Lesson 26
My attack thoughts are attacking my invulnerability.
W-pI.26.1. It is surely obvious that if you can be attacked you are not invulnerable. 2 You see attack as a real threat. 3 That is because you believe that you can really attack. 4 And what would have effects through you must also have effects on you. 5 It is this law that will ultimately save you, but you are misusing it now. 6 You must therefore learn how it can be used for your own best interests, rather than against them.
W-pI.26.2. Because your attack thoughts will be projected, you will fear attack. 2 And if you fear attack, you must believe that you are not invulnerable. 3 Attack thoughts therefore make you vulnerable in your own mind, which is where the attack thoughts are. 4 Attack thoughts and invulnerability cannot be accepted together. 5 They contradict each other.
W-pI.26.3. The idea for today introduces the thought that you always attack yourself first. 2 If attack thoughts must entail the belief that you are vulnerable, their effect is to weaken you in your own eyes. 3 Thus they have attacked your perception of yourself. 4 And because you believe in them, you can no longer believe in yourself. 5 A false image of yourself has come to take the place of what you are.
W-pI.26.4. Practice with today’s idea will help you to understand that vulnerability or invulnerability is the result of your own thoughts. 2 Nothing except your thoughts can attack you. 3 Nothing except your thoughts can make you think you are vulnerable. 4 And nothing except your thoughts can prove to you this is not so.
W-pI.26.5. Six practice periods are required in applying today’s idea. 2 A full two minutes should be attempted for each of them, although the time may be reduced to a minute if the discomfort is too great. 3 Do not reduce it further.
W-pI.26.6. The practice period should begin with repeating the idea for today, then closing your eyes and reviewing the unresolved questions whose outcomes are causing you concern. 2 The concern may take the form of depression, worry, anger, a sense of imposition, fear, foreboding or preoccupation. 3 Any problem as yet unsettled that tends to recur in your thoughts during the day is a suitable subject. 4 You will not be able to use very many for any one practice period, because a longer time than usual should be spent with each one. 5 Today’s idea should be applied as follows:
W-pI.26.7. First, name the situation:
2 I am concerned about _____.
3 Then go over every possible outcome that has occurred to you in that connection and which has caused you concern, referring to each one quite specifically, saying:
4 I am afraid _____ will happen.
W-pI.26.8. If you are doing the exercises properly, you should have some five or six distressing possibilities available for each situation you use, and quite possibly more. 2 It is much more helpful to cover a few situations thoroughly than to touch on a larger number. 3 As the list of anticipated outcomes for each situation continues, you will probably find some of them, especially those that occur to you toward the end, less acceptable to you. 4 Try, however, to treat them all alike to whatever extent you can.
W-pI.26.9. After you have named each outcome of which you are afraid, tell yourself:
2 That thought is an attack upon myself.
3 Conclude each practice period by repeating today’s idea to yourself once more.
Journal
This is such an important lesson.
This means that first, I am invulnerable, and that second, I am not going to believe this about myself if I have attack thoughts. The reason this is true is that I believe I can attack, and therefore I believe I can be attacked. It naturally follows that I must not be invulnerable. If I am not invulnerable, I am not the Son of God. If I am not invulnerable, I am justified in protecting myself by returning attack when I perceive it. This is a completely distorted view of ourselves and not true but if we believe it, it will be true for us.
What we are is an eternal, divine being. We are immortal. We cannot be harmed in any way. But when we believe in attack, we turn away from our true nature and accept ourselves as weak and fragile, as bodies that can be easily harmed and subject to attack of all sorts. We believe that other people can attack and harm us. We believe that germs and viruses can attack us, that we can be attacked through our DNA. We can only see ourselves as we truly exist in God, or as the image we made of a vulnerable body, not both.
I go back to the ideas we have learned so far and I realize that everything I see is a thought that has been projected as if it were no longer just in our mind but was before us to be seen with the body’s eyes. But no matter how real it all appears to us, no matter how much it seems to be outside us, it is only in the mind. So, if I have an attack thought directed at someone else, then I believe in attack and thus, I will believe that I, too, can be attacked. And there goes my belief in an invulnerable creation of God that I truly am. And all of this happens only within the mind and therefore can only be corrected in the mind.
I used to believe in the world and myself as a body. Because of this belief, if I felt attacked, I thought the attack came from outside me, that it was someone or something attacking me and I felt justified in defending myself and attacking in return. It just kept this awful cycle going and reinforced the belief that I was vulnerable. I still sometimes attack or feel attacked but it is brief and I am not fooled by it anymore. I let it go right away because I am not interested in what does not deepen my awakening. This makes it easier to identify with my true self more than with my ego-self. I don’t try to change anything in the world, only my attack thoughts, which I give to the Holy Spirit for correction.