new spirituality
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.)
My animal survival instinct and my human ego tell me that my life (and the safety of my family) is more important than yours – but my soul tells me that it is not.
There, I’ve said it. Is that raw enough? Doesn’t that really sum up the reason that we consider going to war? That we kill each other in the streets? That we continue to fight over food, economic policies…over anything?
If you have read my previous articles, you know I usually approach parenting as it pertains to my young daughter. Well, during the recent crisis in Syria, I have had many discussions with my spiritual, peace-loving, twenty-year-old nephew. One struck me as odd and we played it out until the wee hours of the morning. He, like me and so many spiritual people, has been praying intently for a peaceful, non-violent resolution to the Syrian situation. He has visceral reactions at the thought of us intervening in another country with even targeted attacks; and he is adamant in his agreement that violence would beget more violence.
On this night, we discussed our shared feelings that no “collateral damage” is acceptable, as well as our wish that there was a way to break the cycle of war to end tyranny. We talked about how past acts, like what is going on in Syria, that have gone unchecked by the international community have come back to haunt the world when they became mass genocide later. But we both, again, stated wishes that we lived in a world where there were other viable answers than more violence. We acknowledged that there are no easy answers and stated that we didn’t envy any of the leaders and their decisions at this time; especially given the thought about retaliation if our government did decide to act with strikes.
And that’s when he surprised me.
As the conversation turned toward the long-term effects of waging violence against others and what happens when we continue to anger the rest of the world with our interventions and potentially have aggression toward our own soil, his demeanor and attitude changed. He is all about peace until he feels his own safety and security threatened. He almost became hawkish as he talked about protecting our soil at all costs. I gently began asking him questions, trying (mindfully) not to make his opinions wrong, about where he draws a line of difference. He stated that this is “our land” and “our people” and so we must protect them.
I asked him what border makes it “ours.” Is it our lawn? Our street? Our state? Our country? Our continent or hemisphere? I even posited that, within my understanding of “We Are All One” from Conversations with God, to me, “our” includes every human on earth as an equal and undivided part of me. With this in mind, we either love and protect, to the extent possible, every person on earth equally or we give up that façade and we try a different approach.
See, like most of you, I don’t know the answers to these burning questions. I don’t know how to end violence in the world. I hope and believe that the spiritual and prayerful push of the last week and a half had an effect on John Kerry’s off-hand remark, the Russian encouragement, and the Syrian apparent acquiescence to a possible chemical disarmament (try to say that 10 times fast).
But I cannot walk around feeling that American lives are superior and deserve to be protected above other lives. I cannot, as much as I love my daughter, my nephew, and my husband, carry a gun to protect them at the cost of killing another person. I just cannot value one life over another. I haven’t fully decided where self-defense fits in with spirituality (although I have been confronted with situations in which I knew I would not kill to protect myself), but we have to start somewhere to shift the paradigm away from violence. Someone has to be willing to “put the weapons down” and talk…
…And intelligence and diplomacy have to stop looking like weakness.
In the end, I may not have changed my nephew’s mind about protecting “us” at all costs. But I am hoping that on some level I have helped him to begin exploring a new level of the concept, understanding, and application of “We Are All One.”
What conversations have you had with your young ones about the conflict between violence and love?
(Emily A. Filmore is the Creative Co-Director of www.cwgforparents.com. She is also the author/illustrator of the “With My Child” Series of books about bonding with your child through everyday activities. Her books are available at www.withmychildseries.com. To contact Emily, please email her at Emily@cwgforparents.com.)
I just finished watching the 2011 documentary, Happy. It examines the happiness levels of people across many different cultures: from the slums of India, to the bush of Africa, to the beaches of Brazil, to the city streets of industrialized world. Along the way, it seems to discover that feeling gratitude, compassion, connection to others, responsibility toward the earth and helping others are some main ingredients to happiness. This film was rich with ideas that can apply to parenting in the New Spirituality, and I thought I would touch on a couple of them here to open our minds and hearts a little to help our children find their own internal happiness.
By the end of the movie, you are left with a clear sense that happiness comes through your decisions in both your actions and the thoughts you hold about your life. The Conversations with God core concept “We are all one” fits well with their ideas. When we allow ourselves to feel our connectedness and realize that what we do for another, we do for ourselves, we can feel spiritual fulfillment on a profound level.
One of the stories in the documentary was about a woman who was involved in a terrible accident. She had overcome so many obstacles in healing from her disfiguring injuries and even stated that she felt she had a happier life after the accident than before. She had found new meaning in her life and was now helping other people. She could have looked at her 30 reconstructive surgeries and shut down, caught up in the unfairness of it all, but instead she chose to create her own positive experience of the situation. She chose to live each day with renewed purpose and gratitude. She is a great example of how one can “create your own reality” (a core concept from Conversations with God).
In watching the film with my daughter and twenty-year-old nephew, I was thinking about ways we could re-dedicate ourselves to these concepts in our life. They discussed the influence society has on how happy we feel and the role that popular culture plays in making us feel inadequate. As parents, if we can instill in our children an ability to find fulfillment within, the external influences will have less effect on their happiness. The documentary proposed a few ideas to increase our internal happiness which are probably not new to you, but bear repeating:
1. They cited a study which shows that meditation (specifically a meditation about compassion) changes the structure of the brain.
2. Writing down five things for which you are grateful once per week increases happiness.
3. Showing kindness to others increases your happiness.
Adding just one of these activities to your life can make great changes in how you (and your children) feel! An easy way to begin is to start with the gratitude list or journal (something we have talked about before in this column). Just ask your child, “What made you happy today?” And help him or her write it down! For smaller children, this can be drawing pictures. For older children, it can be more involved using the word gratitude.
However you approach it, just know that you are giving your child an irreplaceable gift: The gift of happiness!
(Emily A. Filmore is the Creative Co-Director of www.cwgforparents.com. She is also the author/illustrator of the “With My Child” Series of books about bonding with your child through everyday activities. Her books are available at www.withmychildseries.com. To contact Emily, please email her at Emily@cwgforparents.com.)
Until now, I’ve avoided writing here about the mass shootings, the bombing, the natural disasters, and other recent tragedies in the world. I thought I would leave them to those who know what to say better than I. Today, I am moved to speak.
Much, I am sure, like you, my heart breaks when I hear of disasters. As a person, who feels the Conversations with God concept We Are All One to my core, I experience the loss of life as if those people are my own neighbors, people I know, not as nameless or faceless strangers. I weep for the people who are hurt or killed, their families and for society at large.
I do not feel more or less devastated when the tragedy is man-made or natural because I do not value any life more than another. While I sometimes wish we would find positive ways to prevent the “senseless” or “preventable” ones; I don’t think that changes their effect on society or their import. Times are tumultuous enough with all of the political and ideological unrest; another disaster, natural or otherwise, just seems like fuel on the fire of an already tense environment. Yet there will be those that want to capitalize on it for political or emotional points, who will make calls for banding together for the common good (a wonderful sentiment) but will forget those calls as soon as the dust settles and will be back to fighting again.
But how does all of this affect parenting? How does a person living in the New Spirituality handle discussions of tragedy in a home where children are present? I don’t have any answers for you, sorry! But maybe my ideas will help you brainstorm how you can deal with it in your own family. Remember: There is no such thing as right and wrong.
Honestly, my ideas about this are evolving as my daughter gets older. When she was very small (as in, a baby and couldn’t understand anything!) I thought I would always be honest with her – don’t sugarcoat, show her the world as it is, teach her how to process it – so that she will be equipped to handle it without being derailed.
Then as her personality became apparent my thoughts changed. She is very loving, sensitive and takes things seriously; she internalizes external events more than I would hope for her. So I backed off, became more protective of her knowledge and began to show her the selective truth about tragedy. Shielding her from the more gruesome, gory details, and in some cases (the Newtown Shootings, specifically) not telling her about them at all until days later. But recently, as she is becoming, simultaneously, more self-aware and more conscious of world events I am having a harder time insulating her completely.
I’m not surprised by change; I expect that, what I am surprised by is how difficult it is to walk the tight rope of information-giving. Do you have this same challenge with your child? Children are inquisitive and they want to know what is going on in the world around them; yet they also want to feel safe and sheltered.
My fear…I admit it even though I know Love is all there is, I still experience fear from time to time…my fear or trepidation is that it is all so confusing for adults, how are children going to process it? And what can we, as parents, do to help them? There is a wonderful quote by Mr. Rogers about finding the helpers in times of tragedy to help children focus on the positive. There is probably merit in that, but how can we further help our children to assuage their feelings of insecurity after something bad happens?
I don’t know. My daughter slept with us last night due to the storms that came through Missouri after she heard a little bit about the Oklahoma tornado. She just could not sleep otherwise. I guess in that moment, she felt insecure alone. After the Boston bombings – we tried to insulate her as much as possible but you would have had to go “radio silent” for 3 weeks to have avoided all discussions – she questioned me constantly in public places about how you would know if someone had a bomb. I did everything I could to reassure her that while we never know what will happen next mommy will always protect her to the best of my ability.
We talk a lot about how life is unexpected and that We create our own reality means, not that we can control what happens around us, but that we can control how we live in, how we interpret, and how we let events affect us. I don’t know that I am doing it “right” for her, only time will tell. All I know is that I am answering her every question with love and as much honesty as I can. I hold her tight and I try to calm her fears. I spend my days trying to fill her life with exploration, beauty, light, nature and connection to others. The rest, how she interprets the world internally, is up to her, as it is with every human being!
My wish today is for peace and healing to come to those in Oklahoma. That people there feel the light and love of us all as they go through these next few days.
Namaste…Emily
(Emily A. Filmore is the Creative Co-Director of www.cwgforparents.com. She is also the author/illustrator of the “With My Child” Series of books about bonding with your child through everyday activities. Her books are available at www.withmychildseries.com. To contact Emily, please email her at Emily@cwgforparents.com.)
“I, Tina, take you, Tony, to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part.”
Couples around the world, thousands of them, on the threshold of entering into life partnerships with each other, commonly recite these traditional vows. And while there is nothing “wrong” with these particular words, or their meaning, I wonder how much thought or consideration is given to whether or not these declarations actually reflect the highest level of their commitment, the deepest expression of their love, and the clearest intent and very purpose for entering into the relationship to begin with.
I don’t think I would be too far off the mark by making this perhaps bold statement: These same couples, thousands of them, have no idea why they are entering into their relationships to begin with, nor do they have any understanding of where they are going. The fallout is demonstrable and inarguable as we continue to witness growing numbers of painful divorces and separations – or, for that matter, perhaps even a larger number of people staying in relationships that either no longer serve them well or have become downright harmful. That is not to say that longevity is the sole indicator of the value or worthiness of a relationship. We could probably all share an experience where in a fleeting relation with another we were provided us some of our most profound remembrances and realizations, demonstrating the idea that ALL relationships create a context within which we are given an opportunity to choose and decide Who We Really Are.
However, as our world gently transitions out of its Old Cultural Story and into its New Cultural Story, we are given another opportunity, perhaps an even grander opportunity, the opportunity to redefine and recreate our relationships with each other not only on a global scale — politically, socially, and economically — but individually, within our most intimate relations and interactions. This shift holds within it the gift of change and the awareness to create. And the most beneficial place to begin is, quite frankly, at the beginning.
This change is not always obvious or easy. We are constantly barraged with mind-numbing television programs which degrade the holiest of unions by exploiting brides who behave poorly or by aggrandizing extraordinarily decadent and over-the-top weddings or whom offer us the advice of “relationship experts” who tell us the way our relationships “should” be. As a result, for so many, more energy and thought is expended on the pomp and circumstance of the wedding event than is given to the actual commitment.
People spend more money on multi-tiered designer wedding cakes than they are able to practically afford in order to please their guests, a large majority of whom they don’t even know. Women starve their bodies for weeks in an effort to fit into a wedding dress one size smaller than they naturally and comfortably fit into. We smash cake in each other’s faces, we pollute ourselves with so much alcohol that we can barely even remember what took place, and we, as I earlier mentioned, allow the very first words that we utter as an expression of Who We Are to be something we cut-and-pasted from Google.
If we are going to change everything, and reconnect to the intended purpose for our relationships, where do we begin? What kind of an experience would a “ceremony of commitment” or a “declaration of unity” under The New Spirituality present itself as? What would a couple in love, being love, expressing love offer at the dawn of their relationship as a declaration and demonstration of a spiritual partnership that would exemplify the very reason they have chosen to unite in the first place?
Conversations with God, Book 1, Chapter 8, offers to us the following:
“If you both agree at a conscious level that the purpose of your relationship is to create an opportunity, not an obligation—an opportunity for growth, for full Self expression, for lifting your lives to their highest potential, for healing every false thought or small idea you ever had about you, and for ultimate reunion with God through the communion of your two souls—if you take that vow instead of the vows you’ve been taking—the relationship has begun on a very good note. It’s gotten off on the right foot. That’s a very good beginning.”
What would you, from within the framework of your own understanding and your own experience, offer to someone who has come to you seeking a new definition and a new experience of “happily ever after”?
(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.)
Extra! Extra! Read all about it…Love Is All There Is and There Is Enough!
Let’s see if these two concepts can be combined into: There Is Enough Love For Everyone! Society teaches competition at every level, including love. Children are even taught, through concepts like sibling rivalry, that: parental love is limited, will be rationed, and is something for which to be fought.
My family recently experienced this, on a smaller scale, as my brother and sister-in-law brought a beautiful son into the world. Many people asked if my daughter was jealous of how excited the extended family was about the new baby. My answer was, “No! Why would she be?” The response: “Well, grandma’s attention will be divided.” Divided attention does not have to equate to hurting either person. In actuality, because of how we have exemplified love in our home as limitless, unconditional, and all-powerful – feeling jealous of a new baby, for whom she was so excited to meet and shower love upon herself – has never crossed her mind.
I think there are two possible ways to look at love: If you teach your children that when you have more people to love, the power of it is multiplied and there is more to go around, children will see love as limitless. They will not fear the addition of new people to their families. They will embrace them as adding new color, joy, and adventure to their life; rather than fearing that the new person can take something away from them. If, on the other hand, you teach your child that love is conditional, in short supply, or finite, then your child will feel threatened by new additions to their life.
While holidays may be different, get-togethers changed, and the attention of family members shared, it doesn’t have to be viewed in a negative light. As with everything else, how we chose to interpret the world influences our experience. We can help children look to the added richness of having a new baby in the family, the times they will share together, the excitement they have of getting to give love to another human, and of having the chance to teach what they know to someone new!
Instead of children walking through life feeling afraid of “who will grandma/mom/dad love more?” you can instill a feeling of peace that children have nothing to fear! My question to you, then, is, “Why does it have to be one or the other?” Why can’t we choose to teach our children that grandma can love all of her grandchildren equally? Why does one new cousin/sibling being born have to mean that the other child’s life is going to change for the worse? Can we create a world in which a child being born into a family is assumed to add beauty and love to the lives of the existing children rather than to add stress, strife, and jealousy?
Imagine the change society would experience if this generation of children grew up experiencing a world in which we don’t have to compete for the love of our families! They might just cooperate and enjoy the companionship of their siblings and cousins instead.
Imagine if that enlarged into children who didn’t feel the need to compete with each other for friendships! They might just find they can cooperate and enjoy friendship and camaraderie with all of their classmates.
Imagine a world, in which, instead of competing with each other to the point of backstabbing and undercutting to get “ahead,” children grow up understanding that cooperation, companionship, and assisting each other to move forward together helps us all in the end!
Again, I ask you…Why does it have to be one or the other? Isn’t it time we truly teach our children: There is enough love for everyone?
(Emily A. Filmore is the Creative Co-Director of www.cwgforparents.com. She is also the author/illustrator of the “With My Child” Series of books about bonding with your child through everyday activities. Her books are available at www.withmychildseries.com. To contact Emily, please email her at Emily@cwgforparents.com.)
Do you ever feel like parenting in the New Spirituality is a little bit like flapping in the wind? I mean, in Conversations with God, God threw out all the rules and told us how we can truly live! The new constructs can read more like feel-good, motivational phrases than concepts:
We are all one!
God talks to everyone, all the time!
There’s no such thing as right and wrong!
There’s nothing you have to!
It would be understandable if you sometimes felt a little lost and without direction in your parenting. Within these concepts, if you are ready to receive it, is a wealth of loving guidance on how to parent your children. Simply start with an open heart and a willingness to connect with God, and the knowledge will follow. That might even be how you came to this online newspaper, yes? God, the Universe, Life, The All, whatever name you give to your experience of that thing that defines That Which Is, facilitates everything you need. May I suggest a starting place, a custom from which you may wish to consider all of your parenting decisions? Consistency.
Consistency is a useful habit to adopt in all of your life. One of the Core Concepts of CwG says, “The Three Basic Principles of Life are Functionality, Adaptability, and Sustainability.” To simplify, the idea is that you assess your actions to see if they are “working” as a demonstration of who you envision yourself to be (functionality). If not, you adjust your actions to make them “work” (adaptability). Then you maintain your new course for as long as it continues to “work” for you (sustainability); always with an eye toward reassessing functionality — and starting the process over again and again. Even within this concept there is a beautiful consistency: By acknowledging that we can change our minds about something, and that we are constantly evolving, we have the ability to take action because of it.
Consistency in your parenting is hard to pin down. It can be as simple as choosing which words you will use or forgo in your household – good, bad, nice, love, hate, etc. — and sticking to it. It can involve your child’s behaviors. Do you expect certain behaviors in some situations and other behaviors in other situations without explanation? Does your child even know what to expect from you? It can involve the types of foods you bring in to your family and how you present them. Are foods treated differently at times? Are they sometimes readily available, sometimes special treats, sometimes rewards, and other times off-limits? How about interactions with others? Do your children see you speak one way to another person and a different way about the same person when he or she isn’t in the room?
Children get confused by mixed messages, but they are not necessarily confused by change; these are two different things. A mixed message is when your current actions and words do not agree; while change occurs when your prior and current/future actions are not the same. You can explain change in a way which would make sense to a child: “XYZ happened, so we changed course.” But it is harder to explain a mixed message: “I know I said let’s be nice to people, but I know you saw me be mean to another person.”
Children can even handle different expectations or requests based on different situations if they are explained ahead of time. For instance, most children quickly understand the concept of inside versus outside voices and would not use the same voice, routinely, in a restaurant that they do on the playground. So they begin to understand that there is some internal consistency to a type of situation and that there can be varied consistency across different types of situations. They can even begin to interpret those situations for themselves through your guidance and example.
One of your most important roles as a parent, if there is any to be had, is to help your child feel that their world is stable, that they can know what to expect and that their parent(s) are there for them. Consistency can be crucial, then, for children to be able to trust your words and actions so that they will know that you are truly there for them to buffer and help them interpret the world. Then your children will not feel like they are flapping in the wind.
(Emily A. Filmore is the Creative Co-Director of www.cwgforparents.com. She is also the author/illustrator of the “With My Child” Series of books about bonding with your child through everyday activities. Her books are available at www.withmychildseries.com. To contact Emily, please email her at Emily@cwgforparents.com.)
Some of our most significant breakthroughs and remembrances in life are experienced in the midst of those less-warm and less-fuzzy moments we find ourselves presented with. I’m sure most of us could come up with a time or two in our life when the light of hope and love pierced through walls of darkness.
Laura Jean Pringle’s collection of unique and spiritually edgy poems in “Meanderings of a Wayward Spirit: Lyrics in the Rough” takes you on a twist-and-turn, up-and-down journey through some of life’s most colorful and sometimes challenging occurrences, offering a fresh and “color outside the lines” perspective from the author’s own life experiences.
Laura’s poetry paints with a brush dipped in her own personal truth how it feels to stretch and bend around the curves and hairpin turns in our Soul Journey and how exhilarating and cleansing it can feel to express authentically through confusion and frustration, how to push through the illusion of fear and experience that love is at the root of everything.
And that is the theme and message carried through the pages of her heartfelt and raw sharings, which happens to also be the underlying message held within the New Spirituality:
Love is all there is.
Laura Jean Pringle’s poetry book “Meanderings of a Wayward Spirit: Lyrics in the Rough” can be purchased here on Amazon.com.
(Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team atwww.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
(If there is a book, movie, music CD, etc. that you would like to recommend to our worldwide audience, please submit it to our Managing Editor, Lisa McCormack, for possible publication in this space. Not all submissions can be published, due to the number of submissions and sometimes because of other content considerations, but all are encouraged. Send submissions to Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com. Please label the topic: “Review”)
The Twelve Steps were originally written by Dr. Bob and Bill W. in 1939. They are to this day considered the foundation of recovery for all types of addictions and compulsive disorders. And without question, the application of the Twelve Steps into one’s life gives the best chances of long-term sobriety. It has long been my belief that there is no human condition the Twelve Steps could not improve. They are simply a guide to living life in an honest, open-minded, humble, intentional, and responsible manner. What I cannot believe is that there has not been anyone who dares to expand on them, until now.
I am going to offer an alternative to the original Twelve Steps. I want to be very clear here, these are not meant to replace the Twelve Steps, they are not intended to imply that there is something wrong with the Twelve Steps. There is, however, something that has troubled me — and from what I now know, this has been a huge stumbling block for others as well — and that is the idea that we are somehow powerless. For those who do not know, the current First Step states: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol and our lives had become unmanageable.”
A great friend of mine laughingly says, “I don’t remember booze jumping down my throat on its own.” I am very clear that it was my thought to go to the bar, it was my words that asked for the drink, and it was my hand that lifted the poison to my lips. I see no powerlessness there; I see the deliberate, albeit insane, act of doing the same thing over and over, all the while expecting different results. I will grant you that after the first one, I was compelled to continue drinking by the mind-numbing action of the alcohol, coupled with its amazing ability to make me feel like I fit in. This is the point where I felt the most powerless. And even then, I was able to regulate my intake enough to not overdose or get sick; that is, most of the time…. So was I truly powerless?
The other bone of contention I have heard from people, and again I would agree with, is the labeling of oneself as an “alcoholic” or “addict.” Anyone who has spent any time in the spiritual community or with a life-coach or a counselor knows that the word directly following “I am” is an extremely powerful word. Taking on such a label for the rest of one’s life could, in fact, bring about a relapse or a repeat of the past. Many in the Twelve Step programs have chosen to alter that saying with statements such as “I am a grateful recovering addict.” This is a step in the right direction as far as I am concerned. A truthful and extremely powerful statement would look more like the following: “Hi. My name is Kevin. I am choosing sobriety.”
Maybe the original thought when writing the Steps was based on the knowledge of the terrible guilt, shame, and remorse most of us feel when we hit the bottom and seek help. Somehow the word “powerless” seems to take us off the hook for the horrible behavior and unthinkable selfishness that we continually expressed. Maybe the sheer thought of taking full responsibility right off the bat would send the genetically predisposed addicts right back to their drug of choice. Is that a good enough reason to use the word “powerless”? I will leave that up to you.
What I am going to do here is create a new First Step, one that allows us to acknowledge our own divinity and at the same time gives us the opportunity to admit that our choices up to this point were not in the best interest of ourselves, our loved ones, or anyone whom our behavior damaged in any way.
This new First Step will be the largest step, the most intensive step. And just like the original AA First Step, it will be the most difficult step. There will be no rushing through this or any of the new spirituality steps to recovery. The days of someone going over to their sponsor’s house for the weekend to do all Twelve Steps are over. This is a lifetime of work that we are about to undertake here. After all, the reason for getting sober is to live, right? The reason for making a drastic change to your way of life is to live a joyful and full life, right? So how can one do that by spending a weekend working on the erroneous thoughts they have spent their whole life tending to?
Reading words in a book and feeling them in your gut only makes them a concept with which you resonate; it does not bring about a knowing. Experiencing those words in your own actions is what will cause you to know them as real. There is a huge difference between thinking, believing, and knowing. Thoughts change all the time. New thoughts pop up by the thousands per second, not always our highest thoughts by the way! Beliefs are also subject to change based upon things we see and how we interpret them in our mind. Knowing is something different altogether. When you know something to be true, you will base your life around it.
So without further ado, I offer you the first in a series of new spirituality steps to use in the process of changing those lifelong behaviors, attitudes, addictions, compulsions, or obsessions that have alienated family, friends, and loved ones, harmed countless other people, and left your life lonely, empty, and dark.
Step 1. I see that the way in which I have chosen to live does not work. I am now ready to create myself anew as a sober, responsible, and accountable member of society.
This step will require much work be done, as it clearly states that everything we thought we knew about living life was faulty or no longer viable. We will need tremendous support and guidance in building a new foundation for our lives. As the original program states, “You need to change your people, places, and things.” Having those around us who are willing to tell us when we are not being who we now say we are and reeling us back in when we fall prey to old thoughts and behaviors will be vital to sustained change.
I once again will state that I am really clear that for 20 percent of the addicted population, the Alcoholics Anonymous Twelve Steps are working quite well. What I find incredibly disturbing is that leaves 80 percent of the group in the grip of this continuing and progressive illness without an option.
It is my belief that the soul brings us to the physical so that we may experience ourselves in ways never before experienced. In honoring that belief, I feel it is my duty to offer this new solution to one of life’s biggest problems. Stay tuned. This is only Part One in a series of blogs that will re-write the Twelve Steps to align with the new spirituality.
(Kevin McCormack is a Conversations with God Life Coach, a Spiritual helper on www.changingchange.net, Addictions recovery advisor. To connect with Kevin please email him at Kevin@theglobalconversation.com)
Around this time of year the old “naughty and nice” list and the “Elf on the Shelf” get pulled out. Parents, at their wits’ end the other eleven months of the year, rely on Santa’s powers of persuasion to gain a few weeks of peace.
Have you ever questioned if Santa is being used as a human substitute for a judgmental God, as the arbiter of “right and wrong” on earth?
Do you ever wonder why parents buy in wholeheartedly?
Since the New Spirituality frees us from judgment by God, does this utilization of Santa as a mechanism of control continue to work to help our children attain their Highest Selves?
My own childhood experience of Santa was one of distant trepidation. My parents didn’t really use Santa to elicit “good” behavior from us to the extent that others did, so I wasn’t really afraid of him in the light of day. But every Christmas Eve, as I tried (and failed) to sleep, I shivered and shook in my bed in anticipation that this strange guy in a red suit would visit my house while we slept…and what if he looked at me in my bed? Wasn’t that a violation of my privacy?
These impressions and fears of him, as a sort of boogey man, were all my own interpretation from things I heard outside of my home. I wanted to be excited about Santa…but it just never worked for me. With such a love-fear dynamic between me and the jolly ole’ fella, I was determined to prevent my daughter from having such an experience of fear. Don’t get me wrong, I love the spirit of giving that Santa personifies and I wish for my daughter to see magic all around her in the world. I just hope she can experience magic without manipulation and fear…and without me having to lie to her.
Neale Donald Walsch has a beautiful children’s book called Santa’s God which describes Santa with magic and love, but no fear. And we share the messages of that sweet book with our daughter often. But early on we also decided to allow her to guide and create her own concept of Santa based on her own feeling. We have never spoken of Santa as fact, and certainly not as a judge and/or jury to determine her worthiness for gifts. We have always told her that if Santa is to have a role in our life, he has to follow the rules of our house…even if they are different from what her friends think he is or does.
In our house, Santa cannot predicate gifts on behavior, he cannot visit any room other than the family room, and he is not allowed to “check up on her” because, well, even as an adult, that concept still creeps me out! One of the difficult aspects of this has been working to teach her that Santa is a very personal concept which many people view differently. We have tried to demonstrate respect for other people’s traditions by keeping our own ideas to ourselves because we do not wish to ruin other families’ ideas and customs regarding Santa.
When she asks about the more impossible aspects of Santa, like, “How can he make it to all the houses?” we say, “What do you think?”
When she asks, “How does he know we moved?” we say, “Well, Santa knows what Mommy and Daddy know.
“When she pointedly says, “Mom, this Santa guy’s job seems impossible; I just don’t think it can happen the way they say!” we encourage her to explore what that statement means to her. And on the occasions that she has persisted, we answer that, yes, we agree it seems impossible, always giving the reigns back to her so she can decide how far to go for herself.
We had many friends and family argue that by “stealing” his power we would also steal his magic, but the opposite has been the case. What has resulted is that she has chosen to embrace the wonder and magic of Santa without the fear – even during the times I can see in her eyes that she suspects we are Santa. At the end of last year, she all but told us she knew he wasn’t real, and now this year she seems to believe again. She is truly guiding her own experience – even year to year.
Is this a path you would choose? Or do you wish to embrace the magic story of Santa? It is really a very personal choice. There is no right or wrong approach; only what works for the individual family.
Are we doing it “right” for her? Who knows? She may grow up to write an article that says “I wish my mom and dad had encouraged me to believe in Santa.” But she may, on the other hand, say, “Wow, my parents never lied to me about anything…except Santa.” Each of our children’s interpretation of our parenting decisions will be about the child’s own perspective, faith in us, and their own understanding of how they create their individual realities.
You may be reading this article, thinking to yourself, “This woman really thinks too much about little things! Let the kid be a kid!” Maybe I do; I have been accused of overthinking things before. But I wonder if maybe… just maybe…by allowing her to choose her own behavior, for the intrinsic value of aligning with who she really is, rather than for material gain, we are actually allowing her to be herself.
Could it be that by giving her freedom to question, we are assisting the development of her critical thinking process? And probably most important to my own conscience as a parent, by not using Santa as a mechanism of control, could we be affording her a life free of fear, free of manipulation, and free of trembling, shivering, shaking moments waiting to hear some stranger casing our house in the middle of the night?
What do you think?
(Emily A. Filmore is the Creative Co-Director of www.cwgforparents.com. She is also the author/illustrator of the “With My Child” Series of books about bonding with your child through everyday activities. Her books are available at www.withmychildseries.com. To contact Emily, please email her at Emily@cwgforparents.com.)
