Friday, May 15, 2015
Lesson 135: “If I defend myself I am attacked.”
The world perpetuates all kinds of illusions. Mostly the ego seems to care about making us safe in the body-way and maintaining the status quo. The world is a place where we often find ourselves in situations where we think we aren’t safe. For most of us in the Western world, we are usually safe from physical harm. Nonetheless, we still find ourselves in positions where we are likely to have our feelings hurt or we may feel judged and demeaned by someone else.
The ego still clearly sees these disturbances as pure attack, even if we are in fact safe physically. The ego still has a field day causing a tantrum about how we feel wounded and justified in our anger and resentment from getting injured. What we have to realize is that our egos are very fast to anger and find fault in what happens in our emotional and practical worlds. What our ego does is decide that we have been wronged and therefore attacked even if the issue is simply a distress feeling because something didn’t turn out as the ego wants. The ego is instantly feeling justified about playing the victim role because it likes to have emotional meltdowns when things are a little off base.
What happens when the world brings us some instances of disturbance is that the ego is immediately judgmental and makes its response as getting defensive. The ego is quick to feel like it has every reason to decide this attack is seemingly on us, and is in fact the reason the ego likes to get defensive. But what happens when we get defensive is that we have already made ourselves weak because we assume the role and energy of the need for defenses. We allow the attack to have validity because we act like the attack on us is imminent and immediate. When we play this role, we automatically put ourselves into the role as victim so we confirm that we need to be saved. When there is attack outside of us, we make ourselves the victim to stay congruent with the energy that we need defense.
This is why we have to stay vigilant in our feeling of being defenseless. The Course teaches us that maintaining this energy is the most important thing we can do in all experiences, to stay in our certainty. However, if we believe we are likely to be attacked in any form, hold the energy of knowing in truth we are safe because God is all powerful and can then ward off any kind of ill energy toward us. Further, we can sit in the knowing that we are perfectly safe and given all we need to function optimally in this situation that may feel ill suited for what we want in our lives. Then, when we carry this energy with us at all times, we can ask the Holy Spirit for guidance about what action steps to take to give us the life that makes us truly happy and peaceful. Then we hold the energy of God while we move in the world in ways that keep us safe in all ways.