October, 2013
I’m struggling with a recent choice I’ve made, and desperately trying to find my spiritual center here, as it is pretty clear I can’t go back on this decision. I entered into a business agreement/partnership that I was at first really excited and happy about and am now feeling full of fear, doubt, and maybe even some regret. I feel stuck in this decision, and I’m confused by how confident I felt when I made it and how I’m so not right now. Not sure what I’m asking here, I guess I just want to know how to deal with something that I’ve created and am feeling lost about.
Michelle, Tampa
Hi Michelle,
In my book, there are few feelings as bad as the one you get when you think you’ve made a mistake – it’s torture! I feel for you, I do, but I also have some very good news: there is no right or wrong choice here. There is the choice you make, the meaning you give it, and where you choose to place your focus from there. These 3 ingredients heavily impact your experience of the choice you’ve made, and more good news, you are completely in control of that.
It sounds to me like what you are asking for here is how to feel good about your choice, or at least your current experience. It doesn’t hurt to mention that if backing out is something you truly want and believe is the best for you, it is always possible; when there’s a will there’s a way and all that good stuff, but I personally look at it as more of a giving “the how” of it over to the Universe or God to figure out. But to be honest with you, Michelle, that’s not really the vibe I’m getting here. I could be wrong, but let’s go with it anyway.
It is completely normal to feel scared out of our minds and filled with fear, doubt, anxiety, worry, etc. after making a life-altering decision, and I’m guessing that’s a large part of why you can’t connect to that original enthusiasm and excitement you felt when making this business decision. Conversations with God says that there is no right or wrong, no should or shouldn’t, there isn’t even an absolute truth. Life has no meaning, in fact, save the meaning we give it. So how do we go about making decisions from that understanding? CWG also says that your own truth about something will be your highest thought, your highest feeling about something, which I like to translate into if it feels good, it’s right. Remember, Michelle, it felt really good when you made this decision. The fact that it doesn’t so much now doesn’t necessarily point to it being the wrong decision after all; like I said, it’s more than likely a very normal reaction to a big change in your life.
So if you can accept all of that to be true (and it’s totally okay if you don’t, at the very least use it as a context to decide even more clearly what is true for you), then it all comes down to those last two ingredients I spoke of : choosing the meaning (and I recommend choosing something that feels good) and then consciously and diligently placing your focus on the parts that you like, and avoiding the rest like the plague. Put another way, if the meaning you decide this experience is that it is indeed the right choice for you, and it’s completely natural for you to freak out a bit and that’s okay, spend your time and energy focusing on and turning up the volume on the things about this business agreement that excite you, that are attractive to you, that light you up. Turn it up so loud that you can’t even hear the rest (fear, doubt, uncertainty, etc.), in fact, turn the volume down on that stuff!
It is entirely in your power to enjoy and feel good about this decision, Michelle, any decision really. Look at this as some really good and really BIG practice.
(Nova Wightman is a CWG Life Coach, as well as the owner and operator of Go Within Life Coaching, www.gowithincoaching.com, specializing in helping individuals blend their spirituality with their humanity in a way that makes life more enjoyable, easy, and fulfilling. She can be reached at Nova@theglobalconversation.com. )
(If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to: Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com, where our team is waiting to hear from you.)
An additional resource: The CWG Helping Outreach offers spiritual assistance from a team of non-professional/volunteer Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less. Nothing on the CCN site should be construed or is intended to take the place of or be in any way similar to professional therapeutic or counseling services. The site functions with the gracious willing assistance of lay persons without credentials or experience in the helping professions. What these volunteers possess is an awareness of the theology of Conversations with God. It is from this context that they offer insight, suggestions, and spiritual support during moments of unbidden, unexpected, or unwelcome change on the journey of life.
Do you think you are being protected by the Patriot Act? Are you okay with what the tradeoffs are for “security” and “peace of mind”? How about banking reform? Are you okay with ordinary people having every nickel and dime in their possession questioned, and not the uber weathly?
The reason I ask this is because I am buying a house, and I am being treated like a terrorist. The bank will simply not accept that I am transferring our money, from our retirement account, into our checking account…and then transferring our money from one checking account to another because we had homes in two different states. These are not huge amounts of money, people, and it is money that we have been drawing from the account since 2003 when my husband retired, and from the sale of a house we have been in for 10 years…and sold for less than we paid for it, thanks to the current economic state of this world.
Oh, and how can it possibly be their business just why we decided to move from Texas to Wisconsin? Do we need permission and passports to move between the states now? Isn’t this a free country?
The answer to the last query is…apparently not, even though I am a 61 year old woman who has never once been late on a house payment. My husband made a very good living, no doubt about that, but we certainly do not belong in the multi-millionaire plus club. Yet we are being treated like terrorists, and deadbeats. It’s hard to tell which is the most offensive.
Even many, if not most, of the “deadbeats” that the banking system says it is working to weed out, didn’t likely set out to cheat. Many are like a young couple I know who bought a lovely home, with the mortgage company that made so much news not so long ago. They were told about the escalating interest rate, to be sure, but also had it hinted that the rate wouldn’t ever go up more than a percentage point at a time. The failing economy hit, his pay took a hit, and the first thing the young couple did was call that mortgage company and ask to be refinanced, on the same principal amount, at a little bit lower, set, rate. Then they begged for relief every month for another year. The answer was always no…so they ended up having to short sell, and ruin their credit. They then had the “deadbeat” label. How many others were given that label unfairly?
To whose advantage is all of this? Are we really more secure, or are we more secured?
Are we really less fearful because of our “security”? Do we look at someone with brown skin and dark hair and think, you must be safe because Homeland Security wouldn’t let you walk our streets if you weren’t, or are many of us more suspicious?
Are we creating what we don’t really desire, because we are sending so much energy to it?? Are our wars on drugs and on terrorists, and so many other things just creating more things to “war” against?
Maybe we just need to crawl into our little holes and forget the rest of the world? Well, yes, kind of! We really do, I believe, need to find our own quiet place. We really do need to turn off the outside world and listen to ourselves think…and if what we are thinking is chaotic and angry and sad, we need to realize that the person we have become is not who we really are.
“Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me.”
If we have not taken the time, as individuals, to find what Peace really is, then how can we, as a species, ever know it?
We are now treating each other as terrorists and deadbeats. We are, more often than not, seeing the bad in each other, not the Divine. Why? Does it feel good to you?
Okay then, once we crawl into our holes, and come out whole (awful pun, I know!), what next? Well, the Be-Do-Have paradigm says that once we decide to Be something, the opportunity to Do that something will appear, so that we might Have that something…we sure are being given a lot of opportunities to Be Peace, aren’t we? But we are not Doing Peace, as a collective, so…we don’t Have Peace.
Perhaps you are the person who runs for your local Water Board, and eventually becomes the…the what? congressman? senator? President? the mother who shows her children how to Be the leaders of tomorrow? the person who is known for always listening to children? …or are we all going to be content to complain and observe and treat one another as terrorists and deadbeats, and allow the people WE elected to perpetuate this separateness in our name?
Is Peace beginning with you? I promise you, if it is, I won’t look at you and see a naive dreamer…I will see me, and I will see what I believe the world can Be.
(Therese Wilson is a published poet, and is the administrator of, and Spiritual Helper at, the global website at www.cwghelpingoutreach.com She may be contacted at: Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
Marianne Williamson, best-selling author of some of the world’s most beloved spiritual books, such as “A Return to Love” and “Healing the Soul of America,” announced Sunday that she is running as an independent for the U.S. House of Representatives in California’s 33rd District.
The theme of her campaign you might be wondering?
“Create Anew.”
Marianne Williamson is no stranger to politics and spiritual activism. She is the emeritus chair for The Peace Alliance, an organization dedicated to promoting a culture of peace; facilitator of Sister Giant seminars, designed to promote “a higher level of contribution among those of us who want to increase our efficacy as activist and/or candidate, in order to uplift the tenor of American politics and in so doing help heal the world”; and a teacher of A Course in Miracles, a course of study that assists people in relinquishing a thought system based on fear and embracing one based on love. (www.allvoices.com)
There are many out there who believe that spirituality and politics don’t mix, that they do not “play nice together.” Will Marianne Williamson be the person who demonstrates not only the possibility for spirituality and politics to work together, but the one who actually produces the outcomes yearned for — but not yet seen — by the American people, offering to Humanity, as Ms. Williamson said, “a new consciousness regarding our political discourse”?
I feel inspired upon reading this exciting news, and I am wondering what the world thinks about this. How will her prominence in the new-thought community benefit her campaign? How might it hinder her? Is America ready for someone who isn’t functioning from or catering to the ultra-religious voting sector? How does the fact that she is running as an independent come into play here, if at all?
According to Williamson, “I believe that a wave of independent candidates, all committed to a huge course-correction, is necessary to turn our ship around. I feel my campaign, and most importantly my win, can help inspire such a movement.”
On Ms. Williamson’s website, the question is posed to her: “Why should I think you’d be a better congressman than Rep. Waxman?” the current representative whose 38 years in Congress has earned him a reputation of being one of its most influential liberal members, to which she replies, “The voters get to decide if they think I’d be better; what I can tell you is that I would be different. And I do not think of Congressman Waxman as my opponent. We’re simply candidates for the same position.”
Is she the person who can breathe new life into our political system? Does she have the ability to actually implement and demonstrate some of the New Spirituality concepts that many of us have talked about right here on this site?
Marianne Williamson posted this message on her Facebook page: “Politics shouldn’t be the least heart-filled thing we do; it should be the most heart-filled thing we do. It should be a collective expression of our most enlightened selves.”
Now, that is someone I’m interested in seeing more from.
How about you?
(Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
In what an International New York Times editorial called a change of views that is “startling,” one of Japan’s most poplar former leaders is calling for a total ban on the use of nuclear power in that nation.
Junichiro Koizumi, who served as his country’s top official from 2001 to 2006, was “an enthusiastic proponent of cheap and clean nuclear power,” the Times lead editorial on Oct. 15 noted. Now, the newspaper said, he is completely and unequivocally against it.
The remarkable reversal comes in the aftermath of the international calamity two and a half years ago at the Fukushima nuclear power plant — the effects of which are still being felt by people around the world.
An official Japanese legislative investigation concluded that the disaster was man-made, and polls in Japan show that a majority of its citizens oppose nuclear power, but that hasn’t stopped the government of current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe (often thought of as Mr. Koizumi’s protégé) from approving policies that would reopen as many nuclear power plants as soon as possible.
Such plants, now all shut down following the Fukushima catastrophe, dot the Japanese coastline from north to south — a coastline that the Japanese government itself estimates stands a 60 to 70 percent probability of suffering another massive earthquake and tsunami within the next 30 years, the Times editorial notes.
While the present government supports reopening those plants, Mr. Koizumi staunchly and surprisingly (given his past strong support for nuclear energy) opposes any such thing. Even as Prime Minister Abe asserts that nuclear power is essential for economic growth — something his country is said to badly need after an extended period of economic stagnation — Mr. Koizumi says that nuclear power is not required to produce such growth. Indeed, he says, exactly the opposite may be true.
The Times editorial points out that the former prime minister offers a compelling argument that if a zero nuclear policy were embraced by the government, Japan “would come together in the creation of a recyclable society unseen in the world.” This alone would spark a major economic recovery, he asserts.
Whether or not a zero nuclear policy would be good for the economy, there are those in Japan who argue that it is necessary for the safety of their nation — and of the world.
The government led by Chancellor Angela Merkel in Germany has already made such a determination, declaring many months ago that Fukushima was the last straw for nuclear energy, that it wasn’t worth the risks to all humankind to use such means of meeting energy needs, that new and alternative forms of energy production (including increased use of wind and solar power) would be utilized, and that all nuclear plants in Germany would be closed permanently. The public in Germany cheered wildly.
It is, perhaps, time for a serious worldwide discussion of nuclear energy, with a look at whatever people feel are the pros and cons — and so we invite that exploration here in The Global Conversation. The Japanese Diet has not so far had any such serious debate on the issue, and other nations as well (not least, the United States) have pretty much avoided making nuclear power a political issue — though it may be one of the most important matters involving the body politic of our time.
We invite and encourage your views below. We will forward your comments to officials in both the Japanese Diet and the United States Congress — and to any other legislative body in the world that you suggest.
Let the global conversation begin.
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UDATE OCT 25: Elizabeth Chuck, Staff Writer for NBC News, has reported that “a 7.3-magnitude earthquake shook Japan early Saturday,” according to the U.S. Geological Survey. “The quake was off the Fukushima region of Japan, 231 miles east off the island of Honshu. It was 6.2 miles deep, officials said, hit at 3:10 a.m. Saturday local time and was felt 300 miles away in Tokyo,” Ms. Chuck’s report said.
“The Japan Meteorological Agency reported a one-foot tsunami was observed after it issued a yellow-colored warning Saturday morning, meaning a small tsunami could reach the coast at Fukushima, site of Japan’s 2011 nuclear power plant disaster,” the NBC report additionally noted. The full report can be found at here.
February 7 is the opening day of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Traditionally, nations have put aside their differences, toned down their mutual antagonistic rhetoric and come together to celebrate the accomplishment of some of the world’s best athletes. For their part, the athletes have trained, some for years and years, to win a spot on the coveted Olympic team and take their shot at getting a gold medal.
The Olympics, however, are no stranger to controversy and political agendas.
– Athletes have been stripped of their medals when it is discovered, even if years later, that they violated Olympic rules. American runner Marion Jones was stripped of all of the medals she won in the 2000 Summer Olympics after she admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs.
– Athletes have found ingenious ways to cheat. In 1972, a member of the Soviet modern pentathlete competition used an epee with a modified handle that would register a hit, even a false one, when a button in the pommel was pushed.
– Nations have boycotted the Olympics in protest of the host country’s policies or actions (In 1976, 22 African nations boycotted the games after New Zealand’s soccer tour of South Africa. In 1980, the US led a boycott of the Moscow games to protest the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and in 1984, Russia “retaliated” by leading a boycott of the Los Angeles games, although the official reason given was lack of security for their athletes.)
– A nation’s athletes have been banned for policies of their government. In 1964, South Africa was suspended from competing due to their nation’s policy of apartheid. The suspension wasn’t lifted until 1992.
– Individual athletes have used the Olympics as a platform to bring awareness to social issues such as the racial discrimination. Two American runners, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, gave the “Black power” salute during the 1968 medal award ceremony.
– Terrorists have struck at the Olympics, most recently in 1972 when 11 athletes, coaches and judges from Israel were murdered by Palestinian terrorists.
– Judges have been known to play favorites. In the 1988 games held in Seoul, South Korean boxer Park Si-Hun was declared the winner despite being pummeled by his American opponent, who landed 86 punches to Park’s 32.
– Judges have also been known to “trade votes.” The French judge in the 2002 figure skating competition supposedly admitted to voting for the Russian pair to win so that the Russian judge would vote for the French pair in ice dancing.
– Athlete’s personal views, opinions and comments, when expressed on social media, have been known to get them into trouble. In 2012, Greek suspended their female triple jumper after she made what many consider a racial post on Twitter and Switzerland expelled one of their soccer players for a racist and threatening post on Twitter.
Now a new controversy has arisen. Earlier this year, the Russian government enacted a very strict, discriminatory and dangerous law against any sort of “propaganda” that condones or encourages minors to view nontraditional sexual relations as equal to traditional sexual relations. The law is vaguely worded and does not define either “propaganda” or “nontraditional sexual relations,” so there is very real potential that both athletes, their family members, support staff and coaches, commentators and camera crews as well as foreign attendees to the Sochi Olympics may find themselves locked up in a Russian prison for violation of the law and face fines, imprisonment and/or deportation.
It is clear that the law is having a very negative and dangerous, even deadly, effect on gay Russian citizens. Transgendered and gay Russians have been severely beaten, tortured and raped and many of the attacks have been filmed, some even finding their way onto YouTube. (Why anyone would want to watch such a video is beyond me. I do not need to witness the terrorizing of another human being to know that it occurs.) At least one gay man has died from the injuries he sustained during one of these attacks.
Human rights groups the world over are outraged at this development so near to the start of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Many are calling for a boycott of the Sochi games. Others are calling for the banning of Russian athletes from the games, much as South Africa was banned from participation for endorsing apartheid.
The problem is that if Russian athletes are banned because of the Russian government’s attitude towards gays, American and Ugandan athletes (among others) would also have to be banned since both those governments also have discriminatory laws against gays on their books. (Given the recent changes in laws in the US, it may come down to banning athletes from specific states that still have DOMA laws on the books.)
For its part, the IOC said it has received assurances from Russia that foreign athletes, coaches, commentators, crews and tourists will not be targeted and will be safe. The IOC has no plans to change the games’ location or ban Russian athletes.
How should we as individuals concerned with the spiritual evolution of humanity respond to this situation? When I mentioned the call to boycott to a co-worker, s/he replied that the Olympics should not be politicized. That the focus should be on the athletic competition. I countered that to do nothing would be tacitly endorsing the discrimination. In response, I was asked, “If someone punches you in the face and you turn the other cheek, are you tacitly endorsing violence?” Isn’t turning the other cheek what you do if you profess to support nonviolence?
Initially, I didn’t know how to respond because I do believe in non-violence. I also agree that the Olympics should not be used as a political platform and that athletes shouldn’t have to pay for the actions of their governments. I also believe in turning the other cheek, which I take to mean not retaliating in kind. If someone acts out of fear or loathing or even hatred towards me, I do not respond with anger or return the hatred or fear. (That doesn’t mean I allow myself to be “used” as a doormat either!) So I pondered the “pros” and “cons” of the major proposed responses: boycott the games, ban Russian athletes or allow the games to go on as scheduled.
The Russian government stands to make millions of dollars from hosting the Olympics. A boycott of the Olympics would most certainly be felt in all sectors of Russian society. The money has already been spent to build the venues and the accommodations for the athletes and coaches. This is money that, one way or another, came straight from Russian citizens. But can the Russian citizens be held accountable for the policies of their government when there is no way to accurately gauge if the citizens support the policy? (The actions of a violent-prone minority most certainly do not represent the opinions of the entire citizenry any more than the actions of a few Islamic terrorists on 9/11 represent all Muslims.) On the other hand, doing nothing could be viewed as tacitly supporting the oppressive laws.
And then there’s the athletes. For some, this may be their only chance at competing in the Olympics. Is it fair to ask them to give up a life-long dream when it’s not yet clear how this law is going to impact gays in the long run? (Remember, sometimes all it takes is a spark to ignite a raging inferno and this may be the spark that ignites the Russian citizenry to stand up for human rights!) Furthermore, similar national laws have, in the past, been voided because of the very vagueness that makes them so dangerous and threatening. By banning certain athletes, are we not also politicizing the Olympics? Retaliating in kind? NOT turning the other cheek?
I was getting nowhere. Thinking myself in circles (as I often do!) So I took a couple deep breaths, looked inside and decided to take a look at this through the lens of Love.
Right and wrong/good and bad are all relative to the contextual field in which they’re found and according to the beliefs and perceptions of each individual. No one acts inappropriately given their view of the world. No one is a victim. There are no villains. Everyone is a co-creator of their reality: distorted, observed or actual.
It cannot be denied that the Russian anti-gay laws have brought the issue of equality for gays to the forefront in a way that has allowed people all over the world to witness the injurious effects of discrimination and the damage caused by the belief in superiority and separateness. The horrific videos have made the abstract idea of “torture” something very real and, to many, unacceptable. The faces of the young teens being harassed by Russian skin heads personalize this hatred and fear and many adults looking at this are thinking “That could be my child!” They begin to see themselves in others.
This provides an opening for a new conversation on what it means to be a human being and why we believe what we believe about being separate from each other and from Life/Love/God. The Olympic platform provides a stage in front of a world-wide audience in which that new conversation can be carried on. A way in which the message of Love/Life/Freedom/Goddess can be seen and heard by billions! Let us honor the sacrifice of our Russian brothers and sisters by having that conversation, even if it’s just with the guy sitting next to us at the bar while we watch the giant slalom or the woman next to us on the bus whose reading about the figure skating results or just with our own children. Let us help them remember the 25th core message given to us by God/dess: We are all One! Ours is not a better way. Ours is merely a different way.
(Shelly Strauss is a civil rights activist and speaker. In addition to becoming an ordained minister, she has written 20-plus novels and is the “resident visionary” at One Spirit Project. Shelly is also a spiritual helper on the ChangingChange website, offering support and guidance to people faced with unexpected and unwelcome change .)
This past weekend, 17 states across America experienced technical difficulties with Electronic Benefit Transfer (EBT) cards, an electronic system that allows state welfare departments to issue benefits via a magnetically encoded payment card to its recipients. The temporary disruption in the electronic debit system caused distraught shoppers to abandon their shopping cards filled with food and other personal necessities in the checkout lanes and leave stores empty-handed because they could not access their benefits.
This same disruption in service also mistakenly removed the set spending limit on EBT cards for some people in a couple Louisiana Walmart stores, creating a situation where law enforcement officers were called into the stores to help maintain order as shoppers took advantage of the windfall and swept through the aisles, buying as much as they could carry, knowingly exceeding the budget that had been established for their personal accounts.
My point for bringing this to the table for discussion is not merely to talk about the fact that it happened, or how it happened, but rather to engage in a conversation about the ensuing public reaction to it.
On a local talk radio show, I heard an angry caller exclaim that “those people” should just get jobs, as he has so commendably done, and that they shouldn’t be receiving free handouts anyway. He said they deserved this “swift kick in the pants,” referring to those distressed shoppers who left stores without food for their families.
And in my reading of the news stories that have surfaced around this incident, many of the opinions being conveyed in the commentaries seem to mirror his sentiments, which created some nagging questions for me.
How many people feel this way, that we should not have a public assistance program?
If it is a matter of amending or supplementing the one we have, how would that look?
Do we have a responsibility – or at least, at a minimum, a desire – to aid the people in our communities, in our countries, and in our world whose lives are less than easy?
If we don’t consider it our responsibility, what is the alternative?
Do we really want to live in a world where it is “each man for himself”? Really? Is that even possible? What is the purpose of our relationships with each other anyway?
Could the solution be as clear-cut as some people vehemently assert, that those in need should just simply “get a job”?
And what about the people who took advantage of the broken system this past weekend and took more than they were allotted? Is it possible for any of us to experience a level of compassion that would help us to understand what would cause someone to make that particular choice? Can we think of a time or times in our own lives where we tricked the system or took more than our fair share? What is the sponsoring thought or belief that causes us to resort to those types of decisions? Is there a soul purpose or agenda or desire that might be at play here?
For me, one of the single-most difficult concepts to accept is the fact that there are people in our world who do not have food to eat, that there are people who starve because they do not have even the smallest amount of nourishment to sustain their bodies. It is unimaginable with the resources that are available to us. So when I hear someone declare that they deserve this “swift kick in the pants” in describing someone’s inability to buy food, I start having a lot of questions around where we are as a society, how we got here, and how life looks for us all as we move forward together, like it or not, on this planet earth.
Your thoughts? Your ideas? Your wisdom?
(Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
I have been having some serious family issues lately, and, I admit, the sound must carry to the neighbors. I have a religious neighbor (we obviously have very different views and parenting styles) who, out of the blue, came up to tell me, in a condescending way, that they pray for us all the time. She is so judgmental! Now, if it someone were to say that to you, how would you respond in a shove it up your you-know-what, kindly kind of way??
Hillery in Montana
Dear Hillery,
Very simply, I would thank her for her kind thoughts. And tell her I can use all the kind thoughts I can get!
I would also not assume that she is without drama/trauma in her own life, so I might also tell her that I would keep her in my prayers as well.
You referred to how judgmental she is…let her judge. You are also judging her. There is a difference between noticing what is, and being judgmental, BTW. When there is a negative emotion that attaches itself to our perception of the other person, as opposed to the action, we have moved into judgment. It is natural to react to this emotion. It is also likely clear to her that you feel this way, and that you don’t think that her way is okay. So, the cycle of judgment keeps going on and on.
But you can stop that cycle, Hillery, simply by noticing what you are doing, noticing that she is doing the best she can, and change your mind about her. How? Just take what she really means, (that she knows things are not perfect in your world, and you could likely use a little help), and throw out the doctrine and judgment she brings to it. That simple shift removes your judgment moving back at her.
There is a very good chance that she felt awkward about saying anything to you, and that she had to muster up the courage to speak to you. Further, is it also possible that your reaction to her words is your embarrassment in knowing that others know you are struggling, and are witnessing the drama? Is it possible that you don’t think it is okay what is happening in your life? We do seem to want the outside world to see only the perfect little family picture, don’t we?
Sweet Hillary, is it also possible that the judgment you are reacting to is your self judgment? If so, stop. Change your mind. Don’t let fear (embarrassment) and judgment hold you in place. Let the energy of her, in essence, saying, “You are not alone.”, be what flows through you. Know that Divinity does not expect perfection from you, because She thinks you are already perfect, no matter that it may appear it is not.
You may even wish to strike up a conversation with your neighbor, from a new perspective. Who knows, she may have been reaching out to you from her pain, and you may be able to help each other. This might actually be the perfect time to teach her a new prayer:
Thank you Creator/God, for letting me know that this problem has already been solved. Please help me now to see my part in that solution.
Therese
(Therese Wilson is a published poet, and is the administrator of the global website at www.cwghelpingoutreach.com She may be contacted at: Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
(If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com, where our team is waiting to hear from you.)
An additional resource: The CWG Helping Outreach offers spiritual assistance from a team of non-professional/volunteer Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less. Nothing on the CCN site should be construed or is intended to take the place of or be in any way similar to professional therapeutic or counseling services. The site functions with the gracious willing assistance of lay persons without credentials or experience in the helping professions. What these volunteers possess is an awareness of the theology of Conversations with God. It is from this context that they offer insight, suggestions, and spiritual support during moments of unbidden, unexpected, or unwelcome change on the journey of life.
When I was a child I had a deep fascination with God. What was He like, I wondered? Where did He live?
I know now that my ideas about God as a man living somewhere in the sky were the products of my childhood upbringing in a Roman Catholic family. I know that God is not limited to being a “he” or a “she,” but that God shows up in every form in which Life Itself manifests itself.
Still, I hold onto this idea that there are some attributes of God. I ask myself sometimes, if God chose to show up as a human being, what would that be like? What kind of personality would God have?
My questions about this were answered in the Conversations with God dialogue, in which I was given the Five Attitudes of God (CwG – Book 1, pg. 65-66).
“In the moment of your total knowing (which moment could come upon you at any time), you, too, will feel as I do always,” God said to me. And what way is that? Said God: “totally joyful, loving, accepting, blessing and grateful.”
This is, I found out later in the dialogue, the way the soul always feels as well. That is because the soul of humans and the essence of God is one and the same thing. So our soul is always totally joyful, loving, accepting, blessing and grateful. The trick is to bring our body and our mind into alignment with that deep inner nature of our being.
The soul is always joyful because Joy is what the soul (and what God) IS. God IS that which we would call, for lack of a more technical or clinical description, “pure joy.” I am come to understand that God is pure energy, of course. The energy that we call Life Itself. But what does this energy feel like? That’s the question. And the answer is, pure joy. The energy feels like pure joy. Ultimate happiness. Or what some Eastern mystics have call “bliss.”
Because the soul is always in a state of bliss, or pure joy, it is always loving. As is God. God loving everything, because God is so excited with Itself! There is nothing that exists outside of God, nothing that is “not God,” and so, everything that God is happy about and excited about exists within God — and precisely because it does exist within God, God is happy about it!
And so, God is eternally loving. God is loving everything about Life, because God is Life Itself, expressing. If you were totally joyful all of the time, you, too, would be totally loving. There is no way you could not be.
Yes, you might say, but how can anyone be totally joyful all of the time? Look at the world around us.
The trick is to see the world as it is — as it really is — and not as it appears to be. (To learn more about this please read Communion with God, which outlines in wonderful detail the Ten Illusions of Humans.) This is how God sees the world, and so God is always totally joyful, and that causes God to be totally loving.
Because God is totally loving, God is totally accepting — for pure love is the rejection of nothing. Pure love is unconditional. In fact, all love in unconditional. Anything less than that is not love, but some counterfeit version of that.
Because love is unconditional, it accept everything. It does this by making no value judgments whatsoever. It does not call one thing “good” and another thing “bad.” A thing simply “is.” This is what CWG calls the “Isness,” and Isness has no goodness or badness to it.
Where we get into trouble in our lives is by attaching goodness to badness to a thing. We make value judgments, and those judgments create enormous difficulty for many reasons — not the least of which is that we keep changing them. One day we call a thing “good” and the next day we call the very same thing “bad,” depending on whether the thing we are judging serves our purposes or not.
Let me give you a simple example.
Rain.
One day we call rain good, the next day we call it bad. It all depends on whether it’s raining on our crop or raining on our parade.
Killing is another example. We think we have an absolute Right and an absolute Wrong around this, but the truth is, we can’t make up our mind until we know and understand what the killing is for. Killing in self-defense, as an example, may not be called “good,” but most people and societies agree that it is not “bad.” So we find a third word. It may be, we say, “legal” and “necessary.”
That means it is required in order for us to do what it is we want to do.
It is because of this reasoning that we call every one of our attacks on another a “defense.” In this way, we can morally justify it.
Yet what if nothing in the world had to be morally justified? This is the State in which God lives. Because God does not feel the need to morally justify (or condemn) anything, God can be totally accepting. But how can God be in such a place? Easy. Since God is the All in All, nothing can hurt, damage or destroy God. And since nothing can hurt, damage or destroy God, God has no need to judge it.
Therefore, is the experience of God, a thing simply “is.” So, to, is it in the experience of Godliness. If we truly want the experience of what it is to be Godly, we will begin by removing our judgments from everything. Now this will be difficult for us to do as long as we are living inside of the Ten Illusions of Humans. The only way to escape our judgments is to escape our illusions.
Communion with God gives us the entire process by which we may do this. That’s what makes it such a powerful book.
Once we become, as God is, totally accepting, we move to the next level of Godliness, which is to become totally blessing. This is where God resides all of the time. God not only accepts what “is” in every single moment, God blesses it.
To bless something means to give it your best energy. Your highest thought. Your grandest wish. You send a thing good energy when you bless it — and this is something physical that you are doing, not merely something conceptual or philosophical.
Life energy can be moved around, manipulated, and we do this all the time with our thoughts. We also do it with our words and actions. Thought, word and action are the Three Tools of Creation (CwG-Book 1). With these devices we create, and co-create with others, our individual and collective experience. We are literally producing the world around us.
That is why The New Revelations says that all behavior begins with beliefs — and that it is beliefs we must change if we really want to change the world. Interestingly, no one who says they want to change the world — international political leaders and worldwide religious leaders — talks very much in these terms. Political leaders don’t talk about beliefs at all, and religious leaders talk in terms of other people changing their beliefs, but insist that they, themselves, have all the right beliefs. Then they deny that this is precisely what causes the world to be such a dangerous place.
Now the true Master blesses all of this, she does not condemn it. And in so doing, the true Master transforms it, for the impact of his blessing energy shifts the energy of the condition itself. That is why blessing, and never condemning, is the greatest spiritual secret. It is why all Masters have said, each in their own way and their own words, “judge not, and neither condemn. For that which you judge, judges you, and that which you condemn, condemns you, and that which you bless, blesses you.” So the Master practices consecration, never condemnation.
Finally, God is always totally grateful, for thankfulness is the experience of God recognizing Itself. To recognize means to “re-cognize,” that is, to “know again.” When God knows Itself again (which God does in every single golden moment of Now), God once again becomes joyful and the glorious Cycle of Life which is Life Itself continues, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end.
These are the Five Attitudes of God, and they are the five attributes of the human soul. When we allow these characteristics to fill our minds and our hearts, we become Godly. Our whole lives change, as do the lives of those around us. For life around us cannot help but change when we fill it with God Stuff. And Joy, Love, Acceptance, Blessing, and Gratitude is God Stuff indeed.
The wonderful thing about these Five Attitudes of Godliness is not only that one produces and creates another, but that they can be run in reverse. That is, one start with Gratitude just as easily as one can start with Joy. Either way, if the feeling is fully expressed the first domino falls, and all the rest follow.
I have tried to overlay these Five Attitudes of God on my daily life. For me it is sometimes easier to begin with Gratitude. Sometimes when I first wake up, or during my day when I encounter some very unwelcome news or moment, it is hard for me to “get into joy.” I just can’t seem to go there, no matter how much I try. But Gratitude for me has been a real key. I can move into Gratitude, even for moments or events that I do not particularly welcome, because I know that all things lead to my highest good.
Nothing that happens in my life happens without good purpose. Everything is perfect, and when I can “see the perfection” (as CWG invites me to do), I see the hand of God, and I know that there is a higher reason and that all things are good and that everything is bringing me to my highest expression of Who I Really Am.
Think of it as a scientist does in his laboratory. There is nothing that happens in that laboratory that is not a success, not a good outcome. Even so-called bad outcomes are good outcomes, in that they lead the scientist closer to the truth and to the outcome that is desired.
We are all Celestial Scientists, creating something utterly magnificent in the laboratory called Life. We are creating our Selves. And there is no way we can wrongly do that. Nor is there any way that we cannot ultimately get to where we wish to go — which is back to total union with All That Is. That is, back home to God.
When we know this, when we deeply believe it and completely embrace it, we find the grace to move through our lives — and any moment in our lives — with joy, love, acceptance, blessings, and gratitude. And when we do that, we change our lives and change the lives of those whose lives we touch. And in this, we truly change the world.
“As long as the ties that bind us together are stronger than those which will tear us apart, all will be well.” Narcotics Anonymous literature
Conversations with God, along with countless other spiritual and religious institutions, mention that we are all one. Many of us, myself included, would nod their heads in approval not truly knowing what this means, or if we really even believe it to be true. I mean, how can the guy who nearly ran me off the interstate today truly be one in the same with me and my God? You see, my God is loving and caring and compassionate, and always considerate! My eyes tell me we are not one in the same.
Ah, now there is the rub. We are one, just not the same, by design. We are one on our journey of self-improvement, evolution, and struggle to overcome what our eyes tell us we are separate from. We are cut from the same cloth of God and we come here to experience the grandness of life. Many times we become entrenched with the conflict between what our heart feels and what our senses pick up from external sources. Resistance and opposition are viewed as negatives while offering us the grandest of all gifts – contrast.
When I first began my sober life, I was fortunate to meet people who welcomed me in and identified with me. In fact, I was told that I was the most important person in the room that day. This was because the people who were already there needed to see that their old ways were not working. I was the gift for them that day; I was the contrast.
Together we are in this physical plane of life where we require a contextual field to provide us with a definition of ourselves. Without all of you, I have no way of knowing anything about me. God has given us this life, indeed. He has joined with us in this physical vessel we call our bodies so that she, too, may know the grand nature of his-herself.
The first thing that brought comfort to me when I entered the rooms of Narcotics Anonymous was the togetherness, the oneness, the comfort in knowing that I was not alone in my dis-ease. The 12 steps are the same regardless of which program you enter. The wording only changes slightly, but the meaning stays the same. So the reason there are so many different programs available is simple. We are all seeking like-minded people. We feel comfort around those who know what we have been through by their own experience.
Recovery in the purest sense is not possible without incorporating others into our healing process. Healing cannot take place without the help, support, and encouragement of others. This is not to say people can’t stop using on their own. They can and do. Recovery is a completely different than simply being abstinent; recovery is a state of being.
When in recovery, we are a light unto the darkness that others suffering with similar dis-ease can be drawn to. Our energy is shifted from that of reaction, to a place of creation. Each day brings about an opportunity to consciously observe and create our self in a more grand way. We look at areas of shortcomings and recognize the need for change. In moments of enlightenment, we can admit to others that we behaved in ways that we were not proud of and express our intention to make every attempt to correct our behavior.
Doing these things brings about a sense of pride in ourselves that we have not experienced in a very long time. We share with others our struggles and our victories. We ask each other for help in our times of weakness and we lend our shoulder to others when they experience theirs.
The sober/recovering person is a gift to the community and inspiration to those still suffering. In this state of beingness, one invites others into the dark corners of their life and does not hide behind excuses any longer.
Isolation is the partner of dis-ease. Experience tells us that where two or more are gathered, God is made flesh. Many years have gone by since I was greeted that fateful day. I owe a debt of gratitude to that room of people who opened their arms and welcomed me in. I have long since moved away from that room of people, but I have taken the gift they gave with me. It is now my place in recovery to welcome newcomers into the room, and tell them they are not alone anymore.
Join us Path to Peace recovery retreat in Orlando, Florida, October 24 – 27th. JR Westen and myself are taking the messages found within the ”Conversations with God” Cosmology, along with our combined 53 years of personal recovery from alcohol, drug, and food addictions, and offering these retreats as a means of returning people to their authentic selves. We understand the difficulty people face with overcoming these challenges in life and offer a simple, compassionate, and effective means of living a happy, joyous, and free life. These retreats are not simply a weekend long reprieve from our troubles. Each attendee will be introduced to past and future participants through our community Facebook page. In addition, any past participant can attend any future P2P retreat for any donation they wish to make. You read that right – any donation, from $1 to infinity. We have seen the lives of people change and remain changed from these retreats. If this is for you, click here to register.
We understand that there may be financial hardships keeping you from attending this retreat. If you feel you would benefit from this retreat but cannot afford it, please contact Will@cwg.org and ask about our scholarships. It is our deepest desire to help those who truly seek change and we want nothing to stand in the way of that.
(Kevin McCormack, C.A.d ,is a certified addictions professional and auriculotherapist. He is a recovering addict with 26 years of sobriety. Kevin is a practicing auriculotherapist, life coach, and interventionist specializing in individual and family recovery and also co-facilitates spiritual recovery retreats for the CWG foundation with JR Westen. You can visit his website here for more information. To connect with Kevin, please email him at Kevin@TheGlobalConversation.com)
The biggest mystery of life has to do with what human beings call “reality.”
What is “reality,” anyway? It is a static thing, based on “facts”? Or is it a fluid thing, based on individual interpretation of those “facts”?
Most people agree that reality is fluid, changing from person to person. This is captured in the ancient observation: One person’s treasure is another person’s trash.
If two people can look at the same set of facts and see entirely different things, then what is “real” and what is not?
A great many politicians in Washington D.C. are trying to figure that out right now. Most of the world knows that there is a huge squabble going on there right now over what is called Obamacare — or, more formally, the Affordable Care Act.
A cohort of highly conservative members of the Republican Party in the U.S. claims that the new health-care-for-all law passed two years ago will be the ruination of America. Most Democrats, meanwhile, believe that it is long since past time that such civilizing legislation was passed and such a humane program put into place in what both parties claim to be one of the greatest nations on Earth.
Members of both parties are looking at the same data and the same country and coming up with entirely different realities. Yet if “reality” is a subjectively created thing and not an objectively observed thing, the solution to this present political conflict in Washington would be to be collaboratively creative.
So, too, would this be the solution to all the conflicts — armed and unarmed, political and military, economic and social/spiritual — all over the planet.
Such a thing appears, however, to be too much to ask of people who feel they have too much to lose by stepping one inch away from their staked out positions. People remaining stubbornly and utterly inflexible in their views and absolutely unyielding in their demands make collaboration impossible to achieve…and that is pretty much the nature of things in our world today. We are a species lingering at stalemate.
Is there anything — anything at all — that can change this? An entirely new Cultural Story could and would do it. A New Idea about Who We Are (Humans, that is) and Why We Are Here (on Earth, that is) and The Purpose of It All (Life, that is) is the answer — but from where would such a new idea emerge? And who would help spread it? And who would listen to it?
The answer to the last question is: everybody. Everybody on the planet would listen to it if they felt that it offered a New Way to Be Human that was possible, viable, feasible, workable, practical, and achievable.
I believe that the 1,000 Words That Would Change the World from Conversations with God — found lower in the right-hand column of this online newspaper — would be a good place to start. Will you take a moment to read those 1,000 words? Will you then consider becoming part of the Evolution Revolution?
Let me know. We can do something quite extraordinary here. People have done extraordinary things before. Let’s go. Let’s do it again. Let’s start A Conversation That Could Change The World.
