I truly believe that everything that happens to us teaches us something about who we are. But what we are able to see, grasp and understand, is limited by what we consider possible. The way we experience the world is intimately connected with what we believe we are.
Maybe you have the same feeling as me when observing yourself and other people in various interactions. I recognize a constant desire for unity.
We look for people who have the same interests as we do. In my life, the circle of people around me shows what kind of thoughts and feelings I’ve been nurturing. It is with great joy that I realize that I’ve been creating deeper relationships.
My quest to know myself better and to be more tolerant and loving with myself enables me to dive deeper into my relationships and to join with people in such a way that, even though we haven’t known each other for long, our hearts are joined and we can truly share whatever we feel.
A couple of weeks ago I went with my son to a square in the city where I live so that he could swap duplicate stickers to complete his world cup sticker album. There were many people of all kinds, but one person caught my attention. His sticker album was almost complete, but he had a big bunch of duplicate stickers.
He looked through my son’s bunch of duplicate stickers and couldn’t find any he needed to complete his album. However, the man was willing to help my son to look through the duplicate stickers he had to check which ones he needed.
The whole thing lasted about forty-five minutes, during which it began to rain very heavily. I asked the man if he wanted to stop helping us and go home. In response, he said we should look for shelter and continue the process.
At the end of that encounter, which I believe to be a holy one, my son was quite happy for getting so many missing stickers for his album and the man looked quite happy himself. He said goodbye and went on to help another boy who, like my son, did not have any stickers he needed either. He went through the whole process all over again. With the same willingness and attention.
I don’t even know the man’s name but he reminded me that, the world is full of people who seek unity and are ready to give their time, their attention, their love and their life freely. I was deeply grateful for having received so much from a total stranger.
Sometimes I wonder if I’m the one who is changing, or if the world is becoming more loving. I just wanted to write this text to remind myself and each one of you, dear readers, that Love IS the answer and that the desire for union we all share is the light that will take us back to remembering who we truly are.
By Julians Kurokawa

Fulfillment can be provided by each and every one of your brothers and sisters, for in each is the Christ available to be seen and experienced as it was from me. It is in your holy relationships that union can be found and experienced, and thus from these that you fuel your desire for union with all and for knowledge of your Creator. This yearning must but be a pure yearning—untainted by fear and judgment and approached with wholeheartedness—for it to be fulfilled. It is not the means that are lacking but the wholehearted desire.
A Course of Love (C.19.7)

What is to really love?
Really love!
Love with no conditions or cause, without having to receive something in return, without measuring or planning, without disappointments, without having to agree, with anything added, because it’s already everything.

Don’t mistake “love without exceptions” with fragments of affection, attraction, sympathy, preference, attachment, friendship with those people or situations with which you have agreements or identification. If it is total, there is no such thing as for whom, with whom, when and where. It just happily flows. It could be with your neighbour, with the shopkeeper, even with those who jump the line in the bank or with those who cut you off in traffic and, to be really without exception, also with the corrupt politicians and with your biggest enemy.

It doesn’t necessarily mean you adore them, hug them or belong to their political party. It is to accept differences without judging or criticizing, to see from a neutral point of view, from a whole state, without the ego involved, without drama and without the limitation of thinking only as a human being, but as a divine being having a human experience.

Many people mistakenly believe this is the same as being submissive, doing nothing about problems, looking down, being weak or having no opinions.
But I think it’s the exact opposite: it’s empowering. To connect to your essence, to your inner strength and to operate from your greatest potential, without letting conditions determine when and how you express the love that is your nature and the only truth.

Love is incapable of any exceptions. …Fear does not gladden. Healing does. Fear always makes exceptions. Healing never does. A Course in Miracles T-7.V. 5&6

It is by radiating that strength and light that you manifest true clarity, peace, growth and healing. For you and everyone around you.
In practice, this translates into knowing what to do, what to say and how to live from a centered, quiet, empowered and connected state. Not with fear, anger, irritation, confusion and rebellion.
Therefore, loving 99% of people and 99% of situations is not enough.
To love without exception does not require words, looks or gestures. To love all means that you know that nothing nor anyone has the power to change the fact that you are Love. It means that everything is just an opportunity to experience yourself as the Love that you are.

Love is whole, with no exceptions.
by Catia Vasconcelos

News
Catia is preparing for a trip to Brazil at the end of the month to lead potentially two trainings, one in Sao Paulo and the other in Porto Alegre. Juliana with another Trainer is leading a training programme in Salvador. It seems May is the time to sign up to be a facilitator of the Miracle Choice Game if you speak Portuguese!

Much love, Catia, Juliana and James

I was led to the Miracle Choice game through A Course in Miracles. I groped in those metaphorical lines, trying to understand myself.
Love and Fear, Real World, Ego, Intuition, Truth, Choices, Acceptance. Wow!! High dives.
It’s been a while since I’ve started working on my self-esteem, as I realized that I did not know what it was. I did not know that I had to prioritize myself in order to love me. What does that mean? Prioritize myself? So selfish!
I do not know exactly when I began to see a new possibility of perceiving love. Therapies, deep conversations, a long journey, but I remember the opening I had when I played the Miracle Choice Pocket Game alone in my room, during a deep existential crisis, where I was in a lonely, cold, dark, dead-end place. Those colored letters with surgical messages brought about sighs, tears and smiles. Some things started to make sense; I realized harsh truths about the choices I was making.
Many things have changed in my life since then. I have generated energy to do what had to be done, and also to come out of that place that I had put myself in, to create what really made sense to my Self.
It’s been a beautiful journey, and it continues. It does not end, and this is magical. Finding out that there is not in fact a place to go shocks me but also frees me. Now I live one moment at a time, connected to my inner wisdom when possible, and if not possible, that is fine too. Simply being aware that I have moments of disconnection and knowing when they happen, not wanting to fix them, represents a great progress for me. There is nothing to be fixed.
Sometimes I feel so much joy that it seems like I’m going to burst. I guess it is the “contentment” people talk about. I see only love in everything and everyone, people stick to me, and everything flows intensely and lightly. Suddenly, some thoughts arrive: “Rafa, you live in a bubble, that’s not reality, people are suffering, you cannot be happy for so long!”
A sense of inadequacy comes and then my thoughts stray to the current challenges I face, the uncertainties. I take a deep breath to embrace this confusion. Sometimes I fall into tears and sometimes I start laughing, with an analgesic certainty that everything is perfect. Then I decide to continue. Doing my best at every moment, welcoming the roller coaster of sensations, and evaluating how I’m feeling.
And then I realize that I started to really love myself, with all the aspects that make me who I am, who brought me here. To love is to accept, even without agreeing. It is to trust, to have fun, to observe the ways, the traps. It is allowing yourself to feel, is to allowing yourself to be.
A Course in Miracles says in Lesson 45:

“Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers you have built against it.”

It is in that unlearning process that I have put my energy. I stopped looking for love, because love already is!!! Now I am dealing with the layers of beliefs that separate me from love. And my path is to accept and love me, unconditionally. When I serve myself, I start to serve the world with an inexplicable presence. A sense of integrity. A gratitude from knowing that I can return to this place, even choosing to disconnect sometimes. I can go back. We can always go home!
by Rafaela Pimpão

We all wish you a happy Easter. James and Catia have two separate video messages below but they will be doing some videos together soon!
Easter miracles from Juliana, Catia and James

At Easter there are often images of chocolate eggs and of beautiful fluffy chicks in pretty baskets.

The is a saying or an advice to “not to put your eggs in one basket.” It means that “one should not concentrate all efforts and resources in one area as one could lose everything. Example: Mr Tan’s financial adviser urged him to be careful and not put all his eggs in one basket by investing all his money on stocks.” (online dictionary)

Imagine you have 10 eggs. These eggs represent parts of your being. There are many baskets that promise different things if you put your eggs in them: success, wealth, love partner(s), friends, good health, holidays, travel, status, recognition, career and one basket called “true Self.”

What are you going to do with your eggs?

You fear “putting all your eggs in one basket.” You seek to balance the things you label drudgery and the things you label exciting. In doing so you see yourself as “spending your time” wisely, and you call yourself a “well-rounded individual.” As long as more than this is not sought, more than this will not be realized. A Course of Love C-9.38

Do you want to be a “well-rounded individual” or do you want to be your true Self?
To be a “well-rounded individual” you need to place at lease some of your 10 eggs in different baskets, but to be your true Self, you need to place all 10 eggs in one basket!

Before you divide out our eggs look carefully at the environment of the baskets, the way in which your being will be nourished and educated once it hatches out. All the baskets except on have this environment:
You only get if you give, so give carefully to thoes who will give you the special attention you want and need in return. You need to work hard and strive to achieve something of value. There are limitations and scarcity and you need to live in a way that respects these ideas and accepts suffering as part of life.

One basket the environment is quite different:

Feel the gentleness and the love. Drink in the safety and the rest. Close your eyes and begin to see with an imagination that is beyond thought and words… No “I” resides here. You have given up the vision of your eyes and the “I” of your ego. You are loosed of bounds, no longer a thing of beauty, but beauty itself. A Course of Love C-20.2 &20.3

Feel the ease or the difficulty of this choice. All feelings are acceptable. You have already made this choice outside of time. Now is the moment to hatch it within this world of form. Easter is the time of rebirth so why not now.
by James Kelly

We wish you all a happy Easter. James and Catia are going to be doing some more videos together but for now there are two separate video from them below!
Much love, Juliana, Catia and James

Claudia Barros is an experienced Miracle Choice Game Facilitator and we love her message in this blog post: trust is a choice for love and control is a choice for fear. She has more insights in her blog and James has created a video inspired by her words.
James, Catia and Juliana

“It is not for you to know the times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority.” (Acts 1:7)

This was the quotation that started the talk I attended last Sunday. As the speaker went through the theme, I was reading the quotation on the blackboard. By the time he had finished, a feeling overwhelmed me. I was thinking about the main question: can you simply trust?

For a long time I was taught to believe in a father, a God, who saw everything and who judged everything. For many years I heard that, when I died, I would be taken to a place where I would watch the movie of my life and that I would be judged and condemned for the episodes when I did not obey this father. My response after I grew and understood for myself that there is no evidence of the existence of such a judgmental father (because no one came back to tell us about their judgment) was to deny all this and to discredit it. I started a quest for another form of believing and another model of father.

There were many searches and there were times when I had to make choices. Several of them were made without realizing that I simply trusted, trusted in my power of choice, or in what I believed that made sense to me. Today I can say that I believe. I believe in a greater force, in something that can’t be explained, in something that can be named as I wish, but above all I believe in the maxim of watch and pray, in the existence of a kairos and in the power of my choices.

With every new opportunity that life provides me, I apply the motto of watch and pray. After all, in order to understand that a challenge can be a learning opportunity, I must pray that I do not get lost in my thoughts from the beliefs I have cultivated for a long time. And I must be vigilant not to be carried away by what others say, the choices are something that are always present with me.

One day when I faced one of these challenges, I found myself questioning the fact, the situation and everything that was contained in the scenario. In those moments, something in me reminds me that I can always choose and choose again. This is the greater purpose of Miracle Choice in my life – to bring awareness to the fact that it is always possible to choose. But in order to choose, you must first trust. Then I return to the question of the lecture: Can you simply trust? To really live the choice for love, one doesn’t have to know about times nor epochs, one must trust because any other choice where there is a need for control is a choice for fear. Fear is insecurity, insecurity is lack of self-love and one who does not love himself does not trust. So, can you simply trust?
by Claudia Barros

Without a doubt, you’ve reached this point in your life with much learning and growth. Probably with theories and concepts too, some new ones and some old ones that have helped you in this journey of expansion.
How about gathering all this and putting into practice, in a more conscious way, all these good things?.
We share the following text as a beautiful summary of the essentials we need to remember (every day!) to have a full and happy life.
Enjoy and good awakening!
by Catia Vasconcelos

1- Other people don’t exist to please you.
2- No one is to blame for what you are feeling. It is you who choose the feelings you have at this moment.
3 – The art of living without expectations, but with perspective is the key to avoid frustration.
4 – Heal your need of approval from others. Only in this way can you enjoy the boldness and natural confidence of your spirit.
5 – You have no control over anything, even though you think you do. Remember, soon the Earth will reclaim your body and you will leave this planet to enter a new phase of existence. Let go of control, only then will you have mastery over yourself and your life. Control is a reflection of fear, mastery is a reflection of the state of absolute absence of internal tension.
6 – Do not deform or change your character to try to “fit” into the tiny space which is the thought that others have about you. This is not going to work. When you change to please someone, your light goes out and it’s just you that stays in the dark feeling lost.
7- Do not believe what others say to you, however romantic and poetic it may be. What matters is attitude, not the words.
8 – Leave the pride and the fantasy of believing that everything will be as you want.
9 – Everything is temporary. “Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.” (Charlie Chaplin) After a while you’ll laugh at all the dramas you’ve created. Because everything passes.
10 – You are responsible for everything that is going on in your life. Your prevailing thoughts and feelings will shape your reality; whether you want it or not. So if you want to change your reality, change your thoughts and feelings.
11- Emotional lack is not the need to receive but to give oneself. Only you can meet your emotional needs. To project them onto someone else is the same as asking someone to feed themselves to satisfy your hunger.
12 – Live with simplicity and with more awareness. Only then, who you really are, will truly appear. Laugh more and do not take everything so seriously. After all, the essence of life is to discover and enjoy this wonderful adventure called evolution.
by Horacio Frazão

News
We are really proud that the Miracle Choice Facilitators are out there and online leading Pocket Game Guide Trainings. The Pocket Game creates an unique environment in which individuals or groups get the inspiration they need to transform their stuck relationship, health or financial issues.
James is travelling to Ireland to lead a one day Pocket Game Training along with the Irish Facilitators next weekend. So if you would like to join the group on 24th March in Donegal, just reply to this email. Remember you don’t have to travel to become a Pocket Game Guide you can take the training in the comfort of your own home!
Much love, James, Catia and Juliana

You know that story of when we were kids and we looked up at our parents and we believed they were the most perfect beings in the universe?
For one thing, they really are perfect. They are the perfect parents for us. Like all people in our lives, I believe our parents are a response to a request we made on some level to remind ourselves of the Truth. It is also true that they are our most difficult classroom, but how many lessons have we learned from them!
However, as we grow up and understand a bit more about human nature, we mature and begin to look at people with a slightly more mature posture. We realize that as much as our parents strive to provide us the best, they are human beings as susceptible to mistakes as we are.
And thus, with a more realistic and less childlike view, we learn to truly love our parents. We love every single detail, even the ones we find most bizarre.
That should at least be the natural path of our growth and, in that sense, I would like you to ask yourself if you’re really mature in your relationships.
What I mean by this is if you have so many expectations with regard to your parents, friends, partner, colleagues, and neighbors that you relate with an image of a superhero and not to real people.
Do you realize how many expectations you have about the people around you? How much space do the people you believe you love have to move around? How much do you allow them to be themselves, without you trying to change them? How much of what you call love depends on how people behave?
Letting people be free means being mature in relationships and life.
It means that we recognize that nothing and no one has the power to change who we are. It means we know ourselves well enough to know that we also slip at times. It means that knowing that our ability to choose does not deteriorate over time, we can always choose again. And because we know all this, we do not expect other people to be perfect when interacting with us.
It is freeing to relate in this way, for we are free to choose what we want to think and feel and we allow the people we love to be free to love in the way they know.
And so I invite you to move from the fairy tale world into a real world where love flows freely and not in the way you imagine it should be.
The good thing about learning to relate to real people rather than to superheroes is that they really exist and therefore we can create real bonds and remind each other that we are all perfect in our beautiful imperfection.
By Juliana Kurokawa

News
James ans Catia have converted their garage into a studio space and it’s almost finished – just as well as next week Andreas Prohl, A Course in Miracles teacher, arrives from Germany to lead a workshop in the space on 16/17 March. James met Andreas last year and was very impressed with the way he facilitated groups. If you live locally you are very welcome to come along – more information on the poster below and by replying to this email.

Much love, James, Catia and Juliana

Honesty is seen as a virtue, but to what extent does it really happen and is in this category?

Does being honest mean being completely honest? Talk about what you think and how you feel regardless of how people can react, all the time? Do what you want instead of what is “right” or expected?

Or are you to be honest in some moments but not in others, because there are situations where you need to be more careful, have respect for others, protect yourself or have good manners?

According to Brad Blanton, psychotherapist and author of the book “Radical Honesty”, we are 100% sincere or we are liars.

I like the idea, I like it very much. After all, what is behind a “silly little lie” or those inventions and secrets we create and feed to appease a situation or get what we want? A lot of things: manipulation, fear of not being loved, insecurity, pretence, superficiality, disconnection with our truth, with our essence. Lies start small and end up shaping the lives of most people. As Brad Blanton says, we end up becoming prisoners of lies in our minds.

I say I like the idea because it’s still an idea for me. But I am very excited and ready to put it into practice, because I believe it can be extremely liberating. I do not think it’s easy, but that’s part of it. Getting rid of a habit requires an initial discomfort that then translates into freedom and transformation.

Everyone may not be ready to adopt the stance of radical honesty. Some people may not be willing or motivated to overcome the way society, past relationships, and sexual or cultural identity have conditioned them to think, behave, and perceive themselves. But those who try and succeed may find that expressing what goes on in their minds in a respectful and understanding way may be the best thing that has ever happened to them and their relationships.

I’m in! I begin my 30 day challenge of radical honesty this week. What about you? Inspired to speak the truth, nothing but the truth?
by Catia Vasconcelos

More information:
http://www.radicalhonesty.com
How to practice Radical Honesty – https://www.wikihow.com/Practice-Radical-Honesty

 

News
James is on his way back from the A Course in Miracles (ACIM), San Francisco Conference. New friends made and many new insights. Much support from A Course of Love (ACOL) community about the development of a new game called Revelation. Some pictures below!

Much love, Juliana, Catia and James

Recently I have been open to the idea that love is always at work in my life no matter what happens.

When miracles happen it’s obvious love is shining on you, but is love still shining when you’re faced with conflicts, disappointments or physical challenges? Where is love in your average day as you struggle to get out of bed, go to work, deal with strained relationships and manage all the details of a busy life?

If the rays of love are not reaching us in our everyday lives then we have developed the habit of standing in the shade or at times even hiding in the darkness. Patterns of thoughts surround us like a mist so that we don’t feel the sunlight. We don’t seem to be actively choosing the thoughts any more but also we’re not actively saying “no” to them. We pick up old patterns as we wake up. When we get dressed we also cover ourselves with a mantel of thoughts that doesn’t serve us any more and maybe never did.

Many people try to break old thought patterns and develop new habits. But if we’re using our thinking to try and let go of our thoughts, we’re attempting to change the problem with our thinking mind, the mind that caused the issue in the first place! We’re setting ourselves up for failure. We’re trying too hard.

We need a revelation. We need to be open to discover a new way of being that is simply given to us because we are willing to let our painful thoughts go. We need to rest and allow the sun to break through the clouds. How willing are you to be open to new discoveries, to revelations that just come to you as gifts? Are you ready to receive the blessings that are waiting your invitation?

Take a moment just now to rest from your habitual thinking and let love reveal itself. Receive the love that is always shinning. Be open to an unlearning that comes from your willingness and a life that changes with ease and joy.

“The memory of God comes to the quiet mind.”
A Course in Miracles Text Chapter 23. I.1

By James Kelly

News
James writes in the 3rd part of how the Miracle Chocie Game is a gift:
Is there a gift for me as the so called “game creator?”
I once received these inspirational words from a player: “This game is a gift to you from Jesus.” Then I understood my creative contribution was my unique way of accepting and expressing a loving gift. And what a gift it has been. It has taken me from living a private inner spiritual life to seeing miracles reflected in the world of form. I have the beautiful opportunity of travelling to different countries to play the game and train facilitators. I can open my laptop and connect to people around the world who want to train to be Pocket Game Guides.
What a wonderful representation of what is inside being reflected back to me. And also the beautiful gift of my wife Catia co-creating Miracle Choice along with me. Words cannot convey that gift of connecting and learning with her.

Wish you many miracle gifts, James, Catia & Juliana.

We often complain about the way things are, but what kind of requests have we been sending to the Universe?
In this text, Byron Katie shares her idea about prayer and presents us with a beautiful insight into what we should ask for.
May we be reminded of the Love that we are. May we release, each day a little more, all the barriers we have created that prevent us from recognizing the immutable Being that we’ve always been.
Juliana Kurokawa

I often say that if I had a prayer, it would be this: God, spare me from the desire for love, approval, or appreciation. Amen. I don’t have a prayer, of course, because I don’t want anything but what I have. I know the benevolence of life. Why would I pray for something different, which would always be less than what’s coming? God is another name for reality. It’s complete, it’s perfect, it fills me with the utmost joy. The thought of asking for what isn’t never even arises.
But if I still believed my thoughts, I would pray for one thing first: to be spared from the desire for love. This desire causes nothing but confusion and misery. It shuts down the awareness of what you already have in reality. It’s painful to seek what you can never have outside yourself. I say “can never have” because obviously you don’t understand what you’re seeking. If you understood it, the seeking would be over. Because you think you know what love looks like, what it should or shouldn’t be, it becomes invisible to you. It’s the blind seeking what doesn’t exist. You beg, you plead, you bend over backward and do all sorts of other emotional acrobatics in this unending search for happy endings. Only by seeking the truth within will you find the love you can never lose. And when you find it, your natural response is appreciation.
This would be my one prayer, because the answer to it brings the end of time and space. It brings the energy of pure unlimited mind, set free in all its power and goodness. When you stop seeking love, it leaves you with nothing to do; it leaves you with the experience of being “done,” in a doing that is beyond you. It’s absolutely effortless. And a whole lot gets done in it, beyond what you think could ever have been accomplished.
— Byron Katie

News
This is James’ second instalment on the theme that the Miracle Choice game is a gift:
What gift have you given yourself as a facilitator?

What an opportunity to find out that giving and receiving are the same. That your healing and someone else’s are the same thing. You find out you are connected in such a deep way to the game, the players and the moment that you know that you are the gift. You are the compassion. You are love itself.