Making life better by changing how we create

The whole point of walking a path of spiritual development is self-transformation. For it’s only by changing ourselves that we can change the life we’re creating—for ourselves and for others. So then by changing what we create, we can make life better.

Why does it work this way? Because each of us have some parts of our psyche that have become twisted, or distorted. As a result, we each have areas in ourselves—and therefore in our lives—that function in a discolored, negative way. Now we need to unwind them and restore them to their original bright and shiny condition.

And this, friends, is exactly what the teachings from the Pathwork Guide can help us do. They can help us change what we’re creating in life by helping us regain our inner light. Yes, if we want to start making things better, we’ve all got some work to do.

Working with the creative process

We’ll start out talking about some general creation concepts in Part One. In Part Two, we’ll explore the illusion of time and some of the ways we attempt to take shortcuts. Then in Part Three we’ll move into specific ways we can use these truths in our own personal lives. We’ll especially explore the three most common ways people attempt to escape living in the present.

ONE: Creation springs from swirling starting points

• Two simple examples of psychic starting points

TWO: Understanding time and the “now point”

• Our three main shortcuts to bliss

THREE: The way out of misery

• Three common ways we escape the “now point”

Every metaphysical truth offered by the Pathwork Guide can be applied immediately to our lives, regardless of where we are in our spiritual development. But also keep in mind that what the Pathwork Guide is sharing in this teaching is a highly simplified version of things. Try to listen with your inner ears so you can hear the wisdom that echoes the truth of a greater reality than the one we know.

Essay 31a | Part One

Creation springs from swirling starting points

For creation to happen, two essential principles must meet. In human terms, we can think of these as the receptive and active principles. These are two aspects of one complete whole, and they permeate through everything in all of creation. It’s not possible to create anything without having both of them come together.

In order to make a positive creation, these two principles must meet in a way that is harmonious, flexible and mutually beneficial. Alternatively, when we make a negative creation, these two principles clash with each other and are mutually exclusive. Either way, the same receptive and active principles are involved.

Regardless of whether the interaction is constructive or destructive, when these two principles meet, the force created is tremendous. For they unite in a strongly concentrated form and converge into a single point. The Pathwork Guide calls these “psychic nuclear points.”

We can think of them as “nuclear” because each meeting forms a nucleus, or center starting point. And this nucleus is so highly charged with creative material that it can’t help but set off a powerful chain-reaction that is self-perpetuating. These points are the fundamental principle underneath every form that gets created.

We can also think of these points as being “psychic” in that they are not made of physical material. Rather, they are something that comes from consciousness, or the psyche. They come from our thinking, planning minds. So, we can’t see them in our 3D reality. We can, however, perceive them though inference, intuition and even by using our powers of deductive reasoning.

But don’t get confused. We’re not talking about “psychic phenomena” here. We’re just pointing out that we can’t create anything without having a conscious intention somehow embedded in the force that is bringing it forth. After all, the universe is made up entirely of energy and consciousness. These two things cannot be separated, although the limited human way of perceiving things may see these two things as two separate factors.

The power of intention

In principle, energy and consciousness are one. Said another way, consciousness can’t exist without also being energy at the same time. Consider then that every thought is also highly charged energy. What’s more, energy can’t be anything but an expression of consciousness. You simply can’t have one without the other.

It’s through our intention, then, that consciousness sends out energy by way of our thought processes. And our intentions are affected by our attitudes towards everything that is, as well as towards whatever it is that we’re creating. In short, we can’t create anything without having an intention, a purpose, a thought going on somewhere in the background.

Psychic nuclear points—which going forward we are going to call “psychic starting points”—are actually a series of psychic events. For there can’t be just one psychic point, or just one psychic event. Because one thought leads into another in a logical sequence.

By stringing together a series of thoughts, this leads us to actions and reactions. And these cause new facts to be born. These, in turn, lead to even newer facts. And all these facts create a series of chain reactions that interact and are also interdependent.

Visualize it this way: We have a thought and it brings about a certain result. Then that result elicits a feeling and an attitude. These then lead to an action. And that action will bring forward a reaction. Which brings forward yet another reaction. And the process continues, on and on.

Swirling in circles

These chain reactions don’t follow a straight line. Instead, they go in a circle. And don’t forget, they are highly charged. Instead of dying out, the chain reactions build momentum, growing stronger and stronger. And not only are they self-perpetuating, they are self-feeding. Meaning they grow with ever-increasing speed. Plus they are self-revolving. So they form an ever-increasing swirl of energy that is highly charged.

Eventually, the momentum reaches its maximum charge, and then an explosion happens. This is the peak point for a specific creation. Now the creation takes form. And then a new set of chain reactions is kicked off.

Think of the momentum traveling around a spiral where the movement keeps going faster and faster until it finally converges into a single point. This point is so tiny that no smaller measurement seems to be possible. And yet, at the same time, this one point still consists of all those forces that went into the series of events that led up to this one creation.

Size can be misleading

Note, terms like “size” or “time” or “measure” are part of the state of consciousness that we humans are in. But these no longer apply to the concepts we are discussing here. As a result, these teachings may be misleading if we don’t try to listen with our intuition and perhaps even consider all this symbolically, and not literally.

For example, big and small are not necessarily about size. Rather, these words can be used to describe the significance of a particular creation. So say, for example, that a thought which brings forth something new is very strong, very unified, and full of purpose for supporting the creative plan of evolution. There are no countercurrents going in opposite directions because the thought aligns with all universal spiritual laws.

In this case, the psychic point will be extremely large. That is, it will be powerful and will have a lasting impact. The charging and recharging of the cyclic movements will go on in a seemingly endless process.

On the other hand, if the thought that sets off a chain of events is insignificant and full of wrong beliefs, the result will be less intense. It might seem powerful, but it won’t have much impact.

Psychic starting points are everywhere

The entire universe is made up of these psychic starting points. They exist in the most simple creations as well as the most complex systems we can imagine. They’re in every particle of air and in every cell that is created. Each leaf comes from a complex reaction of many psychic starting points. Even a gust of wind has psychic starting points behind it.

The air we breathe as well as our muscles, skin, bones and organs are all created from this same origin: a highly complicated system of intricate connections between psychic starting points. Which doesn’t mean that all psychic starting points exist on the material level. Many we cannot measure but can only understand through logical reasoning.

Such nonmaterial psychic starting points are crucial for things that exist on the nonmaterial level. And they are just as important as what exists in our material world. For they also affect us. After all, our own beings are made up of the material parts—our bodies which we can see and touch—and our nonmaterial parts, such as our beliefs and attitudes. So we are just as affected by the psychic starting points we can’t see as the ones we can, regardless of whether we’re aware of our nonmaterial parts or not.

This means that whatever situations we find ourselves in right now, and whatever life we are creating for ourselves, come from very complicated systems made up of psychic starting points. Some of these points converge. Some of them contradict or fight with each other. Others reinforce each other. It’s all built on our long history of thoughts, intentions, actions, feelings and attitudes.

Changing the patterns

What we are experiencing right now, in this moment, is basically a psychic explosion that has been running through thousands of years to arrive at the last half hour we just lived. And it all culminates in the exact thoughts we are thinking this very minute. Once the pieces of this psychic explosion fall into place, they may re-form and create the same pattern. Alternatively, they may create a new form, depending on whether we take a turn in our consciousness—in our thoughts, attitudes and beliefs.

For our minds can always be changed. There are, in fact, infinite possibilities for making infinite changes going on all the time. Which means we don’t have to live with negative creations. They can be altered.

It’s vitally important to realize that when we start working deeply with these teachings from the Pathwork Guide, we will start to uncover how we are the ones creating the chain of events that we are now experiencing as “my life.”

What we will discover—become aware of—is that these highly charged psychic starting points seem to have created a life of their own. For they are self-perpetuating. But they always begin with us. And we can learn how to change the course that our life is taking. So, if we’re miserable, we don’t have to stay that way.

We keep making more of the same

When we find ourselves lost in the illusion that we are helpless, what we’ve really lost is our connection to our intentions that created this situation. We don’t realize that we have the ability to change a psychic starting point that has now materialized. Because whether we create something positive or negative, it’s still the result of our thoughts and intentions.

We mentioned that psychic starting points are self-perpetuating. Consequently, the more we love, the more love there will be in us and coming to us. We’ll keep recreating a stronger and stronger capacity for loving, and it will just keep growing. The more love we give, the more we will have. This is why it is said in the Bible that “to those who have, more will be given.”

But weak, negative and counterproductive psychic starting points work the same way. They still build momentum until they explode. The impact, however, won’t be as great as a positive, focused psychic starting point. Because the explosion will occur before a greater force could gather.

Whatever it is we are creating, we will keep creating more and more of it. For the momentum of a psychic starting point creates more and more of the same thing. That is, as long as our consciousness doesn’t change and just keeps going along with it.

This applies to everything. To knowledge, to negative intentions, to talents, to our attitude towards life. And it all depends on whether we are in truth or in error. What we are thinking will breed more of the same. Until we decide to stop going down the track we are on.

We are all amazing creators

Most of the time, we are oblivious to these psychic starting points. What we notice is the end creation. The explosion. And then what we see appears to be a fixed thing. But when we start doing our personal healing work, we start to see our hidden inner attitudes.

We do this by dissolving our inner blocks and our resistance to seeing ourselves in truth. In this way, we tune into what amazing creators we are. And we start to see how we are living in a world of our own making.

It’s through these ongoing explosions of psychic starting points that we renew ourselves. This is the case when we go through significant changes in our lives. Which includes any crisis that seems, in the moment, to be traumatic. As such, an unpleasant event is an explosion that creates an opportunity to re-form our life, hopefully in a better way. Even if our minds stubbornly refuse to understand this, a crisis is a chance for renewal.

But let’s say we keep going down a negative road, creating and re-creating negativity. Ultimately, things will reach the point of absurdity, and then can no longer keep functioning. To be in a crisis, then, means we refused to heed the warning signs and we deliberately failed to find a way to steer ourselves in a better direction.

A major crisis then can be a wake-up call. It’s a chance to struggle for more awareness of what’s really going on. It’s a time to see how we are using our creative energies.

Working with the creative charge

Creation is endless. It is ongoing explosions, which are always a climax that releases new energies that form new spirals. These energies keep filling the void with the glory of divinity and consciousness. There is no end to this charge.

But the charge can be dimmed when we fear it. When we doubt it. When we counteract it with our preposterous ideas. Even then, though, the charge is not lost, but just held back and prevented from manifesting. Nonetheless, it keeps gathering steam behind the scenes, so to speak, and it will remain there until we are ready to use it.

Our task is to figure out where we are blocking that creative charge. How are we diminishing the light in our own life? We can start right now to use the part of our mind that is able to observe our own thinking. We must start to see that what we are thinking—in the areas behind our negative creations—is absurd.

Facing our numbness

We might like to think that our thoughts don’t matter much. But they are the psychic starting point that leads to actions and creations. And therefore our thoughts actually have huge consequences.

Our work is to use our own mind to pinpoint the crazy or foolish starting points. And then search to find the corresponding truth. We can set our intention toward straightening ourselves out, using that same energetic power to shift our thinking into truthful channels. And then we can start to build positive self-perpetuating starting points.

Let’s say we find a part of ourselves that is deadened. Numb. And we are afraid of waking it up and bringing it back to life. What’s happening is that psychic starting points in our system are going in a negative direction, and these are frightening to us.

At some point in our past, we had the intelligence and a strong enough mind to realize that this was happening. And it seemed we had two choices. We could either express this flow of energy and act out, which would often mean extreme destructiveness. Or we could deaden these energies, and thus protect ourselves from them.

This is a common predicament for people to discover at some point in our development. What happens is that we feel this great rush of energy when we become enraged or destructive. This is something we simply never get to experience in a positive way.

When we start to do our personal healing work, we must learn how to express this energy in a way that doesn’t harm others. We can take responsibility for these expressions and vent them in an environment—with a trained healer, therapist or counselor—where no one is hurt by us. But then we’re stumped. Because we fear releasing them any further. We’d frankly rather be numb than destructive.

When we arrive at this juncture, we don’t yet realize that there is a choice.

The momentum of the charge that our negative attitudes created was frightening to us. So we slowed things down. Now it’s time to revive things. But it’s not enough to bring these energies back to life without also understanding the consciousness that lies behind the numbness. For all deadness comes from a negative intention.

What we must also come to see—and completely understand—is how our negative intent is based on a false idea. It’s only when we have this specific understanding that we can dare to revive all that energy that is living constantly in every particle of our being. Then we will be able to allow that charge to flow freely once again. But now it can start to feel good.

A recap of the phases of self-development

Let’s recap the phases we go through in the course of following these teachings from the Pathwork Guide. First, we search to find our conscious negativities. This is the stuff we already know about. Our hate, our spite, our angst, and our desire to make somebody else pay for our pain. Then we must seek out our hidden unconscious negativities.

Second, we need to own all of this in a spirit of wanting to be in truth. We don’t deny our negativities, but we also don’t annihilate ourselves for them, believing that that part of us is all of who we are.

Third, having discovered the false ideas that are buried inside our negative attitudes, we articulate them clearly. It can be a bit of a battle to become clear about what we currently think and believe. Then, in the last phase, we change our intention. This requires a clear formulation of our commitment to move from the negative to the positive.

These phases often overlap and don’t always go in this exact sequence. But you get the idea.

Beware of stubbornness

In a moment, we’ll get to some practical steps for working through these phases. For now, just notice that we may find—illogical as it seems—that we resist this process. Despite our intellectual understanding that this is the way we must go, we are reluctant to energize the matter in us that is now numb.

The reason for this reluctance is that we aren’t quite clear yet about our specific false idea. What do we believe that is not true? In what way is it false? What’s the right idea? It’s only by answering these questions that we can embrace our positive intent. For as long as this isn’t clear, we will fear the energy that sets off a negative chain reaction. We’d rather remain numb and half-dead than risk blowing up our life.

But don’t be too hard on yourself. For until we’re ready to become aware of ourselves and to raise our level of consciousness, this temporary numbing serves a neutralizing function. So we really can’t jump to any conclusions about whether being numb is good or not good.

It’s equally true that at certain stages in our development our negative intention will cause a crisis in our life. And this crisis will serve the purpose of helping us grow. When that’s the case, we waste time by stubbornly holding onto these stuck energies and needlessly procrastinating.

Be on the lookout for stubbornness. It’s an inner wall that sides with our fear and scattered thoughts to shut out the divine guidance that wants to flow from within.

Two simple examples of psychic starting points

When we start to examine more and more deeply what we are creating with our mind and our intentions, we can explore both our positive creations and our negative creations. What we’ll find is that the same principles exist either way. So it will help us greatly to understand how this process works. Otherwise, we will see the world out of context, because we will fail to see how everything interconnects.

But by seeing how individual psychic starting points roll up to create a larger process, we start to see how we fit into the world. And we begin to see how our thoughts contribute to our environment. For every pattern is a creation within itself, and at the same time, is part of a larger pattern of creation.

Here are two fairly simple examples of how this works.

Example 1: Walking to the corner

Let’s say we decide to stand up, move through the room we’re in, walk down the stairs and go outside to a street corner, for whatever reason. We can look at this as one plan, one configuration, one spiral. When we get to our destination, the plan fully manifests, which is the explosive, climactic point. So this particular creation showed up on this level of reality.

But before it could fully come into being, we had to take many smaller steps. And each of those steps could be considered a plan in itself. For there had to be an intent to move our muscles, even though we do so automatically by now. Still, there was an intention to walk to the corner. And our movement was because of our intention to follow a particular plan.

Altogether, it was the purpose, the plan, and the execution of each step—of each smaller starting point—that led us to complete this small creation. But our walk to the corner is not an isolated creation. It too is part of a larger plan. This simple example is important to understand because it shows us how the scheme of creation works.

Example 2: Building a house

Here’s a second example. Let’s say we want to build a house. All the same principles will apply with a number of smaller psychic starting points converging into a whole. And then these keep rolling into larger spirals. Starting out, it may take many years to buy a property and hire an architect to design our house. The architect, in turn, will execute their own plan, and also hire contractors to organize the construction process. Various subcontractors will also be involved who will need to cooperate with each other. Then landscapers and interior decorators may be involved until the house is finally finished.

Each step along the way is a creation in itself. What’s more, the house itself is a single step in a series of creative events. It’s one small step that is part of a larger scheme in perhaps a neighborhood, a city and a state. Yes, it’s a house. But it’s also part of something bigger.

The value of seeing the bigger picture

These examples are simple. Yet they can help us get an intuitive feel for how many psychic starting points must weave together to form a whole network. They keep moving, creating, exploding, falling apart and reforming new patterns. And it’s all related to the larger plan.

Yet it’s hard for us to imagine the purpose and meaning behind all of this. Nonetheless, doing so can give us a glimpse of the Divine Mind that is always at work, bringing forth its loving wisdom through the power of creation.

Walking to the corner may not seem like much. But it is indeed a creation that requires setting brilliant creative genius into motion. It requires the coordination and control of muscles in addition to innumerable other components. Yet this walk to the corner is not an isolated creation. We must have a reason to walk there. And that reason is also part of a bigger plan.

In life, we are forever weaving and enlarging these creative patterns that are self-perpetuating. Each fragment is a little piece of perfection that helps form a larger fragment. Imagine the complexity involved in creating a human being. A mathematical system. How about a galaxy? There are systems within systems within systems. And yet it’s always this same creative process at work.

Now let’s go back to looking at our inner thoughts and reactions, and our tendency to see the world out of context. The less we are able to see that each smaller part of creation is a fragment of a whole, the more we’ll believe that the smaller particle is all there is. That it has no connection to anything else.

Many of us feel separate simply because we can’t perceive more. This is a reflection of how fragmented we are inside ourselves, in our current state of awareness or consciousness.

But the more we are able to perceive that everything we experience is just a smaller part of a bigger, ongoing plan—just like the steps we take in our walk to the corner, and how that walk was part of a larger plan in our mind—the more aware we will be of how we’re connected with the Whole. That we’re part of the all-is-one consciousness. And that, friends, brings us closer to bliss.

–The Pathwork Guide’s wisdom in Jill Loree’s words

Essay 31: Part One | Part Two | Part Three

Ways to learn more
Return to overview of essays in Get a Better Boat
Read next spiritual essay