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Letting Go of Defending Myself

by Rev. Kelly Lewis, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

I make what I believe I need to defend myself against! And, I can let it go! Voila!

It is now 12 years that I have been in recovery from alcoholism. I have had minimal urges to drink, and when I have had them, I can quickly remind myself why I don’t want to go back to that life of suffering.  However, I can also say that I have not had much exposure to alcohol, so I have not had to “test” myself to see how I would feel about it being “in my face.” 

This was mostly a natural occurrence due to changing the people I associate with, rather than a resistance to being around it.  I simply stopped spending any time with people who drink alcohol, not because I didn’t think I could handle it or because I judged them, but just because I didn’t think I had anything in common with “drinkers” anymore.

However, I recently had a friend ask me to come to her house to spend an evening with a bunch of her friends, and she literally called the get together “wine night.”  Wine was my FAVORITE.  I felt highly anxious at her request, suddenly fearing the difficulty of wanting and resisting alcohol. But at the same time I felt Spirit nudging me to go, to push myself in this way, to maybe make some new friends and to also to be able to “shine my light.”

I should also mention that I have never been much of a “group person,” unless it has been in a spiritual setting. I am an introvert and thrive with deep one on one conversations with people, but when in a group (outside of spiritual settings) I have historically had a tendency to feel overwhelmed and despondent with what I had always felt to be “shallow talk.”

Needless to say, while Spirit was nudging me to go, my ego mind was saying “NOOO!” But hesitatingly, I went. Before leaving though, I spent time in prayer and meditation, praying that Spirit would guide my thoughts and words and that I would remember to just be LOVE. 

I have to say, I had no anxiety that evening and did in fact meet some fabulous women! I did not feel anything about their alcohol consumption, in fact it barely registered with me that they were drinking.  I simply focused on being present with them, to hear what they were saying, not just the words but what was beyond the words, and to see them as Love.

This felt miraculous. Not only did my thoughts around the situation change, but my experience changed. I have never felt this at ease and present with a group of people in this type of setting (outside of a spiritual setting) and I have never not wanted alcohol when I have been around it to this extent. I left that evening knowing that I have had a lot of healing and felt so much gratitude.

What came to mind was the teaching of ACIM that we create the things that we defend against in our minds. We then believe that we have to protect ourselves against it because of how real this thing becomes. We realize that there is nothing to defend against when we are willing to put them down, to set aside our defenses.  ACIM States: “You make what you defend against, and by your own defense against it is it real and inescapable. Lay down your arms, and only then do you perceive it false.” (W-170.2:6-7)

I created an issue in my mind, this anxiety around being around alcohol and this group of women. It felt scary indeed and I wanted to avoid it all together. But then I realized with the assistance of Spirit that I was making this up in my mind and there was nothing to fear. I saw that indeed there was absolutely nothing to worry about and truly Love and joy were my experience. When you work with Spirit, seek guidance, maintain openness to Love’s healing presence and are willing to show up to what might seem like challenges, your life changes miraculously.

This is all particularly relevant with all that we are facing these days. There are many who live in fear and are taking actions to defend themselves, in various ways. It is so important to our peace of mind that we remember we are always safe in God because we never left. We can choose to drop our arms and surrender with trust and into Love. The fearful things that we defend ourselves against are only in our minds, right beside the peace that is ALWAYS present.

Rev. Kelly Lewis, O.M.C., is a Pathways of Light minister living in Saginaw, Michigan.
Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

© 2021, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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The Heart of the Matter

by Rev. Mary Lenihan, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

I remember the words in my book, Pause for Inspiration in the midst of everyday life, “Where does your heart go to rest?” My heart has been busy lately, so I am not sure much resting has been going on. Our Pause nonprofit commitments and daily operations are a lot. I really miss writing so I am glad to be writing this now. I feel I need to simply reflect on how life has been going without having to think about what to write about; so, I thank you ahead of time for being with me in this. 

Ego — the divisiveness in me — makes sure that my heart doesn’t rest. Thankfully I take myself through The Pause Practice daily. However, I went through a period of time in which I received guidance but didn’t follow. Sound familiar? About two years ago I had been rushing around doing so much for so long that it was as if my heart finally said, “That’s it, we’re shutting her down!” This manifested one Sunday morning by way of a panic attack that occurred while in church; I literally thought I was dying. I had a near death experience in 2009 which I call a “Reunion in Heaven.” This one however, came on suddenly, intensely and scared the death out me! I used The Pause Practice and the panic left. My Nearest, Dearest and Truest Self was trying to get my attention because I had not been paying attention. This got my attention for a moment, but then my ego mind convinced me that I couldn’t stop, “There’s too much to do!” Keeping my ego mind schedule in place!

The result of this was that I had a second panic attack months later, multiple health scares and a couple of months after that I began having constant anxiety, trouble catching my breath, and crying spells on the kitchen floor out of nowhere. I began feeling very depressed and on a downward spiral. It was as if my Nearest, Dearest and Truest Self in me was wrestling me to the ground saying, “No more, let me help you.” Our True Self really does love us, but we can be so afraid of simply letting LOVE, love us. I must have been ready to receive LOVE; I must have been ready to let go of my plans or none of this would have happened. Why did I need to receive LOVE? Because I was feeling very alone but trying not to feel alone. The separation felt very real and I feared I would never feel whole again. Then, I realized that I was grieving.

I was grieving every loss I had ever experienced in my life, all at once, or so it seemed. The loss of connecting with friends who are all busy too, the loss of my marriage which was decades ago, the fear of the loss of health, the loss of my parents for whom I was a caregiver, the loss of not getting to have children or grandchildren and all that comes with those life events; so many losses in the past and fearing the inevitable losses of the future. So much ungrieved loss. I thought I had grieved all this stuff already!

I have always been one who releases emotions, journals, prays, meditates, share with others, feel my feelings, examine my thoughts, move my body, be of service – what more could I have done to grieve, throw myself into a grave? “No,” says my True Self, my Dear Friend, “Live.” In my gut I knew what that meant. It didn’t mean to deny my suffering by telling myself this is all ego. No. I knew that to not let myself go through this experience of grief, was an error in thinking. Even to “lose the ego” can be experienced as loss because it is a loss of who we thought we were — an entire false identity. Perhaps sometimes we can be too quick to push away experiences labeling them as ego and miss out on the opportunities available for healing.

During this time that I wandered in darkness, I learned a tremendous amount about how absolutely essential it is to not ignore inner Wisdom, but to trust and follow. I don’t fear suffering or push it away. I also don’t let myself suffer needlessly. I am not afraid of suffering because I know from experience how to suffer, with humility and gratitude for the grace present in suffering. Even in the greatest darkness, there is an even greater light. I let suffering lead me to the inner Christ.

On August 24, 2015 it was just my mother and I in a hospital room at St. Mary’s as she made her transition. Forty thousand angels packed every inch of that room; Jesus and the Whole Gang were there. I literally witnessed her resurrection. I was so elated I thought I had resurrected with her! I was forever changed. “It was in my mother’s ‘dying’ that I realized that I was not living.” For the LIFE I experienced in that room was a stark contrast to what I was calling life here on earth. And there was no reason I could not experience this LIFE here and now in this life.

At my birth, my mother gave me the gift of companioning me into this life, but in her passing she gave me an even greater gift — letting me companion her to the other side. My mom’s Wisdom teaching was that Christ is the call to truly live. A resounding gong in my gut took place. Beingness had shared Beingness and I knew my life, inner and outer, needed to change. Or, to be more precise, I needed to let my inner life, which I was keeping hidden for safekeeping, breathe into and “in-form” my outer life; my outer life needed to come into alignment with my inner life. When inner and outer are not in alignment for any length of time, one day a wake-up call will come knocking at your door and you can slam the door in the face of awakening multiple times, but one day you will have to let LOVE, love you for this is what it is to “awaken” — for in this LOVE is all there is.

Many years ago, I was hellbent on judging a few people for awhile and could not stop my judgments no matter what I tried and believe me I tried everything! Finally, I dropped in at a local monastery where my heart goes to rest now and then, sat in the chapel, prayed, listened, and the Holy Spirit responded with a bang. First, I was given a vision of the crucifixion, specifically Jesus’ face and the crown of thorns, through which I received the message to stop crucifying people with my judgments causing myself thorny pains. Second, the Holy Spirit responded, “You are judging these people because you are not following the way that I have provided for you.” Another gong in the gut! I was being called (as are all of us), to travel the path that LOVE was laying out within me (not imitate someone else’s path) and live the outer life that this inner life is breathing through me.

I am aware, based on decades of focus, devotion and commitment to this inner spiritual life, that the only correct way to go about meeting up with the True Self is to follow the way that LOVE is providing for me and no one knows what that way is except LOVE. Mine is the choice to pause, get out of my own way, listen within to LOVE, and follow. The Mentor Within shares, “The Holy Spirit knows you better than any human being on the planet. Listen, do you hear the sound of your own unfolding?”

Wow, it was really nice to write again. It seems I have opened some doors here so I will end with… to be continued. Bless.

Mary Lenihan, O.M.C., is a Pathways of Light minister living in St. Louis, MO.
She is Co-founder and Co-creator of
http://www.pauseforinspiration.org Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)

© 2021, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice and website address are included.

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Awakening to God’s Peace

by Cate Grieves, Group Leader of A Course in Miracles, Artist & Writer

During the years of 2013 and 2014, I dedicated every moment of every day to watching my mind so I could identify all the beliefs, resentments and grievances that were keeping me from experiencing The Peace of God. My intention and devotion was to “undo the ego,” by using the teachings of A Course in Miracles.

For the first few months, I found that I needed to develop a deeper quietness of mind so I could hear my Guide. I started to write down answers I was receiving from the Holy Spirit. I really wanted and desired a peaceful relationship with everyone. I was tired of my old ways of relating and was ready to become a full-time student and have the Holy Spirit as my Teacher.

During those two years I worked as a full-time accountant in a busy real estate office. After two years, my mind awakened to the Love of God. This lightly proves that you don’t need to leave your job, your family or where you live to awaken to holiness. All you need is the readiness to start, willingness to offer everything over to be healed and a dedication to staying the course, no matter what levels of fear or terror the ego thoughts bring up.

In my period of complete dedication to the undoing of all my beliefs,  I had many wonderful shifts of perception by allowing the Holy Spirit to correct all my old beliefs and bring into my mind, another way to see my brother and my situations.  This is the miracle. It bought me so much joy and happiness during the last part of the second year.

Then in January 2015, I experienced an awakening to the peace of God. I saw everything as God. The outside and inside merged to become a “big soup of Love.”

My mind entered a deep quietness and simple joy became my constant state of experience. I felt a joining with God, the infinite Love that was within. My mind saw the world of form as an illusory dream of separation and there was a certainty of who I was and where I was. I knew that everyone was Christ and that God is, and nothing else is. My mind saw that everything in time was actually happening in a tiny tick of time and it was actually nowhere.

Not long after, I entered the Song of Heaven where I was the voice amongst all voices joined in the most beautiful harmonics, singing to God and feeling Him sing to me. In my experience, being joined in the Song with God, is the highest level of Love that I have experienced and it feels so amazing.

Below is a story of one of the changes my mind went through on my way to letting go of the belief in death and guilt. I hope you find something here that might help remind you of what you are and where you are.

Healing the Darkness of Sin by Joining with Jesus in My Mind.

One morning in mid 2013, I awoke from a dreadful nightmare. In this nightmare, I was standing on the side of a four lane busy freeway and as I stood there, two huge trucks started hurtling towards me, completely out of control. They were skidding and sliding and seemed ten times bigger than a usual truck. They did not slow down and were moving towards me at a high speed. I felt there was nothing I could do and I would be killed.

I woke up just before they hit me, with my heart beating extremely fast and a feeling of terror. A few minutes later, I heard the sound of my phone beside my bed, ping with an incoming message. The text message was from an ACIM friend’s sister, who I had never actually met. Her name was Linda and her message said that she had just woken up and felt immediately to contact me to see if I was alright.

Linda and I had only ever said hello via text messaging when I met her sister at a retreat. Her sister had given me her phone number and said that I should contact Linda. So, it was quite odd to hear from her out-of-the-blue, but I felt immediately that the Holy Spirit had organized this.

I texted her back that I had just had a terrible nightmare and was feeling quite shaken and thanked her for reaching out to me. She replied that, if I would like, she would call me that evening, after work that day and we could discuss the content of the nightmare. She said she felt that she could offer some help.

When I got home from work that day, I ate dinner and then got ready for my call. I sat on my bed and called Linda. She asked me to join with her with an intention to look at the meaning behind the nightmare and to be ready to have it healed. She asked me to explain the nightmare in great detail to her. As I did, I became aware of the large amount of fear that I was currently experiencing in my life.

After we got clarity on the nightmare, she asked if I was open to do a visualization with Jesus and that she would lead me through it. I was very interested in doing this, so I said yes. This was the first time I had ever joined with Jesus in my mind in a visualization.

I cannot remember exactly what she said to lead me into this visualization. All I remember is, all of a sudden, I was with Jesus in a very real way. As I felt the reality of his presence so clearly, I asked her if I could take over the speaking, so I could describe to her what I was seeing and what I felt was happening to me. Below I will describe what I saw and what happened to me.

I was at the bottom of the cross and Jesus was on the cross with His arms out in his crucified position. I looked up and He came down from the cross without any effort and sat on the sand cross-legged, inviting me in to sit with him. I felt myself sit down opposite him on the sand, below the cross facing him and very close to Him.

I could feel His presence as we sat in silence. I could not look at Him because I felt so unworthy of His love. I talked to Him through my mind with my head down.  I told him how I wanted to know his Love, but I felt I had this huge dark stain of sin within. I looked down at my chest and stomach area and saw there a large V vase shaped dark black hole inside. It felt so dreadful. So dark and sinful. So much agony. So unbearably hard to deal with. I felt this intense calling out to him for help from deep within myself. This calling reached way down within the depths of despair inside me to Him.

I felt him encouraging me to look into His eyes. I lifted my head and looked directly into the most loving eyes I had ever seen.  I saw and felt something move within as I looked and felt the most incredible Love coming into me from His eyes. The most amazing pure love flowed into me. As this pure white Love flowed into my heart, I became aware that the dark hole within me was slowly starting to reduce in size. I could see it shrinking and I felt this joy that it was going.

Then all of a sudden, it stopped reducing. It was now the size of a milk bottle. I remember thinking, “Oh no, its not all gone.” I looked at Him, not knowing what to do and He gently, lifted his arms and leaned towards me and put His gentle hands inside me and cupped the small dark shape inside my heart area with His hands and then slowly moved His hands together until all the darkness completely disappeared.

I cannot share in words how unexpected this was but how completely uplifted I felt. I felt myself slowly coming back to the awareness of my bedroom and being conscious of being on the phone with Linda. I had shared everything with her as it was happening.

I really couldn’t believe it. I was so grateful for Linda following her guidance and thanked Linda for her help. I immediately felt very tired and went to sleep. The next day, I felt so much lighter — like I had lost a great amount of weight. It was a tangible healing and my mind felt much lighter and peaceful. I then started to do meditations where I visualized myself with Jesus and just looked into His eyes. Each meditation seemed to clear away more of the guilt that I felt. Over time, I came into a very strong and personal relationship with Jesus as my Guide.

I use this meditation and visualization of meeting with Jesus when I am asked to offer a meditation for a Course group. It was so healing for me so I love to bring this gift to everyone. Linda first brought it to me, now I extend that opening to others. In these meditations, we bring to Him this feeling of being unworthy of His time and love. His Love is the healing balm that heals our mind of its belief in guilt.  We simply say “Here I am Lord” and open ourselves up to His pure perfect Love to shine into our mind and lift it out of the heavy dark clouds of guilt.

Cate Grieves is a student of A Course in Miracles and lives in Victoria, Australia. Find all that Cate offers on her Website: http://www.categrieves.com Join an online zoom group hosted by Cate on the facebook group “Zoom to Miracles with Cate Grieves.”

© 2021, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice and website address are included.

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Hearing Holy Spirit’s Voice

by Rev. Joyce Peebles, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

Our salvation, or waking up to our true Identity, is dependent upon hearing the Voice of the Holy Spirit.  Yet very few people are able to discern this Voice.  Since it is essential, how do you hear it? 

A Course in Miracles tells us we always get what we really want. A lot of you are already screaming, “No I don’t!” Actually, you do. You are the writer of your life’s script. On some level, be it unconscious sometimes, you are experiencing what you really want.
I love what Earl Purdy says, “The most dishonest thing I can say is I am not responsible for what I see.” When you are not hearing the Voice of the Holy Spirit, it is because you do not want to. Period.

Believing we are this body, we have bought into the idea that what the ego says is true, mainly that it is real. This voice always speaks first, is loud and familiar.  The Holy Spirit’s Voice is soft, gentle and tells us the opposite of the ego’s voice. 

If we desire the things of this body and world, we do not enjoy listening to the Holy Spirit, and therefore do not hear It. In a nutshell, to hear the Voice of the Holy Spirit, you have to desire It more than the voice of the ego. It is that simple.

I have been told to be careful of what I say to students, for most of them are not ready to hear the unvarnished truth. In this case the truth being they cannot hear Holy Spirit’s Voice because they really do not want It yet.

I am reminded of the story of a person’s head being held under water, literally dying for lack of air. When he is allowed to come up, he gasps for a breath of air, his highest priority. When you want to hear the Voice of the Holy Spirit as much as you want that gasp of air, you will hear It.

We always get what we really want, and we are always in control.  God is not picking favorites. 

The fear of God is the same thing as the fear of the Holy Spirit. On page 619 of the Text, we are told, “The fear of God is but the fear of loss of idols.” (T-29.VII.9:6)

First one needs to understand what an idol is. The same page tells us, “An idol is an image of your brother that you value more than what he is. Idols are made that he may be replaced, no matter what their form. And it is this that never is perceived and recognized. Be it a body or a thing, a place, a situation or a circumstance, an object owned or wanted, or a right demanded or achieved, it is the same.” (T-29.VIII.1:6-9)

The Course tells me real Love and happiness comes only from God. My ego tells me that I should get love and happiness from certain people and things in this world. My idols are my husband and kids. 

My ego tells me that to be happy these people must love me, which often means them acting how I think they should! I am literally afraid God or something will take them away from me. My ego has me looking for love in all the wrong places and things. Real love can come only from God.  The Course further says, “An idol cannot take the place of God. Let Him remind you of His Love for you, and do not seek to drown His Voice in chants of deep despair to idols of yourself.” (T-29.VII.10:4-5)

You cannot hear the Voice of the Holy Spirit when you are fearful of what It is telling you. It tells you that the bodies you see and the world are not real. It tells you that the place to seek for Love is God not idols. The ego strongly resists, lest you believe this. When you have had enough of idols, and have found them wanting, you become willing to hear another Voice, that of the Holy Spirit. 

You always get what you want. When you really desire the things of the Kingdom more than the ego’s lies, you will hear and be amazed that everything you thought and saw and believed before looks different. You will experience a renewing of your Mind.

Rev. Joyce Peebles is a Pathways of Light minister living in Hot Springs Village, Arkansas Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) Phone: 501-701-8399.

© 2021, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice and website address are included.

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