24: From Loving One To One Love With Dr. Bob Rosenthal

In this episode, Dr. Bob shares some insights and examples about special versus holy relationships. We dive into the content of his latest book, From Loving One to One Love: Transforming Relationships through A Course in Miracles.

Transcript

This is From Anxiety to Love Radio,

The show about undoing anxiety through a course in miracles and other pathways of love.

Gain insights and tools to deepen your awareness of the peace that already exists within you.

I'm your host Corinne Zumko,

Author of the award-winning and best-selling book From Anxiety to Love.

Hey spiritual family,

What's up?

It is so nice to be with you again today.

We are lucky ducks.

We've got the co-president of the Foundation for Inner Peace on today's episode.

Dr.

Robert Rosenthal,

Also known as Dr.

Bob,

My guest,

Was actually a psychiatrist in New Jersey where I live for many years before he retired from that position and took on his role with the Foundation for Inner Peace out in California.

Now I didn't know Dr.

Bob when he was a psychiatrist in New Jersey and to be honest with you,

I kind of wish I did know him back then because I probably would have gone to see him for therapy.

I mean,

A psychiatrist who does a course in miracles,

Like it kind of doesn't get any better than that in terms of mental health care.

But I was lucky to meet him in person.

We had connected just through the course community and then I was lucky to meet him in person for the first time actually at his going away party right before he moved.

And since then,

We've met a number of times and we'll both be speaking in Los Angeles in May 2020 at the Community Miracles Center Conference.

So if you're interested in finding out more about that conference,

Please come over to fromanxietytolove.

Com forward slash ACIM conference.

Now you might recognize Dr.

Bob Rosenthal's name because it's actually on the cover of my book From Anxiety to Love.

He wrote the beautiful forward,

Which I'm so still so honored that he did this.

I'm also honored because I had the opportunity to endorse his book,

Which is called From Loving One to One Love.

I love his book and we are here to talk about that today.

So just to give you a little bit more background information on Dr.

Bob,

He has his MD.

Again,

He's the co-president of the Foundation for Inner Peace and he served on the Foundation's board of directors since 1993.

He was introduced to A Course in Miracles in 1975 at the age of 20 by Judy Skutch Whitson,

And he became a close friend and protege of the course's co-scribe,

Bill Thetford,

Which I think is so cool.

Dr.

Bob has written a number of other books,

Including From Nevermind to Evermind and From Plagues to Miracles.

And as I'm sharing this with you,

It's actually just dawning on me that all of our books have From Something to Something going on.

From Nevermind to Evermind,

From Loving One to One Love,

From Anxiety to Love.

That's really funny.

I never put that together before.

Anyways,

I digress.

We cover so much ground in this episode.

So as always,

You can find the resources that we talk about on the show notes page,

Including my takeaways,

Which I will share with you later on at the end.

And you can grab all of this at fromanxietytolove.

Com forward slash 24.

Let's tune in to our conversation.

And here we are with Dr.

Bob Rosenthal.

Bob,

Welcome to the show.

Thank you so much,

Corinne.

It truly is a joy to be talking with you.

It is.

We've been talking about doing this for a while,

And your second book just came out recently,

From Loving One to One Love.

And I loved it so much that I immediately reached out to you and said,

You have to be on my podcast.

So here we are.

So here we are.

I'm wondering if we can just start with you just sharing who you wrote this book for.

Yeah,

So I was approached by a publisher at the end of 2015,

Actually,

Saying that they were wanting someone to do a series on the principles of A Course in Miracles.

And of course,

I started thinking about the usual,

Well,

Here's how the course came and,

You know,

Here's some of what it says.

And then they told me that they wanted it to be accessible to people who had heard of A Course in Miracles,

But never actually looked at it,

People who may have picked it up,

But couldn't get into it because of either the complexity of the language or the Christian terminology or what have you.

And of course,

Being a 44 year at this point student of A Course in Miracles,

I also wanted it to offer something to people like myself.

You know,

When you spend a great deal of time with A Course in Miracles and its ideas,

You begin to incorporate them and think about them in ways that you want to share,

Ways that make it easier for others to understand what the course is talking about.

So the first book of the series,

From Nevermind to Evermind,

Came out in January of 2019.

And the idea on that one was just,

What is the fundamental teaching of A Course in Miracles?

And we're not going to go into that in great detail at all today.

But what I distilled it down to is what is the self?

Who are we?

What are we?

And that until we can begin to understand that,

We're kind of running around in circles lost and blind.

So that book addressed that question.

And it actually segued very nicely with From Loving One to One Love,

Which is focused on relationships.

Because if you work A Course in Miracles in,

You know,

Over the years,

What you begin to realize is that it's all about relationships.

That,

You know,

The course tells us that the lonely journey fails because it has excluded what it would find.

You can't find God,

You can't find oneness as an individual self because you're not an individual self.

And even within this world,

You know,

We all live in a complex nexus of interrelatedness.

It's a very rare person who's often a cave by themselves or wants absolutely no relationships.

So there was a very natural segue from,

All right,

We are not individual beings,

We are connected at the deep level as spirit and spirit is the same and the same loving oneness that's in all of us.

Now how do we see that in relationships?

And that took me into the second book where really it's sort of in,

Well,

It's in two parts.

One part,

The first looks at special love as opposed to holy relationships,

Which is a core teaching of the course,

Especially in chapters 15 and 16 of the text.

And then the second part,

Which is sort of like,

Well,

What do we do once we realize how ever present the specialness is in our relationships and how often that shows up through judgments and grievances.

And once we see the judgments,

Once we see the grievances,

Well,

What do we do with it?

And that's where the course comes in with its ideas about forgiveness,

Which as you and I both know is not really what the common understanding of forgiveness is.

The common understanding,

Oh,

I forgive you,

You miserable worm,

You screwed up,

But I'm so much more holy than you that I will deign to forgive you.

And no,

That's,

That's forgiveness to destroy.

You know,

The course has a very different take and I'm sure we will talk about it somewhat today.

Definitely.

Let's talk about the book.

And I just,

I have a few things I have to respond to.

Number one,

You definitely accomplished the goal of having written a book that is for people who are new to the course.

And I got so much out of it,

Even being a seasoned course student.

Before I ask you to relay a story to the audience that you shared in the book,

I just have to tell a little story.

When you and I were in,

I guess it was San Francisco,

I think at the San Francisco Community Miracle Center Conference,

I remember you saying that you being a co-president of Foundation for Inner Peace with Tam Morgan,

Somebody asked you,

Why two presidents?

You don't have two captains of a ship.

And your response was something like,

Well,

This is a relationship.

Did I get that story right?

You did get that story right.

I said,

No,

Ships don't have two captains except for one kind of ship.

And that's a relationship.

That's perfect.

I love that.

And that really speaks to what the course is really about.

And so everything that you just said about not waking up in isolation,

That we wake up through our brother,

Through this process of forgiveness is so key.

And the story that I wanted you to share that you write about in your book,

If you would be willing to recount that for us right now,

Had to do with some long spoons.

And how,

If you,

Are you remembering what I'm talking about?

When you said a story,

My first thought was,

Oh,

I hope I remember what it was.

But yes,

That,

I actually heard that as something of a joke,

But it's not really a joke.

It's more a very powerful illustration of what I think A Course in Miracles would call a shift in perception.

And so the story is that someone is being given a tour of heaven and hell.

And I guess so that they know what's in store for them in terms of how they behave.

And in,

So the tour guide,

I don't know,

Let's call him Virgil or whoever,

Takes this person to a room and opens the door and says,

This is hell.

And what is in front of the person is a long table with people seated all around it.

And the most amazing sumptuous food spread all across the table.

And these people have extremely long spoons.

And each one is trying to get the food on the spoon and then get it into their mouths.

But the spoons are too long.

They can't do it.

And you know,

The place is a mess and there's food all over the place and they're starving and they're miserable and they cannot,

You know,

They can't help themselves.

And that was hell.

And then the guy takes the person to the next room and says,

And here's heaven.

And he opens the door and the guy's surprised because he sees the exact same setup.

A table with sumptuous food surrounded by people with these extremely long spoons.

But in this room,

Instead of trying to feed themselves,

Each person is scooping up food and using their long spoon to feed it across to someone on the other side of the table who can't reach it.

And they're all feeding each other and everyone is happy and laughing and satisfied.

And that's heaven.

And you know,

There's the shift in perception.

If we are completely focused on self,

We're going to have a hard time getting,

You know,

The food of heaven,

Mana,

Love,

Whatever you want to call it into our beingness.

But when we begin to focus on relationship and the other person,

And I don't mean this in terms of give away everything you have and go take care of the poor.

If you're guided to do that,

I honor that.

But that's not most of us.

What I mean is thinking of yourself in a context of we're all walking this path together.

When I used to work,

As Corinne has told you,

You know,

I was a psychotherapist for over 30 years and I did a lot of work with couples.

And I used to say to couples who would get into these spats about,

Well,

You know,

I always do the dishes and I take the dogs for the walk and he doesn't do anything.

And he'd say,

Well,

I go to work and I have to do blah,

Blah,

Blah.

I'd look at them and I'd say,

You know,

Look at it this way.

You're both in the same rowboat and the rowboat has holes in it.

It's taking on water and you're arguing over who's bailing the fastest,

Who's bailing best.

And you're each sort of feeling like,

Well,

I'm not going to bail anymore because you're not doing it the right way.

You're throwing it over the wrong part of the boat.

Well,

If you do that,

The boat's going to fill up with water and you're both going to sink.

Whereas if you can appreciate what the other person is doing in their own unique way,

Realizing that at the highest level,

Your goals are the same.

We all want peace.

We all want love.

We all want to be treated with kindness and appreciation.

And when that's realized,

You know,

Your whole world changes and you're in that room where everyone's feeding each other with the long spoons.

And that is a short hop from heaven.

That is such a great example,

Such a great illustration.

And you say in the book at the end of that paragraph,

Heaven is shared,

Hell is solitary.

And I so relate to that when I think about anxiety.

Anxiety shrinks your awareness into like this solitary hell.

It's this feeling of just,

You know,

Having tunnel vision and feeling like you're the only,

You can't reach anybody.

You just feel so alone.

It has that way of just kind of cutting you off.

And so this idea of heaven being shared,

That we wake up not just individually,

But through one another is just an incredible,

Incredible thought,

Incredible new idea.

And what makes A Course in Miracles so different than other pathways?

Yeah.

And you know,

When we look at it that way,

Corinne,

Anxiety,

Aka fear,

Is a fundamental condition of the separated state.

What I mean by that is to the extent that we see ourselves as isolated beings confined to a physical body that we know is doomed to death.

When we see ourselves that way,

There's a fundamental insecurity that you can't get around.

I mean,

You can pretend and you can,

You know,

Get all excited about great events and we can go to ball games and cheer,

But you're isolated.

So I think there is among us human beings and indeed among most animals,

A very fundamental desire to join and affiliate.

And this is what I wrote about in the first book.

In some detail is we all want to join,

But here in the ego's world of form,

That joining winds up forming tribes and cults and teams.

And so we're all united and that feels great,

But oh yeah,

There are those other ones over there and they want to,

You know,

They want to hurt us.

They want to take away what we have.

They want to kill us.

And so within the ego's mind frame,

Even when you join,

There's still a sense of isolation and solitariness and fear of what's going to happen from that other person.

So you really can't escape anxiety as a solitary being.

But when we start to realize that we're not alone and not alone in two different ways.

One,

We're never alone because we have God in the Holy Spirit that live within us.

That is the most profound realization that I know of.

And I think it's ultimately the only way to overcome that.

Let's call it existential anxiety and fear that is endemic to human beings.

You're not alone.

You,

You,

You mistook your sense of self.

You know,

I like to joke,

You know,

We all are suffering from a case of mistaken identity.

You're also not alone because there's seven billion other people on the planet who share the same delusion and who want the same things you do.

And when we get out of the way and begin to forgive and as the course calls it,

Remove the obstacles to the awareness of love's presence,

Then those people start showing up for us,

Not as attackers,

Not as rivals or competitors,

But they start showing up for us in ways that we literally never ever could have imagined.

You know,

Whether that's,

You know,

Money.

In my first book From Plagues to Miracles,

I tell a story about someone I knew who was,

Who lived with Bill Thetford,

One of the course's scribes for a while,

A woman by the name of Patricia Hopkins,

Just delightful human being.

And she was writing a book call with,

With her co-author called The Feminine Face of God where they were going to travel around the country interviewing women who were,

You know,

Sort of wise women,

Seniors on the spiritual path about how they got to where they are and what they're about.

But they needed money to do it and they had no idea how to raise the money.

And this was in the pre-internet days,

This was in the 1980s.

And she said,

You know,

One day this dainty little flowered envelope showed up in the mail and she opens it and there's a note from a woman who said,

I heard about your project.

I want to support it.

And there was a check for $20,

000,

Which in the 1980s was really a lot of money.

And then of course there's a story of how A Course in Miracles,

You know,

Got published where Judy,

Ken,

Bill and Helen made the commitment.

Yep,

We need to do this ourselves.

They'd taken it to other publishers.

You know,

Everyone wanted to publish it,

But everyone wanted to change it and there were a bridge it and their guidance was no,

That's not acceptable.

So once they made that commitment,

You know,

The next day Judy gets a call from,

You know,

This guy in Mexico saying,

I love the course,

I've seen it,

I want to translate it into Spanish,

You've got to publish it.

Judy says,

Yeah,

I know we just need the money.

Oh,

Well that's why I'm calling.

You know,

I put a check in the mail to you from some land I sold a couple of weeks ago and you'll be receiving $60,

000 shortly.

And the 1970s,

Huge amount of money.

So whether it's money,

Whether it's just a helping hand,

Whether it's someone who will ferry you across the river,

Whatever that river might be,

Help starts showing up in ways we never could have imagined.

I love it.

The one other point in this is I'll ask people,

Because I've noticed this very much for myself,

Which feels better?

Imagine that you could see 30,

40 moves ahead in life and you could plan everything out exquisitely and I have worked with at least one or two patients,

Usually men,

Who deluded themselves that they could do that.

So you plan everything out and you execute the plan and lo and behold,

It all works.

The best you get to is a certain satisfaction of,

All right,

Well,

Work for me that time.

I hope it works next time.

On the other hand,

If you accept,

I have no idea how this is going to work out.

I'm even a little frightened about it.

I just don't know.

Holy Spirit,

Help.

And you have no image for what that help should look like.

You're not going,

Help me.

I need to have a partner who has these 25 qualities on my list.

You just help.

I'm lonely.

You know,

I'd like someone in my life.

You're not putting any constraints on the Holy Spirit.

When you do that and someone,

Something,

Money,

Whatever shows up in a way that you never could have imagined,

There's a satisfaction that goes so much deeper than the planning because you know that you are taken care of.

You know,

Like the 23rd Psalm,

The Lord is my shepherd.

You know you're being led to the,

What is it,

The still waters and,

And the green pastures and you don't have to do anything for that.

That is your birthright.

Oh,

I love that so much.

And that's where that building block of trust comes in because we have these experiences that witness for our choice for love that build our trust and we learn,

Like you were saying before,

That we are never,

Never alone and that existential anxiety then starts to go down because we are witnessing to the fact that love's presence is always,

Always with us.

Always with us,

Yes.

Oh,

I'm wondering if we can talk since your book is so helpful with understanding special relationships and holy relationships.

And you know,

I have to tell you that it was so funny that you referenced a quote from Jerry Maguire,

That quote that I remember when that movie came out and that you complete me line was like everybody was like,

Oh,

You complete me.

And they were just,

They love the movie.

And I was probably,

I was either in high school or middle school,

I don't remember.

And I remember hearing that line and being like,

That's so dumb.

You complete me.

Like how can,

Because you're,

You're tuned in.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How can another person possibly complete you?

You need to be whole first.

And this is,

You know,

My whatever 15,

16 year old self speaking.

So I was glad that I got that at an earlier time,

But I'm wondering if we can talk about special relationships and holy relationships.

Where would you want to begin?

Well,

I think you just gave us a great jumping off point and that is,

I think that we are raised from a fairly young age to believe that somewhere out there is that one special person that you know,

Twin flame as some people call it,

You know,

Um,

The one who is your perfect match,

Who's just waiting for you.

And when you find that special someone,

Your life is complete.

Yeah,

There might be hardships,

But the two of you walking hand in hand will always overcome them.

And I think this is,

I mean,

Okay,

Quick aside.

There may be some people for whom that actually applies.

I think I've met,

I don't know,

Two or three in my life for the vast,

Vast majority of us.

This is an ego brood fiction that keeps us running and searching and keeps us always judging whatever relationship we're currently in as lacking in some way because who can possibly complete us when we're not even complete ourselves.

The only way we can be complete is to wake up,

Remember who we are and let God and our brothers in,

Um,

Uh,

With,

With all that that implies.

So this whole idea that there is that special someone,

Um,

Which is the essence of romantic love and you know,

We can get into the origins of that in the middle ages.

Most people aren't even aware that before the middle ages there really wasn't any notion of romantic love.

People didn't write about it.

People didn't talk about it.

Uh,

Yeah,

Seriously.

Yeah.

It started in the era of the troubadours who carried stories around and it was based on the notion of the knight who,

Um,

Who jousts and fights for his lady,

But it was a completely chaste relationship.

They really had very little contact with each other and therefore the positive end,

It was a particular type of service that was very selfless and I think that was why,

You know,

That's the positive part.

But the negative thing is it's like,

Yeah,

They didn't know each other.

There's no relationship there.

It was all,

You know,

Fantasy and pipe dream to begin with.

So the origins of romantic love,

Uh,

You know,

Are as human evolution goes pretty recent.

Fascinating.

Yeah.

Um,

But this is what,

You know,

Certainly for myself,

Um,

I can track my romantic history back to second grade and the,

You know,

The,

The girl who sat in the seat in front of me and already feeling like,

Oh,

I love her and what am I going to say or do?

And you know,

And having one of those show up every few years and of course,

You know,

You find yourself practically paralyzed in that person's presence because look what's riding on it.

I mean,

You know,

Your whole future life depends on making this relationship.

It's all,

It's worse than a pipe dream because when we let it go and let God in and realize we don't know what relationships are for.

Um,

And if we can shift our perception so that each one is equally valuable in showing us the meaning of love,

Whether that's our life partner or someone we happen to pass on the street and smile at that when they're used in that way,

Then we're not looking for anyone else to bring us anything.

I mean back to the people,

The long spoon heaven,

We're there to learn to give.

And we begin to see that other people who trigger us are actually doing us a favor because they're shining a spotlight on those places in us where we have some obstacle that's blocking us from love.

You know,

I mean I think quite honestly the biggest culprits in this are not,

You know,

Husbands and wives,

But children.

You know,

Cause we all have this idea in our mind about what our children should be and as they grow up generally they deviate from that sometimes pretty radically.

And and,

And you know,

We have to,

If we truly love them,

We begin to take back our projections and our models for what they should be or which parts of us they should play out.

And just say,

No,

I want them to be loving,

Happy,

Fulfilled beings and I don't know how to get them there.

So you know,

The key is,

Course students tend to think about special relationships as only romantic relationships.

And I write about that in great detail.

But really every relationship the ego enters into is a special relationship because the ego doesn't know love.

It can't know how to be holy.

You know,

That's like,

That's like beyond it.

You know,

That's like saying,

Gee,

We just have to fly,

You know,

By flapping our arms and all will be well.

We're going to be able to do it.

Doesn't work that way.

So it's not just romantic relationships,

It's all of them.

And when we begin to see the specialness that we try to invest them with and the grievances that arise as sort of rebounds,

When that specialness disappoints us or completely eludes us in some way,

Then we do one of two things.

We start looking for another special relationship that'll do it better.

They must be out there somewhere.

Or if we're old enough or wise enough,

As you were at age 15 with the Jerry Maguire movie,

To say,

Huh.

Or as Bill Thetford said to Helen Schuchman in the scribing of the course,

There must be a better way.

And now rather than looking for specialness,

We turn our relationships over to the Holy Spirit and our goal becomes holiness,

Love,

Inner peace,

You know,

All that good stuff.

Is that the beginning of repurposing or you use the term repurposing in your book and repurposing a relationship.

So is that literally the point of repurposing is when you say,

I am giving this relationship,

I'm giving my attraction to it,

Whatever,

I'm giving it to the Holy Spirit.

Is that the beginning of transitioning from special to holy?

Great question.

Yeah,

I would say it is.

But for most of us,

That doesn't happen across the board all at once.

I think for most of us,

It's sort of a serial process and a summation where we'll do it in one relationship,

But we'll hold back another relationship either because we don't see it in that relationship.

We're not sure how the specialness is working or we're just not willing to let that go.

And so over time we begin to,

We begin to see more and more what works and what doesn't.

And then we reach a threshold where it's kind of like,

What are we doing?

You know,

This has to apply to all of our relationships because any relationship that we're making an exception and holding back actually is hurting us,

Is hurting the other person.

And,

And that would be where the whole thing kind of flips.

And you know,

It's,

It's,

It's a very weird process as the world would see it,

You know,

To be able to look at your own children and go,

Well,

They're not special to me in the way they were,

But I have a special,

I have a special function with them.

You know,

We are related in a certain way.

I have certain responsibilities,

But the love that I feel for them,

It's,

It's love.

It's love as God loves and it's not different than the way I love,

You know,

Um,

My brothers and sisters all over the place.

But I think that's a fairly down the line,

Um,

Insight.

And what I would say to our listeners is take whatever is in front of you.

I mean,

To me,

This is how the Holy Spirit works.

Take whatever's in front of you,

Wherever you are experiencing conflict or anger.

Those are very good clues and go,

Okay,

I must be,

I must be investing this with specialness.

What's going on?

What am I afraid to lose?

What do I need here that I'm not getting?

Why do I think I need it?

You know,

The question,

Of course in miracles asks us to ask ourselves all the time about anything is what is it for?

So what is this relationship for?

Am I using it for peace?

Am I using it for conflict and,

Or self aggrandizement?

Take whatever's in front of you and work that.

You know,

The whole,

One of the more frequent questions that I get,

And we're doing webinars now through the Foundation for Inner Peace where,

You know,

We're getting hundreds of questions at a time.

So I see this repeated over and over is,

You know,

How do I get enlightened,

You know,

Fast?

What,

What's the secret that you can share with me?

Well,

There is no secret.

And the only part of you that needs to do it fast is your ego because it doesn't want to do it at all.

Fast,

Slow,

These are notions that are rooted within the world of time.

What we want to be able to say to the Holy Spirit is lead me at the pace that is perfect for myself.

Bring to me those relationships to transform that I am ready to transform and allow me to trust in your choice,

Not my own.

And when we do that,

You know,

You'll get the lessons,

But there'll be bite size.

You know,

You'll be able to do them rather than these,

These crushing,

You know,

I'm going to charge the battlements of enlightenment and,

And,

And,

And it's not going to work.

And then I go and conclude,

I guess,

You know,

Either I'm an abject failure or the course and spiritual paths are,

Are nonsense.

And I'm going to,

You know,

Just go become a Wall Street investment banker and make as much money as I can.

Oh,

That's funny.

So you highlighted one of the course quotes that I absolutely love in your book.

I'm not,

I think saying the whole thing,

But it says the holy relationship is learned.

I don't know if that's the whole sentence or I'm abbreviating the full sentence,

But the holy relationship is,

Is learned.

And so would you say that we would do just that?

Like you said,

Start with what's in front of you.

Notice what is coming up in you,

Offer it to the Holy Spirit for repurposing.

And,

And I'm wondering if you have other tips that you can share in terms of what it really means to be learning that holy relationship.

And I will let you know that I definitely want to talk about the different perspectives that you offer in the,

Toward the end of your book.

I don't know if now's a good time to talk about that or if you have some other ideas as to how you can answer my question,

But I would really love to know just other tips for people who are wanting to learn a holy relationship.

What can they do?

So I think it all comes back to the courses introduction,

Which might be the most brilliant single page ever written in any language.

And if you don't have a course in miracles,

Go get it.

But if you do have it,

Read that introduction and read it carefully because it is,

It is the entire course.

And actually it's just the three lines.

Nothing real can be threatened.

Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the peace of God.

And just above that,

It's telling us this course does not aim to teach the meaning of love.

It teaches rather,

Um,

You know,

The removing,

How to remove the obstacles through the awareness of love's presence,

Which is your natural inheritance.

So every relationship must have love at its core because that is who we are.

But we are so turned around,

Upside down,

Screwed up in this world of bodies and personalities and seemingly separate life histories that convinced us that we're also different,

That we no longer find the love.

We no longer recognize it.

And then we begin to think that we have to do all these things in the world of form to earn it and then do all these other things to lock it down and hold onto it.

The way you work on transforming a special relationship is finding the blocks and removing them.

But we don't move them ourselves.

We remove them in the recognition that,

You know,

We don't know how we give it to the Holy Spirit.

And um,

And I can't really tell our listeners,

Um,

What that will be like for them.

I think there's a certain level of kind of individual,

Um,

Uh,

Configuration that goes with that.

But when you give it to the Holy Spirit,

What you're basically saying is,

You know,

I'm,

I'm removing my own projections and my blocks from it to the best of my ability.

And just your intention to do that opens the door to something very,

Very different.

And when something different comes through,

There's your feedback.

There's your,

There's what shows you,

Um,

Wow,

This stuff really works.

And if this works,

It must be truth,

Which means that all the things that I thought were before,

I guess I was wrong.

They're not true.

It's,

You know,

The,

The introduction to the workbook tells you,

You don't have to believe these,

Uh,

You don't have to,

You know,

Uh,

I mean you can actively disbelieve the lessons,

Just do them and they will show you,

They will bring to you the experience you need.

I totally agree with that.

So to encapsulate it in,

Um,

In,

In,

In,

In just a few words,

Uh,

That came to me just the other day in a webinar.

Do nothing,

Undo everything.

I love that.

Do nothing,

Undo everything.

That's so succinct and so clear.

That's that's how it felt to me.

You know,

We don't have to do anything.

Doing is what bodies do.

Um,

We do have to become aware and undo everything that we thought we knew in order to have the experience that shows us something wonderfully joyously different.

Yeah.

Wow.

Thank you for that.

Thank you so much for sharing that.

Great question though.

Thank you.

Yeah.

So I'm wondering if this is a good,

I have more questions.

We're not done yet,

But I'm wondering if we could maybe briefly recap the perspectives that you offer at the end of your book.

I think the first one was the psychotherapist perspective and if you could just tell us what these tools are for.

Yeah.

So these are just ways that I have stumbled into myself for practicing forgiveness,

Particularly in situations with people where I have a really hard time finding a way to seeing them as my brother or sister and seeing the light of holiness in them.

So the first one I called the psychotherapist perspective because as a psychotherapist I got to experience this a great deal.

In short,

What it involved was I'm here to help this person and therefore however they come in the door,

Um,

Tall,

Short,

Fat,

Fat,

Thin,

Gorgeous,

Ugly,

Obnoxious,

Charming,

Rich,

Poor,

You name it.

However they came in and whatever that might happen to trigger in me was irrelevant to the purpose of healing for which they came through my door into my office.

And what I would discover over and over and over is that my initial ego judgments,

You know,

You walk out into your waiting area and there's someone sitting there and immediately,

You know,

The ego starts dumping all these judgments,

Um,

That within about two or three sessions,

Whatever they,

Whatever those judgments were and whatever the personality structure and life history of that person may have been,

Um,

I found myself basically able to love them because of the purpose of the relationship.

That doesn't mean that I said to them,

Oh,

I love you.

No,

It was just holding a frame where almost like I could suspend my judgments about them which would then allow them to begin to suspend their judgments about themselves.

Um,

Think of it as almost like a healing bubble of light that if you're able to pop it out,

Um,

You know,

You can hold them within it as well.

So it's,

It's a perspective,

Um,

From a place of healing and Lord knows,

I know plenty of psychotherapists who certainly don't do that.

I think,

You know,

Of course in miracles was instrumental in helping me to learn that perspective.

Um,

But that was for me a very good way.

And,

And what I would say is,

You know,

You don't have to see yourself as a therapist.

Um,

Corinne and I both know the only real therapist is the Holy Spirit,

But that you're there to be truly helpful.

Um,

You know,

Uh,

And if you're being truly helpful,

Then it doesn't matter what their outer appearance is.

So that was the psychotherapist perspective.

That's awesome.

I wanted to share another course quote from the psychotherapy supplement that you use in this part of your book.

And you,

You quote,

Everyone is both patient and therapist in every relationship in which he enters.

And so this tool that you've offered is just such a wonderful perspective to think of yourself as a therapist or a patient in every relationship that you're in.

Because if you're then in that role as therapist,

You're practicing the non-judgment,

The acceptance of whatever it is that that person is bringing.

So whether it's,

You know,

A close relationship that tends to be very triggering for you or some other relationship,

Maybe at work,

If you're that psychotherapist and you're taking on that non-judgmental perspective,

I just love this offering of just thinking about your interactions with other people from the seat of the therapist chair to be practicing that non-judgment,

That love and that acceptance.

It's beautiful.

Yeah,

Thank you.

And you know,

They're going to trigger you.

So in that sense,

I used to supervise psychiatry residents and you know,

The joke among therapists was you better do your own therapy work because you need to stay at least one step ahead of your patient because whatever your issues are,

That's what's going to walk through the door.

So same in our other,

Our personal relationships,

You know,

You're going to be triggered.

But from that,

I am here to be helped,

Truly helpful perspective of the therapist.

It's okay.

We have a higher purpose.

And so there's the repurposing.

It's not about what do I get or how do I protect myself from that person?

You know,

How do I win?

No,

It's,

You know,

How do we do this in a way where I get to grow and remember who I am and through that they will hopefully do the same,

Which is of course their choice.

Right,

Right.

Absolutely.

Wonderful.

Let's do one more.

Could we also talk about the twins perspective?

Yes,

I'm happy to talk about.

This was a strange idea that I don't remember when it came to me,

Probably when I was writing Nevermind to Evermind.

And it was sort of this idea that,

Okay,

If you get down below the body and what it looks like and the personality and how it expresses itself and even our different life history,

If we're spirit and if we're all as spirit,

The same sort of chip off the loving block,

If you will,

Then how could that be portrayed here in this world in a metaphoric way where it would make some sense and carry some impact?

And I had read about sort of the relationship between identical twins,

Often how close it was that,

You know,

One would just know what the other was thinking.

And this idea that what would it be like to look at another body and essentially see yourself?

I mean,

Yes,

There are differences in the twins,

Certainly know they're different,

But you know,

Those differences take place over time with different learning.

So the twin perspective is imagine for a moment that you were born into a planet where everyone was an identical twin,

Where,

You know,

You would go out and you'd look at someone and,

You know,

Hi,

Self.

Oh,

Hello,

Self.

Hello,

Self.

How are you today,

Self?

I love you,

Self.

You know that it would be very hard to attack them.

It would be very hard to even really see them as separate,

Even though they're separate.

We know we're all connected in this beautiful,

Loving way.

And then if we can kind of superimpose that idea on the varieties of people that we see.

Wow.

I mean,

You know,

You can't have racism if everyone's an identical twin.

You can't have religious bigotry.

You can't have,

You know,

You really can't have any tribal affiliation of any kind because we're all in the same tribe and there is no other tribe,

Which means that it's not a tribe.

It's just oneness.

It's just reality with a capital R.

So I find that perspective very helpful.

I know there I've had one or two readers who were like,

I just can't envision it.

But you know,

I offered them,

I offer a number of these and you know,

Only one of them has to work for you.

Well,

This one made a lot of sense to me and I'll just read your words here.

You wrote,

We are identical twins,

A set of septabillion tuplets,

All carrying the genetic imprint of love from our shared source,

God.

And I just thought that was really beautiful and really inspiring to look out onto others as twins,

Parts of our oneself.

Well,

Thank you.

You know,

As a writer,

And you probably can relate to this,

You know,

You write this stuff and you don't really get to experience it the way the reader did.

You're just too close to it.

Hearing that line from you,

I was like,

Oh,

That is,

That's good.

I mean,

You brought tears to my eyes.

Well,

You wrote it.

Yep,

It came through you.

I love it.

I love it.

You wrote it.

That's so helpful.

Thank you so much for sharing those.

And there's more in the book.

I wish we had more time,

But there are,

I have two other kind of juicy areas that I'd love to dive into and stepping,

I guess,

I want to talk about shame because A Course in Miracles talks a lot about guilt and the unconscious guilt that we carry and guilt is always the term that you hear in course circles.

You have this section in your book on shame versus guilt.

And I'm trying to see if I have the,

I don't think I have the numbers in front of me,

But you said that guilt is quoted in the course or referenced to in the course many,

Many times.

And then there's only maybe a couple mentions of the term shame.

So I'm wondering,

And what you wrote about this was really fantastic because you said that shame research had not yet come into,

I guess,

The spotlight at the time that the course was coming through Helen and Bill.

So could you tell us about shame and guilt?

Absolutely.

I think this is one of the more important things that I wanted to convey in the book.

As a therapist,

I'm what I would call a student of shame.

My own psychotherapy was heavily oriented around identifying and working with shame.

So this is something I really,

Really wanted to share.

So basically Helen and Bill wrote,

Scribed A Course in Miracles from 1965 to 1972.

They couldn't write about iPhones.

They couldn't write about social media.

They couldn't address Obama or Trump because they weren't around at the time.

In the same way,

They were steeped in the world of Freudian psychoanalysis.

And in that world there was a tremendous focus on guilt as thousands of papers had been written by the early 1970s on guilt.

Shame wasn't really differentiated yet as its own sister emotion.

And as of the time when I went through my residency,

So that would be late 1970s,

I'm sorry,

Early 1980s,

There were maybe six psychoanalytic papers on shame and I doubt they got much airplay.

So the way,

Since then of course,

Shame has come into its own.

There are many people writing about it.

You know,

I was heavily influenced by one of my mentors who I referenced in the book.

The simple distinction is that guilt is a reaction to something that we did,

Which afterwards we feel bad about.

You know,

It caused harm to others.

We wish we could take it back.

And guilt we can make amends for,

Which is very important because of course in miracles,

You know,

Is all about recognizing that there's nothing to be guilty for.

We thought we left God.

We can't leave God.

It's impossible.

Therefore,

What are we upset about?

It would be as if you had a nightmare where you shot your mother or child and you woke up and you felt terribly guilty for the rest of your life for killing this person.

No,

It was a dream.

Hopefully you have a difficult day and you let it go and you never think of it again after that.

Shame is very different.

Shame is a perception about the self based on things that happen,

But sometimes just based on that,

That existential feeling that we talked about before of I am not enough.

Shame is always about inferiority less than whether in the world of competition,

Body type,

You know,

She looks so much better,

He's so much stronger,

They're so much smarter.

Shame thrives on comparison.

And the point I was wanting to make is that we can't just focus on guilt,

Which is about actions because the separation resulted in equal parts guilt and shame,

If you will.

In that we did something that we thought was terrible.

We thought we killed God by separating from God.

And as I said,

Of course we can't do that.

But the moment we believe that we separate from God,

We experience ourselves as we've never done before.

We're suddenly,

You know,

We're suddenly a limited being.

We've never known limitedness before.

We're suddenly in a body.

What the heck is this thing?

You know,

It can feel cold,

It can feel warm,

It gets hungry and thirsty.

It has other appetites.

It can be hurt and be in terrible pain.

You know,

So all of a sudden there is this whole,

How to put it,

Part of our intrinsic self-concept begins to incorporate shame.

All of those places where we expected ourselves to live up to a certain standard,

A certain self-concept and failed or believed we failed or were told we failed by somebody else.

And if we are going to follow what we talked about a little while ago,

Which is,

You know,

Do nothing,

Undo everything,

One of the ways to recognize what needs undoing is to be able to become aware of shame in our lives.

It is everywhere.

And the way,

The reason why it wasn't written about in the sixties is because it's an emotion that hides.

The very nature of shame is to hide.

If you think about a picture of someone who's deeply embarrassed,

What do they look like?

They're not making eye contact and staring at you.

Their head's down,

Their face is turned away,

Maybe their hands are over their face.

You know,

They want to disappear.

They want to just be engulfed and not have to face anything.

So when we're in shame,

There is an immediate cutoff from relationship that drives us deeper into that isolation and makes it harder to heal from shame.

Shame produces more shame.

I feel bad about that relationship.

Oh my gosh,

I'm going to turn away.

I'm going to withdraw.

I never want to talk to that person again.

Now that person's wondering,

Why did they stop talking to me?

I must've said something.

They go into their own shame.

They go,

Well,

I don't know what I said,

But I'm not going to go near her again.

And we get these sort of vortexes of shame that go inward in working with couples.

Part of what I would do is try to hold a mirror up to what I would call ricocheting shame,

How something that one did or said completely inadvertently provoked shame in the other and how that shame then rebounded and created more.

But as course students,

We are told to bring any darkness within us to the Holy Spirit.

Well,

The darkness wants to hide.

The ego hides.

Therefore we want to begin to identify shame so that we can bring it forward.

My mentor who studied under a guy who was,

I think,

You know,

Right up there with Sigmund Freud in terms of brilliance,

But way beyond him in terms of love and kindness.

Someone named Sylvan Tompkins who,

One of my patients actually was in a class of his and told just some lovely stories.

I mean,

This guy was a course student without knowing about the course,

But he said the cure for shame is gradual exposure in a safe setting.

We have to bring it into the light,

But we can't do that at a pace that feels too much or it becomes more shame provoking.

You know,

If you think you have a bad voice and can't sing and they shove you out on the stage of Carnegie Hall and say,

Sing,

I promise you that will do nothing to relieve your shame or your anxiety.

Whereas if in a small setting with a voice tutor who you really trust where you're doing some basic exercises and you begin to say,

Oh,

That wasn't so hard.

Now you can begin to overcome that shame.

So we have to expose it,

But we have to do it in a safe setting and only at a pace that's right for us.

Once again,

This brings us back to the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit's the only being that knows what the right pace is and is the ultimate safe setting.

So shame in a nutshell.

That's so helpful.

And I know we don't have time to get into this right now,

But you do write about,

I think you called it the compass of shame and how basically the ego has four strategies for dealing with shame.

It's going to withdraw or attack,

Attack self or attack other,

I think was the one continuum and then withdrawal and avoidance with the other,

The ego withdraw and avoid.

And I feel like that's a great marker if we're in attack mode,

If we're attacking either ourselves through self judgment or condemnation,

Or we're attacking another,

That's a red flag to say,

Oh wait,

What am I feeling shame about?

And just like you said,

We acknowledge it,

We then see it.

So then we can take it to the light.

We can take it to the Holy Spirit.

Yeah,

I found the compass of shame,

Which is not original to me.

That came from my mentor,

A guy named Don Nathanson.

Extremely helpful,

Again,

In sort of planting a red flag around those places where we're triggered,

But we don't see it.

And if we're angry,

We don't necessarily know how to get on angry.

Anger usually feels justified and yet the Course tells us anger is never justified.

It's not saying don't get angry.

I've had people tell me,

Oh,

The Course,

You know,

It denies anger.

No,

It knows exactly who we are.

It's just saying it's not justified.

And the reason it's not justified is because it's almost always,

No,

I will say it is always coming from shame of one kind or another.

And you're not shameful.

You're the son of God.

There's nothing there that is less than in any way.

It's everything.

And once that's recognized,

Not in an ego inflated way,

But in a way about peace and loving,

Then,

You know,

You can't really attack the other person.

We're going back to the twin perspective.

Yeah,

How do you attack your twin when your twin is you?

If every attack caused you pain in the same place that you punched them,

You're not going to do a lot of punching.

Wow.

It also occurred to me when you were speaking about shame and guilt that in a nutshell we could say I did something bad,

Which is guilt,

And therefore I am bad,

Which is shame,

Right?

Is that a description of it in a nutshell?

So what a breeding ground for anxiety then,

Right?

Like if you did something bad and therefore you are bad,

That's a big breeding ground for anxiety.

And so I'm wondering if we could just end with if you'd be willing to just share some thoughts about,

I mean,

We've talked about so many things.

And we could talk for so much longer because I feel like we've barely scratched the surface of everything that you cover.

In terms of special relationships,

Let's say,

How does anxiety relate to that?

Oh boy,

Good question.

So first of all,

We did something bad,

So we are something bad,

But then it goes the other way too.

I am something bad,

So I'm going to fail at doing things.

And if I'm bad,

Then other people are either bad with me or they're better than I am.

Either way we lose.

So just to be aware of that.

Special relationships are the ego's attempts to put a cover story over shame.

But if you still believe that what's below that cover story in yourself and in others is this festering cesspool or infection of shame that you can't reveal to anyone,

Then it is inevitable that you will have continuing ongoing anxieties,

Especially social anxiety,

Because in every single interaction there is always the potential risk that you will be exposed as that horrible,

Shameful thing that you know you are,

But that you've managed to successfully hide from the world more or less here and there.

So there's this ongoing threat.

So specialness says,

Well,

I may not be so smart,

But I've got this partner.

You got to see this gal.

She's amazing.

I may not be so attractive,

But I don't make friends easily,

But I'm in love with someone who does.

And on and on and on,

Specialness becomes this very ineffective band aid for all of those places in us that feel shameful.

But the band aid can't work.

And therefore it has sort of this double effect by hiding what we don't want to expose.

We make it even more shameful.

I mean,

I can't tell you how many times someone has shared in therapy with me their deepest secret,

Their,

Oh my God,

I've never told anyone this.

And to the extent that I sit there and go,

Well,

Is there any more to that?

No.

Huh.

And that's what you've been carrying your whole life.

You know,

I've heard that story about two dozen times and you know,

You're really not alone in that.

And that's,

I mean,

Let's look at that.

It doesn't feel so bad.

I mean,

Boom,

Shame is gone.

So we hide it.

We can't do anything about it.

And then the anxiety is always there.

To the extent that you think you're successful in sort of pulling the rug over other people's eyes,

You might get to a point of,

I can do this.

I can hide it from anyone.

I,

Uh,

Whatever you might think of Donald Trump,

Love him or hate him.

Uh,

He's very,

Very masterful at that.

You know,

I,

I'm able to do this if I repeat enough times,

Whatever I want you to believe,

I'm,

I'm,

I'm going to make you believe it.

Um,

Uh,

But,

But the anxiety is still there under the surface and it will leak out.

Um,

It will,

It will infect your relationships and they can't be genuine and authentic because you are always hiding something from the other person.

I think this explains why the divorce rate has been so high.

Um,

You know,

For decades because people,

You know,

Get married based on their outer images.

And if you're going to be in a truly intimate relationship,

You have to take off the masks.

Right.

Absolutely.

So the answer then is always to expose that shame to have that radical honesty surrounding those feelings and to take it to Holy Spirit.

Right.

Totally take it to Holy Spirit first and then allow him to guide you in,

In the exposure of it.

Perfect.

Perfect.

Just exposing it to yourself.

You're,

You've already taken a giant step.

Beautiful.

Dr.

Bob,

This has been so much fun.

We're at the top of our time together and I am wondering if you would leave listeners with one takeaway.

Ah,

Yes,

I will.

You may not be able to take it in completely,

But it is the truth.

So I want to say it.

You,

We are so much more than what we think we are and what we think we are is so full of false ideas and contaminations that,

That when we allow ourselves to be free of them,

The joy,

The peace,

The love that can flow forth is,

Is truly beyond our imagining.

And I mean that it's beyond our imagining.

We just need to walk the path and trust.

And I would say,

No,

That,

Um,

You know,

There's always help or the last lines of,

Uh,

You know,

Of the course,

Uh,

I will never leave you comfortless.

We were never left comfortless.

Comfort is always there.

We simply have to ask for it,

Um,

And receive it.

So I think that would be what I would leave our listeners with.

That's perfect.

Thank you so much,

Everyone.

Dr.

Bob Rosenthal's book is from loving one to one love and Dr.

Bob has been so fun having you on the show.

I want to have you back.

We're going to talk more.

We have so much to talk about.

I definitely want to talk more about anxiety as well.

Thank you so much for being here.

Oh,

You're so welcome,

Corinne.

Thank you so much for hosting me.

This was a joy.

It was.

Thank you.

I loved my conversation with Dr.

Bob and it is always so hard for me to pick just a few takeaways,

But here you go.

Takeaway number one,

A Course in Miracles is about healing through our relationships.

I love how Dr.

Bob said,

You can't find oneness as an individual self because you're not an individual self.

So A Course in Miracles isn't just about you waking up.

It's about you waking up through your brothers,

Through your relationships.

So as you are willing through spirits vision to see the truth in another person that not only awakens that truth in them,

But it awakens it in you as well.

So that's the interpersonal nature of the course.

And to be totally honest with you,

That's something that I did not realize for a long time,

But it is very true.

Takeaway number two,

Romantic Love Hasn't Always Been,

So Imagine What Might Come Next.

What I mean by this takeaway is that I just found it absolutely fascinating that the notion of romantic love only just began in the middle ages.

And this really made me think about our evolution,

Our spiritual evolution.

If the idea of romantic love is relatively new and yet nowadays we don't even question it,

We just accept it as normal and as if it's always been here,

Imagine what might change,

What might we accept as normal down the road.

So just imagine a worldwide recognition,

Like a standard recognition in the world that healing comes from the mind.

Maybe we'll look back at this time and just laugh that we thought,

Number one,

That we are bodies,

But number two,

That the body could be sick.

Of course,

We'll laugh at this as we open up to this recognition just doing this healing work,

But I'm talking about this recognition on more of a global scale.

Maybe there'll be widespread acceptance that miracles really are natural and that we have the power within to heal the sick and raise the dead because death is an illusion.

So for this takeaway,

I'm just prompting you to just imagine,

Just have fun with your imagination of what might be.

Takeaway number three,

Learn the holy relationship.

How do we learn the holy relationship?

I love how Dr.

Bob responded to this question by saying,

We find the blocks and we remove them.

Love is at our core,

But we have put blocks in place so we no longer are aware of that.

So it's our job to find the blocks and to remove them.

But clearly we don't know how to do this.

So we call upon the Holy Spirit.

We call upon help and our intention to do this opens the door.

I love how Dr.

Bob also said,

Do nothing,

Undo everything.

And takeaway number four,

We've got to address our shame.

This is probably my biggest takeaway from this episode because A Course in Miracles talks so much about guilt and yet doesn't talk about shame.

And Dr.

Bob's point that shame was not a concept that was in the psychology literature or in the psychology field at the time of the scribing.

So A Course in Miracles doesn't use the term shame.

So that just blew my mind.

So not only do we need to address the unconscious guilt that we carry for believing that we did something bad by separating from our source,

From God seemingly,

But we also need to address that we believe deep down that we are something bad,

Our sense of shame for seemingly separating from our source,

From God.

Of course we haven't separated.

There's no cause for guilt.

There's no cause for shame.

But we deep down believe this.

So the importance of asking the Holy Spirit for help in exposing and healing our sense of shame cannot be underestimated.

Remember you can grab these takeaways and find links to Dr.

Bob's book and his website on the show notes page at fromanxietytolove.

Com forward slash 24.

I love you so much,

My mighty companion.

And I'm just so grateful to walk the path home with you.

I am with you in your journey of undoing fear.

I'll leave you with the last few sentences from my book,

From Anxiety to Love.

I believe in you.

We're healing together.

Every gain that I've made is a gain for you.

And every gain that you make is a gain for me.

My gains are yours and yours are mine because we are one.

We're going to make it.

The light in you is too bright to fail.

If you buy a copy of From Anxiety to Love,

Make sure you take advantage of your free bonus,

The From Anxiety to Love Summit,

Which features six interviews with experts in undoing fear.

Get access at fromanxietytolove.

Com forward slash summit.

Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you on the next episode.