Jess Hagan

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What is the Knowing Field?

Over 100 years ago when modern Western psychology was born, a controversial concept was introduced to Western minds that is now commonly known as the collective unconscious. This concept was coined by Karl Jung in an essay written in 1916 titled, “The Structure of the Unconscious.” But Jung had not discovered anything new when he wrote about the collective unconscious. He only rephrased a concept that indigenous cultures have never forgotten.

The Knowing Field is the collective unconscious. It clarifies the fact that we are all connected. It may look as though we all live in separate little boxes and work in separate little cubicles, but our minds and our feelings are all part of a larger fabric of a shared life experience. This fabric we are a part of is a living, conscious awareness. It is a collective knowing of such astounding magnitude, it goes far beyond anything science will ever be able to measure.

The Knowing Field is a psychic, mental realm where the memories of humanity and of all living creatures can be accessed in a way that brings clarity beyond our limited perceptions. The concepts behind the Knowing Field are simple: We are all here together, connected. And no information is ever lost, no matter how long ago it was buried or forgotten.

The Knowing Field is an energetic public library we can go to to look up any topic we’d like clarity on. When we explore this cosmic collective library, we not only expand awareness of our own personal experiences. We expand and uplift life awareness as a whole across all living species. In the Knowing Field, we can talk to the trees, the house we grew up in, an ancestor from the old country, the spirit of the land between two countries, the ocean, the stars, and more. The Knowing Field is the cosmic cauldron and the Great Mystery.

My teacher, Stephan Hausner once explained, “It is not possible to understand how the Knowing Field works. It is only possible to understand how we, ourselves work in the Knowing Field.”

A Constellations workshop is an invitation to explore parts of our psyche we can not reach by ourselves. Like that spot on our backs we can’t quite get to, a group gathering can help us access resolutions just out of our reach. When people come together for a common cause there is great power and no limits to the Grace we can achieve.

How Does a Family Constellation Workshop Work?

Family Constellations is a form of therapy that can help you to understand and heal the emotional and psychological wounds that you inherited in childhood from your family. This healing approach is based on the knowledge that we are all connected to our ancestors in physical, mental, and spiritual ways. These connections are often forgotten or deliberately pushed away from our awareness, but the beliefs, sorrows, and resentments of those we are connected to through DNA and cultural circumstances can have a profound impact on our lives.

Sometimes talking through an issue with a traditional therapist does not get to the resolution of a problem because the problem is of an energetic and deeply subconscious nature. Family Constellations workshops function with a different approach to logic which understands that our “logic” may not always be logical because it may be programmed with misinformation or misunderstandings from the deep past.

In a Family Constellations workshop, you will be invited to ask others in the group to represent members of your family, both living and dead. Those representatives will express what they feel and experience in relation to other representatives and can often reveal powerful insights into the hidden dynamics of your family. As you witness what a Constellation reveals, you may experience emotions and insights that can help you to understand your own place in the family system. You may also be able to release the emotional pain that you have been carrying unconsciously from generation to generation.

This Family Constellations workshop will teach:

How to increased self-awareness: Family Constellations can help you to gain a deeper understanding of yourself and your place in your family. You were born in a very specific position in your family. You may be an only child, a firstborn, a middle child, or the baby of the family. All these positions come with conditions and responsibilities we are never taught and yet always feel. In a Family Constellations workshop, you may come to see how your current relationships are influenced by your relationship with where you belong in your family, where your family thinks you belong, and what is really true about your role and obligations.

How to release of emotional pain: Emotions are an energy field that are created by a cluster of beliefs. A belief is a thought we keep thinking over and over again. Eckhart Tolle has classically defined this as the Pain Body. A pain body is often inherited from our specific family and our specific culture due to unresolved violence that needs to be remembered and respected. Oftentimes, our emotions have lost connection with the beliefs that caused the energy field in the first place. And yet, we carry that energy around, unable to access and release the old or inaccurate beliefs causing us pain. A Family Constellations workshop can help us to release the emotional struggles that you have been carrying from generation to generation. This can lead to a greater sense of peace and well-being.

How to improved relationships: A Family Constellations workshop is dynamic and involves deeply complex social interactions that bring people together very quickly in an atmosphere of compassion. This approach to life guidance can help you see your family members and yourself in a larger context. This wider perspective can bring awareness of and compassion for everyone’s unique struggles which can greatly improve your relationships with your family members. You may come to see them in a new light and develop a deeper understanding of the motivations behind their hurtful actions.

How to find a greater sense of purpose: When we understand who we are in our family system, we gain greater security about our place in the world and how to live a more meaningful life. A Family Constellations workshop shows us how our lives are connected to the lives of our ancestors. Connecting to our ancestors brings a profound sense of belonging.

If you are interested in learning more about Family Constellations, I encourage you to join our next workshop!

But how does a Family Constellations Workshop really work?

The actual experience of a Constellations process is difficult to explain. The experience can be a bit like a dream because it is a combination of intellectual, psychological awareness combined with inexplicable spiritual awareness. While nothing can replace giving a workshop a try, here is a video clip of actor, Guy Pierce as he eloquently describes his experience at a Constellations Workshop. For those who want to go deeper in understanding Family Constellations and principles surrounding how trauma is released and resolved in the body, mind, and spirit are invited to join our monthly gatherings here in Los Angeles, California.

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How Does a Family Constellation Workshop Work?

A Course In Miracles Review Lessons Part 2

A Course In Miracles Review Lessons 116 through 120

*Please Note: If this is your first time visiting this blog, this post is not the best place to begin reading.

To begin, start with lesson one and proceed each day with the next lesson. This spiritual teaching is a very specific curriculum that is best followed through the original course outline. If you’ve been following the course lessons consecutively, it is now time for another review!

Here are helpful images to remind you of each of the two review lessons for the next ten days. Feel free to pull them onto your desk top.

The Review Structure:

The structure of the review sessions has two components. 1^st– We are asked to devote 5 minutes twice a day upon waking and going to sleep to contemplate the review lessons. You can sit for longer if it feels easy to do so. It may be helpful to read over the text and comments for each review as a way to help your attention connect to the messages. Contemplate each phrase and ask yourself what you think it means. Do this for 5 minutes first thing in the morning or as soon as you can get to it as well as last thing at night before going to sleep.

2^nd– Beyond the two longer practice sessions, we are asked to call to mind each of the two teachings every hour. This means we think of one at the top of the hour and we think of the second one at the half-hour mark. This means that twice an hour you will interrupt what you are doing for one minute to let your eyes fall upon the text. Write it on a note card if you have a hard time recalling it from memory. These brief, frequent sessions are disruptors to the old logic pathways we function from on a daily basis. They will bring in a new perspective and change how we experience whatever we are doing.

If you are like me, you probably have a few old cell phones lying around. Turn one into a dedicated alarm system for your Course In Miracles practice and set an alarm for every 30 minutes for the next ten days. Then alternate contemplating the days two lessons for a minute or less. The goal is to interrupt your usual attention and build a new habit of bringing these ideas to mind often. When we are able to recall these messages easily, we will bring them into our daily struggles in a practical way.

Here are images for the second ten days.

About the Author

Hi, I’m Jess. This blog is an ongoing discussion and practice of A Course In Miracles. All content is based on and cited from the original publication. If you are interested in learning new ways to explore self improvement we invite you to join one of our alternative group healing workshops. All our healing approaches are informed and led by the teachings found in A Course In Miracles. Learn more about Jess…

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A Course In Miracles Review Lessons Part 1

A Course In Miracles Review Lessons 111 through 115

*Please Note: If this is your first time visiting this blog, this post is not the best place to begin reading.

Here are helpful images to remind you of each of the two review lessons for the next ten days. Feel free to pull them onto your desk top.

The Review Structure:

Here are images for the first ten days.

About the Author

Appreciate this blog? Like these graphics? Feel free to pull them to your desk top and send me some love for the time it took to make them! We’d greatly appreciate it!

Send me a tip!

Back to A Course In Miracles Library

Parts Work Sessions Online

IFS Practitioner, Internal Family Systems Therapist, Self Improvement sessions, IFS therapy,

Schedule Parts Work Sessions Online 90 minute sessions

It is now commonly accepted knowledge in psychological circles that the human mind is multiple in nature. This means that we are not one personality, but many throughout the day. The phrase “multiple personalities” is not so much a disorder as it is a natural condition of our minds. We feel a multitude of ways throughout the day, which often conflict and confound us.

Understanding our behavior and developing a personal character we respect and enjoy spending time with starts with learning how to listen to all the different voices of our diverse psyche. These different aspects of our personalities are not so much sub conscious as they are unconscious of each other. A part (personality perspective) can take the stage for a few hours and we can feel that is entirely who we are. And then a few hours later, they step off the stage and a totally different (sometimes opposite) part of us begins to express concerns about our previous expressions. This internal conflict does not have to be an ongoing misery. Like with any family, we need to take time to sit down and listen to all the different perspectives and concerns. These parts work sessions online teach how to separate your attention from a single aspect of your personality and see it in a larger context of many aspects that comprise your unique being.

Very often difficult experiences from our past freeze part of our personality in that time period and when something reminds us of that past pain, the part of us still suffering takes over our awareness. Like a dragonfly in amber, there is a part of us for whom that challenging event has not yet ended. Taking time to go into those memories and retrieve that part of ourselves can release us from the burden of the past and enable us to enjoy the present moment fully. Also called soul retrieval, a parts work session is a powerful way to reunite young aspects of ourselves with our grown adult self.

If you feel conflicted about a situation in life or are having a hard time making a decision, you might find these parts work sessions online to be a helpful tool to uncover resistance and blocks.

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It is free to use the scheduler above to make an appointment. Please also use the checkout process above to send payment and confirm your appointment.

Once payment is received a confirmation email will be sent with a video link or address details.

If you wish to use a different form of payment, please contact me to arrange that. Payment must be made in advance to confirm the appointment.

If you cancel 24 hours in advance I offer a full refund. If you cancel last minute, I offer a reschedule.

And if for any reason you did not find the session helpful in any way, I offer a 50% refund. This honors the effort I made as well as the effort you made.

I look forward to working with you!

About Jess

I have studied and trained in Internal Family Systems work with Bonnie Weis, Jay Earley, and Derick Scott. In my own experience when working through my own struggles in life, I found the process of traditional psychotherapy to be too formal and analytical. I was frustrated with how talk therapy seemed to circle the airport and never land a solution or resolution. But when I found IFS, and began to discover the power of my imagination to heal and release buried pain, resolutions to my struggles really began to land for me. The IFS (Parts Work) method of inquiry helps me discover feelings and beliefs I was not aware of. Parts work is a fun, creative, and experiential way of working that is founded in compassion and courage. It is a great joy to bring this work to others. I also bring a Family Systems Constellations world view to all the work I do as well as a variety of other tools and methods I have found personally effective in helping me locate and shift negative thought patterns. It would be an honor and a pleasure to help you navigate a challenge in life.

A Course In Miracles Review 3

A Course In Miracles Review #3

Congratulations! You’ve made it to the third review section of A Course In Miracles! If this is your first time visiting this blog, this is not the best place to begin reading. To begin, start with lesson one and proceed each day with the next lesson. This spiritual teaching is a very specific curriculum that is best followed through the original course outline. If you’ve been following the course lessons consecutively, it is now time for another review!

We will now review the last 20 lessons every day for the next ten days. This review may be a challenge to follow but we only need to do our best. Effort and interest is what we are mainly interested in developing. The next 10 lessons will have two teachings a day and the format for the study will be different from the previous lessons.

It may not be possible to stay on track with the structure of the daily lesson because it will be asking for more of your attention than ever before. You will inevitably miss a few if not many sessions because we are asked to engage in the lessons twice every hour and our attention span is still at an early stage of focus.

If you forget about the lessons or get busy, don’t be tempted to feel as if you’ve dropped the ball. You can not drop the ball and the course never really ends since it is cultivating a lifelong worldview. If you miss some of the lessons in the days to come, do not feel like you need to make up what was missed or start over. What has been missed is of no importance. All that matters is to return to the material as soon as your interest has returned. This is not a “pass/fail” course. This is a pass/pass course. No matter how disorganized or inconsistent your efforts become, just keep returning to making those efforts whenever you relocate your interest in the material.

Nor does A Course In Miracles want you to repeat the lessons in a mindless, task-driven way. What we are learning is not about behavior control or mindless rituals. We are learning to connect truly to the meaning of the actual teachings, not prove how well we can remember to recite something. Our efforts will not be blocked if we miss a practice session due to a lack of time. Time is not an important concern here. What we are mainly focused on building in the next ten days is the level of interest in the material. Our amount of interest in learning this new way of thinking is in direct relation to how quickly we will learn it. Conviction is difficult to teach. But it is not impossible to find. And that is what we will be doing for the next ten days.

Your interest in wanting to get to each review lesson twice an hour is more important than missing the specific review time. Even that brief feeling of not being able to pause for a moment is a recognition of interest that is worth a great deal more than an automated behavior disconnected from meaning. We do not need to think of missed sessions as something we need to make up. We can not fall behind in this course. There is no deadline and success is an absolute guarantee because of Who wants it for us. What God wants is certainty, and God wants your joy.

Our ability to focus on the daily lessons every hour will ebb and flow. Let it ebb away without criticizing yourself. When you remember, return your attention gently back to the fun challenge these review lessons offer. We will try to remember to call to mind for one minute twice an hour the teachings of the last twenty days. It is our passion and enthusiasm for this challenge that will be how we make the most progress in establishing the mental perspective it is teaching us.

You will not be a “good” person for engaging in the exercises in a mindless, repetitive way. Mindless automation is the opposite of what we will be learning now. Do your best. Only you know when you feel connected to the material. Settle for nothing less. Clear away the distracting thoughts and activities of your daily life for brief but frequent intervals as much as you can.

Make note of what prevents you from the hourly sessions. Distractions do slow down your learning process. Any interferences, no matter how practical, understandable, urgent, or unavoidable, are still all forms of unwillingness on your part. Willingness is what we are strengthening. Willingness can come in many convincing forms. Unwillingness on your part can be disguised as situations beyond your control. But when we are caught up in putting out a social fire or hustling to be on time for an appointment, we are asked to review the value of our engagements more closely. What activity are we giving priority to? Is how we are spending our time serving the cultivation of our well-being?

Make note of all forms of unwillingness on your part. When we are late for an appointment it is not because of traffic. It is because we did not prioritize it. External interference is a reflection of inner unwillingness. What activities have the power to disrupt your conviction to connect with the hourly lessons? What does that activity offer you really? Your unwillingness to let in the logic of the review lesson only indicates an interest in continuing to hold onto mental confusion and mental anguish for a while longer.

Your interest in holding onto pain as a teacher for a while longer does not trouble A Course In Miracles. No amount of time delay will ever be a match for the eternity of Grace that is your absolute destiny. If you take time to delay here or there, do not add to that delay by beating yourself up about having delayed. There has been no delay the instant your interest returns.

Prioritizing a less meaningful activity over the hourly practice sessions occurs because you understand the distraction to be more meaningful. You do not yet understand that the pursuit of most of your daily activities do not offer true value to you. When you are able to see an activity does not deserve to hold your attention more than these brief but frequent practice sessions, you will be prioritizing a release from mental suffering. You will be building your belief that mental suffering can come to an end, which at this point you may doubt.

So let us sit easily and with good cheer towards the fun challenge ahead. For the next ten days we will be learning how to withdraw the intensity of importance we have placed on many of our activities by allowing brief but frequent interruptions throughout the day. These interruptions will give us an opportunity to gain a bit of distance from our activities and engage them without being consumed by them. Our activities give us nothing. The practice of being able to pause and not get swept up by them gives us the grace and power of all Creation. What could be more valuable than cultivating our ability to place our attention on what is true?

The Review Structure:

2^nd– Beyond the two longer practice sessions, we are asked to call to mind each of the two teachings every hour. This means we think of one at the top of the hour and we think of the second one at the half-hour mark. This means that twice an hour you will interrupt what you are doing for one minute to let your eyes fall upon the text. Write it on a note card if you have a hard time recalling it from memory. These brief, frequent sessions are disruptors to the old logic pathways we function from on a daily basis. They will bring in a new perspective and change how we experience whatever we are doing.

There is a good reason for the two different kinds of practice sessions each day. We want to cultivate the ability to sit calmly and quietly twice a day for 5 minutes or more. But we also want to learn how to bring that calm stillness into the motion of our thoughts and lives. We want to perform all our activities with a logic that is strong, stable, and supportive. Moving meditations are as valuable as still, seated ones. There is no end to how useful the concepts of these lessons can be for you. Take them with you into every business meeting, every chore, and every transaction.

If you are like me, you probably have a few old cell phones lying around. Turn one into a dedicated alarm system for your Course In Miracles practice. Keep in mind as you dive in that you have only just begun your studies of cultivating true, enduring peace. You are now engaging in a tremendous learning opportunity with this ten-day review. Your conviction in this activity is of unspeakable importance to you and to the world. What you are undertaking is tremendous in scope and value.

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How do we get up again after a hard blow?

Life on this planet just keeps striving upwards despite the constant process of being cut back, torn down, or restricted. Forward movement, no matter how small, is our natural state of being. Our being is movement. We can not help but strive, even in the most adverse of times. This is because we are beings of expansion. We expand into areas of experience and revelation never before discovered. We are what is expanding our expanding universe. It is our nature to strive and learn. We can not change our inherent strength of spirit. We can not, no matter how we may try, make ourselves weak. Our natural, eternal state of being is one of strength.

This capacity in us to endure and recover from whatever blows life brings us can often cause a secondary frustration in us beyond the traumatic event. Sometimes we want to say, “This thing that has happened, that’s it. I quit. I can’t take any more. I’m out.” But alas, if it did not kill us, we have endured and we will arise once again, even if we don’t want to.

We do not have a choice in the matter. We are inherently and eternally strong. This is a fact. So what do we do with ourselves when we have decided to dig our heels in and not recover from some fleeting life circumstance? What logic is behind the impulse to build up a narrative of defeat?

When we lose a job or we lose a loved one, or an unexpected difficulty knocks us off our feet, our capacity to recover is directly related to how in touch we are (and at peace with) the truth of our inherent eternal strength. The fact is, we are unassailable. Resilience is our biology. The art of getting back up from blows is what we were built for because it has astronomical value beyond our comprehension. The next time you try to decide to have some situation or person be the reason you throw in the towel, take a moment to consider how much strength it will actually take for you to maintain the narrative that you have been defeated. Notice how we often apply our inherent strength to an effort of staying down. We say to ourselves and our loved ones, “No, I won’t get up this time. I’ve had it.” We then proceed to exert tremendous strength in being stubborn to prove we’ve been defeated. No one can help us when we’ve dug in our heels in this way. Why? Because we are inherently very strong! When we use that strength to prove we are not strong, the joke is on us.

It takes the same amount of energy to hold ourselves down as it does to overcome the disappointment, fear, or anger that laid us flat. We have no choice but to be what we are, which is strength itself. The only question we need to ask ourselves is how will we use that strength. To spiral up or spiral down? Both directions are infinite. We choose the quality of our experience by taking responsibility for the quality of our thought processes.

When something confusing and painful happens, we are instantly pulled to make or find meaning to explain the pain. It is literally unbearable to live in chaos so we won’t do it. But the logic that arises in us to explain the inexplicable is not always accurate. Meaning-making does not equal clarity. It just brings comfort. And that misguided logic needs to be reevaluated for errors in the mathematics otherwise the whole miserable event will happen again in some new variation. Our errors in perceptions lead to yet another blow and another disappointment or shocking surprise. The cycle continues until we take up a daily practice of examining our defeated mindset and become passionate about cultivating a growth-focused mindset.

Both mindsets take the same amount of energy to maintain. One uses our inner strength to be stubborn, bitter, and resentful. The other uses our strength to recover quickly and return to a peaceful state of innocence so that enjoyment can be how we spend most of our time. The healing arts are the field of study that seeks to identify limiting beliefs and replace them with beliefs of expansion and enjoyment. How will we apply our God-given strength in life? Will we pursue happiness or misery? Will we use our power to convince ourselves that misery is a comfort and that circumstances in the past have diminished us permanently? Will we believe there is no way through the present obstacle? Will we give that one individual the power of our infinite resilience and decide, I simply can not recover from what you have done? Or will we look pain in the eyes and use our strength to say, “I can see peace instead of this.”

How to release guilt, shame, bitterness, and sorrow is not a process that can ever be standardized. It is an experiential movement through your unique thought pathway to find a way out of a tunnel that is unique to you. How you will lift yourself out of the canyon you’ve found yourself in will be your own joyous discovery process. There are more techniques available today to heal, release, recover, and thrive than have ever existed on this planet. Exploring them all is the adventure of discovering who we are. I have personally found Systemic Constellations work to be the most robust, creative, and compassionate tool for navigating the stress of life. If you’d like to take a few steps forward in your self improvement skills, join us at our next workshop.

Until then, I wish you joy on your life’s journey.

Bring a question to the knowing field

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Is Constellations Work Real?

Many people are uncertain about the official legitimacy of Constellation’s work as a healing process. It is true that the work is an alternative approach to healing that differs greatly from traditional Western medical practices. But the concern about the realness of Constellations is really about a deeper issue involving the power of one’s mind and the importance of our imagination in the healing process.

Any resolution to any illness or issue we may have in life will always involve our thoughts. Our thoughts are all we ever have. What we believe determines what will unfold next for us. All healing methods that work do so because they are convincing to the deep parts of our belief system. The reason a doctor’s office is effective most of the time is that that environment has established centuries of authority. The elaborate setting, the formal questions, the official structure of the whole doctor process quickly convince the mind that something “real” and “official” will take place in a doctor’s office.

But the authority of a doctor or the authority of the doctor’s office setting does not guarantee that an effective remedy will be found. Our belief in the doctor’s authority contributes greatly to how receptive we are to their suggested treatments. But they will always be suggestions and we are always free to get a second, third, or fourth opinion. It is all opinion based.

The truth is, no one can have more information about our issues than our own selves. How could it be otherwise? The challenging question is, how do we access our own deeper knowing? We need a process of inquiry that enables us to bring what we consciously know about our dilemma to a discussion while also inviting new perceptions.

A Constellations workshop uses a whole circle of perceptions. We use a group of people to look at a situation collectively. When a group of relative strangers comes together to examine an issue in the Knowing Field, we have access to a wider range of unbiased perspectives contributing to our unique and private investigation process.

When we engage in the unpredictable movements of a Constellation setup, we are trusting that what comes to our minds during that special time is somehow relevant to the issue we are examining. We are also trusting that what comes to the minds of the representatives will also be relevant, and very often new, yet not so surprising information for us. And so the Constellation process is actually developing our ability to trust our own minds.

Trusting what comes to our mind can feel uncomfortable if we are not people who have specific master’s degrees in the topic we are discovering. We rarely consider ourselves to be experts. But what if we could change that self-perception? What if healing depended on that very change? What if what comes to our mind, even though it seems random and inexplicable, is relevant information and we took courage to trust its messages?

Because Constellations work connects to a higher power called the Knowing Field, the whole healing process is an invitation to develop trust in a higher power. It is only through our minds that greater guidance can ever reach us. Could you imagine how we would react if we heard the voice of Greater Guidance speak to us through the radio? Or call us up? We wouldn’t like that at all!

Guidance and healing movements will always be a gentle thought process in the mind. We are always being asked to trust in That Which has brought the thought to us. The wisdom within.

What else can we ever trust if not our own minds? What is preventing us from feeling certainty with the wisdom we receive from within? We are the only ones who will ever find our way out of our specific dilemma. Trusting our instincts and intuition is vital to becoming a powerful self-healer.

Representing in a Constellation workshop is a fun way to strengthen our trust in our ability to receive messages and follow our impulses. Join us for our next wisdom circle gathering!

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A Course In Miracles Lesson 110

A Course In Miracles lesson 110 states: I am as nature created me.

Nothing that has happened in this world has changed what I am. In the same way, putting on a costume does not alter my body, no experience, and no relationship has ever harmed my true identity.

My body may have experienced great harm. I may have used my own body to inflict harm on another. And in these conditions, I feel painful emotions. I feel that errors have occurred in my life that can never be repaired. I believe that my actions and the actions of others have caused irreversible damage. And this is hell.

Today I learn that what I thought has happened has not really happened. The truth of what I am has not ever been altered by any event in this world. This world is a dream. As the dreamer, I remain as I was created. Even though I may be asleep, I am still fully connected, loved, wanted, and supported in the most profound way. Just because I am sleeping does not mean I have been separated from what I am and where I am from.

This lesson will be encountered again and again in this course because it is the most fundamental and important teaching for us to ever grasp. This one thought is enough to solve any problem you ever face. This lesson is actually enough to shift the whole world into peace. When we reconnect our awareness with the fact that we are infinite beings of infinite beauty, we bring a tremendous resource into our life conditions. When we become lucid of this strange dream of disconnection we are having and we know we are dreaming even as the dream continues, we are able to connect to an innocence that releases us from all the complications of harm we think has affected our lives. We become curious witnesses and interested participants in life. The dream becomes a means to use whatever may happen as an opportunity to become more aware, more lucid, and more connected to true reality.

When we reconnect to our innocence, when we know that we always remain as Creation created us, we can not experience fear. The notion of death holds no power over the dreamer who understands the unique beauty each dream offers. Life becomes a fascinating gift of colorful experiences when we remember we always remain as God created us.

Today’s idea is all we ever need to release our minds from suffering. It is not only able to heal your mind of suffering, but also heal any mistake any mind has ever made at any time. Today’s lesson is quite a lesson! This concept, when realized, can heal all mistakes of the past. Not just your mistakes, but all mistakes. Your experience of the world can become quite a different quality if you relax into being comfortable with resounding peace. Knowing that you are of God, with God, from God, and for the voice that is God is the transformation out of time into the timeless.

Time is a means to learn more and more about the infinite. Remembering our infinite nature while also experiencing an illusion of finite form is the learning process that ultimately ends the need for time at all. We use time to learn about the nature of the cosmos. What we ultimately discover is that we are the cosmos. We are as God created us.

But this lesson may make some readers pause with concern. You may find it uncomfortable to believe that what you think has happened has not really happened because it sure feels like it did. If nothing that happens in this life is real, how would people be held responsible for their harmful behavior? If our conduct was of no consequence, what would happen to kindness and consideration for others? Would we spiral into even greater savages than we already behave as? Is this idea suggesting that a person’s wrong-doings are of no real consequence? How do we apply such an idea to the heinous crimes we know occur in this world, or perhaps have experienced firsthand?

This lesson is not asking us to stick our heads in the sand. It is offering the only way out of suffering by guiding us to shift what we identify with as real. We are more than our vulnerable bodies. We are more than one single moment in time. Relief from the pain of this world can only come by removing our attention from this world to some degree. Being in the world, not of it is the perspective we are moving towards so that we do not get consumed by the gravitational pull of pain and suffering.

We will continue on after this body dies. Identifying ourselves as only vulnerable bodies is not the whole truth. This lesson brings in more information about our situation. Learning to identify in a genuine way with a nonphysical aspect of ourselves does not lead to violent behavior because the nature of the nonphysical is not of a violent nature. Realizing our divinity is not a dangerous activity. It includes a perspective of compassion and gentleness. If such perspectives have not occurred, then light consciousness has not been realized. There is nothing dangerous about today’s lesson and it does not ask us to cultivate irrational positivity. It asks us to include a metaphysical dimension to our finite experience.

The constant process of navigating the physical and the spiritual dimensions that we simultaneously are is not easy. But we are learning how to hold seemingly polarized ideas as one. This, in turn, unifies our minds. Since we spend most of our time focused on the physical dimension, it is only logical that we should take some time each day to actively include the metaphysical dimension in our awareness. Today we are asked to place our attention on our eternal nature.

It is not possible to make sense of this world because this world is entirely temporary and ever-changing. The temporary is inherently baffling and painful. The temporary can not ever be understood and trying to do so only leads to suffering. Releasing the notion that this world can be understood may cause us to feel despair for a time until we learn how to place our attention on that which can be understood and relied upon as sane. Sanity is available to us in this world, it is simply not of this world. It is spiritual which is to say, it is a belief we choose to adopt.

And so, we say again with this assurance of Truth behind us, nothing that has happened in this world has altered what we really are. No matter how badly we have been knocked around, we still remain as we were created by Creation.

Where is this reality for us if it is not what we are currently experiencing? Where is the sun when it is hidden by clouds? The sun is where it is. Just because you can not send the clarity of the God dimension does not mean it does not exist. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Today’s lesson is the only lesson we ever need to find graceful ways through any life situation. Connecting to the metaphysical truth about you is the only way to release yourself from the mistakes you feel you have made as well as release yourself from the pain of the mistakes you believe other people have made against you. Today is an invitation toward tremendous power. Any wrongdoings your mind is attached to can be released. You were not created to suffer. You were created by Joy to be joyful.

When we get knocked down by some hard blow in life, it is tempting to want that blow to destroy us, to let that blow be the reason we can not get back up and engage. We want to be taken down and stopped once and for all. We feel angry to find that we survive the blow, we rise up despite our suffering, we prevail, and have the energy we don’t want to have. We are angry to discover how strong we really are and just want to vanish into weakness. Part of us wants something to be too difficult to recover from so that we can stay broken and be carried.

Let’s consider this longing to collapse more closely. It is actually perfectly in line with what God wants for us as well. When we find life too hard to handle and we want to be taken down and taken care of, who are we wanting that from? Other people? What if, as yesterday’s lesson suggests, we instead rest in God? When we feel resistant to showing up in life as we know we “should”, what if we lean back and let ourselves be carried by a larger power rather than spiral down into shame and guilt? Wanting to collapse and quit is no problem at all when we add in a connection to a higher power. We do not have to “do” all the living. We can let a higher source carry us through because we are made of that same source energy. It is within and available at any time.

The last four paragraphs of today’s lesson get pretty thick with Christian terminology. Here are a few attempts to redefine these terms to clarify the message. Let my suggestions prompt your own unique translations.

Where it says: “Seek Him within you who is Christ in you, son of God and brother to the world, the savior who has been forever saved…”

Let’s change:

“Him” to “That.”

“Christ” to “clear, compassionate awareness”

“Son of God” to “extension of Creation”

“Savior” to “Helper or Guide”

“Saved” with “ release from mental anguish”

The passage might read something like:

Seek that within you which is a clear, compassionate awareness and an extension of Creation found within your own being. This awareness is the helper within who has been forever released from all mental anguish. This helper can help you find relief from mental anguish any time you seek relief. Ask this helping presence to give you guidance through your mind, and sit quietly to hear the word spoken from your deep, high self that is the same compassionate awareness we find in others all around us.

The lesson then asks us to not externalize our understanding of the Helper. The energy dimension of help, (Christ consciousness, Buddha nature) is not an object or an external person to be depended on. Wearing a charm or contemplating an image can only be helpful if it reminds us of our own inner wisdom and capacities to conduct miracles.

We are like that from which we seek help. We are seeking help from our own Self. We are as God created us. To let go of what today’s lesson calls “idols” is to let go of any security blankets, lucky charms, and any attachment to objects as having any power. Wear a necklace for the joy of it and commune with beauty. But do not imbibe it with any external powers. Remember from Lesson 2 that it is our attention that gives every object in this room all the meaning it has.

Declare today’s lesson as often as you can remember. Set an alarm and let this lesson interrupt today’s activities and take a moment to remember:

Nothing has altered my inherent innocence. I am and will always remain exactly as God created me.

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A Course In Miracles Lesson 109

A Course In Miracles lesson 109 states: I rest in Creation.

Today we take sanctuary. Today we step into the light within that has come. Today we turn away from all the commotion of the world and we find a temple of peace and stillness. The turmoil all around us is just layers of different dreams, like mist that vanishes up into the light of a warm, perfect day. We rest in the perfection of this day.

At the steps of the sanctuary that is today, we ask for safety and joy. Behind us, the world seems frightening and dangerous but we stand firm at the door to the realm of rest and peace beyond measure. We ask to be let in and within our own mind, the part we have asked will let us into our own true self. We rest in God today, God within.

The power of this thought will cut through any struggle and awaken the clarity that always resides in you. The clarity in you is the living sanctuary where everyone can gather to find the same truth within themselves. Today is a sacred tent the size of the whole world where, within, all suffering ends.

This lesson is an event in your mind that will bring you forward through the illusion as if being born, to recognize who you’ve always been but have forgotten. When stress comes today, when a problem overpowers you, say to that situation, “I rest in God now.”

There is no problem God can not solve. There is no problem larger than the Grace of God. There is no struggle too dark that the Light can not penetrate it. Nothing is beyond the reach of the power of the Light to heal and improve. Rest in that today and what appears to be a challenge will be reviled as no problem at all.

Be peaceful today even in the turmoil and commotion of this crazy world. The hatred you see all around you in the news and in our cars can not keep you from your ability to rest in the sanctuary of truth. The sanctuary can not come to you. Think of it as a building. A sacred building within yourself that you must go to and enter. Go within, rest in God, and call from there to all your brothers and sisters to rest with you. Because of the power of where you seek sanctuary, all your brothers and sisters will hear you. They will come and rest with you in the magnificence that calls to all of us.

When you put aside all self-made thoughts and give your voice to be of service to the Light, through you people will hear the voice of God speaking because you have become a receiver for the Voice and you have stepped aside to let God speak through you.

Do you fear you will become arrogant in thinking God can speak through you? Do you ask who are you to be the receiver of such important messages? A Course In Miracles lesson 109 asks, why not you? Who else but you is better suited to share the teachings of compassion and peace? Should someone else speak for you? Remember you qualify for miracles. You are the perfect person to be a messenger of truth.

As you take five minutes every hour today, close your eyes each time and relax into stillness. Watch your hectic thoughts like clouds passing across a perfectly clear sky. Do not rest in the clouds today as they travel by. Rest in the sky.

Fear can not approach you when you rest in God. Become resilient to fear and watch how the distress of the world will dissolve away. Every time you take a moment to rest in God today, you mend a broken wing, you set a river flowing. You lift the strange veil of confusion that covers the world and bring clarity to earth.

Like taking off a tight jacket, taking off the burden of doing, fixing, and figuring out. Lean back and rest in the energy net of Light that wants you to trust that what you truly need will come exactly when you need it. What you need to know will come exactly when you need to know it. Who you need to meet is on their way to you in perfect timing. The Grace that orchestrates the movements of life is so much larger than our ability to comprehend.

Put down the effort of problem-solving. Give them to the light and let them be solved.

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