NL: Hi everyone! My name is Natalie Ledwell and this is The Inspiration Show. Today on the show my special guest is going to be talking to us about anxiety, actually how we can move from anxiety to love. She has a new book out and we’re going to be talking about some specific things that we can do to alleviate the anxiety that we have in our life which I think we all feel. But before I introduce my special guest, let me, just want to remind you that when the show is finished, if you click the link below this video you can take my 30-second quiz so we can figure out what’s holding you back from success. So please let me introduce my special guest Corrine Zupko. How are you, Corrine?

CZ:  I’m great. Thank you so much for having me.

NL: It’s such a pleasure to talk to you. And we were just saying before we were on the show how, um, it’s very difficult I think for a human being on the planet right now not to be suffering some kind of an anxiety in some form or another, because there are so many extrinsic things happening on the planet right now. So I think your book is very timely. I'm looking forward to sharing your information with us, with our community. But before we do that why don't we just start a little bit about your story. Like how did you get to write this book?

CZ: Yeah, so I wrote this book because I struggle with a very significant and debilitating anxiety for most of my life. I received my first diagnosis at the age of 2. I broke down with panic attacks in college. I had a panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder. I was absolutely a mess. And it was through my dedication to healing anxiety, putting that, prioritizing that, healing above everything else, that I found peace again. And I started writing about what was helping me and the results are in the pages of this book.

NL: Right. Now you are a psychologist?

CZ: Licensed Counselor

NL: A Licensed Counselor, right. So you’ve obviously, it’s not just your own personal experience that you’ve included in the book here, but also from the people that you’ve been working with. So what do you think is the main cause of anxiety in society at the moment?

CZ: Well, there's a lot of different causes that we can look at in the world. I mean just turn on the news and the latest event is, of course, going to rattle us but on a deeper level and where my book goes with the spiritual level, I feel like anxiety is a spiritual problem. We’re very much disconnected from our true self, the sense of love that we are all made of. And have gone so far outside of that self that we forget who it is that we truly are, which is that love. So my book is about going from that place of anxiety that small self, back to the true self, which is the love within us.

NL: Great. So let’s talk a little bit about your personal journey. So, um, I know you were saying you suffered from anxiety for that sounds like for a very long time. What was the switch for you? How did you like what we’re you experiencing there and how did you make the switch to seeing the spiritual solution?

CZ: Well, what I was experiencing was on the high end of the anxiety continuum in terms of the debilitating pain and anxiety, shaking, trembling, not able to function, not able to eat at times because my stomach was in such a knot. And it was through being introduced to a spiritual path called A Course in Miracles that things started to click for me, because I was trying anything and everything. I wanted to know what would get to the root. My anxiety was very existential. Why are we here? How can we die? Where do we go? You know those types of deep questions. And so working with the practices in A Course in Miracles are what helped me start to reconnect with the truth that I believe we all share which is that, we are literally made of love and as we return to our awareness of that, the anxiety has to fall away. So it was a gradual healing, it didn't just happen overnight but with work and dedication, you know those, all the principles of A Course in Miracles that helped me comprise the pages of From Anxiety to Love.

NL: Wonderful. Now A Course in Miracles is one of those texts or one of those books that is actually quite detailed but has formed a lot of amazing work in the world. So for those people who may not have heard the A Course in Miracles, can you explain a little bit about what that is?

CZ:  Absolutely. A Course in Miracles is a psycho-spiritual text, so it’s a book and you can buy this book anywhere, online or in stores. And the book is really a pathway to remembering the truth about us, which is the love that we’re made of. So it has three parts. A text, a workbook and a manual for teachers. The workbook has a lesson for every day of the year, so there are 365 lessons. And the manual is written in more of a Q and A style, so it can be much more easy to read than the text which is very theoretical and kind of dense.

NL: Yeah, it’s pretty heavy right. And from what I know of that text the woman channeled it or, that you know that kind, it took several years for her to get that out, right.

CZ: Exactly, exactly.

NL: So I’m assuming that your book is not that involved but you do have um, from what I’ve seen, you do actually have specific processes that people can apply to get them back to a place of love. Can you share a couple of those processes with us?

CZ: Definitely. So one of the main processes that I talk about, and this again is based on the teachings of A Course in Miracles, is about asking for miracles and miracles are shifts in perception. Miracles, we can define them in two ways – an expression of love is a miracle and that shift in perception from fear to love is also a miracle. So my book very much focuses on the shifts and we get there by turning to a part of our very own mind that is like a voice for love within us, I called it inner therapist. It’s that voice that tells us that we’re safe, that peaceful feeling deep, deep down. It’s not a voice so much as it's a feeling and it's about learning to listen to that voice instead of the fearful voice which is the ego voice that we all have in our minds. So the three-step process, in a nutshell, is: find your willingness to see your problem differently, so your anxiety, let’s say. Give your willingness to your inner teacher, to your inner therapist, and ask for that miracle and then trust that it’s done because the course teaches that the answer is given the instant that we ask for it. And so have to trust. If we don’t hear an answer or sense or know an answer, we’re not ready yet. We’re not ready to necessarily receive it. So that’s actually why I break down these three steps much more in the book because it can be like Alright I just did that, nothing happened, now what?

NL: Because that’s the thing. I mean, I think that we’re, when we’re in a state of anxiety or panic or whatever, all we’re looking at is the current situation or what we perceive the current situation to be. So what you’re saying is that we want to be needed to be willing to make that shift to change our perspective on that. Is there an easy way we can do that?

CZ: Really the first really important component about is willingness. We have to want to change our minds. When we're locked in the way that we see things, of course, we're not gonna see anything differently because we’re fixated on our perception. We’re fixated that our way of seeing is the right way. If we can create that open space in our minds that, you know what, maybe I’ve been wrong, maybe the way that I’m doing things isn’t working for me so well. Just look at your life, is it working for you, you know, or do you want to try something different. So just that willingness to see differently is really the precursor to all changes, that openness that we create in our mind to let the shift happen.

NL: Right. And I’m assuming that a lot of the work that we do is not while we’re in the moment of anxiety that it’s like a daily practice?

CZ: Yeah, absolutely, that’s really, like I said already, it didn’t happen overnight for me. It is a moment to moment practice, really even more so than a daily practice. And when we’re in the, those moments of anxiety as they come up, we can look at them as learning opportunities, as opportunities to practice the skills that we’ve been developing and utilizing. So it definitely is a moment to moment practice.

NL: Right. And when we’re talking about, so what we’d be going to go all these years from anxiety to love or from anxiety to peace, what is your definition of inner peace?

CZ: Uh, inner peace to me is the unshakeable sense of roundedness and knowing that despite the external circumstances, despite all the chaos and craziness that we might perceive around us, that within there’s still there’s very quiet, unchanged part of our mind that is not fooled by all the craziness that it sees outside.

NL: Right.

CZ: So it feels really good.

NL: But it sounds like it’s a what we’re saying it’s a part of a process so rather than an event that we’re trying get in just in one moment when in the start of anxiety, it’s something that we want to try and maintain for a period of time.

CZ: Yeah, you know this really is about a shift in identity. We’re identified as, you know, I’m very much identified as Corrine, this separate body. But this process of working these principles is about shifting our identity from this limited sense of self to a sense of self that’s much greater than just little me and this shift in identity is as you can imagine isn’t gonna just happen once, we don’t just get it and stay there, it’s a moment to moment thing.

NL: Right, okay. And so when we’re connecting to this, you know, and we could call it a soul or we could call that inner part of you that is part of God or whatever label you like to give that, are we looking at doing that on a daily, like how do we connect to that part of ourselves?

CZ: That part of ourselves is quiet, it’s always there and so with it being quiet you know A Course in Miracles teaches that the ego always speaks first and loudest. So that fearful chatter, that monkey mind pur-pur-pur, you’re no good, judging this, judging that, is always gonna be there but if we can get quiet and still ourselves and go within, meditation then becomes a key practice in learning how to be rather than be in this constant state of doing which were geared to do in this world. So meditation has been really keeping me off though.

NL: Yeah, know I agree and obviously advocate meditation here in the Mind Movies community but my life completely changed, like everything is more inflow for me since I have adopted a meditative practice. So I think it’s very important. So you are talking a lot about like a spiritual solution to anxiety problem, do the people who read the book have to have a spiritual outlook as well?

CZ: That’s a great question. Whatever you call it, um sometimes I feel like one can get caught in semantics like god can bring up that image of like a dude with white beard who’s up there, you know, controlling things and we have to let go of these concepts that we have to just be open to something greater than ourselves. So whatever you call that I feel that is a spiritual perspective of just having you know an openness to something greater than ourselves, whatever you call it is up to you but it definitely is a spiritually oriented book but if that’s not really your cup of tea, you could still get value from these principles when you think about instead of maybe your higher mind think about it as your intuition. You know we all have those gut feeling that sort of knowing that comes up from time to time and that’s where you’re looking to really get into with.

NL: Yeah. Absolutely. So who do you think would benefit from reading the book?

CZ: Oh, I feel like anybody who struggles with anxiety, who is looking for another way, who maybe has tried a number of different things to try to heal their anxiety but it pops up still like a leaky pipe. That's the thing that I experience is that certain approaches for me were like band-aids. The anxiety was like a leaky pipe I'll plug up one hole and a hole would spring out elsewhere. So I was no longer afraid of, you know, going to hospitals let’s say, but I couldn’t get on a plane, so there is the fear again. And then that got better but then it sprung another leak. So if that’s in your experience and you don’t feel that constant state of peace, I feel like this book is for you if you are willing to just keep that open mind that there’s another way, another way of approaching anxiety and seeing it as your teacher.

NL: Right. So what it sounds like is that what you’re offering is a solution to heal the anxiety rather than just deal with symptoms.

CZ: Absolutely. So we can think about fixing anxiety as plugging those holes on that leaky pipe. Healing anxiety means that you’re actually like healing that whole pipe or not having the anxiety pumping into the pipe to spring those leaks in the first place. It’s really about working with a core fear that we believe that we are separate from one another, separate from love and separate from our Divine Source for those spiritual folks. So that’s really the core of what my book is helping us look out.

NL: Yeah. Well from what I can see I mean this book is great for, you don’t have to be someone who necessarily suffers some panic attacks and has massive anxiety but it sounds like it’s a great way for us to be able to adopt to a really good daily practice of tapping into our inner peace because you know I even like every morning I’m purposeful about not watching the news, about not reading the news, not getting caught up in all of that because I feel like when I do that I’m just getting caught up in the sense of helplessness which is a form of anxiety. So the book looks like it could really help you to develop a peaceful daily practice which you’re gonna have when you flow and living life in a much more empowered way anyway, So Corrine thank you for joining me today and thank you for the book. If people want to reach out to you or get their hands on the book, where can we send them to do that?

CZ: The my website is the same title as the book so it’s fromanxietytolove.com and you can find me across all social media.

NL: Fantastic. So guys, we'll also have a link either below the video or the banner to the side of the video so you can go directly through to Corrine’s website from there. So thank you for your time today Corrine and thank you for the work that you’re doing. Like I said I think it is very timely for this information to get out into the world so we’re happy to help you spread the word.

CZ: Thank you much, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. 

NL: Yeah and guys I encourage you to help us spread the word as well and you can do that by clicking the Facebook and the Twitter share buttons on the page. And don’t forget that if you are watching this live on Facebook or if you are watching it on our YouTube channel later click the link below the video so you can take my 30-second quiz so we can really figure out what’s holding you back from success. So until next time, remember to live large, choose courageously and love without limits. Bye guys, we’ll see you soon.

CZ: Bye.