Both Monday in Vancouver and Wednesday in West Van were biggies in getting into the darkness of our subconscious mind! The source of our fears and insecurities. Understanding the Sin-Guilt-Fear Projection cycle shines the floodgates on what's going on in our mind 'under the hood.'

Anytime we do anything that's unloving or unkind ["sin"], which is FAR more often than we'd like to admit (who hasn't been impatient or snapped at someone?), at some level, we feel bad [guilt]. The problem is our ego believes GUILT DEMANDS PUNISHMENT. Built within our psychology we feel like now we're in trouble and our wrong-doing will catch up to us and that we secretly deserve to be punished because we were bad [fear]. We're going to get it! We live anxiously, never knowing when or how our past is going to catch up with us and we're going to be found out. This fear underlies our life and drives us unconsciously!

Happiness and love and peace is always available HERE NOW, but we're covering it up with this sin-guilt-fear dynamic, which taints our past, present and future. We believe we made a mistake in the past, we feel guilty about it now, and we're afraid of what this means in our future.

All of this is happening outside of our awareness. We're not conscious because we REPRESS it. We are in denial. It's too unpleasant and uncomfortable and terrifying to think about. So we shove it all down so we don't have to think about it.

But it eventually has to come out and it slips out in all sorts of ways through PROJECTION. We project our guilt and fear onto others. In an attempt to offload the discomfort, we blame, criticize and complain about anything and anyone to make it appear the problem is OUT THERE instead of where it really is, in our subconscious mind.

If we believe our problems are outside of us if means it’s not our fault. We’re just the victim and we're not responsible, the world is doing all these negative things to us and we never accept accountability for anything. Do you know anybody like this? It's easy to spot this behaviour in others but we want to become aware of this about OURSELVES.

We call it a cycle because as we project our guilt and fear onto others, it comes out in unloving, unkind ways. We essentially attack others by snarky comments, slip of the tongue, lashing out in anger, passive aggressiveness, etc. For this we feel GUILTY. And consequently we feel we've done something wrong, we've been bad and deserve to be punished. Is the other person mad at me now? Am I in trouble? And we're right back into the loop. Never-ending.

The solution is that we need to RELEASE GUILT so we can feel free of the heavy burden it contains. Guilt keeps us bound to the past and keeps us REPEATING it into our future. 

Instead, we acknowledge we simply made an error, a mistake, which can be remedied with no horrible consequences. God, being perfect love, hasn't judged us, we're NOT in trouble, we're DOING IT TO OURSELVES. We forgive ourselves and accept the fact that our Soul is still innocent and pure, as we were created we still are forever.

We are not guilty but guiltless. Not sinful but sinless. Innocent. Pure.

When we know ourselves as innocent and pure then there is no longer any of that fear of impending doom. We're off the hook for punishment of any kind.

"Innocence is my strength."

"A guiltless mind cannot suffer."
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Our meditation was based on lesson 46: Gove is love in which I forgive. In other words, unconditional love is the basis of forgiveness. First we get in touch with perfect love. Once we see others how God sees us, forgiveness becomes automatic. In fact, forgiveness isn’t even necessary because when we see through the eyes of unconditional love, all we have is compassion and understanding and non-judgment. The lesson starts us off by forgiving others in this light, which then puts us in a position to be able to forgive OURSELVES easier.

Read lesson here: https://acim.org/acim/lesson-46/god-is-the-love-in-which-i-forgive/en/s/448