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April-June, 2014

Remember to Breathe…

Rev. Fabian Foley, O.M.C.

At our ACIM study group this morning we were looking at Chapter 1 of the Text. The subject moved to talking about what we want as opposed to what God wants for us and the ideas around the ego and conscious intent to make things happen. My entire life has been pretty much trying to make things happen, how I wanted them to be — unsurprisingly unsuccessfully I might add. In fact I was so not good at it, and the anxiety that it produced was so intense, that I would find myself chronically unable to breathe properly.

Now that I have had time to look at it, I recognise it as an extension of a childhood habit of holding my breath when I was concentrating intently on mastering something. I smile now thinking how I judged my little brother for not being able to walk and lick an ice-cream at the same time, while I couldn’t breathe and concentrate on something I was trying to master at the same time. His shortfall however probably had more to do with relishing the moment and did not have the same health and mortality consequences as mine… unless he decided to take a lick of that ice-cream while he crossed the road when a truck was bearing down on us (but he had me watching out for him!).

As it happens, the habit would consistently re-surface or arise when I was trying to master something, like swimming, or golf or people and situations which didn’t agree with what I imagined I wanted them to be, which was pretty much all the time. So the more in control I tried to be, the less I could breathe freely and easily, and the more things didn’t work the way I wanted. The harder I tried, the worse this would get. Some people may find it hard to imagine that you could forget to breathe, but in my case it seemed like the most natural thing, albeit not very comfortable and hardly an ideal way of living (not breathing and living don’t really go together).

How has Holy Spirit altered my perception? Now this habit has become a great barometer that tells me I am not at Peace. I can be sitting, standing, thinking or walking without breathing properly and notice and realise I am not at Peace. So throughout the recent past, as I started to understand more and more about being in and at peace, I would frequently bring to mind these words… “All I want is God’s Peace.” They became my mantra. As I repeated them over and over (and over and over), I would feel better.  But something always bothered me about this.

My method, although it was bringing peace to me was just that… and then I realised that the language around that pretty much said it all (contained the clue to the solution). I was getting a feeling of peace, I was becoming more peaceful, but I was ‘bringing peace to me’ or ‘peace was coming to me’ from somewhere. And that implies somewhere out there… not in here… not inherent (in-here-nt), so therefore outside. So I was fixing the problem, but this in itself is not possible. God doesn’t see any problem to fix. To be fixing anything about me is to deny God’s perfection. I was in two minds (funny that!)

Anyway, I felt instinctively that my thinking, although coming from right mindedness, was not really the Truth. I knew that wanting God’s peace meant I was thinking I didn’t have it. The Course tells us that we already have everything we really need. If I am God’s peace, then why am I feeling like I need it? I made a conscious intention to collaborate with Holy Spirit on this, to find another way to say what I meant about being at peace and not being at peace, and for a way to see and say the truth.

In the group this morning, it came to me to say, “I am always and already God’s peace. I just veer out of alignment with it when I attack myself with thoughts of lack, fears of loss and other mindless distractions of control, and wishing and wanting things to be other than they are. When I become aware of this, I can simply bring my attention back to what I Am.” I was so grateful for this teaching/learning experience.

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