In this video, veteran teacher and student of A Course In Miracles, Carol Howe, shares thoughts about a wide range of topics including forgiveness, flow, grace, kindness, trust, lovability, recent life transitions, and how everything is unfolding as it should – in a conversation with Bruce Rawles. Carol learned about ACIM in the 1970s via the initial issue of the magazine New Realities which had a feature article about Judy Skutch Whitson and she knew immediately that the Course was for her. As a close friend of A Course in Miracles co-scribe, the late Bill Thetford, Carol authored an intimate account of Bill’s life entitled, Never Forget To Laugh: Personal Recollections of Bill Thetford, Co-Scribe of A Course In Miracles. This excellent and insightful biography also contains a comprehensive back story of how ACIM came to be.
Carol, now an elder within the global ACIM community, is one of the very few people in the world still actively teaching ACIM who personally knew one or both of its co-scribes, Bill Thetford and Helen Schucman.
Carol also authored the helpful book Healing the Hurt Behind Addictions and Compulsive Behaviors, which applies principles of ACIM to help us recognize and undo addictive thinking and beliefs including the judgments we think we’re making almost constantly. Here’s a quote from this book (p.80-81):
“Our various addictions are able to distract us from our pain and keep us from becoming aware of the terrible price we pay for egocentricity and selfishness. They distract us from pain being generated on a moment-by-moment basis through our identification with form and ego. Self-hatred, hatred of others, attack, living defensively in the world … keep us unaware of their consequences. This distraction plan never works because we continue to be engrossed in … (our erroneous belief in) worthlessness, which continuously generates the pain in the first place. … The unexamined acceptance of our guilt keeps us in the pain.”
This is echoed in the Course’s reminder that we need our Appointed Friend, Holy Spirit (our Inner Kindness Teacher) to help us look at our unfounded unconscious guilt without condemnation since on our own (in ego mode) we won’t see that guilt is a correctable misunderstanding. There is no reason to suffer needless self-incrimination for an impossible crime:
“The sick attraction of guilt must be recognized for what it is. ²For having been made real to you, it is essential to look at it clearly, and by withdrawing your investment in it, to learn to let it go. ³No one would choose to let go what he believes has value. ⁴Yet the attraction of guilt has value to you only because you have not looked at what it is, and have judged it completely in the dark. ⁵As we bring it to light, your only question will be why it was you ever wanted it. ⁶You have nothing to lose by looking open-eyed, for ugliness such as this belongs not in your holy mind.” (ACIM, T-15.VII.3:1-6)
Carol commented on the state of mind in those moments when we are willing to trust Holy Spirit:
“Life is uncomplicated. You might be very busy and you might have a lot to do, but it isn’t hard, and we are led every step of the way.”
Here are some pertinent Course quotes that arose in our conversation which emphasized the tremendous power of our mind and its decision-making faculty in operation 24/7/365:
“When you have learned how to decide with God, all decisions become as easy and as right as breathing. ²There is no effort, and you will be led as gently as if you were being carried down a quiet path in summer.” (ACIM, T-14.IV.6:1-2)
“There is no choice where every end is sure. ²Perhaps you would prefer to try them all, before you really learn they are but one. ³The roads this world can offer seem to be quite large in number, but the time must come when everyone begins to see how like they are to one another. ⁴Men have died on seeing this, because they saw no way except the pathways offered by the world. ⁵And learning they led nowhere, lost their hope. ⁶And yet this was the time they could have learned their greatest lesson. ⁷All must reach this point, and go beyond it. ⁸It is true indeed there is no choice at all within the world. ⁹But this is not the lesson in itself. ¹⁰The lesson has a purpose, and in this you come to understand what it is for.” (ACIM, T-31.IV.3:1-10)
“What could you not accept, if you but knew that everything that happens, all events, past, present and to come, are gently planned by One Whose only purpose is your good? ²Perhaps you have misunderstood His plan, for He would never offer pain to you. ³But your defenses did not let you see His loving blessing shine in every step you ever took. ⁴While you made plans for death, He led you gently to eternal life.” (ACIM, W-135.18:1-4)
“Let us return the dream he gave away unto the dreamer, who perceives the dream as separate from himself and done to him. ²Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. ³In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects. ⁴Together, we can laugh them both away, and understand that time cannot intrude upon eternity. ⁵It is a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which means there is no time.” (ACIM, T-27.VIII.6:1-5)
“I am never upset for the reason I think.” (ACIM, W-5)
… and, of course, the introductory statement that has engaged millions to find a better way:
“Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.” (ACIM, T-in.2:2-4)
Carol offers personal guidance in ACIM and is also the author of the book Homeward To An Open Door: Exploring Major Principles of A Course in Miracles, an 8-Part DVD Series Offering The Complete Guide To A Course In Miracles, Audio Books, a blog, and more. You can contact Carol via her website: CarolHowe.com.
This video was recorded January 20, 2023.