My birthday is usually around Thanksgiving, and this year, as it often is, it’s on Thanksgiving. So, for me, Thanksgiving is inextricably tied to my birthday.

I’ve used Thanksgiving to accelerate our family’s healing. I might not have been aware at the surface level that’s what I was doing, but it definitely was occurring – and sometimes healing is messy and not very much fun.

I’ve had my family eat my birthday cake without me – when I was just in the next room, they didn’t even bother to call me to join them as they ate my cake. Yes, it’s true.

I’ve had my best friends in the whole world not wish me a happy birthday and completely forget it was my birthday.

I’ve organized things to celebrate my birthday with friends and with family, on different occasions, and everyone bailed on me.

And, I’ve learned to get over it all.

I’ve also ruined many a family holiday because I got triggered and got so angry that I just destroyed any possibility of a good time. I’ve even done it when everyone came to my house and I cooked the turkey.

I used to believe that because I got so triggered, so intensely and so frequently, that there was no hope for me to have good relationships. It seemed perfectly impossible to me. I really felt hopeless.

But I didn’t give up. I may have wanted to throw in the towel on my family, but I didn’t.

Along the way, I’ve learned that I wasn’t helpless even when I felt like I was.
I learned to do what I now call PARTNERING UP.
I learned to pray, effectively and with great sincerity and prayers work.

Prayers REALLY work, but you do have to pray effectively and then be willing to accept the answered prayer.

For example, when my precious Mom was so sick, I prayed to release all blocks to Love between us so that we could be completely in the flow of Love before she left this world. I was so intent on it.

Spirit gave me the opportunity to go to Maine to visit my parents many times in the last years of my Mom’s life and to spend more time with her.

On one visit, it was planned that I would go for two weeks to take my Mom to her radiation sessions four days a week. The drive alone was a three hour round trip from the island where my parents lived, and the hospital. It took more than four hours to do the whole trip, and it was winter time, so we often took longer because of snow and ice.

My mother had about a month of treatments, so I took the middle two weeks to spare my father having to do all the driving.

It was a grey, wintery bleak time, but I found stand up comedy and audio books and things that I thought my Mom and I could enjoy together and listen to.

During those two weeks I had made a commitment to myself that I wasn’t going to judge my mother for anything no matter what. I was going to completely Love and accept her. This was my big opportunity to have healing.

There were times when I’d have to go into the bedroom, shut the door, and get down on my knees to pray to release all the judgments rolling around in my head.

This is when I learned that Higher Holy Spirit Self really would take the thoughts out of my mind if I was sincerely wishing to let them go. I had so much mental healing in that time.

I prayed and prayed and prayed to give up the need to be right. I prayed to release every trigger and every unhealed resentment and regret.

I didn’t realize it then, but now I know that I punished my Mom for tolerating a lot of my anger and upset. I felt so guilty for being mean to her and saying mean things.

That guilt turned into fear and frustration that I couldn’t find a way out. If she had pushed back, and been able to help me with it more, that would have been great – but that was not my path of learning.

I had to learn to rely on Spirit to show me

I had to really focus and pay attention and learn the way out. I see now that everything I learn I get to share in my classes and help people with it step-by-step.

I had to give up all blame in order to get out the hole I’d dug for myself.
I had to rely up on Spirit and find my way into my loving heart because Love is the only healer and the only way out.

It felt so impossible to me, but I couldn’t bear the pain of failure anymore.
I was determined to see.
I had to believe that Spirit would lead me.
I had to learn to trust in God rather than my own opinions and perceptions.

In that two weeks of radiation treatments I focused on total acceptance and Love of my mother. I put everything I had into releasing the judgments and seeing with God’s eyes.

I practiced being the one who went first with Love and I prayed and prayed and prayed.

At the end of the visit, I was leaving to go back home to Los Angeles, my mother said she thought this was the nicest visit we ever had.

We spent 2 weeks of driving half the day back and forth to radiation sessions in the cold grey winter snow and mess and it was the nicest visit we ever had. Why? Because I focused on eliminating the blocks to Love and just loved without attachment.

For years to think of it would bring tears to my eyes, because I still had a little bit of sadness for all of the opportunities to be loving that I missed.

But I don’t look back except to continue to harvest the wisdom and move forward with more Love and more Love and more Love.

We can all be the fulcrum point of healing in our family.
We can all rely upon the Spirit for our healing.
We can all practice non-judgment.

It requires no longer giving Love and acceptance in order to get anything back. We must give without attachment.

No need for recognition or appreciation.

We give Love because it’s our divine opportunity to be our true self and be truly helpful.

It all gets so much easier to practice when we forgive ourselves for our perceived debts and our trespasses.

I had to forgive myself for all the things I felt guilty about so I was no longer feeling horrible about myself. Self-forgiveness is the only way.

And that’s why we offer FREE Forgiveness Letter workshops – and there’s one today. Click here to register now.

No matter how far gone things may seem in our relationships, Spirit knows the way back to Love if we’re willing, and even if we’ve never been there.

If we’re willing, Spirit will show us the way.

I’ve been a student and teacher of the Science of Mind, and A Course in Miracles for decades, and ACIM teaches that forgiveness offers everything we want and we’re entitled to miracles. This is probably unlike any forgiveness you’ve experienced before – it’s so fast-acting.

This is a big part of our focus in my year-long Masterful Living Program which starts in January. We’re real people experiencing real miracles. Register now and get my DEEP DIVE WORKSHOP – Grieving Through the Holidays as a BONUS! Plus my New Year’s Reboot is a bonus! If you’re SO ready to shift into a miraculous life, then consider joining Masterful Living.

MY LATEST ACIM PODCAST EPISODE: my topic is Perception is a Choice. Misperception is a cause of great suffering in this world. We often feel that life is happening to us, but that’s not the case. This basic teaching in ACIM is deeply healing when we apply it and have a willingness to change our mind. In this episode I share experience of moving out of the habit of choosing suffering and choosing to listen to the Voice for God. Transformation happens when we can make a higher choice. We’re in this together and we can lean upon each other!

Lastly, today is Sundays With Spirit (now at 5pm eastern) and I’ll be sharing about family healing. Let’s get inspired together with inspirational music too!