Healing Shame and Guilt with Forgiveness – with CA Brooks and Bruce Rawles

In this audio recording, CA Brooks and Bruce Rawles talk about shame – a sibling idea to guilt in ego’s arsenal against peace, and how A Course In Miracles (ACIM) employs our consistent practice of true forgiveness to restore all-inclusive innocence to our minds by healing the belief in separation. We (as egos) think we’re “the home of evil, darkness, and sin” but our Inner Kindness Teacher (a.k.a. Holy Spirit as ACIM refers to that awareness in our mind) consistently refutes this misunderstanding by not denying our experience, but instead transforming it in the light of the thought system of total Inclusion to dismiss ego’s degrading (separate) assessment of our Identity as just silly. Part of the inspiration for this conversation was recent conversations with Dr. Bob Rosenthal about shame, which is covered in depth in his most recent book.

Here are a few references to shame in ACIM and the ever-present remedy, quantum forgiveness (bold-face added by Bruce)

“The real basis for doubt about the outcome of any problem that has been given to God’s Teacher for resolution is always self-doubt. And that necessarily implies that trust has been placed in an illusory self, for only such a self can be doubted. This illusion can take many forms. Perhaps there is a fear of weakness and vulnerability. Perhaps there is a fear of failure and shame associated with a sense of inadequacy. Perhaps there is a guilty embarrassment stemming from false humility. The form of the mistake is not important. What is important is only the recognition of a mistake as a mistake.”
– M-7.5

Today devote your practice periods to careful searching of your mind, to find the dreams you cherish still. What do you ask for in your heart? Forget the words you use in making your requests. Consider but what you believe will comfort you, and bring you happiness. But be you not dismayed by lingering illusions, for their form is not what matters now. Let not some dreams be more acceptable, reserving shame and secrecy for others. They are one. And being one, one question should be asked of all of them, “Is this what I would have, in place of Heaven and the peace of God?”
– W-pI.185.8

“God builds the bridge, but only in the space left clean and vacant by the miracle. The seeds of sickness and the shame of guilt He cannot bridge, for He can not destroy the alien will that He created not. Let its effects be gone and clutch them not with eager hands, to keep them for yourself. The miracle will brush them all aside, and thus make room for Him Who wills to come and bridge His Son’s returning to Himself.”
– T-28.III.6

“Specialness is the great dictator of the wrong decisions. Here is the grand illusion of what you are and what your brother is. And here is what must make the body dear and worth preserving. Specialness must be defended. Illusions can attack it, and they do. For what your brother must become to keep your specialness is an illusion. He who is “worse” than you must be attacked, so that your specialness can live on his defeat. For specialness is triumph, and its victory is his defeat and shame. How can he live, with all your sins upon him? And who must be his conqueror but you?”
–  T-24.I.5

This latest audio conversation is another example of CA’s excellent regular ACIM internet radio program on 12Radio devoted to the non-dual metaphysics of A Course in Miracles.

(This recording was made May 7, 2020 and first aired May 11, 2020 on 12Radio.)

If you resonate with the idea of joining other ACIM students online, there are a number of online programs, both live and pre-recorded you might enjoy, including classes, study groups, and webinars, which are growing in number rapidly in response to the current global crisis, helping to reverse our perceived sense of isolation by providing opportunities to share and learn together, being truly helpful.

Here are some current free online ACIM connection/class/webinar/etc. opportunities: