Miracles News
July-September, 2022
“I Am Not a Body, I Am Free”
I know the Course was brought to me for so many reasons but one in particular has been for the healing of my relationship to my body. As a former professional bodybuilder, my body image was everything. It defined me. And as a former overweight child and young adult, that new image held even more meaning. It gave me importance. It made me special. It allowed me to leave a hurtful, uncomfortable image behind and with it many hurtful and uncomfortable feelings too (or so I thought).
When the ‘perfection’ of my body started to fade and recede, with it went my peace, my happiness, my sane mind. Evidently this “perfect body” was not the silver bullet I had thought it was.
As I have leaned into my study and practice of the Course over the past few years with a willingness and a vigilance like never before, I have seen miracles at the level of my body, which I know have only come from healing my mind. A determination to transform my perception and asking to see things differently. “The body will respond with health when thoughts in need of healing have been corrected and replaced with truth.” (W-pI.135.10:1)
I still stumble sometimes and get caught in the ego’s dream, but it is less and less now. And the intensity of the hold is nothing like it used to be. By learning to see myself as I truly am — innocent, sinless and completely loving, beyond the “shell” which I call a body, I have come to understand the truth. I have come to grow a confidence and a knowing like never before — a knowing that I am way more than this physical form.
“The body is easily brought into alignment with a mind that has learned to look beyond it toward the light.” (T-2.V.6:6)
By looking through and beyond it I can see the depth of my being. I can see the spark of Light and the seed of Love that God planted deep within me. I know this is my Source. Here is my salvation. Right here, in my very own hands. I’ve had the power all along. I just wasn’t choosing to see it.
“It is your mind which gave the body all the functions that you see in it.” (W-pI.135.6:4)
“Yet it is not the body that can fear, nor be a thing of fear. It has no needs but those which you assign to it.” (W-pI.135.5:1-2)
My ego mind was too loud and I fed it too often. It gave my body immense importance and became trapped in this tunnel of negative thinking.
I can now witness these moments and these thoughts and recognize them. By doing so, I lessen their power. I do not strengthen or uphold them. Instead I watch them crumble, brick by brick, layer by layer, until the whole foundation is nothing more than dust. God’s loving embrace swoops in like a cool breeze and takes that dust, up and away, to be transformed into my right perception, to return to me, my loving right mind.
I am so grateful for the Course, for Pathways, for my teachers and for my own willingness, to have my misperceptions brought to truth. And to come so far in my journey in an area that had previously brought me tremendous pain and torment.
I am still advancing in my journey with my relationship to my body, but I have accessed a more comfortable place within me; a place of acceptance. I am accepting that this one issue does not define me or hold the key to my worthiness; accepting that “I do not perceive my own best interests” and “I do not know what anything is for”; and that maybe, just maybe, this is an important part of my ministry.
As Miracle principle 3 of A Course In Miracles states, “Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love.” (T-1.I.3:1) I am learning that the more love I send to myself through my thoughts, words and actions, the more I will continue to experience a change in perception, which is the miracle I’ve been hoping for.
“I am spirit. I am the son of God. No body can contain my spirit, nor impose on me a limitation God created not.” (W-pI.114.1:2-3)
I must remind myself regularly that I am worthy and that nothing I do can take that away. I am unlimited. I am free. I am still as God created me. And I am willing, to remember this.
Rev. Ashley Rose Legrand, O.M.C., is a Pathways of Light minister living in Metuchen, New Jersey. Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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