Where is the past? Literally, where is it? Is it hanging around somewhere in the world? Is it in some eternal repository being held future judgment? Is it stuck to the bottom of your shoe? No, no, and no. The past is gone. It’s over. It is completely non-existent. Only in our thoughts do we make it real. A Course in Miracles succinctly states, “The past is not in you. Your weird associations to it have no meaning in the present.” But our “weird associations” - meaning, our thoughts about it - gi...
Apr 15, 2019•1 min•Season 1Ep. 78
Each time we’re tempted to get frustrated or upset, it’s helpful to remember that we’re actively choosing to not be at peace. Other people very well may have done unkind things toward us. But that has nothing to do with who we are. Unless we choose not to see it that way. All negative emotions like anger, sadness, and fear come from an underlying sense of unworthiness, or guilt. And because we don’t like having that guilt, we do what everyone does - we project it out. And we hope that by seeing ...
Apr 12, 2019•2 min•Season 1Ep. 77
My family got a cat when I was young. It was an “indoor / outdoor” cat - meaning that it would come inside for food and sleep, but spend most of the day outside playing and, presumably, hunting. And like all pet owners, we gave the cat a name. The cat was no longer an independent entity; it was “our” pet. And because the cat tended to sleep in my bed the most, it went from being “our” pet to “my cat”. Any time we name something, we are giving it some sort of meaning for us. I love these lines fr...
Apr 11, 2019•1 min•Season 1Ep. 76
I suffered from an addiction to email. Because I got so many messages each day, I had to keep checking email in order to stay on top of everything coming in. Or so I told myself. It would have been far more practical to check email just a few times per day. That way I could get my most important work done without being distracted. But I couldn’t help myself - I had to keep checking mail. It didn’t even feel like a conscious choice - it just happened. Choosing our ego is much the same way. Seeing...
Apr 10, 2019•2 min•Season 1Ep. 75
When I was a little kid, my favorite book was Horton Hears a Who! In the story, the elephant Horton hears a tiny speck of dust speaking to him. He tries to convince all his friends in the jungle that there are people living within the dust mite - in fact, an entire town called Whoville. But the other jungle inhabitants mock Horton and conspire to destroy the speck of dust. Until, at last, the Whoville community makes enough noise that the other jungle animals finally hear, following which they s...
Apr 09, 2019•2 min•Season 1Ep. 74
I have a cart full of groceries, and I’m ready to checkout. There are two lanes to choose from. One seems like it will be faster than the other, and I’m in a bit of a hurry to get to a previously scheduled, somewhat important meeting. I choose what appears to be the faster lane. Only to quickly realize that I made the wrong choice. But it’s too late to switch because the other lane now has more customers in line. Ever have that experience? Our first thoughts might be something along the lines of...
Apr 08, 2019•2 min•Season 1Ep. 73
When I was growing up, my best friend’s parents were born again Christians. I didn’t really understand the concept of “born again” but I got the gist of it from their behavior and perspective on life. Especially their focus on “sin”. For me, the term “born again” held a very “religious” and somewhat oppressive feeling to it, particularly from adherents who staunchly advocated that their way was the way. If you didn’t follow the proper “way”, you were damned. This seemed as crazy to me as my firs...
Apr 05, 2019•2 min•Season 1Ep. 72
When I’m in my ego mind, I see the past in everyone and everything. I remember how you hurt me before, and I don’t want that to happen again. Or, this person has great character and integrity - I want to spend more time with them. And similar such mind musings. We don’t see people as they truly are - we see them based on our analysis. Analysis being a euphemism for judgment. And all our judgment comes from the past. But the past isn’t real - we make it up in every instant. There’s a wonderful pa...
Apr 04, 2019•2 min•Season 1Ep. 71
How powerful are thoughts? They are the source of everything we experience. Reality, as we understand it, is nothing but an interpretation of what we believe is going on around us. Much like Plato’s cave dwellers, mirrored in the words of A Course in Miracles , “Your thoughts determine the world you see.” The Course goes on to say, “Everything you see is the result of your thoughts. Life is thought.” Have you ever known someone who continually radiated a sense of inner joy and peace? They are ki...
Apr 03, 2019•3 min•Season 1Ep. 70
Three words can change your life. They have mine. And they are perhaps the most popular - and most often quoted - words from A Course in Miracles : "projection makes perception.” Here’s how it works: in every moment, we are projecting out the contents of our mind. Those projections result in every thought and experience we have. So our perception of everything is nothing but “seeing” what we first projected out. This is such a foreign concept, radically challenging our mistaken belief that the w...
Apr 02, 2019•2 min•Season 1Ep. 69
Let’s explore the range of emotions we experience. Desire. Joy. Pain. Contentment. Anger. Frustration. Happiness. Disappointment. Anxiety. Hope. Suffering. The list is long. And sometimes we experience a sweeping array of emotions in the scope of even a single day. But our emotions lie. They tell us what we want to experience, not reality. An incredibly powerful concept in A Course in Miracles teaches that we have just two emotions, love and fear. Love is real - being our true, timeless nature. ...
Apr 01, 2019•2 min•Season 1Ep. 68
We carry the past with us wherever we go. Every reaction we have - in every single encounter - comes from a past reference point. This is why it’s so hard to let go of times we were unfairly treated. And this is why it seems like the same situations keep recurring again and again in our lives. It’s not that we’re being punished by a punitive God or that we’re repaying some karmic debt. Rather, we do this to ourselves by choosing to step out of the present moment. These lines from A Course in Mir...
Mar 31, 2019•1 min•Season 1Ep. 67
The most joyful moments of life come when I’m in a state of inner peace. Everything I look on softly glows with gentle compassion. And my spine tingles with warmth. But when I’m not in that state, all hell rages around me - and within. I’m reminded of this phrase from A Course in Miracles : “In peace you need nothing and ask for nothing. In war you demand everything and find nothing.” When we are with our ego mind, we are literally at war. We have needs that must be met, oftentimes at the expens...
Mar 29, 2019•1 min•Season 1Ep. 66
The past is so rich with history and drama. Especially our personal dramas of the times when things went well and particularly those moments when we were the victim. And for many, the negative recollections far outweigh the positive ones. But does the past serve us? We might argue that all our learnings from the past enable us to function today. All of our abilities like walking and talking are things we learned in the past. But outside of skill development necessary for functioning in the world...
Mar 28, 2019•2 min•Season 1Ep. 65
I was a child riding on the back of a bicycle, barefoot, with my feet resting precariously on the outside axle pegs of the rear tire. We hit a bump and my foot slipped into the spokes of the wheel, jamming the tire which caused a rapid, skidding stop. The pain was excruciating. Even recalling the experience now, so many years later, still evokes the awful feeling of the moment. But like everything with our body and mind, we made them for the express purpose of experiencing pain, fear, guilt, and...
Mar 27, 2019•2 min•Season 1Ep. 64
Ken Wapnick (one of the key people responsible for bringing A Course in Miracles into the world) taught this very powerful analogy for kindness: Imagine you are walking out of a building. And just outside, you see a little child crying, all alone, tears streaming down its face. Would you step around the child and continue on your way, or would you seek out the parents of this baby? Then Ken would offer this truism: inside of everyone is that frightened little child crying out for love. No matter...
Mar 25, 2019•2 min•Season 1Ep. 63
We remember the past. We anticipate the future. But we can only exist in the now. This line from A Course in Miracles redefines how we think about linearity: “The present is the only time there is.” Time is merely a dimensional tool, like length or width. It has no reality on its own. Yet we’ve co-opted it to rule our lives. All our emotions surround the past and future. I’m angry about something that happened yesterday, last year, in my childhood, or perhaps even past life. Or, I’m worried abou...
Mar 24, 2019•1 min•Season 1Ep. 62
How do you like sitting in traffic jams - especially when there is no clear reason why traffic is stopped? How about waiting in a long line at the grocery store or the post office or any other such slow queue? How do you feel when you’re waiting for someone to get back to you on something important - but you haven’t heard from them despite repeated reminders? Do you get restless or annoyed when you’re faced with long delays? If you’re like most of us, patience is not your strongest attribute. Co...
Mar 23, 2019•1 min•Season 1Ep. 61
This very challenging line from A Course in Miracles is quite hard to accept: “The purpose of all seeing is to show you what you wish to see.” It flips the whole world of cause and effect on its head. How does it work? The Course explains it: “You see what you expect, and you expect what you invite. Your perception is the result of your invitation, coming to you as you sent for it. Two ways of looking at the world are in your mind, and your perception will reflect the guidance you have chosen.” ...
Mar 22, 2019•1 min•Season 1Ep. 60
Everything I’m afraid of is an idol for me. Each has substantial influence over my life. I’ve given away my sense of peace to every one of my fears. I essentially say to each fear, “You own me. You dominate my psyche. I experience strong emotions when I think about you.” In a sense, our attachment to fear is so strong that we become enmeshed with it. And then we lose ourself. Consider this line from A Course in Miracles : “Identify with fear, and you will be a stranger to yourself.” When we iden...
Mar 21, 2019•1 min•Season 1Ep. 59
This line from A Course in Miracles can’t help but cause a wry chuckle: “Resign now as your own teacher … for you were badly taught.” We’ve certainly taught ourselves a lot that hasn’t served us well. Believing that the world holds something of value and can also be a place of danger. That other people can make us happy as well as cause great sadness. And perhaps most powerful of all, that this concept of “me” (and others I care about) will live for a little while and then die. We’ve mastered th...
Mar 20, 2019•1 min•Season 1Ep. 58
When you interact with other people, what do you see? Perhaps their physical body, specific personality, and underlying character? Following which, we generally judge people based on how we feel. If we like or admire them, then we might say they are “good”. If we’re turned off or even despise them, then they are “bad”. What we see - and how we assess them - is based on our own interpretation. In fact, in every encounter with other people, we act based on how we comprehend the situation. However,...
Mar 19, 2019•2 min•Season 1Ep. 57
We think other people have the power to make us happy or sad. In fact, we all have examples of times we’ve either been the victim of someone else’s cruelty or moments where we’ve perpetrated unkindness toward another. While we aren’t responsible for what others say or do, we choose how we feel about it. That is a very challenging concept to accept: our feelings are not caused by what is happening around us, rather our feelings are chosen (mostly unconsciously) by us. Consider this provocative li...
Mar 18, 2019•2 min•Season 1Ep. 56
There is one simple test we can use to determine our level of peace in any situation. How invested are we in the outcome? If we have a strong desire for the situation to turn out a certain way, then we know our investment is high. If we want a person to change (either their behavior or their thought patterns), then once again, we can be certain that our vested interest is substantial. And one telltale sign of investment is how firmly we assert our opinion - even if it’s just to ourselves. As A C...
Mar 17, 2019•2 min•Season 1Ep. 55
When “stuff” happens in the world - especially things that are not to our liking - we judge and get taken over by our emotions. “This isn’t how I want things to be. Why is this happening? If only …” That could be the mantra of the ego: “If only …”. A Course in Miracles teaches us that our ego literally screams, “I want it thus!” But consider how much our judgment and emotions change the reality of the situation. Answer: not at all. The irony is that we are doubly upsetting ourselves. First by ex...
Mar 15, 2019•1 min•Season 1Ep. 54
If we hate one person, no matter how despicable their behavior, then we are excluding everyone. Love isn’t conditional. If you love one person but not another, then it isn’t real love. Of course the form of our love - how we demonstrate it in our lives - is different for each relationship. But the underlying content of love is all-inclusive. This does not mean we tolerate or condone awful behavior in others (or ourselves). But what it does clarify is that if we ourselves are not at peace (e.g. w...
Mar 14, 2019•1 min•Season 1Ep. 53
What we see in others is really what we see in ourselves. We can’t experience ugliness in someone else unless we’ve first looked within, chosen the mind of ugliness (ie. the ego), and now believe we are seeing it on the outside. In truth, everyone around us is either extending love or crying out for it. It doesn’t matter what form the crying out takes, it is still true. A Course in Miracles teaches us that “fear and love are the only emotions of which you are capable.” And the purpose of fear is...
Mar 13, 2019•2 min•Season 1Ep. 52
Have you ever been in a conversation with another person and felt upset or disappointed by what they were saying? Maybe they were being arrogant or insensitive or unkind. Perhaps you’ve even experienced such frustration when reading the news. It is so obvious to us when someone else is not behaving as they ought to be. A part of us would like to help them see the error of their ways, and another part feels the kind thing to do would be to take the high road and say nothing. But it doesn’t matter...
Mar 12, 2019•2 min•Season 1Ep. 51
Here is a line from A Course in Miracles that totally swipes the rug out from under our judgmental ego’s feet: “The analysis of ego motivation is never without your own ego involvement.” In other words, when we try to understand why a person behaves the way they do, we are looking at them with our own ego. No matter how well-intentioned we are. It is impossible to analyze anyone without first having chosen our ego as judge and jury. But there is a way that we can see others with proper clarity. ...
Mar 11, 2019•2 min•Season 1Ep. 50
Heaven is not a place we are granted entry as a result of various worldly deeds or affiliations. There is nothing we need to do, nor any organization or tribe in which we need to belong in order to curry favor with a judgmental gatekeeper. No person, religion, or spiritual path is “the way”. All ways lead home. And each of us chooses the path we walk in this particular dream (incarnation). As we learn in A Course in Miracles - one of thousands of such paths - “Heaven is within you.” Nowhere else...
Mar 10, 2019•1 min•Season 1Ep. 49
