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Chapter 16: The Forgiveness of Illusions, I. True Empathy, P 3. 1-20-20

Chapter 16: I. True Empathy P 3
T-16.I.3. Your part is only to remember this; you do not want anything you value to come of a relationship. 2 You choose neither to hurt it nor to heal it in your own way. 3 You do not know what healing is. 4 All you have learned of empathy is from the past. 5 And there is nothing from the past that you would share, for there is nothing from the past that you would keep. 6 Do not use empathy to make the past real, and so perpetuate it. 7 Step gently aside, and let healing be done for you. 8 Keep but one thought in mind and do not lose sight of it, however tempted you may be to judge any situation, and to determine your response by judging it. 9 Focus your mind only on this:

10 I am not alone, and I would not intrude the past upon my Guest.
11 I have invited Him, and He is here.
12 I need do nothing except not to interfere.

Journal
I used to say that relationships are hard. This is because I was trying to define the relationship and to control it so that it became something I thought I wanted. My relationships always suffered from my efforts to do this and so I was always working on them until I gave up and let them go. But then there were the relationships with my children. I couldn’t give up on them, and didn’t know what to do to repair them.

My problem was that I was always trying to heal the rifts that were there or that I imagined were there. But I didn’t know how to do this. I would hear my child say something that felt like an attack and then I would think of ways I had failed them in the past and I would feel like they were justified in their attack. I would try to do something to make up for the past but nothing seemed to work. I always felt separated from their love.

Eventually, I stepped aside from my desire to fix my relationships and from my desire to make up for past errors. I stepped aside and allowed the Holy Spirit to correct and heal. A strange thing happened. My children showered me with love. I didn’t do anything outwardly to cause this. Honestly, I think there was nothing wrong with the relationships in the first place. It was my guilt for imagined wrongs that was haunting me and overshadowing what was right before me.

Sure, I made lots of mistakes in the past and many of those mistakes involved my children, but I was the only one keeping score. Evidently, I was the only one who was judging me. My judgment of myself and my belief that my past sins were affecting my present relationships kept me from seeing what was right before me. Because of my distorted vision, I could not do anything to heal my mind and thus my relationships, but the Holy Spirit sees clearly and knows the truth about us. Stepping back and letting Him do His job corrected my thinking and healed my mind and what I discovered was love everywhere I looked.

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