In yesterday’s class, I took us through a number of passages, most of them from the early dictation, on embarrassment.
What we saw, over and over, was that when we identify with a flawed self, we fear it being exposed to others, for we expect them to see its flaws, and that seeing is the cause of embarrassment. Since love is a statement of who we are, we fear our love being exposed, because that will expose the faultiness of who we are. We are embarrassed to speak our convictions, even if they might help someone else, because they too expose who we are, so that our invalid nature can be seen by everyone. We are embarrassed to speak, period, because our poor performance, we feel, will reveal to everyone the inadequacy of the person doing the performing. We are embarrassed by our efforts to heal another, because the expected failure of the healing will show what a failure we are.
All of this comes down to identifying with the wrong self, the self we made. We identify with the body, and because of its imperfection, we feel embarrassed. We identify with our ego and see the words it produces as revealing of its/our own lack of worth. We identify with the illusory self and thus doubt its ability to heal, and feel embarrassment when it fails. All in all, we identify with an image of our own construction.
The key, then, is to refuse to identify with that self-made image, refuse to identify with a self that is unworthy, that has no sound foundation. We need to consciously identify with the soul and speak from the soul. We need to claim, rather than violate, the copyright God holds on us. We need to acknowledge Him as our Author. We need to not feel responsible for our identity. And therefore we need to be secure in an identity that has nothing wrong with it. At that point, why fear being exposed to the scrutinizing attention of others? There’s nothing wrong for them to see.
I then concluded with this exercise, in which we think of a situation where we’ve experienced embarrassment and then say these words (which I’ve changed a bit) to the person or people involved:
I invite you to look on me,
because there is nothing wrong with who I am.
I am the holy Son of God Himself.
My reality is a gift to you.
For in seeing my reality, you see your own.
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