Embodying Grace in Times of Challenge With Miranda Macpherson

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Embodying Grace in Times of Challenge With Miranda Macpherson

What You’ll Discover in These 7 months
In this 7-month transformational intensive, Miranda will guide you through the fundamental body-mind-spirit skills and competencies you’ll need to live as a truly grace-filled human being who’s awake, present, grounded, and open.

Module 1 — Grounding in Grace: Yielding to the Luminous Presence Within Through the Practice of Ego Relaxation (Sessions 1-4: August 19 & 26; September 2 & 9)

It takes great learning to understand that all things, events, encounters, and circumstances are helpful.
— A Course in Miracles manual for teachers
These uncertain times in which our “normal” routines have been powerfully interrupted presents many challenges…

However, it also presents us with an opportunity like never before to befriend this time of change as the Divine Invitation it really is — a chance to wake up out of everything that does not truly serve you, yield to a deeper intelligence that has always been running the show, and allow for positive change.

In this 4-week opening module, Miranda will share how to look upon these times as a collective birthing process — and as we know, birth is often intense, wild, and unpredictable.

If we’re wise, we learn to surrender INTO the process, and do our best to align with it and say “yes.” (The ego’s default is always NO!)

We must learn to wake up OUT OF ego fear, control, conditioning, and defenses… and wake up INTO our essential qualities and recognize our interconnectedness with everything in existence.

When we’re connected and unified from within, we naturally respond from a consciousness of love and clarity in daily life. As our world is being born anew, we can also be born into a new way of being that is powerfully loving, liberated, and wise.

How can we harness this situation to evolve into the most noble, graceful human beings we can possibly be? The Practice of Ego Relaxation is the “how” of Miranda’s methodology, and she’ll guide you to engage in it through holistic inquiry, meditation, and devotional practice. The underpinning principle is:

You don’t “do” spiritual transformation. Relax the resistance, and it finds you.

Miranda will introduce you to the four dimensions of Grace, and how we apply Ego Relaxation to the invitations that life is bringing to you in these times — so that it can come alive within you.

You’ll discover how to harness the precise circumstances you’re facing as a divine curriculum, and to take the attitude of the happy learner.

Miranda will show you how to discern the difference between authentic surrender and collapse.

Ego Relaxation does not ask you to be passive and not take appropriate actions in your life; rather, it asks for you to understand and learn to relax your ego activity, the ways we are so often getting in our own way through trying to bypass or push past our challenges.

You’ll learn to yield into what IS, which is the essence of the great Sanskrit liberation mantra “Om Nama Shivaya.” Such surrender brings us back into the receptive condition where we experience the Grace that is always present… as our very foundation, bubbling up from within to give us sustenance and support.

This provides us with an instantaneous oasis of calm inside. It is where we can rest in natural great peace, even though the outer world outside may be quaking. Learning to rest inwardly, you can respond in daily life from your deepest center.

Rest in natural great peace.
This exhausted mind, beaten helplessly
By karma and neurotic thoughts,
Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves
In the infinite ocean of samsara.
Rest in natural great peace.
— Poem by Lama Padmasambhava (spoken in 800 A.D)
In this opening module, you’ll:

Embrace your present life circumstances as a divine curriculum, and review specifically what you’re being asked to wake up out of — and what you are being called to wake up into
Recognize the Grace that’s always present, and how your willingness to yield to what IS brings alive the love and support you need
Discover how Ego Relaxation soothes your agitation, helps you settle, and transforms obstacles into wisdom, so you can flow gracefully to life’s invitations
Cultivate a daily practice that sustains you as you learn to ground yourself in the Infinite
Illuminate your defenses as you soften, open, and allow yourself to experience life with unconditional acceptance
Learn how to practice Ego Relaxation as a form of meditation — and lean into the Om Nama Shivaya mantra to melt your resistance
Integration & Extended Satsang
In the final session of this 4-session module, Miranda will lead you in a special integration session…

You’ll move through chanting practices, meditation, and a review and deepening of the previous weeks’ sessions.

Miranda will then guide you through a full hour of satsang, where she’ll work more deeply with your questions, grapplings, and realizations.

The teachings will come vividly to life in response to the group field, as Miranda models how everything you experience can become a gateway into ever-deepening Grace.

Module 2 — The 3 C’s: Facing Your Challenges With Courage, Compassion & Curiosity (Sessions 5-8: September 16 (Pre-Recorded) & 23; October 7 & 14)

Spiritually, we are grown most by two things: great love and great suffering.
— Richard Rohr
Right now we’re all navigating the turmoil of the collective — trying our best to process the uncertainty of our future, and what our world will look like at the end of this tunnel.

While these times potentially can offer us expansive new possibilities, we must not bypass the human challenges.

The spirituality that our world needs now recognizes that human suffering must be met deeply with love.

In this module, Miranda will encourage you to ask, How can we harness these times of change and uncertainty in a way that comes from spiritual maturity — rather than fear and reactivity?

She’ll help you turn towards your challenging emotions of fear and anger — as well as unconscious self-centeredness and reactivity. While these responses are all-too-human and inevitable in these unsettling, intense times… you can instead meet these challenges with courage, compassion, and curiosity.

Together, you and your fellow participants will learn surrender — not through struggling to transcend your ego, but by opening in and through the authentic truth of your direct experience.

In this module, you’ll:

Discover how to cultivate courage, compassion, and curiosity with your human emotions — and understand what causes you to react from ego rather than judging yourself for it
Explore how to face what scares you, transforming fear into responsiveness
Learn to stay present and meet your fears all the way so you can discern the difference between the mind stream of fear (anxiety) and your survival instinct, moving you into wise action
Discover what’s always alive underneath your fear
Face what enrages you — transforming anger into strength as you stay present with your fire rather than suppressing it or acting it out… harnessing the energy within anger to create constructive change
Explore the difference between your good intentions and your actual impact on others
Transform self-centeredness into empathy, moving from me to we
Integration & Extended Satsang
During the closing session of this second module, Miranda will lead you in a special integration session…

She’ll begin with a mantra (Om Tare Tutare Ture So Ha) and a Mountain of Presence meditation to help you stay present and meet everything with courage, compassion, and curiosity, as well as a review and deepening of the previous weeks’ sessions.

She’ll then once again move into an hour-long satsang, where she’ll work more deeply with your questions, grapplings, and realizations. The teachings will come vividly to life in response to the group field, as Miranda models how everything you experience can become a gateway into ever-deepening Grace.

Module 3 — Nurturing Spiritual Resilience: Receiving Deep Inner Nourishment (Sessions 9-13: October 28; November 4, 11 & 18; December 2)

The winds of Grace are always blowing. It is for us to raise our sails.
— Ramakrishna
At this point on your journey, you’ll be awake to the Divine Invitations appearing within your life. You’ll understand how to practice ego relaxation, with the waves of emotion and energy coming up…

You’ll have removed the “sting” from the reactivity that’s inevitable when there’s great suffering in your midst. You’ll have deepened your capacity to stay present and undefended with what is — and gained deeper access to the Grace that is our inherent foundation.

In this pivotal third module, Miranda will guide you to receive deep inner nourishment, opening to the subtle, yet substantial forces that are available to help you regenerate.

She’ll introduce you to her powerful teaching, “Trusting the Mystery,” and how this pivotal virtue can be applied specifically to help us in these uncertain times.

Miranda will share the stages in the development of trust outlined in the A Course in Miracles manual for teachers, opening the possibility of trusting that all is well — even when outward circumstances don’t appear that way.

Miranda will share a teaching on “Taking Refuge” where you’ll make a connection with an enlightened being you’re drawn to — or work more deeply with a mantra you’ve explored in the previous module… to help you receive deep spiritual nourishment and vertical support.

In this beautiful, restorative, and nurturing part of the program, you’ll:

Deepen your capacity to recognize and receive the loving goodness that’s always with you
Receive a teaching of Ramana Maharshi who speaks of the power of “admitting your inability, and that you need a higher power to help you” in the process of surrender
Relax your defense against love and vulnerability that’s rooted in the holding environment of early childhood — and allow Loving Presence to pervade your Being, and dissolve “you”
Harness helplessness as a gateway to Grace — and explore how practicing Ego Relaxation makes you soft, open, and humble… ushering you into the exquisite celestial state of grace
Open to a Divine Helping Hand so you can receive vertical support — and learn to drink light and nourishment just as a plant drinks the light of the sun
Integration & Extended Satsang
In the final week of this third module, Miranda will lead you in a special integration session…

You’ll learn the rejuvenating, enlightened Gayatri mantra — known as the mother of all Sanskrit mantras — including the body movements… as you’ll discover, it’s like taking a light bath each day.

Miranda will also share a Shower of Grace meditation, and review the previous weeks’ sessions.

You’ll conclude with an hour-long satsang in which Miranda will respond to your questions, aha! moments, and breakthroughs.

Module 4 — Heart of the Absolute: Transforming Ancient Hatred Into Present Love (Sessions 14-17: January 6, 13, 20 & 27)

The holiest spot on all the earth is where an ancient hatred has become a present love.
— A Course in Miracles
By now you’ve opened to taking refuge in a depth of Grace beyond conceptual understanding. You’re learning to trust the mystery that’s unfolding…

In this module, you’ll enter the heart that’s deeper than emotion — the Heart of the Absolute.

The Absolute is the silent depth where everything is absorbed into a great silence. It’s the mystical womb of the universe, the place of the deepest rest — and the deepest resolution.

Having seen some of your subtle or not-so-subtle ego defenses, self-centeredness, and reactivity, you’ll likely be feeling quite humbled…

And so Miranda will guide you through the next step of becoming the graceful human being you want to be — facing yourself honestly and opening up to the correction of errors.

This isn’t a process of righting wrongs or judgment, but of understanding that true forgiveness requires Grace, based on the non-dual foundation that we’re all innocent in eternity, but not in the realm of time.

Over two sessions, you’ll explore Miranda’s teaching, Grace of True Forgiveness — one session will address the need for self-forgiveness, the other will address our need to let forgiveness cleanse us of our hate and demonization of the other… even when we feel sure we don’t have hatred within us.

Unfortunately, harboring hatred (even giving someone the cold shoulder without consciously realizing it) is very human, and it’s clearly a huge problem on our planet today.

Hate drives racism, and the ugliest forms of us vs. them mentality, preventing us from being graceful when confronted with different perspectives and values.

As you move past subtle hatred and experience the cleansing Grace of forgiveness, you’ll find joy and gratitude much more available to you.

In this module, you’ll explore:

The meaning of the Absolute, where duality, division, and conflict — as well as parts of your personal experience and the collective sphere — can be dissolved
A practice where you’ll open to the presence of forgiveness within the heart cave of Absolute Love, laying down on the inner altar all that needs cleansing
How it feels to be cleansed by the living waters of Grace, restoring your innate goodness and innocence
Miranda’s teaching on how you can find joy in each moment — even in these times of social distancing and limited connection with the places and activities we love most
How gratitude, joy, and delight are natural qualities of your deep heart, and bubble up spontaneously when you stop grasping for stimuli and embrace your life exactly as it is
The difference between forgiveness and reconciliation — and how forgiveness requires Grace
How to allow differences without dehumanizing others
Integration & Extended Satsang
In this special integration session, Miranda will share her Awakening the Vast Heart meditation, and review the previous weeks’ teachings and takeaways…

You’ll also discover ways to awaken deep gratitude and joy by working with the powerful Maha Lakshmi mantra/visualization practice. This practice amplifies your sincere prayers and brings you into felt recognition of the goodness of life.

Miranda will wrap up this module with an hour-long satsang to respond to anything you’ve been wondering about, and support you in putting everything you’re learning into practice in your life.

Module 5 — Grace Beyond Your Story: Crossing Over Onto the Shore of Freedom (Sessions 18-22 — February 3, 10, 17 & 24; March 3)

Your true nature is that of Infinite Spirit. The feeling of limitation is the work of the mind. When the mind unceasingly investigates its own nature, it transpires that there is no such thing as “mind.” This is the direct path for all.
— Ramana Maharshi
At the heart of spiritual transformation — and indeed, every life question we grapple with — is the perennial spiritual question… Who am I?

If you understand yourself to be your personality, the roles you play in life, the character of YOU — you’ll continue to be shaken by life’s ups and downs.

In this module, Miranda will guide you to address the bondage in your mind, unpack the layers of your ego identity, and open into the spaciousness and pure awareness that is I AM — who you truly are and always have been at every age and stage of life.

Uncovering the jewel of your true identity reveals that you are the love, peace, beauty, meaning, and freedom you’ve been seeking all along. This module is dedicated to helping you truly experience this, not just understand it conceptually.

You’ll work with Miranda’s powerful “unwinding your core ego identity” process, which unlocks the Rubik’s Cube of your familiar self and its patterns…

This work integrates psychological insight into how personality structures are constellated in our earliest childhood experiences — with spiritual understanding of the “fall from grace” that all human beings go through.

You’ll explore the curious phenomena of how the ego tends to re-constellate back to familiar stories, even after you’ve dropped through them to a deeper reality.

To determine whether a story binds you or serves you, you’ll learn to spot the difference between immediate direct experience and the meaning you give to the story. And you’ll learn to relax your attachment to adhering to this story as though it were true.

From there, you’ll stretch out and explore the spaciousness within — the pure freedom and possibility. You’ll discover there’s no beginning, middle, or end to what you are.

In this powerful module, you’ll discover how:

You can regard your personality structure as a gate to open through, rather than a problem to be fixed… and explore your true nature, the luminous truth and beauty of your pure being
Too often, our sense of security is based on others’ approval
We’re often not graceful with change because we do not know who we really are – and are thus dependent on external forces that we can never control
You can unwind your sense of not feeling good enough and harness it as a portal to discover the luminous truth and beauty at your core
The script you created to make sense of your most difficult moments of feeling separate now drives the story of repetitive patterns in your life
To open into spaciousness of non-dual awareness, where you truly know your fundamental unity as One, and recognize your divine nature
Integration & Extended Satsang
In this module’s integration session, Miranda will lead you in a chant of I AM along with two meditations, “Abiding as Loving Awareness” and a classical Advaita meditation on “I Am.” She will also offer a review and deepening of the previous weeks’ sessions.

You’ll be able to ask Miranda your questions and receive her support in reframing everything as an opportunity for awakening, and get feedback in real time during the full hour or satsang.

Module 6 — Rising Into Your Spiritual Destiny: Embodying Grace as You Walk This World (Sessions 23-26: March 10, 17 & 31; April 7)

The greatest gift God can give is His own experience.
Every object, every creature, every man,
woman, and child has a soul,
and it is the destiny of all to
See as God Sees,
Know as God knows,
Feel as God feels,
BE as God IS.
— Meister Eckhart
Just as nature continues to cycle and unfold, there’s no end to becoming more fully who you truly are.

In this final module, Miranda will show you how to embody what you’ve been realizing more deeply in your daily life — to share the blessings with your loved ones and community thriough your way of being.

You’ll recognize that there is no such thing as “your” awakening if it doesn’t contribute more truth, goodness, beauty, and virtue deeper into this world. Awakening is always about dissolving the distinction between “you” and “I.”

Now is the time to stop holding your love back, take creative risks, and share your inherent goodness, latent talents, creativity, and kindness.

You’ll explore what it means to live your life resting in Grace while becoming a refuge for others as you walk this world. You’ll stabilize your relaxation by prioritizing your practice, and discover what best serves you to stay spiritually hydrated even in the midst of intensity.

Miranda will explain the difference between trying to be graceful from within your ego structure, and remembering that your ego and its effort has actually never been the doer.

Putting this into practice, so you learn to truly become a graceful human being, is a long-term project that requries ongoing commitment.

You will be supported as you create the necessary structures in your life to prioritize staying grounded and present with all that arises, so your actions and responses are less clouded by your personality…

This includes being awake to the places in which you’re vulnerable to reactivity — and how to reset yourself quickly when needed.

Miranda will share simple, informal practices that will weave themselves organically into your life — and encourage you to find a daily rhythm that works for you as you become a more grounded, graceful human being.

When your real, effortless, joyful nature is realized,
It will not be inconsistent with the ordinary activities of life.
— Ramana Maharshi
In this module, you’ll discover:

How you can serve your family, loved ones, and your community by putting all you’re learning into action in your daily life
Ways to practice unity with unapologetic authenticity — being fully who you are and living according to your deepest values, while remembering that underneath it all, you are not separate
How to walk this world in Grace and serve its evolution
How you can support others as you radiate your noble qualities and inherent goodness in your relationships, work, and life.
The master key to being graceful amidst it all: allowing doing to flow from Being
How to forgive yourself when you falter (and you will!) and reset when you need to
Integration & Extended Satsang
In this final integration and extended satsang, Miranda will lead you in chanting (you’ll choose the chant that most nourishes you, weaving it into your regular routine), meditation (on-the-spot versions of the practice that best serves you, and applying this throughout the day)…

… and a review of your journey together. Then, you can share your most important reflections, questions, and realizations from your journey.

This session will provide an opportunity to experience a rich and meaningful conclusion, and go forward drenched in blessings and rich in inner resources, radiating all the Grace you’ve received into the world around you…

Review by NLP