Are you judgmental? I sure am.

This journey with Fritz the Cat and his near-death experience and the roller coaster aftermath of his stay in the hospital has been a rapid training ground for me. When I am thinking “wrongly,” Fritz has setbacks. The Holy Spirit knows how to motivate us, that is for sure.

We had one of those setbacks yesterday. I have been working my way through the Lessons in A Course in Miracles. My ego predictably is having a big backlash to this, because A Course in Miracles truly learned is the end of the ego.

Forgiveness was the big theme of the recent lessons. Not forgiveness the way the world understands forgiveness. If we believe that a “wrong” really happened, and we pardon it, that is not real forgiveness. Real forgiveness happens when we realize that what seemed to happen never happened. And thus, one can merely “wake up” as if from a nightmare during sleep. The nightmare is not cause for vengeance because it is not real. If your friend cheats you in your dream, you don’t need to go and “get back” at him or her, right? You just see that it was your imagination that “made up” a story about your friend. And you let it go.

What many people don’t realize is that we are living in a waking dream that is no different than our sleeping dreams. And the “wrongs” committed are no more real.

But try telling that to my ego. “Forgive that man? NEVER,” it cried. And I seethed with hate and vitriol for a few hours before feeling downright depressed. Making myself miserable about a nightmare that never really happened in the first place.

Then that energy carried over to what I was seeing. Fritz the Cat who has been doing so well, ate very heartily in the morning. He was in high spirits and even jumped over me to get into a closet with loose fiberglass insulation. Which scared me and led me to yell at him, probably for the first and only time since he got sick. Something I vowed never to do again, since I realized how pointless and ridiculous it is to yell at him. I tried to justify the anger because I was trying to “protect”him. But that won’t stand up to scrutiny after A Course in Miracles. “There is nothing to fear,” I reminded myself.

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” – Yoda

As the day wore on, and I was immersed in hatred, self-righteousness, and judgment, Fritz the Cat’s condition deteriorated. He stopped eating. He had diarrhea again. I lowered the amount of fluids that I gave him, but they still lingered in pockets of fluid in his arm. Over-hydrated. And by the middle of the night, he seemed almost lifeless. Needless to say, it scared the shit out of me.

So at 4 a.m., panicking, I had a choice. I could force Fritz unwillingly into his carrier, rush once again to the emergency vet, many miles away, and spend hundreds more dollars having Fritz the Cat poked and prodded and traumatized. Or I could solve the problem myself.

I reached for A Course in Miracles, which I did so many times when Fritz the Cat was in the hospital and in the weeks after he got home. I opened to the Table of Contents of the Lessons, and I started EFT tapping my way through the titles of the 365 lessons – one for each day of the year. I told Fritz the Cat that he is the Holy Son of God Himself, that he cannot be sick, hurt, or die, that he is invulnerable. And I reminded myself over and over and over again that I have invented the world I see. And that I can escape from the world I see by giving up attack thoughts.

Toward the end of this tapping marathon, seeing little improvement in Fritz’s condition, I suddenly had an intuition. After I had seethed with rage the day before, refusing to forgive this person, telling myself over and over again “I can’t forgive him, I will never forgive him” … I happened to see a post in my Facebook newsfeed:

“You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

Bingo. Suddenly the connection was very clear between my unforgiving thoughts about this man and Fritz the Cat’s health. So I tapped that some more, and then I finally turned everything over to the angels and fell asleep, exhausted.

About two hours later, I woke up to go to the bathroom. I was elated when Fritz followed me into the bathroom, with his big bushy tail wagging, as if nothing had ever happened.

He did not start eating again right away, at least not very much. But he still had the fluid pouch on his arm so I went back to sleep again with intention that he would eat more when I woke again. Which he did.

As the new day wore on, I could still feel some of the anger and unforgiving attitude from the day before. But there was a new humility present, a new understanding of how important it is for me to forgive this person.

My ego had the upper hand in the conversation yesterday, but my Higher Self had the upper hand today. “You know, Erika, it is only hurting you and those you love when you don’t forgive. There’s really nothing in it for you.” The ego’s arguments for holding on to the anger no longer seemed persuasive. “What could it hurt to try it out? You could always go back to being unforgiving if it doesn’t give you the benefit you seek.”

“I can’t forgive,” my ego argued back. “I can’t forgive until the wrong has been corrected.”

“Hmmm,” said my Higher Self. “What if it works the other way around? What if it’s your failure to forgive that is blocking it from being corrected.”

Bingo. The ego fell silent. A bittersweet sadness washed away the anger.

I walked through my day after this in a different space.

One of my customers shared that he had fallen on hard times. He asked for a refund. My policy strictly bars refunds. Yet I found a new compassion within myself about the situation. And amazingly, I found a way to stay in integrity with myself about my no-refund policy and also give him the help he desperately needs right now. I even felt deeply grateful to him, because he has kept his subscription current with me for an entire year to support me even when he did not keep up with the commitment to tap the videos.

At the hardware store, a store employee asked if I wanted help. Normally I would have brushed him off and said “I’m just looking.” But suddenly I realized he really could help me, and indeed it turned out what I was looking for was across the store in a place I never would have found it. He not only took me to the right place, he also carried the heavy box back to my cart.

At the grocery store, the checkout line got hung up with some confusion. I was feeling exhausted from the night before, dehydrated, and impatient. Yet somehow through all that, I brushed aside the ego’s temptation to be angry at the clerk and the people she was trying to help. Suddenly I saw how beautiful it was that the clerk, who probably is making little more than minimum wage, was going out of her way to connect personally with each of her customers. I found myself no longer minding the long wait, just grateful that she was taking such care in her job. And sure enough when it came my turn, she was friendly and compassionate, and she went out of her way to find someone to help me get the heavy bags to the car.

I thought of a dating coach who has repeatedly irked me by being extremely judgmental, abrupt, and rude, and offering unsolicited advice and commentary on topics about which she has no understanding. And of course now reined in by my Higher Self, I had to admit, “well, of course, I have often been just like her.”

On the drive home, I narrowly missed hitting a squirrel. I avoided hitting it by being alert and slamming on the brakes. I felt so happy that the squirrel got safely off the road and had another chance to live. And then I noticed a dead squirrel around the next curve. My ego was right there, ready to be angry. “How can people be so careless? It’s so easy to be alert and not hit animals on the road.” Then I heard my Higher Self gently remind me, “I trust my brothers, who are one with me.” If a driver other than “me” hits a squirrel and kills it, that can only happen because I projected it. And my mistrust of other people is allowing it to continue to happen. So I must stop separating myself from others through my judgments. If all the squirrels are to get safely across the road, I must say, over and over again, “I trust my brothers, who are one with me.” I must envision all of them driving carefully and compassionately.

I felt grateful for the email I received from my yoga instructor (who is now, also my customer, just as my acupuncturist became one of my customers). She happily told me that Conant from Nightingale-Conant is now promoting A Course in Miracles to his entire list. I have done a LOT of tapping over the past few months to let go of my unforgiving thoughts that wanted to keep me stuck in separation, thinking that other people would NEVER get it about how powerful this book is. And now, lo and behold, A Course in Miracles is going mainstream …

Yes, we really are that powerful.

When I got home from these trips to the store, I came inside very excited to see my kitties. There was Fritz the Cat at the top of the stairs, just waking up from a nap and happy to greet me. He had not eaten the food I left for him, but as I sat with him and loved him, he ate the whole plate before my very eyes. Then I put out a plate for my other cat Harvey. While I was not looking, Fritz scampered down, bumped Harvey out of the way, and ate his plate, too. I used to get angry about that, because it was “breaking my rules.” Can you believe it? As if my rules are understandable to anyone. This time I laughed, so incredibly grateful he was eating and spirited enough to playfully bump Harvey out of the way. And I got Harvey another plate of food.

“I am the light of the world.”

“The light has come. I have forgiven you, ___________.”

Love,

Erika Awakening, High Priestess of Miracles at TAPsmarter