Miracles News

April-June, 2021

There Are No Small Upsets

by Rev. Kelly Lewis, Ordained Ministerial Counselor

There are no coincidences. All is exactly as it is meant to be. Do you believe this? I absolutely do beyond all doubt, though I cannot say that prior to this particular day I could state this as emphatically as I now am.

Today I experienced some amazing synchronicities or “God winks.” My friend posted in her blog the other day about how we project unconscious guilt and how this shows up as upsets in our lives. At the same time I had just started re-reading a great little book called “Releasing Guilt” by Liz Cronkhite. In this book the author writes about our unconscious guilt showing up as anxiety, fear, upsets, illness, and whole long list of “symptoms.” This unconscious guilt, as described in A Course in Miracles, is from the belief that we have separated from “God” or, in other words, the belief that we are a separate personal self. Because we do not want to face this guilt, we project it onto the “external world,” which in actuality, is not external to us.

After reading my friend’s post and this book for a while, I sat and pondered the ways that guilt shows up in my life. While I have definitely had a lot of healing in my mind from working with ACIM, I see the guilt showing up most often as judgment towards others when they do not do things the way I want them done (yes, I have some control issues). I meditated on this for a while, allowing the judgment, blame and guilt to come to my mind. I gave it to Spirit for healing and peace returned to my mind. I decided to go on a bike ride through the woods near my house.

While on the bike ride, there was suddenly a bunch of deer running down the path parallel to the one I was riding on. It was breathtaking! Then I immediately heard a bunch of gun shots going off. This literally made me sick to my stomach; I cannot stand the thought of these beautiful creatures being terrified, having to run for their lives and then being shot. It made me cry.

I then had the thought, “There are no small upsets, all are equally disturbing to my peace of mind.” This made me ponder how I was projecting my unconscious guilt by experiencing upset over these deer (rather than acknowledging the unconscious guilt of the belief in separation). It felt like I completely lost my peace of mind. Yet in my immediate experience, no deer were shot. I was projecting a story; I could have chosen a different story, for instance I could have told myself that someone was shooting at clay pigeons… I don’t know.

I was reminded then that, “I do not know what anything is for.” I realized then and there that it was my story about the situation, it was the meaning that I was choosing, that was keeping me stuck in the emotional pain. I thought about this for a moment. The next thing I knew, time seemed to have passed… I don’t know how long really, but based on where I was at on my bike ride, I would estimate 10-15 minutes.

What happened was a disappearance of “myself.” I was in a state of absolutely knowing that I am not this body, this personal identity and that I was free. All distinction between what seems to be external to me, was gone. All senses seemed to disappear, and it felt like I was everything! It’s really too hard to put this into words, but it was amazing and completely liberating!

I suddenly noticed my ego starting to feel afraid. There were thoughts going through my mind such as, “You can’t stay like this. You won’t be able to get anything done.” You’re going to just sit around and not be able to communicate with anyone,” etc. As I listened to these thoughts, my experience of a nonpersonal-self vanished and it was like I was catapulted back into this “physical reality.”

I spent the rest of my bike ride thinking about this… wondering how did it happen? Was it because I was letting go of the unconscious guilt, letting go of the story I was believing about the deer, etc. I have had glimpses of this state of not being this individual self, but it has never lasted this long, and it has never been this profound. All theorizing, believing about oneness has been replaced with experience and knowing. I am amazed. I also realized fully how our egos, while they do cause us pain, also allow us to experience the physical world.

As I continued to ride, one more synchronicity occurred. After I was returned to this personal self, the song that came through my Airpods is called “Little Earthquakes.” In the song, the singer speaks of many upsetting things in her life, and states, “Oooh these little earthquakes… it doesn’t take much to rip us into pieces.” And I thought of how this applied to what I had been thinking. All our upsets, all the beliefs we have that keep us believing in this individual and guilty identity, take us from the greatest peace of all — knowing that we are one and we are innocent. These little earthquakes, these little upsets in our minds, do rip us into pieces (in our minds anyway) and take us out of our experience of our oneness.

“There are no small upsets. They are all equally disturbing to my peace of mind.” “I cannot keep this form of upset and let the others go.” (W-pI.5.4:3-4;6:3)

Rev. Kelly Lewis, O.M.C., is a Pathways of Light minister in Saginaw, Michigan. Email:kelalew@gmail.com

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