Understanding A Course in Miracles

I sat down with Alan Cohen, bestselling author of the book, A Course In Miracles Made Easy, to discuss the main lessons, learnings and deep wisdom from ACIM. We dove into how to heal the mind through shifting your perspective from duality, ego and fear to that of love and faith. This conversation will uplift and energize you, and remind you of the divine power that is always within you, ready to release fears and hurts to experience a world of love and truth.

Transcript

Welcome to the USU podcast,

Now reaching earbuds in over 175 countries and growing.

I'm Julie Riesler,

An interior designer for your soul.

I'm a master life coach,

Author of Get a PhD in You,

Founder of the Life Designer Coach Academy,

Professor at Georgetown University,

And host of this powerful show.

I created this show because I believe you are meant to expand,

Evolve,

And express yourself fully as your most authentic,

Extraordinary,

Truest USU.

That dream that lives within you,

It's meant to manifest.

Tune in with me to hear life-changing conversations with leading experts,

Spiritual luminaries,

And fellow entrepreneurs and creatives to help guide you back to your divine self,

To your inherent worthiness,

Your sacred purpose,

Your right to prosperity and full health,

And your ability to do,

Be,

Or have whatever lights you up the most.

This podcast will help you live a life that's designed by your soul and not your fear.

Now that we've got that clear,

I'm just gonna remind you one more time,

You were born to fully be your USU.

It's your time.

Are you ready to join me on this journey?

Let's do it.

Hello,

USU family.

This is Julie,

Your host,

Your friend,

Your partner on the journey with you to become and be your USU.

I am so honored to have spent this past year with you and I'm so excited about what's to come in 2023.

I have amazing guests lined up,

But I wanna share that this last episode of the year is with an incredible luminary and teacher.

It is such a gift to share with you,

Alan Cohen.

I'm gonna tell you about Alan and then you're gonna get to hear all about our conversation that goes really,

Really deep into A Course in Miracles.

And if you are thinking about working through the course,

It is a perfect time to begin the first of the year.

It's a 365,

Very in-depth course with lessons every day and I will be doing it alongside with you.

So I wanna share with you that Alan Cohen is the author of 30 popular inspirational books,

Including the best-selling A Course in Miracles Made Easy,

The award-winning A Deep Breath of Life,

And the classic Are You As Happy As Your Dog?

He is a contributing writer for the New York Times.

He's a number one best-selling author for the Chicken Soup for the Soul series and his books have been translated into 32 foreign languages.

His work has been featured for Oprah.

Com and in USA Today,

The Washington Post,

And 101 Top Experts.

Alan is a featured presenter in the award-winning documentary,

Finding Joe,

Illuminating the teachers of renowned mythologist,

Joseph Campbell.

And I'm just excited to have you here for this conversation.

You are going to be,

You're going to be wowed and your mind is going to be glowing,

Glown as I say.

So without further ado,

Enjoy this really rich conversation with Alan.

All right,

Well,

Alan,

It is such a gift to have you here today.

I have been setting the intention to be able to talk to you since I listened most recently to A Course in Miracles Made Easy and I was like,

Thank you,

Thank you,

Bless you for writing this book.

So I'm so honored you're here.

Yay,

Thank you.

You know,

Before we get into the course,

I'd actually just love to share a little bit for those who don't know you yet or have heard of you,

But don't know about your story.

Would you mind sharing a little bit about your,

You know,

Coming into this work and a little bit about your story and how you kind of got into this spiritual journey?

Yeah,

Well,

When I was about 13 or 14,

I took up Orthodox Judaism,

Which gave me a nice foundation.

But after about seven years,

I got kind of bored.

I kind of lost my teenage years.

And I remember there was a fast day and I was supposed to eat,

Not eat,

I was very hungry.

And I asked myself why I wasn't eating.

And the answer was,

Well,

God will punish me if I eat.

And the voice said,

Do you really think that's a good enough idea to build a life on?

That's weird.

So I took a bold leap of faith and I ate the cake,

Piece of cake.

And that was the end of Judaism for me.

But it really launched me out on what became my spiritual path.

And I met Ram Dass and I met a teacher in New York named Hilda.

And I just became hungry and voracious for anything that was higher than,

You know,

The world before me.

I studied with Zen masters and Hindu masters and healers and gurus.

And then when I was about 30-ish,

I met A Course in Miracles and I sent away for it.

It was 30 bucks at the time,

It was expensive,

But I dove in and I opened the book and the words jumped out at me like in the old Batman movies,

We'd been pals.

And his voice said,

You know,

This is real.

This is good stuff.

And so I dove in,

I've been studying,

Learning the course ever since.

A lot more to my story than that,

But those are the highlights.

Mm,

Thank you for just giving a little,

You know,

A little background.

And I have to say,

I was chuckling listening to your story about the fast day in the Jewish tradition.

I've been there myself wondering like,

I don't really know that that's,

That doesn't really feel aligned.

Like why are you doing that?

And I think it takes a lot of courage to really,

You know,

Go beyond probably what you were brought up with and kind of ask yourself this question.

And just about everybody knowing the spiritual path has had some moment of choice like I did,

Whether it's leaving a traditional religion or a family or a culture or a marriage or a business.

And you have to dive within and say,

What do I stand for?

What do I believe in?

Can I really live my life based on fear and guilt and the obligation?

Or am I willing to launch out and be true to my heart and live a life of integrity and authenticity?

And that's when everything starts to shift.

I would love to look at that.

I mean,

You know,

When I think about our conversation here and talking about the Course in Miracles,

There's that piece of me that's like,

Where do we begin?

Like this is a lifetime study.

You know,

For those,

So the $30 book that you bought,

I remember reading that and I'm like,

You know,

You got like the,

I think you had the hard back,

Like the- Three books hard back,

Yeah.

Yeah,

You know,

And of course today it's obviously inflation,

Way more.

I'm curious,

You know,

For those,

I know many who have written in that have somewhat started to study the Course or that are interested or just kind of like,

What?

Like,

Where do I begin?

What would you say to that person?

Well,

The workbook is really the most practical.

The text can be indeed overwhelming.

And you can't imagine the number of people I met that said,

Yeah,

I got it and looked at it and I put it on the shelf.

One lady said,

I took it off my shelf and the receipt fell out from my purchase and it was 10 years earlier.

I sat on the shelf for 10 years.

And then,

You know,

When you get hungry enough,

It starts to speak to you.

And the text is overwhelming.

The text is esoteric.

The text has wild,

Out there language,

But the workbook,

There's three books,

Text,

Workbook,

And manual for teachers.

The workbook is the most practical.

And if you do the workbook lessons day by day,

You will grow and learn and be healed and really open your heart and be enlightened.

That's the whole key to the course.

I wanna talk about that in a moment.

You said something earlier about,

You know,

Living with fear and with guilt.

And,

You know,

I don't know if there's been a time in history.

I feel like right now there's even more polarity going on.

There's even more fear going on.

There's even more,

You could find reasons,

Find reasons to feel fear and maybe guilt as well.

I'm wondering just how you found the course,

You know,

It's a big question,

To help shift perspective.

To help shift.

That's a great question.

Well,

The course defines a miracle as a shift in perception,

Mainly from fear to love,

From limits to freedom,

From history to destiny,

We can call it all that.

And there's something about the course that is very comforting because it defines all of us as perfect divine children of God who have never sinned.

And of course,

Sin is a big tenet of most religions.

Most people feel oppressed by the idea of sin.

And the course says over and over again,

You have not sinned,

You've made mistakes,

But you are guiltless.

You are a beloved of God that you've never done anything that could possibly toss you out of the embrace of God.

And so,

And you know,

Growing up Jewish,

You know,

Jews are really good at guilt.

They say that the Catholics,

The Jews invented guilt and Catholics perfected it.

So,

You know,

I've had plenty to feel guilty about,

Not because I'm guilty,

But because my mind was in a guilt mindset.

And so when the course began to comfort me and let me know I'm okay and I'm lovable and it's all gonna work out,

And no matter what I've done,

There's a healing answer,

That was like a big,

Big burden off my shoulders.

It continues to be.

You know,

I've been doing the course for like 40 years now and every time it's like the first time,

Like,

Oh,

I never read this before.

So it's an ever deepening,

Ever healing system of mind transformation.

What is your practice at this point,

Alan?

I know,

I mean,

I remember reading,

You even have done things where you lived in communities with others that were studying.

There was a piece of me that's like,

I would do that.

That sounds both like interesting and fascinating and also just incredible,

Because you're immersed in it.

What does that look like today for you?

What was that like for me?

Well,

I guess what was that like?

And what is it like,

What does your practice of the course look like today,

40 years in?

Well,

It's daily,

You know,

It's inner work.

And I did live in a Course in Miracles community that studied it together for one year,

Which was powerful,

But ultimately it's an inner journey.

And it's nice when other people share it with you,

It's supportive,

But it's between me,

Myself and God.

And so I do the course daily.

I write about it daily,

I teach it daily.

And those are my lifesavers in a world of illusion.

You know,

Talking about the course,

Teaching and coaching people using course principles.

And the course says,

If you really wanna learn something,

Teach it.

So I've been teaching the course and the more I teach it,

The more I learn it.

And so you're right,

Julie,

There's no end to the blessings this particular program delivers,

It's off the charts.

Like there's so many,

I think I have a bunch of questions,

But I do wanna ask you,

You brought up the world of illusion.

Can we unpack that?

I'm thinking for those that are like,

What does that mean?

And how do you define that?

And how does the course define that?

Yeah,

Well,

You know,

This is not a new concept to the course,

I mean,

Hindus and Buddhists have been talking about Maya,

M-A-Y-A for thousands of years says that the world that we believe is so real is actually a construct of false ideas.

And people subscribe to them,

Which make it seem real,

But a lot of people living in the middle of nowhere doesn't make it somewhere.

And so if you examine many of the beliefs that we've been taught,

That one race is better than another,

That you suffer and you work hard at a job you hate until you die,

That relationships are doomed,

That you have no control over your life because governments and societal religious forces are controlling you on and on.

There's just layers and layers and layers of illusion that keep us feeling victims of some external force that takes charge of our life.

But the course wants to reverse all that.

And it says,

I'm affected only by my thoughts.

So people give the power to astrology and neurology,

Nothing wrong with that,

But when you think something outside you is running your life,

That's an illusion.

So one of the big themes of the course is to take back the power you have misattributed to external forces and sources and recognize that everything you need is already within you.

You just need to grab it and mobilize it.

And I think that idea that it's already within you,

It's a very empowering way to look at it.

It takes that victimhood right out of the equation.

This just getting into I'm affected by my thoughts.

I mean,

That could be its own intensive study and exploration really,

Like how to change those thoughts.

And I'm curious for those,

I know even in myself,

I've struggled with a stress response that is connected to thoughts that just being aware,

Observing them.

Where would you,

Using the course,

Where would you start with changing your thoughts,

With shifting your perspective?

That's the whole purpose of the course was a system of mind training really,

Or mind untraining we shall say and replacing it with a better training.

And so,

So many of the course lessons are affirmations that if you go in on them,

Will take you all the way home.

Like for example,

I'm not a victim of the world I see.

I'm affected only by my thoughts.

I am sustained by the love of God.

There's a great one.

By grace I live,

By grace I am released.

I'm under no laws but God's.

Love is the way I walk in gratitude.

So these are all titles of one per day course lessons.

Any one of them,

Julie,

If you really latch onto it,

Work with it,

Will take you all the way in.

It's really only one lesson to the course is said in 365 different ways.

So these are true ideas that if you try them on for size,

Think them,

Feel them,

Experience them,

Practice them,

Will change your mind and change your life in major ways.

They're affirmations that heal.

When you say,

I think you just said it,

But there's only one lesson in 365 days.

How would you boil down that one lesson?

Well,

Lesson is that,

Everything's a choice between love and fear.

The worlds do not overlap.

When I'm in fear,

Love is invisible.

When I'm in love,

Fear is invisible.

So the most practical application of the course is to notice that whenever you've gone into fear,

You can make another choice and ask yourself,

What would the voice of love say here?

And if you can really contact that voice and hear it and act on it,

That's where transformation occurs.

This personally has been one of the most healing things for me.

And I can't imagine I'm alone in sometimes struggling with fear,

Especially the last couple of years,

Just being in this world,

Even illusion that it is still there's,

You know,

I don't watch TV,

I'm not the news.

And I think this,

What you just said,

For me is a drop the mic moment,

Which is really,

You know,

When you do have that fear to drop in and ask what would love do here?

Yeah,

Yeah.

I was coaching one of my clients the other day and she struggled for a lifetime with issues of unworthiness.

And so we came up with this,

You know,

Christians wear this little bracelet,

WWJD,

What would Jesus do?

So I said,

Why don't we make up a new bracelet,

WWWLD,

What would a worthy Leslie do?

In other words,

When I start to become overcome with those feelings of unworthiness,

Okay,

If I knew I was a worthy person,

How would I be approaching this differently?

And she said that changed her life.

She made herself a little bracelet.

So it's basically just taking your mind out of the spiritual bud,

If we may,

And just looking up and saying,

Okay,

There must be a bigger world than the one I've been living in.

And am I willing to see it?

Am I willing to live in it?

I'm willing to receive his blessings.

And even,

Of course,

Says that even a little willingness is enough to start a miracle.

So if you say,

Okay,

I'm stuck here,

I'm afraid here,

I'm angry here,

I'm jealous here.

If I were,

Can you please help me see this differently?

If I could look at this situation differently so it's not scary,

How would I be looking at it?

And then you have that entree to the bigger world.

And that's all it's about,

Taking your head out of the little world and to put it in the bigger one.

That is so,

That's really beautiful.

First,

I love the story with the worthiness.

I was laughing,

Because I'm like,

Mine would be WWJD for Julie.

Same thing,

I just should get those bracelets.

What you said about that little bit of willingness,

It reminds me,

And I am not an expert on the teachings of Jesus's teachings,

But I know that there is the,

All you need is the faith of a mustard seed.

And it seems like that's very connected.

Are those teachings woven into this?

Because I know the course is for everyone,

All religions,

All backgrounds.

One of the reasons I love it is it just speaks to my heart.

I don't feel it's,

It feels like it's for humanity.

It's universal and it's written in Christian language because the author is Jesus.

He identifies himself as Jesus.

However,

It's not at all restricted to the Christian religion,

I know Jews and Buddhists and Muslims who love the course,

Because it's universal.

It's all about the power of love,

Which supposedly all religions are based on.

They don't all act on it,

But what religion could argue with that love is the healing force?

And so it speaks to all humanity,

You're absolutely right.

I'm curious if maybe to share,

What has shifted in your life?

I mean,

You probably could give a lot of examples,

But do you have anything,

Any couple examples of what is,

Where have you seen maybe some of the miracles in your own life having worked through the course?

Oh goodness,

There's lots.

I'll give you a kind of a silly recent example.

It seems small,

But in a way it's not.

So,

You know,

We live on the islands of Kauai and we went to this outdoor restaurant the other day and there was some,

In my mind,

Obnoxious tourists there.

They were smoking and one guy was spraying this chemical sun stuff on,

And it was dripping onto the table.

And I had judgments about them and it didn't feel good.

Like,

You know,

Well,

Come on,

Come to my island.

If you're gonna come to my island,

Let's appreciate it,

Don't wreck it.

And the voice said,

You know,

Is this really how you wanna be thinking about these people?

And I said,

Is there another way I could see this that would feel better?

Okay,

Well,

These people came to Kauai on vacation.

Maybe they're getting away from the city.

Maybe they're in stress.

So they smoke,

So they have sunscreen,

So what?

So wouldn't it be lovely to know that you're having a fulfilling vacation and maybe it's lightening them up and,

You know,

Let them,

Alan,

You can let them enjoy themselves.

And in that moment,

I just felt an internal shift from the harshness and entrapment of judgment to,

Ah,

Okay,

I can live with this.

And the Course says that the only thing that hurts us are our grievances.

That is one of the lessons,

My grievances hide the light of the world in me.

And the judgment is a grievance.

So the Course wants us to be very vigilant,

To be aware of our judgments and our grievances,

Same thing,

And ask ourself,

Okay,

If I'm willing to release this,

How much better would I feel?

And of course it takes some guts to do that because we love our grievances.

We love our judgment.

Ooh,

Let me be right about this.

But there's another line from the Course that says,

Would you rather be right or happy?

So,

You know,

Being right is the cause of all suffering,

You know,

Being ego right,

We should say.

So someone,

A friend of mine once said,

Would you rather be right or married?

So,

You know,

There you go.

That's a fantastic example.

I'm right.

I have lots of reasons why I'm right.

I have people who agree with me that I'm right.

And those are all really tricks of the ego to bolster a belief system that actually is hurting us.

You can find plenty of people to agree with your rightness,

But if you're suffering because of it,

Who cares how many people agree with it?

It's a pain inducing mechanism in that moment.

Yeah.

For my listeners and everyone who's tuning in,

I mean,

This to me is one of the most important things that we can all really,

I mean,

And then I love hearing,

Not that I want you to have judgments,

But that even after 40 years,

You know,

Yeah,

Yeah.

You still have them.

And so it's looking at them.

Am I willing to look at it differently?

You know,

Sometimes I know my,

I'll be honest,

I've attempted to work through the course.

I've got probably to about day 60,

My husband and I were doing,

And then I was like,

I gotta read your book.

And I've listened to you a couple of times and I just appreciate what you did.

I was thinking,

My gosh,

This is an undertaking for you to really make it easy.

Cause it's still,

I'll be honest,

It still wasn't easy,

However,

Yeah,

I know.

Some of the things that I was,

That just,

I took some notes on this is this idea about being here to get peace.

You talked a lot about being here to get peace and the purpose of relationships is for happiness.

And I don't know if you can expand on that,

But those were some of the things when I was walking and I'm like,

Oh my gosh,

I don't wanna forget that.

I don't wanna forget this.

Well,

This is a major paradigm shift that the course wants us to have that,

We believe we're here,

Some religions tell us we're here to suffer and pain and sacrifice are noble.

And that in our relationships are a lot of work.

Well,

It can be,

But what the course wants us to know is that we're supposed to be happy.

Like,

Life is supposed to be a joyful experience.

And if it's not,

You have to look at where you're stuck and unpeel that so you can get back to the light that that stuckness is disguising.

And so the course also says that relationships are the most powerful and fastest route to God,

Healing them.

It says you can meditate and pray and contemplate and do yoga and all that kind of stuff.

I added the yoga part,

But it says,

Really,

If you will just work with your relationships and heal your fears and relationships,

You're gonna accelerate faster than any of those other practices will take you home.

I would like to send out a public service announcement.

So FYI,

To all of the communities,

The peoples,

The groups,

The countries that are having a struggle in relationships,

If we flipped it,

We could make this the biggest healing possibility.

We could,

We could.

And a lot of us are doing that.

A lot of course students are doing that.

Not against yoga and meditation,

I do it a lot myself,

But any spiritual practice that gets you out of the stuckness of fear and the ego and lifts you into a broader dimension is healing the planet.

We're all contributing in our each in our own way.

Yeah,

For sure.

I would even say,

Anyone who's listening to this,

Who's,

You might check out your book or the workbook.

It's part of why when I was listening to Alan,

I mean,

My inner voice was like,

You got to have a conversation with him.

I just kept hearing it.

I'm like,

I've got to talk this through.

I want other to hear,

To me,

This feels like soul truth.

Even the,

When you talk about,

There's no sin and there's only errors in consciousness.

That's a,

I was thinking about that this year during the day that set aside for atoning.

And I was feeling like,

I don't connect with this.

I don't,

What about connecting to all the ways to love myself and to love ourselves?

It's just for me.

And I was thinking about what you had said and what the course says about that concept of sin.

And I know for some that may not resonate and that's okay,

But I really,

Really connect with that idea.

Yeah,

You know,

The course speaks to the heart.

It's kind of interesting because the text seems really intellectual.

It seems really abstruse.

And if you try to understand it with your mind,

You'll go haywire,

You go tilt.

But I've read entire passages or pages from the course and I didn't understand a word,

But my heart felt peaceful afterwards.

So on some level,

There's an energy of peace and healing that's imbued in the course,

Even if your intellect doesn't grasp it.

That's an amazing thing.

You know,

It's interesting.

I think for me,

It was helpful.

And I'm so grateful with this book that you wrote.

You know,

It really did make it more digestible.

And it's not a substitute.

I know that for me,

I wanna go back and work with and work through it.

I listened with my heart and listening to you unpack it,

The way it felt for me was I just couldn't get enough.

Like it felt,

You know,

It just,

My body was like,

This feels like what I've been seeking my whole life.

And,

You know,

For those who don't know,

Can you share how it was?

I know it was a channeled work,

But- Yeah,

Yeah.

I will do that,

But I wanna make one point on yours,

If I may.

So you're saying something that really significant for everybody,

Julie,

That something inside you resonated with it.

Oh,

Yeah.

And it doesn't have to be the course.

It could be a guru or any kind of teaching.

And when you feel truth and something goes gong inside you,

That is your inner being saying,

This is it.

This belongs to you,

Follow up on it.

This is a gift,

This is a blessing.

And so I want to encourage all of our viewers to be true and honest to that inner resonance when somebody or something comes along and says,

Ooh,

This feels good.

My favorite definition of affirmation is,

The spirit within me loves to hear the truth about itself.

The spirit within me loves to hear the truth about itself.

And so there's a spirit within each of us,

Of course we call it the Holy Spirit,

Whatever you wanna call it.

There's something inside you that's a truth meter.

And when truth comes along,

At least true for you,

It goes,

Ooh,

All those wonderful chemicals start coursing through your system.

And that's a sign not to be overlooked.

You have to go with that voice.

You have to trust that because that's gonna take you home.

That's where all the cookies are.

Ooh,

My brain's like cookies.

To add to that,

Alan,

If I can,

Because I think this is one of the reasons,

Again,

That I do this show,

That I wanted to speak with you,

That really what we're talking about is trusting,

I think,

And aligning with what feels true.

And sometimes,

Like you said this in the beginning,

I know for me,

I had a point where that meant leaving a marriage.

It's not necessarily,

You know,

I just,

In tuning into what was true,

Good person,

Just I could feel that.

And,

You know,

Or it can be shifting from a religion to something different,

Or,

You know,

And it takes,

I wanna say it takes courage.

It also,

To me,

And I'm curious for you,

At this point,

It feels actually like,

You know,

How would I say this?

That it's like a vow,

An honor of the truth within each of us to listen to that.

Yeah,

Exactly,

Yeah.

The word courage comes from the French word,

Cour,

C-O-U-R,

Which means heart.

Love it.

So courage is not,

You know,

Macho man busting through something.

It's tapping into your heart's guidance,

Trusting that and acting on it.

So,

You know,

I think you're saying that,

In one way,

It took courage,

In another way,

It was the most natural next step.

Yeah.

And,

You know,

To the fear voice,

It takes courage,

But to the heart voice,

It's easy and organic,

And it's next.

That is so fascinating,

What you just said.

And what's coming to me is that with the Course,

It's really the heart speaking to our hearts.

Exactly.

But because we have a brain and a mind,

And for me,

For sure,

I know many others,

You know,

Overactive at times,

Circulating,

It's,

You know,

How to really go down into the heart,

To speak from the heart and to live from there.

Friend of mine said,

Last year I took the biggest step in my life when I was 18 inches.

He says,

I moved from here to here.

Oh my gosh,

That's so great.

Everyone,

I'm encouraging you to make the longest,

Perhaps most important journey,

Or shortest,

I should say,

Journey of that 18 inches.

Amen to that.

That's a great,

Great reminder.

One of the other things I did want to talk about is this source of all miracles.

You talked about the source of all miracles is love,

And that can feel amorphous,

I think,

To some.

Like,

What does that mean?

How do we get to that source in miracles?

How do we live and be in that love?

You have to explore the contrast between the ego voice and the spirit voice.

And,

You know,

I do a life coach training,

A holistic life coach training,

And one of the most important lessons for the students is what we call the two voices.

Yeah.

And so when you coach somebody,

I don't know if I should leave my marriage,

Or should I change my job,

Which health regime should I take?

Okay,

But I'm upset,

I'm scared,

I'm nervous.

Okay,

What does the voice of fear say?

Well,

The voice of fear says,

If you leave your job,

You're going to be poor and destitute.

You're going to be living under the freeway in a cardboard box with your two children.

You know,

It always shows the scariest scenario.

Thank you.

What does the voice of love say?

The voice of love says,

I'm really excited about starting my own business,

And if I could wake up each morning and do something I really love and help people make a living from that,

That would be wonderful.

And also,

The voice of love says,

I'm worthy,

And I don't need to stress or distress about my work.

Okay,

Thank you.

Now,

Which voice feels better?

Oh,

Second voice.

So it's like trying on for both voices,

Trying them on for size,

And then being honest about which one resonates,

And which one is dark and which one is light.

And it's a very simple exercise,

But if you practice it,

It always works.

So,

So powerful.

Even as you're saying that,

You know,

Just,

I can imagine,

Like you said it,

Which feels better?

We're gonna know by that emotion,

Right?

Yeah.

With the course,

And I think going back for a minute to it being a channeled work,

Can you share a little bit about how this came to be?

I mean,

I- Yeah,

It's an amazing story,

Actually.

There were two psychologists,

Helen Schucman and Bill Setford,

Who were doctors and professors at a huge university in Manhattan.

And Helen had been psychic all her life.

She had dreams and premonitions,

But she had high resistance to it.

And she was also a Jewish,

Atheist,

Cynical,

Clinical psychologist.

The last person that you would think would be the channel for the course.

But,

You know,

It says in the Bible,

God has no respect to a person's personalities.

And so she had been fighting with Bill for a long time.

And one day she came to him and said,

No,

Bill came to her and said,

There must be a better way.

And she said,

Okay,

Let's do it.

And so a few weeks later,

She began to hear this voice that said,

This is a course in miracles,

Please take notes.

And she thought she was going nuts because here she therapized people who heard voices.

So she went to Bill and said,

I'm hearing a voice.

What does it say?

This is a course in miracles,

Please take notes.

What do you think I should do?

Well,

How about if you take some notes?

So she began to write on a steno pad what she was hearing and she showed it to Bill and he said,

This is fantastic.

I want to work with you on this.

So amidst tremendous resistance,

She kept taking notes and he kept typing and it took seven years.

She would go into his office early in the morning,

They'd pull down the blinds and lock the door in the psychology department.

And she would write her dictation and he would type it.

And in 1976,

It was first published from the manuscript.

So I think the story is amazing as a course because it says that a lot of us have soul contracts.

And I believe that Helen had a soul contract with Jesus to do it in spite of her personality,

In spite of her training,

And that she was gonna fulfill that soul contract like it or not.

Oh my gosh.

And we all have soul contracts.

Yeah,

Say more about the soul contracts.

I'm curious your thoughts on that.

Well,

The people,

The families we're born into and our spouses and our children and our bosses,

They're not random at all.

Course says that chance plays no part in God's plan.

And so my understanding is that before we're born at a soul level,

We make agreements with certain people that will help us accelerate our spiritual growth.

And some accelerated by love and support and kindness and mushy stuff.

And others accelerated by challenging us.

And so if you grew up with an abusive father or you had a particular childhood disease,

Or you grew up in Nazi Germany or stuff like that,

These are soul contracts that we made to get us to move on with our spiritual journey.

So even the people who bug us the most,

In many ways,

They're our best friends because they're forcing us to look within and gain the soul growth that we would not get if things were easier.

On the other hand,

Some people just love us so much that we feel inspired and empowered and graced and blessed and honored,

And they enhance our growth too.

So it happens,

There's two different ways it happens.

You know,

I think it's interesting,

Even in the story with Helen and Bill,

You were talking about earlier that relationships are the greatest access to healing.

And it's interesting,

Probably not surprisingly,

That they were at odds and didn't get along.

Yeah,

Yeah.

And this obviously changed that.

Yeah.

And chorus historians cite the moment that Bill came to Helen and said,

There must be a better way,

And her saying,

Okay,

Let's find it.

They cite that moment of joining,

Of coming together instead of having separate interests as the conceptual moment of the chorus.

And from that opening,

The chorus came through.

There's a lot in what you just said.

Just,

I'm thinking back even to the judgments,

It's all wrapped up,

Right,

In those grievances,

Those judgments,

When we have those,

You know,

Quote unquote,

Reasons that we think were right,

Or that,

You know,

I'm sure they had their reasons that they didn't get along.

And it's so powerful,

Alan,

Because,

You know,

These grievances can disguise themselves as being very valid and real.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Really takes a different level of awareness and consciousness here.

It does,

It takes a lot of practice.

And that's why the course gives us 365 lessons.

And why there's so much of the text and so much of the manual of teachers.

It's just practice,

You know,

It's one thing to sit around and study the course,

And it's another thing to practice it when a grievance comes up.

That's where the rubber meets the road.

Yeah,

For,

You know,

We talked about the workbook,

And I'm even thinking of those like myself that,

You know,

I've read and reread your book.

I've dabbled into,

I mean,

I have the app,

I have the book.

I got a little overwhelmed.

I'm gonna be,

I'm sure you've been before.

It's a little like,

You know,

Honestly,

I could spend weeks on one sentence.

Yeah,

Yeah.

The part of me that's like,

I wanna,

You know,

I just,

I really wanna do a full year.

We're about to start the new year.

This is one of the reasons.

Wanted to talk to you at the end of this year because I think it's a fantastic look.

Any day is just great.

Yeah.

It's worth doing.

Everybody has resistance to the course.

Yeah.

Everybody,

You know,

And that's why a lot of people put it aside by lessons 30 or 60.

I can't do this.

But if you could just keep going,

I tell my son,

Just keep going.

If you don't like the lesson,

Now get it.

It bugs you,

It insults you,

So just keep going.

And eventually you experience a breakthrough.

Each lesson builds on the last one.

And the first part of the course is more challenging because it's unscrewing your old belief system.

But as you break through,

It's like a,

You know,

A quarterback breaking through the line,

It's open field.

Okay,

Now we're getting somewhere.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

And I know you said the workbook,

Like it's just getting that can be helpful.

One of the,

I don't remember what day this is,

You probably would,

But I know one of the lessons is about anger.

And can we talk for a minute about anger and how the course looks at that?

Yeah,

Anger is fear under pressure.

And it's really important to understand that all negative emotions,

Anger,

Jealousy,

Depression,

Resistance,

Whatever,

All negative emotions are the offspring of fear.

And the reason it's so hard to work with anger is because most people attempt to work with anger at the level of anger,

Instead of realizing it's a second or third order emotion.

Now,

When I work with angry clients,

I ask them,

What is the fear that is fueling your anger?

And if they can be honest and get to it,

Well,

My boyfriend looked at another woman.

Okay,

What's the fear?

I'm jealous,

But it was,

Well,

I'm afraid he'll leave me.

I'm afraid she's prettier than me.

I'm afraid I'm not good enough.

Okay,

Let's talk about that.

So when you're working,

When you get down to the fear,

Then you're at the root level,

You're at rock bottom level of where the upset is coming from.

Okay,

The voice of fear says,

I might not be enough from him.

Okay,

What does the voice of love say?

Well,

I'm enough.

If he doesn't like me,

It's his problem.

Get me,

It's his problem.

So,

You know,

You have to peel back anger,

Any negative emotions to the fear before you can diffuse it successfully.

Yeah,

So really,

I'm,

And I have experienced this,

What I'm hearing is at the root of any negative emotion,

Anything,

Whether it's jealousy,

Depression,

Anger,

Despair,

Frustration,

All of those,

Probably even imposter syndrome,

All of that fear.

It's all fear in disguise with layers laid over it.

Yeah,

You know,

It's interesting because even as you were giving that example,

I was like,

Yep,

I've had that before in my life.

I felt that and,

Or,

You know,

The not good enough and that fear,

You know,

What I'm,

What's coming to me is that it allows you when you look really at the root,

You strip away,

It's again,

It's like,

In a way,

These are illusion-esque kind of.

Exactly,

Exactly.

One of my favorite lessons is fear is never justified in any form.

Yes,

I remember,

Yes.

It's this fear,

You can't like,

No matter what form fear takes,

It's not real.

And the experience is real.

We're not denying that you feel fear.

I have a funny story.

When I was a kid,

I used to go to the movies every Saturday with my buddies.

In those days,

They had,

We used to watch science fiction and monster movies.

In those days,

You know,

Special effects were not what they were these days.

So you could see like,

There's a spaceship,

You could see like the string that the spaceship was hanging.

So I'd hold my buddy and go,

That's so fake.

Yeah,

That's so fake.

And it's like,

Now in a more mature way,

When I get afraid or see somebody getting afraid,

I think,

Well,

That's so fake.

What you're doing,

When you're afraid,

You're responding to some illusion.

Something is fake that you think is real.

And if you recognize it's fake,

You can dissipate the fear.

Beautiful.

Yeah,

I love what you said.

When you're afraid,

You're responding to some illusion.

To what?

Yeah,

Yeah.

Even,

You know,

If the experience,

You know,

If,

You know,

Maybe you lose a client,

Right?

And you're scared of not having more clients,

Like that could be,

That feels like fear.

Fear.

Yeah,

What does the voice of fear say?

You tell me,

What does the voice of fear say in this moment?

In that scenario?

Yeah.

I am trying to think if that happened,

If I lost a client,

I would probably,

Normally I have a process of,

Okay,

What might be the gift in it?

But if I'm not in that space,

Then I'm upset about it.

What is the original voice of fear?

I would be scared.

Did I do something wrong?

Do people not want to work with me?

Am I not going to make a living anymore?

Am I going to,

It kind of goes down to,

Will I live under a bridge?

I don't really usually go that far,

But you know,

Like what's going to happen?

Yeah,

Yeah,

Good.

So those are all the voices of fear going,

No,

No,

No,

Booga,

Booga,

Booga.

So in that case,

If you flipped it,

Julie,

What would the voice of love say?

Love or trust or confidence?

Yeah,

The voice of love.

Well,

The voice of love,

What I actually have,

When this has happened,

If someone decides not to work with me or part ways,

Is,

Oh,

They're going to,

Well,

Okay,

It's great.

The right person I'm supposed to serve will come and they'll find the right person for them.

It kind of feels like,

Oh,

There's no problem.

Like it's just,

I'm not the right fit and that's fine.

Like,

That's great.

Which voice feels better?

Yeah,

Way better,

Wait a second.

Yeah,

So I have a practical example,

Similar to you.

I did a show on Hay House Radio for 10 years,

Call-in show,

Very popular,

Great show,

Loved it,

Loved it.

And then I got a call announcing that Hay House Radio was shutting down.

And that was very lucrative for me because it's a lot of promotion on the show.

And I got lots of clients for high-end programming.

Oh,

What am I going to do now?

So I replaced it with my own Zoom room called the coaching room.

And that has been so much more successful.

I can see people,

The same people show up every week.

We videotape it and we video Zoom it.

And I get to have even more clients than I ever did.

So that voice,

Oh,

This one thing is going away,

It's going to leave me bereft,

Is bullshit because something replaced it that was far more rewarding.

And so if we can just trust,

Of course is that trust is the bedrock of the teacher of God's entire thought system.

Oh,

Trust is the bedrock of God's- Trust is the bedrock of the teacher of God,

Who's all of us,

Entire thought system.

And so it wants us to keep trusting that when you're in fear,

There's always a mistrust because if you trusted,

Fear would not have its hold over you.

So what would a trusting Julie do?

What would a trusting Alan do here?

And then now you have your entree.

This is so powerful.

Alan,

Sometimes I can feel even people listening,

Like I can just feel this is so soothing.

Good,

Good.

Sometimes with health things,

I know I've had health things and people I know have had,

There are all kinds of things where fear can pop in,

Right?

Yeah,

Yeah.

Going back to really trusting,

There's at a deep,

Deep level,

I love what you said,

That that's the base of it is just trusting that all is well,

That we're loved,

Always.

Fear cannot survive in the presence of trust.

There's an old poem,

Fear knocked at the door,

Faith answered,

And no one was there.

I love that.

That's so good.

You said faith answered,

Yeah,

And no one was there.

I cannot thank you enough for saying yes,

First of all,

To,

You know,

The term I use is your you is to you,

Which to me feels like that,

The Holy Spirit,

The Spirit within the divine,

The divine us,

Not the ego.

I'm just,

I'm so grateful you have chosen to follow that and wrote the books that you wrote,

Do what you're doing,

Teaching what you're teaching,

Because I know I'm one of many,

Many,

Many,

But you really changed and altered my life.

And I know you're doing that today.

And it's such a gift.

I really appreciate it.

I appreciate it.

It's a delight to be with you.

All your questions were so poignant and right on,

And your humility and sincerity was really soothing to me too.

So you're doing great,

Great things.

Keep it up.

You're helping a lot of people as well.

Thank you,

Alan.

Well,

This is such a gift.

And I was gonna say for everyone,

Don't forget the definition of a miracle.

If we can just say it one more time,

Because that is like,

To me,

It says miracles are meant to happen,

Are meant to be here often.

Of course,

We're entitled to miracles,

And a miracle is a shift in perception from fear to love.

There we go.

Beautiful.

I have no other words other than to say from my heart to yours.

Thank you,

Thank you,

Thank you.

Thank you,

Julie.

My heart back to yours.

Thank you so much.

I'm so honored to be a part of your journey.

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Big Hearted Individuals Podcast.

I hope you enjoyed it.

I hope you enjoyed listening to this episode,

And I hope it inspires you to remember who you really are and who you chose to be in this lifetime.

If you're interested in becoming your USU,

I would love to guide you.

Please check out my website for additional information on how we can work together.

And if you feel moved,

Please subscribe,

Rate,

And review this podcast and share it with your friends and family.

Your USU.

Reviews

I am going to check course and his books. Always looking to reinforce love over fear.

Beautiful talk. I’m inspired to study the course now. 💖