D: Doug;
N: Nieca;
N: Hoping for serenity rather than succumbing to the density and pressure of current worldly events, I am thus prompted to consider what choices I have made. The defensive stance I’ve taken against the viral-imposed changes only irritates me further.
D: What you are experiencing is a perfect example of “…all defenses do what they would defend” (T-17.IV.7.1). Your defensive stance only reinforces your fear instead of alleviating it. “Defense is frightening. It stems from fear, increasing fear as each defense is made” (W-pI.135.3:1-2).
N: Circumstances will always change in this circumstantial world, and rather than continually trying to accustom myself to them, that in me which is free must prevail.
D:That in you which is free must choose forgiveness. Each time you do, you will prevail.
N: Wanting to do something about my lack of peace, I’ve been going from one activity to another activity, restless and dissatisfied. My interpretation of finding clarity is that I must do MORE and that ‘I must do something BIG with my life.’
D: MORE and BIGGER! Which of our two teachers would be urging MORE and BIGGER? I wonder if the same sponsor might be backing DOING? You are going from one form of doing to another, with the content in your mind (and therefore in your experience) being restlessness and dissatisfaction. We must undo ‘something big with our lives’. We must undo our belief in separate interests, and replace that belief with an attitude of shared interests. Paraphrasing the opening sentences of the first section in the Manual for Teachers, our journey towards freeing ourselves continues in earnest each time we somehow, somewhere, make a deliberate choice in which we do not see our interest as apart from someone else’s.
N: To arrive at clarity/peace, I have thought that I must shed certain attitudes and behavioral patterns.
D: Our belief in guilt is what we must shed.
N: Perhaps an ongoing practice of striving can be freeing – if it doesn’t exclude others?
D: Can we choose simplicity and inclusion rather than striving for them? Is simplicity achieved by sorting through complexity? This world is a defense against simplicity as long as the ego is ‘driving.’ If I am struggling to ‘achieve’ simplicity, the ego must be involved as my teacher. The remedy for all of this is simply to choose once again which teacher might be the most helpful in instructing you how to free yourself.