This is Part 3 of a 3 part series. You can start with Part 1 before reading this continuation.
In Part 1 of this 3 part series, I shared that in the Wizard of Oz, Dorothy had five special special relationships along her journey to Oz, including the “special hate relationship” with the Wicked Witch. Along their journey to Oz, these relationships were transformed into what we might call Holy relationships. In the process, Dorothy became transformed into a more mature, more loving person and a strong leader.
It’s possible to see Dorothy as another version of the Prodigal Son’s story, which is our story.
How is our journey, collectively and individually, represented, re-presented in The Wizard of Oz? Can we find the similarities to our own life?
In The Wizard of Oz, the Scarecrow represents (re-presents) someone who is stuck and lacking in intelligence. It’s easy to see how a young girl like Dorothy could feel stupid, ignorant, or stuck some of the time. And it’s fairly easy to see how that’s a projection of our own self-judgment some of the time too. In the story, the Scarecrow re-presents an aspect of Dorothy that she’d been rejecting and judging. He gives her the opportunity to look at her own beliefs and opinions, her judgments and thoughts and – as it says in A Course In Miracles, choose again.
When you look around your own world, can you see the person who re-presents your own self-judgments? They’re actually a divine helper to you. A Sacred Friend.
In my experience, the more someone seems to bother me, the more disowned the self-judgments and opinions are. And here’s how this relates to politics. In my daily Spiritual Espresso I wrote on November 9, 2016, called Be Unshakable, I shared that the election of Donald Trump had upset me because I had come to equate him with the men who had groped, grabbed and molested me. It was as if those men who were so disrespectful and uncaring to me, and to women in general, had been elected as the leader of our great nation. The idea of it upset me. I had a belief that the President of the United States of America should be someone who can be great leader of the people. I had to let that belief go.
In the days that followed, I was able to work with my mind to free myself of the old hurt and to see that Trump is a symbol of my whole experience and my healing. I came to see him as one of my saviors. By being willing to see him for the symbol of what he is in MY world, I can heal my own heart and mind.
Some spiritual students develop an aversion, which is a negative attachment, to people who behave in ways that they feel are unloving and unspiritual. Any kind of aversion is an opportunity to have healing waiting to happen. I know a lot about this because I used to get triggered by one aversion after another all day long. I was a complainer and an attacker. I took offense at almost everything. Being upset was my negative high. The ego feels so alive and powerful when it’s upset.
Aversions are a form of vengeance, they are an attack on God.
Perhaps the person or situation you think is upsetting you is simply a symbol, an archetype of something unhealed in your own mind that you’re rejecting rather than loving it free? In which case, the symbol is there to help you.
As it says in A Course in Miracles, “This is the only thing that you need do for vision, happiness, release from pain, and the complete escape from sin, all to be given you. Say only this, but mean it with no reservations, for here the power of salvation lies:
I am responsible for what I see.
I chose the feelings I experience, and I decided
upon the goal I would achieve.
And everything that seems to happen to me
I asked for and received as I had asked.
Deceive yourself no longer that you are helpless in the face of what is done to you. Acknowledge but that you have been mistaken, and all effects of your mistakes will disappear.”
My shorthand for that teaching, that has helped me so much, is:
I AM responsible for what I see and everything is just as I wish it to be.
I’ve been a spiritual counselor for 17 years. Consider how many times people have asked me to help them find happiness in relationship, career, financial stability, healing in the body. And the real answer is: take 100% responsbility, without any blame or judgment, for everything in your life.
That’s what works. That’s what actually ends the suffering.
Be willing to recognize that everything in this world is symbolic. Are you seeing things for what they really are re-presenting to you, or are you projecting your beliefs on them?
Can you feel that anything you’re holding against anyone, any judgment, or opinion, is really self-judgment?
Would you like to be relieved of the judgment forever?
Are you willing to take total responsibility?
Whenever we choose to judge rather than take responsibility it’s going to send us on a frightening and meaningless journey.
You decide how long your journey will be and how scary it will be based on your attack thoughts. All attack is Self-Attack and all Love is Self-Love.
You are the decider. You are the chooser.
What frightens us is: 2 powers
When we judge, we separate ourselves from our Godself and we now believe we are a separate power who has the power to attack, and immediately we become afraid because now we believe that there can be more than one power and those separate powers can attack. If we can attack, then others can attack, and the world is no longer safe. Lions and tigers and bears, oh, my!
It’s easy to judge the people we see in the newspaper and on television, especially when we can see they’re doing the things that we think are so unspiritual: lying, being disrespectful, promiscuous, stealing, hurting and oppressing others. It’s so easy to judge all of that behavior. However, our judgments only hurt us and they do not help anyone.
I do not know what anything is for, except that it’s for my learning and my healing and I am interested in learning and healing NOW. I AM choosing Love now.
When we realize there’s only one power, one life, one mind, one Presence, then we’re safe again. There’s nothing to attack us because there’s only pure Love of Spirit. There’s nothing to defend against when we’re not thinking attacking thoughts. “In our defenselessness our safety lies.”
If you’re not at Peace then you must have decided wrongly. It’s time to choose again. Give all the consequences of your wrong decision to the Holy Higher Spirit Self to undo. Do this now, and keep doing it until you feel free. This really works, but you won’t know it until you prove it to yourself.
Prove God works in your life. This is different than studying and learning, this is living and practicing the truth.
Because we’re living in a holographic world of illusion and projection, the Higher Holy Spirit Self can EASILY undo all the consequences of our wrong decision if we allow it. We must choose it. That’s the ONLY way, there is no other way.
In fact, I Love that ACIM tells us, that our willingness is all that’s required and that it’s actually hubris to think that we can do more. We cannot do more, so let’s stop thinking that we need do more. Let’s be COMPLETELY willing to give up the crazy, stinking, thinking to the Higher Holy Spirit Self for healing and choose the most loving thoughts we can find in the moment.
Now is the time for us to awaken from the dream of separation to realize it really has been an adventure in the mind, and that we are where we always have been, at home in the Love of God.
And, on a personal note, I’m an activist. Jesus was an activist. Mary Magdalene was an activist. The apostles were all activists. Gandhi was an activist. MLK was an activist. I claim these people as my teachers. My way of demonstrating activism is to practice nonviolence and non-judgment and to speak about the benefits of the active practice of both. And, just as my teachers before me called out those who weren’t telling the truth, who were actively misleading people, I feel that’s worth doing when I can do it with LOVE. And that’s where my spiritual practice is, every day.
I’m so grateful that I can realize that when I’m bothered by what I see, it’s time to take responsibility. I must take responsibility before I take action or I’m only adding to my pain and I don’t wish to do that to myself anymore. I am loving myself free of all lack, attack, limitation and separation thinking. I can see now that Self-Love is the great healer of every problem in the world.
I choose Love and Freedom for all.
Retreat with me! I’m offering a deeply healing, renewing and restoring retreat March 16 to 19 in New York. As always on my retreats we’ll have a lot of fun while we’re doing a lot of deep cleansing and clearing of old emotional and mental baggage. It’s such a relief to let it go! If you’d like to start your spring with real clarity and healing, come join me! Click here for details about my Masterful Living Retreat – the early bird discount is on now – this retreat is open to all – come and bring a friend!
If you’re finding what I’m sharing to be helpful, won’t you please share at facebook and twitter to let others know? Thank you!
