I am blessed as a Son of God.
1. Today we begin to affirm some of the happy things to which you are entitled, being what you are.I
²Long practice periods are not required today, but very frequent short ones are necessary.
³A practice every ten minutes is highly recommended, and you are urged to try to adhere to this schedule whenever possible.II
⁴If you forget, try again.
⁵If there are long interruptions, try again.
⁶Whenever you remember, try again.
2. You do not need to close your eyes for the exercises, although it will probably be more beneficial if you do.
²However, you may be in situations throughout the day where closing your eyes would not be appropriate.
³Do not miss a practice period because of this.
⁴You can practice quite well under almost any circumstance, if you really want to.
3. Today’s exercises require very little time and no effort.
²Repeat today’s idea and then add several attributes you associate with being a Son of God, applying them to yourself.
³One practice might, for example, go like this:
⁴I am blessed as a Son of God.
⁵I am happy, peaceful, loving, and content.III
⁶Another might be:
⁷I am blessed as a Son of God.
⁸I am calm and quiet, assured and confident.
4. If only a brief period is available, merely tell yourself that you are blessed as a Son of God.
I Your blessed condition as a Child of God is not a desideratum—it is simply the truth. You are a Child of God because God created you, and therefore you are blessed. Yet this is not at all obvious to you. You think something very different, and the opinion you hold about yourself is rather poor. Not only do you not love yourself, you feel a deep aversion toward yourself. The idea you harbor about yourself is so terrible that it fills you with panic and unbearable shame to share it with others. That is why you do not want to open your mind and truly communicate; instead, you keep it private, even though you do not like what it contains at all.
The most curious part of this situation is that you have never asked yourself whether all that you think about yourself is true. You have never questioned that opinion. You believe that the evaluation you make of yourself is perfectly honest, but you never question your capacity to make it.
Your confusion about your identity arises from the fact that you have indeed witnessed terrible thoughts passing through your mind—sometimes filled with hatred, cruelty, and utter mercilessness. Yet you have never questioned their authorship; you have taken for granted that those were “your” thoughts, and this is not true. What you have heard within has been the voice of your ego—but you are not your ego. In your confusion, you have subscribed to those fearful thoughts and assumed them as your own. That has been your mistake.
You are the holy Child of God, the pure Love of your Father, absolutely innocent and beyond any idea of sin. Yet within you, you can hear two voices offering completely opposite teachings. The Voice of the Holy Spirit always tells you the truth, and the ego always lies. You have no voice of your own, for you have nothing to say; you are the Child of God, and your function is to create, not to speak.
Therefore, in this dream of the world, and in your confusion in believing you are a person, your only freedom is to choose which voice you want to listen to. But understand this: you will never be what the ego says you are. Even if you decide to hear and heed its voice, you will still remain the holy Child of God.
Today, before beginning the practice, open your mind to the possibility that you have been completely wrong. It is not necessary that you recognize this perfectly; simply be receptive to the possibility, begin the practice, and trust.
II Notice that you are being asked to repeat today’s idea about a hundred times throughout the day.
This lesson is about exercising your will—the will to consider yourself blessed. Here you are not being asked to believe that you are blessed as the Child of God; you are being asked to want to believe it. That is enough. It is the most you can do. You cannot be required to believe something, but you can be required to want to believe it. With these repetitions, you are being asked to make a profession of faith.
Many students feel dishonest when practicing this lesson (and others like it) because they do not feel what they are saying. What they must understand is that it is not necessary to believe or feel it, but it is essential that they want to believe and feel it.
Remember the Introduction to this Workbook: “It is not necessary that you believe the ideas. It is not necessary that you accept them. And it is not necessary that you welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of this will matter, or reduce their efficacy. But do not allow yourself to make exceptions in applying the ideas. Whatever your reaction to the ideas may be, use them. Nothing more than that is required.” (W-In.7)
This is the key: the practice is not about instantly reaching a specific mental state. It is about opening the door, even just a little, to the possibility that what the Course says is true. Repetition is not meant to force you into belief, but to create a space in your mind where a new perception can gently settle.
Each time you repeat the idea, even if you neither feel it nor believe it, you are planting a seed. With time, patience, and willingness, that seed will grow—not because you forced it, but because you allowed it. Willingness is the fertile soil in which miracles take root.
III In the next Lesson you will find this warning: “Think about what you are saying, about the meaning of the words” (W-41.9:2). This instruction is especially important when you make statements about yourself. It is not enough to understand intellectually what the words say; it is also essential to feel what they express. Only when thought and emotion unite does the practice become truly transformative.
Isn’t it true that when you reproach yourself you feel bad? That happens because thought and emotion have aligned, but in a negative direction. In the same way, when you introduce into your mind a positive idea about yourself—a true idea—it must be accompanied by the feeling that corresponds to it and by the inner certainty that it is real.
We can understand these declarations as the integration of three fundamental elements:
MEANING + EMOTION + CERTAINTY
Thus, when you say to yourself, for example, “I am peaceful,” you must clearly understand what it means to live from peace, allow yourself to feel the calm and expansiveness that peace generates, and affirm yourself with conviction in that truth, at least in that moment. Only then will the idea cease to be a phrase and become a living experience.