Why

Spiritual Coaching?

Not long ago my friend Susan sent me one of my Morning Meditations and I listened to it as I got dressed that day. It helped so much and I called her to say, “Thank you, Susan! That was great!”

She laughed and said, “But you wrote it!”

I told her, “It doesn’t matter. You can’t priest yourself.” My knowing the words in the meditations, even my writing them, doesn’t mean I don’t have to do the work myself. And there is something that happens when we are joined with another person in doing it.

That is why my team and I have created THE MONTHLY SESSIONS: A Year-long Journey into Miracle-Mindedness, to spiritually coach those who wish to purify their minds of fear each month and allow miracles to enter.

According to A Course in Miracles, at the deepest level only Love is Real. The absence of love is fear, but “what is all- encompassing can have no opposite.”

Fear is manifest in the material world to be sure, but we can transform our thinking and thus transform the world. As we choose to think and live at the deepest level of miracle-mindedness, we open to a world of possibilities that do not otherwise exist for us. We cast out fear by choosing love.

Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love, but they are blocked by thoughts of fear, i.e. lovelessness. At the end of each month, let’s release the old, unneeded, fear-based thoughts that have accumulated in the last four weeks, and release ourselves to a new beginning.

In one session every month, I’ll walk you through the journey of miracle-mindedness. We’ll bring into conscious awareness all the fears we’re ready to release, manifesting the blessings we’re ready to receive, using the power of our minds to uplift not only our own lives but the entire world.

We’ll go as deep as you’re ready to go, and the year ahead will be A Year of Miracles for all of us.

The biggest block to miracles is unforgiveness. Why? Because it means we’re holding on to thoughts of darkness (guilt, blame, attack, judgment) that block the light of greater understanding. The understanding of someone’s God-given innocence that lies beyond their mistakes is what releases us from the effects of their error, and allows miracles to happen.

According to A Course in Miracles, forgiveness isn’t quite what we think it is. It’s not looking at how someone hurt us and then considering ourselves “spiritual” enough to forgive them. The higher meaning of forgiveness is when we release our perception of another person’s guilt. It’s a willingness to extend our perception beyond the level of someone’s error, to our knowledge of the deeper truth of who they are.

As we release our attachment to the thought of someone’s guilt, we release ourselves from being at the effect of it. Forgiveness reprograms the universe of our personal experience.

True forgiveness is realizing that since only love is real, whatever someone did to hurt us lies within the realm of the worldly illusion and therefore has no ultimate Reality. We are only hurt by lovelessness to the extent
to which we consider it Real. In making the distinction between what is real (the three-dimensional worldly reality) and what is Real (the ultimate reality of God that lies beyond the perception of the material world), we release ourselves from the effects of lovelessness.

Obviously, none of this is to say that things don’t happen within our worldly experience. But in learning
to rethink our experience we change it. When we are lifted above our attachments to material evidence — willing to consider that in an ultimate sense, in God’s perfect universe, only love is real and nothing else exists — we are released from the suffering that the attachment brings.

That is why forgiveness is not only a gift to the one we forgive, but also to ourselves.

These are the questions we will work on, as I coach you through the forgiveness process:

Who hurt me this last month?

We cannot bring light to the darkness, we must bring the darkness to light. In the words of ACIM, “I cannot take from you what you will not release to me.”

We will name the person, we will name the event or situation, and we will release it to God. We will tell Him we are willing to see the situation differently, to remember that the innocence of the person lay beyond their worldly, wounded self that hurt you. As you are willing to see their innocence, you will be healed of the pain they caused you.

And don’t forget: self-forgiveness can be just as difficult to achieve, if not more so at times. We will clear that out too, as we remember that in atoning for our mistakes we are releasing ourselves from their effects. The future is literally reprogrammed as we are willing to correct past perceptions in the present.

Every month I will put you through this exercise:

I love myself for…

And

I forgive myself for…

It’s amazing how much lighter you will feel…

“Miracles are everyone’s right, but purification is necessary first.” – A Course in Miracles

Spiritual purification means dropping the fears left over from the past, and reprogramming the future by accepting only love in the present.

Often we drag shadow figures from the past into the present, thus dooming the future to be a continuation of old problems. In any present moment we can begin again, but only in the eternal now — called in A Course in Miracles “the Holy Instant” — can the mind be cleared of old judgments, grievances or attack thoughts.

Miracles occur naturally in the presence of love, but they are just as surely blocked by thoughts of fear. “You can have a grievance or you can have a miracle, but you cannot have both.”

In this section of our monthly sessions, we will release judgments from the past that will otherwise block miracles in our future. Remember: we cannot bring light to the darkness; we must bring darkness to the light. That is why these sessions are important. We will not deny or suppress our fear-based thoughts, but rather bring them to conscious awareness and surrender them for healing.

Why

Do This?

About

Marianne Williamson