Forgiveness

Story from B.T, NSW

My awareness of the thoughts of Sandy MacGregor's accelerated learning techniques started with a talk back session on ABC radio early in 1995. I had just started my Advanced Diploma in Accountancy through the Port Macquarie TAFE, and at almost 42 was totally overwhelmed by the course outline.... unaware also of the complex strategy needed to effectively study.

Totally daunted by the fact that the majority of the class were straight out of high school, I wondered, what was I doing thinking I could study Accountancy, after all, not only did I not know how to use the new financial calculator, I had to admit to the class that calculators were unheard of when I last did any study. What had I put myself in for!!

The interview with Sandy started and within minutes he started to talk about the fact that you could actually trick your mind into loving a subject, thereby passing it with flying colours. I listened attentively when Sandy gave a contact number for his work. I quickly wrote it down and rang up wanting to know more.

Sandy rang back the next day and spoke to me, about his techniques. Later that week I received some information on his seminars and tapes. I put the letter away as I didn't have the spare cash to attend or buy any tapes at that moment. So ended the idea of accelerated learning, or so I thought.

Close to a year later, I had gone to Sydney to see the Phantom of the Opera. Before I had to go home, I went with the person who accompanied me to the Opera, to Dymocks book shop in George Street, where I came across Piece of Mind. The shop assistant told me I would have to send away for the tapes as she didn't have the ones that related to the work in the book.

On the 5 hour journey back to Port Macquarie I read the book and was reminded of the conversation on talk back radio the year earlier. I sent away for the tapes, and a couple of days later I listened intently to the methods of Sandy's, still not fully understanding how it all worked.

But alas, fate does work in strange and mysterious ways. In June 1996, after a couple of very heavy emotional scenes pertaining to many parts of my life, my friend and I parted company. It hadn't been a particularly fulfilling relationship on my part, as my instinct tried to tell me that I was trying to find a duplicate to the man that had totally swept me off my feet almost 4 years earlier. After saying what needed to be said, my friend was of the opinion that my trouble with personal relationships stemmed from the fact that I had not really dealt with issues left over from my previous involvement, like the fact the messages on my mind machines were saying that I was always the loser in the game of love. The day we said goodbye, he handed me a brown paper bag, in it was "Switch on to Your Inner Strength" uncanny just a little.

I began reading, then when I got to the part concerning forgiveness, the penny dropped. I had never really forgiven myself or others through my life. Even though I went to church and thought I had asked for forgiveness of my many failings, they were really empty words deep in my subconscious, and it was holding me back in every part of my life. Unfortunately because I had been a single parent for 8 years, this holding back was having an effect not just on myself, but on my children as well, I was going through the actions of studying to improve my life style but there wasn't a fullness of life, and that worried me.

On the 14th of September, I did the weekend workshop on creative accelerated learning. Full of enthusiasm, I joined in with the discussions, and on the Sunday went into what I believe my deepest meditation ever. While I was meditating two things came prominently to my mind, the first was a message from my father who had died 4½ years earlier, and the other was that I must let go and accept the decision of the man that I had loved with my whole heart and soul for 4 years. These two messages were also in the form of the fact that I was to make a special quilt and write the story of it, and then I would be on the right track to know how to let go completely.

Well, I did these two things, and things started to change. I was to enrol the service of a very competent counsellor in family therapy, and together we worked at my fear of letting go, my fear of being rejected, pushed away, and misunderstood, and my need to feel things are finished before I can take a step forward. By the end of the year I really felt that I had completely dealt with my fears, learned how to forgive from a subconscious level, and was well on my way to knowing and understanding the importance of truly letting go.

In January, I moved back to Sydney with my children in the hope that I would obtain employment in July when my studies are finished. I continue to meditate almost daily, and my last semester studies have taken a completely different course. All the things that were in the full front of my mind were now, through my understanding of how my inner strength works, deliberately being controlled and not hindering my ability to achieve good results, particularly in the subjects that I feared most. The best example of this would be the way that in Business Maths and Statistics I've gone from a failed student in my first semester to an 'A' student this semester in Financial Management Principals (which if you know anything about accountancy is a complex maths subject full of formulas, ratios, analysing.) I know that it is because I was opened to the understanding of how the mind operates.

I hope this testimony will be of use to you in any further research into the understanding of the mind.