A Paradigm Shift for Mental Health

I feel so fortunate to have run across people who were teaching the 3 Principles, way back in 1985 and to have met Sydney Banks while he was still alive. There is no question that Mr. Banks uncovered what would become a paradigm shift in the fields of psychology and psychiatry.

 “Someday someone will find principles for psychology and when they do, it will change the field to a philosophy and a science and in turn it will help millions of people.”

Houghton Library [Public domain]

William James (sometimes called the father of psychology)

To think that we’re at the forefront of an amazing realization for humanity; to witness history in the making is incredible. One day it will be common knowledge and people will quite naturally live life from their spiritual essence as opposed to their personal ego; we’ll surely have a different world then.

Can you imagine the vast majority of humanity living from an understanding of their spiritual heritage, looking out at the world from deep within, from their true nature? If more people knew they were experiencing their own thinking, their own creation – they would know which thoughts and experiences to take seriously and which to just let  pass along on their way.

That is true mental health.

Of the Three Principles, Thought is the creative Principle — it’s the principle that creates anything and everything. Consciousness is the principle that recognizes the creation and brings it to our awareness, and Mind is the power behind the whole show.

The Principles offer a deep, comprehensive understanding about how we operate. We can understand and explain the role of thought in moods, emotions and insecurity; what underlies differences between people, and why everyone thinks their perspective is the right one — to name but a few things an understanding of the Principles brings us.

Sharing the Principles with people is like giving them a baseline to understand how they experience life. When people have a baseline understanding of how they and their partner operate — it shifts everything. It shifts a person’s relationship to situations and circumstances to one of empowerment rather than victimization. To be able to look within and contemplate how we function as humans and to have even a rudimentary understanding of the Principles — helps people.

It’s a great privilege to witness an individual come up against their typical thinking and then come to the realization that a thought is not a fact; that thinking doesn’t make it so. As a therapist, I get to witness people transform their lives and their relationships just by understanding this one fact of life.

Recently, a young man came to my office for his second appointment, looking very dejected. He said, “My wife asked me for a divorce.” He came to the next session with his wife. She said,“I never said I wanted a divorce. I said, If I’m not giving you what you want, then maybe you should find someone who can.” She went on to say, “I really love this man; I want him to be happy and to have what he wants.”

People often “hear” through their personal thinking, which filters out what is actually being said . What is heard is not always what the speaker meant. The Principles show us the value of listening more deeply and beyond the mere words; to listen for the speaker’s meaning and the feeling that is being expressed. Generally, we are not taught to do that. As we grow up we learn to listen only to the words and then analyze what is being said according to our personal perspective. Children are actually more adept at hearing the true emotions behind the words, because the words have less meaning to them.

I could hear the wife’s frustration; thinking that she was incapable of satisfying him in the way he wanted her to and that just being herself was not enough for him. Listen beyond a person’s words, to what is really being felt emotionally. The Principles explain how personal thinking delivers separate realities; thus, it is important to ask questions rather than assume you know. The Principles explain what misunderstandings really are and why they happen.

1. The three Principles provide a paradigm shift from trying to change what’s “wrong” with a person to realizing the wisdom and health within everyone.

2. Seeing the inside-out nature of the Principles points both the client and the clinician to their spiritual nature where insights take place naturally.

3. Positive change occurs spontaneously as a natural outcome of understanding how thought creates our moment-to-moment reality.

4. Pointing in the direction of the inside-out nature of life offers hope to everyone, regardless of their situation and alleviates clinician burnout.

5. The over-arching effect is a recognition of our spiritual nature as home base and that we have a built in guidance system — our feelings.

6. All this from three simple Principles which truly are the basis of everything we encounter in life.

When people first hear about the 3 Principles they often ask, “What do the three Principles have to do with well-being?” My answer is, “Everything!”

Since Mind, Thought and Consciousness work together to create our experience, when we experience well-being, it’s coming from the Principles in action, and when we experience difficulty, that’s coming from the Principles in action within us, as well — it’s so simple.

People in the general public who either haven’t heard of the Principles, or haven’t seen them deeply enough,  do not know that they have access to well-being, thinking it’s a fluke, that it is only felt when something good happens to them, which places them at the mercy of whatever happens in life that is out of their control.

While writing this blog, it occurred to me how interesting it is that people know what the word well-being means — which tells me that a person would have had to experience it to know that! Therefore, that makes it possible. Even if someone thinks they hadn’t experienced it in fifty years, they’d know what you were talking about. Everyone has moments of well-being even if just fleeting moments…the feeling of well-being comes through in the spaces between unsettling thoughts. It comes through even when difficult circumstances prevail, because there are always calm moments between thinking about the difficulty.

Well-being is a feeling to which we all can relate — when we use that word people agree that it is a feeling and know when they are in a state of well-being or panic or concern or worry — everyone has the capacity to differentiate — what allows people to do that?
The Principles allow people to know. Consciousness informs us of what we think, in combination they give us an experience we remember, via the Principles, and thus the experience is not only recognizable, but can be replicated, as well.

Elsie Spittle put it so well, in the description of her talk for our conference: “Let the Feeling Do the Work; innate wisdom expresses itself via a deep feeling of well-being. The feeling is a reflection of our true nature.”

Our true, spiritual nature exists before thought. We come into the world with no thought until we’re spanked to get oxygen to flow through our lungs, then we cry and then we rest peacefully; we’re all born with resiliency. That is how everyone enters the world of form from formless energy.

The prevalent thinking in the world right now however, is that one must find the thing or the person that will provide well-being, when in fact it is already a part of us and we are the ones who allow ourselves to have it or not — it’s always there for the taking. Isn’t that incredible? It’s always with us, but we just cover it up with our thinking. Well-being is our neutral but we’ll slam ourselves into reverse, into second, and third gears, without a care about what we’re doing to our internal mechanism. This may sound like a whacky metaphor, but really it’s a good description of how it feels to me when I’m not aware of the fact that my thinking is off on a tangent. Well-being is our birthright — regardless of what we can’t control — regardless of circumstances and situations.

Here is an example of what I mean: I’m enjoying myself, writing this blog and without realizing it at first, I start to scrunch up my bare toes. It feels strange to me, and then I recall that I broke a toe while playing ball barefoot on the lawn with my nieces. From there I begin to slip into memories of my broken wrist a few years ago and a thumb accident on a bike ride. Then slipping further down, I start to think about how I’m getting older — but at that moment I realize — oh my, I don’t have to go there! I don’t want to do that to myself — why beat myself up? Then boing – I’m back to a feeling of well-being again. We can wake up and become aware even in the middle of such a slippery slope.

We have a built in guidance system — our feelings, and all we need do is understand how that works. Our feelings (thoughts) let us know when we’re off course and about to slam into some thought rocks.

I am so very grateful to be involved with a spiritual understanding (Innate Health and the three Principles) that helps me, personally and professionally, in ways I could never have known. I wish the same for you, too. To deepen your understanding please visit: www.3PGC.org as often as you can and read Elsie’s book, “Our True Identity.”