May, 2013
LET’S DISCUSS IT…How do natural disasters such as the Oklahoma tornado fit into the CWG statement that “there are no victims” in the world?
Nothing will play a larger role in the reality experienced (and created) by our children during their lifetime than the notions we give them about what I call the Three Foundational Aspects of Physical Expression upon the earth:
1. Life Itself, and how it works
2. Children Themselves, and who and what they are
3. Life’s Larger Realities, and what some people call “God”
The ideas that they carry forward about all of this will impact every area of their day-to-day encounters from this moment until their final moments in the body—just as your thoughts and my thoughts about these things have affected us in precisely the same way (though we may not have known it).
This cannot be overstated. What your children imagine to be true about themselves and the environment in which they find themselves—as well as who or what controls that environment—will not only impact, but create…
- Their thoughts, their energies and moods
- Their willingness to attempt and to achieve
- Their decision to risk and to dare
- Their determination to reach and to strive
- Their choice to wonder and to solve, and…
- Their ability to step into and live the grandest concept of themselves, allowing them to fulfill their highest dreams
So what we are talking about here is pretty important. No. It is extremely important. No. It is of ultimate importance.
I cannot, in this online column, address all of the Big Three. To do so would require a small book. But I would like to share with you here what I imagine myself to know about how to introduce and discuss with your child the last and most important topic: God.
Before we begin, a question please…
The first thing you have to do is ask yourself a key question: Do you want your children to embrace an already established-in-your-own-mind and very particular set of beliefs? Or do you want your children to notice and be aware of your beliefs, and then be empowered to form their own?
Always, in the issue of parenting, this becomes the key question. Not only as it relates to the subject of God, but as it relates to everything.
And we will continue this discussion in our next entry here. I invite you to return.
We began here in our column last week a three-part series of New Analysis articles on the fact that we are doing little to address the cause of violence in our world, and looking at some of the tools our global society might use with which to do so.
That series was scheduled to continue in this entry, but I am going to take the liberty of interrupting the series with my present post, because it seems in appropriate for me to simply continue in that vein here without a single mention of the horrific events in Oklahoma. I cannot — and we cannot — ignore what has happened there and just move on with our lives without at least asking how the concepts of the New Spirituality apply in this situation, and where those of us who were not immediately affected by it may fit into all of this.
The first principle of The New Spirituality, as most readers here know, is: We Are All One. If this is true (and it is), then what occurred in Moore, Oklahoma (a near suburb of Oklahoma City) is part of all of our lives. If we are practicing The New Spirituality then, we will be immediately looking for ways to help that part of Ourselves that has been impacted or hurt by the huge level EF5 tornado that hit there.
Alia E. Dastagir, staff writer for USAToday, has offered a terrific rundown of ways in which people can do that immediately. Her story can be found here:
Here, from her story, is a list of helping opportunities. I hope and trust that you will respond with an open heart as soon and as hugely as you can.
The American Red Cross has several shelters open in Oklahoma and Red Cross Emergency Response Vehicles have begun delivering hot meals throughout the affected areas. The Red Cross is also working to link loved ones in Moore who are OK through a website called Safe and Well. Text REDCROSS to 90999 to give $10 to American Red Cross Disaster Relief, donate online or by phone at 1-800-RED CROSS.
The Salvation Army is activating disaster response teams and mobile feeding units to help residents and rescuers in Moore, as well as in other locations in the Plains and the Midwest that were impacted by tornadoes. Donate online or text STORM to 80888 to contribute $10 to the Salvation Army’s relief efforts or make a donation by phone at 1-800-SAL-ARMY. If you’re sending a check make sure you put the words “Oklahoma Tornado Relief” on the check, and mail it to: The Salvation Army, P.O. Box 12600, Oklahoma City, OK 73157.
AmeriCares has a disaster relief team working with first responders and local health care organizations on the ground in hard-hit Oklahoma City suburbs. Shipments of water, medicines and emergency aid have been sent, with more shipments underway. You can help by donating through the AmeriCares website or by phone at 1-800-486-HELP. Text LIVE to 25383 to make a $10 donation. You can also mail a check or money order to: AmeriCares, 88 Hamilton Ave., Stamford, CT 06902.
Operation USA announced it’s providing emergency aid where needed to community-based health organizations across Oklahoma. Donate online, by phone at 1-800-678-7255, or by check made out to Operation USA, 7421 Beverly Blvd., PH, Los Angeles, CA 90036. You can also donate $10 by texting AID to 50555. Corporate donations of bulk quantities of disaster-appropriate supplies are also being requested.
Oklahoma Baptist Disaster Relief says it has deployed at least 80 volunteers to respond to severe weather in Oklahoma. Those interested in helping can make a tax-deductible donation to the BGCO’s Disaster Relief ministry online or call (405) 942-3800. You may also send checks to: BGCO Attn: Disaster Relief 3800 N. May Ave. Oklahoma City, OK 73112.
Feed the Children, which is headquartered in Oklahoma City, has transported bottled water and food to the impacted area. The organization is accepting diapers, canned goods, non-perishable food, snack items, water, sports drinks, and cash donations. Text “Disaster” to 80888 to make a $10 donation. After receiving a confirmation message you must type “yes” to complete the donation. Cash and corporate donations can be made online or by phone at 1-800-627-4556.
Samaritan’s Purse, which provided relief to residents of Moore after the devastating tornado in 1999, deployed two Disaster Relief Units from their North Carolina headquarters before dawn on Tuesday. One will be based in Moore, and the other in Shawnee. Samaritan’s Purse is looking for volunteers to help with the relief effort. You can donate online or by phone at 1-800-528-1980. To give by mail, please send donations to: Samaritan’s Purse, P.O. Box 3000, Boone, NC 28607-3000.
Save the Children is mobilizing staff to provide support, relief and recovery services to communities and families in Oklahoma. The organization is prepared to deploy their Child Friendly Space kits in shelters, creating safe play areas for kids. They are also ready to deploy infant and toddler hygiene materials to support young children displaced from their homes. Text TWISTER to 20222 to donate $10 to Save the Children and help the response effort. You can donate online or call 1-800-728-3843.
Operation Blessing International, a Virginia-based humanitarian group, is deploying to Moore, after working on tornado relief in Granbury, Texas, following last week’s storm there. A caravan of OBI emergency equipment was sent to Moore, including a construction unit, mobile command center, trucks full of tools and supplies, and a team of construction foremen. You can donate to the group online or donate by phone at 1-800-730-2537.
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.)
Dear Therese,
I had dreams and plans that had to be put on hold because of family circumstances. I made promises that I sincerely wish to keep, but I, none the less, find my mind wandering to those dreams and plans more and more. I don’t want to back out on my promises to others, but I would really like the opportunity to follow my dreams. What can I do?
Darla in Fargo, ND
Polonius:
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 78-82
Dear Darla,
In CWG terms, betrayal of yourself, so as not to betray another, is the greatest betrayal of all.
Why? Because there is no other. When you betray yourself, your giving is tinged with the energy of betrayal in all you do. You serve no one as well as you think you are serving them. In some way the people to whom you made the promises know that you are giving from your lack and not your fullness…and that means they know that at least some piece of you is far away from them.
It has been my experience that when I finally let go of the notion that I am the only one that can do something, or that I only have one way of fulfilling my promises, those promises have a way of still being kept! One way of importance is that I enable others to step in and take the burden off, enabling them to demonstrate their greatness.
When we think that we are the only ones who can do something, or that there is only one way of having dreams fulfilled, we get frustrated. We move into expectation instead of preference, which is so very limiting…and why do we keep limiting a limitless Universe?
Perhaps you could give a thought to fulfilling your dreams where you are? Have you looked at the possibility of combining old and new dreams? Maybe you can include the people to whom you made promises in your dreams? Maybe they are ready for an adventure? Consider, also, that you are where you are for a reason, if only for now. What are you being called to look at?
Of equal importance in this process is this: Once you have decided it is time to be true to yourself, you must also tell the truth to yourself. Admit all of the negative as well as the positive emotions surrounding this. You may find that there is something entirely different than you think driving your feelings. When you tell the truth to yourself, Darla, then, when you talk of changes to the others you wish not to betray, they will know they are hearing the truth. This does not mean that they will react in a positive way necessarily, but it does mean that they will know, if only on their soul level (only??), that you are being true to yourself, and by extension, them.
Finally, be Grateful for it all.
Gratitude for all that is, is the engine that drives what is to come. Yes, difficult sometimes, but can’t we all look back at our lives and see how something that seemed “not good” at the time, turned out to have one heck of a silver lining? Look for that silver lining right now. If you can not see it, know that it does exist!
I know that’s a lot to take in, Darla, so take things as slowly as you wish right now, and when/if the time is right to make a change trust yourself. It may be kind of scary, but know that it is also an adventure, and an opportunity to experience Life as fully as you can!
Therese
(Therese Wilson is a published poet, and is the administrator of the global website at www.ChangingChange.net . 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: ChangingChange.net 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 young and in Catholic school I had a teacher state many times over that the Bible tells us the world will end when we all are of ‘ONE’ mind. She usually stated this after some kind of squabble or upset, and then she would add, so I guess the world is not ending today. As a child I pondered those words often.
How could it ever be that all of humankind be of ONE mind? We are all so different, I used to think. But lately I have gained a new perspective on the subject. You see, to this day I still ponder those words. I have been on an inward journey for many years to get as close to the source of creation as humanly possible. God is the term I use. This quest has brought me many surprises along with inner peace and joy.
Meditation has changed my perception of who we are as a race. Because of my own life experience, I know firsthand that there is a difference between knowledge and experience. We can gain knowledge through education, but it is our individual experience that gives us full understanding. We do not know what we don’t know until we finally do know and understand.
Here is some insight I have gained. There is only ONE mind. The Divine Mind, or the Divine Matrix, as some say. Think of each human as a single cell of a one body. Each cell (human person) is part of the whole body, and each human cell is here to experience different pieces of the life puzzle to gain and fully understand all the possibilities. Imagine a baby growing in a mother’s womb. So many various organs growing at the same time until the brain functions take over and all organs are connected and begin to function as one human body. Each cell is unique and whole but all cells are connected by the ONE body. The cells function individually yet at the same time are functioning as ONE. Once all cells become aware of the ONENESS, the baby is ready to leave the womb.
Mankind has grown to the point where many people now realize we are all connected. Our subconscious minds are one and the same. We are at a point where we have the knowledge and experience to move forward as One Being, we only need the awareness to realize we are all God because there is nothing that exists that is outside of God. We are ready to be born as One Being. The time has come to help each other. We have the understanding now and the strong need to help the weak cells. If one person suffers, the rest of us cannot live in peace. We can only evolve together as One Being, One mind, One body. United, we survive.
Live Happy! Happiness comes from being who you are and showing your true colors. Your light is needed to guide the others. We are in this together, and only together will our planet, our world move on. We are the ONE.
(Terri Lynn is an expert at choosing happiness and using the Divine navigation system which she shares in her first book Journey to my Soul. Currently, Terri is Sales Manager at Otto’s BMW in West Chester, Pa. where she motivates and coaches the sales team. Her intention is to share with others the importance of putting happiness first. She shares her thoughts on her website – Terri Lynn’s Happy Talk. Terri resides in Newtown Square, Pa.)
(If you would like to contribute an article you have authored to the Guest Column, 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: “Guest Column.”)
From Conversations With God, Book 1: “You cannot be ill without at some level causing yourself to be, and you can be well again in a moment by simply deciding to be.”
We are making ourselves ill with our foods and worse yet, with the way we live our lives and the way we think. But isn’t it wonderful that we can decide here and now that things have changed! Let’s decide to be healthy in every way.
When you think about improving your health, you probably think of losing weight and dieting first. Maintaining a healthy weight and eating right is necessary, but did you know that there are many other areas in your life that are just as important?
The food you eat is actually secondary to the primary nourishment areas in your life. The primary areas include your activity and movement, work or purpose in life, connection to others, and spirituality. When you gain weight or experience declining health, chances are that something is wrong in one or more of these areas. Problems in other areas of your life can trigger bad eating habits, binging, lack of motivation to exercise, and emotional eating. These are the problems that cause the seeds of disease. For instance, if you are unhappy in your job, you probably eat poorly or snack during boring or stressful times. If you are not in satisfying relationships, you may reach for the ice cream or other junk foods to fill a missing void. You participate in unhealthy behaviors and refuse to participate in healthy ones such as exercise.
Think about your TOTAL health and any area of your life that needs improvement! Lowering your stress level, improving your satisfaction in relationships and career should be very high priorities for you. Improving other areas of your life will also improve your eating habits.
Decide to be happy, decide to be positive, decide to spread joy and goodness to all around you. First decide to move around and get some exercise. Decide to make amends if you have old resentments. Improve your relationships or move on from toxic relationships. Rethink your priorities and your purpose in life. Improving any of these areas in your life will make you healthier, and what a great way to decide to be healthy!
(Beth Anderson is a certified Holistic Health Coach and founder of the Holistic Health Hotspotin Evansville, Indiana. She is also the author of “The Holistic Diet: Achieve Your Ideal Weight, Be Happy and Healthy for Life.” Beth received her training from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition.She is a speaker and also presents workshops on health and nutrition topics. Beth offers in-person and phone consultations – contact her through Facebook or email for more information. You can find Beth on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/HolisticHealthHotspot or email her at beth@holistichealthhotspot.com)
For many of us, this Sunday (and the Sundays yet to come in May) marks the end of a very significant chapter in our life. Graduation for many of us is right here, giving us the promise of new hopes, new dreams, and new visions. In this very, very exciting time, though, we not only look forward to what is yet to come, but also remember what has come to pass.
Though it may seem a little nostalgic, take some time BEFORE graduation to remember what your greatest version of your grandest vision you had about Who You Are was in high school. For when we look forward, it is just as important to remember where we came from to continue to create and enhance that vision. We all had a dream, a goal, an ideal, and along our journey, we fulfilled them. So, think to yourself, “In High School, I wanted to…” and see just how far you have come.
For the sake of getting started, I have posted my own response below to the statement above. Though everyone’s journey IS different, I would LOVE to hear what you all have thought of your journey in high school in the comments below. For when we create a vision, AND share that vision, things really start to change. So without any further ado:
In High School I wanted to….
Learn to love it all. I love math, but I also, above all, love writing. Creating a sense of balance AND understanding of both the concrete and the abstract has been a pivotal point of my high school experience. As many believe that the arts and sciences remain in completely different domains, I have found the Middle Path. Incorporating both scientific analysis and artistic solutions has expressed many opportunities that would have gone unseen and unnoticed. By knowing both sides of the spectrum, the latent potential to be great and do great is forever being manifested. With great guidance from all those who have helped me along my journey (family, friends, teachers, coaches, etc.), I learned to create that balance. With this equilibrium, I will be ready for all the challenges of creating a New Cultural Story. For an example on how I have achieved that, I included a poem that I wrote in 2012, called The Human Element:
They say that matter
cannot be created
nor can it be destroyed.
They gave us these rules
to bring supreme logic
into our world of chaos.
They called it science
and wrote all of life
as stated definition.
But there is far more
than conscripted degree
and laboratory principle.
There are the moments
that can break its course
and tear fabric of reality.
For when conscience
enters the equation
all parts are variable.
The human element
arises from the hot heart
and melts cold discipline.
It challenges time itself
to see if our emotions
travel the speed of light.
This new reaction
removes the rational
and adds the relational.
It bends our very limits
Serving not to be bound
by any delicate formula.
This compound isn’t new
but has been here longer
than science or man himself.
For this part stems back
to the original periodic table
where both fire and water once ruled.
A time when nature
could bring men together
even in their darkest hours.
A place where love
had stopped wars from starting
or from sides being drawn.
A thought which soared
not from calculation
but from within the soul.
For then men listened
to their hearts and their spirits
to govern their actions.
But when man found law
he forgot to order humanity
in his hierarchy of desires.
And so he blindly mixed
compounds of fear and conceit
into imbalanced solutions.
There is much man has done
in the cold name of science
that has cost him his brother.
But when science is warmed
by the element of humanity
all is at balance again.
For in this modern day
we ourselves must emote
as much as we do examine.
Aware of the new order
we realize that our mind
is over our matter.
So as you complete your high school career, remember that vision what you wished to be, and how that has now created Who You Are. Share your journey, share your vision, and share your story. All it requires is a little time to look back.
(Lauren is a Feature Editor of The Global Conversation. She lives in Wood Dale, IL, and can be reached at Lauren@TheGlobalConversation.com)
Could it be that all that is going on in our world right now—Syria, New Orleans, Boston, Iraq, Iran—is the result of a very young species of sentient beings undergoing the pains of its own evolutionary process?
The violence, the unending assaults of one group of humans upon another, the loathing and hatred which fuels it, the struggles of the rest of the world to overcome all of this while living alongside it…I believe that all of this could be, in part at least, the fallout of a fundamental condition in the human psyche—one might even call it a “psychological injury”—from which humanity must recover if we are ever to take our place as highly evolved life forms within the cosmic community of sentient beings.
Any animal, backed into a corner, will attack. When people are in pain—pain they cannot seem to find a way to end—they can react and respond in painful ways. They plunder, they injure, they rape, they kill. They go to war with each other, and in not a few cases they go to war with themselves.
What is not understood as widely as I wish it were among the people of the world is that this is a spiritual problem, not merely or simply a psychological one. It is because I understand this that I know the messages of the New Spirituality to be of such importance.
PART ONE OF A THREE- PART NEWS ANALYSIS
Humanity’s deepest pain is felt collectively by the species at varying levels among its members. Yet no single human being seems immune to it. The secret of ending humanity’s deepest pain may be found in a simple four-word statement that leads off a nine-book series of spiritual texts spanning more than 3,000 pages, called Conversations with God.
To see how this could be true, we need first to identify humanity’s deepest pain. That can be done with one word: Separation.
World famous psychologists and psychiatrists, such as Arthur Janov and Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, have suggested for years that deep emotional pain that has been repressed by the mind is at the root of many of the psychological challenges faced by human beings, and nearly all of their dysfunctions, including violent behavior.
It is the mind’s job to push such pain deep into the subconscious, so to allow each person to go on with life in a reasonably well-adjusted way. So when bad things happen to us, we automatically and quickly submerge them—not actually forgetting them (although is rare cases we do even that), but removing ourselves (sort of, “stepping away from”) the emotional content of them.
Yet when you step away from something, you do not cause it to cease to exist. You merely put some distance between you and it. It still exists, it’s simply not right in front of your face.
Negative emotions are never deleted from our memory. They are simply stored in a different place: the subconscious; the layer beneath our conscious mind. Thus, our mind holds the data of our emotional pain forever.
Today’s computers work very much the same way. It is virtually impossible to actually delete data from a computer. You can send a document to TRASH, but that does not delete it from the computer’s memory bank. It merely moves it to another location on the hard drive—a place that is not “seen” on the desktop or in any of the user’s folders or files.
The data still resides in the computer’s memory, however—as persons with criminal intent have learned to their chagrin the moment that sophisticated law enforcement investigative techniques are used to examine their laptops.
You can now purchase software for your computer called, by some companies, a “shredder” (which inspires images of a paper-shredder-kind-of-program in your computer), but even this software does not remove any data from your machine. It merely overwrites it. Overwriting a file multiple times renders the data within it virtually indecipherable, and that is said to be one sure way to “trash” the data. Yet, technically, it is still there.
So it is with your mind. You can shove your unwanted data (bad memories, traumatic events) into your personal “trash bin” (the subconscious), but can never get it completely out of your mind. You can “overwrite” it with dozens of newer and better memories, and soon the bitter memories can begin to fade, but they will never be deleted.
Unlike computers, however, there seems to be no way to control if or when this “unwelcome data” shows up in our lives, triggered by something that causes it to spontaneously arise out of the subconscious and take over the conscious mind.
I believe that this is precisely explains the state of human affairs on this planet today. It explains Syria and Boston, Iraq and Cleveland, and all that is going on in between. Yet there some ways open to us by means of which humans can release these negative emotions without harming others or themselves.
(Next: A look at what psychology offers around all of this—then, a surprising description of what you can do as an average, ordinary person to offer a non-psychological solution that, if it swept the planet, could change the world.)
I have been attending a spiritual center where they encourage us to do affirmative prayer treatment when we want something. In my experience, though, this doesn’t always seem to work. For example, when I was younger I owned a piano store. I prayed for its success, and I envisioned opening up more stores in the surrounding area. I knew where I wanted them to be and I really saw this in my mind’s eye, but my first store ended up going under and I had to give up my dream. I don’t understand. Does affirmative prayer work or not?… Sam
Dear Sam… That is a wonderful question and I’m so glad you asked it. This is an age-old query, “Why doesn’t God always answer my prayer?” The answer is, God does always answer every single prayer and God always says, “Yes!” One big reason we sometimes don’t experience it that way, though, is because of our Sponsoring Thoughts. God always grants us exactly what our deepest, most underlying belief is about what we’re asking for. If you re-examine what was going on in the back of your mind at the time, I believe you’ll find your answer as to why the piano store dream didn’t come to fruition for you. And, given the benefit of hindsight, I’d go so far as to bet that you’re glad now that it didn’t happen, yes?
This brings up another reason we don’t always experience what we pray for: Remember, we are made in the image and likeness of God. This means that like God, we are each three-part beings. (God is Father/Son/Holy Spirit or Physical/Non-Physical/Metaphysical and we are Mind/Body/Soul or Conscious/Sub-Conscious/Super-Conscious.) Like God, we create on all three levels. Do you believe that if it had been your Soul’s highest calling to be the owner of a chain of piano stores in this particular lifetime, that your Soul’s will could have been thwarted? I tell you, Sam, it could not have been, if your mind had been aligned with your Soul’s calling.
It might be helpful to remember that there is no such thing as time and space. Everything that is happening, is happening right here, right now in the only time/space there is. Therefore, all possibilities exist now and there are an infinite number of scenarios of your life. In one timeline, you own that chain of piano stores! In another timeline, you own just the first one. In another timeline… well, you get the picture. You see, Sam, life is like a giant CD-Rom game, where every possible scenario is already on the disc, and you get to choose how you want to play it. And, although your conscious mind wanted to play the “Sam owns a chain of piano stores” scenario, either your sub-conscious mind had contrary thoughts about it or it wasn’t your Soul’s highest and best expression to play it that way in this particular version of “Sam’s Game of Life”, which sent you down another timeline.
The mind always wants to know “why”, but the most important question we can ask is “what”? What now? What matters most now to the agenda of your Soul? What does your Soul yearn to express through you, as you, in this particular “Sam’s Game of Life”? When you get clear on what that is, and you consciously align yourself with it, there’s no stopping the miracles that will fall into place for you. Aligning is key here, for the physical manifestation of anything is based on the Law of Attraction. Just as the unseen Law of Gravity always works—everything will fall to Earth unless something is holding it back—the unseen Law of Attraction always works unless something in our consciousness or sub-consciousness is holding it back.
So look to see what lights you up now, Sam. What would you absolutely love to be and do now? And please don’t jump to conclusions that you can’t be or do it, because there is nothing that you cannot be or do. We are each unlimited aspects of God, and with God, all things are possible. We are only limited by our own thoughts, never by something outside of us. When you get really clear on what feels like pure joy to your Soul, then do your affirmative prayer treatment, knowing that it is God’s great pleasure to give you the kingdom.
(Annie Sims is the Global Director of CWG Advanced Programs, is a Conversations With God Life Coach and author/instructor of the CWG Online School. To connect with Annie, please email her at Annie@TheGlobalConversation.com
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