A Course in Miracles gives us something remarkable in Chapter 7, in the section called From Vigilance to Peace.
“The mind that accepts attack cannot love. That is because it believes it can destroy love, and therefore does not understand what love is. If it does not understand what love is, it cannot perceive itself as loving. This loses the awareness of being, induces feelings of unreality and results in utter confusion.”
As someone who carried so much self-attack, I can honestly say that was true for me.
I was so focused on attacking myself and attacking others that I don’t think I could really love.
I wouldn’t have recognized it at the time, but I did think I could destroy myself and other people. At one point I wished to destroy myself. Many times I wished to destroy others.
I didn’t understand what love is.
Jesus tells us in A Course in Miracles: Teach only love, for that is what you are.
Consider what we’re claiming when we attack ourselves. Why else would we attack ourselves, unless some part of us were intent upon destroying ourselves?
We tell ourselves a different story. We say, I’m attacking myself because I’m motivating myself with fear. That’s how I do it. That’s how I get out of bed. That’s how I get dressed in the morning. That’s how I get anything done.
If fear and attack are our engine, then we don’t understand what love is. Read that passage again and notice the sequence.
- We can’t perceive ourselves as loving.
- We lose the awareness of being.
- Feelings of unreality set in.
- The result is utter confusion.
Utter confusion. That’s the promise the ego thought system offers us and it delivers.
Here’s how that confusion showed up in my life, and maybe you’ll recognize it.
Many people, exactly as I did, develop this feeling of I’d like to get off this planet. Stop the planet, I’d like to get off. How do I get out of here? The truth is that it isn’t this world we’d like to leave.
We’d like to leave the attack thoughts.
We’d like to leave the world of attack that we made.
That’s what we’d like to give up. That’s what we’d like to let go of. We’ve simply lost sight of the difference.
I used to feel so confused all the time. On the big things, the important things, I was really confused. I didn’t realize it was the result of all those attack thoughts. I didn’t know it came from manipulating myself with fear, with shame, with guilt.
That’s exactly what I was doing.
Here’s what helped me to see it correctly: The confusion wasn’t a character flaw. The confusion was a symptom.
It was the predictable result of a mind that had accepted attack as normal and then tried to feel loving anyway.
You can’t do both. The passage says so plainly.
Which means the way out isn’t to try harder to feel loving while the attack continues underneath.
The way out is to give up the attack. Not manage it. Not soften it. Not rebrand it as discipline or high standards or being realistic.
Give it up.
We can’t do that alone, and we’re not meant to. We partner with our Higher Holy Spirit Self. We say, help me to see clearly. Help me to love fully. Help me to relinquish these attack thoughts. Holy Spirit, I give them to you. I don’t need them anymore.
Fifty times a day, if that’s what it takes.
Undoing all of this doesn’t take a lot of time. It does take great willingness.
That willingness is available to all of us right now.
If you’d like to have more Love than fear in your life and relationships, consider my
Finding Freedom From Fear Bootcamp which starts next month. It’s 90 days of moving out of coping and into real trust, faith and listening to the higher wisdom, together.
If you missed my Deep Dive Workshop, Why Am I So Hard On Myself? You can get it now on Instant Download. If self-attack and criticism is your struggle, this will give you a practice to lead you out of the pain. This is a habit that can be dissolved.
My next FREE Forgiveness Workshops is Saturday August 29. Come as you are, however you can. You don’t have to feel ready. You don’t have to have done any prep work. Your willingness is all that’s required. Click for more info: powerofloveministry.net/
TODAY: Sundays with Spirit – join for inspirational music and message. Totally FREE – all are welcome – register to get the zoom details for today.
