This morning I awoke with an awareness that all three of these resentments were of a piece. My self-hate for my ‘slow progress’ had clearly projected out onto the figures in my dream—the ‘spirit guides’ and my daughter. As usual I had attempted to rid myself of my guilt by blaming the ‘others!’ My resentments were not making me feel any better about myself—in fact, just the opposite: they increased my guilt. And my self-criticism was not in the least alleviated. I had just made a mess emotionally, and by this morning I guess I decided I’d had enough of the misery. So I did what A Course in Miracles prescribes—I took all three of my attacks to the Source of eternal Love that is my true Mind and asked for the clarifying awareness that nothing had really happened at all. I had merely been asleep, dreaming the nightmare of guilt, dreaming that I was separated from my ‘guides’ and my daughter and my God; merely making the mistake of forgetting that there is only one Mind of Love, and that we are all subsumed there.
In that briefest of moments when I experienced a glimpse of what freedom there is in defenselessness, I could give up all three of my attack thoughts. When I was aware in that moment that I was my daughter and my guides, I was the innocent Son of God with them, and I did not need my attack thoughts. They just seemed silly, costly and imprisoning, so I let them drift away.
I have no illusions that I will not run to seek them again. But at least I know the peace and freedom that comes when I choose to remember that I’ve made up the idea of separate figures who victimize me—or that I, myself, am merely a figment of my imagination. I see more clearly today that self-attack, i.e. guilt, serves only to preserve my beloved separate identity and brings but unhappiness in its wake.
*ACIM, Workbook, Lesson #153
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