gives me the relationship I want!"
With last week's lesson I saw that guilt leads to the destruction of relationships. This week I expand the principle beyond one specific form of worry based on past actions (guilt) to all forms of worry in general.
It would be impossible to name a worry of any kind that does not have fear as its base and I know from experience I cannot be in fear and in love at one and the same moment. So I know from experience that the very essence of successful relationships, love, is not present in moments of worry.
It's as simple as this: while I am worrying, I am not in love.
Of course I can quit worrying and return to love, but during the moments I am worrying I am not in love.
Someone might argue, "Hey, who cares? As long as you are loving most of the time."
But why would I want to worry at all? Worry doesn't taste good, fouling my mouth and giving me bad breath; worry doesn't smell good, causing unpleasant body odor; and worry doesn't feel good, robbing me of the only feeling that is natural, joyous, and healthy ... the feeling of love.
No one can enjoy for very long being in relationship with a worrier.
It's also true that worrying never solved anything. Worry is useless.
Well no, worry is not useless to the ego. The ego wants me to suffer, so worry serves a very good ego purpose. Worry is an ego device to have me suffering about future possibilities which have not yet happened and may never happen.
Some might argue, "At least when I worry about someone it shows that I care!"
That's what the ego would have us believe ... that we can care for someone or help someone by suffering inside ourselves. But I am increasingly learning that the ego does not have any one's best interests in mind.
When I look more carefully, I see that the only way to truly care for someone or help someone is by the opposite of worrying ... trusting.
If I worry about a friend, for example, I could literally send out enough negative energy to cause the very happening I fear, like a self-fulfilling prophecy. On the other hand, if I trust my friend is going to be alright, I am sending such a boost of positive energy that miracles will happen all around to keep him or her out of trouble.
In other words, worry makes things worse. Trusting heals and makes things better.
But how do I keep myself from worrying?
Well, how about training my mind to trust?
Each day this week as I awaken I will say slowly aloud to myself 10 or 15 times over:
"Today if I catch myself starting to worry, I will stop and switch to trust."
I repeat this statement slowly in order to give my subconscious mind time to show me mental pictures of possible situations that could arise during the day where I might be tempted to worry.
With each situation I'm shown, the statement I am using should automatically engender a picture in my mind of switching from worry to trust. If my subconscious mind doesn't give me such a mental picture, I create such a picture in my mind by activating my imagination consciously.
Then each hour during the day, I take 5 minutes of meditation to again use the same statement or some similar statement such as:
"This coming hour if I'm tempted to worry, I will switch to trust."
"I can't help (name situation) by worrying, but I can help by trusting."
"If I worry, things will get worse. If I trust, miracles will start happening like I've never seen."
Finally at the end of each day I will consciously attempt to access the feeling of total trust inside myself and hold onto the feeling as long as possible. To help access the feeling I might say to myself:
"Total trust ... are you there? I want to feel you. What do you feel like?"
If I ask persistently enough, the feeling will come. Then I merely make a determination to keep the feeling present and stay with the feeling.
Before falling to sleep, I might say to myself:
"I go to sleep with trust as my friend! I will awaken with trust as my partner!"
Also available free of charge online:
Course in Political Miracles
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