Step gently aside. Life is a DREAM.

“The two worst things for a mammal are isolation and restraint” Porges

Too quick to action,
too slow to thought.
The sin of youth and
the penance of old men.

Guy Finley: Here is an encouragement, as well as a certainty for those who persist with their interior journey: Just as the sailor knows that a dead calm often precedes the onset of a set of winds to fill his sails, so can the aspirant who is patient in the face of a growing emptiness be assured that a whole new order of fullness is on its way.

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“When we really contemplate the judgments we make, we can see how they cost us our wisdom and our peace.” ~ Byron Katie

Identity Theft and Kindness—The Work of Byron Katie

It’s how you react when you believe a thought. You can’t believe a thought unless the FUTURE images show you all the proof. And then you feel the terror. And that terror is from unresolved history of the past. And those images are there too. But the FUTURE ones override them. It’s all this great mix of fear. In other words the proof is in your mind’s eye. So you see the images and then feel all the emotions like you are sitting in a movie because you are sitting in a movie. Life is a DREAM. ~ Byron Katie

Your part is only to remember this; you do not want anything you value to come of a relationship. You choose neither to hurt it nor to heal it in your own way. You do not know what healing is. All you have learned of empathy is from the past. And there is nothing from the past that you would share, for there is nothing from the past that you would keep. Do not use empathy to make the past real, and so perpetuate it. Step gently aside, and let healing be done for you. Keep but one thought in mind and do not lose sight of it, however tempted you may be to judge any situation, and to determine your response by judging it. Focus your mind only on this:

I am not alone, and I would not intrude the past upon my Guest.

I have invited Him, and He is here.

I need do nothing except not to interfere.
ACiM Text - Chapter Sixteen - The Forgiveness of Illusions - Section 1 - True Empathy

Step gently aside, and let healing be done for you.

This is the same idea as the workbook lesson that says, "I will step back and let Him lead the way" (W-pI.155). In terms of the chart, the "stepping back" is almost literally stepping away from the ego and stepping towards the Holy Spirit. The only problem that has ever existed and will ever exist in the world is that we stepped towards the ego. So the only way of solving any problem is to step away from the ego and towards the Holy Spirit. That's the only way that we can find peace.

We don't have to solve problems in the world because there are no problems in the world, because there is no world. We solve the seeming problems in the world by bringing those problems back to the mind and solving the problem there. And the only problem is that we separated from the Love of God, and so the solution is that we join with it.

We don't have to heal; we let healing be done for us. The section in the text on the unhealed healer says, "A therapist does not heal; he lets healing be" (T-9.V.8:1). The healing is done through us. We are not the ones who have to solve problems. The woman is not the one who has to take care of her cat. A parent is not the one who has to take care of his kids. Our job is not to be good parents or good teachers or good therapists or good A Course in Miracles teachers or good accountants or good lawyers or good anything. Our job is to rejoin the love of the Holy Spirit in the mind, and that love will automatically come through us. For us to believe we know how to do anything is the height of arrogance. That's what we did right at the beginning. We said to God: "I know how to do it better than you. Your world is boring, I'm going to make a world where there's some excitement, where there's some real pleasure, not this airy-fairy, spiritual stuff." Commentary on the Section "True Empathy" (T-16.I)

Someone else talked recently of an experience she had had, when, on a cold and rainy night she began to think of all the stray cats and other animals who are out suffering alone in the cruel weather conditions. This woman said that in the past she would have simply prayed to God to take care of all these poor little animals, but now, as a student of the Course, she couldn't do that. But she wanted to know if she was really experiencing her own concern that she's not going to be taken care of.

This actually represented an advance for her, because in the past she had simply said, well, God will take care of them, so I don't have to deal with that problem. Now she was saying that God is not going to take care of them so she has to deal with the problem, which forced her to look, not so much at the stray cats, but at the stray cat she believed she was, which is a much more painful experience, because there is no magical cloak to put over it. The next step would be realizing that it was not the stray cats whom she was worrying about, or feeling were victimized; it was herself.

The good news is that God is not going to do anything about that. It's good news because that forces us to say: "I'm the one who has chosen to see myself as a victim so I could do something about that. And God will help me change my mind about myself. He won't do anything about the stray cats outside." There aren't any stray cats outside anyway. They're just symbols. Nor will He do anything about the stray cat I believe I am as a physical person, as a body. But He will do something, through the Holy Spirit, with the mind that thought that I'm a stray cat. Commentary on the Section "True Empathy" (T-16.I)