“You”
[Updated 11/8/23]
I've written here frequently about maintaining the connection with your Friend. But what if you feel you're maintaining it but not getting the results you would hope for? My experience suggests it may be possible you're not, in fact, connecting with your Friend.
So what's going on? Well, in your efforts to communicate with your Friend your talking may have become mechanical such that you're now talking, in essence, to no one, to the void, if you will. Or you may have drifted, without realizing it, into talking more to yourself than to your Friend. I believe that at times I've experienced both of these diversions. [Update – 11/8/23: For some related discussion from JH see RFP (2020, p. 127) under the heading Talking by rote or requirement.]
When talking with my Friend, I aim for a connection that feels the same as if I were talking with some flesh and blood friend right there in the room with me. When I have that feeling I know I'm connecting directly with my Friend. (I also get feelings of energy in the head portion of the Du channel.) But sometimes I don't get that feeling. So how to fix this? I find a helpful technique lies in the use of the word “you.”
When I'm feeling a bit disconnected from my Friend I simply say, “you” once or a few times to reconnect with the “you” that is my Friend. In other words, saying “you” refocuses my attention toward my interactive connection with my Friend.
Perhaps this is a mini version of a suggestion made by JH in RFP (2020, p. 199): “You can choose a short, rhythmic phrase (“You, you, you!” or “Thank you, thank you.”) and play it over and over, constantly, in the background of your mind.” JH explains:
“The idea is to choose a phrase that you associate with Love and being connected to Love, and play it constantly in the background, even when you are working or doing other things with the main part of your mind. This, too, can be considered an aspect of 'practicing the presence of God.'” (p. 198)
So it seems fair to say a chief effect of playing such a phrase over and over in your mind is to keep some attention focused on your connection with your Friend. My mini version simply activates this focus on an as-needed basis. Why not just play the “You, you, you!” phrase in the back of my mind? Good question. It's one of the few techniques in RFP that I haven't much tried. I may just begin doing so. In the meantime, this mini version seems to work pretty well!