new spirituality
I recently stumbled upon a Facebook page titled “Grief Beyond Belief.” It is a support page, whose members exceed 6,000, created for the specific purpose of being a gathering space for people who are experiencing grief as a result of loss in their life. The common denominator, however, for this unique website is that those who subscribe to the “Grief Beyond Belief” updates are not simply people who are suffering grief and loss, but these are people who do not believe in God.
As I perused through the comments on this Facebook page, I read post after post from people struggling with unanswered questions and trying to make sense of some type of loss, whether that was showing up in the form of a relationship ending or the death of a loved one, or even the loss of a beloved pet. The pattern was quick to see, people seeking and searching, yearning for comfort, but unwilling to adopt any ideology or concept that invites them to consider anything larger than what simply lies before them – many of them so disenfranchised by the “in your face” religious zealots that they have elected to believe in not believing.
It is interesting how this particular page showed up for me today as I recently put my own belief system “to the test” while visiting the website of Sam Harris, a well-known critic of religion and one of the “four horsemen” — together with Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens — in the “New Atheism” movement. A wonderful quote taken from his writings on stem cell research led me to his website, where I watched several hours of him debating the existence of God with religious and spiritual leaders from around the world. And while I understand that his pushback is more particularly directed at organized religions, namely Christianity and Islam, for a brief period of time, I allowed myself to imagine a life without God.
I imagined how it would feel to not know, or even consider the possibility, that I am connected to all of life in some significant way.
I imagined how different my life would be without a higher purpose for any of my thoughts, any of my expressions, and any of my choices.
I imagined for a moment that this was it, that my life was reduced to the 60, 70, 80, or 90ish years that I may randomly and singularly experience and how I could possibly “make the best” of them…or what that would even mean.
I imagined for a moment that my relationships were circumstantial – and, for that matter, that everything that happened in my life was circumstantial, arbitrary, and spiritually meaningless. What would now be the purpose for my relationships?
I imagined the day my son was born and how that would have been an entirely different experience. In the absence of God, the overwhelming sense of divine perfection and soul connection would have been diminished to a matter-of-fact scientific explanation involving sperm and eggs.
There were times in my life where it felt scary and lonely to imagine a God who punishes and judges, a God who condemns, a God who is separate from me. But imagining that God did not even exist allowed me to experience aloneness and fear on a whole new level. The fundamental question of “Who am I?” suddenly meant so little as it could no longer produce an answer that expanded beyond physicality, thereby limiting my entire human experience to simply a body made up of cells, blood, tissue, organs, veins, etc.
If there is no God…then who am I?
And why would it even matter why I was here and where I was going?
The atheism movement is growing at a surprisingly impressive rate, presenting a robust resistance to religious fundamentalism and righteousness. This secular segment of our world is made up of people who are no longer buying into the story which casts as its leading man an angry, needy, and vengeful God; yet this same group of people have likewise abandoned any concept of connectedness, divine design, higher purpose, and eternal life.
And this is why the New Spirituality movement is vital, a collective consciousness that does not support the “man on a cloud” theology, yet embraces divinity and oneness. The New Spirituality is a space that gives hope and cultivates purpose and bridges the gap between “no God” and “that God.” The New Spirituality does not teach people what to think, but rather that they can think; it does not tell you how to live your life, but rather how to create your life.
(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.)
What I am about to share with you is not a new idea and it’s not my own idea. In fact, I am sure you have probably heard of this concept before. But the day I truly saw the living reality of it, it began to transform my life—and my children’s lives. And it was also the day that I realized I had been fooling myself for many, many years.
I finally understood in a flash of a moment, that everything I project “outwardly”onto others is a reflection of what is going on “inwardly.” The more I became aware of this and started to test this concept out, the more my life began to change for the better! And for the “betterment” of my children! Although most of us who have (bravely and courageously) put even one toe on the “spiritual path” are already familiar with this metaphysical principle, how often do we consider it within the context of Parenting?
It’s likely that when we’ve worked with this idea in the past we’ve drudged up the most recent interactions not with our children but with our romantic partner or co-worker or employer or close friend—and then humbly saw what might need attention within ourselves. But how can this awareness be applied in the dynamic of parent-to-child and child-to-parent?
I don’t believe parenting with the New Spirituality requires anything unusual or unrealistic. And — much like the “effortless parenting” practice I pointed to in my last article — I think there is a skill lying dormant in us that can be easily awakened when we gently notice that what’s appearing outside of us is really the very same thing that’s appearing inside of us. “Fooling myself” is how I first referred to this back when I began to recognize my tendency to imagine that what my children were displaying “out there” was anything different or other than what was already living “in here.”
Fooling ourselves is an innocent daily ritual for most of us, and usually we don’t even know that we’re doing it. Think of all of the times you have lost patience with your children, felt angry or overwhelmed. These feelings are usually experienced and believed to be your natural outward reaction to the challenging situation of the moment. But what if you noticed that the lack of patience you are having with your child might be because you are feeling little patience with yourself that day? What if your anger is on the rise not because your child is displaying anger, but because you were angry with yourself already? And suppose your intolerance toward your child is because you are not feeling very tolerant of the perfectly imperfect human being that your Soul came here to experience! What if all of these emotions stem from the fact that you have forgotten in the flurry of parenting to tend to your own emotions; your inner self; your Soul?
First, it’s a high level of Mastery to even notice and want to take responsibility for what we are experiencing on the “inside”– so let’s acknowledge what a huge shift that is in and of itself!
As a parent — and especially a new one — it’s easy to imagine that because we are now in this society-created role, we should have it all figured out, and that losing patience or feeling angry or overwhelmed is no longer okay to experience. There are a number of principles from the Conversations with God messages that might help ease the self-judgment that comes swimming in (sometimes like a tsunami!) in our daily interactions with our children. In this article, let’s add the concept “We Are All One” and notice that if this is a reality, how might both you and your children be working to heal the same Illusions? Perhaps viewing your own ups & downs mirrored by your child back to you can remind you that your souls are always “on the same team,” and help you to feel more compassion and empathy for the whole dance you’re doing together on any given day.
Even though it can at first seem more convenient to get past the moment and live in denial of what we’re feeling or what judgment we’re placing on our self, learning to pause and to take even one full minute to examine what is going on inside can improve our natural skills in dealing appropriately with the situations appearing on the outside.
If we were to practice a 1-Minute meditation many times a day (because sometimes those short segments of time are all we’ve got!), how might it affect our overall experience of parenting and the exchanges we have with our children? If you decided that the greatest gift you could give yourself today was to be patient or compassionate or understanding and tender with you, there would most likely be a natural tendency to then offer the same with your children, and continue to work on healing Illusions together.
A “Mama Laurie Mantra” that might help (and one I still use often!): “If I see it Out there, I’m looking In here!”
(Laurie Lankins Farley has worked with Neale Donald Walsch for approximately 10 years. She is the Executive Director of his non-profit The School of the New Spirituality and creative co-director of CwGforParents.com. Laurie has published an inspirational children’s book “The Positive Little Soul.” She can be contacted at Parenting@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
On October 9, 2012 a teenage girl in Pakistan named MalalaYousufzai was brutally shot by members of the Taliban on her bus ride home from school. Her initial prognosis was not good, yet today she is thriving – walking, reading, and writing. While she still has more medical procedures ahead, the doctors believe she should recover without major neurological damage.
What possible reason could the Taliban have for wanting her dead?
They are threatened by her dream that girls receive an equal education to that of boys and her outspoken advocacy for it. She launched herself into the international spotlight a few years ago, at the age of 11, with her blog about girls and education. She has shown unabashed passion and courage, notwithstanding the threats against her life over the years. Even in the face of her attack, she has expressed that her intent is to continue her unwavering advocacy for education. In fact, she is so dedicated to her own school work that, according to CNN, she has already resumed studying for her exams, even as she recovers. The international community has embraced her as a champion, even naming Saturday, November 10th “Malala Day” to honor her dream (read full story here) .
Let’s reflect on what parents in the New Spirituality can learn from such a tenacious, brave young girl. I believe her strength and passion, the very same ones that made her a target of the Taliban, are helping her to make this miraculous recovery. Your child may or may not be fighting for the right to education or to recover from a life-threatening injury; but the lessons we can, collectively learn, from Malala can be applied to many situations.
One of the Core Concepts of Conversations with God says, “The purpose of your life is to recreate yourself anew in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever you held about Who You Are.” What this concept means to me is that children who are encouraged to think for themselves by their parents, whose spirits are nurtured, rather than stifled, can lead very fulfilling lives of passion and become agents of great change! If Malala’s parents had discouraged her passion, the entire world might not be engaged, right now, in this important conversation about equal education.
It is tragic that chasing her dream caused her to be a target of hatred and violence, but how amazing is it that she has still chosen to be an advocate for conversation and change! In the New Spirituality, it is incomprehensible that violence is used as an attempt to settle disagreements in the modern world; and further, it seems extreme that it took such a terrible act of violence against a child to draw attention to the plight of education. But all it takes to begin change is a dream…an idea…a person brave enough to stand for something. Malala is a beacon of hope and a steward of dreams!
I have wondered, in light of her attack, if her parents regret that they “allowed” her to be so outspoken; but I think her father’s speaking on her behalf about her continued passion shows that they do not. Or at least they appear to understand that this is something she feels compelled to do and that trying to stop her would be futile; that her advocacy is part of her purpose to recreate herself anew in the next grandest version of herself.
You may wish to think about Malala the next time your child has a seemingly crazy idea in which he says he will invent healthful, non-toxic food that is inexpensive to produce, plentiful enough to feed the world, and easy to share. Or the next time she says she can invent cars that can be given away for free and use no gas. He or she may be just the one to accomplish it! How parents react to their children’s aspirations and solutions to life’s problems, no matter how outlandish or impossible they may seem, directly affects how “big” the child feels it is okay to dream. And how big children feel allowed to dream directly affects how society progresses.
How big do you wish for your child to dream?
(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.)
There is hope. Today there is a little hope. Not as much as we might have liked, but a little more than we might have expected. And that’s a better sign than it is a worse one. That’s an Up arrow, and not a Down.
On Friday the newly appointed Archbishop of Canterbury (who is to members of the Anglican Communion something of what the Pope is to Roman Catholics — although outside of England more in a titular sense ) promised to bring “a passion for reconciliation” to his new job.
The 105th spiritual leader of the 77-million member worldwide Anglican Church is having to deal with what all of today’s global leaders — spiritual leaders, political leaders, business leaders, environmental leaders, or educational leaders — are these days encountering: an open and widening schism between “conservatives” and “liberals” in each of their fields, across the planet.
The newest global spiritual leader, Rt. Rev. Bishop Justin Welby, hopes to resolve continuing discontent within his global congregation surrounding gay marriage and women bishops. Most conservatives within the Anglican church resoundingly oppose both. The Rev. Mr. Welby says he supports “the Church of England’s opposition to same-sex marriage,” although he has stated that he is “always averse to the language of exclusion, when what we are called to is to love in the same way as Jesus Christ loves us.” The new Archbishop of Canterbury does, on the other hand, support the consecration of female bishops. So he is halfway to where a spiritual leader offering a new direction for our world might wish to place himself.
What spiritual reason there could be to oppose the uniting of loving couples who wish to commit their lives to each other, or to oppose the elevation of female clergy to top level church leadership, in each case simply on the basis of the shape of their body parts, is incomprehensible. Yet there are billions of people across the earth who apparently believe that their views in opposition are God’s views. The new Archbishop of Canterbury can, if he now chooses to, show them that God holds no such views at all. But to do this, he will have to bridge an enormous gap.
The widening schism in the ideas people hold with regard to “what God wants” was predicted in the Conversations with God books, which said that as the world moved toward the embracing of A New Spirituality, the population of Earth would essentially divide itself into those who wish to cling to the ways of the past and those who wish to adopt the ways of the future (described as more progressive and far less dogmatic).
The next 30 years will see the final struggle of this dying culture to hold on to its fading ideas, CWG predicts, but will fail to do so — with wonderful results as an outcome in the social, political, spiritual, economical, educational, and environmental arenas. This transformation to a new breed of human will not be without rising and massive opposition, however, because new and untried ideas are almost always considered by humans to be less desirable than old ideas — even old ideas that clearly do not work. At least they are known, at least they are familiar, and so, at least they are comfortable.
And while Conversations with God observes that “life begins at the end of your Comfort Zone,” it says there will be many persons, glued to Old School thought, who remain stuck, refusing to be pried from what they view not as “ideas that no longer work,” but as their most sacred principles.
An erstwhile candidate for the U.S. Senate in the State of Indiana, Richard Mourdock, perhaps exemplified this personality type when he spoke to supporters following his loss in the recent American election. In his concession speech in a race that he was widely predicted just a week ago to easily win, Mourdock said, “As I will look back on this night over the weeks, the months, the years ahead…I will look back knowing that I was attacked for standing for my principles.”
And the “principle” on which he stood? The idea that a pregnancy which results from a rape is something “that God intended,” and for that reason abortion should be opposed and outlawed — even in cases of rape or incest.
The first half of his thought is actually so radical that it could easily have come from the messages of The New Spirituality. Conversations with God says that all outcomes in life are “what God intended,” or they could not have occurred. CWG does not envision a universe in which God is somehow out of control and relegated to standing by and watching things happen that God did not want to have happen.
On the contrary, CWG says, everything that occurs — everything — happens for a reason. Everything that occurs is collaboratively created by Life itself, and by all Souls, in order to produce a Contextual Field within which, on Earth, each Individuation of Divinity (that is, each human being) may announce and declare, create and express, become and experience the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever they held about Who They Are.
And so, Mr. Mourdock was accurate, according to The New Spirituality, in his remark. It was, according to these new spiritual messages, his conclusion that was off the mark. And it was this conclusion that pushed Indiana voters away from him in droves.
Mr. Mourdock’s conclusion was that because a pregnancy resulting from vicious and violent assault upon a woman was something God intended, the woman should not be allowed by law to have (and, in his view, should not even request or seek) an abortion. Or even the option to have an abortion.
Never mind if a woman’s idea of the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever she held about Who She Is, is a human being who would never choose to bring life into the world that was conceived against her will and in violence on her person. Never mind if a woman’s idea of the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever she held about Who She Is, is a human being who chooses not to endure and experience the unwanted outcome of an undeserved and brutal physical attack. Never mind if the woman wants to have the baby. She is supposed to have the baby because having the baby is what God wants, or she wouldn’t have become pregnant.
That is such convoluted thinking that it defies description. It is equaled in its astonishing lack of intelligence only by the remark by another losing Republican U.S. Senate candidate, Mr. Todd Akin of Missouri, who said during his campaign that a woman’s biology automatically prevents her from conceiving an unwanted child in cases of “legitimate rape.” A female’s physiology “shuts that down,” he said — but, presumably, not in the case of illegitimate rape.
Mr. Akin’s comment is equaled in its conservative, hang-onto-the-dogma-of-the-past-no-matter-what attitude only by the remark offered by incumbent (also losing) Republican Congressional Candidate Joe Walsh in his own 2012 campaign, who said that abortion should not be allowed even to save the life of the mother because “with modern technology and science, you can’t find one instance” in which an abortion would be needed to save the life of a mother.
Faced with an avalanche of protest — not just from “liberals” but from the usually very conservative medical community — Mr. Walsh amended his foolish remark later by saying that “in rare instances” such a procedure might possibly be needed, but it was too late. His soon-to-be-former constituents could, apparently, only in rare instance embrace this level of mentality. He did not receive enough votes to remain in the U.S. Congress.
The list of far right wing conservatives who have made statements bordering on the absurd goes on, and typifies the pronouncements of those who insist on clinging to Old School dogma even in the face of clear and obvious evidence that their views are not simply outdated, but flatly and factually inaccurate.
But inaccuracy is not the greatest offense against the future committed by the “I’m-stuck-and-glued-to-this-place” conservatives around the world. Obstructionism is.
The Minority Leader in the U.S. Senate, Republican Mitch McConnell, famously and loudly declared just weeks after the first election of Barack Obama in 2008 that the sole and only agenda of Republicans in the U.S. Congress over the ensuing four years would be to stop Mr. Obama from winning a second term.
From that day on he preached nothing to his GOP colleagues in Washington but obstruct, obstruct, obstruct — even (and especially) it the President’s idea happened to be a good one. The idea was to deny Mr. Obama credit for anything, so that the country would have to eject him from the White House.
Mr. Mourdock likewise sent a message to his constituents in a television interview months ago, just hours after he won his party’s nomination to run for the U.S. Senate in Indiana. “Bipartisanship ought to consist of Democrats coming to the Republican point of view,” he said. “The highlight of politics,” he said, “is to inflict my opinion on someone else.” He later claimed that his remarks were either meant as a joke or where taken out of context.
It didn’t matter. The voters in Indiana found them not at all funny, rejecting Mr. Mourdock in a shocking defeat for the Republicans, who had previously called his election a sure bet.
Senator McConnell seems equally determined to completely ignore the fact that his tactics over the preceding 48 months had produced utter failure (Mr. Obama was victorious in eight of nine so-called “swing states” and won the popular vote by a margin of more than two million). Within days of Mr. Obama having been re-elected, Mr. McConnell was at it again, issuing what news reports on Politico.com called “a stark warning to Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama who see their election victories as a clear mandate to raise taxes on the rich: He won’t let it happen.”
And so, America seems to be in for another four years of Republican obstructionism, in which the value of anyone’s ideas is deemed less important than the source of them. If they come from Democrats, they must be labeled bad, and they must be defeated, no matter what. No matter who suffers. Even if it is your own country.
But what we are seeing is not just about a particular political party. It is about “conservatism” versus “liberalism” all over the world. It is about, in some very large ways, “yesterday” versus “tomorrow.”
In spirituality it is about Yesterday’s God vis-à-vis Tomorrow’s God. In economics it is about Yesterday’s Commerce vis-à-vis Tomorrow’s Commerce. In the environment it is about Yesterday’s Ecology vis-à-vis Tomorrow’s God Ecology. In politics it is about Yesterday’s Solutions vis-à-vis Tomorrow’s Solutions. In the culture and society it is about Yesterday’s Cultural Mores vis-à-vis Tomorrow’s Cultural Mores.
(For instance, several states in the U.S. voted to legalize same sex marriage last week; as well, some states voted to legalize recreational use of marijuana. Both stances were considered impossible to consider just one or two elections ago.)
Soon, these issues — just as the issue of whether the government should have any say, much less be able to intervene, in a woman’s decision on abortion — will be considered Resolved Questions. The American electorate will be ready to move on. On to other cultural/social issues, such as Gun Control, and the Death Penalty.
Soon, the obvious and painfully hypocritical position of conservatives that an unborn fetus may not be aborted in the name of “life” — not even in the name of saving the life of the mother — but a fully grown adult may be killed in the name of “justice,” will be called out for what it is: another astonishingly unintelligent idea to be thrown on the trash heap of yesterday.
It is as a reader on this website commented just recently, regarding the American election:
Comment by Pat on November 9, 2012 at 3:43 pm
Small steps. We’re still divided, but we did send a message. Some think the message was intended for our leaders and representatives. I think the message is one we sent to ourselves. Some of us realize now that we are not alone – that there are other people who share our desire to get away from the current religious and cultural foundation that is based on ‘hostility to the other.’ The tide is changing, and as always the old and broken will be swept away in due course…
Several years ago, I read a wonderful book by William P. Young titled “The Shack.” The debut of this fictional book created quite a buzz and received mixed reviews for its unconventional theological depictions. A book that originally was written solely as a Christmas gift for his children soon found itself on the New York Times Bestseller List and creating quite the stir.
The story centers around Mack, a father who is mired in his great sadness, who asks the burning question: “Where is God in a world so filled with unspeakable pain?” Four years earlier, Mack’s young daughter, Missy, was abducted during a family vacation. Though her body was never found, the police did find evidence in an abandoned shack to prove that she had been brutally murdered by a notorious serial killer who preyed on young girls.
When Mack receives a note in his mailbox from “Papa” to spend the weekend at the shack, he reluctantly accepts this peculiar and mysterious invitation and sets out to spend a weekend with someone who he suspects to be God. During his weekend, Mack encounters in bodily form the Holy Trinity in a way he never expected or imagined. Papa (God) is a large, matronly African-American woman. Jesus is a young to middle-aged man of Middle-Eastern descent. The Holy Spirit is played by Sarayu (Sanskrit for air or wind), a small, delicate and eclectic woman of Asian descent. And he also meets for a time with Sophia, who is the personification of God’s wisdom.
The story lightly dances across the lines of conventional Christianity and New Spirituality as Mack’s life-changing weekend with the Trinity unfolds. It explores and subtly questions traditional ideas held within religious theology — such as heaven, free will, the cross, and forgiveness — with a gentle application of an expanded perspective and an invitation to the reader to move beyond preconceived notions.
I enjoyed this book for the eclectic spiritual journey, for tackling some of the big and mostly unanswered questions surrounding religion and life, and for its ability to step tenderly outside the box in such a colorful and loving way. It is unusual to find books in the fiction section of the bookstore that inspire me. But I believe, whether you read “The Shack” from a background in Christianity or a background in New Spirituality, with an open mind, this book has a gift to offer everyone.
(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.)
(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”)
Hollywood Director Tom Shadyac, most notably recognized for directing blockbuster comedies like “Ace Ventura: Pet Detective” and “Bruce Almighty” and “The Nutty Professor,” detours away from familiar territory in his thought-provoking documentary “I AM,” where he tackles head-on probing questions that a large number of people in our world are asking today:
What is wrong with the world?
What can we do to make it better?
After a debilitating bicycle accident in 2007, Shadyac journeyed into a self-exploration of his own life and examined closely the obscure concept of “happiness.” As he sat in the living room of his 17,000-square foot mansion, surrounded by priceless antiques, expensive cars, and a luxurious private jet, he came to the realization that none of these “things” made him any happier. And he proceeded to sell and give away everything he owned, moved into a mobile home, and set out to create a documentary about what is “wrong” with the world.
Shadyac describes the movie “I AM” as the “Ultimate Reality Show.” The film highlights interviews with scientists, psychologists, artists, environmentalists, authors, activists, and philosophers in its quest to discover the meaning of all life. “I didn’t want to hear the usual answers, like war, hunger, poverty, the environmental crisis, or even greed,” Shadyac explains. “These are not the problems, they are the symptoms of a larger endemic problem. In I AM, I wanted to talk about the root cause of the ills of the world, because if there is a common cause, and we can talk about it, air it out in a public forum, then we have a chance to solve it.”
Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the scientifically supported discoveries emerging out of this nonfiction documentary are in alignment with many of the messages held within the New Spirituality movement:
“Humans actually function better and remain healthier when expressing positive emotions, such as love, care, compassion, and gratitude, versus their negative counterparts, anxiety, frustration, anger and fear.”
“The heart, not the brain, may be man’s primary organ of intelligence, and that human consciousness and emotions can actually affect the physical world.”
“Humankind’s real power comes in their ability to perform complex tasks together, to sympathize and cooperate.”
“I AM isn’t as much about what you can do, as who you can be. And from that transformation of being, action will naturally follow.”
I wholeheartedly recommend this film of awakening, where science and spirituality link arms, out of which gives birth once again the undeniable realization that: We are all connected.
Visit the I AM website here.
(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.)
(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”)
By the time Jenny Lee was 28 years old, she’d already had 26 plastic surgeries:
Breast implants (twice)
Cheek implants
Chin implant
Lip implants (3 times)
Nose jobs (3 times)
Breast lift (3 times)
Liposuction on her arms, hips, thighs, stomach & knees
A full body lift
Botox injections
Veneers
Why?
Her answer to this one-word question is simply, “Because my husband told me that my breasts were too small and my nose was too big.”
In an effort to achieve her perception of perfection – (including a belief that these choices would somehow become the source of her partner’s happiness) – Jenny Lee attempted to literally recreate her body, thus hoping to recreate her reality, through a painful journey of surgery after surgery after surgery.
The cruel twist in this story is that after Jenny had the breast enlargements and the plethora of other procedures, instead of finally receiving what she desired most, her husband’s love and affection, she was met with a new unwelcome response from him: resentment and jealousy… because now, ironically, she was receiving too much attention from others.
Reading this story about Jenny caused me to reflect upon why women – or anyone, for that matter – began perceiving themselves as less than whole and adopted belief systems which embraced the notion that certain conditions create happiness, not only within ourselves, but within others: “If I have thinner thighs or less wrinkles, I will be worthy of love”…”If he was taller and had more hair, he would be perfect”….”If she would look this way, I would feel that way.”
We cram our feet into uncomfortable shoes.
We stuff our legs into binding pantyhose and hip-slimming Spanx.
We pluck our eyebrows and color our hair and bleach our teeth.
We only feel pretty when we have make-up on…and we have become experts at “Photoshopping” out our perceived flaws.
Why are we doing this?
What is it that we are imagining ourselves to need? Or be lacking? Or simply not remembering?
“Communion with God” says “need” is not only the first illusion, but the grandest illusion, the illusion upon which ALL other illusions are based. The illusion of need manifests in all areas of our lives, but it becomes particularly painful when it permeates the most sacred space of intimacy within a partnership of souls. Some people feel unworthy to stand before their beloved other unclothed. Some people withhold from their lover the most sensual physical experience of love. Some people go so far as to undergo 26-plus cosmetic surgeries to “fix” what they think is “broke.”
What can we do to change this?
As our society continues to shift and inch closer to the understandings and concepts held with the New Spirituality, will we remember that it is through the transformation of our thoughts about Who We Really Are, rather than our ideas about who we think we should be, that we will be presented the grandest opportunity to experience ourselves as whole and perfect….and as God?
Or is it perhaps that an alteration of our physicality is just another path to a spiritual transformation?
(Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support . To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
“I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change” is the title of a highly successful and now retired Off-Broadway musical in New York City which emphasized in a light-hearted fashion what has sadly come to be the not-so-light-hearted and oftentimes painful experience found in so many relationships: partnerships foundationed in neediness and expectation, two of the “three love-enders,” as described to us in the book Friendship with God, with the third “love-ender” being jealousy.
Conversations with God offers to us the following insight:
“When you lose sight of each other as sacred souls on a sacred journey, then you cannot see the purpose, the reason, behind all relationships.”
If we are entering into our relationships with the idea that our partners must BE a particular way or DO a particular thing in order for us to experience the depths of our own happiness and abundance, the expansiveness of our own joy and light, and the fullness of our own completeness and sufficiency, we are functioning within an understanding of “love with conditions” and misguided ideas of what perfection truly is.
In an era where the divorce rate exceeds 50%, what is really going on here? What are we not understanding and, thus, not being allowed to experience?
Are our limited understandings and parameters in relation to this institution called “marriage” too narrow to hold a space for a deeply fulfilling soul partnership to thrive? Have we placed unrealistic human boundaries on the aspect of ourselves that is without limits?
Most of us, at one time or another and at one level or another, have experienced the joyful bliss of a budding relationship and the devastating heartbreak of its demise. So many of us are yearning and searching for the perfect partner, what is often termed a “soul-mate,” only to experience repeated outcomes of disillusionment and disappointment; yet there are those who have discovered and held onto that seemingly elusive but deeply satisfying recipe of love and commitment.
Why does this experience of a spiritually rich and loving relationship evade so many in what seems to resemble a cruel game of hide-and-seek? It has been my own personal experience that a gentle shift in perspective can elevate a relationship from an experience of division and angst to an experience of unity and bliss. This type of shift will invite me to take a conscious step away from my expectations and attachment to outcomes; to separate myself from my mind’s craving to be “right,” which oftentimes requires making someone else “wrong”; and to be fully present in the completeness of not only myself, but in the completeness of my beloved other.
Perhaps someone, someday, somewhere will create and produce a musical about relationships that carries with it a message from within the perspective of The New Spirituality, and perhaps a title of…
“I Love You, Without Condition, Eternally.”
(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.)
