Surrender · “Let Go to Receive”
Choosing Love Over Fear
In any charged moment, catch the fear-based reaction and deliberately choose the loving perception and response instead, asking what Love would have you do.
In one line: When a fearful reaction fires, catch it, name it as fear, pause and ask “what would Love have me do?”, choose the loving perception first, then act — even while the fear is still there. Repeat, moment to moment.
What it is
A core practice of Jayem’s The Way of Mastery: in any moment of reaction — irritation, anxiety, defensiveness, judgment — you recognize that you are operating from fear, and you deliberately choose love instead.
The teaching’s premise is stark: there are only two voices in the mind, fear (the ego, self-protection) and Love, and you are always choosing between them. Awakening, in this framing, is not a single event but a long string of small choices to “choose the Voice for Love moment to moment.” Unlike a purely intellectual decision, it is meant as a felt reorientation: dropping the survival stance and asking, in effect, what would Love have me do here? It belongs with the surrender/release family — you are letting go of the fearful grip rather than fighting the situation.
The Method
- Catch the reaction. Notice the moment a fear-based charge arises — defensiveness, blame, anxiety, the urge to control or attack. The catching is the practice; you cannot choose until you see.
- Name it as fear. Recognize that the reaction, whatever its form, is the ego’s self-protection (“only Love is Real”). This is not self-criticism — just honest labeling.
- Pause and ask. Instead of acting from the reaction, ask the question the teaching keeps returning to — “What would you have me do?” — i.e., what does Love want here, rather than fear-based self-survival.
- Choose the loving perception first. Before any outward act, shift how you are seeing the moment: as an opportunity to extend love rather than defend a self. The Way of Mastery insists the inner choice precedes the outer one.
- Then act — even with fear present. You need not wait for fear to vanish. The teaching is explicit that you can feel fear and still choose the loving action; courage is choosing Love while afraid, not the absence of fear.
- Repeat, endlessly and gently. This is a “moment to moment” discipline, not a one-time fix; each choice strengthens the habit. (Sourcing note: faithful paraphrase with short identifying phrases quoted; no extended copyrighted text reproduced.)
Source & Lineage
From Jayem (Jon Marc Hammer), The Way of Mastery — the Christ Mind Trilogy (Way of the Heart / Transformation / Knowing), presented as lessons channeled from “Jeshua” beginning in 1987.
The love-vs-fear choice is the operative heart of the A Course in Miracles lineage that the Way of Mastery restates in a warmer, experiential register.; ACIM lineage (Schucman, Williamson, Renard). Distinct in this library from Renard’s true forgiveness (a look-it’s-unreal forgiveness drill) and Williamson’s daily Workbook lesson: this technique is the upstream, general choose-love-now move that those forgiveness practices specialize.
Common refinements
Spiritual bypassing. “Just choose love” used to skip a genuine feeling becomes suppression — pair this with the feel-the-feeling practice (below) so love is chosen through the emotion, not over it.
- Forcing a feeling. You are choosing a perception and action, not manufacturing warm feelings on command.
- Self-attack on the catch. Noticing fear is the win, not a failure; harshness just adds more fear.
- Overriding real danger. Fear that signals actual threat is information — act safely first; this practice is for reactive, not protective, fear.