Hello Miracle Family,

As you know, we are taking A Course in Miracles slowly, allowing its richness to reveal itself one paragraph at a time. True students understand the Course was never meant to be rushed. If we want to receive its depth, we have to give ourselves the space to sit with the ideas and let them unfold.

In the video “How to Change Your Mindset and Attract What You Deserve | ACIM Text Ch. 9, Sec. 2 The Answer to Prayer | Earl Purdy,” we explored a powerful line from A Course in Miracles (Text, Ch. 9, Sec. 2): “To believe is to accept and side with.”

Belief is not just something you think. It is the idea you are siding with.

One way to see this clearly is to reverse engineer your beliefs. Choose an area of your life that currently feels uncomfortable. Something that causes stress, frustration, or pain. Then ask yourself a simple question.

What must I believe for this situation to exist the way it does?

Your life often reflects the ideas you have been siding with, often unconsciously. If your finances feel tight, what beliefs have you held about money? If your relationships feel strained, what beliefs have you carried about love or trust? Some of these beliefs come from your own experiences. Others may come from family patterns, cultural messages, or things you absorbed from the people around you.

Many of us are voting for ideas we inherited long before we realized we had a choice.

The Course invites us to look at those beliefs honestly and decide whether we want to keep siding with them.

Here is a simple practice you can try this week.

Step 1 — Identify the area of pain.
Choose one area of your life that currently feels difficult or uncomfortable.

Step 2 — Explore the beliefs behind it.
Ask yourself what you have learned about this issue—from your family, your culture, your past experiences, and your own assumptions.

Step 3 — Choose to see it differently.
The Course gives us a powerful practice in Workbook Lesson 28: “Above all else I want to see things differently.” Simply being willing to see the situation another way begins to loosen the old belief.

Step 4 — Replace the old belief with a new idea.
Choose a thought you can repeat throughout the day. For example, if your struggle involves physical pain or identification with the body, the Course reminds us in Workbook Lesson 94: “I am not a body. I am free. For I am still as God created me.”

Each time you repeat a new idea, you cast a different vote in your mind.

And over time, those new votes begin to change what your mind accepts as true.

Love,
Earl

P.S. If you need anything, I’m here. Just reach out: earlpurdy@earlpurdy.com