I can choose to change all thoughts that hurt me.
1. Loss is not loss when it is truly seen.
²Pain is impossible.
³No sorrow has any cause.I
⁴And every kind of suffering is nothing but a dream.
⁵This is the truth.
⁶At first, it is stated without conviction.
⁷Then, after much repetition, it is partially accepted as true, though with many reservations.
⁸Yet gradually, it is taken more and more seriously.
⁹And finally, it is accepted as the truth.
¹⁰I can choose to change all thoughts that hurt me.
¹¹And today, I want to go beyond mere words.
¹²I want to move past all my reservations.
¹³And I want to fully accept the truth they hold.
2. Father,
what You have given me cannot harm me in any way.
²Therefore, sorrow and pain must be absolutely impossible.
³Let me not fail to trust in You today.
⁴Let me accept only the joyful as the gifts You have given me,
and let me accept as true only what brings me happiness.
I Acknowledge one thing: you only ever react to what you tell yourself. For you, to know something means to listen to what you say to yourself about it. You look within, absorbed in your thoughts, and narrate stories that you imagine. You open your eyes, look at the “external” world, and again tell yourself stories about what you believe you see.
Admit it: you are a storyteller. Then you tell yourself that what you’ve told is true—and you believe it. And that is what you call “living.”
The most peculiar thing about all this is not the stories themselves, but the fact that you always think they are true, even though you have already seen countless times that many of them were false, and the rest are yet to be proven.
Nothing you tell yourself is true; all your stories are fantasies. What you hear is the voice of the ego, and in that way you will never know the Truth.
The Truth is not a narration—it is direct experience, the experience of Being, of existing—and that lies beyond all words.
Even when you hear the Voice of the Holy Spirit, you are not hearing the Truth in its fullness, but rather the most benevolent and helpful interpretation of the dream that still affects you.
No story, however holy it may seem, can convey to you what you are, because the Truth cannot be “told”; it must be recognized and experienced. That is why no one can ever tell you who you are: you are the Truth, and the Truth can only be being.
Understand that all suffering arises from these false stories with which you feed your mind. It is hard for you to accept that you cannot lose anything, that pain does not exist, and that all suffering is but a fantasy, because you still identify with a body that seems to live in a changing world full of threats. That identification is the dream of separation. But you have absolute power—the power to grant yourself whatever thoughts you wish, and to withdraw them when you see that they harm you.
In fact, you already do this all the time, though unconsciously. Today, you are simply invited to do it deliberately. Watch your mind—but do more than observe: take responsibility for what you think. Dismiss without hesitation any thoughts tinged with fear or anger, for they serve you not at all. Do not tolerate them; they steal your peace and darken your heart. And in their place, confidently ask for a new interpretation—the clear vision of the Holy Spirit. He will always answer, and His response may come as great relief or merely a whisper of comfort, but it will be enough to remind you that you are not alone.
The more you practice this, the faster your ability will grow to release painful interpretations. Your mental training consists in learning to choose again, over and over, until the day comes when your mind, by habit, no longer tolerates thoughts that harm you. That will be the beginning of the real world: when, even within the dream, you have learned to dream happily.
Father, today I choose firmly to change every thought that causes me pain and to open my mind to the light of Your Love.