These were the words my stepdad said to me as I lay flat out on the couch, incapacitated by anxiety, unable to eat for days, with dark anxiety-induced circles under my teary eyes.

“The light in you is too bright to fail.”

These words gave me hope and a sense of relief as if I had just been given crystal clear healing water after slowly shriveling up and drying out in the desert.  I knew, deep down, that we’re on this journey heading back to Love and to Peace.  I knew, deep down, that I would make it, even though the present picture was pretty ugly. I knew that there were layers of undoing and unlearning, and layers of understanding and growth in being a student of “A Course in Miracles.” I was ready to take my study and practice deeper.  I would do whatever it would take.

Before this time, I could not comprehend that my work with the Course could deepen.  I worked the principles every day, and I had already done the lessons many times over.  I was taking it as far as I could take it for where I was at. Since this time, I’ve witnessed how gentle the process of the Atonement (or “Undoing” of fear) really is.  Layers of fear fall away as we are simply ready to let them go.

We think we want to let go of the fear now, but we actually do not because fear serves a useful purpose.  It serves the purpose of keeping us identified with our bodies and believing that we are a small, separate self.  Until we are ready to take responsibility for making and wanting fear, the fear will remain.  It will be like a leaky pipe. We might plug up one hole of fear, but it will shift to some place else, unless we’re willing to look at the source of fear – our active desire to judge and to stay separated from our Source (call it Love, God, Oneness, Being, etc.), and the unconscious guilt we carry around because of this.  We must look at our active desire to stay separated WITH our Inner Guide (aka the Holy Spirit).

When I realize that I’m not at peace and am touching upon one of the layers of fear, I stop and recognize that my unconscious split mind is calling this forth, in order to keep myself identified as a body.  I say, “I am willing to look at this WITH the Holy Spirit” and then I hand it over to the Holy Spirit.

To do any of this, to advance in the Course at all, “The insignificance of the body has to become an acceptable idea.”  If we’re not willing to see the body differently, a major block will remain in our path.  Is it not a relief to learn that we’re much more than this pile of clay? Whew!

I say these words to you now, no matter what it is that you are going through, “The light in you is too bright to fail.”

We’re all heading home to Love together. There is nothing to fear.