This week’s blessing:

Extra blessings from previous classes:

This is the Arthur Burk recording with the seven levels of Intimacy. He explains how to ramp up or down emotionally, depending on whether you need more objectivity/distancing, or more intimacy/emotion. This is a great brain “hack” that you can use on yourself, when you feel emotionally unsettled. It’s another way to “synchronize” to God’s truth in the situation.

https://theslg.com/content/the-new-spiritual-authority-intimacy

—> Continue your weekly Pleasure Overflow (Repletion) Exercise & post on the blog:

https://www.cynthiaharris.org/brainideas/repletion

New Exercise: Intentional Synchronization

Work on identifying & shifting areas where your brain is perceiving a reality that does not synchronize with God’s reality. (Meaning that you are FEELING something bad, either in the atmosphere, or relationally, in a situation, a place, and so on.)

Step One - See if you can identify in one or two words a “flavor.” Are you sensing Regret? Rivalry? Fear? Poverty spirit? Competition?

Step Two - Ask your spirit to work through your brain to show you God’s reality in the situation or place. Watch for any kind of understanding, a flash, a picture, a sense, or whatever your discernment tools are. Most of the time you will not feel better immediately. You’re just asking your spirit to get the ball rolling to shift the synchronization.

Step Three - Now reach for that divine reality emotionally. (This is the hard part!) Even though you are feeling the other, negative flavor, try to remember times when you experienced the good emotion strongly. Does God’s reality relate to Joy? Remember a vivid time that you felt Joy. Peace? Being loved? Ask your spirit to help anchor the emotional truth into your brain.

[It would help to sit down at some point & think of a whole set of memories & times that you can emotionally remember feeling wonderful, God-given emotions. Think of it as a tool kit!]

Step Four- Now ask your spirit to show you the deeper truth that is underneath this divine reality. Whatever the truth is, there is always a deeper truth, and it is pre-packed into your spirit.

Don’t stress if you aren’t getting anything, and don’t feel like you have to figure it out. We’re just developing the muscles for this! This is a game-changer.

EXAMPLE:

John is helping to plan a family reunion around the 75th birthday of his father. He is not close to his two older sisters, but the three of them are together now, at the home of their parents, working together to make the party happen. John is prepared to make a short speech in honor of his father when the party happens, and suggests that to his sisters, as they are planning the events for the party evening. One of the sisters makes a wry face, and says, looking sidelong at him, “Given your history with Dad, I don’t think you really need to be speaking about him in front of everyone.” Ouch. John is now off balance emotionally, and could respond a lot of different ways, as he is flooded with guilt, defensiveness, and lots of bad memories. He excuses himself to make a trip to the bathroom to regroup emotionally.

1) What is the flavor? Could be different things - I would identify it as Accusation, maybe Bitterness or Slander. Offense. Grudge-holding.

2) What is God’s reality here? John’s spirit helps to remind him that he is now clean of all his past, in Christ Jesus. He is a new creation in Christ, whose mercies are new morning by morning.

3) To reach for that truth emotionally, John remembers an intense worship experience he once had, as the congregation was singing, “I’m no Longer a Slave to Fear; I am a Child of God.” At the time, he was overwhelmed with a strong sense of being God’s son; of being clean and pure, and robed with the righteousness of Christ. Now, it’s harder to remember, but he plays the song in his head, and recalls the sense of dignity that he felt in identifying himself as a cleansed, righteous son of the most high God. He asks his spirit to help his brain anchor in THAT reality, rather than his sister’s “reality.”

4) What’s the deeper truth? John’s essence in Christ is unchanging since God created him, and he carries a facet of the light of the living God. This light remains, whether anyone else throws around petty accusations or not. He IS a living message from God, carrying a specific facet of God’s essence. Just by being present with his family, he is transmitting God’s gifts and messages to them, leaving a far greater deposit of God’s grace than any kind of speech would do.

By the time he comes back into the conversation with his sisters, he is at peace, and can make eye contact without flinching. He smiles, and helps out without either trying to defend himself or insisting on his right to talk. The whole thing becomes a non-event, and each of the three siblings give a little speech the night of the party, sharing their own perspective & love for their father.

If it had rolled differently, and John was still excluded from making a speech, he would still have maintained his sense of being a son. It wouldn’t have diminished him in any way. He would have finished out the family visit with dignity and peace, and gone home without having logged yet another family trauma. He has moved further into sonship and legitimacy in his own essence.