Monday, November 30, 2015
Lesson 334: “What is the ego?” “Today I claim the gifts forgiveness gives.”
What we are learning in the Course is how to love ourselves. The universal problem I believe about human nature is that we have especially low self-esteem. This low self esteem is then the root of every other problem we have. Addictions are a automatic result of low self esteem, also when we aren’t comfortable ini relationships because we are too stuck within to articulate our wants and needs with others. This then means we can’t have the best and happiest life for us because we are not able to be skilled in relationships. Then those relationships become another source of our dissatisfaction and misery because we feel triggered by them. We aren’t comfortable playing the roles we play in the relationship as we don’t negotiate the terms and purpose of the relationships.
When people have low self esteem they are not engaged in their jobs in a way that nourishes them because they get triggered easily when they face needed problem solving at work. This means work also becomes a source of distress. When people don’t feel good about themselves everything is experienced as a problem and thus everything becomes a stressor causing dysfunction. This is alway happening when we feel low about ourselves. We are always stretched and unable to resolve arising issues adequately. We get frustrated easily because our inner sense of abundance is in fact a place of scarcity. There is nothing that fills us and makes us feel good. Therefore, when life calls for some amount of follow through on problem solving, we get stuck in the scarcity because we can’t see anything else but this in our mind’s eye- the essence within us is lacking.
When we find ourselves feeling low then we often follow the ego’s solution suggestion of focusing on the world’s goods. We try to find something outside to fill us. The problem is always simply my own personal hell. I am the only one who has a problem with anything. I am the only one who demonstrates this insanity that I am not good enough. This sense of inner low is the root of all of our problems. This is utterly amazing. When we stop and feel our own perceived inner vacancy we find that this is the only problem we have. Doesn’t matter what happens in the world and with everyone else and even within our own lives. This could all be seemingly terrible but if we hold firmly that we are completely worthy of God’s Love then even what might have seemed like hardship all washes away.
The Course teaches us to notice how our low self esteem appears as reflected in the world as we live. Any reflection of suffering we see in the world is simply my own mind at the ego’s plan. We have to understand how our sense of low self esteem and applying God’s Love to it to cure it is the only problem we must attend to. Everything else is simply just more of our own minds being seen fully in the exterior world. This is why it is ever so imperative that we take time and effort to realize that this is our only problem and take the time and energy to see that God fixes this mistaken sense of lack. This will solve everything. Doesn’t matter how much we believe that the other people we see have their own agenda. The reality is that whatever they are doing that causes us distress is simply the out picturing of our own minds.
This is why allowing God to heal our minds of this illusion that we are not good enough is the only job we have in this life. No matter what the circumstance looks like, it all boils down to this same solution of applying God’s Love to us and all we see.