OVERVIEW
In your day-to-day life, it is easy to forget the truth of who you actually are – which is Spirit having a human experience. ACIM teaches that you can consciously choose to live from this place of Spirit and release your strong identification with your body and your physical affairs. This can feel challenging when you are experiencing conditions in your physical body and your affairs that keep your attention fixed there. When you are able to make the shift to your Unlimited Spirit, you experience a new sense of freedom. Join us this Sunday as we explore how your spiritual practice can support this shift.
TRANSCRIPTION
So I wanna begin with a story. It’s a story that, you know, it’s the story of the Wizard of Oz. And Dorothy was swept away by a tornado in her house, and when she lands, she discovers that she’s landed on top of the wicked witch of the East, and she’s killed her. But the munchkins are pretty happy that that wicked witch is gone, and they celebrate this, and they give Dorothy the ruby red slippers. And Glenda the good witch, who is my personal favorite, tells Dorothy to follow the yellow brick road to go see the Wizard of Oz, and that maybe he will be able to help her return home. And we know she has traveling companions on her journey. She has the scarecrow who wants a brain. She has the tin man who wants a heart, and she has the lion who wants courage.
And of course, there are obstacles on the journey, right? We got the other wicked witch of the West who’s really pretty mad that her sister got smashed and is dead, and she sure wants those ruby red slippers. And she sends her flying monkeys and many other perilous things to prevent Dorothy from getting to Oz. And what happens when they get to the Emerald City, Oz says to them, I won’t help you until you bring me the broom of the wicked witch of the West. So she and her companions, they go back out and they go and they get the broom. And of course, you know, the witch melts, right? It’s highlight of the story. And they go back to Oz <laugh>. Connie’s laughing at me right now. <laugh>, this is the hero’s journey. Thank you, Michael <laugh>. But they get to Oz and they find out that the wizard is actually a fraud.
He’s behind a curtain and he’s, you know, bellowing out commands, but he, he’s actually a fraud. And so he can’t really solve the problem. So they decide they’re gonna go off in this balloon. And I think Toto hopped out of the balloon. That’s how Dorothy didn’t end up being in the balloon. And the wizard takes off without her, the fake wizard. And then, you know, of course, you know how it, it ends. Glenda comes down, she says to Dorothy, you always had exactly what you needed. Just Michael’s clicking his feet for me. Click your feet together and say, there’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. And then she wakes up in her bed, and of course, she’s surrounded by her loved ones who had shown up in the dream as different characters. But this story of Dorothy is a great metaphor for our own spiritual amnesia.
We go life, and we’re looking for things on the outside. We think that there’s a cure on the outside for us, for whatever’s going on in our life. And when we get whatever that is, whether it’s a person or a thing, or a life looks a certain way, then we’re gonna be okay, then we’re gonna be good, then we’re gonna be at peace, then we’re gonna be happy. The truth is just like Dorothy, we already have what we need. That’s the truth. And our work spiritually is to recognize that this world of form is kind of like Oz, right? It’s an illusion, it’s a fantasy. And that which is real is beyond that. Of course, in miracles says spiritual amnesia is forgetting our true identity as spiritual beings. Michael Mead explains it this way. He says, spiritual amnesia is the result of identifying with the ego, which he describes as the false sense of self.
That is based on separation, fear and ego. And we’ve been talking about this for a couple months. Why are we still talking about this? Right? You might be asking yourself, the thing is, we still have these things. We still encounter these things every day. That’s what our spiritual journey is about. When we’re feeling fear, when we’re feeling loneliness, when we’re feeling anxiety, then we are living in our separation. And Michael Medak goes on to say, once we chose to believe that we were separate, limited beings living in a limited world, we then needed a limited body in which to express our limited consciousness. Since the outer world is a mirror of our inner world, what we see on the outside reflects our thoughts and beliefs on the inside. And as Don read to us from Yo Nanda, it can be hard to believe it’s an illusion when you have needs and no money to meet them.
It’s difficult to see that this world is an illusion when you’re sick or you’re suffering. It feels so real, doesn’t it? And so our human experience can be hard because this experience of life is so magnified for us and the things that happen every day. But our work is to keep our mind in spirit in God, and heal the soul. Because as Yoa said, the greatest of all healings is to heal the soul of ignorance and to remove the illusions that cover the soul. When you heal the soul, you will realize that the body is nothing but a dream soul in a dream shell in which the soul resides. So we’re gonna look a little bit about at how our body, um, reflects our consciousness. And not just your physical body. I want you to think the body of all your affairs in your life, money, relationships, just the body of your, um, affairs.
And we’re gonna look at how do we heal? Because what we’re doing when we’re healing is we’re dismantling our ego, right? This idea of how life is supposed to work, that our ego holds for us in all situations, <laugh>, and to choose again, to stop projecting out on the world, but to really, um, to really embrace this healing. And we’re gonna talk about both feminine healing, which is very important and, um, relevant today on Mother’s Day, that feminine nurturing aspect of healing. We’re also gonna talk about masculine healing, which is more assertive and directive. How does our body reflect our consciousness? You know, it’s pretty hard. Like when I was preparing this, I’m like, it’s pretty hard to think about this intellectually, right? This experience of life I’m having is an illusion. Like what is that really true? And for me, I like to hold it a little bit more like, um, my body is an illusion because it’s not the truth of who I am.
I have a body, but I’m not my body, you know? And our bodies are neither good or bad. Someone forgot to give me that memo. I realized recently I was talking to this coach I’m working with. She goes, well, you got body shamed. I’m like, I would’ve never called it that, but I’m like, it is so true. I got body shamed when I was younger, and that’s why I have struggled with how I feel about my body my entire life, right? But the things that happen to us are like messengers. So whatever is going on with our body or whatever is going on in our experience, it’s giving us feedback. It’s giving us input. You know, we’re having Michael Mead says, it’s like the holodeck in star, um, star Trek. Did anyone watch Star Trek? We’ve been watching Picard. So if you know, if you don’t know what the holodeck is, you can go on and you can play any script you want on the holodeck.
You can go back and go to a speakeasy, which is what I think John Luke Picard likes to do. But you can play any script you want. And our life is like that. We’re choosing our script. It’s a projection. And our body is also, and the body of our affairs is a projection of what we think and believe. And I really don’t want anyone to blame yourself for the conditions of your life or your body. I just wanna say that there’s no blame here. It’s just a noticing, right? It’s just a noticing. What is this projection that is the body of my life showing me right now? What, what does my spirit want me to look at?
And, you know, another good way to think about your physical body is it’s like a loaner vehicle, okay? You’re borrowing it. It’s how you’re getting around in your life, right? But someday you’re gonna lay down your body and your spirit, your soul is gonna move beyond this. So this is like my loaner vehicle that I just happened to use it. I should take care of my loaner vehicle, but it’s not the truth of who I am. So does this feel like a harsh idea to anyone? Because I can see how it could land as a little harsh. Like if, if you have a condition in your life where, especially where you’re feeling really tender about it, or you’re experiencing an illness, I think it could land as a little harsh, right? And if it’s landing for you that way, I just wanna invite you to think about it this way. There’s a condition in your life, or even a condition that someone else in your life has, because, you know, in our human life, we are impacted by the conditions that others have in their life also, right? It’s just spirit’s invitation for you to have a healing.
So I remember I had this cancer scare. I’ve talked about this many times, but you know, if you think about this idea of projecting, my doctor was projecting her consciousness on me that I was gonna get cancer, right? And I was taking that belief because I had some abnormal cells, right? I was receiving her projection, right? And I was terrified. And thank God for prayer. I was already, um, I was already a practitioner there, and I had one particular friend who prayed with me and really helped me to shift my fear, right? So that’s, you know, we have to be aware that sometimes what we’re experiencing could be a projection coming from someplace else too, right? So our work is to come back to ourself. So let’s talk about some real life examples.
One of my, one of my long-term clients is a man named Gustavo. And Gustavo has three kids, and his youngest son, Patto, um, went out a few, probably a month ago now with his friends. It was a warm day, and he decided to go swimming. They went swimming and everyone jumped in. But when it was Patos turn to go on the water, he dive, dove in, he dove in, and he, I don’t know exactly where he landed, but here’s the outcome. He is paralyzed from here down. And thankfully his brain is fine. He can move his upper body body. Now he can move his feet a little bit. They don’t, they don’t know if he is gonna work or walk again or not. But they’ve said he can have a normal life. He can have a normal life. But like in the human world of form, it’s pretty heartbreaking, right?
And it reminds me of Christopher Reeve, who by the way, was treated at the same place that is being treated here in Chicago. We have one of the best hospitals in the world here, just in case you ever need to know that. And Christopher Reeve wrote a book about his experience. You know, he wasn’t as lucky. He couldn’t move at all. He couldn’t do anything on his own, but he wrote a book and he said his conclusion that he was still himself, even though his body didn’t work for him. It’s an extraordinary book if you ever wanna read it. So there are things that happen in our life, but we’re still ourselves, right? We’re still ourselves. And that’s true of any illness. You know, my, many of you know, my sister passed away really unexpectedly a couple weeks ago. She, um, she hadn’t been feeling good for a couple days.
She had some sort of lung infection, and she basically just didn’t wake up. You know, she basically just didn’t wake up and she had a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, and she was gonna be moving in a few weeks to a place that as she got worse, that she would be cared for in this place. And she really didn’t wanna go. And so I feel she chose, right? So like, I’m happy for her, but like, as a human who lost my oldest sister, I’m sad, you know, I’m sad for her daughters, they lost their mom. And, you know, we have a lot of people in this community who have lost loved ones recently. A lot of people, siblings, mothers, right? And grief is also a call for healing. Grief is a call for healing. And you know, as I’ve sat with my own grief, I’m like, what’s my call for healing here?
You know, right now I just only am really in a place like, you know what? I, I just wanna be right now, right? I don’t wanna go fast. I want to go slow. And it made me realize how much we rush and how much we worry in life, and what an incredible waste of time that is, right? But it also made me realize like, there’s a spiritual healing for me here too. Like, I truly believe that her spirit’s free. I believe that for a lot of reasons. I got some woowoo stories I could tell you later. But I believe her spirit’s free. So if I’m sad, I’m sad for me, I’m not sad for her. She, she didn’t have to go through that terrible decline. But I gotta heal within myself right now.
And you know, when we look at healing, we look at the aspect of healing is called emptying. Emptying. And that’s when we’re receiving the care. It’s passive, it’s nurturing. We might be processing emotionally. Um, you know, we might go and get some self-care. We might get a massage, we might get some reiki. We might do some breath work, we might get some counseling, we might get some prayer. But like this, this passive and nurturing energy is really just allowing us to settle, right? Settle back into ourselves. And it’s not a process to be rushed. Like we think people should be over things instantly in this culture. And it doesn’t mean, you know, you’re gonna plant a flag and live in the land of grief, but it means you have to give yourself time. There are times in life that we should be crying. We should be processing, we should be getting support in the things in our life that hurt us.
And once the emotions have passed or they’ve lessened, then we can move forward. But emptying. And this, it’s not just about, you know, grief can also be like, Hey, I lost a relationship. I lost a job. I lost something that mattered to me. Right? And, and there’s a sadness that goes with that. There’s a sadness that goes with that. So we need to let the emotions pass and settle. And it’s, it’s a form of surrender, really, right? Just surrendering to what is right. We can’t change it. We have to accept it. We might not like it, right? But it is what it is, right? And I do truly believe that we are all still connected to our loved ones after their passing. I believe that Donna and I were talking, he was saying he hears his grandma’s voice in his head. Sometimes I hear my mom’s voice in my head sometime, like, honey, it’s gonna be okay.
You know, that’s something my mom would’ve said. So we’re still connected, but we just don’t have them here physically. And so, if that’s the place, if you’re in the empty and emptying place, some things that you can do is you could journal. You know, you could just simply, you know, you might wanna just cry. You know, I think any of us who have been through any kind of grief experience, you know, sometimes crying comes randomly, you’re like, I thought I was okay, there I am. I’m crying again. Right? That’s how it goes. But you could work with a practitioner. I, I know my practitioner is like an angel in my life. You could do forgiveness work, you could enter a recovery program. It’s really all about letting go, right? And it’s also where we let go of old beliefs, right? We let go when we’re, when we’re letting go, we’re also letting go of things that don’t serve us, right?
That we want to carry forward on our journey. And then we can step into the more masculine, which, um, Michael Mead calls refilling. And that’s really about rebuilding our lives, right? It’s a very, we’re very good at refilling in, in new thought. Like, I’m just gonna affirm, I’m gonna, you know, I’m gonna, I’m gonna take control. I’m gonna, I’m gonna make this happen. And we just have to be careful that we didn’t forget to empty before we refill. Cuz if we don’t empty, then we’re refilling something that’s gotta leak in it, right? And we all have habits. So when we refill, we wanna really look at our habits and look at how they form and control us. There’s been a study that has said that a lot of our habits relate to thoughts. Research has shown that 95% of the thoughts we have every day are the same thoughts, and 80% of them are negative.
Isn’t that astonishingly astonishing? You know, astonishingly the negatives, but the negatives are, are stronger in our mind. Like our neurons actually together more strongly and then they fire together on negative things. This is proven scientifically. And I think if you take a step back and think about it, the brain is just using it to protect you from an unwanted experience, right? Like, well, sh I don’t sure don’t want that to happen. So I’m gonna, you know, I’m gonna worry about it. <laugh>, right? That’s what we do. Um, but positive thoughts and prayers create new wiring in your brain. Spiritual practices create new r wiring in your brain. They create new neural patterns. And this influences and helps formulate new and different types of thoughts in the future. You know, a really wonderful easy thing that anyone can do, ev any every day is you can listen to positive music. I was driving in, I was listening to India Ire, I choose, you know, that’s a great song. But like Ricky Beckwith, she has these songs that are like mantras and if you listen to them and then they become like those little earworms that you hear in your head all day, but then you’re creating a new belief through the music that you’re listening to. You’re filling your mind with a positive thought.
There’s a Jewish saying that says, we never see things as they truly are. We see things as we are. So what are you seeing in your life that isn’t serving you right now? You know, I also thinking this morning, it’s like, don’t we just all really wanna be joyful? It doesn’t mean that we don’t have experiences in life that aren’t that, but don’t we all just really wanna feel free and, and feel, um, feel joyful, feel at peace? You know, when we feel those things, whatever else is happening doesn’t really matter, right? I’ve been working with a coach because, um, I’m turning 60 this year and I keep saying it all the time cuz I can’t believe it. So I’m trying to convince myself that that’s actually true. But you know, I’m <laugh>. Is that true? I feel like I’m 35 in my head, but, um, yes, I am 35 in my head.
Thank you Michael. But you know, I really wanted to think about like, what do the next 10 or 12 years of my work life look like? What do I want it to look like as I’m moving into the next stage of my life? And, you know, I thought I was gonna work on branding myself and create something new to do for work and whatever. And what I’ve realized is I’m already doing it. But in our work, I realize that, and, and this is kind of on a subtle level cuz it doesn’t totally stop me, but I have, I still have this belief sometimes that I’m not good enough, right? And it stops me. And what it stops me from is being bold, right? Saying like, Hey, I’m gonna go for this. Right? The voice inside of me that’s not bold, that thinks it’s not good enough, talks me out of things.
And, you know, since my sister’s passing, I’ve been really thinking, I’m like, you know, I just wanna live full out. I wanna feel a sense of inner freedom as I approach however many years I have left, right? I just wanna have a sense of inner freedom. That’s what happens when we start to fill again. If we are listening to our spirit, our spirit will tell us where it’s calling us. So are you listening, right? Are you listening? You know, when we turn within, we know we always have everything we need. I was sitting also in the last couple weeks and something was kind of bugging me. And I sit down to meditate and like I hear this voice in my head and the voice says, you know, you already have all the love you need in your life cuz you are it, right? But we forget that, right?
We’re seeking our love. We want our affirmation, we want all these things, but we are it. And I wanna give everybody a little bit of homework because if you have a condition in your life that you don’t like, or you would prefer not to be negative, you would prefer for it to be slightly different than what you’re experiencing right now. I just want you to write down the things this week that you notice you’re having negative thoughts about. Write it down and just become aware of your inner dialogue. What’s your inner dialogue and what else is possible for you? Right? How can you shift it? Right? You might need to get it, like, you might need some help, you might need some prayer, but what else is possible for you? When we answer and we ask an open question that is, you know, not like, how do I fix this problem?
But when we ask a question like what else is possible? Our brain moves into the conscious part of itself. It, it opens us up. You know, I also think, and and I think Mark Anthony talked about Byron Katie’s work, um, the Love Your Neighbor Works, uh, worksheet, which is on her website, you can go check it out, but she’s got a process that helps you get to a turnaround, right? And it’s, this is actually a great forgiveness tool. There’s four questions. Is it true? Can I know it’s true? How do I react when I think that and who would I be without that thought? And then you do a turnaround. So I’m just gonna give you an example. So there’s a person in my life, his name is John, and I might say, John doesn’t listen to me, I work with John. Just fyi, John doesn’t listen to me.
That’s my belief. So then I ask myself, is it true that John doesn’t listen to me? Is it true? I don’t know, maybe it’s true. Can I absolutely know that it’s true that John doesn’t listen to me? Now the answer to that is no. I, I can’t know that’s true. I don’t know that I’m not in his head, right? And how do I act or how do I react when I think that John doesn’t listen to me? Hmm. I get resentful. I, I run my story about, you know, how they behave in this organization I’m affiliated with. There they go again, chasing the money, right? That’s how I react in my head. I’m just being truthful here. And who would I be without that thought, right? I’d be free. That’s what I’m going for. But then here’s the hard part. You gotta do the turnaround.
You know, so I said, my, my belief is John, John doesn’t listen to me. Well, I could do the turnaround some different ways. I could say I don’t listen to me. Could say I don’t listen to John. Right? You know, you can. So you turn it around and what it does is it opens you up to a different reality, right? You know, cuz I really believe that most people are just living their own life. They’re not intentionally doing something to you. I think sometimes there are some people who might be doing something intentionally to you, but I think most of the time people are unaware. They’re not aware. They’re not aware. You’re having that response to them, right? But our goal for ourselves is inner peace. That’s our goal. To let go of our spiritual amnesia and remember the truth of our being. That’s our goal, right?
I, I also like something else Byron Katie says, which is our work mentally is to be in our business, not other people’s business because we can’t control it. We can’t control their business. And when we, we cause our suffering when we’re in their business because we’re attached to an outcome. And this is super hard to practice. I acknowledge that, especially when you’re related to people or you live with people or whatever, it’s not as easy to practice it as it sounds. But what we wanna do, instead of being attached to the outcome, is we wanna inquire. We wanna inquire because, you know, we wanna ask, is this really true? Cuz it softens our own heart. It helps us to get in a place of acceptance. And that’s what we’re going for. Just to be in a place within ourselves and to take responsibility, um, for ourselves.
That’s the genius of a Course in Miracles actually, because you’re putting a new thought in your mind every day. And there’s many other ways you can do this besides a Course in Miracles. You can do it with affirmations, prayers, infor inspirational readings, 365 days of science of mine, mark Nepo. I mean, there’s a jillion choices you have out there to put something positive in your mind to remind yourself of the truth of your being. So what will you choose to focus your attention on? Because we are the chooser. I picked up my science mine, it’s on the front, front, um, front uh, seat here this morning. And I opened it up to a page. And it was all about how we have the power to choose that. That is what humans have been given the power to choose. So we wanna remember that. And Byron Katie also says, anything that’s outta my control, your control and everyone’s control, I call that God’s business.
And that’s the good news. And you could call it realities, business, spirits business, the universe’s business. Just pick your word. But that’s not my business. If it’s outside of my control, it’s not my business, right? Think how free you would be if you didn’t feel like you had to fix things that weren’t your business. <laugh>, right? And God spirit is always present with you, and that is the source of your healing. So whatever the condition is you’re experiencing in your life that you wish were maybe a bit different, God is the source of that healing. It’s not something on the outside. We’re not the healer. God’s the healer. We might be the channel that the healing comes from. We might be that channel for someone else if we do the prayer for them, or if we just sit and listen to them as a friend or a loved one.
We could be the channel through which the healing comes, but we’re not doing the healing spirit is doing the, and our, our real work is to heal ourselves of our sense of separation. That’s what we’ve been talking about for a couple months now. And we do that through our practice. So where are you on your journey right now? If you think about it like a road, you know, where are you yourself? Are you in a period in your life where you really wanna be emptying, where you wanna be focused on your self care and you know, be, you know, just giving yourself some space? And if that’s where you are, awesome. If you’re in filling and rebuilding, that’s awesome too. So just check in with yourself. Where are you right now? Where are you right now in your journey? And I really wanna say, please release any judgment you might have about where you are on your journey. There is no judgment. You know, that’s the thing about spirit. We’re all always okay. I mean, that’s actually the choice,
But we need to build our muscle of faith through demonstrating it. And I think that’s one of the hardest things on this journey, is just to have faith. Because maybe on some level we still relate to this idea that there is a God outside of us, right? But that’s what we’re healing here. We are, we are whole already. We are in the oneness. And our work is to allow spiritual, um, healing to happen, allowing spirit to reveal itself. So I wanna en invite Greg in the, um, at our beautiful singers to come back up because we’re gonna move now into prayer. And I just invite you to close your eyes and if it feels good, put your hand or hands on your heart and just in your mind’s eye, just offer up wherever you are right now and just ask your spirit to help you just say to your spirit, I’m willing, I surrender. I surrender whatever is going on my, in my life, on this altar of the Holy Spirit. The whole spirit of life. The spirit of life which is love and grace and wholeness and wellbeing. This place where always and everywhere
You are already well, you’re already good, nothing is missing. And as you ask your spirit to shift whatever experiences in your life, you wanna shift more joy, more peace, more happiness, just know that you’re already whole. You already have everything that you need. Go ahead and sing along. And so we just know that there is a transformation happening inside of each one of us. That something greater is coming forth greater life, greater love, greater peace, greater wellbeing. Moving beyond, moving beyond to our spirit, knowing our wholeness, knowing the love. That is the truth of our being. This is what I know and affirm for all of us. I say yes to this and I am grateful. I am grateful because I know that the spirit that created us already knows what we need and is already making it so and so. It is.