A New Way of Seeing the World
An excerpt from From Anxiety to Love by Corinne Zupko
As Corinne healed her own mental anguish, she compiled the perception-shifting process she describes in From Anxiety to Love: A Radical New Approach for Letting Go of Fear and Finding Lasting Peace. We hope you’ll enjoy this short excerpt from the book.
We hold many false perceptions in our mind. These false perceptions are purposeful blocks to our peace of mind. Paradoxical though it may seem, we hold on to mistaken ways of seeing because they make us unhappy. We’re all addicted, to some degree, to being afraid and miserable. But we’re not usually aware of this addiction, and that’s what can make the world seem cruel or scary. We think our problems or enemies are “out there” in the world, but in fact they’re mostly within our own habitual, unproductive ways of seeing. And they are hard to undo without extraordinary help.
Fortunately, you have an effective way to change your ways of seeing, and that is through your Inner Therapist. What I call the Inner Therapist is also known as the Holy Spirit, your Higher Mind, or your Inner Teacher. You can call it whatever you like. I capitalize terms like these when I am referring to concepts beyond this world of form. Your Inner Therapist is not separate from or external to you, but it is outside fear.
Our Inner Therapist holds the key to inner peace because it knows what really makes us happy. It is that small, quiet Voice inside that always tells us that we are loved, that we are safe, and that we have done nothing wrong. It does not analyze or judge us: it simply sees our inner light. You won’t hear this Voice if you are regretting the past or worrying about the future; your Inner Therapist is always heard in the present moment. The feeling of connection with your Inner Therapist is deeply gratifying and enormously comforting. It engenders pure joy. It is like coming home. But this happy, carefree childhood feeling can be easily drowned out by busyness, worry, and all the distractions of the world. When you learn to stay consistently in touch with your Inner Therapist, however, you can literally be a miracle worker.
My perspective on healing anxiety through the Inner Therapist is chiefly inspired by A Course in Miracles, which is a unique psychospiritual system for changing the way we look at the world. Diving into the Course completely and wholeheartedly was my way out of an internal hell. For me, accepting its radical view of our existence was the key to overcoming chronic anxiety. I needed an explanation of a crazy world that made no sense to me. I needed another way to look at everything, because the way I was seeing constantly frightened me. A Course in Miracles turned everything in my world on its head — and then answered every big question I’d ever had in a completely new way.
Who Are We Really?
You are not who you think you are — and this is glorious news. You are not your fear, your anxiety, or your worry. You may feel that these things define you, because they are really good at capturing and overpowering your attention. That is their purpose. But the fearful, freaked-out, anxious you is not the true you, despite how compellingly real that fear and anxiety seem. What you really are is way more awesome. I promise.
You are not who you think you are — and this is glorious news. You are not your fear, your anxiety, or your worry. You may feel that these things define you, because they are really good at capturing and overpowering your attention. That is their purpose. But the fearful, freaked-out, anxious you is not the true you, despite how compellingly real that fear and anxiety seem. What you really are is way more awesome. I promise.
If, like me, you have struggled with deep anxiety about death, sickness, and suffering, I’ve got good news for you. What you really are is love, and love only. Your true nature actually exists in an eternal state, a creative state in which you are entirely happy and at peace. You cannot die; you cannot become sick; you exist forever; and you will know yourself even after this body is laid aside. You’ve probably heard teachings like this before. But we’re going to work toward experiencing the truth of these words, for it’s the experience of these teachings that provides relief from anxiety.
You have forgotten the eternal love that you are made of because right now you believe you are confined in a body, in a particular time and place. But, in fact, you are a pure, Loving Mind. This Loving Mind exists independently of your ego personality and also of the “mind” generated by your brain. Your reality is actually abstract, not physical. You are not your body. Yes, you do seem to have a body right now, just like you have clothes — but everyone knows that their clothes aren’t their real selves. The clothes are just something useful to keep us warm and protected, and perhaps to express our personalities.
The idea of existing beyond your body may be hard to grasp or even imagine at first, because we are literally asleep to it most of the time. We have forgotten our existence in eternity and mistakenly think that the world we see is our home. I’ve always gained comfort from this Course quote, which helps me begin to understand a world that is very different from the one we see:
Sit quietly and look upon the world you see, and tell yourself: “The real world is not like this. It has no buildings and there are no streets where people walk alone and separate. There are no stores where people buy an endless list of things they do not need. It is not lit with artificial light, and night comes not upon it. There is no day that brightens and grows dim. There is no loss. Nothing is there but shines, and shines forever.” (ACIM T-13.VII.1:1–6)
So in truth, we’re perfectly at peace. We are eternal, united in joy, equally loved and loving; we shine forever.
Corinne Zupko, EdS, LPC, is the author of From Anxiety to Love. As a licensed counselor and keynote speaker, she has helped thousands of individuals through her one-on-one counseling, weekly meditation classes for corporations, and the largest virtual conference of ACIM in the world, through the organization Miracle Share International, which she cofounded. Visit her online at FromAnxietytoLove.com.