Your willingness to feel is key. No matter what seems to be happening around you, your willingness to feel what you are feeling and to have associated thoughts uncovered is essential to your healing. This means that you give the world, along with everything in it, a break. Nothing in and of the world is ever the cause of your distress. It looks that way, and your willingness to see through the way things appear is what takes you beyond all appearances into the heart of what is Real.

Once you get the hang of how your feelings indicate your attachment to lies, you begin to approach this clinically, with curiosity and passion, like a scientist. This is a journey of discovery. You realize that no matter how things appear, the Real is safe and at peace behind it all. You no longer want the distraction of the unsafe and conflict-ridden. More and more, your gaze is on the peace that has been shining behind strife the whole time. As you learn what is Real, you gain the ability to look right through what isn’t.

When you realize the value of knowing what you are feeling, you don’t avoid it. You know that taking an honest look will lead you Home, so you are willing to pay attention because you know that this matters more than any illusion you make with thought.

As you walk through the illusion you made with thought, you encounter characters. As much as any character looks like it is pointing away from Home, that character is also pointing toward Home. This means that no one is a threat. Everyone merely reflects back to you the thoughts that are still active in your mind, still cherished. Let’s take the example of a child who seems to be asking for a lot of things. This reflects back to you what is still active in your mind. You, too, are cherishing thoughts about getting things, about things fixing your sense of lack. Are you willing to offer up all of these thoughts today? You do not need them. In their wake, peace awaits you. 

Let’s look at the example of one who seems to have done a very bad thing in your world. This reflects back to your belief that there are separate doings, and that the separate doings can be evaluated by a separate character–you. The doings are notseparate, but they look separate. You always experience the illusion you make. If you needed separate characters to represent extreme wrongdoing, that is how some characters show up for you. They are very obliging. They can only give you what you want. If you want the ability to judge others, others will show up in many different forms so you can categorize and rank them. 

The drama in which these characters seem to engage is a distraction away from your feelings. You feel guilty because you believe you are responsible for extreme wrongdoing–making a world of violence and death with thought. This is what you forgot: The world is not real, and nothing has ever happened. You are not able to separate yourself from God, and so it has not happened. As you allow it, a world comes into focus that reflects this back to you: All is well. You are loved. All are loved.

You can thank every character equally and genuinely, right now. You just need to know how to look in order to be able to appreciate what they have always been doing for you. So let’s say you are looking at a character, and you become aware that you feel disturbed. This feeling of disturbance is like an announcement. It says, “Lies present in the mind. Lies present in the mind.” This is beyond deciding what is wrong with a world and its inhabitants. The problem is always in your own mind, right now. 

How to find the lie present? Look. What thought is associated with the feeling? There it is. Throw it overboard. The thought represents illusion, and you don’t need illusion as protection. You are entirely safe in allowing Reality to shine. 

We shine, you shine, and all of the characters shine. Are you willing to see it today?