Hello world. The following was written 11/20/2016.
Thank you for sharing where you are at on your journeys my brothers. The very fact you are seeing what you are doing and have done in the past says quite a lot about where you are now. In my own experiences I have had to look within at everything I am thinking, feeling, saying, doing, and choosing to believe in. I have had to really look within at my own intentions regarding the situations and the people involved. Am I doing what I am doing to get something? If I am, what is it I am trying to get from this? I begin by stopping myself from making excuses as to why I should not question these things. Then I start asking myself and God questions.
I look within at what it is I am choosing to believe about myself, the situation, and the others involved. Am I seeking out there in another for who I am? Am I placing them on a pedestal? Am I superimposing some imaginary picture over them and myself to make them better in some way? I honestly and authentically look within my own heart and mind at every aspect of the situation. At all the little details that are coming up and I question every single one of them. I leave no stone un-turned in my search of the Truth of what it is I am doing in this moment, even if it is unconsciously. I have learned to question EVERYTHING!
There is another aspect here you may not fully be aware of or understand is happening while these things are in play. I have found this item to be true in my own life and relationship with my Husband. Sometimes, when we find ourselves in a relationship, and I am not talking about romance here, the one we have connected with will lead us where we would not have otherwise gone on our own.
An example of this would be my relationship with my Husband and ACIM. I would have never looked at, let alone read, ACIM if it had not been for my Husband choosing to do so first. I was and had been a solitary practitioner of Wicca, Druidism, and Shamanism from the age of 14 by that time in my life. I hated God and blamed Him for all I had experienced in my life. All the rapes, molestation, beatings, exorcisms, canings, mental and emotional abuses and my pain and suffering at the hands of others.
My relationship and marriage were on the verge of collapse when my Husband decided to try the course. Up until then he had only experienced Scientology as a religion through his parents. It was our hope it would save our relationship and marriage. We have been married for 4 years now and together for 17. We started the course a month after we married. Our intentions were laid out before we tried ACIM. We wanted to save our relationship and the love we had for each other.
In my mind at the time, I held a belief that if I did this course with him it would make him happy. That he would finally accept me as I am and stop seeking out other women as a possible solution to all the problems he had with our relationship. Being a psychic empath I could feel the absolute Truth underlining his need to seek out his ex’s and other women as “friends”. That he had an intention to have an affair and a new relationship to replace this one.
All my life I was in denial of who I am and the abilities I have been given by God. My ability to sense the absolute Truth of another’s intentions even when that Being is in denial of their own intentions themselves. As we began to do the workbook that first year I began to see what I was doing to myself. How I was denying who I am out of a fear of being judged by others. Of being rejected by not just the world at large, but of being rejected by my Husband. The man I loved with every fiber of my being.
Some of the thoughts and beliefs I held were as follows, “He had been unfaithful to me. He had lied to me, cheated on me, and was now thinking of leaving me. And still, I loved him and wanted only him. I want no others words in my ear but his. No other hand touching me but his. Why did he not love me?” These were some of the nightmarish thoughts and beliefs that were floating in and out of my mind when we first started this course. These were exactly what the course brings to the surface to be healed. I began questioning everything I was believing in as being true. All that I believed defined me. All I have been taught to believe was the absolute Truth of what defines me and this world I am in.
ACIM started me looking at all I was thinking and believing was true. At every judgment I made and accepted. I came to understand that I cannot love anyone if I cannot love myself first. I cannot accept anyone else as they are if I cannot accept myself exactly as I am. That in every moment I was judging myself to be this or that and everyone else was better than I was. I could never accept myself because I was constantly accepting someone else’s judgments of who I am as being the absolute Truth. I have learned I have to love myself before someone else may love me. I have to accept myself as I am before anyone else can accept me as I am.
In the last 4 years I have accepted who I am as I am and love myself fully now. I no longer accept the judgments and opinions of others as defining me. I now recognize when I am being judged by another in that moment I am being shown what they think and believe about themselves. That their judgments have nothing to do with me and everything to do with who they think and believe they are.
I started the course to please my Husband. He led me where I would never have gone on my own. He was a tool being used by God to get me where He wanted me. My relationship with my Husband has had its ups and downs in the last 4 years. There have been many times each of us have had thoughts of walking away. Each time we are given this choice we have chosen to stay and work on ourselves and our relationship.
We have had to be completely open, honest, and authentic with ourselves and each other. We talk about and share every thought, feeling (physical/body as in pain), emotion, and belief we are and have been holding forth as being true about ourselves, each other, and the world at large. We have had to learn to allow and accept that we do not see, hear, think, experience, or believe alike. That each of us are different and hold our own beliefs in who and what we believe we are. That each of us get to choose these things for ourselves and NO ONE may take these choices from us.
The journey is only a struggle when we are in denial of some aspect of it. When we refuse to accept what is as it is. In those moments we are the one judging it. It is our judgments of it that causes us the conflict, pain, and suffering we experience. It is what causes us to see it as a struggle. This journey does not end. It is constantly flowing and changing around us.
In the beginning I held an image of my Husband in my mind. As the years have passed the image has changed here and there. When we started the course the image I held of my Husband was of my own making. I was seeing what I wanted to see. I was not seeing who he really was within. As I let go everything I have thought I was, everything I was believing he was has fallen away. As I see myself more clearly I am able to see him more clearly too. I see how he chooses to do all the things I once chose to do. How we do and think in very similar ways. We are the same, equals in every way. I chose to see us as different in the beginning. It is what I believed. Now I see there is no difference between us.
In letting go all I thought and believed I have found healing and a deep inner peace with myself and all that is. It was the journey and struggle of facing myself and my choices to believe that caused me so much pain and suffering. You were brought to ACIM for a reason. Everything you have experienced has been for your benefit. Each and every relationship has a purpose for being. Each has a lesson within it to show us who we Truly are within.
I do not know what is best for you. All I may say is go within your heart and mind and have a conversation with your inner guides and God. Start questioning everything you think, believe, say, and do as being true. Sit in stillness and silence and honestly look at every choice and decision you have made to believe in everything that you do. At how you have accepted every judgment handed to you as being the Truth. Once you see them for what they are, A LIE, ask for the correction to those misconceptions. The correction may not be given unless it is asked for first. Free Will means YOU have to actively look at it and ASK or it cannot be given to you. That is where that mustard seed of willingness comes into play.
Go within. Look at what you have chosen. Ask for correction. Be completely open, honest, and authentic with yourself in where you are and what you are believing. Be willing to accept responsibility for the choices you have made. Understand that you made those choices, now that you see them you CAN choose again and choose differently this time. You have to be willing to see it first before you can heal it and then change it. It all starts within and it all starts with you and your choices to believe as you do.
Blessings on your journeys my brothers. Hugs and love. You are loved. I love you.