ACIM Chapter 2. VI. Fear and Conflict, P 3

ACIM VI. Fear and Conflict, P 3. It is pointless to believe that controlling the outcome of mis-thought can result in healing.

VI. Fear and Conflict, P 3

3 It is pointless to believe that controlling the outcome of mis-thought can result in healing. When you are fearful, you have chosen wrongly. That is why you feel responsible for it. You must change your mind, not your behavior, and this is a matter of willingness. You do not need guidance except at the mind level. Correction belongs only at the level where change is possible. Change does not mean anything at the symptom level, where it cannot work.

If I am afraid, it means I chose wrongly. That’s a good thing to know. And I might add that if it is not a form of love, then it is fear. Fear and love are the only emotions of which you are capable. (ACIM, T-12.I.9:5) Fear includes anger, hatred, envy, and guilt. That covers a lot of emotions. The wrong choices are not what was done or said. Rather, it was what was thought and believed.

Changing Our Minds

The problem that I always had, and most people have, is that we look at the outward conditions and try to find a way to change them. Sometimes it seems to work, but only for a short time. Then the problem returns. It could be in the same form or another form. But unless the cause of the conditions is corrected, it will return. The cause is never to be found in the situation. It is always a belief that sourced the problem, and so it is our beliefs that must change.

We can easily change our beliefs when we do truly desire to do so. Jesus says that decision is our power. The power of decision is your one remaining freedom as a prisoner of this world. (ACIM, T-12.VII.9:1) Everyone knows how to change their minds. You go for ice cream thinking how good a creamy vanilla cone would be on this hot day. Once there and looking at the choices, you decide chocolate would be even better. There. You changed your mind. See how easy that was?

Maybe you decided to marry your boyfriend, and as the wedding drew closer, you started questioning that decision. This situation probably seems different and more difficult. There is conflict in the mind that confuses the issue. Perhaps you feel frightened because you can’t decide and yet must. Maybe guilty at the money already spent on the upcoming wedding. It could be that there is embarrassment at the thought of telling everyone the wedding is off and guilt at hurting your boyfriend.

Putting the Holy Spirit in Charge

When decisions start to feel confusing, I call on my Inner Guide to direct me. I know that all things are lessons God would have me learn, so I want the lesson that each choice brings me. In an effort to get to the root cause of my problem, I would start by asking myself why I am having trouble making this decision. I would follow the answer to the next level and on until I felt certain I had reached the true cause. Then I would forgive it and let it go. However I choose to unravel the problem, I would put the Holy Spirit in charge.

I would ask Him what He wants me to learn from this and how He would have me see it. I would express my desire to have a healed mind so that I would always be in the peace of God because that is everything I want. In approaching the problem in this way, looking for and forgiving the beliefs that created the problem, all decisions within the one decision will be solved.

Here is how this might look.

First, I would state the problem. I am uncertain I want to get married even though I have already committed to it and have started the process of planning the wedding. I feel confused because there seem to be so many moving parts in this situation, and I cannot see a way to do what is in everyone’s best interest. I’m asking the Holy Spirit to look with me at this and to bring clarity to my thinking.

In doing this, I am using the process I learned from Regina Dawn Akers. It is called Root Cause Inquiry. I’m choosing to do it this way to avoid accidentally turning to the ego mind for an answer.

Here is what I must first accept as true if this is to work for me.

Begin by accepting, “I am always upset because of a belief in my mind,” and be, willing see the root cause of this upset, something that may not be at all apparent now. I want to emphasize that no matter what is going on in the outward appearance, I am always upset because of a belief in my mind, a belief I want to discover.

The split mind always wants to find someone to be guilty rather than questioning the basis of the problem. It does this because it can only give what it has, and it is made from the idea of guilt and fear, so that is the limit of its gifts to us. But I know that the problem as I see it is projected from my mind and is based on a belief I have. It is never about anyone else.

Secondly, If my mind was perfectly healed, nothing would upset me, not even this.”

Then you ask, “So why does this upset me?” This assures I will not justify my desire to see my situation as different and special. It is always possible for my mind to be perfectly healed.

So why does the idea of canceling the wedding upset me? There may be more than one answer for this. For instance, maybe I hate the idea of wasting money, which is a belief in lack and loss. Perhaps I tell myself that I don’t want to hurt my boyfriend, but that is just a thinly veiled attempt to make him the guilty party. It is as if I were saying I am stuck in a marriage I didn’t want, and it is his fault. No, I need to make this all about me.

Let us look at the idea that I am upset that I will look bad in front of family and friends. I don’t want to look fickle. I don’t want people to talk about me. And I don’t want to be seen as the “bad” one. I wonder why of all the possible reasons for my upset, I chose this one. So why is it that I don’t want to be seen as bad? As I go deeper into my mind, looking with the Holy Spirit, I see that I am afraid others will discover what I believe to be true about myself. I think I am bad, and now everyone will know. And I will not be able to hide from that belief.

Going Deeper

Maybe there is more to discover. I go deeper with the reassurance that the Holy Spirit is here with me, loving me and guiding me. What I discover is that my deepest fear is that God will discover that I am bad. I think maybe that has always been my greatest fear.

When I do find the belief that I am looking for, I remind myself of this. This belief was triggered by the outward event but not caused by the outward event. The belief was always in my mind or there would be nothing to trigger. The pending marriage, the boyfriend, nothing about this was the cause of my discomfort or my discontent. The fear that I am bad was always there. In fact, this is why I came here, to find that belief and forgive it, not just for me, but on behalf of the Sonship.

My Interpretation of the Story

And finally, Realize this is an interpretation that you put on the story. You are the one that has decided, ‘this event means this about me.’ Also, realize that you have been teaching yourself this belief for a very long time, interpreting many events to have this same meaning, and that is why it feels so strong in you. It doesn’t feel strong because it is true; it feels strong because it has been heavily reinforced through your interpretation of events.

This makes so much sense to me. As I look back on my life, I often acted on the belief that I was bad. I felt like I was a bad daughter and a bad friend. My life seemed to prove that I was a bad wife and mother. Even at work, I was a bad employee. In retrospect, I see that none of this was really true. I did make some bad decisions, but when one starts with the belief that they are bad, then one makes bad decisions. I see what it is that needs to be forgiven. It is not my actions or my words, it is my belief that I am bad.

The Solution Can Be Very Different than Expected

Interestingly, the situation seemed to have been that I did not know if I should cancel the wedding and, if so, how should I do it to cause as little harm as possible. And yet, the answer turns out that I need to forgive the belief that I am bad. I need to forgive the belief that I need others to believe I am not bad, and most of all, I need God to know that I am not bad. That is a lot of healing from this one situation. And if I need to re-visit this belief, and I probably will since it is so heavily reinforced, that’s OK. It doesn’t make me bad.

By the way, I have never canceled a wedding, though I have experienced the belief I am bad. And I have forgiven it.

To use Regina’s Root Cause Inquiry process, CLICK HERE.