The Kentucky Grace Blog
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We all have the choice to put our thoughts and energy wherever we want. This is a freedom that can never be taken away no matter the circumstances. It's an inside job. With each thought, I create a certain vibration and I attract certain experiences. Becoming aware of these thoughts and how I use them or misuse them has been the greatest lesson of my study of A Course in Miracles. My thoughts create my reality and my life. In the process of watching them and learning from them, I discover how powerful a creator I really am.
Viktor Frankl, a survivor of the concentration camps in WWII, was able to overcome the harshness of the situation by guarding his thoughts. What was happening to his body throughout the experience was not as powerful as what was happening in his mind. He is quoted as saying "Everything can be taken from a man, but one thing, the last of the human freedoms - to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." It really is our thoughts and attitude about a situation which create the personal experience.
There is nothing that can interfere with this power of decision within me, unless I am unaware that I have the choice. So awareness is the key. Otherwise, my thought creations are susceptible to manipulation and conditioning from outside forces.
A Course in Miracles says "The Course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence." Mind wandering or sloppy thinking are the main source of blockage.
In other words, love is an experience beyond the thinking mind and our thoughts are actually interfering with the grasp of its reality. We often allow many thoughts to interfere with understanding love's truth. Understanding what love is requires us to set aside the conditioned assumptions and open our hearts and minds to something vastly different. It requires a passionate determination to experience love's full potential. It requires a commitment. A commitment to really look at all the obstacles I create (yes, only I create) with my thoughts that keep me separate from love's expression.
Clearly, I am experiencing something very different from love when I am in fear, worry, lack or confusion. All those things actually remind me that I'm way off track. They really should serve as my wake up call because the Course says my true inheritance is only love, peace, safety and joy.
So I believe that beyond those blocks and obstacles, love waits. Patiently. It doesn't judge me to be slow or misguided, it just waits. It is. It will wait eternally until I remember. It can't be described in language or words, it's a personal journey and discovery of the heart. It is understood in the silence. Its Real presence is the only Truth, everything else is the temporary illusion. Crazy. Do I really want to stay in this illusion?
"That is why the question 'What do you want'? must be answered. You are answering it every minute and every second and each moment of decision is anything but ineffectual." ACIM T-5.V.6:1-3
In my consciousness now, there seems to be nothing more important than Upping My Love Game. The trivial pursuits of my past are not as alluring. For over five decades, my thoughts and energy have gone toward materialism, competition, judgement, production, fear, worry, sickness, and many other false idols. I make a conscious choice to change my trajectory. I ask Spirit to hold my hand and gently assist me in uncovering my false ego thoughts and beliefs- the obstacles to the awareness of love's presence.
Love this quote. "Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen" by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Isn't that exciting? You are in the driver's seat and all you have to do is press the gas pedal. The universe will be right there with you in the passenger seat supporting your internal compass.
A Course of Love (another of my current studies along with Love and A Map to the Unaltered Soul) says "All your vast wanderings will be seen for what they are. All that you desired will be revealed as only two desires, the desire to love and the desire to be loved." Ch. 9, p. 78.
Sometimes I think I understand what love is but instead I realize I am just people pleasing, or worse, sacrificing my own happiness. I get caught up in the conditioning of our society. I have been enlightened and humbled through my studies to admit that I really know very little about this subject. And that is OK, loving myself means I accept exactly where I am right now. I trust all will be revealed in time. But I believe the process can be accelerated if I put my attention on it. I may even save myself decades of confusion.
Loving myself means that I embrace the adventure of the revealing. As I continue to experience new things about love's meaning and expression, it sometimes feels joyously earth shaking. At times it feels scary and my whole sense of balance is shaken. And sometimes...just sometimes, it gently washes over me and gets absorbed and my perception is forever expanded. What a gift it is to discover love instead of hate and separation. The more I learn, the more I want, and the more I want, the more it is given.
We all have many choices in this lifetime. How do we spend our time? How do we treat others? How do we serve the world? Who do we share our lives with? How do we care for our body? And the list goes on and on, but the decision to commit to knowing what love truly is, in my humble opinion, must be the most important. Can you imagine if we all started spending our time and energy on the pursuit of this education instead of the temporary Earthly games? And if love is eternal and is the only Truth (love always wins so they say), isn't it best to go ahead and make its understanding my priority?
Will you join me in Upping the Love Game?
Peace and Blessings,
Kristin
We often hear of this in regard to listening to others. But what does it mean to listen deeply to your own voice? Your own soul? Your own stirrings?
As I continue to study A Course in Miracles, I am led down a spiral into my own heart. Spiraling gently and ever so slowly into a consciousness or understanding that had been forgotten or denied.
At times, the newfound realizations seem so obvious and familiar, at times I am stunned by my lack of awareness and at times it is as if a mystery has been revealed.
I treasure both the obvious and the mysterious. They both peel back another layer of the onion and remind me of my Real Self or true nature.
So much of the time, I am caught in the societal machine and operating on autopilot… but I can only do that for so long these days. As I study and get in touch with this true nature, I become more intolerant of my own inauthentic expression.
It’s like I am starved for the truth and can’t get enough. The more I experience these openings and awakenings to my soul, the more I want them. They feel whole, complete, secure, peaceful and most of all, self-compassionate.
If I can’t find compassion for myself as I make this life’s journey, who really will? Am I holding out for someone else to save me? I challenge the fairy tale indoctrination that leaves me powerless.
“Defenselessness is my Strength” (ACIM) is one of the most profound teachings of the Course. Relaxing into and accepting what this eternal now brings me with a combined effort to understand that I am unconditionally loved and supported by my higher power, always, is the gateway thought that leads me to this deeper knowing.
May we all let our defenses down and reconnect with our most honest, most vulnerable, most open selves so that we can demonstrate true love in all our affairs. Especially the affairs of the personal heart and mind. This may actually be the only real purpose of this life, that we know our own heart and mind thoroughly and then allow for true expression.
“To fulfill the will of God perfectly is the only joy and peace that can be fully known, because it is the only function that can be fully experienced. When this is accomplished, then there is no other experience. The goal of the curriculum, regardless of the teacher you choose, is Know Thyself. There is nothing else to learn.” (ACIM)
Peace and Blessings,
Kristin
A Course in Miracles says it is beyond “what can be taught”. All I know is the way I FEEL when I notice its divine presence. When I am quiet, still, and observing, my mind shifts. It feels warm, familiar, complete, peaceful, open, non-dualistic, free and oh so joyful. It feels real and I always want more and more of it. I guess that’s why I’m hyper-focused on studying the Course because I have now reached a place in my mind where I experience this kind of love quite often. Not always, but more and more often. Growing, ever so slowly and surely. It doesn’t matter if I am alone or surrounded by loved ones. I recognize this love is only within me and not without. My addictions of the past are fading, I have a completely different perspective after having devoted myself to this study.
Why wouldn’t I want more and more of that feeling, that knowing? Doesn’t everyone?
I often get tripped up by this question and then I have to examine all the egoic lessons I have learned over this lifetime. The ones that led me to competition, pride, jealousy, insecurity, uncertainty, littleness, closure. They, too, were necessary in transporting me to this exact time and place and so I bless them. I realize that I have learned by contrasts. But perspectives can change and I am allowing myself, in the now, to sink into a new reality. Those old lessons are in the past and I am being led to challenge all those thoughts that never really served me…. and that certainly don’t serve me now… or in the future. It is invigorating to think this power is, and will always be, available in my thinking. Taking only the good and valuable with me into this present moment. It is glorious. It is miraculous.
It’s really just allowing myself to go there, and receive the truth… it is eternally available in every now moment. “Love’s total lack of limit is its meaning. It is completely impartial in its giving, encompassing only to preserve and keep complete what it would give.” Open your heart to A Course in Miracles! It will teach you HOW to achieve this and you will never be the same!
Peace, Kristin
I wish you the gift of "being"
Where you release all thoughts of "doing"
A time that is free of labor, duties, and production
Where you edge into and accept stillness
A time to go within and know your breath
Where the world outside disappears into nothingness
A time to set the past and future free
Where you are perfectly in sync with the present moment
A time rich in serenity and all knowing
Where there is a powerful memory of your true self
A time for complete trust in our divine creator
Where the love, peace, and oneness of God penetrate your heart
A time where there is no time
This gift is waiting for you at Kentucky Grace, come and receive it with us!
This is my hope....that I can share it with YOU!
With love, Kristin