III. The Relinquishment of Attack, Paragraph 3
3 The only safety lies in extending the Holy Spirit, because as you see His gentleness in others your own mind perceives itself as totally harmless. Once it can accept this fully, it sees no need to protect itself. The protection of God then dawns upon it, assuring it that it is perfectly safe forever. The perfectly safe are wholly benign. They bless because they know that they are blessed. Without anxiety the mind is wholly kind, and because it extends beneficence it is beneficent. Safety is the complete relinquishment of attack. No compromise is possible in this. Teach attack in any form and you have learned it, and it will hurt you. Yet this learning is not immortal, and you can unlearn it by not teaching it.
Before I could even begin to journal this morning I had to clear my mind of something that has been hurting me since yesterday. I woke up with it on my mind realizing I still had not relinquished it. I went through my process, looking at the thoughts that were causing the anxiety and asking for the Atonement. As I did so I realized that I was relinquishing attack and I read this paragraph. It was perfect. Here is the process as it happened for me.
Yesterday we had our sales meeting and there is a new person working for us with whom who I have had more than one forgiveness lesson. He asked a question that I should have let the boss answer, but instead, I jumped in with an answer. I was not really answering his question but telling him that he hasn’t worked there long enough to know everything and should sometimes just say, “I don’t know, but I will find out.”
I didn’t use those words but that is what I was saying. He rightly ignored me and went for the real answer. ~smile~ I immediately regretted my attack on him and wished I had kept my mouth shut. This problem I have with this man and my reaction to him bothered me all day and I was still asking for healing last night before I went to bed. But the thing is, I wanted to be healed of my anxiety, not the problem.
This morning I noticed that I was still exhibiting signs of anxiety. For instance, I woke up at exactly the moment I wanted to wake up, and I started my writing with plenty of quiet time. It should have been a happy relaxed time for me, but instead I was anxious that I would not get everything done and worried about forgetting something. I knew I needed to take care of this before I went any further.
I started watching my thoughts and the first thought I noticed was that from now on I was going to keep my mouth shut when this man talks. Holy Spirit told me that was not the problem and so not the solution. I waited for more and I realized that I would not have to keep quiet if I allowed my mind to be healed. A healed mind is gentle and does not attack.
So I asked for the problem so that I could also ask for the solution. I saw that I have felt threatened ever since he came to work here. I know he is going to take my job one day and that is fine. I don’t want to work here forever and it is the kind of job that takes awhile to grow into. I am glad that my boss had the foresight to hire him early so he could learn the ropes. Also I am grateful because he has taken over the hard work I used to do.
It would seem to be a perfect solution except that he is doing such a good job that I feel threatened. I don’t really think I am going to get fired, but I feel like I am not as important to the company. Once I admitted this to myself the thoughts began to rush through my mind.
I think that I am what I do.
I think that my worth is determined by my value to the company.
I have always been secure in knowing that I would be very hard to replace and maybe that is no longer true.
My ego mind projects these beliefs and I see the problem as this interloper with the gall to come into the company and start doing a really good job right away. Ha ha. It is good to just get all of these feelings out into the open and see what is really going on. It is a relief to see that the problem isn’t really this man, but my own mistaken beliefs about who I am. “Holy Spirit, who am I?” I know my worth is not established by what I do, but by God in my creation. I am grateful to remember this.
I looked at my fear of loss. I not only fear my loss of my value to the company, but also the loss of my job. What if I did get fired? I fear the loss of my income, my home, my new car. As I think about this I realize that this is a real fear in my mind that I have not looked at. I know it is not supposed to be true and so I tell myself it is not true, but really, I see the fear right there in my mind.
I look with the Holy Spirit and I ask that my mind be healed but He wants me to see the rest. I see that I am also afraid to say that all I want is to wake up, that waking up is my only purpose. I want to say that my purpose is not to earn a living or be the best employee in the world. My purpose is to wake up. But I am afraid to say this because what if it is a “one or the other” kind of thing and I really do lose my job so that I can wake up.
I know what this is. It is the ego belief that I have reason to fear God. It is the belief that God wants my sacrifice. I think of the Old Testament story of the guy who put his son on the altar and was going to sacrifice him to God and at the last moment he got a reprieve. Is this what God wants me to do? Put my job on the altar and sacrifice it to prove I want to wake up? What if there is no last minute reprieve? I say I want only the Will of God in my life, but could pain and suffering be the Will of God? Is the ego trying to confuse me again?
I waited to see if there were anymore ego thoughts about this situation in my mind, and nothing else came so having looked honestly with the Holy Spirit (and felt the fear) I was finally ready to ask for the Atonement. None of those thoughts are true, but that doesn’t mean they are without effect. These fear thoughts lead directly to projection and to attack. I attacked the man in question and I attacked myself, and I attacked God. No wonder I felt awful.
So I have asked for and accepted the Atonement, and now I am testing the waters to see where I really am with this. I don’t want to kid myself about the level of my acceptance. I know I did the best I could, but I need to be honest about what that is. So I do the acid test. I visualize putting on the altar my dearest desire, knowing it will be fulfilled. What is that desire?
I try it out. “God, I want to wake up. I want to wake up more than I want to be respected and admired. I want to wake up more than I want a job and a home and a car. I want to remember who I am. I want to remember You. I want to remember what it feels like to love unconditionally and I want to remember what it feels like to be One. This is what I want and it is all I want.
My commitment passed the first test, as I don’t feel reluctant to make that statement. I did feel a shadow of fear cross my mind and I ask that my mind be healed of even the slightest belief that I want something else, that the world has anything to offer me that compares to the peace of God. “Holy Spirit, I remain open and willing to see any belief in my mind for which I need the Atonement. If this is not done, then I am willing to do it. No more hiding behind my projections.” I don’t want to teach attack ever again.
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