Thought for the day - It isn't about you. Don't worry. Be happy.

"In the car, on the way home, Denise cries softly in the front seat. Casey wishes like hell she would stop. She loves her, but Denise's years of being a single mother have forged in her a finely honed martyr complex, and she tends to view everyone's problems as being there simply to increase her own immeasurable burden.


"Jesus, Mom, will you give it a rest?"

"I'm sorry that my teenage daughter's pregnancy is upsetting to me."

"Have you considered the possibility that it's upsetting to me, too?"

Jonathan Tropper, One Last Thing Before I Go, p. 85.

How easy it is to see our self as a victim. In A Course In Miracles, it points out that these victim thoughts are illusions of our ego.

It says in Lesson 102 in ACIM:

"Today we try to loose its weakened hold still further, and to realize that pain is purposeless, without a cause and with no power to accomplish anything. It cannot purchase anything at all. It offers nothing, and does not exist. And everything you think it offers you is lacking in existence, like itself. You have been slave to nothing. Be you free today to join the happy Will of God."

It says a little further in the Lesson:

"You have no need to be less loving to God's son that He Whose Love created him as loving as Himself."

And what fuels thoughts and feelings of victimhood is fear. Fear obscures our awareness of Love's presence. Denise was fearful for herself as she considered being the mother of an 18 year old pregnant daughter. Denise's fears blocked her awareness of her daughter's well being and preferences. Her daughter, Casey, points this out to her. How would you guess she responded? How would you respond if someone pointed out that your fears are blocking your ability to empathize with someone else's state of mind?  It is interesting to watch how quickly someone else's drama becomes all about us.

At any rate Bobby McFerrin has it right when he sings his song, "Don't worry. Be Happy."