A Course in Miracles has loads to say about specialness and special relationship. Most of it basically negative because specialness is of the ego, it is the core of separation and therefore is a constant ingredient of any problems we have, especially any problems that are around conflict.

Most of us are in denial about the levels and frequencies of our conflict; when you are in a conflict you are being right, in fact you know you are right. You don’t feel in conflict because when you are being right about something that is just it. You are right and they are wrong and they are conflicted: the end!

Once we get ourselves past our denial we begin to recognise just how much conflict we have going on in our lives and we see people trying to deprive us, to take from us, to hurt us, again and again.

At some point we might take up a healing path and begin to address our problems and our conflicts. To start with we make what seems like good progress and become better and better people; in fact many of us become nice or sometimes even touch on harmlessness. However the longer we work on our issues the slower the progress becomes so we might change our healing model or turn it into a business. Either way progress becomes increasingly slower. We learn great principles and often have amazing insights but profound change eludes us. We headed out on a healing path and just arrived at a state of depression. It is as if we have all the answers but none of the solutions, we know there is a much better world but we are blind to it.

One of the many great principles we learn but find so difficult to put into everyday practice is accountability, which simply says NO ONE CAN HURT YOU. Taken to its depths this means this world cannot hurt you, your perceived enemy cannot hurt you, your partner cannot hurt you; only YOU can hurt you. Many teachings state this principle in different ways: mystics speak of the truth of accountability and wise ones laugh at our struggle with it.

So why is it so difficult to accept? Why is this so challenging to the world we have created, why does this principle fly in the face of everything we have been taught? The answer seems to be that it confronts our specialness. While we worship at the altar of how special we are, it is almost impossible to accept our accountability. Our specialness locks us into our victim stances, tells us that the guilt and sins of others are true, and drives our authority conflict like steam drives a locomotive. Specialness creates enemies and is the foundation of competition, which in turn sets up a world of win/lose, an issue more serious to our survival than climate change!

We are all constantly confronted with our patterns of specialness that lie at the heart of all our issues. Day after day we are presented with the choice of specialness or our healing journey back to oneness, a choice between hurting or healing. If we don’t give up our specialness and the belief that we can be hurt, then in the resulting fear we will hurt others. Our attempts to escape this by becoming a victim only reinforce this cycle of attacked and attacking, as victims are driven by specialness.

It all changes when we begin to recognise that the people around us are offering us the keys to happiness. Our brothers and our sisters are the doorway to a life of joy and success and the only thing that stands between us is our own desire for specialness dressed up in a multitude of different forms.

Today, reach out for someone you believe has hurt you in some way, for to heal is the recognition of the truth that we are the only ones who can hurt ourselves.

With love,

Jeff and Sue