Dealing with daily triggers
Triggers happen almost everyday and sometimes I don’t have the willingness or the ability to see them as an opportunity to heal and deal with them immediately. Sometimes the timing just sucks. When that happens, I use a very short mantra, based on the Course, that allows me to “park” whatever just happened and get on with my day, knowing that I’ll get back to it later, giving it the full attention that it, and I deserve. The mantra is this;
“I don’t know what anything, including this, is for. I don’t know what is in my best interest and I’m willing to learn. And the only lesson is, everything that happens is a loving blessing whose only purpose is my highest good”
I’ve been studying the course for over 30 years now. For at least the past 15 years, my most favourite passage has been from lesson 135, “If I defend myself, I am attacked”, paragraph 18. It has lately expanded to include paragraph 19 as well. I thought, if I could simply and absolutely believe that what was written here is the Truth, I will have found internal peace in any situation. To help me embody this concept more strongly, I have changed the text to first person.
18. could I not accept, if I but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is my good? ²Perhaps I have What misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to me, but my defences did not let me see His loving blessing shine in every step I ever took. ⁴While I made plans for death, He led me gently to eternal life.
19. My present trust in Him is the defence that promises a future undisturbed, without a trace of sorrow, and with joy that constantly increases, as this life becomes a holy instant, set in time, but heeding only immortality. ²Let no defences but my present trust direct the future, and this life becomes a meaningful encounter with the truth that only my defences would conceal.
I don’t use these reminders every day, although sometimes, I need to use them both. They help me relax and remember to just breath. They encourage me to remember that I don’t have to solve everything immediately. They remind me to ask for help. They increase my level of trust in the process of life itself. They reinforce the fact that the universe and everything in it is a continually expanding expression of Love, even when I temporarily forget that. They bring me back to peace. I hope they can do the same for you.
