The first time I picked up a Pathwork lecture, I knew I had found something special. The year was 1997, and by then, this material had already been around for a few decades.* What I didn’t realize then was that the Pathwork Guide was playing the long game. And at the time, I didn’t yet understand that I, too, would now be playing the long game.

Pathwork lectures are deep but dense

Starting out, I found the Pathwork lectures to be hard to get through. The sentences were long. The paragraphs were long. The lectures were long. The list of lectures was long. Even after I got rolling, the years it took to make noticeable progress were long.

But the concepts were deep. Deep enough to make a real difference. And the wisdom was profound. Profound enough to change my whole perspective about life.

It is our nature, however, as human beings, to want the quick fix. We want instant gratification and immediate results. For this is how the Lower Self rolls. Yet, as the Pathwork Guide teaches, the Lower Self is the part God wants us to work on—to heal and transform. And God, it turns out, is really playing the long game.

The best game in town

Earth is a stop along the way in our journey to return home to God. It’s a halfway point, if you will, made up of souls who are not all that bad and not yet all that good. For we must already have at least some connection with our Higher Self to earn a ticket to Earth. But we also have a Lower Self that needs some clean-up.

For me, starting in 1997, I would spend a lot of effort and resources participating in various Pathwork groups, workshops, retreats and healing sessions to clear away the darkness that was hiding in my Lower Self. I read lecture after lecture after lecture, and I dove deep into my psyche. And I uncovered things I never imagined were in there. I found my way out of my darkness. It was hard work, but I don’t regret a single minute of it. I’d do it all again in a heartbeat.

Why? Because I can now look back and see the value of playing the long game. I understand that there’s actually no other reason for playing this game we call life. We’re in it to win our freedom from all the difficulties we create for ourselves.

Launching myself into the game

Fast forward a dozen years and it’s now the end of 2013. I’ve been a Pathwork Helper for a few years, so I’ve done some teaching at Sevenoaks Retreat Center, led a Pathwork group and held individual Pathwork sessions. My youngest son is graduating from high school the next Spring, and I’ve been ready to leave my corporate job for some time.

During the second half of 2013, I launched into a project of cleaning up and organizing all the Pathwork Q&As. That whole time, I was following a flow of guidance and energy that was racing through me like water through a firehose.

Nearing the end of the task, I sensed I had gotten a green light to leave my corporate job. And so I leapt. I shared at length about what unfolded over the coming months and years in my memoir, Walker. It included creating a website to make the Q&As available to anyone in the world and putting my favorite Q&As into a single book called Keywords: Answers to Key Questions Asked of the Pathwork Guide.

It included writing many books—now at 19!—and creating 120 podcasts to make the Pathwork Guide’s teachings easier to access. And it included the creation of a high-level overview and dozens of writings that attempt to help a person get their arms around these teachings. Because when I started out—did I mention?—accessing the Pathwork teachings wasn’t easy. I would have loved having access to the content I’ve been creating.

It’s now been nine years, and what a gift this journey has been. None of it has gone the way I imagined it might. And yet each time I finished another project with the Pathwork Guide material, I have felt great satisfaction. For working with the wisdom in these teachings is nourishing and fulfilling.

The grand plan for the Pathwork teachings

At one point, the Guide said Pathwork was never intended to be very big. It wasn’t until I created the book After the Ego that I understood why. The original teachings were designed to reach a limited number of people. These people would be guided in doing their own personal healing work, anchoring enough light on the planet for the whole world to move into the coming era.

And my task with these teachings, starting in 2013, has been to unpack them so more people can access them. For they are a map we can use for navigating this next part of our collective journey. The Pathwork lectures have been playing the long game.

Back-up plans can be better

Here’s one thing I’ve learned along the way. The Spirit World has plans. They also have back-up plans. And they have back-up plans for their back-up plans. There is no end to their back-up plans. And here’s something else that’s fascinating. The deep back-up plans can be far better than the low-hanging fruit of the first plan.

The spiritual teaching here is this: When we hang in there, especially when plans go sideways—and maybe even fall apart—that’s when the game really gets interesting. That’s when we see the hand of God sweep in and make things happen that take our breath away. For there’s a spiritual truth behind the Biblical saying, “All things happen for good for those who love God.”

When we are working on clearing away the obstacles and darkness of our Lower Self, we are completely in alignment with why God has invited us to come here to Earth. In other words, we’re working to heal ourselves and this is what reveals our love for God, for goodness, for what’s right.

And when we are doing that, there’s no obstacle in our way that God won’t help us move. There’s no mountain before us that God won’t help us climb. There’s no end to what God will do to help us win our freedom. For God is playing the long game. And when we are on God’s team, God is fighting right there next to us.

Taking the more direct path

People, this is not an easy path to walk. But before I found the Pathwork teachings, I tried living life another way. My way. And I can tell you for sure, that other way was just as hard. More importantly, it didn’t bring me to the light. It didn’t help me heal my deep wounds. And it didn’t bring me peace. Instead, it led me further and further into the tangles of my own Lower Self.

I invite you to consider going another way. Because here is a secret that’s important to know: We are all heading in the same direction: We are all trying to get home. And there is no easy way to reach the mountaintop. These teachings from the Pathwork Guide are going to take you straight up the steepest side. But that also makes these teachings the most direct way to get where you ultimately want to go.

If you’re like me and you want to stop going in circles, this is the way to go. If you are reading these words, you have what it takes to play the long game.

Let’s go this way together. Let’s go home.

–Jill Loree

*Pathwork lectures were given monthly from March of 1957 to January of 1979 by Eva Pierrakos. Over those 22 years, Eva only missed giving one lecture and that was the day her cat, Psyche, died.

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