It is surely obvious that if you can be attacked you are not invulnerable. You
see attack as a real threat. That is because you believe that you can really
attack. And what would have effects through you must also have effects on you.
It is this law that will ultimately save you. But you are misusing it now. You
must therefore learn how it can be used for your own best interests, rather than against them.
Because your attack thoughts will be projected, you will fear attack. And if you
fear attack, you must believe that you are not invulnerable. Attack thoughts
therefore make you vulnerable in your own mind, which is where the attack
thoughts are. Attack thoughts and invulnerability cannot be accepted together.
They contradict each other.
The idea for today introduces the thought that you always attack yourself. If
attack thoughts must entail the belief that you are vulnerable, their effect is
to weaken you in your own eyes. Thus they have attacked your perception of
yourself. And because you believe in them, you can no longer believe in
yourself. A false image of yourself has come to take the place of what you are.
Practice with today's idea will help you to understand that vulnerability or
invulnerability is the result of your own thoughts. Nothing except your thoughts
can attack you. Nothing except your thoughts can make you think you are
vulnerable. And nothing except your thoughts can prove to you this is not so.
Six practice periods are required in applying today's idea. A full two minutes
should be attempted for each of them, although the time may be reduced to a
minute if the discomfort is too great. Do not reduce it further.
The practice period should begin with repeating the idea for today, then closing
your eyes and reviewing the unresolved situations whose outcomes are causing you
concern. The concern may take the form of depression, worry, anger, a sense of
imposition, fear, foreboding or preoccupation. Any problem as yet unsettled
which tends to recur in your thoughts during the day is a suitable subject. You
will not be able to use very many for any one practice period, because a longer
time than usual should be spent with each one.
Today's idea should be applied as follows:
First, name the situation:
"I am concerned about ______."
Then go over every possible outcome which has occurred to you in that connection and which has caused you concern, referring to each one quite specifically, saying:
"I am afraid ______ will happen."
If you are doing the exercises properly,
you should have some five or six distressing possibilities available for each
situation you use, and quite possibly more. It is much more helpful to cover a
few situations thoroughly than to touch on a larger number.
As the list of anticipated outcomes for each situation continues, you will
probably find some of them, especially those which occur to you toward the end,
less acceptable to you. Try, however, to treat them all alike to whatever extent
you can.
After you have named each outcome of which you are afraid, tell yourself:
"That thought is an attack upon myself."
Conclude each practice period by repeating
today's idea once more.
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