New year, new life!
Really?
Where do you start?
Honouring the year that finished, revisiting your dreams and intentions, making new resolutions, deciding your goals and filling your 2017 calendar with actions and starts?
Well, that’s what I did and that’s fine.
There are so many good and beautiful things to get inspired about, plan, put in action and achieve that they justify all the brainstorming, rituals, meditations, visualizations and whatever else!
But right on the first few days of January I started questioning my excitement and my “targets” and realised I was taking my plans a bit too seriously.
Goals are only goals (nothing more than a phrase that you choose as your aim) and there is nothing wrong with them. They gain weight with the projection that’s put on them. The commitment to reach them and the frustration of not getting anywhere near. Have you felt this way before?

How about looking at them as a north star, a direction you want to follow, without the rigidity of a defined result that you decided is the best for you. Instead, live with the lightness of believing that the manifestation will be the result of your journey and of how present and aligned you were everyday and moment of your life. Leave space for infinite possibilities, miracles and the unexpected.

Why would you consciously leave space for the unexpected? Because sometimes I think we limit our own potential and worthiness with our limited human view. What do we know, really, about EVERYTHING that we’re capable of and the wonder that can happen in our lives?
Expect the best, the biggest and the most incredible to happen in the way and time it has to happen.

And there’s something else.
Have a look at your daily habits and see if they feed the path to what you desire in your life. To just have a goal and take action is not enough if your habits are not aligned with them. What do you think about and put your attention to first thing in the morning? What do you talk about and who to? What’s your attitude about the world, the people around you and yourself?

My biggest desire is to be happy, peaceful, full of joy and light and have fun doing what I do.
I decided to have a good look at my projects and prioritize only some of them, the ones that resonate with my heart and not the ones I put on the list because I thought I should or it made sense. I believe this is a good start for this year.
What comes after is a bonus.
By Catia Vasconcelos

 

Christmas for many people is a symbol that that reminds them of their inner light.
It’s not the symbol itself that’s important but what it points to.

Let’s look at the two Christmas symbols, birth and light.

Birth is not just the birth of the baby Jesus, but the birth of choosing to remember our true identity. Celebrating an inner birth rather than an historical figure.
I love this line from A Course in Miracles that tells you what forgiveness offers:

Open your eyes today and look upon a happy world of safety and of peace. In quietness it rises up to greet your open eyes, and fill your heart with deep tranquillity as ancient truths, forever newly born, arise in your awareness. What you will remember then can never be described. W-pI.122.8:1,3-4 (bold mine)

The symbols of light: candles, stars and fairy lights remind us of the light we seek. We are joined with everyone in that light that is beyond description.
Sometimes I find it helpful to picture love as a lighthouse, that’s always shining. I can walk away from the light and it seems to get duller. But the light has not changed. I have just made a choice to turn away.
The light does not come running after me, to save me, or punish me. The power of the light is that it simply “is.” Its presence is ultimately attractive. I will at some point choose to return. In fact, we have all chosen to return because we are that light.

So this Christmas allow the symbols to point you inside, to a place where you celebrate your oneness with everyone, independent of what they believe at this time of year.

Christmas light from all the Miracle Choice Team.

 

Welcome me not into a manger!

Christmas celebrations and preparations can hide what is really going on underneath – for a while at least. The business of advent, buying presents, sending cards and decorating the house can seem very superficial if there is no real connection underneath all the activity.

Last weekend Catia sensed some conflict was being tolerated in the sake of keeping the peace and covering over what was really going on. She came out with a strong message to all the family that she wanted connection and love – not tiptoeing around others who were being unkind to themselves and those around them. Her desire not to allow anyone to go on hurting themselves hit home for the children.

During the discussion I remembered a line from A Course in Miracles about not making the outer form of Christmas into a big deal when what was important was what was happening inside.

My birth in you is your awakening to grandeur. Welcome me not into a manger, but into the altar to holiness, where holiness abides in perfect peace. A Course in Miracles. Text. Chapter 15. Section III. 9:5-6

We are not being kind when we allow another person to continue with their inner pain and conflict when we can be a reminder to them of who they really are. That reminder may start off with an uncomfortable dialogue about how their behaviour is affecting us and end with a healing experience for everyone.

It is a gift to be reminded of who we truly are. How can that happen when we tolerate someone’s unreasonable and unkind behaviour and suffer in silence? When we tolerate anything other that loving behaviour in others we are actually saying that our unloving thoughts about ourselves are acceptable.

Let us be aware this Christmas when someone is needing help to remember who they really are and remember it can be a gift for both of us. It may be a challenge not to be lazy and settle for superficial niceness. But our desire for true connection will allow us to speak words of love even though it may not be easy for the other person to hear. We may not be coming from a healed place ourselves but our desire for healing will be sensed and welcomed on some level.

What we want is to remember we are love. That love is holy and brings perfect peace. Nothing else will do because deep down we have agreed that we will settle for nothing less.

I wish you perfect peace this Christmas.

 

Make this year different by making it all the same

It seems we want variety, diversity and change.
Differences feel exciting, and we are told variety is the spice of life.

In comparison sameness seems to be boring – even if we are told it is constant joy and happiness!

The constancy of happiness has no exceptions; no change of any kind.
Joy cannot be perceived except through constant vision.

The constant vision (Holy Spirit’s vision or the vision of Christ) looks on everything and sees it as the same because constant vision sees everything as like itself.

We need to be honest with ourselves when we ask the question “Do we want constant happiness?”
It is similar to the The Last Unanswered Question in chapter 21 of ACIM: “Do I want to see what I denied because it is the truth?”

We hesitate before we answer, because to answer “yes”, and mean it, would change our world completely. Once we truly make the choice for constancy we cannot go back. Singleness of desire means we are certain we want constant inner happiness. The decision to truly desire happiness, moves us beyond choice to the real world of Love.

You need ask for it but once to have it always. Then you have renounced the option to change your mind again. The others (The three questions that come before the last question) are decisions that can be made, and then unmade and made again. But truth is constant, and implies a state where vacillations are impossible.

Most of us will probably go through the year changing our minds over and over again. We may start the year knowing we are in control or our reactions, and then we let others make us feel bad. One moment we remember we are powerful and the next we decide to be helpless. We see a peaceful world and then make someone into an enemy.

When we are uncertain about constant happiness we value choice, and change and differences.

But one day, one year we will decide finally to make it all the same.

Quotes are from pages 329 and 463- 465 in the Text of A Course in Miracle

I love the end of the year and the beginning of the next.
It’s a time to reflect and to get clear on purpose.

Remembering the year is not about regretting past mistakes but looking honestly with Spirit at the choices you have made.
How often have you made decisions from a personal point of view?
Have you considered yourself, your relationships, your family, your work or your money without asking guidance from Spirit?
Do you look back with joy on the times you listened to the guidance of Spirit and had a deep connection with all of life?

You have never given any problem to the Holy Spirit He has not solved to you, nor will you ever do so. You have never tried to solve anything yourself and been successful. Is it not time you brought these facts together and made sense of them?

What is your purpose for next year?

This is a year of joy, in which your listening will increase and peace will grow with its increase. For love asks only that you be happy, and will give you everything that makes for happiness.

What a great intention and purpose for 2015: To want your listening to increase because you desire an experience of peace!
Then you hear a Voice that reminds you, that you are joy, peace and love.
And from that place of inner peace you know what to do and say.
Hearing guidance and solving problems becomes a natural consequence of your desire to remember happiness.

The Voice may make no sound. You may call it “intuition”, “your heart’s desire” or a “gut feeling”. But there will no be no doubt in you mind that you are listening. And you also know that you have made a choice to listen.

I wish you a year in which your inner listening increases.

Much Love James

Quotes are from pages 333 and 334 in the Text of A Course in Miracles.

The sign of Christmas is a star, a light in darkness. See it not outside yourself, but shining in the Heaven within, and accept it as the sign the time of Christ has come. T327

Why would you want to see light outside yourself and not inside?
Because you think darkness is within!

The title of Lesson 93 in the Workbook is “Light and joy and peace abide in me” and yet it begins with the astounding words : You think you are the home of evil, darkness and sin. W161

We think inner darkness is the problem when it isn’t. That is the ego’s clever trick.
Seeking light outside ourselves is the same as saying that darkness is within and it is real!

But the problem is not inner darkness. The problem is that we choose to believe in inner darkness. To repeat: The problem is not inner darkness but the choice to believe in darkness.

The light is within unless we choose to think otherwise.
There is only one problem and one solution – the choice to believe in darkness and the choice to remember light.

This Christmas, see and enjoy all the outer lights that sparkle, because they remind you of the light inside. You do not see them as a comfort for the darkness within because you know there isn’t any.