I’m writing this 2021 year-end reflection for myself, while sharing it with others in case it is helpful. This post is part of my process of moving forward after a tumultuous year.
2021 presented some of the most challenging experiences of my life. As of today, it has also earned the top spot as a year that facilitated warp-speed growth that I can still barely wrap my head around.
Pain can be an incredible catalyst for transformation if you allow it. By allowing it, that pain brought me to new places. Every time a difficult feeling arose, I went into it with defenselessness and a willingness to see whatever it was that I needed to see. I explored the depths and hidden recesses of that pain with the Holy Spirit. I did not turn away, numb, or suppress.
Being a dedicated student of A Course in Miracles for the past 25 years, I can now see that I had narrowed my ideas of how healing should be facilitated and how it should look. Little did I know that in 2021, Jesus would blow that self-imposed limit wide open for me.
A series of events happened that at times brought me to my knees, and rather than cling to A Course in Miracles and what it says (or more accurately, what I think it says), I was being asked by Jesus to let it all go. To let the book go. To let all words go. To let identification as “A Course in Miracles student/teacher” go. Instead, I was being asked to trust HIM, directly. To hear HIM, directly. Being that my spiritual foundation is based on this book and I’ve been working with it my entire adult life, letting go was scary as hell. Once again, I felt like I was in the scene in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, where Indiana needs to step out into a bottomless chasm in a radical act of faith. One thing that the Course has given me is a deep sense of trust in guidance and in my relationship with the Holy Spirit and Jesus. So I obliged. I let the Course go. I didn’t know if I would or could teach it anymore. I stepped out into the chasm.
With other stressors and challenges unfolding in addition to feeling the spiritual rug removed from underneath me, I promptly fell apart (while never falling into debilitating anxiety, which was of significant note for me). What felt like my spiritual backbone for so long was gone. But in the falling apart, something beautiful happened. Just as Indiana Jones steps out and finds there is an invisible pathway beneath him to walk across the seeming chasm, I fell apart with a deep sense of knowing that I was going to be put back together, but not based on what “I think” A Course in Miracles says. Instead, I was guided to allow myself to be rebuilt directly by Spirit. To be shown truth through experience, rather than through “my” understanding of words. My initiation into this process required a radical act of faith: my willingness to let my spiritual pathway go. All sense of rigidity and clinging to teachings needed to exit. My ideas of what it meant to be spiritual needed to go. My identities in this world had to be released… again.
Much has happened during this year of allowing myself to be rebuilt by the Holy Spirit. To my surprise, I was led into various healing modalities that have literally moved mountains for me: EMDR (Eye-Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), family therapy, and family constellation work, to name a few. Jesus has been working quite powerfully for me through these modalities in ways that have often left me speechless. “Hidden cornerstones” of unforgiveness have been exposed, ancient hatred has been revealed, and patterns that would often hijack me had their roots uncovered. All of this was being shown to me at an almost overwhelming pace to bring it to Holy Spirit for rapid healing.
When fire obliterates the landscape as we know it, the clearing allows seeds that lay dormant, deep in the soil, to grow and flourish into new life. When ego layers burn away, what emerges is what has always been there – our unobstructed relationship with the Divine.
The Divine Mother often reveals herself to us in the most challenging of times. In 2021, my most significant relationship has emerged. I had an experience where I felt Jesus bow his head, extend his arm, and silently say in an introduction, “I’ll let you two take it from here.” At that moment, I had tidal wave-like experience of his Mother. Our Mother.
She showed up for me because I needed Her more than anything. And I know that my embodiment of two characteristics helped facilitate this process: Honesty and Open-Mindedness (ACIM, M-4.II & M-4.X).
Honesty: Since I picked up A Course in Miracles in 1997, I seek to not hide anything from Spirit. Every fearful or judgmental thought that goes through my mind, I name and I own. I take responsibility for it. I recognize it’s not that I’m going to stop having ego-based thoughts, but I have none that I would keep (ACIM, T-15.IV.9:1-2).
Open-Mindedness: My involvement in the series, The LOVE LENS: Conversations on A Course in Miracles, Racism and the Unified Mind, has changed the path of my life. Learning from Course and non-Course students in Black and brown bodies has shown me that my entire perception involves a lens that is influenced by being in a white body. It is another ego layer that needs to be seen to be undone. Embodying open-mindedness is necessary if we truly desire to awaken.
Through the turmoil of 2021, an additional life-altering insight and experience arose – the recognition that I am an antenna. I believe many if not most people with anxiety are also antennas. We are HIGHLY intuitive, but our abilities are undeveloped or underdeveloped, so we often pick up on other people’s stuff, mistaking it as our own. In any situation that produces uneasy feelings, asking myself, “What is mine and what is not mine?” has been a game changing question. Sorting through the answer enables me to look at what is mine (with Spirit) and release what is not (to Spirit).
And what about my relationship with A Course in Miracles? It’s in my blood and bones. It’s the operating system through which I see the world. I can’t not live it as it’s part of who I am. It is fully alive in my daily life. But I can see that my relationship to the Course is growing and changing as I relate to it in a more embodied and grounded way.
I don’t usually give much meaning to New Years. Our marking of time is artificial as time is one moment that seemingly extends forward and backward. But on New Year’s Eve at midnight, I cried. I’m so relieved to leave the challenges of 2021 behind and at the same time I feel filled with gratitude for all the gifts that arose. I’m meeting 2022 with an open heart and abundant willingness. And I truly look forward to sharing more with you. There is much to come.
One of the things I love about my weekly ACIM Study Group is how we all benefit from sharing our experiences and insights. If any of this post resonated with you, or if you feel you had a significant shift in 2021, I’d love to hear about it in the comments below.
With love,
Corinne xo
Hi, your post resonates massively with my experience of 2021. It is interesting that it should arrive in my inbox at this time. I would be happy to share more but not publicly at this time.
Hi Annie, there are no accidents. 🙂 It sounds like many of us went through some profound changes in 2021. xo
COVID 2020 was the year drove me to fully engage with the Course because, while I had gleaned a world view and spiritual concepts that resonated from reading about Eastern religions, I needed a practice that spoke to my heart and helped me negotiate my life. My western life and evangelical Christian background found the language and practices of the course to be a good stepping stone. In 2021 I started studying the text with a Zoom group (still continuing with this) and I also completed the Workbook. Your essay resonates with thoughts I have had, that this is a stepping stone in building a relationship with the Divine, but that becoming wholly focused on the path, or even the destination, distracts from the goal, the experience of the Divine.
Hi Dorothy,
Thanks so much for sharing your thoughts. Uma Sanghvi (a friend and fellow Course teacher) said, “A Course in Miracles is an arrow.” That resonated so deeply with me. It is pointing us in a direction. I feel that doing the Course, the lessons, etc. are all a part of the journey, but they are certainly not the journey’s end. We must hold it all lightly. Much love to you!
Dearest Corinne,
I love your bravery. My experience as another long time student/teacher of the Course is that after a certain amount of time the most important lesson is 189: Forget this Course and Come with HOLY (Wholly) Empty Arms onto the Oneness (however that speaks to us).
Thank you for your words, dear Rosalyn. Those meditation instructions in that lesson are everything. I’m giving you a big hug!
I keep thinking about “forget this Course” and the empty rice bowl (arms) too.
I feel we each learn in our own ways and yes, must not be bound by anything but spirit.
I’m still finding the workbook lessons so helpful to LIVE. Daily.
I LOVE what you wrote and feel it!
Am truly enjoying my intuition and “signs” and applying Course Principles to pretty much everything I love.…and enjoying a developing community with beautiful souls who have come together through online music! My meditation? ✨✨✨
Thank you! Your true friend, J
Hi Judith,
That’s the key – LIVING the Course! The Course is a mind training program like no other and the workbook is of immense value. I’m glad to hear you are engaging daily! Thank you for your words of support. What I find most important it that we always stay open, and not decide “how” something needs to look based on what we think we know. We then leave room for lots of miracles to flow. And I love that. you’re involved in a community focusing on music!
Much love to you friend! xo
So glad to know you are doing well and I look forward to learning more about your journey! I took at deeper dive into the Course in 2021 and have added onto my studies Eckardt Tolle’s work, which I find so supportive and helpful in understanding the illusion of time.
Hi Carol! Thank you for your comment. I’m so glad to hear you’ve taken a deeper dive and are finding additional supportive teachings through Eckhart Tolle’s work. Much love to you!
Dear Corinne
Such a powerful and reflective post. I highly resonate with so much of what you
wrote.
I have had to do much inner work this year.
Learning that I had abandoned myself for much of my life led me to Inner Bonding work.
I had to sit with and comfort the parts of me that had gone through so much pain, most of it denied until it hurt too much not to meet it head on.
Spirit was with me so strongly, that even in the darkest times, I felt and knew the Truth.
I loved what you shared. I look forward to learning more, my friend.
Sue Lindsay
Thanks so much for sharing. All of what you said resonated with me. I too feel I am being guided to put the book down and work directly with Jesus. Your post reminds me to not resist his guidance, even of it leads to seemingly worldly things and or healing modalities. I also had tears and goosebumps to hear of your introduction to Mother. The way you wrote it, I could.literally see Jesus doing this. Blessings and love to you beautiful Corrinne ❤️
Thank you for your words, Sara. I love what you wrote: “to not resist his guidance, even of it leads to seemingly worldly things and or healing modalities.” That’s been so true for me and we must not judge ourselves (or others) for this. Our life IS our curriculum which is “highly individualized.” Whether we work with Jesus via the Course or with him directly, that relationship is everything. Also, since you mentioned being able to visualize what Jesus was doing as I wrote it, I’ll add that he stepped into the background as the Divine Mother stepped into my foreground. He’s still with me of course, but She’s taking the lead role right now. 🙂 xoxo
Reminds me of this quote from the Matrix “There is a difference between knowing the path & walking the path.” Trust and faith are so important. Many blessings and much gratitude to you
I love this Lorraine! Thank you for the reminder xo
Thank you Corrine for sharing this part of your journey.
Sometimes I feel lost and alone when reading the course and other times awed beyond my ability to explain why. One of my favorite lessons is sung by Jaymes Twynam about for “an instant going home” (182?)
I am truly anxiety challenged and absorb other energies that are not my own. I have experienced this all my life. Mostly I recluse in art or music or nature or being with my cats.
I too experienced The Divine Mother this year. I need her more than ever right now. That is all I know. Jesus, Spirit, and Mother. I weep just writing this. We are Loved unconditionally and connected in that blessed Love.
Hi Sharon, thank you so much for sharing this. We ARE loved unconditionally and truly do NOT walk alone. I’m so happy to hear that you’ve also connected with the Divine Mother. I feel the sincerity and devotion in your words. Perhaps you might find experimenting with the question, “What is mine? And what is not mine?” helpful when you are picking up on other people’s stuff. I’ve found that if I sort through the answer to that question, identify what fears/issues are mine (which requires BIG honesty), and which ones aren’t (which requires no blame or judgment), that literally helps me release and not carry what is not mine. Thank you for your comment. I’m giving you a big hug!
Thank you for listening to your guidance and sharing with us.
I am especially thankful for your outlook on anxiety and racism.
Among the many layers in this life was a layer of defense as a brown body.
When you say Divine Mother, I think of Mother Mary and feel drawn to her Devotion that has recently come up for me this week.
I love that we are all moving through this! Cleaning house!
Hi Mwanga, thank you so much for your comment. I love that you feel drawn to Mother Mary too. I am with you in “cleaning house” and in our joint desire to move through it all together. xo
And a big hug back. Thank you Corrine💖
Hi Corinne, thank you for following Jesus, and being open to where it’s leading you. All blessings! love, kironJ
Dear Corinne, I very much resonate and appreciate what you have experienced and shared. Going beyond our interpretations of words and books to be with spirit has continued to guide and grow me as well. Much love to you always. Jules
This may assist:
” Experiencing Pain on The Spiritual Path:
God Is Building You
Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right, and stopping the leaks in the roof, and so on; you knew that these jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of –– throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.
— C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity
“
Beautiful. Thanks Lynne!