Day 12

Today's Lesson:

I am upset because I see a meaningless world.

What is meaningless is neither good nor bad. So if the world is meaningless, this shouldn't upset me. But the point is that I've attached meaning to the word "meaningless," and that is what upsets me. It's so elementary when you really break it down. But we've been blaming things outside ourselves for so long, that even this might make us upset. It makes sense that we would really want to take time and practice unlearning what we've learned and have continued for so many years. I was going to say that it has taken us all our lives to get entrenched in the way we have been thinking (that the way I see the world is what upsets me) so we shouldn't expect to switch that thinking overnight. But it occurs to me that the insight we can gain by understanding this in a new way really can happen in an instant, I think. The process of unlearning and staying in the new way of seeing is what will take some time. Inertia and habit will keep us stuck, so it's the process of remembering that may take practice, not the instant awakening.

Miracles I've noticed:

I attended a Women's Business Exchange event last night where the theme was the Second Agreement: "Don't Take Anything Personally." During the exercises we did in our small groups, today's lesson - and yesterday's lesson - were really evident. I take things personally because I attach meaning to what other people say or do. That way I can remove myself from taking responsibility for my view of the world. Again - no coincidence that the topic would be so appropriate for exactly what I'm studying here.

It also occurs to me that my talk in the past has had a lot more to do with gossip than with a higher purpose. This occurred to me last night because we talked in our groups about the past, and the way we have seen things compared to the way we see things now. Again, in retrospect it's much easier to see how far I've come in my thinking since I first started studying this course three years ago. Although I don't want to live my life in the past, sometimes it's nice to be reminded of the progress I'm making!