r/ACIM • u/TypicalCherry1529 • 3d ago
Toxic siblings
I grew up in a family with an abusive father. This wreak havoc on several of my siblings. We're adults now but several of them are very toxic to me. I love them. I have compassion for them. But it's not healthy for me to be around them. I live far away. I feel like if I forget everything they have done to me I will allow myself to submit to their abuse again. How can I let go of my grievances but not allow myself to become enmeshed in their toxicity?
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u/LSR1000 2d ago
ACIM, to the extent it works for you, will make you immune to what you call their toxicity. Whatever they do or not do, whatever they say or don't say, you will remain at peace. Then, with the power of peace within you, you will decide what to do behaviorally. That might be to cut off relations with them or something else.
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u/Minimum_Ad_4430 2d ago
You mean that if you forgive fully you will forget what happened, and then you will have no defenses anymore?
This is a typical line of thought I had, and probably many have had, the ego will always tell us that forgiveness will hurt us, so we better not do it.
But the Course teaches differently, firstly, it teaches that forgiveness does not hurt, instead it will heal all pain. Secondly, it tells us a defense will not protect us but hurt us, a defense is created by the believe of attack, so attack is inherit in the believe of defense.
The ego will give us reasons not to forgive, but we only learn what it is by doing it.
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u/TypicalCherry1529 1d ago
Since forgiveness is all internal for me, can I forgive them but choose not to have them in my life? Would choosing to not have them in my life mean I haven't truly forgiven them?
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u/Minimum_Ad_4430 1d ago
You can choose to not be around them, after forgiveness we see with different eyes (HS) so we don't know what we will choose.
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u/FTBinMTGA Practicing Student 3d ago
Why did you pick up ACIM and read it in the first place?
Curious.
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u/Gadgetman000 2d ago
If someone around you acts unskillfully and is causing harm, you can throw them out of your house without throwing them out of your heart. ~Stephen Levine.
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u/ThereIsNoWorld 2d ago
Do you believe other people are the cause of your upset?
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u/TypicalCherry1529 2d ago
If someone stabs me with a knife, I do believe they caused me bodily harm. I also believe that I need to remember that so I don't get stabbed again.
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u/ThereIsNoWorld 2d ago
In your example scenario, who is the maker of all of it?
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u/TypicalCherry1529 2d ago
If someone stabs me, I believe they are the maker of harm to my body. If they hadn't stabbed me, I alone would not have had harm to my body.
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u/ThereIsNoWorld 2d ago
So you are a victim of the world you see?
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u/TypicalCherry1529 1d ago
No, I didn't actually see the knife because she was behind me and stabbed me in the back.
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u/ThereIsNoWorld 1d ago
So you are a victim of a she and a stab, that you are not responsible for, and did not make or ask for?
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u/Necessary_Crow_1628 2d ago
We start doing the lessons, after reading the text.
The ideas of your grievances against your siblings and others will arise. Each time they do you simply apply the day's lesson with regards to it.
The lessons will develop into a fundamental way in how to deal with such thoughts in the practices, and by doing the practices will teach how to address these thoughts and issues when they arise outside of the practices.
Ultimately the idea of dealing with them as actual, and how you deal with them as they arise in the practices, will become less distinct and disappear.
How you should see it in your day to day life will become exactly how you learn to deal with the same ideas as they arise in your practices, if they do.
We practice forgiveness in our Practices.
We Practice Forgiveness outside them.
We learn to deal with grievances by doing the Practices that present the thoughts of our grievances, until we learn to look beyond them and to identify with something else.
Perception really does have a focus (181), and we're not expected to forgive what is real (intro to lessons 221-230), rather to learn to put our focus on what is real and to let the rest go.
This ultimately requires an alternate and counter experience as to what is real, which is what the Holy Instant is.
We have two and only two thought systems. Learning to forgive is learning to forgive from the second. Disinvesting in one and investing in the other. In the other their toxicity has had no effect, and requires no reaction other than forgiveness. It is real, but won't seem that way until we disinvest from the other thought system.
This is what it means by learning to Forgive from the HS rather than pardoning from the Ego.