Remember Who You (Really) Are

Thor Challgren

If I asked you to think back to a time you experienced either a great success or a significant setback, which one would you more easily recall? Many of us are more inclined to say the latter, aren’t we?

Think about the last time you took on a home improvement or repair. At the outset, were you more likely to think about all your successes with similar projects, or the times when it didn’t work out?

For me, if I had to change the water filter in the fridge, I am VERY likely to recall that time five years when I put in the filter and it leaked all over the floor. Even though I’ve replaced the filter dozens of other times with success. But that one time it didn’t and my brain neurons will not let me forget it. Or will they?

Our theme this month is Remember. 

This idea is imbedded in part of our mission statement: Remember Who You Are.

We might take from this teaching that we should remember all the times we’ve been successful at something, rather than our failures. I can remember that I’m the person who successfully changed dozens of water filters, and not the guy who flubbed it that one time. But even that kind of memory is still focused on conditions, rather than my ultimate potential.

Ernest Holmes says that “Principle is not bound by precedent.” (SOM, p. 162)

Is that true for “good” precedent as well as “not-so-good” precedent?

What if I only remembered the times in the past where I was a smashing success? And because I was steeped in that positive thinking, I developed beliefs that would support me in whatever current challenges I took on. That’s good, right?

As long as the past precedents I was remembering were all good, isn’t that sufficient to sustain me now? Maybe…

Though I can imagine circumstances where even positive precedents limit my conception of who I am. I’ll give you an example.

Let’s say I’m good at writing emails. Like amazingly good. Everyone who reads one of my emails says, “Thor, you are one of the best email writers I’ve ever seen. I love checking my inbox every day just in case you decided to write me that day.” So I’m good at that one thing. And I develop positive beliefs about my ability as a writer of a certain kind of material. My precedent suggests to me I’m a good writer.

But let’s say I get the idea to write a book. And as I remember my past successes with 3-line, 75-word emails, I think to myself, “I’m a good writer, I’m sure I could write a book.” So I launch into it, and I immediately discover there is a huge gap between 75-word emails and 100,000 word novels. I might grow discouraged. I might look to my past and think, “Darn you email-writing-success! You didn’t prepare me to write ‘War and Peace’!”

In this instance, my success in the past, as great as it was, still wasn’t adequate to sustain me through the project.

Do you know what is?

When we remember who we are in the vast, quantum scale of possibility.

I absolutely believe there is a version of me in the quantum field in which I write a great novel. That exists. Right this moment. Along with infinite other possible things I can do.

My work where I am right now is to create the energetic attachment to that desired outcome. I can see and feel myself as the writer of that novel, or whatever it is I want to do.

The stronger the energetic connection I create to that desire — which I can elevate through Spiritual Mind Treatment — the more certain I will be to experience that outcome. All other potentials in the quantum field will collapse, leaving me with the one outcome I desire — the great novel.

When you have this kind of belief, when you allow Consciousness to be your co-author, you can write any future for yourself.

You can absolutely steep yourself in all your past moments of success. But when you remember who you are on the infinite canvas of the universe, your potential to create is unlimited. Remember that.