Day 26

Today's Lesson:

My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability.

I know today's lesson makes sense, because this Course is nothing if it's not logical. But sometimes it's difficult for me to grasp the logic. So I'll take a try at unraveling today's lesson here. If I believe attack is possible, then I am vulnerable. That is because I really believe I am capable of attacking someone else. But what would affect someone else must also have effects on me. So instead of using this principle against what would be in my own best interest, I need to focus on how I can use this law for my own best interest.

If attack thoughts must mean that I am vulnerable, the effect of those thoughts is to weaken me in my own eyes. They will have attacked my perception of myself. If this is the case, I must believe in my attack thoughts instead of in myself. So every effect - vulnerability, attack, everything - is the result of my own thoughts.

Realizing that any distressing or upsetting thought that comes into my mind is actually an attack upon myself is the key to today's lesson. Spending time thinking about any attack thought and the possible outcomes of those upsetting thoughts will allow me to separate my thoughts from the attack. Nothing but my own thoughts can attack me. Nothing but my thoughts can make me think I am vulnerable. And nothing but my thoughts can prove to me this is not so.

Miracles I'm noticing:

Yesterday I was working on preparations for a retreat I'm going to be facilitating today. But I also had two meetings scheduled in the afternoon with other people. I went to a coffee shop about an hour before my first scheduled meeting. I had taken my computer so I could work on the slides for today's presentation. About a half hour before my meeting was scheduled, I thought to myself that I wished I had an extra hour before the meeting because I had about an hour more work than I anticipated. I knew I would just have to stop in the middle of my slides while I had this meeting and the next one, and pick it up afterwards and finish the presentation.

About 10 minutes later an e-mail popped up from the person I was scheduled to meet with in 20 minutes telling me she would need to reschedule our meeting. I found myself with an extra hour before my next meeting. Coincidence? Miracle? I choose to believe so. This Course says there is no order of difficulty in miracles. The Secret says our own beliefs about the power of the Law of Attraction sometimes limit the miracles that appear to be available to us. The Secret suggests we start small - like with a cup of coffee, or a parking space, or by thinking about someone we haven't thought about for a while. If you really focus your thoughts, the Law of Attraction says that there is science behind the effects, which will show up as someone buying you a cup of coffee, getting a close parking spot, or hearing that person's name come up in seemingly random fashion.

What used to happen to me was that I would want to believe in something, but there would always be this little voice of cynicism and doubt in my mind saying "this will never work" and - so be it - it wouldn't work. I'd get to be right every time. What didn't occur to me at that time was that I could be right about believing it would work, too. It just appeared easier to default to the negative.

Now I find that defaulting to the positive is much more automatic for me. I don't have as many attack thoughts - and if I do, I notice them much more quickly (thank goodness for the Law of Gestation which gives me that time delay before the thoughts manifest!).

I just noticed that I refer to The Secret and also this Course a lot in my conversations. It's not unlike my references to The Landmark Forum. For me those have been really significant signposts in my own life. Landmark was my first exposure to a lot of this new way of thinking, so for me that was my wake-up call and I compare a lot of my thinking to Landmark simply because it was my first reference. The same is true of both A Course in Miracles and The Secret - each represents a quantum jumping off point for me in old thought patterns. I just want to give credit where it is due in my own life and am in no way suggesting or even implying that anyone else need follow the same path.

What are you noticing in your own life? Where are all those coincidences? Just noticing them might shed some light on what isn't and also what is working in your life.

Shifting Perceptions

A Course in Miracles provides a very different way of looking at the world than the way we have become used to seeing it. It reminds me of the way don Miguel Ruiz describes this concept in The Four Agreements. He says there that we have become "domesticated" - or trained to see the world a certain way and we have stopped questioning things that might not work for us anymore. If we want to get rid of some of the "agreements" we've made over our lives, we can replace those old ones with four new ones:

Agreement 1
Be impeccable with your word - Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.

Agreement 2
Don’t take anything personally - Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream. When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.

Agreement 3
Don’t make assumptions - Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life.

Agreement 4
Always do your best - Your best is going to change from moment to moment; it will be different when you are healthy as opposed to sick. Under any circumstance, simply do your best, and you will avoid self-judgment, self-abuse and regret.

The first part of the workbook of A Course in Miracles is similar because it helps undo the way we see now. It helps train our minds in a systematic way to a different perception of everyone and everything in the world.

So each day I'll post the lesson for the day from the workbook, along with the miracles in my own life. The miracles are there every day - whether I notice them or not. By shifting my perception, it is my intention to notice at least one miracle a day - and to invite readers to share the miracles they notice in their own lives.

Today's Lesson:

Nothing I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] means anything.

What I noticed today:
New Year's Day has typically been a day I've chosen to relax and contemplate my intentions for the new year. Another ritual I've taken on is watching the Festival of Roses parade on TV. This morning I discovered that Direct TV is having a problem with my local channels today and they have been off air all morning. I noticed that, since this doesn't mean anything, there is no need to get upset about this. This may seem small, but every time I can notice that something that used to upset me doesn't anymore, I consider that a miracle. I'm just glad I'm not a college football fanatic because those bowl games aren't on my TV today! That's something I can be grateful for!

Happy 2007!

UPDATE: I turned over to the local channels and, after being off-air all morning, just after I published this post, the channels came back. Coincidence? Or Miracle?