A Course In Miracles proposes that the purpose of attack is to blind us to fear, and the purpose of fear is to blind us to love (it says much more and in much more evocative language, but you get the point). Well, in my looking at my experience(s) and reflecting on the Course teaching i made a connection i had not see before.
In my talks, workshops, and interacting with others, i go right to the fear. i encourage others to look directly at the fear. Only now am i realizing that they may not be able to see the fear. This approach has been met with a great deal of resistance in the form of deflection and other unconscious behaviors intended to protect.
In looking at this i discovered that while i may be aware of the fear i experience, if i look back over my process and experiences, i was able to see the fear only AFTER spending a great deal of time looking at the attack and defense in me. This is huge for me.
In looking at the defense and attack as i share with and support others in doing, it looses its hold on me. What i mean by that is, in looking at and really feeling what it feels like every time i go on the attack or defense, i lessen its duration and its occurrence. Essentially, by owning who i am each time i find myself being defensive, i am slowly shifting away from needing to defend because each time i look, i realize eventually that the defense is a reaction to a meaningless thought or story in my head. With each occurrence, that particular situation that sparked the defensive reaction has less power to do so the next time and eventually, defensiveness and attack become only a small part of my experience.
This leaves room for other aspects of experience to surface in my awareness and for me, what began to surface was fear. By removing the obstacles (defensiveness and attack) the fear that lay behind them became quite obvious. I could not go directly to the fear as it was obscured by my very reactions to it. How cool is that?
