Lesson 88: Review: “The light has come.”  “I am under no laws but God’s.”

One purpose of the Course is to teach us how to actually feel that the brothers and sisters who may upset us in some way are in fact the light of God at their core. 

Thus, we can respond to them with a continual level of respect and a light heart.

This lesson says, “The light in you, name, is all I would see.” 

The Course teaches us to be totally empowered emotionally in our interacting style.

One of the common ego-issues is that the ego buries our feelings deeply.

The ego may not know how to deal with certain feelings that come up or the ego may think feeling them will be painful, so the ego is quick to bury deeply within us those feelings that arise when we have seeming conflict with others. 

This is never, ever a helpful or an effective mode of managing our emotional worlds. 

When we do this, we get stuck instantly within.

Then, we totally block the flow of God’s love because we have this stagnant energy within us that we have not processed. 

Then, it prevents any resolution because the ego ignores it out of habit and fear.  This ,then, results in all sorts of inner blocks.

The Course teaches us to not pretend our feelings do not exist in an avoidance tactic.

Since this never works as a longterm peaceful strategy, the Course instead tells us to feel our feelings and invite them, embrace them and listen to them. 

This is the best way to make peace with them by simply being open to listening to what they have to share.  This is a sure way to prevent the blocks to Love’s flow.

However, sometimes even if we do this, sometimes within our worldly interactions- with loved ones and coworkers- inevitably we find ourselves in situations where we feel so triggered we don’t know how to function to get through the day.  The Course gives us this strategy that always works if we understand it and are willing to do it with real clarity and an intention of bringing love to the situation.

We have to realize that there will always be people who upset us because this is the nature of being human.  

The Course says to simply connect with that part of them that is love. 

We all have the essence of God within us no matter how something looks- it is all God.  Therefore, we can just sit and appreciate that there is the essence of that person that is fully and only the love of God, and we can sit and totally feel grateful this person is with us and sharing presence.  This is the way we remind ourselves that everyone is purely love.

We don’t want to pretend we like someone if we feel very sure we do not want to spend time with them regularly because they trigger us seriously, this is perfectly fine. 

We don’t have to spend time with them unless necessary because we can always love and respect them from any distance with with subtle but true appreciation from whatever distance. 

But when we need to interact with them, appreciate that we are not denying any feelings in ourselves.

We may have feelings arise of truly not wanting to interact and we are not asked to stuff that down and pretend we don’t feel that way.

God is not asking us to be a different person than we are. 

God is asking us to rise above the battleground. 

We can be there in the circumstance where we feel triggered and simply be totally clear in our minds that we don’t want to further escalate any attack energy or thoughts. 

We are asked to simply allow the battleground to be below our minds and that means we can see what is happening and be there, so we are not pretending we feel other than we do.

But we can within that- feel this unifying, spiritual love we feel for all people that unites us through love. 

This is the love the Course is asking us to rise to feel and share with the ones who may totally push our buttons on a regular basis.

We can feed ourselves by simply feeling and noticing that love of God we feel within the situation where we feel triggered.