Tense Shoulders, Finding Peace and A Course in Miracles
January 7, 2024
8 min read
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Newsletter
{Body}
Tense shoulders
Have you noticed what happens to your body when it anticipates a loud sound, like a firework explosion?
You flinch, right? Your face shrivels up, your shoulders hike up to your ears, and you brace yourself for auditory impact.
Interestingly, you are probably this chronically tense in daily life, too. It’s as though you were flinching all day long.
Even right now…do you notice that your jaw is clenched? And that your eyebrows are furrowed? And that your chest is caved in?
It’s crazy!
I mean…despite the fact that you are likely reading this email in bed or on the toilet, safe and sound, your body is still extremely high-strung.
Why are you like this? Why can’t you just stay relaxed?
Just as you prepare for a loud sound by shrinking away from it, you shrink away from life because your mind is constantly anticipating collisions with bad outcomes.
How to escape the madness and end your “perpetual flinching”?
Naturally, you’ll need to terminate the incessant stream of worst-case-scenario thoughts that stalk you.
Alas, that’s pretty dang hard to do, so in the meantime try this out…
{Mind}
How do I find peace?
Your question comes with a presupposition: you assume that peace is found, rather than uncovered.
Almost all of us are seeking peace, whether we explicitly know it or not: through financial security; through memorable experiences; through pleasurable sensations.
Etcetera, etcetera.
This is fine, because occasionally our searching yields results: our expectations are met, and we feel ease. We achieve, and we feel we deserve to relax.
But how long do those feelings of ease and relaxation last? Minutes? A day or two, maybe?
Basically, humanity acts as though peace were some Easter egg hunt, tranquility being placed in remote locations around the globe only to be discovered by going on grand adventures.
Remember this: finding implies losing. And to find peace and a lose it again and again is a hellish experience.
No, what you really want isn’t to find peace, but to live in peace.
Living in peace requires you recognize that your life is already perfect, exactly as it is — no change needed.
This answer is unsatisfying to some, but the logic makes sense: being in a state of peace means you are presently happy with the way things are. And thus to live in peace means you are presently living in happiness with the way things already are.
I have a fun little meme about this on Instagram if you want to check it out.
Or if you want my full thoughts on transcending suffering, you can listen and read my full essay on it.
{Soul}
The first time I read this quote, I actually cried. It speaks to me in a way no other quote ever has.
As the Course points out elsewhere, we feel threatened because we believe ourselves to be vulnerable and in need of defending.
And yet, anything that needs defending is inherently weak, right? For instance, a castle only needs defending when its walls are weak and penetrable. And an argument only needs defending when its logic is weak and flawed.
Same with you: any time you feel threatened you must simultaneously believe in your own weakness.
That goes for all kinds of situations:
The threatening encounter with a wild lion (believing that your body is too weak to survive).
Not speaking up at work because of the threat of being fired (believing that you will be too weak to bounce back or adapt).
Meeting an outstanding person, and feeling your identity is being threatened (believing that your manhood or womanhood is too weak).
But wait! This is the craziest part of this quote, in my opinion:
Because “nothing real can be threatened,” the fact that you ever feel threatened automatically means you don’t believe yourself to be real…
Read that again, because it is an absolute mind-bender.
This is still just the tip of the iceberg for this quote, though. Honestly, one could spend lifetimes contemplating it and not reach the end of its wisdom.
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