When you resist something in life, when you can't accept the fact of what is, or what has seemingly happened, when you are fighting with it and don't want it and want it to be a different way, you WILL experience being unhappy.

Resistance itself, causes unhappiness.

As you resist, what is happening? You're putting up barriers, you're shutting down, you're trying to control, you're blocking out what is, you're fighting, you're wasting a lot of futile energy not being able to change any facts, you're draining yourself on impossible wishes, you're running up against reality, etc.. And all of these actions, are experienced AS feelings of unhappiness, feelings of anger, feelings of sadness and fear, feelings of exhaustion, feelings of threat and danger, feelings of intensity and tension.

Now, when you are resisting life, no matter what in particular, what you need to realize is that it is the resisting ITSELF that doesn't feel good. You will resist, thinking that you feel unhappy 'because of' the thing you are resisting. You'll think, you feel angry or outraged or upset 'because of' what you don't want to be happening. Whatever it is that you 'cannot accept', you will say that THAT is causing you to feel unhappy.

This is not true at all.

ALL of the feelings and experiences of unpleasantness, unhappiness, upset, anger etc... all of them are PART OF what it feels likes like to RESIST WHAT IS. And it doesn't matter what form your opponent takes, because ultimately 'what is' is God, and any form of resisting God shuts God out, and that does not feel good at all. If you shut God out, you will shut out love, light, happiness, joy, peace, harmony. So you can be pretty much guaranteed, if you resist what's happening, you MUST feel unhappy and upset.

So now, realize this. .... unhappy feelings are caused by RESIST-ING, not by what you are resisting against. Resistance in other words, is a form of skapegoating, in which you're trying to make out that 'they' - your enemy - are the cause of your problem. That they are causing all of the anger you feel, all of the unhappiness you feel, all of the tension and stress that you feel. It's all their fault. It's all the fault of 'what is' (ultimately blaming God). But this is not only spiritually irresponsible, it is also deluded. What you're resisting against or fighting against is NOT the cause of your upset. The cause of your upset is ONLY, the fact that YOU are choosing to resist it.

That's all. There is no other reason why you are unhappy other than that you are choosing to resist what is, and are then blaming or justifying 'why' you are resisting, onto the other person or situation. It's not their fault that you're resisting them. It's not their fault you are unhappy. It's not the 'now's fault that you are going off into the past and future on a tirade story of how you've been victimized.

Ultimately then, all of the experience of victimhood and suffering and upset and unhappiness is a DECISION YOU ARE MAKING, in order to justify and explain WHY you are choosing not to ACCEPT what is. Why you are not accepting God.

"You are never upset for the reason you think" - ACIM

"You are upset because you see something that is not really there" - ACIM

What you see that you think is there, is an enemy who has suddenly arisen out of 'what is', which you have labelled as wrong, having given it all the meaning it has, and now you are in a state of resisting, which you chose, and because of this choice, you are now experiencing suffering. AND THIS IS ALL YOUR OWN DOING TO YOURSELF.

"The secret to salvation is this, that you are but doing this all to yourself." - ACIM

SOOOOO..... what this means is... and here's the clincher....

*IF* you were to decide to stop resisting and fighting with what is, IF you were to choose to ACCEPT IT, instead of trying to move away from it, IF you were to choose to ALLOW IT, instead of trying to make it be something else, IF you were to choose to WELCOME IT, then guess what's going to happen to how you feel?

You're suddenly going to feel more peaceful, more happy, more calm, more joyous, more free, more empowered, more clear, more alive. All your feelings of suffering are going to just disappear. Just like that. All your upset, all your anger and outrage, all your depression, all your sickness, all your sadness, all of it is going to just disappear because you're choosing to welcome GOD. God is what is. Accepting what is is far closer to accepting God, and God is love, and accepting love HEALS YOU.

So.... realize this..... if you choose resistance, you will INVENT and manifest sickness and suffering, purely because you are resisting. And before you resisted, you did not have any of this. And as soon as you resisted, the suffering showed up. And now in your resistance you are suffering, but you're trying to blame the cause of it onto the thing you're resisting against. It's got nothing to do with that. Resist, you suffer. Don't resist, you be happy. That's all it boils down to. It's a black and white decision.

Either you accept what is and be happy and at peace.

Or you resist what is and experience suffering and unhappiness.

You cannot resist and be happy. You cannot fight and be at peace. You cannot blame and be at peace.

So really nothing is happening to you. The thing you resist is not causing your suffering. The people you don't like are not causing your suffering. The group you didn't want aren't causing your suffering. The suffering is YOUR WAY OF RESISTING THEM.

So you chose it. You're literally doing it to yourself. And the only way to NOT suffer, is to give up your position. You cannot maintain your position of resistance AND be at peace or happy. It is IMPOSSIBLE!

Choices:

a) resist what's happening and be unhappy and suffer and sick and die, you can never win and you will never get your way.

b) allow and accept what's happening and be completely happy and at peace and still not get your way, but at least you are happy.

So resistance is a smokescreen where you pretend to be justified in resisting. But resistance itself is what makes you suffer and is the sole CHOICE to cause yourself to suffer. You say, "I'd rather resist this and suffer and be upset". And then you project it. Your only other option is. ... accept the truth. Accept the facts. Surrender to what is. Allow it

Then you can be happy and at peace. And then what the fuck does it matter what's happening?

In order to perform a miracle, your mind has to be in a state of love, because miracles are expressions FROM love. Miracle mindedness is a state of love, and when you express from that state your expressions have power, capable of healing others. Love is strong and "there is nothing my holiness cannot do." Being miracle minded is the same thing as being right minded, which is equated with true perception. It's quite an "advanced state".

It's not enough to be slightly loving. It's also not enough to just be caring for someone or feeling enamored. Love has to be felt deeply and strongly. I have to admit that I spend almost all of my time not in this state. I can at times push myself to receive love and experience it, but typically there is too much fear and blocks to awareness. It's not possible to perform miracles in these states, and people who are working on purifying their minds are not miracle workers. "Miracles are everyone's right (in a state of love), but purification (to get to that state) is NECESSARY first."

I've had a few times where, for whatever reason, I've felt especially filled with love. In those moments I also feel strangely powerful and miraculous, as if the love itself is capable of doing anything. Without love, miracles are impossible. Love is literally an absolutely required ingredient for miracle working. It's through being intensely loving and EXPRESSING from that place of strength, that you can literally perform miracles. You can heal the sick and raise the dead.

I used to think miracle working entailed far more complexity, saying the right words, having the ego be more aggressive, being adamant, being commanding etc, but without love nothing happens. Holy Spirit became very excited one time when I was sending love to someone and He said "that's all you need!". It seems too simple but it's not. Real love has a POWER in it. It's a supernatural power. It can cause really extraordinary things to happen. A mind in a state of love is very strong.

The challenge then, is getting yourself into a state where you are loving enough. It's not merely an intellectual state. Strong love must be present and being felt. Often it is quite difficult to get into that state, to really really love, because of all the blocks and fears that we have. It might even be quite an alien state seemingly so far out of reach that we just can't seem to be loving enough. It requires a suspension of fear, which is love's absence, for long enough to be able to perform the miracle. Jesus even says that you might well go back to being afraid afterwards, but so long as you can get yourself into a loving state, you can work miracles.

Miracle DOING is an active expression, an act, FROM a state of love. Miracle mindedness is the readiness to express love, by being in a state of love. Love is wholeness. The perceptual content of miracles is wholeness. Perception has to be whole, purified, and true, in order to be loving enough to be miraculous. It's really so simple... all you need is love and you instantly are capable of performing incredible miracles, but getting yourself into such a holy state is all of the "work" of purification, learning to forgive, healing and letting go of past hurts and all the rest of it. All of the workbook lessons, which aimed toward developing Christ Vision, are trying to get your mind to be loving enough that it is miraculous.

Miracles EXPRESS only from love and love is powerful.

"The distinction has also been made here between "miracle-mindedness" as a STATE, and "miracle-doing" as its expression."

"The love of God, for a little while, must still be expressed through one body to another."

"The value of the Atonement does not lie in the manner in which it is expressed. In fact, if it is truly used it will inevitably BE expressed in whatever way is most helpful to the receiver, not the giver. This means that a miracle, to attain its full efficacy, MUST be expressed in a language which the recipient can understand without fear. It does not follow by any means that this is the highest level of communication of which he is capable. But it DOES mean that it is the highest level of communication of which he is capable NOW."

"Miracles ... They occur naturally as an expression of love."

"ALL expressions of love are maximal."

"Miracles are a kind of exchange. Like all expressions of love"

"Prayer is the medium of miracles. Prayer is the natural communication of the Created with the Creator. Through prayer, love is received, and through miracles love is expressed."

"Miracles are natural expressions of total forgiveness. Through miracles, man accepts God's forgiveness by extending it to others. "

"The power to work Miracles BELONGS to you. I will create the right opportunities for you to do them. But you must be ready and willing to do them, since you are already able to. Doing them will bring conviction in the ability. I repeat that you will see Miracles through your hands through MINE. Conviction really comes through accomplishment. Remember that ability is the potential, Achievement is its expression, and Atonement is the Purpose."

"Expressed through you, the Holy Spirit will accept this gift which you received of Him, increase its power and give it back to you."

"We have emphasized that the miracle, or the EXPRESSION of Atonement, is always a sign of real respect from the worthy TO the worthy."

"The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ and acceptance of his Atonement. "

"Be confident that you have never lost your identity and the extension which maintains it in wholeness and peace. Miracles are AN EXPRESSION OF THIS CONFIDENCE. They are reflections both of your own proper identification WITH your brothers, and of your own awareness that YOUR identification IS maintained by extension. The miracle is A LESSON IN TOTAL PERCEPTION. By including ANY part of totality in the lesson, you HAVE included the whole."

"The answer is NEVER perform a miracle without asking me IF you should. This spares you from exhaustion, and because you act under direct communication the trance becomes unnecessary. Because miracles are expressions of love, it does NOT follow that they will always be effective. I am the only one who can perform miracles indiscriminately, because I AM the Atonement. You have a ROLE in Atonement, which I will dictate TO you."

"Those who witness for me are expressing, through their miracles, that they have abandoned deprivation in favor of the abundance they have learned BELONGS to them."

"We once said that there is no order in miracles because they are all maximal expressions of love."

"Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind which is working THROUGH the body but not in it."

"I KNOW that miracles are natural, because they are expressions of love."

It basically works like this. You believe you are not loveable and are separate from the love that you ARE. You experience a sense of lacking love. This creates a false need. The need motivates you to search. You search externally outside of yourself for what you've lost. You deny your own value and lovability so you project this onto others. You set them up to look like they can save you, that they are better than you, that they are above you, and that they will fulfill your need. You put them on a pedestal in order to put yourself down, and you worship them hoping to get some small scrap of love (that you don't deserve).

We do this with our children. We project so much of our own missing value onto them (by sacrificing ourselves), that we turn them into idols. As idols, they are more important than we are, they are more valuable than we are, we would just about kill ourselves to save them, and we worship them. We set them up to look like they can do no wrong. We enter into denial about any flaws that they might possibly have. We see them as 'can do no wrong'. We imagine that they absolutely are supposed to love us back and that they are only loving and completely overlook any faults. We make them seem like they are our savior and that they have something we don't have, capable of doing for us what we refuse to do for ourselves. And ultimately we live vicariously through them because we've made them into 'everything'.

This all can seem extremely noble and humble and prideful and correct. But it is filled with self deprivation, self denial, unworthiness, self sacrifice, martyrdom, loss, exhaustion, having no time for yourself, being less important, and generally all forms of inequality. Inequality also includes of course the flipside of idol worship which is what happens when YOU believe you are the idol and that the child (or other audience) should worship you. This is just another expression of the same egotism and may result in the child becoming the idol-worshipper (of you). If you are the idol, then you believe you are secretly flawed and NEED to have people worship you to prove that you are good enough - except you never believe it, and it never works, and it's never enough. Idol worshippers are the more obvious victims of the world (those who are bullied), and idols are the more obvious victimizers (those who bully). BOTH of them believe they are not loveable.

This dynamic also extends to all other special relationships, because they are all based on you having a LACK of love, and therefore being compelled to find it in another. The other now contains something valuable and special that you want but don't have. You want to get it from them. Except that you don't REALLY want to receive it because doing so would undo your belief that you're not worthy of it. So you would steal it away and destroy it, to deprive yourself. "If I can't have it, nor can anyone else."

Another great example of idol worship takes place in many Christians/Catholics who worship Jesus. They will put Jesus on a pedestal and endow him with all kinds of special value and worth. At the same time, they will claim that they themselves cannot possibly have EQUAL value, so they must be unworthy. Secretly they STARTED by saying they are unworthy, and this is why they see Jesus AS worthier than they are. They may thus 'worship' Jesus AS an idol (even though he doesn't want this), and continually believe that Jesus will save them for them. They will, however, constantly REFUSE to believe or admit that they in any way deserve saving, that they can be saved, that they can be loved to the degree Jesus would offer. That is, unless they believe they have atoned enough to be the 'chosen ones' who are in Jesus' favor and better than those suckers who are even less worthy and who clearly are going to hell (throwing them under a bus).

So with one hand they are trying to reach out to Jesus to say, "hey, please love me for me and save me from my (wretched) self because I can't", while the other hand says "stay the fuck away from me I am not worthy to be your equal." The ego here has conflicting voices - one which sounds like it is filled with adoration and justified worship, but the other which clearly does not REALLY want Jesus to love them fully. If Christians were to fully receive and acknowledge Jesus's love for them, they would have to ADMIT that they too are just as loveable as he is. Otherwise, how could they possibly receive His love? This is what they do not want, because they do not want their own love which God already gave to them.

When you idolize someone you make them more valuable than yourself because you've projected your own value and worth. You then say you want them to save you FOR you, but secretly you hope that they won't. It becomes especially toxic when the person you idolize refuses to be your idol. If they pull away from you or separate from you, they might occasionally throw you a tiny scrap or mosel of attention, which you think is all you deserve. And when that scrap comes, you feel like the entire relationship has been saved - finally you got a blessing from that person on-high and now that means they love you and that they will save you. Your tremendous need/lack of lovability gets a little bit of attention and now it seems like there's hope. And then they withdraw their love again and you feel devastated.

The problem is, you're not really devastated by their lack of loving you, you're devastated by YOUR not loving you. When they withdraw their idol status without you withdrawing your idolizing of them, ie they separate or distance themselves or fail to deliver, you are left with nowhere else to go. You can't get the love from within or from God because you don't believe that is where the love IS, and if your idol ditches you your mind is now reminded of just how empty it is. This is painful and is experienced as loss and grief. The loss of your own self. The grief of your own separation from God.

This is a spiritual lesson, and a hard one. And essentially it is the only lesson. You believe you are separate from love and will never get back to that love, or that it is NOT love, and now you've projected the source outside yourself where it does not exist. To resolve and complete the lesson, you have to UNDO the beliefs you've formed about YOURSELF which tell you that love is not who you are, love is not what you deserve (from within), that you do not love or forgive yourself (and God), that God is not love, that you are not loveable or worthy of love, and that you are not yourself. This belief in separation is what drives the entire projection and idolization of external love. But YOU ARE THE LOVE YOU SEEK.

God knows this. He hasn't forgotten you. Holy Spirit knows it. Jesus knows it. The angels know it. Even you as Christ know it and can't forget it. But somewhere along the lines some part of your mind became convinced by a lie - a LIE - that you are not love itself. This needs correction. And it cannot be corrected by anyone else outside of you because they are not the source of the correction OR of the separation. You might blame them because they seem to be separate from you and they seem to not be fulfilling your 'secret bargain' to love you for you, but it's not really their fault. It's not their fault they fail to love you for you. They're not supposed to. You need to learn to love yourself again so that you no longer NEED to get it from somewhere else, and consequently so that nobody else CAN take it away or deny you.

You are the way, the truth and the light. You are Jesus's equal. You are equal to your children. You are equal to your parents. You are loveable by God and in God and as God's extension of love. And you are absolutely worthy of the joy and happiness of RECLAIMING YOUR VALUE.