How to Stop Reacting and Choose Peace Instead

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Subject: How to Stop Reacting and Choose Peace Instead | Earl Purdy

May 2, 2026

Hello Mighty Companion,

When everything around you feels stressful, it’s easy to believe that your peace depends on what’s happening. If things would just calm down, if people would just act right, if situations would just work out, then you could finally feel okay. That’s how most of us have been taught to think. But A Course in Miracles Lesson 70 offers a completely different way of seeing it. It says, “My salvation comes from me.” In other words, your peace and your happiness are not coming from the world—they’re coming from your own mind.

Now that idea can be hard to accept, because it challenges everything you’ve learned. We’ve been trained to believe that people upset us, circumstances stress us out, and situations determine how we feel. But the Course is saying that’s not what’s really happening. It’s saying that what you’re experiencing is coming from how you’re interpreting what’s happening. And if that’s true, then your peace is not at the mercy of the world—it’s something you have access to, no matter what’s going on.

That’s where the real shift begins. Because if your stress is coming from your thinking, then your peace can come from your thinking too. That means you don’t have to wait for everything to settle down before you feel better. You don’t have to wait for someone to change or for a situation to resolve. You can begin to experience peace right now—not because the world has changed, but because you’re starting to recognize where it actually comes from.

As you sit with this teaching, you may find that real change comes through steady practice, shared reflection, and a place to keep returning when old patterns come up. That is what the Annual Membership offers. These member-only resources include live gatherings, weekly Study Guide Journals, unlisted ACIM playlists, the Language of Love Glossary, and exclusive workshops to support you in applying the Course and experiencing more peace now.

Come join us in community.

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With love and appreciation,
Earl

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The featured video for this past week was:

How to Stay Calm Under Stress: Your Peace Comes from You | Lesson 70 | Earl Purdy

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On the LIGHT side

When something in your life feels stuck, your first impulse may be to push harder, fix it, or figure out how to force a change. But the real shift does not come from strain. It begins when you start to discover the light of who you are. As that light comes into your awareness, you begin to see differently, respond differently, and open to possibilities that were hidden when you were looking through fear, confusion, or self-doubt.

A Clarity Session is a focused conversation where we gently look together at what feels heavy, unclear, or blocked, so you can begin to uncover the light that is already present in you. As your perception shifts, even a little, you may find that what seemed impossible starts to soften. What changes first is not always the situation. What changes first is your awareness, and that change in awareness begins to illuminate a new way forward.

For those of you who want to go deeper, coaching and mentoring offer ongoing support in living from that light more consistently through the teachings of A Course in Miracles. This is where insight becomes practice and where remembering the truth about yourself begins to shape your daily experience. With more than 50 years of studying and living these teachings, I bring that experience into each conversation.

Here are ways we can keep growing together:

Thank you for walking this journey with me.

How Not to React When Life Pushes Your Buttons

A Course in Miracles Lesson 70, “My salvation comes from me,” does not offer a comforting idea—it offers a direct correction. It says your peace, your happiness, and your relief do not come from anything outside you. That can feel challenging, because the mind is used to believing that something out there needs to change first. The situation needs to improve, the person needs to behave differently, or the outcome needs to go your way before you can finally relax.

But Lesson 70 asks you to question that entire pattern. It asks you to notice where you are still waiting for the world to give you what only your own mind can accept.

Reaction vs. Conscious Choice: Choosing Happiness Instead of Blame

When life pushes your buttons, the difference between reacting and choosing becomes very clear. A reaction is automatic. Something happens, and the mind immediately assigns cause to the outside. The story begins: this is the problem, this is why I feel this way, this is what needs to change.

That reaction feels justified, but it is built on a false premise—that something outside you has the power to disturb your peace or block your happiness.

A conscious choice interrupts that pattern. It doesn’t deny what is happening, but it questions the meaning being given to it. Instead of moving straight into blame, there is a pause. And in that pause, a different idea can enter: my salvation comes from me.

That one shift begins to return your power.

✨ Astrological Insight: Navigating Intensity Without Losing Your Center

The energy at the end of April and into early May brings a strong invitation to look within, especially as emotional intensity rises. With the Full Moon in Scorpio, there can be a tendency for deeper feelings to surface—old patterns, unresolved emotions, and reactions that seem to come out of nowhere. The challenge during this time is the pull to believe that what you’re feeling is being caused by what’s happening around you. Situations may feel more charged, relationships may feel more sensitive, and it may seem like something outside needs to shift before you can feel settled again.

At the same time, there is a powerful opportunity here. This energy supports greater awareness of what is happening internally, rather than reacting automatically to external events. Instead of being pulled into emotional intensity, you may notice it, sit with it, and begin to recognize how quickly the mind assigns cause outside itself. This creates space—a space where you can begin to respond differently, rather than repeating familiar patterns. What feels like pressure can actually become a doorway into greater clarity and self-awareness.

With Uranus moving into Gemini, there is also a shift happening in how we think, communicate, and process information. Old ways of interpreting situations may start to feel limiting, while new perspectives begin to emerge. The opportunity here is to question long-held assumptions about what causes stress, conflict, or happiness. Combined with Pluto turning inward, there is support for reclaiming a deeper sense of personal power—not by controlling the world, but by becoming more aware of how you are relating to it. This period may feel intense at times, but it also offers a real chance to step out of automatic reactions and into a more steady, grounded way of experiencing life.

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