I used to go skiing on a regular basis. I love it, even though I haven’t done it in a while. I’ll never forget how often I found myself in places where I literally could have died.
Skiing can be very dangerous. You turn a corner and there it is. Oh, no. It’s a double black diamond, and I am not a black diamond person. And there’s no way out but to go down.
Sometimes the path was so narrow you could easily fall off the side of the mountain. Seriously. Especially in places like the Alps.
So I’d talk to myself the whole way down.
All is well. All is well. All is well. I AM one with the mountain. God loves me. Life loves me. The mountain loves me. All is well. All is well. All is well.
(All is well is a powerful affirmation when there’s fear.)
Did I still feel fear? Yes. When the body is facing a possible death, I’m going to react. That’s natural.
And still, I was telling myself the truth and placing my faith in God.
I didn’t fall off the mountain. I got down every double black diamond I ever encountered. Maybe it wasn’t fun, but I managed it, and I feel more strength for it.
It’s not that we’re being tested. But there’s a part of this spiritual journey all of us go through where we just keep saying Yes! Yes! Yes! even though it feels like a storm, a hurricane, a nightmare, a tornado.
Even in the midst of this, I’m rising above it. Even in the midst of it, I’m safe. All is well.
A Course in Miracles sums itself up in three short sentences:
“Nothing real can be threatened. Nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God.” (T-in.2:2-4)
On that mountain, the body could be threatened. The truth of who I am couldn’t be.
That’s what I was reminding myself of with every turn.
Lesson 48 in the Workbook puts it simply:
“In truth there is nothing to fear.” (W-pI.48.1:3)
It doesn’t say we won’t feel fear.
It says that in truth, there’s nothing TO fear.
The feeling can be there, and the truth is still true.
This is what it means to be vigilant for God. We’re staying alert to the habits of fear. We still remember the truth, even in the face of great challenge.
Not after the challenge. Right in the middle of it.
Every challenge we face is perfectly designed for us to let go of the attachments that cause our fear.
Experiences like this are the opportunity we’re asking for to retrain our mind.
The fear I felt in my body didn’t mean I was failing at my practice. It meant my body was on a steep slope, and that was frightening to me. What mattered was which thought I chose to keep returning to on the way down, again and again.
We don’t have to wait until life is calm to practice. The steep, narrow places where we can’t see around the next turn are exactly where we find out that our Faith holds.
What’s your double black diamond right now? Maybe it’s a pain in the body. Maybe it’s a sense of dread that greets you before your feet touch the floor in the morning.
You can use my affirmation too.
All is well. God loves me. I’m safe, even here. The fear may still speak up. It doesn’t have to steer.
If you’d like company in this journey of retraining the mind, join us in Finding Freedom From Fear, where we learn to stay in Peace on the steepest slopes of life.
We can actually be in a very scary situation and feel completely at Peace. We can!
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