Mastery Prayer Work = Confession + Correction

When you decide to prepare and work a Mastery Prayer List for yourself you are recognizing that you need God's Help to change for the better.

When you actually make the list, you are identifying what you need to work on, and in essence, are making a confession.

You are making a confession because you are consciously acknowledging all that what you believe you shouldn't be thinking, saying, or doing, but still are.

In essence, you are listing the negative, lesser god, personality habits that you still need to work on and master in daily life; and you thereby create a focus and a blueprint for your ongoing spiritual growth and freedom over time.

At Home Preparation for On-the-Go Mastery

Working Mastery Prayer List(s) at home prepares you to resist all your negative personality habits in action, in all the daily life situations and relationships that have been able to trigger them—which is the real point and benefit of doing it.

You work a Mastery Prayer List by reading the entries as a sincere declaration that you want God to free you from the negative, lesser god influence that each one represents (negative beliefs, thoughts, feelings, habits), once and for all.

By doing so, you are putting your time and energy into creating positive change within yourself; and thus are trying to lovingly self-correct with God's Help.

By combining Mastery Prayer List work with consistent Guidance Counseling from God within you through Receivership—you put yourself on the express path to Conscious Mastery, Divine Service, and Karmic Freedom on Earth.

How to Master Performance Fears

One of the main jobs our brain has been tasked with is to keep us alive. That is why practically everyone was born with the ability to feel fear. Those who walk around this planet without being able to recognize danger aren’t going to be walking around it for very long.

The above is why it makes perfect biological sense that every sane person would automatically feel fear when being locked in a cage with a hungry tiger. The fear triggers the fight or flight response which creates physical changes that prepare you to save your life. Your brain controls all that, not your mind.

But your brain was not given the job of protecting your emotional self-image. Brains are physical. They can’t get insulted, nor do they fear rejection. It is the mind, the spirit, the person inside the body that does. The mind can affect the brain when it is upset, just as the brain can affect the mind and body when it is "upset"— which is when the brain senses pain or physical vulnerability.

And Then the Mind Tells the Brain

But, it is only the self, the person inside the body vehicle, who can be made to feel vulnerable by social situation created—self-image concerns. It is the mind that tells the brain, “We've got to get out of here” when social-self-image fears are triggered (i.e.: failure, rejection, embarrassment, humiliation).Thus, depending upon how threatening the particular social situation is to the mind (person), it's decision to escape may cause the brain to trigger the fight-or-flight response—which accounts for why and how social fears can lead to all kinds of uncomfortable, unwanted, even overwhelming, physical changes.

Fear > Dread > Avoidance > Missing Out

Public speaking, asking for a date, auditioning for a part, interviewing for a job, taking a test, among others, are all situations that have been known to trigger varying degrees of performance failure fear within physically fit, professionally capable, and otherwise emotionally secure, people.

The scale of the possible intensities of such fears runs from mild discomfort, to dread, to avoidance—and at times all the way to panic and difficulty breathing; depending on the person and the particular task at hand.

Fear when your life is actually threatened is always helpful as noted above; and especially so when it mobilizes you into right action at the right time. Fear when your life is not actually threatened is never helpful—unless it mobilizes you into right action, at the right time; and over time as well.

Overcoming Reactions to Fear

Just like it would be pointless to tell someone waking up alone in a cage with a hungry tiger not to fear—it is pointless to tell someone with a big fear of public speaking (or of asking for a date, etc.) to just “go out there and get over it.”

Once you have a strong fear-based reaction to being asked to do something (whether you're asked to do it by yourself or by others), you have accepted the expectation that if you try it, something bad will happen (i.e.: rejection, failure, ridicule, etc.). If that wasn’t the case, you wouldn’t need to, or want to, avoid it.

Imagining the Worst

Most people who avoid the experiences they fear often imagine exactly what it is they fear happening from time to time (rejection for a date, not thinking of anything to say at a party, sputtering or freezing when making a speech in public). Others may not imagine those unfortunate outcomes, and thus may not consciously know exactly why they avoid, they just do.

Research confirms that the same parts of the brain that are activated when you imagine an experience are activated when you actually go through it. Thus, fear that grows into avoidance can be counteracted through giving a person a reason to expect, and therefore imagine, going through the experience(s) that they fear successfully.

An Organized Path to Conscious Mastery

The Keys Teachings suggest two methods to help you accomplish the above. The first one is to work a relevant Mastery Prayer List that specifically targets the fear(s) that you want to and need to overcome.

You work a Mastery Prayer list by asking God to disempower the reinforcement energy behind the fears that are on the list. Doing so is literally asking God to help you master your habitual fears by reprogramming your physical brain and your sub-conscious mind.

Each time you work a Mastery Prayer List, you are asking God to both take charge of you now and to prepare you to better handle all the situations and circumstances of your life in the future.

The second method, which the Keys Teachings calls Prepare and Practice, combines what most therapies refer to as Systematic Desensitization and Roleplay. It is designed to help you imagine more positive outcomes when thinking about situations that have been difficult for you in the past.

Since Actions Speak Louder than Words

Actions really do speak louder, and they program your brain and sub-conscious mind more strongly, than words. That's why prayers alone are most often not enough to help you master your fears—while you're still facing them in life.

Prayers move you one step forward. But, each time you allow fear to control your mood and behavior—you take two steps back. That's why it's harder to feel brave, when you don't act brave—than to act brave, when you don't feel brave.

The Wisdom of a Step by Step Approach

Systematic Desensitization is a step-by-step approach that helps you master your fears by consistently diminishing your expectation of suffering when going through the situations that trigger them.

If you're afraid of public speaking, you arrange to speak publicly in a relatively safe to you situation—such as in front of your significant other; or in front of three of your most trusted friends—who all serve as your home-based audience.

You make the speech you’ve prepared in front of that small, but safe, audience. Then they support you with realistic, but kindly worded suggestions. You then implement and practice those positive changes in your next speech.

When you feel ready, you make your next speech in front of a slighter larger, and potentially a little less friendly, audience. You then implement the advice you get from them (or from helpful observers you placed there). Making those changes gives you even more reason to expect to do better next time; and so on.

Preparation + Practice = Improved Performance

Thus, after a few successful public speaking engagements, your competence and confidence will be increased, and your fear diminished—all because your string of successes gave you the ability to imagine success instead of failure next time.

The above methods can help you master almost all of your performance related fears, one by one, simply by increasing your expectation of performing better in the situations that have in the past only triggered fear and avoidance.

If you're afraid of asking for a date, you can successfully use the above approach at home. Instead of writing a speech, you just write an “asking someone out on a date” scene; and then perform it with a trusted help-mate; get feedback, then apply the feedback, and then practice the new method, and so on.

Soon you will be ready to move on to actual potential dating partners; and will likely perform better each time you do—because systematic preparation and practice always improves performance, at least to some degree, over time.

Impersonality Makes Learning Easier

The above is why all sports prepare their rookies in minor leagues—where it's safer for them and the players to take risks on poor performance. It's why teams hire coaches, schedule practice, and play exhibition games that don't count in the standings—all to better train and prepare their new players for the big time. 

All the above is why the Keys Teachings so strongly emphasize that becoming impersonal is one of the most important qualities to develop for both spiritual and material world success. Oversensitivity and fear of being judged often leads to premature giving up; and the only failure in life is giving up (or not trying).

You Miss Every Shot You Never Take***

In summary, the Keys Teachings recommends preparing yourself for mastery with God Take Charge Prayers, Mastery Prayer List work, Receivership, and the rewriting of your scripts on how to approach difficult, challenging situations.

Once you're armed with the right guidance, and have decided on the changes to make, the practice part should be continued until all of the replacement choices actually become your default attitudes and behaviors—the habits you go to even when you're stressed.

Preparation and practice in daily life is the path to positive change. Combine it with Receivership directed choices and decisions—and it becomes the path to Impersonality, Conscious Mastery, and Karmic Balance in the physical, as well.

*** - Quote from Wayne Gretsky, Hall of Fame Hockey Star

Since All the World Is Actually a Stage

Since the World Is a Stage, Don't Let Fear Win

If you want to be brave, and be seen as such, you must act bravely—even if you don't feel it inside at the time. If you want brave (cool, patient, flexible, caring, supportive) to become your relating style and reputation, you should ask God to help you become so, but you should also prepare yourself through study and practice, at home and away.

Even if you're facing fears that have gotten the better of you in the past, fear of public speaking, fear of asking for a date, fear of meeting new people, with the right body language, facial expressions, and confident, friendly manner, you'll make a positive, if not perfect, first impression, as you try to stretch yourself beyond those limitations.

You Never Get a Second Chance to Make a First Impression

How you present yourself, whether warm or cold, present or distant, confident or self-conscious, is how you will be seen by those you meet for the first time. Even without you saying a word, your first impression will then become your backstory—who you are until you prove differently.

And whether you believe it or not, your actions always speak louder than your words. If you stand confidently, and smile and appear approachable, people will believe you have something to be confident about—and they will also see you as nice and interested, and therefore interesting. If you slump, and look kind of worried, they'll notice that too and respond accordingly.

There is a great deal of research supporting the idea that your inner thoughts and feelings affect your body language; and that your body language affects your inner thoughts and feelings. It is not inauthentic to present your best self to the people you meet for the first time. We all try do it, so you might as well become good at it.

Prayer Without Practice Doesn't Create Permanent Change

The right prayers (i.e.: Keys Mastery list work) can prepare you to make the needed masteries and changes. But prayer without practice isn't enough to create permanent positive change in any area of life—because your actions program your brain and your sub-conscious mind more strongly than words.

Fortunately, all the above recommended ways of presenting yourself can be learned. It just requires research, study, preparation, and again, lots of practice. For habits can only be built through repetition. If you don't put in the effort, you don't really want it, or don't really believe you can do it. Either way, if you skip the planning and effort, you are shortchanging yourself.

Practice > Competence > Confidence = Expertise

Every champion in every sport has had to be trained or retrained, and has had to practice off the court, in order to get better on the court in actual games. All improvement in any area of life requires learning new techniques—and then taking the time to become good at them. The more you practice off the court, the better and more confident at them you will become on the court.

But if you never actually go out and push yourself past your limitations on the court, i.e.: in front of an audience, while talking to a potential dating partner, meeting new people, etc.—you will never grow past those limitations and will likely keep yourself from living a more enjoyable, more successful life over time.

Pushing yourself through your past limitations does require a good amount of willpower and determination to get started. But the payoff is almost always worth it. After all, you miss every shot you never take. And there is no real rejection but self-rejection. So why reject the possibilities before you even try?

You Can Speak Nicely & Firmly at the Same Time

As my Spiritual Master Teacher Bernice used to say, "You catch more flies with honey than vinegar." Be caring, be nice, be direct; and your message will surely come across.

Speaking angrily projects hot, controlling energy that the people you are talking to can actually feel—most often making them angry too, even if they don't show it at the time—and even if they do know that they made the mistakes.

That's why it's always better to let go of your anger before you correct anyone, not after. Otherwise, all that they feel, and thus remember, is your anger, not your words, and certainly not your good intentions.

Speaking angrily may get a child to comply, especially when you are the child's parent or authority figure; but obedience out of fear will almost always lead to alienation and rebellion over time.

And as many people have already learned, people may not always remember what you said—but they will always remember how you made them feel.

No Self-Consciousness in God Consciousness

If you do what God tells you, in the way God shows you, you've done your karmic best; so you never have to worry about the outcome.

Be impersonal. Be fearless. Be grateful. Care but don't overcare; and never let yourself become attached to the results.

You Can't Kill Your Way to Heaven

There is never a time when killing can earn you a trip to any kind of Heaven. Killing is only legally and karmically defensible when it's for self-defense or defense of others; and even then, only as a last resort.

Karmic responsibility is inescapable, even if it isn't always immediate. All that you do becomes part of you. It becomes your inner energy that is eventually felt by those around you, whether they and you realize it or not.

Put two angry people in the same room and you get two people who are each twice as angry as they would be alone. That's why people do negative things in crowds that they would never do on their own, especially when urged to do so.

When a mugger is looking for a victim, someone carrying negative energy due to past karmic actions is much more likely to be that victim... than someone carrying positive energy due to always acting as directed by God within them.

But Could There Be a Karmic Hell?

Although the Keys work teaches that there is no such place as "hell," you can create just as hellish of a karmic future for yourself by killing due to religious intolerance... as you would by killing for revenge or financial gain.

Note: If God actually wanted anyone in particular dead, there are easier ways than sending a bomber...

Surrender is When Prayers are Answered

If the only voice you're listening to is your own, you'll always be limited by your present limitations; which is why you can't really change your life for the better without at least one, enlightened, trustworthy source of guidance and direction.

When you pray, you are wisely asking God to be that beneficial source. But how can you expect God to help you score a goal (or all your goals) for you—if you don't hand over control—if you don't give God the ball and let God call all the plays—if you don't gratefully Co-Create with the Creator Source of all life?

"Ask so that you may receive" doesn't imply that you should wait a second, and then expect a pot of gold to miraculously show up at your feet. God helps those who helps themselves by literally providing a plan, by suggesting a step-by-step path to the inner and outer changes needed for all areas of your life to improve.

When you pray for things, but aren't also asking for God's Guidance on how to conduct every area of your life, you are not surrendering control, and are thus diminishing the power of your prayers to work for you in general—over time. 

Follow-Up Receiverships: Highly Recommended

Since Earth life is a journey in which you interact with many people who use their free-will to make decisions and change their minds, staying on the right path almost always requires adjustment from time to time—which can only be precisely made through a follow-up Receivership. You can't just ask God once, then wing it, and then expect the results you want no matter what else you do.

If you don't stop and listen enough, you may miss the answers you need from God within you—in meditation and in daily life. But if you create a regularly scheduled surrender-based life, one in which you're always receptive to God's Voice within you, your prayer power will increase, your Receivership will be more precise, and your lifestyle more beneficially enjoyable—day after day.