{"id":1985,"date":"2012-10-29T03:00:19","date_gmt":"2012-10-29T07:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lettinggo\/?p=1985"},"modified":"2012-10-28T18:32:27","modified_gmt":"2012-10-28T22:32:27","slug":"the-hidden-message-in-the-mechanical-pumpkin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2012\/10\/the-hidden-message-in-the-mechanical-pumpkin.html","title":{"rendered":"The Hidden Message in the Mechanical Pumpkin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Once during the Halloween season a friend and I decided to go to a restaurant for a meal. As we entered the small diner, we were startled by a wall-mounted mechanical pumpkin that jumped out at us while making spooky noises. It didn\u2019t take long to discover that the pumpkin had an electric eye that caused it to automatically lunge from its hiding place whenever anyone came within a certain range. Once we knew its secret, what had been a scary moment for the two of us became a funny one. We laughed at ourselves, and, of course, everyone else who got scared by the \u201cfrightening phantom\u201d that was no more than a mechanical toy.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the same with our minds. A thought comes by and somehow sets off the mechanical responder within us. Until we understand that both the scary thought and the scared self it creates are just figments passing through our psychic system, we have no control over the initial scary situation, or the false self it creates to rescue us. But once we understand all this, we have a choice. When we realize that the \u201cthreat\u201d never had any real power to hurt us, we are no longer compelled to produce an unconscious, automatic response of fear or anger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Once during the Halloween season a friend and I decided to go to a restaurant for a meal. As we entered the small diner, we were startled by a wall-mounted mechanical pumpkin that jumped out at us while making spooky noises. It didn\u2019t take long to discover that the pumpkin had an electric eye that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,3],"tags":[45,886,1393,1392],"class_list":["post-1985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-enlightenment-self-realization","category-fear-fearlessness","tag-anger","tag-halloween","tag-mechanical-reactions","tag-scary-situations"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Hidden Message in the Mechanical Pumpkin - Letting Go with Guy Finley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2012\/10\/the-hidden-message-in-the-mechanical-pumpkin.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Hidden Message in the Mechanical Pumpkin - Letting Go with Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Once during the Halloween season a friend and I decided to go to a restaurant for a meal. 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His ideas cut straight to the heart of our most important personal and social issues - relationships, success, addiction, stress, peace, happiness, freedom - and lead the way to a higher life. Finley is the Founder and Director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit Center for Spiritual Discovery. He is the acclaimed author of \"The Secret of Letting Go\" and more than 45 other books and audio programs that have sold over two million copies in 26 languages worldwide. His work is widely endorsed by doctors, business professionals, celebrities, and religious leaders of all denominations. Through Life of Learning Foundation, Guy has presented over 5,000 unique self-realization seminars to thousands of grateful students throughout North America and Europe over the past 20 years and has been a guest on over 700 television and radio shows, including national appearances on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and NPR. The Foundation's popular Key Lesson e-mails featuring inspirational quotes by Guy are read each week by a hundred thousand subscribers in 142 countries. Guy speaks four times each week on inner-life principles at Life of Learning Foundation's home in Merlin, Oregon. These meetings are ongoing and open to the public. 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