After you finish Lesson 1, you begin to realize how powerful the PPS Program is.  Once you can get past telling yourself that your drawings are ridiculous, you actually start enjoying the process.

However, once we arrive at Lesson 2, the bets seem to be off.  Too much intimacy is required and rather than pulling up our shirt sleeves and getting to work, we tend to find excuses for why we are unable to find time to complete it.  In my opinion, this is a great place to be.  It means you’re serious about growing and the being stuck part is the degree to which you will grow.  From here it is simply a matter of time.

It took me a long time to finish Lesson 2.  In the process I began realizing how I was living my life.  At one point the awareness of my behavior was so shaming, I had to walk away from everyone I loved so I could find myself and stop creating a life filled with painful experiences.   I believe this is why Lesson 2 is so hard.  We have to bring out the pieces of ourselves we have long forgotten about – or that may be unresolved from past life experiences.

To find these lost pieces we have to be willing to look back at our parents.  Even though we believe we are nothing like them, we are most probably exactly like them or completely opposite which turns out to be the same thing.  Until we re-evaluate our childhood experiences, we cannot know, understand, nor ‘be’ ourselves.  So it is because of our loyalty to them we struggle with finding this place.  Like it or not, they are our tribe.  So rather than reveal that our parents did something wrong or condemn them for it, we choose to remain loyal by avoiding the intimacy of self as well as avoiding our ability to be intimate with others we (should) love too!  Without this belief, we would help ourselves and others heal.

Another way to uncover this hidden roadblock is to see if you have a habit of needing to save other people.  Saving others becomes so important to you that if you fail, you take ownership that of the belief that you weren’t good enough to help that person.  Please understand it is a beautiful calling to help others.  However, with so much at work in people’s lives, no one can ever be responsible for anyone else.  If they choose to fail, that is their responsibility and their experience, which creates a necessary place for them to grow.

So let me share it the way I have learned it.  Your parents, when they were children, had parents who had parents that were dysfunctional.  Actually it goes back many generations and will continue until you choose to stop it.  As children your parents were as loving and bright as they could be with the knowledge, skills and love they had at that time.  They saw why their parents were unhappy and tried to change them.  They started to take care of them.  When that failed, they owned the shame they weren’t good enough to save them.  It then became necessary to save someone, anyone.  That way they could feel validated and that they mattered.

Then they gave birth to you and you were loving and bright.  You saw this in them and tried so hard to help them see the error of their ways.  You took care of them and parented them instead of them parenting you and still you failed to change them. 

The PPS Program and Lesson 2 in particular, is your opportunity to stop the cycle – this is one time when recycling is NOT a good idea!  In exposing your programming you, for the first time, will begin to see why you think and behave the way you do.  It isn’t that your parents did anything wrong, it is simply beliefs and behaviors handed down through the generations.  This process is not being disloyal to them. Indeed, it is truly what evolution is all about.  Not becoming aware of these parts of you is only being ignorant of yourself.

Imagine if your parents could see all of their programming and realized they had given it all to you.  How would they feel watching you behave the same way?  Not believing in yourself, plagued with addictions, needing to save others, treating others with disrespect and blaming them for your situation.  No, they would be terribly sad, as though they had given you nothing.

To truly respect your parents as well as yourself, you must be disloyal and not become them. Family members are likely to label you as a rebel.  But ask yourself, are these faulty programs what you want to teach your children?  Do you want to continue suffering in whatever it is that is haunting you or would you like to discover who you really are when all the talk from everyone else is out of your head?

There is a Universal Law: as above, so below.  You can only ascend to the degree you are willing to descend.  You who are seeking have come to the PPS Program for a reason.  You are standing before an unknown path terribly overgrown.  There is a basket filled with sharp machetes near by.  Grab one and journey down the path of self.  It is through that path you grow in compassion and forgiveness of self as well for everyone else.  So when you have finished and you see another trembling at the trailhead, you will not save, you will simply point to the basket of machetes and smile.

Only when you become brave enough and willing enough to cut your own path through the jungle of life will you ever be free! Beginning when you choose to, not when you have to is truly your first opportunity to experience a taste of freedom.

Is it freedom that you want? 

If it is, now you know what to do and if you feel scared or alone, I can help you.