My secret weapon

“Hate, in the long run, is about as nourishing as cyanide.”–Kurt Vonnegut

ACIM Lesson 135 is one of my favorite lessons. I use it ALL the time.

It comes in handy anytime I’m tempted to play victim. It’s the perfect antidote when I notice myself feeling offended by something someone says.

It’s particularly useful when I forget the truth about myself.

Because anytime I defend myself, I take on a role that’s not really me.

To defend myself is to pretend that I can be hurt. It’s to make believe that my perception, the hologram that proves itself over and over again to be incomplete, is somehow more accurate than the truth I’m learning here in the Course.

If I defend myself in any way, I forget that I am a beloved child of God. I forget that everything is FOR me. Nothing is against me.

I forget that every single thing that happens, every single person who pushes my buttons is a gift.

This lesson doesn’t suggest overlooking something someone did to me. It says it’s impossible for anyone to DO something to me.

If my perception stays fixed (which it will once I start defending myself), nothing–not a miracle, not a sign, not an evidential slap in the face–can allow any other truth to manifest for me.

All I can see, all I will ever see, is what the viewfinder of my limited perception shows me.

Instead of attacking back when my viewfinder shows my fellow humanoids spouting inanities, misinformation and what looks like hate, I use this lesson to remember.

They’re simply replaying old tapes and desperately need my love. It helps me to stop taking everything so personally and to remember what I call the biggest secret in the world—that we all really love each other.

Radical actions such as choosing not to attack, to justify, to see the “crime” upsets the normal cultural paradigm. It creates a resonant field that goes out into the ethers making our world a little sweeter, a little safer, a little more beautiful.

Pam Grout is the author of 19 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her new book, Art & Soul,Reloaded: A Year-Long Apprenticeship to Summon the Muses and Ignite Your Daring, Audacious, Creative Side.