ACIM Chapter 9. V. The Unhealed Healer P 8, 9

ACIM Chapter 9. V. The Unhealed Healer P 8, 9

V. The Unhealed Healer P 8

8 A therapist does not heal; he lets healing be. He can point to darkness but he cannot bring light of himself, for light is not of him. Yet, being for him, it must also be for his patient. The Holy Spirit is the only Therapist. He makes healing clear in any situation in which He is the Guide. You can only let Him fulfill His function. He needs no help for this. He will tell you exactly what to do to help anyone He sends to you for help, and will speak to him through you if you do not interfere. Remember that you choose the guide for helping, and the wrong choice will not help. But remember also that the right one will. Trust Him, for help is His function, and He is of God. As you awaken other minds to the Holy Spirit through Him, and not yourself, you will understand that you are not obeying the laws of this world. But the laws you are obeying work. “The good is what works” is a sound though insufficient statement. Only the good can work. Nothing else works at all.

This is a very clear paragraph with no explanation needed.

I cannot help anyone on my own, that is, through the ego mind. I can help anyone sent my way by listening to the Holy Spirit. He is the Therapist, and if I listen to Him, just get out of the way and let Him work through me, I can be of help. And this is the only way I can be of help.

I have done this in several ways. The best way of all is to help the other person access the Holy Spirit and receive his own personal wisdom. I learned a process to do this at Pathways of Light as part of my ministerial program. It requires the use of a particular script to help the person go into a deep meditative state and then guide him or her to become aware of the problem and to hear the answer directly from his or her own Inner Guidance. I act as a scribe, writing down what they are told, and I hold that space for them. It is an act of joining between the person I am working with, me, and the Holy Spirit, and it is an act of listening rather than thinking.

Another way I do this is when I counsel.

Someone calls or writes and asks for help. I listen. There are times when this is the most helpful part of what I do. Often, when a person actively joins with another and talks it out, the person finds his or her own answer. I think joining, being in a union, two or more gathered, is what opens the heart to the truth. When I listen, I do so not with my ego mind but with my open heart. I ask the Holy Spirit to listen with me, to give me words if they are needed, to prompt my silence when that is needed.

Every morning, I wake up to coffee and Jesus.

I read his words and ask him to join me in this reading. I ask him to help me understand what he wants me to know about that morning’s reading. Then, I write in my journal what I receive. Sometimes, it simply clarifies. Sometimes, the understanding I am given is unexpected and even startling. And sometimes, it triggers a shift in my understanding that leaves me breathless.

The thoughts that are given may not seem extraordinary, but the healing that occurs as I hear/write them is a miracle. Then, whatever I write, I share. I post it in various places. I might talk about it to someone if appropriate. Always I share. I am not a perfect listener, but every time I do my best to step back and simply allow myself to be guided, I get better at it.

Perhaps the most useful form of helping is to be what I want to share.

I walk the talk, so to speak. Failing that, I find my way back to the path and so even my temporary stumble becomes a teaching tool. All of God’s messengers are still learning. If they had it all down, they wouldn’t be here. As it says in the Manual for Teachers, “…they teach perfection over and over, in many, many ways, until they have learned it.”

Whew! I am not perfect and that’s OK. I have moments of near perfection, and I teach that. And I have moments of fumbling, and I teach from that. My life is a form of therapy, both for myself and for others, because I consistently put my faith in the Holy Spirit. I step back as much as I can. I listen to the Voice for God as well as I can. In so doing, I am learning to hear only that Voice.

These are the ways I allow the Holy Spirit to do Therapy through me. They are just forms and, as such, not important. I allow the Holy Spirit to direct me to the most helpful form so that any or all of them can change. The content, though, is love, and that never changes. I try not to interfere. That’s my main job: step my ego back and allow the work to be done through me. What a blessing that is! And this is something anyone can do. All that is required is willingness. The payoff is out of this world! Literally.

V. The Unhealed Healer P 9

9 This course offers a very direct and a very simple learning situation, and provides the Guide Who tells you what to do. If you do it, you will see that it works. Its results are more convincing than its words. They will convince you that the words are true. By following the right Guide, you will learn the simplest of all lessons:

By their fruits ye shall know them, and they shall know themselves.

My experience of the Course has been that the results have proven the words, just as Jesus says. I started studying the Course in 1981, if I remember right, or maybe in 1982. The first thing I noticed was that it felt right, even though I could not explain why. Actually, common sense would have me totally reject it because it was so strange to me. At that time, there were not a lot of people doing the Course or at least, I had no way of knowing who these people were if they were out there. No internet. So I couldn’t say that many others agreed that this was right. But I still did it because I still felt something, a stirring within, I think.

As I became immersed in it, especially as I tried to apply the lessons to my life, I began to feel resistance. I still believed it must be true, and that seemed undeniable to me, but I had a hard time accepting it on a personal level. It took me a long time to complete the lessons. I kept bumping into my walls of resistance.

But even so, I was slowly beginning to heal and to feel that healing.

Like a snowball rolling downhill, it started small but got bigger and picked up momentum. That was because, as I gave what willingness I had, I began to experience my life and myself differently. What I thought must be true was proven as true as I used the Course. Each proof motivated me to seek more.

Now, I have no doubt whatsoever that everything the Course says is true. More importantly, I have no doubt that I will accept it all and live it all. Even in the moments when it seems most unlikely when my resistance seems strongest, I do not doubt. I feel frustrated, but I don’t doubt it. This is the path home; I want to go home; I can go home. This is what I know, and I know it even if I have not yet fully achieved it.

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