My mother and I had a difficult relationship most of my life.

When she received a terminal cancer diagnosis, I determined that she wouldn’t leave this world until all of that had been resolved between us. The only way I knew that could happen was if I completely turned it over to Spirit. Working that practice around the clock, for years, is what really transformed my mind.

Understandably, my brother, my father and my mother got very worried. They kept imagining she was going to die soon, soon, soon.

That’s the negative use of the imagination. Imagining the worst, over and over again, and generating an ever-increasing spiral of distress.

I didn’t hold that vision of despair.

I knew the power of the mind, so I kept envisioning her getting healthier and stronger and more vibrant, and I kept imagining that our relationship was becoming more loving and more peaceful.

That took time, energy and attention, and it took great willingness.

I’d like to be honest about the part that wasn’t graceful.

There were many times when I felt frustrated with my mother’s choices. I thought she wasn’t making the healthiest ones. She shouldn’t eat that cake. She shouldn’t have that bourbon, that chocolate. I had opinions and judgments about all of it, and I shared them with her.

One day my brother said to me, very angry, that I had to stop saying what I thought about mom’s doctors and the choices she was making. She was putting her faith and trust in those doctors, and if I undermined that, it wasn’t helpful.

I realized he was right.

If she had faith in her treatment, that faith would override the physical experience.

Why would I keep imagining that something wouldn’t be good for her?

We are not a body. A Course in Miracles gives us Lesson 199: “I am not a body. I am free.”

All the negativity I was holding about her illness wasn’t protecting her from anything. The text warns us that “You are much too tolerant of mind wandering,” and mind wandering is precisely what I was doing. My work was to hold the vision of wholeness, and to know that my mother was divinely guided, guarded and protected.

Here’s the piece that reached the deepest.

Every single time I got triggered, it wasn’t about what was happening now. It was about my belief system.

My belief system wasn’t my mother’s fault. I didn’t need to project it onto her, and she didn’t deserve that. Even if she’d projected hers onto me my whole life, she still didn’t deserve me doing it back to her.

That’s when it became a time of mind cleansing, giving the trash in my mind to the Higher Holy Spirit Self, as many times as it took.

It can take a couple of years to reach that tipping point, and that used to bother me until I thought it through. If this takes a few years, that’ll be the best possible use of my next few years, because it will bring peace to my mind.

If worry about someone you love has become the weather of your life, that’s the healing we do together in my Finding Freedom From Fear spiritual bootcamp program.

The trigger is never the person in front of us. It’s the belief system we’re still carrying, and it can be handed over and healed.

SEPTEMBER: My Finding Freedom From Fear Bootcamp is 90 days of moving out of coping and into real trust, faith and listening to the higher wisdom, together.  This is my longest running program – popular because it is such a game changer.  Are you up for truly moving past fear?  I only offer this once per year – We start in September!  Click here now to learn more now.

SEPTEMBER: How about some free classes with great ACIM teachers?  Living A Course in Miracles: Release the Worry, Rest in Trust is open for registration now!  Worry isn’t natural. It’s a habit, and habits can be dissolved when we’re truly willing. That’s what we’re doing together September 10 through 13 in my FREE series. 5 teachers, 8 classes, 4 days, and every one of us has walked through the worry ourselves and come out the other side. We’ll look at what worry actually is in the mind, why willpower has never once dissolved it, and how to hand the future over so we can rest even while life is still unresolved. Not denial. Not pretending we’re fine. A real change of mind. It’s FREE, and I’d love to have you with us. Register now so you don’t forget at powerofloveministry.net/Release

NEW PODCAST EPISODE: I Took God to Couples Therapy with Neda Boin.  We can put ourselves through so much and call it devotion. The harder it gets, the more committed we think we are. Neda Boin lived that for years, and when she finally sat down with God about it, what surfaced wasn’t the thing she’d been trying to fix. It was sitting one layer underneath, and it’s the layer almost none of us look at. If you’re forgiving faithfully and peace still hasn’t come, this is the one I’d like you to hear.

TODAY:  Sundays with Spirit – join for inspirational music and message. Totally FREE – all are welcome – register to get the zoom details for today.