Day 46

Today's Lesson:

God is the Love in which I forgive.

Today's lesson is the first mention of the concept of forgiveness the way the Course defines it, which is quite different from our conventional definition.

According to the Glossary of Terms from A Course in Miracles, forgiveness in the conventional sense is:

Giving up your resentment towards another and your right to punish him, even though you keep the perception that he sinned against you and that you are justified in resenting and punishing him. According to the Course, this forgiveness cannot forgive, for it affirms that the other sinned and thus is worthy of condemnation (yours and his own). It also affirms that you are holier than he, because he sinned and you forgave.

According to ACIM:

Giving up your false perception that another sinned against you and that you are justified in resenting and punishing him. Releasing this perception automatically releases your resentment and desire to punish. Releasing another not from what he did, but from "what he did not do," from your misinterpretation of what he did. This can forgive, for it frees your mind of resentment and releases the other from the accusation of sin and guilt. The rationale behind forgiveness is that sin is now real. It is a wrong perception of attack. Attack has no power to do real harm, because what is real cannot be harmed or changed in any way.... Forgiveness is salvation.

Today's idea says that there must be condemnation before forgiveness is necessary. Those who forgive release themselves from illusions, while those who withhold forgiveness are binding themselves to illusions. As we condemn only ourselves, we forgive only ourselves. Fear condemns and love forgives. Forgiveness thus undoes what fear has produced, returning the mind to the awareness of God.

Again today we are to think about today's lesson for three five-minute periods. If we are doing the exercises well we should have no difficulty in finding a number of people we have not forgiven. The lesson says that it is a safe rule that anyone we do not like is a suitable subject. Mention each one by name and say:

God is the Love in which I forgive you, [name].

The purpose of these practice periods is to put us in a position to forgive ourselves. After we have applied the idea to all those who have come into our minds, we are to tell ourselves:

God is the Love in which I forgive myself.

Miracles I'm noticing:

This lesson and the entire concept of forgiveness have been really difficult for me to grasp throughout my three-year study because I'm so conditioned to think of forgiveness in the conventional sense, where I forgive you because I'm somehow better than you or I'm right and you're wrong, or something like that. But I do understand that by not forgiving someone else - especially when I think about what the Course says about forgiving them for what they did not do (because it's all in my mind anyway) - I can see how by holding on to resentments, I keep them with me and I'm the one who is hurt by my own resentment. It should stand to reason, then, that I would be freed from those resentments by forgiving - both the other person and myself.

I'm thinking about what I heard Michael Beckwith say on the Oprah show Thursday during the segment about The Secret. He said forgiving is simply thinking that you are grateful to God "for giving" you this experience because there is a lesson in every experience. I like that.

I'm also thinking about the Amish school shooting that happened in October of 2006. Here is a link to an article about the forgiveness the Amish community immediately showed. A quote from the article says it all: "The hurt is very great, but they don't balance the hurt with hate."

That story is another great example of the good that can come from every tragedy. If we believe that everything happens for a reason, perhaps the reason in this tragedy is to show us the amazing power of forgiveness. When we can thank God "for giving" us even tragedies, we release all the anger and hostility we might otherwise hold on to.

Think about what happens when we hold on to resentments. Jack Canfield said on the Oprah show on Thursday that if a woman holds on to resentment about a "failed" marriage, for example, she will never be able to be in another relationship because a potential partner will recognize that she is still in that old relationship by keeping her attention focused on her resentment and hostility.

Today I will practice forgiving my resentments so that I can make room to forgive myself.

Day 11

Today's Lesson:

My meaningless thoughts are showing me a meaningless world.

This is, of course, a continuation of all the previous lessons. As I think about the words in today's lesson, I can see how it might be easy to get caught up in the meaning I have given to these words - even the meaning I attach to the word "meaningless." If I accept that nothing in itself has any meaning except the meaning I've attached to it, it becomes easier to see that my judgments and my past experience are always the reason I have a reaction to things I observe. The way this statement is worded shows me that it is MY thoughts that show me the way the world is, not the other way around.

As I think more about the way I've always thought about the world, that the way the world is (insert my judgment here: good, bad, scary, difficult, wonderful), I'm aware that my judgment automatically determines my thoughts. This way of thinking allows me to be a victim and to be justified in my thought process. It really allows me to be right.

But a simple shift from the world creating my reality to my reality creating the world doesn't shift my ability to be right. If I now see that I've had it backwards this whole time, I now am in charge of the way the world occurs to me - and I STILL get to be right about it! I don't have to give up anything and I gain EVERYTHING!

This understanding really is the key to forgiveness, and that starts with forgiving myself for my past judgments and upside down thinking. That simple shift allows me to be free to start clean every single day - every single hour - every single minute.

Miracles I've noticed:

What I'm noticing, in my third year of this Course, is that as I shift from "out there" to "in here," there is really no need to "start over" - because this has become my preferred way of seeing the world. Of course, for many of us, hindsight is still clearer than foresight or present sight (is that even a term?). We can see better what we should have done than what will come naturally for a while. But practice and commitment are key. It's amazing to get reminders - like this - that this way of seeing the world is much preferred to the way I used to see it!

I know it's no accident that today's TUT message says:

Do you know what people who amass wealth, friends, and laughter have in common with those who don't?

Very often, Jodee, both look around at their lives and say, "Yeah, this is who I am. It must have been meant to be."

Must be a trick of the light.

The Universe

Rarely, Jodee, do they notice that their thoughts preceded their condition, because nothing is meant to be.

I'm also noticing, when I take a step away from my present thoughts, that seeing everything through the eyes of personal accountability is allowing situations around me to shift as well. The clients I work with, the telephone conversations I have, the interactions with the clerk at the gas station - really every encounter - is just what it is. As I realize that I just am what I am, too, I see that there are no accidents or coincidences. It's no accident that clerks are always friendly to me or clients are always engaged or phone conversations are always uplifting. If that is ever NOT the case, it's because my thoughts caused them to be that way. Then I can just shift into forgiveness and the whole thing is nothing more than a lesson - or a validation.

Are you noticing anything like that in your daily interactions? I'd love to hear about them!

Day 4

Today's Lesson:

These thoughts do not mean anything. They are like the things I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place].

Here begins the shift from focusing on things to focusing on thoughts. My thoughts are no different than the things I saw in the previous lessons. But from TUT I've learned that "thoughts become things" so if I shift my thoughts, which are inside, I can start to see that the meaningless is outside of me, and the meaningful in inside of me. It reminds me of what I've learned from Conversations With God - there is no "good" or "bad," "right" or "wrong," there is only "what works" and "what doesn't work." This helps me to suspend my own judgment.

Miracles I've noticed:

Today was my birthday and it was absolutely fantastic! I went to a coffee shop this morning to work on some business plans and catch up on some reading (Think And Grow Rich) and had lunch with two special friends, then came back to the coffee shop to meet another friend, then to a meeting, then to dinner with two other friends.

The miracles are everywhere when I consider the conversations I was a part of today. At one of my coffee shop visits today I ran into someone who used to work on the same floor as I in a previous job. She has recently left a job under circumstances which were very similar to the way I left my last job before I became an entrepreneur. She's bitter about the situation and I can so totally relate. But in our short conversation, it felt right for me to share my story of how as I held onto my own resentment regarding my former employer, it only hurt me. As I forgave myself for my own reactions and resentments, I began to gain a completely different perspective of gratitude for who he was for me because it allowed me to find out who I really was and do what I know I'm meant to do. If he hadn't shown up for me as someone who was difficult to work for, I may have been stuck in the same situation until I figured out it had nothing to do with him and everything to do with my mindset.

If a miracle is a shift in perception from fear to love, this surely was just one reminder of how that shift affected my life, and how, by sharing my story, I was able to give my friend a glimpse of what forgiveness might look like for her. The tears in her eyes as we talked showed me that she connected with what I shared. The thoughts that I had for my employer then, as well as any thoughts I've had today, only have the meaning I've given them and by giving up that they were "bad" frees me up to be more of who I know myself to be.

It's a very liberating feeling!