For Mastery Participants Only. Please have your friends join us at a free seminar. Thank you!

AGREEMENT 8 -  CHOOSE THE PATH OF GREATEST OPPORTUNITY

Participating in Mastery for Agreement 8

On agreement 8, we go outside and “burn our ships.” We will do our best to keep the call going as we exit the building. It usually works out. Please print this script ahead of time. If you’re inside you could just crumple it up when we get to that point (vs. burning it). Click here for the form. 

Burn the Ships participant form and notes from the meeting (or if you're joining us online)
Click here for complete form. 

As you burn this paper (your ship- your resistance), you are closing the exits to any other path around what you don't want. The only way out is through.  You are deciding to face what you fear and/or what you don’t want and to point your willingness, your gratitude and your humility (your nothingness) right into the Indians (to the whatever is currently difficult- whether that be your singleness, your difficult marriage, your current health or weight, your finances and/or the difficult feelings of resistance you're experiencing about any of this).: 

From "Bridge of Spies"  

We resist things- we push against things, or worry about things because we actually think it will help.  Amazing how futile our tendencies can be.  Whatever we resist persists.  Get your arms around it!  Love what is!

It's only when George Bailey KISSES the sphere (instead of cursing it) that the world seems to turn completely around for him. 

Agreement 8 is an invitation to to “kiss” or to embrace the opportunity for growth that is before you (adverse conditions, a call to service or compassion, a personal current character flaw etc.)   The premiere application is in committed relationships- those who you have drawn into your life to serve, to heal and reciprocally (in marriage) those who have been called to serve and heal you.

In this, God is calling on you to embrace- to kiss this opportunity and to come right into it, right through it-  to give it everything you’ve got- to keep going- to keep going until you cannot go any further.  

Your feelings of wanting to quit or run are not your master.  They are your servant.  They are letting you know of the opportunity that is in front of you.   You don't quit or run because you feel like quitting or running (because it "burns" as Brock exclaims).  On the contrary, it is in this very moment that you hear the words of those that need you so bad- "Don't give up on me now!  Don't give up on me now!"  It is in this moment that you not only celebrate how hard things are, and what it can make you, but more so, what you can do for someone else.  So get your husband or wife (or child) strapped to your back (in your arms-  in your love and in your commitment) and get down the field!  You be the most valuable player on your team.

Now, take off the blindfold and open your eyes.  Where are you?  You’re in the end zone!  Look what putting your arms completely around what you wanted to run from has done in your life and in the life of those you are called to love.  

Note: None of the above exempts agreements 3 and 4.  Sometimes you will want to think in terms of training your loved ones through requests, boundaries, prohibitions, opportunities for restitution etc.  What we're saying in agreement 8 is that it's hard to effectively create boundaries if most of what you're feeling is a desperate, urgent impulse to run! (to get back to Hawaii as Mary Brown puts it.)

We can squawk and moan about our challenges, and even beg God to take them away.   On the other hand, "I'm so thankful God, for the challenges I have, and that through them, you can change me.  You can make me different.  You can make me shine.  You can bring me home.  Thank you Heavenly Father, for these weaknesses that you can turn to my strength." 

Laura Story nails Agreement 8.

God is faithful (if we are willing) to turn every single thing that happens into something wonderful for us.   So why not celebrate everything just as it is?   This young man understands this, and is kissing the sphere to a degree that most of us will never understand. 

What you are facing is not in the way.  It is the way.

I will point my willingness, my gratitude and my nothingness directly into my greatest challenges and weaknesses, and therefore into the transformation God has in store for me.  I will keep going. I will kiss the sphere.  Thank you Father in Heaven, for bringing me home.  

“Simple exchange” - GETTING TO MY NOTHINGNESS

1) Take a couple of deep breaths.

2) Now simply turn up your awareness to your breathing.  Don’t try to control your breathing. Just pay attention to it.  Be aware of your breathing, the feeling of the air passing in and out of you.

3) Allow all resistance, story, negative beliefs, darkness, upset feelings, to pass from the front of your body (if inspired, particularly through your heart and/or the center of your forehead).  Do not try to push out your stuff. Just allow it. Just be aware of your resistance passing out through the front of your body, forward into infinite space.

4) Continue to breath in and out through your nose and. allowing all darkness, resistance and “stuff” to naturally start flowing out from you.  You can be aware of what this “stuff” is i.e. “fear, competition, unhealthy regret, rightness, overwhelm etc.” or you can simply be aware of it as it passes from you.  

5) Once this movement is flowing (which can be instantly), allow at the same time, a flow of the light of God and Christ, directly through the top of your head into your entire being.  In this sense there is a “simple exchange”- God’s light taking the place of your resistance, and ultimately, His everythingness filling your nothingness.

At the same time, continue to be aware of your breathing.  Don’t try to control or change your breathing.