A Course in Miracles tells me that it is not my task to seek for love but to seek instead, within myself,the barriers to the awareness of Love’s presence. The obstacles toknowing myself as Love are guilt, unworthiness and self-judgment.
Oftenwe attempt to put whipped cream on crap, and by that I mean that we canquote spiritual words, and affirm spiritual truth as a substitute forgoing deep within to look at these feeling of guilt and unworthiness. Wecan be fearful of going deep but when we do, we find that none of thejudgments we have made about ourselves are true. Spiritual words becometools for transformation when we are willing to apply them in our dailywalk.
Inmy willingness to be as God created me, I let go of self-judgment. Ioften ask Holy Spirit to reveal to me what I have forgotten, to revealto me what I have kept hidden. Until we are willing to have what ishidden brought to the light, we walk in the world with something we’reunaware of directing our lives.
Solet’s look at guilt. Where does guilt come from? Well, the short answeris that it comes from me. I’m the one who judges myself as guilty. Youare the one who judges you as guilty.
Recently I’ve been directed to NTI 2 Thessalonians that speaks to us about self-judgment and guilt.
I will teach you to see the world that you see differently,
by teaching you to see yourself through new eyes.
“Ihave told you that you see the world through the filter of your mind.This filter through which you see is your own judgment and belief aboutyou. As this filter is changed, all that you see is changed, because thelens through which you see is made new.”
See, when I’m willing to see myself as God created me, then, I must see a different world. When I look at the world through the lens of guilt and unworthiness, then, I must judge other people and see them as guilty along with me.
I’veoften said that we relate, react and respond to other people, and theworld, based on how we feel about ourselves. With willingness to lookdeeply at this, we see that it is true. We’re being asked to look at theunworthiness and guilt in our mind and be willing to let it go. Wecannot relinquish what we are unwilling to look at.
Ego’sgoal, being the voice of separation, is to teach us: You Are Guilty!The goal of Spirit is to reveal to us our innocence. To let go of guilt,we must first be willing to let go of the belief in guilt, which meansthat we must be willing to see no one as guilty.
“Rememberthat you are the vessel through which God’s Love pours into the world.Be willing to put aside the last remaining obstacle that blocks theconduit of Love that you are. This is a time of freedom for you and allthe world. Take this step in joy, for it is the step of freedom.”
You arethe vessel through which Love pours into the world. When we begin totake this seriously instead of seeing it as simply nice words on a page –You and I are vessels for Love, and Love can not flow from a vesselthat’s clogged with guilt, unworthiness and feelings of being not goodenough.
It’salso helpful to look at the judgments I make toward others. A friendsent me an email recently lamenting some aspects of the “spiritualcommunity”, and I got into it too until I heard the Inner Voice say,“Sheryl, focus on your own healing.” That stopped me in my tracks. Nomatter what other people are doing, my purpose to is to focus on my ownhealing. And the way I do this is to be willing to let Spirit Withinlook with me at my guilt, and look with me at my judgments. When I dothis, the world really does begin to look different.
Isometimes hear people talk about “the illusion” as in referring to theworld we live in, however, the Course teaches that “illusions” aresimply misperceptions about myself. Guilt and judgment are illusions,not reality.
Guiltruns rampant in the areas of compulsion and addiction, yet these areasof our lives can be used to keep us stuck or to set us free. A frequentprayer for me:
Holy Spirit,
Help me use this problem
to bring me closer to You.
Help me to not use it as another distraction
pushing you further away.
Thank You.
Lifeis a classroom where everything can be used to set us free. I’vecreated these situations as tools for awakening. I’m not a victim ofanything. As I recognize this, the deep inner work becomes fun.
I heard a message the other day that said the slow way is thefast way. That really spoke to me because it’s always been obvious tome that while the spiritual way is not the fast way, it is the only way. Be willing to let all things be exactly as they are. Spirit can use everything as a lesson in forgiveness.
In Ken Wapnick’s pamphlet entitled: “Overeating: A Dialogue” he writes:
“Thatpurpose of forgiveness then becomes the importance of everything inthis world. Actually you should think of this very literally in terms offood. …This is what you do: Look with Holy Spirit, step back and watchwith Him while you gorge yourself, or while you eat a salad which only150 calories in it. Stand back and watch with HS while you do this. Thatis what helps you begin to put distance between yourself and the food,and change the purpose of the food. Then food becomes holy instead of asymbol of your guilt and your failure. It becomes a symbol telling youthat this is the way that Holy Spirit is going to teach you that you areloved. …But then, you can’t sabotage this by then jumping on a scaleafterwards.”
Wesay that we’re going to go on this “diet” with God but then we jump onthe scale and if we haven’t lost weight, we’re back into beating up onourselves – we’re back to being ego’s hostage. Ego tells us thatthinness is the goal.
“Youset the goal first. If the goal is to be thin, then that is what youmay achieve, but you’re not going to find peace. If my goal is to beguiltless, to feel good about myself and to feel God’s Love within me,then I will see eating the hot fudge sundae as the means to achieve thatend. If is see the goal as losing weight, then I will see that the goalof not eating the hot fudge sundae is to lose weight, and I willprobably fail, because it was set up to fail. But if I see eating thehot fudge sundae as the means to achieve the goal of being guiltless,and I eat it with Holy Spirit, and I feel guiltless, then I’ve won. …Iwant to be guiltless, and if that is the purpose of my eating – whetherit is a hot fudge sundae or a carrot – then I will eat, feel guiltlessand say, “It does work.
“Andthe fat then becomes your friend. You can be grateful for the state ofthe body because you learned a lesson that would have taken thousandsand thousands of years to learn within the illusion of time – and thatis that you are guiltless.”
I’veseen this in my own life, I have learned to like myself as I am andhave a level of peace with myself. However, it’s not that I don’t fallinto moments of guilt and unworthiness, but I rarely stay there verylong. When I can keep the goal in mind to know myself as Love, ratherthan defining myself by numbers on the scale, then ultimately the weightwill be released, as I will no longer need it. Ego uses the body tokeep us feeling guilty and wrong.
TodayI was also prompted to a section in the Course that meets us where weare. “Do not despair, then, because of limitations. It is your functionto escape from them, but not to be without them. If you would be heardby those who suffer, you must speak their language. If you would setothers free, you must understand what needs to be escaped.”
Hereit’s saying that we are not expected to be people with no problems andperfect lives, otherwise how can we help others if we haven’t beenthrough anything ourselves?
Withwillingness to remember that I am as God created me, with willingnessto do the deeper inner work, I bring others along with me because we arenever healed alone.
It’stime to stop beating up on yourself, and focusing on your limitations.It’s time to stop feeling frustrated because you still have issues towork with, instead, simply ask for help. Help with be provided. Godmeets us where we are.
Iended today’s “Oh My God. I’m Free!” session with a beautiful song byKaren Drucker called “Be Gentle with Yourself” which you can hear on theaudio.
She sings:
I will be gentle with myself.
I will hold myself like a newborn baby child
I will be tender with my heart,
And I will only go as fast as the
slowest part of me feels safe to go.
I will be easy on myself,
and I will love myself like a newborn baby child.
I am gentle with myself.
As you go about your life this week, remember that the slow way is the fast way. Be gentle with yourself. I love you.
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This talk was given on 9/14/10 and is 1 hour and 11 min.
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