I love A Course in Miracles because it’s a mind-training system that really works.  It has really worked for me – and it continues to bring me benefits every day.   Right now, I feel such a deepening happening.  A greater willingness than ever before is coming forth in my heart.  

Despite all appearances in the world we see, this year will be a year of heart-opening.  We can have our heart’s opened because we’re choosing to Love and be loved, or we can have our heart’s opened through tragedy and sorrow.  Let’s choose the higher, happier path.

One thing that helps is being willing to surrender the need to figure everything out, in order to be led and guided by that Higher Holy Spirit Self.  

To surrender is to give ones self over, to yield, and that can mean vastly different experiences in different situations.  

There’s surrender in a battle or fight, which is giving up and becoming under the power of another, and that could feel degrading.  Unless we like giving up our sovereignty, that would feel like a kind of death to be avoided.

There’s surrender in a sexual sense – to give ones self over and surrendering the melding of that intimacy and connection, which could feel absolutely blissful.  

And then there’s surrender to Spirit, which, to me, is actually a reconnection with Source, a return to perfection and right-mindedness – a giving up of the need to feel separate and special.

The word surrender is not in A Course in Miracles, and yet, what I find appealing right now is to surrender all the ways in which I keep separation going, to make a holy offering of them, and simply follow the instruction in A Course in Miracles, and to keep my attention on this intention.

In the last 12 years, I’ve connected with many thousands of people who’re interested in ACIM.  Many have been studying it far longer than I have, and they’re excited because they’re learning HOW to live A Course in Miracles and it’s such a difference. 

Studying something and applying it are vastly different things.
Reading ACIM and living it are not the same.

Reading books isn’t healing.  
Changing our mind is healing.

Living A Course in Miracles requires that we surrender, or give up, the meaning we’ve made of things so we can realize what everything is actually for and discover the Peace and the Harmony that have always been there, just beyond our vain imaginings.  

This is what I’m interested in: focusing on, surrendering the vain imaginings and and living the truth that sets us free.  

I’m inviting you to consider a new approach to your spiritual life this year.  Consider focusing on living it, day by day, in a non-intellectual, truly heart-felt way.  Studying the truth doesn’t set us free.  Living the truth is liberation!

One of my favorite passages in the Course, that lit me up when I first read it, is this, (T-18.VII.4.)

This course …  aims at saving time.  You may be attempting to follow a very long road to the goal you have accepted.  It is extremely difficult to reach Atonement by fighting against sin.  Enormous effort is expended in the attempt to make holy what is hated and despised.  

Nor is a lifetime of contemplation and long periods of meditation aimed at detachment from the body necessary.  All such attempts will ultimately succeed because of their purpose.  

Yet the means are tedious and very time consuming, for all of them look to the future for release from a state of present unworthiness and inadequacy.

Your way will be different, not in purpose but in means.  A holy relationship is a
means of saving time.

I love this passage because it reminds us that we’re already as holy as holy can be.  We cannot become more holy.  We’re already there, and we’ll know it if we’re willing to “release from a state of present unworthiness” now.  This now.  What’s the mechanism that helps us the most?  Holy relationship as a spiritual practice.

Let’s make this the year we give to Spirit.
Let’s put Spirit first in all things.

Especially in our relationships.

Life becomes a truly beautiful journey when we call Spirit to make our relationships holy, and then actually allow the holiness to be revealed to us.  The transformation is so profoundly beautiful it’s breath-taking – in part, because it’s available to ALL of us.  It’s not only for some special monk on a mountaintop, it’s for everyone.  

And that awareness, that no matter how far we’d fallen in the past, no matter how unloving we’ve been in the past, there is a great Love that is ours to share.  Our willingness is all that’s required.  

An effective spiritual practice, that’s not driven by intellect, is profoundly healing.

Studying spiritual teachings and living them are two different things.  

We can study until we have memorized the teachings, but that won’t heal our relationships.  I learned that the hard way.  Ugh.  I studied for 20 years and still felt unworthy!

When we’re actually willing to focus even a little attention on changing our mind throughout the day, our whole life begins to transform in miraculous ways.  That’s the power of living it.  

This is our year to really live it.  This is the year to give to Spirit.

Even if we think we don’t have what it takes, we do, that’s the lesson I’ve learned, and many of us are learning together.

Here’s the thing, we actually can’t do it on our own.  

We all have a lot more support available to us than we realize, and, unfortunately, many spiritual students are absolutely convinced that it’s better for them to do it on their own.  This was a big issue for me and I see it in many on this path..  

I’ve known MANY people who meditate an hour a day and don’t have the kind of results in a decade that we can have in JUST ONE YEAR when we actually live ACIM.  Why?  Because they’re not doing the mind-training during the day, when things come up and challenge them. And that’s what ACIM is all about – we must actually DO the work at the level of the mind, not just read about it.  

We don’t need to study ACIM.  That would only be a distraction.

We don’t study ACIM, we live it in order to finally and fully walk the talk and live the Love.

It takes a village.  
A holy relationship village.

I’ve learned that it really does make a HUGE difference when we have a community and that’s why I LOVE being part of a global community of like-minded souls.  

I’ve been in spiritual community for more than 30 years and I’ve never experienced anything like what we have in Masterful Living because we’re all focused on actively transforming, being loving, and changing our minds.  It’s a group energy.

The main thing I’d like you to take from this message today is that YOU have everything it takes within you.  If you’re intent on transformation you will be transformed.  That’s what it says in the passage I quoted earlier.  If you’re intent on having healing you will be healed because the willingness is there.  It’s miraculous!  It blows my hair back again and again when I hear people’s miraculous stories!

That ACIM passage also says that many people take the long way around, when they don’t have to.  There are expedient methods.  That’s what we do when we apply the fundamentals of ACIM to really live it and embody it – the healing happens with amazing speed.  Our joy returns.  We remember who we are and who sent us for what purpose.

Now’s the time to lay our foundation – there’s so much we can call forth when we choose to live as though our mind really is the mind of God.  Make this year the year you go for it!  Gather support, have a strong intention.  You don’t need my help, but if you’d like it, here’s how to begin:

Click here now to learn more about Masterful Living.

If Masterful Living is right for you, I trust you will know it when you read what I’ve written on my website.  

Trust your intuition – it will not fail you.
If this feels like it MIGHT be the thing for you this year – follow through.

I would LOVE to have the opportunity to walk step-by-step with you this year if you’d like to join us!

BTW, most participants find that relationship healing is the #2 result they have during the year.  The #1 result is a closer connection to Spirit and a basic spiritual practice that really works for them.  We don’t study ACIM in Masterful Living – we LIVE it.  That’s our focus.  Really truly living it – and you don’t have to even own a copy of the book to learn to live it.  Of course you don’t need my help, but if you think you might be interested in doing it WITH me this year, or even just giving it a try.

I encourage you to consider my year-long Masterful Living Program – give yourself your best chance this year.  So many people in my Masterful Living Program have breathtaking life changes that they never imagined were possible.  If it’s not to your liking, we have a money-back guarantee.

Would you like to have lasting transformation this year? Traveling this path of letting go of the painful past and releasing compulsive fearful thinking is a path of Freedom. Many folks in this Power of Love community are proving it’s possible even when they thought it wasn’t.  Dissolving difficult thought patterns is the kind of work we do in my Masterful Living Program.  

What could you do or accomplish in the coming year that would be more valuable than letting go of the root causes of fear, pain and all suffering?  Why wait?  Why delay?  You will choose it eventually.

If you feel called to join us, follow your intuition.  You can book an Exploratory Call with one of the spiritual counselors to discuss any questions you have about Masterful Living and that’s a free call!  

PODCAST:  The latest episode of my podcast’s topic is Attraction of Guilt: Obstacles to Peace – Part 4.  Let’s heal the belief in unconscious guilt and get the guilt out of our relationships.