lara simmons

"The ego is trying to teach you how to gain the whole world and lose your soul...you do not want the world. The only thing of value in it is whatever part of it you look upon with love." --From A Course in Miracles Our family has discovered the board game RISK lately and we have enjoyed playing it together, for the most part.... With two boys close in age board games can be a RISKy proposition. There is always the dynamic of one vs. one. Even when you add my husband or I to the mix, the boys are almost always playing against each other. For this reason when we first started playing I felt the need to give a lecture on good sportsmanship . It lasted a few minutes longer than it needed to, well past the point of fidgeting and eye-rolling, but I felt it was important to make the point and our first game went well, with only a few minor infractions. The next day my older son had some homework to do so my younger son and I decided to play a game mano-a-mano and that...

  "What is not love is always fear and nothing else." -- A Course in Miracles I have been thinking a lot about fear as I explore the topic of love. So much of what stands in the way of love is fear. Fear of rejection, fear of embarrassment, fear of intimacy, fear of joy. We have been taught - in so many ways - to fear love that we can be paralyzed in the face of it. In the face of expressing it: telling someone how we feel, asking someone out, or even letting someone we are in relationship with know how important they are to us and in the face of receiving it: allowing someone to do something for us, graciously accepting a gift, or feeling worthy of the relationship that we really want. If you believe, as I do, that all fear is at its core a fear of death, you can see why we are all so afraid of love. If we believe that the lack of love leads to death, that makes the stakes pretty high and many of us would rather circumnavigate this fear rather than face it, hopin...

"Forgiveness is a choice." -- ACIM

"Condemn and you are made a prisoner. Forgive and you are free." -- ACIM

"Select one person you have used as a target for your grievances, and lay the grievances aside and look at him. “ -- ACIM, Lesson 78 This one may be a challenge. I know it has been for me. Think of someone you hate, someone whose very name galls you and makes you mad. Someone who tormented you in high school, or made your life miserable in college, or bugs you on a daily basis at work. Perhaps it's someone who you hardly know, but whose name sets your teeth on edge. Or maybe it's someone you see every day who drives you crazy. Whoever it is, try this. Try and lay the grievances you have against them aside and look at them. What do they look like? What is their home life like? Who do they love? What are their hobbies? How do they keep themselves safe? What are they afraid of? Do a full study of this person and see if that changes your view of them. Do a forgiveness letter and see if this takes some of the energy out of your grievances. Say the Ho'oponopono...

"Forgive and you will see this differently." -- ACIM Last Saturday night my husband and I had a long-overdue date night. We knew what we wanted to do - the old standby, dinner and a movie - but what movie? We had two choices: the Oscar-nominated indie film Philomena , about a woman's search for the son she was forced to give up for adoption or American Hustle , the Oscar-nominated Hollywood film about con artists in the 1970's. Both came highly recommended.   Ultimately we decided on Philomena because we were in kind of a melancholy mood and it had been around longer and was more likely to leave the theaters soon. We couldn't have made a better choice for forgiveness month. ***SPOILER ALERT: If you have never seen the film and think you might want to, stop reading now. The story in a nutshell is about a young woman who gets pregnant, is kicked out by her parents and taken in by the Catholic Church who help her give birth and then force her to work...

"You are spirit. Whole and Innocent. All is forgiven and released." -- A Course in Miracles A Course in Miracles (ACIM), as many of you probably already know, is a text for self-study to retrain your thoughts. It teaches that the way to universal love and peace—or remembering God—is by undoing guilt through forgiving others . The workbook consists of 365 lessons - one for each day of the year - and is meant to be done consecutively, each lesson building on the principles learned and experienced in the previous ones. Doing "the Course," as it is sometimes called, is a great way do forgiveness work. I have also used the above line from the Course as a forgiveness tool by itself. When someone does something that triggers me, I simply think of them and repeat this line: "You are spirit. Whole and Innocent. All is forgiven and released," until I feel better. If feelings come up again later, I repeat this process. ...