A phrase from A Course in Miracles is: "In my Defencelessness my Safety lies."

I had been thinking this meant a sort of "turn the other cheek" way of behaving towards others – not reacting, not attacking back – and I think it does mean this. Today I understood also that "defencelessness" is about being undefended to my own feelings, letting myself feel my sadness or my fear/anxiety or whatever it is, leaning into it, welcoming it, really feeling it and even if at that moment there is no relief, shortly after, as I go about my daily business, there is indeed relief.

Listening to Mike Robbins in a 2017 Hayhouse summit talk yesterday - he was talking about his mentor encouraging him to give himself permission to feel powerless. He did not want to do this, however he started to do a meditation using such words as "I give myself permission to feel powerless - it does not mean I am powerless."

So I can say (for example): "I give myself permission to feel left out - it does not mean I AM left out." "I give myself permission to feel anxious. It does not mean I AM anxious." A big one for me – for I avoid situations where I might feel jealous as much as I can: "I give myself permission to feel jealous. It does not mean I AM jealous. It is just a feeling." Another one: "I give myself permission to feel lonely. It does not mean I AM lonely."

Another 2017 Hayhouse summit talk was by Andy Newbigging. He had the phrase: "I am willing to experience...." So it goes like this: "I am willing to experience the human emotion of loneliness". How relaxing is that!

What Andy says is that we are all resisting life - either resisting something or attached to its opposite, often both. Once we stop resisting we become free - both to experience it and to experience its opposite. In my defencelessness my safety lies. If I am willing to experience unhappiness then the option of happiness also opens up to me.

I would love to hear your experiences and how this resonates or not with you.

Melanie

A Moodscope member.