Fighting and bravery

You make by projection, but God creates by extension. The cornerstone of God’s creation is you, for His thought system is light. Remember the Rays that are there unseen. The more you approach the center of His thought system, the clearer the light becomes. The closer you come to the foundation of the ego’s thought system, the darker and more obscure becomes the way. Yet even the little spark in your mind is enough to lighten it. Bring this light fearlessly with you, and bravely hold it up to the foundation of the ego’s thought system. Be willing to judge it with perfect honesty. Open the dark cornerstone of terror on which it rests, and bring it out into the light. There you will see that it rested on meaninglessness, and that everything of which you have been afraid was based on nothing.

-- A Course in Miracles T-11.in.3

People fight because they are unsatisfied, because they haven’t measured up to something, because they feel lack, because they are afraid. I have spent many years and a lot of energy fighting. My entire life spent fighting something; fighting my father, fighting my mother, fighting my sisters, my brothers, fighting myself… Fighting the ideals placed by the culture I grew up in, the generation I grew up in. Fighting love. So many things instilled within me that I fought, only digging them deeper inside me. So much offered to me with an open heart that I fought with a closed one. Maybe I always felt threatened and avoided being vulnerable. My mother always told me, no, begged me, to become this or that kind of woman and at every turn I’d question - is this what my mother wants? She pleaded for me not to be weak, or vulnerable, to be independent and strong, to not be pushed around or taken advantage of. My defense was always to fight, fire with fire. My defense was to not trust and to maintain a closed heart. Is this strength? Is this invulnerability? It was futile, always futile. A moment of victory, maybe, for a lifetime of pain. What does it matter that for a moment I could wipe a smug look off my father’s face if it only gave me pain later? And what of avoidance, ignore the fight and the pain? Putting my head down, turning my head away, does nothing but bring more pain later. ACIM says the best defense has no potential of attack. What better defense is there than to realize that… there is no fight - none. Moment by moment, I undo them, dispel them, erase them, open my eyes and look passed the illusion. In a show, I heard it said that being brave is never giving up, to keep fighting. But no - being brave is giving up the fight and embracing love. In the face of everyone’s darkness, being brave is looking passed it and trusting in their light. For me, being brave is trusting in god, especially when the ego is yelling in my ear.

(Also posted on Carlo Lopez's blog and on my Medium blog.)