Come to Yourself Daily is excited to guide you through A Course in Miracles, the groundbreaking text that launched the New Age thought movement.
If you would like to follow along with the text, you can find a FREE online version from the publisher here: https://acim.org/acim/workbook/introduction/en/s/401?wid=toc&fwv=true. Or you can purchase a hard copy from online retailers (just make sure you are getting the original BLUE cover versions published by the Foundation for Inner Peace).
This podcast is not a reading of the text. Gretchen will guide you through the lessons by providing context, examples, exercises, and insights into how you can make the most of these lessons and transform your life into one that is grounded in love, peace, and happiness.
No more resolutions…it’s time to focus on your evolution. Changing WHY you live changes HOW you live.
A Course In Miracles (First Edition – Three Volume Set) is the edition Gretchen is using as the reference material for this podcast.
Gretchen O'Neal is a spiritual accountability and empowerment coach. She holds a Master's Degree in Transpersonal Psychology with a focus in Applied Spirituality and owns and operates www.cometoyourself.com. Come To Yourself provides unbiased, easily accessible information from the top scholars in the fields of transpersonal psychology and consciousness studies, coupled with personal insights from successful artists, musicians, and business professionals to anyone looking to start their spiritual journey to discover and serve their soul's mission in life
Music: "What One Has Done Before, One Now Does For You Once More" from States: Vol. 1, written and performed by Robin Lynn. All rights reserved and used with permission.
Gretchen ONeal:
Hi, everyone, welcome back to A Course in Miracles. Today we start a 10 day review of the last 20 lessons, you will see that we do this quite often in this course, this is not only just to review and refresh the concepts, but to use this review period to teach you how to apply them. So, like in school, we would call this period the practical application period. Whereas the other lessons, we're just learning the theory. So during the review of part three, we're going to spend two extended sessions each day, you can do one in the morning and one in the evening. And in the sessions, you're going to review the first of the two concepts in the morning. And the second of the two concepts in the evening, you're gonna review this in the typical format that we use of a mindful meditation, you can either choose to repeat the concept to yourself, and just let your mind go and see what messages you receive. Or you can use the pre recorded podcasts which I will put at the end of each review lesson for the day, so that you don't have to go back and download them or find them, they will be part of this podcast. And you can use that as your morning in your evening review. Throughout the day, however, I would like you to take the two concepts that are being reviewed for the day. And if you need to write them down quickly, so that you have them at the ready throughout the day, I highly recommend doing that. But during the day, back to our every hour on the hour, I want you to look at the two concepts I want you to say them to yourself. That's all that's required. This isn't about doing an individual meditation each hour, I just want you to repeat the concept. Reason being, we are trying to train the mind to operate from soul. And from spirit versus from the self. Your conscious waking mind has spent all of your life focused on operating from the self from those false perceptions from living in that untrue reality. We now want to train the conscious mind your waking mind, to operate from soul to get its cues from love and from spirit. And one of the easiest ways to do that is to remind yourself every hour of these concepts that puts them in the forefront of your mind. That makes them a focal point of your waking consciousness all throughout the day. So this is also a training ground here. So please don't ignore this part of the review. Please take the time each day. To do this repetition every hour. The easiest way to do it is to write the two concepts down, put them on your phone, you can set an alarm on your phone every hour to look at that note, or you can remind yourself to look at it you can post it on your computer screen where you're going to see it all day. I just want you to make an active effort to put this in your waking mind for the rest of the review period. So for the next 10 days, this is the goal. A morning meditation and an evening meditation focused on one of the concepts that you were viewing for the day. And then during the middle of your day, every hour, I want you to simply repeat the concepts, put them in the forefront of your consciousness and let them live there for the remainder of your day to day. Enjoy this review period, really work on actively living from your soul for the next 10 days. Take note of the changes that you experience. And definitely take note of your overall mental state. Are you happier? Are you more at peace? Are you calmer? Be mindful of those changes as well. Have a wonderful review period. And again, the podcasts for today's to review lessons will follow. Have a great day. Welcome back to A Course in Miracles. Today is less than 105 and the concept is spirits peace and joy, our mind spirits peace and joy In our mind now in the last lesson, we discussed the fact that spirits peace and joy have always been yours. You just had to recognize that and accept it. Today's lesson seems similar, but it's a little different because we're going to take the concept and demonstrate how it can change aspects of your life. So if you adopt spirits, peace and joy or mine, I live with peace and joy in love and happiness. The next thing I want you to think about is, before you were willing to accept that before you understood that is a truth. How many people in your life did you regard as an enemy, or as someone you needed to fear, or as someone who wanted to hurt you or attack you? Or that you needed to just generally be wary of how many people in your life have you labeled that way? Because you lived your life from fear. I'm sure as you think about it, some distinct names and faces are coming to mind. Now, if you say spirits, peace and joy, your mind spirits love is mine. And therefore, spirits forgiveness is mine. Those same people who you have kept at a distance or maybe even excluded from your life, or souls that you have broken a connection with. Those are souls that you have lost an opportunity of knowing, and connecting to, and loving in your life. As we've learned from this course, when you shine the light, you give others the opportunity to do the same. When you approach people from forgiveness and love, you let them know they have nothing to fear from you. And therefore they may drop their attack posture, and their fear of you. And you may open doors to connecting with them. You may open doors to getting to know them. And your souls can love each other. My father used to always say, I love everyone. I don't like everyone. But I love everyone. That's what I want you to think about. You don't have to like every personality, you don't have to like every soul that you interact with. This isn't about preference. But if you operate from Spirit, you will find that you love everything that is part of spirit. Whether it is a person, a tree of be a bird, you will love it, you will find the beauty in it, you will find a connection with it. You will vibe with some part of its energy. You don't have to like everybody, you don't have to like everybody you interact with. But we love everyone. And we show them that love through forgiveness, and attempts and understanding and recognizing them for who they are as they are. And loving them for being able to be their authentic self. And we learn from them you learn from every buddy you interact with good or bad. You learn from everything. So in my opinion, there is no bad because I'm always gaining from every interaction from a person. I'm always gaining something from it. So if you say spirit, peace, enjoy our mind. Then every soul on this earth is yours. In the sense that we're all connected through that love through spirit. We are all the waves of that ocean. And I really want you to think about how many opportunities you've lost, interacting with people because you chose to live your life from fear. And now that you're choosing to live your life from love. How many of those people can you change your dynamic with how many of those people can you find happiness with or understand Ending with how many people can you let back into your life? That's what I want you to focus on today. That's the exercise period for today. It's just thinking about everybody who you've lost connection with, because you lived your life from fear. And then trying to see if you are capable today of living from love, and finding a way to forgive and understand those people. Maybe the thing that separated you, now that you look at it from a standpoint of love, and forgiveness, isn't that big of a deal. This is a growth lesson today. But more importantly, it is really about understanding what a miracle is. It's about understanding what a perception shift is, and how monumental it can be in your life. By shifting your perception from fear to love. Everybody who has exited your life may now reenter. That kind of love and understanding is what brings you that peace. This is the work that comes from doing this course, that ends up enriching your life. So please spend some time on this lesson today. Today is lesson 106. And Today's concept is, let me be still and listen to the truth. Let me be still and listen to the truth. Today is less about a concept and more about practice. We're going to do a full mindful meditation session today. In order to do that, you need to pick a time today, when you can quiet everything else in your life. Meaning you're not at work, you're not in between calls, you're not rushing around, it's not 10 minutes before you pick your kids up from school. I want you to find a time when you can set aside a good 30 minutes. And I want you to be able to have 15 minutes before and 15 minutes after that 30 minute session. So in total one hour, but I want 15 minutes before, which can have some noise and some distraction. But it's really just you getting ready for your session. Taking your time setting up your space, getting yourself prepared, finding a comfortable place in a position to be in making sure that you've eaten well before you've had something to drink before. So you're really getting yourself ready for your session. And then afterwards, I want you to have 15 minutes, so that you can really process what occurred. You can take notes, you can journal, you can just live in what happened, you could take a walk. But I want you to have a good 15 minutes to really process what happens in your mindful meditation session. So in the 30 minute session today, we're going to practice a new part of meditation if you haven't done this before, which is ask and answered. When you learn to connect with Spirit, you will also learn that you can ask questions and you will receive meaningful answers. Now those answers may come as a voice to you those answers may come as images to you those answers may come as a general feeling in your body. It's whatever way you are designed to receive information. So there isn't one way, okay. It's however, your soul is designed to receive information from spirit. But in an ask and answer session, you're going to start your meditation with a question. And you're going to sit and listen. As we discussed before, when you practice mindful meditation, there will be some errant thoughts that come in in the beginning, as you're delving deeper that you can dismiss if you've never done this before. Again, we have an article about it on the website comm do self.com under mindful meditation, which can answer a lot of questions for you in advance. So please feel free to read that before doing this session. But in your mindful meditation session, you're going to sit quiet Lean In a sent to yourself. And I want you to ask what does it mean to give and to receive? So you can start the session by saying, I will be still and listen to truth. What does it mean to give and to receive and just see what comes to you the messages and the answers are going to be different for everyone. So there is no right answer. But there is a universal truth. So I have no doubt that if you really give this your true intention during this meditation session, if you open yourself to this process, you will receive an answer to that question that is unique to you and your purpose in this lifetime. So practice that today. Enjoy this connection with spirit. Take notes afterwards, or just process the information. But understand it is guidance and it should inform how you choose to live aspects of your life after this session. Have a blessed day. And join us for the lesson tomorrow.