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A Course in Miracles tells me that it is not my task to seek for love but to seek instead, within myself, the barriers to the awareness of Love’s presence. The obstacles to knowing myself as Love are guilt, unworthiness and self-judgment. Often we attempt to put whipped cream on crap, and by that I mean that we can quote spiritual words, and affirm spiritual truth as a substitute for going deep within to look at these feeling of guilt and unworthiness. We can be fearful of going deep but when we do, we find that none of the judgments we have made about ourselves are true. Spiritual words become tools for transformation when we are willing to apply them in our daily walk. In my willingness to be as God created me, I let go of self-judgment. I often ask Holy Spirit to reveal to me what I have forgotten, to reveal to me what I have kept hidden. Until we are willing to have what is hidden brought to the light, we walk in the world with something we’re unaware of directing our lives. So let’s look at guilt. Where does guilt come from? Well, the short answer is that it comes from me. I’m the one who judges myself as guilty. You are the one who judges you as guilty. Recently I’ve been directed to NTI 2 Thessalonians that speaks to us about self-judgment and guilt. I will teach you to see the world that you see differently, by teaching you to see yourself through new eyes. “I have told you that you see the world through the filter of your mind. This filter through which you see is your own judgment and belief about you. As this filter is changed, all that you see is changed, because the lens through which you see is made new.” See, when I’m willing to see myself as God created me, then, I must see a different world. When I look at the world through the lens of guilt and unworthiness, then, I must judge other people and see them as guilty along with me. I’ve often said that we relate, react and respond to other people, and the world, based on how we feel about ourselves. With willingness to look deeply at this, we see that it is true. We’re being asked to look at the unworthiness and guilt in our mind and be willing to let it go. We cannot relinquish what we are unwilling to look at. Ego’s goal, being the voice of separation, is to teach us: You Are Guilty! The goal of Spirit is to reveal to us our innocence. To let go of guilt, we must first be willing to let go of the belief in guilt, which means that we must be willing to see no one as guilty.
You are the vessel through which Love pours into the world. When we begin to take this seriously instead of seeing it as simply nice words on a page – You and I are vessels for Love, and Love can not flow from a vessel that’s clogged with guilt, unworthiness and feelings of being not good enough. It’s also helpful to look at the judgments I make toward others. A friend sent me an email recently lamenting some aspects of the “spiritual community”, and I got into it too until I heard the Inner Voice say, “Sheryl, focus on your own healing.” That stopped me in my tracks. No matter what other people are doing, my purpose to is to focus on my own healing. And the way I do this is to be willing to let Spirit Within look with me at my guilt, and look with me at my judgments. When I do this, the world really does begin to look different. I sometimes hear people talk about “the illusion” as in referring to the world we live in, however, the Course teaches that “illusions” are simply misperceptions about myself. Guilt and judgment are illusions, not reality. Guilt runs rampant in the areas of compulsion and addiction, yet these areas of our lives can be used to keep us stuck or to set us free. A frequent prayer for me: Holy Spirit, Help me use this problem to bring me closer to You. Help me to not use it as another distraction pushing you further away. Thank You. Life is a classroom where everything can be used to set us free. I’ve created these situations as tools for awakening. I’m not a victim of anything. As I recognize this, the deep inner work becomes fun. I heard a message the other day that said the slow way is the fast way. That really spoke to me because it’s always been obvious to me that while the spiritual way is not the fast way, it is the only way. Be willing to let all things be exactly as they are. Spirit can use everything as a lesson in forgiveness. In Ken Wapnick’s pamphlet entitled: “Overeating: A Dialogue” he writes: “That purpose of forgiveness then becomes the importance of everything in this world. Actually you should think of this very literally in terms of food. …This is what you do: Look with Holy Spirit, step back and watch with Him while you gorge yourself, or while you eat a salad which only 150 calories in it. Stand back and watch with HS while you do this. That is what helps you begin to put distance between yourself and the food, and change the purpose of the food. Then food becomes holy instead of a symbol of your guilt and your failure. It becomes a symbol telling you that this is the way that Holy Spirit is going to teach you that you are loved. …But then, you can’t sabotage this by then jumping on a scale afterwards.” We say that we’re going to go on this “diet” with God but then we jump on the scale and if we haven’t lost weight, we’re back into beating up on ourselves – we’re back to being ego’s hostage. Ego tells us that thinness is the goal. “You set the goal first. If the goal is to be thin, then that is what you may achieve, but you’re not going to find peace. If my goal is to be guiltless, to feel good about myself and to feel God’s Love within me, then I will see eating the hot fudge sundae as the means to achieve that end. If is see the goal as losing weight, then I will see that the goal of not eating the hot fudge sundae is to lose weight, and I will probably fail, because it was set up to fail. But if I see eating the hot fudge sundae as the means to achieve the goal of being guiltless, and I eat it with Holy Spirit, and I feel guiltless, then I’ve won. …I want to be guiltless, and if that is the purpose of my eating – whether it is a hot fudge sundae or a carrot – then I will eat, feel guiltless and say, “It does work. “And the fat then becomes your friend. You can be grateful for the state of the body because you learned a lesson that would have taken thousands and thousands of years to learn within the illusion of time – and that is that you are guiltless.” I’ve seen this in my own life, I have learned to like myself as I am and have a level of peace with myself. However, it’s not that I don’t fall into moments of guilt and unworthiness, but I rarely stay there very long. When I can keep the goal in mind to know myself as Love, rather than defining myself by numbers on the scale, then ultimately the weight will be released, as I will no longer need it. Ego uses the body to keep us feeling guilty and wrong. Today I was also prompted to a section in the Course that meets us where we are. “Do not despair, then, because of limitations. It is your function to escape from them, but not to be without them. If you would be heard by those who suffer, you must speak their language. If you would set others free, you must understand what needs to be escaped.” Here it’s saying that we are not expected to be people with no problems and perfect lives, otherwise how can we help others if we haven’t been through anything ourselves? With willingness to remember that I am as God created me, with willingness to do the deeper inner work, I bring others along with me because we are never healed alone. It’s time to stop beating up on yourself, and focusing on your limitations. It’s time to stop feeling frustrated because you still have issues to work with, instead, simply ask for help. Help with be provided. God meets us where we are. I ended today’s “Oh My God. I’m Free!” session with a beautiful song by Karen Drucker called “Be Gentle with Yourself” which you can hear on the audio. She sings: I will be gentle with myself. I will hold myself like a newborn baby child I will be tender with my heart, And I will only go as fast as the slowest part of me feels safe to go. I will be easy on myself, and I will love myself like a newborn baby child. I am gentle with myself. As you go about your life this week, remember that the slow way is the fast way. Be gentle with yourself. I love you. ************** This talk was given on 9/14/10 and is 1 hour and 11 min.
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