Day 18
2 Next, the teacher of God must go through “a period of sorting out.” This is always somewhat difficult because, having learned that the changes in his life are always helpful, he must now decide all things on the basis of whether they increase the helpfulness or hamper it. He will find that many, if not most of the things he valued before will merely hinder his ability to transfer what he has learned to new situations as they arise. Because he has valued what is really valueless, he will not generalize the lesson for fear of loss and sacrifice. It takes great learning to understand that all things, events, encounters and circumstances are helpful. It is only to the extent to which they are helpful that any degree of reality should be accorded them in this world of illusion. The word “value” can apply to nothing else.
For me the period of sorting out was mostly me arguing for what I wanted to keep. The hardest thing for me to relinquish was the desire to project blame. I really thought I needed this and that it was of great value to me. I didn’t put in those words of course, but would argue that circumstances proved that it was clearly someone else’s fault and so in this case I was the victim.
My ex-husband was a heavy drinker and would often go out with his buddies and not come back until the early hours. I would not know where he was or if he was ok. I would imagine him driving drunk and getting into a wreck, maybe leaving the road and hitting a tree, sitting injured in the car unable to help himself. Many a night I lay awake playing out this nightmare in my imagination.
I would go through all the scenarios in my head and also through all the emotions. I would be afraid for him, afraid for us if he was injured or died. I would feel resentful and angry, thinking how unfair this was, and how unloving that he would put me through this. I could not see how this could be anything but his fault. I wasn’t the one who was behaving so thoughtlessly and I wasn’t the one who was causing so much grief for his family.
What had to be done to get out of this nightmare of my own making was to look past the apparent circumstances to the truth. He is innocent. I am innocent. No matter what it might look like, and no matter how I might feel, this is the truth. While circumstances shift appearances, our innocence remains the only true and unchanging fact.
From that place of clarity I was able to see that my reluctance to withdraw my projections and accept responsibility for how I felt was the result of thinking that having him to project on was too valuable to give up. I really wanted my feelings to be caused by his behavior and the circumstances I found myself in. I was as afraid of giving up projecting blame as I would be if asked to step off that cliff I spoke of yesterday.
I had to go through many such scenarios before I was fully convinced that there is no value in projecting blame. Now the temptation arises from time to time, or the old habit reinstates itself, but I don’t remain stuck in it because I know it is not true. I place no value on that behavior, and in fact, see it as detrimental to my peace, so even if I fall for it briefly I quickly let it go.
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