The Miracle Path Podcast
Welcome to The Miracle Path Podcast, hosted by Kylie and Julie. This sacred space is designed for anyone ready to bridge the gap between spirituality and daily life.
Join us as we explore the intersection of healing, love, and spiritual devotion. While we foster a relationship with Jesus, we do so outside the confines of organized religion. We are not a Christian podcast; instead, we are a space for those seeking a direct, personal, and non-dogmatic connection with the Divine.
Our podcast features guest interviews and raw conversations that provide practical action steps to shift your perspective and begin creating miracles in your life.
Whether you identify as spiritual but non-religious, or simply seeking a deeper understanding, we hope to inspire you to walk hand in hand with your higher power.
The Miracle Path Podcast
2: From Fear to Love; Our Intro to "A Course in Miracles"
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In this episode, Kylie and Julie introduce A Course in Miracles (ACIM), a modern spiritual text focused on mind training through forgiveness. By dismantling fear-based thought systems, the course aims to remove internal blocks to the "awareness of love's presence," which it describes as our natural inheritance. Kylie & Julie share how ACIM's principles of atonement and miracles helped them overcome ego-driven perfectionism and self-loathing by teaching them to see themselves and others as perfect "children of God".
A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles by Marianne Williamson
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Welcome to the Miracle Path Podcast. I'm your host, Kylie, with my amazing co-host Julie. Welcome to our second episode. Yay! I'm so thrilled. So excited. This topic is important. It has truly been a foundation of our inspiration to start this podcast. And it's a Course in Miracles.
SPEAKER_00A course. I love it.
SPEAKER_01And it's just helped personally me have practical tools to operate in the world and to embody the love that I desire to be. And I haven't finished the course either. Yeah. And it's just, but we're we've been so inspired by it. And it's guided us. And I've been in the course, I think, for a year and a half. It's a big text, y'all.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I was gonna say it's if you've never heard of it before, it's a very big um text, and we're gonna talk a little bit about what it is exactly. Um, it's hard to be defined though. Uh, but just to know it's you know uh a spiritual text, it's definitely something from uh a higher power, and we are just so blessed to have been introduced to it because it has been around since 1970s.
SPEAKER_0119, it was created and started in 1965 through 1971.
SPEAKER_00Got it, yeah. So it is a more modern text. This is not like an ancient text. Um, it it was written in the modern age, so it's just a really inspiring read. If you're interested, we'll link it in the show notes just so that you can make sure to order your copy. It's available lots of different places, uh, but it's definitely worth a read after listening to the uh show today. If you're interested, it's definitely worth it. I would highly recommend getting started. And like we said, we were not finished and we've been reading almost, I think we started about the same time in like 24. I started in like the summer of 24, and um, you know, I'm about halfway, so a year and a half to get halfway, but that's okay because there's a lot of good stuff.
SPEAKER_01Yes, it's so good. If you can kick us off to what is a course in miracles, the intro, just to give some context.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so uh we're gonna go ahead and, like we said, talk a little bit about what the course is, what the course means to us, and also just some concepts that have really stuck with us throughout our spiritual journey that we've been on that we talked about last episode. Um, but to start off, we're just gonna read the introduction. So I'm gonna read the introduction to you. This is the first page um of the course, and it really hits home. So I'll go ahead and read it. This is a course in miracles, it is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time. The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is far beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite. This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way: nothing real can be threatened, nothing unreal exists. Herein lies the peace of God. That's it. I love that intro. I remember when I read that for the first time, and I thought I was, I think I was half confused and half half amazed at the same time.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, same.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. But you know, I I think that last line, herein lies the peace of God, right? Herein, herein lies what we all strive for. And that's what I talk about. Like it is a spiritual text. There, it's once you start reading it, it's very obviously uh from a higher power, from a divine source, from a creator. And Kylie will kind of get into talking about how it was written, but just knowing that this is something beyond our our just our reality that we experience day to day. This is a deeper, a deeper um look at what life can be like and what it should be like for us.
SPEAKER_01Right, right. Yeah. And you mentioned our inheritance is love.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's our birthright to be joyful. And I find that this text, it's like reprogramming my thoughts. And it's so just to further give you more context of what is a course in miracles, it's a self-study program of spiritual psychotherapy. Basically, it's a mind training course in forgiveness. Yeah. Right. Right. It's dismantling a thought system based on fear and fear and separation, than accepting a thought system based on love. And I want to share this quote, and we already kind of talked about that all-encompassing. And this is by uh Marian Williamson. She said, A Course in Miracles says that what is all-encompassing can have no opposite. So when you're actually thinking without love, you're actually not thinking, you're hallucinating. I love that. Right. And I just love too in the course how they give me a better understanding. It gives me the a better understanding of ego and how it's operated. And its core belief is separation. And now that I have a better understanding of its core belief, I find that I can identify how and when it's determining my choices in life. And uh yeah, it's I mean, it's just something that I'm loving, loving, loving, loving, of course.
SPEAKER_00Right. And uh the awareness, what you said, that's really what we're striving for most of the time, and awareness. I think we touched on a little bit in the first episode that life can life can throw you a lot of curveballs. Nothing is, you know, your journey is nobody's journey is easy, right? So as we're living in this world and we're experiencing these things, some are good, some are bad. Uh what we really need to understand is that it's our awareness that makes the difference to how we live our life. And the course lays out uh what that awareness should look like, or a path to the awareness of love and the awareness of God's presence in your life, even when things are difficult, even when life seems unmanageable, even when your brain seems to be in such a dark place. And no, I know, no, we're both going to talk about that, but you know, because like you already mentioned, the course is really uh based on this whole concept of forgiveness, um, and that we're changing our brains from a fear-based thought process to a love-based thought process. And it has nothing to do with our outside experiences about in the world, but more to do with what are we thinking, how are we experiencing these things within our own mind.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it even mentions how we're it says like something like you are far too tolerant of mind wandering. Oh, yeah. You know, and there's a lot of other religions too, and again, this isn't a religion, religious text. It's uh no, it it doesn't, it's not about beliefs, it's about experience. And before we talk about the concepts, I think the history of a course in miracles is important and it's interesting.
SPEAKER_00It is, yeah. And I think I still I started reading the course before I even knew like who wrote it or how it came to be.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00And so it's a little bit better when you have context.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So I agree. And so, yeah, my my course, my text, it doesn't even have the name of the author. And so, like I said, it was created in 1965 and then wrapped up in 1971. It was a collaboration between Bill Thetford and Helen Chuckman. They were in the clinical psychology department at Columbia University, and so there was no um, they didn't talk about religion, they weren't, they were in academics, essentially. Yeah, yeah. And they were in the psychopology, I sorry, I said that wrong, department. And apparently there was like drama within the department, and Bill said out loud that there has to be another way, and Helen said, Well, I'll help you find it, and so that was kind of the start. And weeks later, Helen started having these dreams, and it was freaking her out because at the time, like, if you're if you're saying like I'm like hearing things, I'm having these dreams, like, they'll throw you in a sideboard, like you're crazy. And uh she she goes up to Bill and she's like, Bill, um I think I'm having a nervous breakdown. I'm hearing these voices, and it's telling me to write them down. And Bill's like, he probably was like, first off, don't tell anybody this is happening. Keep this to yourself. Um, but he's like, I think you should write it down. And he was just like, What did what is it saying to you? And the voice kept on saying, Please take notes. This is a course in miracles. And so she started taking notes, like shorthand notes, and it was something that she always had access to when she wanted to. Um, and she said, apparently, one of the most depressing days of her life when it is when it said, This is volume two. I love that. I know, I know.
SPEAKER_00So it's it's I mean, can I just for those who are maybe watching a video, like this is how big the test is. Like, it's a very large, there's a lot of info.
SPEAKER_01It's thick, it's a lot, it's dense. Um, but that's why I love doing it together in collaboration, and that's how it started.
SPEAKER_00I know, I love that piece.
SPEAKER_01That willingness and um to work with others. It's you know, we have access to so much when we work together. Um, but yeah, that's that's how it started.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so she would write short, right? Helen would write shorthand notes, and then Bill would help her kind of organize it into more cohesive writing. Right. So that's kind of how we got the text. And how long did they write it for?
SPEAKER_01So 1965 through 71. So it took some time, and they were doing it in secrecy as well. So yeah, they I mean they had a lot of courage to put this out there. Um, but but yeah, it's it's neat because it seems that the terminology, like when we were doing it, I was like, I feel like this is like Jesus, like being channeled. And I found out later that Helen is to say later that it was Jesus communicating through her in a way. Um, but you know, if if Jesus, that word, um, gives you some type of reaction, like that's okay. It doesn't um it doesn't say you have to believe in a certain thing. Um you know, so I know Marian Williamson, she's really into this text. She's Jewish. And she's been so inspired by this text. And she wrote uh a book called A Return to Love, and that's what turned out. Highly recommended miracles.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00We will link that book too, since that is another amazing text. Um, and Marianne Williamson is uh just a fantastic source of if you're looking for a little bit of uh spiritual guidance, she's a really good leader with that. But I love that you brought up that yes, Helen said it was Jesus, because if you are reading the course or you do end up reading the course, the narrator of the course is a teacher. And so it will say things like, I'm teaching you this, I want you to do this. And so to have that frame of reference that it is Jesus or it's God um is really, really great. But like Kylie said, because even on the back of my text, I just want to share this. It says, although this text is expressed in terms of traditional Christianity, so there's um Jesus, there's God, there's Holy Spirit in the text, this life-changing work constitutes non-secretary, non-sectarian universal spiritual teachings. So it's it's not, um, even though they use those Christian terms that are traditionally Christian-based, it's really a universal spiritual text. And it uh you'll notice, and Marian Williamson does talk about this, that the themes and the concepts are found in many other religions beside Christianity.
SPEAKER_01Right. Totally. No, good point, good point. Now that you've got the context, historical context of it, what would you say about concepts that you want to share, Julie?
SPEAKER_00So um, you know, the first thing I I think that we should talk a little bit about is, and maybe this will kind of lead into, you know, maybe what you want to share too, Kylie, but is what is a miracle. And, you know, the very first chapter of this text talks about, or the very first chapter is titled The Meaning of Miracles or the Principles of Miracles. And the text is obviously titled A Course in Miracles. So that is one thing that um I think I'm really interested in, or sorry, that I want everybody to kind of know. We've already talked about, you know, this is a text based around love, and basically that miracles are expressions of love and they're natural. And uh miracles are the way that we connect the divine to our uh physical realm, they're the way that we represent um freedom from fear, uh, they're healing, they honor you. There is a really good one. Um, there's basically 50 principles to miracles when we first start off. And um, the freedom from fear, and then oh, I love this one. Number 33. Miracles honor you because you are lovable, they dispel illusions about yourself and perceive the light in you. Um, they restore your sanity. So every time you feel that sense of relief, that sense of love, all-encompassing love, I feel it the most when I pray or when I have a really good interaction with somebody, or when I'm experiencing love from a friend or a family member, all of those can be considered miracles. We're not necessarily talking about um, you know, healing the blind and and making a a lame man walk. We think about Jesus and his miracles, but we can perform miracles every day. Every day. So exciting. And and this text really gives uh you, whoever's reading it, really gives the reader the authority to say that um, you know, I can perform miracles because I'm a child of God, because that's my inheritance. So that's a big concept for me for sure. Um do you want to kind of share about or do you have anything to share or anything in response to that?
SPEAKER_01Sex-wise, no, I no, I'm glad that you said that because I would say a big part of that is forgiveness, yeah. And there's a quote in A Course Miracles, and it says, You who want peace must have complete forgiveness, and that was something that I've always that stuck with me. Um and I would say prior to the course, I would be so inspired by my relationship with the divine and my relationship with Jesus. And I th I didn't have the perhaps the awareness and the discipline in sharing such amazing things because I think in a way I would uh share it in a way that I was almost trying to sway somebody into a truth or a belief. And that was uh it was ego. It was ego because ego is determined to be right. Uh and that wasn't my intention. However, when I am sharing a belief and calling it truth, and if it doesn't align with yours, then I'm unconsciously saying your truth, your beliefs aren't right. And I had to step away from sharing, like I took a year and a half. Off of social media, and I kind of just went into hibernation mode um because I just felt like I I was being driven by ego that I but I didn't realize it at the time. And so now um with because of the course, they also mention in a course um you are to only teach love because that is what you are. And so I realized that it is not me that has to teach, I'm just the vessel. It's the Holy Spirit that is the one that that uh creates change. It's not me. And just to wrap that up, I think that I've been able now to, when I practice this and I am aware that I am a child of God, and everybody else is also a child of God. So all I have to do is perceive them as what they are, and I don't have to do anything. As long as I'm aware of who they are and what they are, that's where miracles happen. It's my perception and love and acknowledging that I don't have to say a word though, but I just have to allow spirit. So it's just helped me with the discipline on sharing.
SPEAKER_00If I could ask a follow-up question, and just to put that in a frame of reference, because I remember last episode you talked about your experience with the divine and how the divine took your craving for alcohol away from you, and that you formed a relationship with God, you know, at that point. Um, so you know, you felt all these things happen for you, you felt all of this goodness, and you knew it was a higher power. And so from that, like you said, it really was ego, but from that you felt so strongly about your beliefs that you wanted other people to experience that as well. Am I am I correct?
SPEAKER_01And kind of totally, totally, right, right.
SPEAKER_00So, but even though you didn't really um you didn't really think about it at the time as being kind of like you were maybe trying to force your beliefs on other people, right? It came off preachy sometimes, right, right, which is sometimes, yeah, sometimes the way, even if we don't mean that, sometimes that's the way people can receive it. Totally. Uh, which can cause a lot of other issues. But I have a question for you. Did you feel a sense of relief once you realized that it was not your job to change people's mind, and rather your job to to just channel the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_01Oh, I mean, once I realized that that was that's the will of God and aligning with the will of God is just to perceive with love. I was like, oh, okay, like I don't have to overextend myself. Um, I was always worried that I would miss my assignment, like in a way, even though I'm I'm living a sober lifestyle and meditation is a part of my morning practice. I need that to stay in alignment, but I was still so um worried that I would miss out. And now I just I'm on God's time, and I don't I don't know, I'm just not in a rush anymore. I feel like I was always in a rush. And so, yes, like the relief, the peace has changed the way I operate.
SPEAKER_00I love that, and what a weight lifted, right? Yeah, God, I'm sure God sensed during that time that you were feeling the pressure of being perfect for God by being his servant, right? That's a lot of um that's sometimes the call that we have as faithful people, as spiritual people, especially as religious people, sometimes that's the call, right? If you're not going out and preaching God's word, you're not doing what God wants you to do, you know. Um, but what a relief to know that we are truly just vessels. And when I can share love with you, I am doing God's will. When I can release my judgment of you, I'm doing God's will. I'm making miracles. When I can accept you for who you are, I'm I'm following God's will. Yes. Um, that was beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. Oh, because that's such a deep, a deep concept to feel kind of like I want to be so good for God. God let me be good for you.
SPEAKER_01I know.
SPEAKER_00Am I good enough yet?
SPEAKER_01Right, right. And I was like, wait, the course helped me through this, though.
SPEAKER_00Right, right. So and that kind of leads into my personal uh story too regarding the course. So, Kylie, you introduced me to the course. One day, Kylie told me that I should buy a course in miracles. And the next time I was at our favorite bookstore close to where we live, I was like, Okay, I'm buying it. They didn't have it, but the guy was like, I could order it for you. And I was like, please. So that's how it, that's how it happened. And like nothing else besides just wow, okay, I'm gonna read this book. But what you talked about was this whole idea of like, you didn't want to miss your call. You you knew there was something more for you. You um you wanted to make sure that you're doing what God wants you to do. And same thing with me, except I felt a little bit, it wasn't necessarily God, but I was so hard on myself to be perfect. I was so aware of my shortcomings, I was so aware of what I didn't do for other people, what I didn't do for myself, and for a lot of my I want to say like my early, you know, adulthood, but really it's just my entire life, Kylie. I'm gonna be quite honest with you. Like I had a self self-loathing for so many years, feeling like I'm not good enough, feeling like other people were better than I was, feeling like people wanted me to be certain things, and I could never live up to that. So I had this perfectionistic attitude about myself, and the way that manifested was so scary because I thought I had to be so perfect, and when I wasn't, the negative thoughts were constant. At times they could be constant, and what you said before about wanting other people to believe you and what you believed, like I wanted so badly for myself to be perfect, and really that was my ego. It wasn't that I wanted other people to be perfect, but I wanted my I wanted me to be perfect because my ego told me that I was less than the ego. Told me that if only I could spend more time at work, if only I could spend more time with my friends, if only I did more for my family, if only I did more chores around the house, if only I could do all these things, then I could finally find peace and joy and happiness within myself if I accomplish all these things. And so what the course helped me understand was this whole concept of atonement, which you already uh brought up. And atonement is just forgiveness, is true forgiveness. Atoning is an undoing. And whether that means you see other people as truly beautiful and accept them as who they are, and you're accepting other people, a part of that atonement though comes from within. Truly, and without judgment, I needed to first forgive myself for all the feelings of uh negativity. I needed to forgive myself for all these self-loathing thoughts and really start to see myself as a child of God, which I know you mentioned as well. Um, I do want to share a quote in regards to this, and it's just it hits home for me, and I'm wondering if it will with anybody else either. But the course says that there is confusion here that what that you would do well to look clearly at. You may believe that you are responsible for what you do, but not for what you think. The truth is that you are responsible for what you think because it is only at this level that you can exercise choice. What you do comes from what you think, and oh, it's like anybody who's gone to therapy, you know, that's a big piece of it as well. But understanding that it's not what we do so much that matters, but what are we thinking about? Right. Because that that will that will frame your actions day to day. So if I constantly think I'm not good enough, I'm gonna put more effort into proving my worth, which means I'm gonna be unaware of those moments where I can connect deeply with people I love, I can um just connect more deeply with my creator because my thoughts are all based on what I need to do better. Right. So once I forgave myself, Kylie, for like who I am, gosh, the world like exploded. And then I could I could look at my husband differently, I could look at my friends differently, I could look at my family differently in more of a love light than I had ever had before. Because I couldn't give them the love that I could I couldn't even give myself, you know? Oh my gosh, yeah.
SPEAKER_01No, thank you for sharing that. And no, it's just I'm so glad that you mentioned that, and that's so important because I when you were speaking about this, a quote from Jesus came to my head and he said, Love your neighbor as yourself. And so our capacity to love others is based on how we feel about ourselves because like we can only love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves, so like your unraveling and undoing of the lies of unworthiness, your capacity to love yourself continues to grow, and then we our capacity to love others is it's yeah, I mean, that's that's what came to mind, and thank you for sharing that.
SPEAKER_00I love that, and you even saying that makes me a little bit emotional because I'm even thinking about like having a child in a couple of weeks, yeah, and just knowing that I don't ever want her to feel the way I felt, and it's not like anybody ever told me I wasn't good enough, it's it's not like there was anyone or any point in my life where I could say, well, this happened, so then I felt this way. It was just a constant feeling of I have to do better because I have to reach this point. But what God has told me and what the Course in Miracles helped me realize is God is constantly telling us, I love you, I love you right now, this moment, however, you're showing up. Yeah. And his love can truly heal everything, every single thing. And so if we can remember that our creator who made us, made us absolutely perfect, and that there is nothing he would take out of us to make us better, he gave us every single thing. Once we realize that for ourselves, we'll know, okay, there's nothing else that I need in this world. I don't need to work harder, I don't need more material things to find joy. I don't need uh another person in my life or a relationship or all any of these outside things to truly feel loved and to to feel complete, you know, it's just that's the biggest thing that the course has helped me with.
SPEAKER_01That's so amazing. Thank you so much for sharing that. And it's I'm so grateful to be a part of this journey. Me too.
SPEAKER_00Me too. And I mean, the other thing with this journey, be the fact that we have been called to be aware of God's presence in our life and the Holy Spirit in our life, that's what kick started this journey for us. And for you. Well, I mean, I Kylie called me a couple of months ago in the morning and said, We need to do a podcast, and it lit us both right up. Yeah, it lit us both right up, and so we knew it was God calling out to us. So totally just love that too.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thanks for sharing that. I love that so much, and thanks for this conversation.
SPEAKER_00This was really healing, so important.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and we hope that this inspires um a course because, like I said, we haven't finished it. So if you want to join along, um email us. We would love to connect.
SPEAKER_00Please, and if you enjoyed today's podcast, please give us a rating. If you do have any feedback for us, please email us as well. Or if you have any questions about the course, like Kylie said, send us an email. Uh, reach out to us. We are more than willing to share uh and guide and help because hopefully, you know, through listening, you've just seen how impactful this course can be to one's life. So that's all we have for you today. Thank you all so much for watching. Thank you for listening. Thank you for listening, and we will see you soon.
SPEAKER_01All right, peace be with you.
SPEAKER_00Bye bye.