Author Archive
Dear Therese, “Conversations With God” book 1, resonated so strongly with me that I naturally moved into reading more. The way I look at things has, obviously, changed, and I make frequent references to the words in the books. I am thinking of starting a study group, because I find myself talking to people about my newfound (remembered 🙂 ) way of thinking a lot anyway. My problem is this. My family thinks I am falling into the grasp of a cult! How do I convince them I am not?
~Not Sleeping Anymore in Seattle
Dear Not,
I can definitely identify with your question! I have the same thing happening to me, and this is how I am addressing it. First, I am not getting upset. I thank the person for caring enough about me to worry, and I assure them I am not doing anything against my will. In my case, the information is being gotten from bloggers on the internet, and no one has read (at least they haven’t admitted to!) any of the books. I ask them to read the books, not because I have any desire to force them to believe something, but so that they can have a true reference as to what I believe, and have an informed opinion based on more than just one source.
Then I let them express their concerns…cult, mind control, new religion, why volunteer my time and not get paid, and more. After they get all of that out, I point out my reality:
I rarely speak to any other in the CWG organization, even though I am the admin of one of Neale’s sites.
There is not a single place on earth, (that I know of, and for sure not around me!) called “The Church of Conversations With God”,
That as a stay at home mother I learned that I didn’t have to get paid to know my value and contribute what my skills are freely, etc
Every CWG book clearly states that one should never accept anything said in them as truth unless it resonates as their own truth. CWG clearly says it is another way, not the only way.
I then share what CWG has given to me.
Primary to what CWG has given to me is the understanding of who I am, and what I have to offer to other people. I point out that I was always helpful, and that CWG has merely helped me find focus for the helpfulness. I happen to have a part in the CWG world at this moment, but should I choose in the future to walk away from my role in The Changing Change Network, the way I move through life will still be the same. The reason it will still be the same is very simple…because it is now my choice. I am now choosing what I believe, not what someone else has told me to believe. I have experienced more than one way, and I am choosing, eyes wide open, this way.
What might also be helpful to you is another thing I do. I send them Neale’s own words, like those that have been appearing in this space lately! If people believe Neale is saying one thing, and I can example concretely that he is not saying that thing, and, in fact, is saying the opposite, I share. I send as “FYI only”.
I hope some of my experience helps you, Not. I don’t think it is our job to “convert” our families to our way of thinking, even if they do think we might be getting into a cult. What is our job is to know who we are, and live and example our truth. If those who around us are going to change, it is going to be because they chose to, not because we force them to.
If you would like more of a discussion on this, or any other subject, consider going to www.changingchange.net . We have a staff of volunteers just waiting to share their understanding of CWG/WECCE, and how to apply it in practical ways to our everyday lives.
Therese
(Therese Wilson is a published poet, and is the administrator of the global website at www.ChangingChange.net, which offers spiritual assistance from a team of Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less, and offers insight, suggestions, and companionship during moments of unbidden, unexpected, unwelcome change on the journey of life. 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.)
Dear Therese,
I am about to visit my family for the holidays, and I am very nervous about this trip. We have a difficult history, that’s mostly okay now, but we haven’t seen each other for a long time. How do I get through this with no drama?
KC in NC
Dear KC,
This is a difficult and stressful time of year for a lot of people, so don’t think that your situation is unique!
The first thing I would offer you is resist projecting past data onto the present. When you do this, you set yourself up to be the one who repeats past behavior, and triggers others to repeat past drama. The way that works best for me is to remember we are all doing best we can. The only thing you have control of is you, so be your best, and don’t worry about them.
Another suggestion would be to declare who you wish to be before you leave on the trip, and each day as you awaken while you are there. If, for instance, you declare yourself to be peaceful, your doing would come from that space…you would ask yourself, consciously or not, “What would peace do here?” This works for any state of being. I often choose understanding.
If you do these things, the possibility of drama diminishes. And if it does occur, you are not the cause of the drama. You can sit calmly in the middle of the chaos, and let others have the path they choose to take, knowing it no longer has to be yours.
Therese
(Therese Wilson is a published poet, and is the administrator of the global website at www.ChangingChange.net, which offers spiritual assistance from a team of Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less, and offers insight, suggestions, and companionship during moments of unbidden, unexpected, unwelcome change on the journey of life. 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.)
I am reading WECCE, and I am in need of such help right now. I am full of anxiety, fear, and loneliness for the first time in my life. During the past 2 months, my best friend moved away, my boyfriend, who I loved dearly, broke things off. Then last week my dog was killed. I know in my heart and soul that I am supposed to be going through these changes, but I’m having such a hard time letting things go. I built my life for two 1/2 years around my boyfriend. I have lived alone in several cities with job transfers, etc. And I LOVE where I am living now, and I thought I had met someone with so many interests. I had some of the best times in my life with this person, but he could not give me the spiritual support and move on to build a future with me. I completely lost and disliked myself. I KNOW of all this, so why is my heart just clinging to everything? Why can’t I feel ANY joy in anything I do or see? I try and try to see the beauty in my home, in nature, in ALL things that brought me such great joy. I just want to let everything go..let go of the pain, let go of the wondering of how I manifested this all. I never imagined I would feel such loneliness – ever.
I know my pain will heal and I will feel (and eat) normally again. I will continue to pray and meditate to love myself more. Here it comes…BUT…loving yourself when you are BY yourself is pretty easy (I think), as I have lived alone quite a bit in my life. The big test comes when you are joined with someone else. I have been emotionally unavailable and feared intimacy ALL my life – hence why I have attracted men that are the same. I want to do everything in my power to change that. How do I know when I’m really ready? And to really know that my subconscious is going to attract someone that will be good for me? Do I trust my feeling? How do I lose the fear? I would appreciate any help….
C.D.
Dear C.D.,
WECCE is about how to embrace Change (another word for God/Evolution), and how to choose how we live in that change. Part of that process involves looking at our current Truth. What version of that truth are we living? Most of us are living in distorted truth. We can, however, move pretty easily to apparent Truth by simply reframing it with no judgment. For instance, “My boyfriend broke things off” could merely be “My boyfriend is not with me anymore. ” “I completely lost and disliked myself” could be “I was not being who I really am in the relationship.” Even “I can’t feel any joy” could be transformed with “I am experiencing a lack of joy right now,” which would easily allow you to experience the lack of joy with Gratitude, because you know it is only what you are feeling right now, not something that has to go on forever…unless you choose to let it go on forever.
For every negative thought, there is the opposite positive one. Look for these opposites, C.D., as you re-train yourself. It takes practice! If you are even reaching out, it means that you are beginning to do just that…practice being good to yourself! Negativity is definitely not good for you or anyone else.
Take a good look, and you will see your post is all about the past! This has nothing to do, ultimately, with now…unless you allow it to be. In reading WECCE, you will have read that this is all past data. This past data came from many sources, all of which thought that they were protecting you in some way…and all of which were subconscious, and controlled by the ego. The ego is the part of you that defines you as human, as an individual human, but, nonetheless, is also the part of us that operates out of fear. This fear is designed to keep us in the familiar and actually stop us from moving into what is truly our better selves. Fear holds us in place in the now, not in the manner of being present, but from the place of looking back and avoiding looking and moving forward.
Life, as they say, begins at the edge of your comfort zone…and your comfort zone is fear. Why do you wish to live your life in fear? It is serving you in some way? Since all we do serves us. Do you get to define yourself as the person who is emotionally unavailable? or the person who is fearful of intimacy? In some way, this has served you, but do you wish it to continue to serve you? Yes, we can choose to love what the past has shown us (in this case you know intimately what fear and unavailable feel like and how you are when you embrace them) and actually choose to be the opposite of that! This is a world of context, of opposites, and if you know one thing, you are now very well able to know the other…if you choose to remember.
I would take the “gut” test when you have a thought. Your tummy will tell you if you are coming from fear or love. Ask yourself why you even feel you have to have someone in your life right now. How does the answer feel? Look in the mirror and look into your eyes and very quietly tell yourself you love you…and keep doing it.
The first time I read in CWG the part about saying out loud, “I love sex or money or…” and then it asked me to say loudly, “I love me!” I found it amazing that I was unable to say that without hesitation. Wow! And I am a pretty self-confident person, so I knew if it was difficult for me, it must be almost impossible for others. I was okay with all of it, but not the unabashed loving of myself!
C.D., not only can you tell yourself you love yourself, I would like to tell you something else…you are love! Just by being here, you have demonstrated that you are love! By writing this note, you have shown you can overcome fear, which is a supreme act of self love. How wonderful is that?
Be gentle with yourself and be proactive…choose! You are choosing Change right now, actively, because passivity has not served you well. Way to go!
Therese
(Therese Wilson is a published poet, and is the administrator of the global website at www.ChangingChange.net, which offers spiritual assistance from a team of Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less, and offers insight, suggestions, and companionship during moments of unbidden, unexpected, unwelcome change on the journey of life. 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.)
(CA, a non-native English speaker, wrote a very long letter, and I am excerpting some of her content for the advice column.)
CA, I understand that the real purpose of your letter was to get some answers to some of the larger questions of the day, centering around how the world is going to change with so much resistance to change. That is a subject that I could speak to you about, one-on-one, extensively, but for the purposes of an Advice Column, I am going to focus on something else…how you are feeling about these things.
CA, you used the words below as part of your description of the events the world is experiencing today:
“.. as it is not part of my personality to engage in such conversations simply by fear of being categorized as illuminated or dangerous-
Reactions are strong…resistance…doubt…catastrophe…vicious circle…how?…
I feel very different from others in terms of convictions reactions behaviors since early age so I stay discrete to avoid discrimination.”
CA, I would like you to know that you are certainly not alone in feeling different. You are not alone in feeling afraid and confused, and you are not alone in resisting change. This is what our egos do to protect ourselves. We stop having the conversations we really want to have because we are afraid of what other people think. Attachment to family and friends is natural and strong. We are told, culturally, through religion and education, and in many more ways, that it is not possible and not proper for us to do anything that isn’t already acceptable. The problem is, when we do this, we ignore what we think. I know it has been said so many times before, but loving ourselves is what comes first. If we want to speak of things that could change the world into a better place, and don’t, we are depriving ourselves of our own voice, and depriving the world of the wisdom that just might have changed the world. One voice really can do just that…change the world.
Yes, it seems dramatic, but imagine if Jesus had kept silent, or the Buddha, or Gandhi, or Nelson Mandella…each only one voice, heard eventually by many.
“I also read with great enthusiasm his article after election in your country as I am deeply convinced that if we do not share and care for the rest of the mankind and continue to build our society around the concept of separation we won’t go anywhere but to violence and despair for the majority of us. I read today that some readers accused him of mixing a spiritual role with politics, yet I think that this is exactly where we need to start as society organization is today ruled by the economic and political sphere.”
CA, see, you already know what you believe! Now you get to choose to voice it or not. It might not even be true that people will reject your ideas, as they did in the past. It has been my experience that when I speak my truth, and speak it with kindness, as CWG suggests, I rarely get opposition…I may not get agreement, but I do not get opposition. People do, however, walk away willing to think about what I have just shared with them. I often find that others really do feel the same way I do, but are also afraid to speak what they really feel.
I would suggest, also, that you be certain to understand that we are all doing the best we can, given the information we have about things. When we know better, we do better. One of the reasons we feel upset, after we know better, is that we think it is unfair that we have to behave better than everyone else! It feels like quite a burden to be different than others…but I would suggest something else. It might just be a burden lifted not having to be false to yourself. Telling your own truth is actually incredibly liberating.
“My understanding after all my readings is that God sent us these Angels to allow us to experience what we have chosen to feel . But if I experience resistance, calomny , if I keep losing my job for unrational reasons with huge fear of financial precarity , how can I engage in changing the world with discussions?”
Now, CA, you also get the chance to change your mind about how you feel about these things, and change your experience of them! In “When Everything Changes, Change Everything,” it tells a little story about a rainy day, and how the same event can be experienced in very different ways. Rain for the parade organizer was a disaster. Rain for the farmer was a blessing! Might these things in your life that are now calamities be viewed as opportunities? Might they be you, on a soul level, asking you to reexamine your life, and your priorities?
I know this sounds very cavalier, CA, and I know how frightening all of the life events you describe can be, but you do get to choose whether or not you are the parade organizer or the farmer. This column will certainly not give you all of the answers you seek, but, hopefully it will give you some things to think about in your journey of finding your own answers.
I believe that who we are in this world, and how we conduct our lives in this world, really does affect our world in ways that we will never understand. I believe we must never deny our own voice, when it speaks our own truth, and that we all get to decide what that is.
CA, if you haven’t already read the book “When Everything Changes, Change Everything,” I would recommend you do. It can be read for free on the website listed below. This book gives practical tools on how to change how we go through change. It also has forums where you can discuss the book in relation to yourself and your journey.
This world is sure changing like crazy right now, and the only thing we can really change is how we are in relation to that change. You, however, are not alone, CA, in your journey through these times.
Therese
(Therese Wilson is the administrator of the global website at www.ChangingChange.net, which offers spiritual assistance from a team of Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less, and offers insight, suggestions, and companionship during moments of unbidden, unexpected, unwelcome change on the journey of life. 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.)
I have a question about signs. I was in a relationship and always noticed my boyfriend’s first name everywhere…also the word “ring.” I kept thinking to myself why ring..I didn’t see him proposing?? Then I would see a wedding ring…odd. We broke up and I wish him the best, but just this week it started all over again. It has been a year!!!I feel like I am nuts. It doesn’t make sense. Is this a sign or something else? Because I am confused. ~T.
Dear T.,
If you think it is a sign, it is a sign. But a sign of what?
You could go into the creative, romantic side of you and think that it means he’s thinking of you, and that is certainly possible. It might, and I believe more probably, mean that you are thinking of him and haven’t yet resolved your issues around him and the ring.
Which leads me to a small discussion on preferences vs. expectations. Culturally, we are taught to expect the ring, so we go into a relationship with a very narrow focus of what it should look like…expectation. Only one way of fulfilling the vision. Preference, on the other hand, says that the ring would be nice, but that you know there are other ways of having a good relationship, and that you are open to any way that shows itself, and that is mutually agreeable.
Then, perhaps, these are signs that you should look at what is actually true about the relationship, based on what you actually experienced and witnessed, rather than the story you made up about those things. Just as a short example:
Fact: He left me.
Story: He broke my heart, he doesn’t love me, he thinks that I am the worst person in the world. (I’m making this up, of course, because I know nothing about your breakup.)
T., it’s up to you to decide what the sign means. It could be as simple as you asking you to make up your mind about what you really feel. It could be he’s thinking of you. Or it could be something else entirely! I absolutely believe that God talks to us constantly, through little signs all day long. I also believe that if we “listen” through the body, via that old tummy test, we will actually know what the conversation is about!
Find a quiet place, sit down, think about the things you have just read, and see how they feel in your tummy.
Therese
(Therese Wilson is the administrator of the global website at www.ChangingChange.net, which offers spiritual assistance from a team of Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less, and offers insight, suggestions, and companionship during moments of unbidden, unexpected, unwelcome change on the journey of life. 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.)
Dear Editor…My son is falling into a group that uses drugs on a regular basis. This is not just youthful “experimentation,” this is serious drug abuse, as far as I am concerned. I have talked with him about it, but he keeps telling me not to worry, that he can take care of himself, and has no intention of becoming “addicted” to drugs. What can I do here? Are there any “spiritual truths” that might help me in this situation — or help him? I suppose I should tell you, he is 22 years old…but that doesn’t make him feel any less my worry or my concern.
— Priscilla
Dear Priscilla,
The greatest gift a parent can give their children, and the hardest one for the parent to give, is letting them live their own lives. Especially when it is going in a direction that, to us, is clearly not the journey that we would want them to take. At 22, he is certainly on his own journey.
There are no wrong paths, Priscilla, and I would like to suggest to you that your son is taking this path for two reasons. First, because this is the way he is experiencing what he chose, on a soul level, to experience. Secondly, so that you, and others, could choose your own experience through what he is doing right now.
I am not saying that, Priscilla, from a flippant space. I have someone very special to me who is a recovering addict. For him, it took many years and many hard roads, including prison. We had a talk about his path recently, and he said that there was nothing I could have done that would have stopped him…until he was ready to stop. What he did say, that was most interesting to me, was that every word of advice that my husband and I gave him was heard! He said that he couldn’t truly hear them until he was sober, but then they became powerful.
You haven’t indicated that your son is an addict, and I don’t want to suggest that he is, but the advice I would give you is the same. Talk to him. Don’t talk to him from your judgment, talk to him from your love. It is okay to tell him you are worried about him, it is not okay to tell him you think he is bad. Tell him you love him.
If he knew who he really was, he wouldn’t be doing what he is doing. To help him know this, you might give him a copy of “Conversations With God” Book 1, but just give it to him gently and let him know it is okay if he doesn’t read it until he is ready to. Priscilla, you may also wish to have personal support, and if you feel so drawn, you might consider going to www.ChangingChange.net where you can share your journey and get practical and spiritual suggestions. The site is based on the book, “When Everything Changes, Change Everything”, and it is available, in total, to read on the site. There are, of course, many other resources available to both of you.
Then let him have his own journey. It may never be one you understand, but, Pricilla, it will never be a “wrong” journey. This life is not the end of the experience as individuations of Divinity. Your task is to have your own journey, that, hopefully, includes finding a way to communicate to your son that his journey is the more difficult one, and that there is a way that works better. My journey included telling my special someone that I would no longer witness his self destruction. I told him that I understood that no one would consciously choose this road, and that I loved him, but staying on the road with him was not helping him, and was harming me, and others that I loved.
Priscilla, communicate your fears, but don’t let judgment enter the conversation. Suggest, but don’t dictate. Let your son know your love. Then, no matter how long or short the journey through drugs he must take, be there when he comes out the other side. Then tell him you will always be his mother. I know that the seeds of love that I sowed took 15 years, but they grew into a magnificent man!
Therese
(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.)
(Therese Wilson is the administrator of the global website at www.ChangingChange.net, which offers spiritual assistance from a team of Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less, and offers insight, suggestions, and companionship during moments of unbidden, unexpected, unwelcome change on the journey of life. She may be contacted at Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
I keep hearing that I am “creating my own reality.” Yet things happen in my life right and left that I do not want, have never wished for, and certainly am not actively choosing to create. Why is this occurring, and how can I get it to stop?
— Elizabeth S., Davenport, Iowa
Dear Elizabeth,
Creating our own reality. Yup, that’s being thrown around a lot these days, isn’t it? Neale Donald Walsh has said that he believes this notion is one of the most dangerous things being put out there by the New Thought community these days, in fact. Why? Because no one really explains what this means.
Do you create your own reality? Yes, and kind of! I will begin with “kind of”. Life, as we live it, and experience it, in form and function, is never completely our creation. Life is a co-creation. All who have any connection to an event, great or small, co-created that event to give each the opportunity to experience something for Divinity. Of course, this is on a soul level. It is also assuming that you believe that we are all here, in this reality, so that Divinity may experience what Divinity knows.
It’s like we are all building a sky scraper together. Each of us is in charge of one piece of the whole, and we are doing our very best to do our part as well as we are trained to do it. Then there is an earthquake, and the skyscraper falls down. Perhaps one of the builders was lax in their job and can take some responsibility for the skyscraper being vulnerable, but no one created the earthquake that revealed that/those vulnerabilities, and no one person can take responsibility for everything.
The events of the building and the collapsing of the skyscraper did, however, create the situation in which you ARE responsible for creating your own reality. How did you feel about and during each situation? Did you get up eagerly to go to work and do your job? Did you drag out of bed and curse each moment on the job? Were you sad when the building fell? If your job might have created the weakness, did you take responsibility? Did you fall into fear and depression? And on and on.
Everyone who had anything to do with that skyscraper, from beginning to end, including observers and reporters, and cleanup crews and people who read about the accident 10 years later, has co-created the skyscraper and its events so that each can experience what THEY choose, on a soul level, to experience through that event.
CWG says that everything is presenting us with the opportunity to decide, declare and do who we really are.
Elizabeth, I am really sorry that you are experiencing so much in your life that you do not desire. You ask how you can get it to stop. I have a suggestion.
Change your mind about these events.
Don’t look at them as things that oppose you and your desires. Consider looking at them as opportunities to be who you really are. Then do something else that, in our culture today, seems very counterintuitive. Be grateful for it all.
I have found that by moving into gratitude, I move away from being stuck in the emotions that hold my feet to the ground, and prevent me from moving forward. I acknowledge that I had every right to be sad, or mad or whatever, but that now it is time to see these things as signals that something isn’t really working, and thank them for being in my life.
I can now look at my life and see that things I thought were perfectly awful at the time, were placed in my life so that some time in the future I could use the experience to help myself or others from a higher knowing. Mostly the worse I perceived the incident to be, the more I found I was able to use my knowing from that incident to help others that much more powerfully.
You can not, and do not create your world all by yourself, Elizabeth, but you do create your own experience of the event…and you are capable of changing how you do that. The book, “When Everything Changes, Change Everything”, by Neale Donald Walsch, explains how to do this and gives some very powerful tools to use as well. If you haven’t read the book, and can’t afford to buy it, it is available to read on the site for free! And there are volunteer Spiritual Helpers there to be with you as you integrate the process.
I hope this has helped,
Therese
“I am so lonely, and I want so much for someone to love me. I’ve been trying so hard to be centered and forgiving and understanding of others. I need someone to understand me for a change. My friends say that I am too negative and that my words have energy. What do they mean?” C.L.
Dear C.L.
When you are in the situation where it seems like everything you desire from life is being kept from you, it is difficult to see just how words reflect where we are sending our energy. From a distance, however, one can see where your energy resides. In “want” and “need” and “try.” What we often can not see, when we want and we need, is that we get exactly what we ask for…want and need. There is a quote attributed to Dr. Michael Beckwith, “Trying is failing with self-protected honor.” Always, in reality, honoring the possibility of failing, and not honoring what you are actually doing and desiring.
C.L., one of the least understood things about the Universe, is that its greatest desire is to give you exactly what you ask for. It has no judgment as to how good or bad it is for your life. It only knows what you are giving your energy to. Are you giving your energy to want and need? Voila! The Universe joyfully gives you want and need!
(Now, I am not saying that every time we use those words we are going to be asking for want and need. Let me be clear that I know we use all words casually, and they have no impact on what we are energetically asking for.)
The power of words is by no means simply a personal thing. Since this is the end of a particularly vocal political season here in the United States, let me share my personal observations of the energy of words on a larger group of society.
During the last election, I was asked if I really believed the words I was hearing. Words like hope, change, “Yes, we can!” Yes, I did.
This election I have been asked if those words don’t now ring hollow.
My answer is that those words still have power. It doesn’t even matter if the person saying them believes them, it matters if the person hearing them believes them. The words “hope and change,” the words “change starts with you and works up,” the words of Ghandi, “Be the change you wish to see,” affected me, and others, greatly. Those words caused me to do things in my own life, and in my own community to make my world a better place, and caused others to do the same thing. Those words caused me to move away from fear and hatred, and the feeling of being divided from my fellow American, and into a powerful, unifying energy, symbolized by those words.
So, in this election cycle, I look at the power of the words being used. I listen to my body when I hear the words of people who would represent me and my country. Do I feel hopeful and motivated, or do I feel fearful and immobilized? Do I feel I want to reach out to my fellow human being, or do I want to protect myself and my things? Do I look at others as part of Divinity, or do I look at them as opponents and enemies?
C.L., we are all letting the energy of our thoughts and words enter into our every day lives, so you are definitely not alone in not understanding the power of those words. What energy are you sending out most powerfully? I would suggest you change to words like, wish, hope and prefer…prefer to have a certain thing or outcome, but do not expect anything in any certain way. This keeps you open to whatever way the Universe wishes to give to you.
What we also often fail see is that the energy of our words doesn’t stop with us. From us that energy expands to our family, community, country and our world.
Most of us are using this power process unconsciously.
My advice would be to know that we can all change this, and that the change does begin with us. We can change how we use our words and the thought we have associated with those words.
In “When Everything Changes, Change Everything” it says:
“An event is one thing; your reality of it is another. Events are created by conditions and occurrences outside you. Reality is created by conditions and occurrences inside you—in your mind. It is here that events are turned into data, which are turned into truths, which are turned into thoughts, which are turned into emotions, which are turned into experiences, which form your reality.”
Words, you see, are the expression of our thoughts. If we can make a change, right there in the process, imagine how different our reality might be…personally and globally.
Therese
(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.)
(Therese Wilson is the administrator of the global website at www.ChangingChange.net, which offers spiritual assistance from a team of Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less, and offers insight, suggestions, and companionship during moments of unbidden, unexpected, unwelcome change on the journey of life. She may be contacted at Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
This is my first time asking this kind of question. I’m not too sure on how to compose it without sounding disrespectful or too naïve. People can create their realities, right. Can someone choose his reality to continue a permanent partnership with someone that would not necessarily want to? If he wants to have that relationship to work, he has and will continue to put energy into it. The partner doesn’t see it that way. She wants out of this relationship. His mind is surely going to explode. He cannot understand why! He’s not an abusive person in any way. He’s a good provider, a good person.. He has a lot of feelings for his wife.
Sometimes he feels like a fool for letting her stay in the house until she finds a place to go live. Of course, she doesn’t gave him much attention and told him she has filed for a divorce. What is going on here? They both are very spiritual and believe it’s their path to become better persons and show, teach, and spread the Love. Enough of this rambling! I don’t know if any of this makes sense to you, but can you shed some *light* into this? Thank you so much!
PS: You’re right, I’m talking about my own marital situation. P.E.
Dear P.E.,
The answer is no…you can not create a reality that someone else is not willing to create with you. Every soul has its own agenda, and every soul has free will.
P.E., I get that you would have a desire for someone you love deeply to want to stay with you. I get that deeply. It is a natural thing. I would, however, suggest that you are already creating the reality that your soul wishes to experience. You have defined yourself as “a good provider, a good person, spiritual,” etc. Can you see that you can Be these things in any relationship? Can you see that you can Be these things in no relationship?
Thinking that the current relationship with your wife is the only way you can demonstrate these things is expecting life to show up in only one way. And God and Life provide more for you than just one way, or one love. Ask yourself, What is this relationship giving me the opportunity to experience? Why am I in this relationship? In fact, what is the purpose of being in a relationship at all? I believe it is to give the other back to themselves. It is to give the other person every opportunity to be who they really are; and through doing that, I also get to be who I really am.
I am not saying that you should give up. What I am saying is that you should never force another, physically or energetically, to do anything. The best you would receive is surrender. What I am also saying is that if this relationship has a chance of moving in a different direction, it will be because you move in a different direction. That direction, to me, would always (only?) include what your wife’s wishes may be. Is it impossible to believe that even apart can still be a spiritual way for both?
Interestingly enough, when you move into this space, it opens up the door for more than one way for your wife to be in your life. One of these ways could be supremely satisfying ways you least expect!
This, of course, is just my general answer. There are tools in the book When Everything Changes, Change Everything that can help you find your own answers, in your own way.
Therese
(Therese Wilson is the administrator of the global website at www.ChangingChange.net, which offers spiritual assistance from a team of Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less, and offering insight, suggestions, and companionship during moments of unbidden, unexpected, unwelcome change on the journey of life. 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.)
Therese,
How do I stop sending support to my very adult son? He has been in and out of trouble, financially and other ways, like drugs, all of his life. Just when I think he’s got it all together something happens again. The thing is, I can’t afford it, and to help him, I can’t pay own my bills. He’s 16 in a grown man’s body!
Paraphrased, this is the conversation I had with a friend recently.
It is also a question that I have grappled with in the past, and still do. I see how the world, economically, changed from the time I was young, and now. It seemed to be a given then, that a young person could get an education, work hard, and have a reasonable expectation of meeting, or beating, their parents’ standard of living. That is no longer the case.
It was also the standard, in the western world I live in, that the young person leave the house somewhere between 18 and 21 years of age, and never come back, except in the event of some catastrophe. That is no longer the case either. This change, in my opinion, while forced by some fairly dramatic economic changes, has not been entirely a bad thing. Having lived in Asia, where the model is to actively engage multiple generations in the raising of the children, and the sharing of the wisdom of each generation, CWG’s suggestion that this was the way, rang true with me.
I was not about to move my entire family in with me, however! So, how to work within the current economy, and not enable? How to productively engage the multi-generation model? I found my own way to have the East and West models meet. We live in the same neighborhood! My mother, my daughter and husband, and her sons and my husband and me. Boundaries were set at the beginning, and have always been respected.
I have two children, both of whom have seemed to require help. One lives near, one lives far, so it isn’t nearness that is an issue. But giving to them did begin to feel like a burden, and I started to give without joy. So, in the past few years, I began to ask myself the questions I thought I should be asking about the situation of helping them.
Questions like:
What am I getting out of this situation?
Is this help really helping in the long run?
Am I imposing my vision of what their life must look like, and not honoring their vision?
Is this help or control?
What might their souls be wishing to experience…as well as my own?
Hard questions to honestly answer.
While I am truly giving to them out of love, if I am to be very honest, I am also giving out of fear. Sometimes I fear that they will be angry with me. Sometimes I fear what the consequences might look like if I don’t help them. There are, of course, other fears. There are other things, I realize, that I am getting out of this type of giving, that are not beneficial to all, and possibly not to anyone, in the long run scenario.
I also realize I am imposing my vision of what their lives should look like. I don’t want them to not be able to pay the bills, I don’t want them evicted from their homes, I do want them to have the things I had, and I do want them to always have full a full belly and feel secure. But…is this what their soul is really wishing to experience? As “The Only Thing That Matters” articulates quite well, the soul knows where it really wants to go, but it has absolutely no preference as to how we get there. The long road or the short road makes no difference. So, am I helping create the long road by removing the opportunities to take the short road? Am I saying that the short road must not seem difficult for it to be the road that works best? For that matter, am I removing my own opportunity to experience that more difficult path that is, none the less, the one I must ultimately traverse?
Looking at my relationship with money was another thing I had to do. Being an American, I’ll bet you can figure out at least some of where I had to go in that conversation with myself! Not the least of which was asking myself exactly what my definition of abundance really is.
Back to my friend, who specifically said that he is harming his own welfare in order to help his son. CWG says that all benefits must be mutual. Stated in another way, it says that to betray oneself, in order to not betray another, is still betrayal, and it is betrayal of the highest order. And it is giving our children the wrong message.
I was not willing to cold turkey remove the help, but I have cut back considerably, and help in very specific areas, like healthcare for the grandkids. (Yes, healthcare, even with insurance, is expensive for way too many, but that is a different subject!) It was difficult to change some of my behaviors, to be sure, though. It hasn’t been all fun, but, guess what! it has been quite beneficial for all of us.
The oxymoron here, is that, we are told that life isn’t about us, yet it is all about us! So, if life isn’t about you, and it is also all about you…where are you really? How do we justify denying anyone anything, even if it is hurting ourselves?
Neale answered that very clearly in a recent retreat I attended. We forget that there really is just one of us in the room. When I take care of me, I take care of you.
My advice, then, to myself and to others, would be to ask the questions and be honest with our answers. Then…be brave enough to take care of ourselves. When we do that, we will also be taking care of our children well enough to allow them to do what seems to be failure, knowing we are allowing their opportunities to present themselves…and modeling how to find one’s own answers. This may be very difficult to witness on occasion, but allowing the process to unfold, and not preempt it because it doesn’t feel good, will also empower us to know when help will be truly beneficial, to all, if offered.
Therese
(Therese Wilson is the administrator of the global website at www.ChangingChange.net, which offers spiritual assistance from a team of Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less, and offering insight, suggestions, and companionship during moments of unbidden, unexpected, unwelcome change on the journey of life. 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.)
