit:

Spirit,

Please help me. Sometimes painful memories come up in my awareness, and I’d like to make sure I am looking at them with your interpretation. I do not wish to make it real and reinforce identification with a victim role, but I also know that it is not helpful to deny the experience the dream character seems to be having. I assume this is true also with things that seem to have happened to the dream character in the past. Please help me to remember what everything is for. Please help me to forgive.

Spirit, please help me.

From Spirit:

Dear one,

You have done well to bring this to me. Anything that seems to disturb your peace is worth bringing to your right mind. You are correct in your assumption that the experience in memory is no different than that you seem to be experiencing “now.” Remember that your concept of time is wholly inaccurate. In reality all is now.

The practice then remains the same. Notice the thoughts and feelings that are coming up. Do not deny the experience of them and any events to which they seem connected. Remember that you have been given this practice to apply to all things that seem to disturb your peace. Then bring it to me.

You’ll notice that there seem to be different versions of the dream character experiencing some level of distress with the painful memories. There is the “past version” who seems to have had the painful experience, and then there is the “current version” who is remembering and feeling distress in the remembering. Both are the same. Neither are you. Together we can forgive them both simultaneously.

Your experience of remembering painful memories and feeling distressed about them in the present is reflective of your experience of continually re-experiencing the memory of the separation you thought you caused between you and God. Your entire dream experience is a seeming re-living of that painful moment. You can recall this as you practice forgiveness. Your awareness of this truth will aid you in your practice.

Do not use this as reason to deny the experiences the dream character seems to have had/is having. Instead, allow this truth to be in mind while you acknowledge the form it seems to be taking. The form changes but the content remains the same. You need not deny the form in order to remember the content. You can instead feel gratitude for the many forms it seems to take, as without a seeming form it would be hard for you to practice.

The dream character seems to have experienced a painful separation from her loving source, and then she seems to relive it in a million forms. You do not help her by denying her experience. This would be cruel. You help by choosing to remember, again and again, that this is only a fearful dream she is having. You help by bringing the belief in her and what she has experienced to me. I will help you remember that you are not her, that she is not real, and that all she feared had happened has impacted reality not.

Rejoice then that the painful memories are coming up in awareness! Without them your unconscious guilt may have remained unconscious, but with them in awareness you are able to practice as you have been taught. Through your forgiveness practice you will bring an end to the dream of reliving painful memories.