Stop Pressing Play on the Life That Makes You Miserable!

The ego is a recording. You are not required to keep listening.

Practical Wisdom: Living 5D in a 3D World

Integrating higher consciousness into everyday life—one miracle at a time!

Beloved,

Have you ever wondered why you keep having the same emotional reactions, even though the people, places, and circumstances in your life have changed?

Different relationship. Same disappointment.

Different job. Same frustration.

Different conversation. Same hurt feelings.

Different decade. Same old story.

At some point, we might want to ask ourselves a rather uncomfortable question:

What if life isn't repeating itself? What if I'm the one pressing PLAY?

Oh, this is where things get interesting!

The Recording You Mistook for Yourself

Imagine that when you were born, someone handed you a recording device.

You didn't know what it was or how it worked. You simply carried it around while it recorded everything happening around you.

Your parents' beliefs. Their fears. Their expectations.

What your teachers said about you.

What your siblings thought of you.

What society told you was acceptable, desirable, shameful, or dangerous.

You recorded what love was supposed to look like, what success required, who could be trusted, and what made you worthy of belonging.

Some recordings were beautiful. Others were frightening, painful, or deeply confusing.

And because you were a child, you didn't know to question much of what you were recording.

Then, somewhere along the way, you stopped recording and started playing.

And playing.

And playing.

Until the voice on that recording became so familiar that you assumed it was your own.

I'm not good enough, repeats the 3-year-old.

People always disappoint me, repeats the 6-year-old.

I have to defend myself, repeats the 8-year-old.

Nobody appreciates what I do, repeats the 10-year-old.

If they really loved me, they wouldn't treat me this way, repeats the 2-year-old.

And perhaps the most convincing recording of all:

This is just who I am, believes the 11-year-old.

But what if it isn't?

What if much of what you've been calling your personality, your limitations, and even your identity is simply an old recording you've been listening to for decades?

Here's the part that makes me laugh.

It wasn't REAL. It was a REEL! 😂

A movie reel!

A collection of stories, interpretations, and beliefs playing inside your mind, creating the illusion that yesterday is happening all over again.

And because you believe the recording, you respond as though the story is true.

Welcome to the ego's private movie theater.

Admission is free. The suffering, however, can be rather expensive.

Two Teachers. Two Completely Different Movies.

In Chapter 8 of A Course in Miracles, Jesus introduces a remarkable distinction.

"Knowledge is not the motivation for learning this course. Peace is." (T-8.I.1:1–2)

Consider that for a moment.

We can spend years studying spirituality, memorizing beautiful teachings, attending workshops, and collecting enough spiritual information to fill a library.

But are we becoming more peaceful?

Are we becoming kinder?

Are we less defensive?

Can we allow someone to disagree with us without feeling threatened?

Can the other political team win without losing our shit?

Can we recognize our own judgments without condemning ourselves for having them?

Because if all our studying hasn't made us happier, perhaps it's time to question what we've actually been learning.

Jesus explains that we cannot follow two teachers who are teaching us completely opposing thought systems.

The ego teaches us to judge, compare, defend, attack, and separate.

The Holy Spirit teaches us to forgive, extend love, recognize innocence, and remember our oneness.

One teacher insists that our safety depends on controlling the world.

The other reminds us that peace is already within us, where god placed it.

And here's the problem.

We keep trying to listen to both!

We want peace, but we also want to be right.

We want love, but we insist that others behave according to our expectations before we extend it.

We want freedom, but we keep defending the very beliefs that imprison us.

And then we wonder why our spiritual journey sometimes feels like we're taking two steps forward and three steps backward.

Beloved, you cannot travel in two opposite directions simultaneously and expect to arrive anywhere!

At some point, we must decide which teacher we're going to follow.

You Don't Have to Fight the Ego

This is one of ACIM's most liberating teachings.

Jesus tells us:

"The ego's voice is an hallucination." (T-8.I.2:3)

Think about that.

The voice you've been listening to, defending, and sometimes obeying for most of your life is not the truth of who you are.

It's a recording.

And here's the wonderful news.

You don't have to fight it.

You don't have to destroy it.

You don't have to spend the rest of your life trying to become a better, more spiritual version of your ego.

You simply have to recognize what happens when you listen to it.

Does that thought bring you peace?

Does that judgment help you experience love?

Does replaying that painful conversation make you happier?

Does rehearsing what someone did to you ten, twenty, thirty years ago improve your experience of this moment?

If not, why keep pressing PLAY?

In this same section, Jesus asks us to evaluate the ego's thoughts according to their results.

Not whether they sound convincing.

Not whether we can find evidence to justify them.

Not whether everyone around us agrees with them.

What are they doing to our peace?

This is where the journey becomes wonderfully practical.

Instead of asking, Am I justified in feeling this way?

We can ask, Do I want what this thought is giving me?

And when the answer is no, we become willing to choose again.

We don't have to erase the recording.

We simply stop treating it as our authority.

The Moment You Stop Pressing PLAY

Imagine someone you love says something that irritates you.

Immediately, the familiar recording begins.

How dare they speak to me that way?

They should know better.

After everything I've done for them!

Oh, that old movie is getting ready for another rerun!

And you know the plot because you've watched it a thousand times.

First comes the irritation.

Then the judgment.

Then the defense.

Then the argument, whether spoken aloud or rehearsed privately in your mind.

And before you know it, you've sacrificed your peace to a story you've already experienced countless times.

But what if, this time, you simply noticed?

Oh! There's that recording again.

No condemnation.

No shame.

No need to make yourself wrong for having the reaction.

Just awareness.

And perhaps even a little laughter.

Oops, I did it again! 😉

Now you have a choice.

You can press PLAY and watch the familiar drama unfold.

Or you can turn your attention toward what love would have you do.

Maybe that means listening without defending.

Maybe it means responding with kindness.

Maybe it means setting a healthy boundary without making anyone guilty.

Maybe it means saying nothing at all.

The important thing isn't what the other person does next.

The important thing is that you've stopped allowing an old recording to determine who you are in this moment.

That's freedom.

The Ego's Most Embarrassing Secret

Now, here's something I find absolutely hilarious about the awakening journey.

The ego, which has spent so much time convincing us that it is indispensable, can actually become the instrument of its own undoing.

How?

By irritating us!

Every time we feel irritated, offended, rejected, disappointed, or threatened, something within us is revealing itself.

An old belief.

An expectation.

An attachment.

A story about who we are or how the world should treat us.

And if we're willing to observe rather than react, that irritation becomes an invitation.

An invitation to see what we've been believing.

An invitation to recognize what we've been repeating.

An invitation to question whether it's true.

An invitation to choose love instead of fear.

Years ago, during a particularly challenging period in my marriage, I began experiencing something rather extraordinary.

I started getting excited when I became irritated!

Yes, you read that correctly.

Instead of treating irritation as evidence that something was wrong with my husband, I began recognizing it as an opportunity to discover another belief within my own mind that I was ready to release.

Sometimes I would find my son Spencer, grinning from ear to ear.

He knew exactly what had happened.

"Did Ken just irritate you?"

"YES!"

And we would laugh!

Because we understood that I was freeing myself from another unconscious reaction.

The irritation wasn't my enemy.

It was showing me where I was still giving my power away.

And the more willing I became to look honestly at those reactions, the less power they had over me.

Imagine reaching a point where the ego throws its best material at you, and instead of getting upset, you recognize another opportunity to become free.

The poor ego!

It's trying to keep you imprisoned, and you're using its own tricks to find the exit! 😂

You Have to Give Peace Away to Keep It

Another beautiful paradox in ACIM is that giving and receiving are one.

In the ego's world, giving something away means having less of it.

If I give you my money, I have less money.

If I give you my food, I have less food.

But love and peace don't operate according to those rules.

When I extend kindness, I experience kindness.

When I offer forgiveness, I free myself from condemnation.

When I allow you to be who you are without demanding that you change to satisfy my expectations, I release myself from the exhausting responsibility of managing your life.

And when I extend peace to you, I experience the peace I am extending.

I don't lose my peace by sharing it. I strengthen my awareness of it.

This doesn't mean we abandon discernment or refuse to take appropriate action.

It means we no longer have to make another person guilty in order to honor ourselves.

We can say no without hatred.

We can leave without condemnation.

We can disagree without attacking.

We can care deeply without surrendering our sovereignty.

And we can love someone without requiring them to become the person our ego thinks they should be.

That is not weakness.

That is the freedom of a mind that has stopped asking the world for permission to be at peace.

The Journey Back Is Not About Becoming Someone Better

Perhaps the most beautiful realization of all is that we are not trying to create a new Self.

We are remembering the Self that was never lost.

The loving, peaceful, innocent being God created does not need improvement.

What needs correction is our perception of ourselves.

We've spent a lifetime accumulating beliefs that have convinced us we're separate, vulnerable, inadequate, and dependent upon external circumstances for happiness.

And now, through the practice of forgiveness, we're learning to release what was never true.

Not by fighting the ego.

Not by judging our past.

Not by demanding that the world become different.

But by becoming increasingly unwilling to sacrifice our peace for another performance of the same old story.

And here's a question worth sitting with:

If a thought has made you miserable for thirty years, how many more times do you need to think it before you decide it isn't worth keeping?

Thirty-one years?

Forty?

Perhaps another lifetime?

Or maybe today is the day you recognize that you don't have to keep watching a movie just because you know all the lines.

You can put down the remote.

You can stop pressing PLAY.

And you can discover what this moment feels like without yesterday's story playing over it.

The Practice: Catch Yourself at the Remote

The next time you feel irritated, defensive, or emotionally activated, try this:

1. Notice the reaction. Don't suppress it or judge yourself for having it. Simply become aware that an old recording may have started playing.

2. Identify the story. What is the ego telling you about yourself, another person, or the situation?

3. Evaluate the result. Does believing this thought bring you peace, or does it reinforce suffering?

4. Ask for another way to see. Invite the Holy Spirit to help you recognize what love would have you understand or do.

5. Choose again. Extend the peace, kindness, compassion, or appropriate boundary that reflects who you truly want to be.

And if you catch yourself pressing PLAY again five minutes later?

Wonderful!

You noticed!

That's another opportunity to choose again.

No guilt required.

No spiritual punishment.

No dramatic announcement that you've failed at awakening.

Just a gentle smile and perhaps a familiar little tune.

Oops, I did it again!

Because the journey back to God isn't a contest to see who can become the most spiritually impressive person in the room.

It's the gradual, joyful recognition that we never stopped being what God created.

And the more we remember that, the less interested we become in the ego's old movies.

You don't have to fix the recording to become free. You only have to stop believing it's who you are.

So, Beloved, what old movie are you ready to stop watching?

And more importantly...

What might your life become when you finally stop pressing PLAY?

With love and a whole lot of laughter,

Founder, The Awareness Academy 

"Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh.” — A Course in Miracles (T-27.VIII.6:2)