relationships
It was recently brought to my attention that my driver’s license had expired and that I had been driving around town “illegally” for over two weeks. This troubled me, of course, because I immediately thought for sure Murphy’s Law would pay me a visit and I would, for the first time in years and years, now ironically get stopped by the police for a moving violation or a broken taillight or, worse yet, maybe find myself involved in an automobile accident, my expired license only adding to my misfortune. Yes, I was frantically writing my own best-selling “what if” story.
But my mind was also busy imagining a situation that perhaps, at least more immediately, was even worse than that — the dreaded thought of having to make an early Monday morning visit to the Department of Motor Vehicles to renew my lapsed license. Oh, just the thought of waiting in those long lines, only to be served by overly tired, underpaid, and under-appreciated government employees who spend long dreary days in a gray office with no windows, determined to suck all of us into their miserable lair. Thought by thought, I was erecting giant walls of resistance around me.
So I came up with a plan. I would be the very first one in line! That way I will avoid those long painful lines and maybe find myself fortunate enough to be served by someone at the DMV who hadn’t yet been worn down and numbed by a full day of monotony. Yes! That is what decided to do. So I smugly arrived at the DMV at 7:45 a.m., knowing they opened at 8:30 a.m., and feeling confident that I would be the first to arrive.
Except I wasn’t. I was not the first person in line. I was the second person in line.
And this is when I met Bob.
Bob is an 82-year-old gentleman who, like me, came to the DMV office to renew his driver’s license. But it did not take long for me to experience the “real” reason Bob was there.
Bob was there for me.
This soft-spoken, kind man, with a smile that extended into his eyes, thought that the driver’s license office opened at 8:00, only to discover that he now had 45 minutes to wait outside on the unforgiving hard sidewalk, with nowhere to sit, nowhere to rest his frail legs. But what he did have is someone to talk to, to share his life with, to laugh with, to be present with, someone who understood the much, much larger reason for his “mistake” in thinking the DMV opened at 8:00 and someone who also now understood the underlying purpose in my premeditated “plan” to beat the crowd.
I was there for Bob.
In those precious 45 minutes, I learned from Bob that he said goodbye to his life-long companion just six short months ago. And he misses her dearly. I could feel his sadness and deep love for her. I knew that Bob was experiencing her presence just by having someone to share her memory with, that her essence was alive and very real in our interaction with each other, and I was honored and profoundly touched to be chosen as a surrogate with whom Bob could once again experience her love and grace.
I learned from Bob that he wobbles when he walks sometimes. But he says he does not think of or label this as “stumbling” or “wobbling.” Bob says he is dancing. And in our short time together, Bob danced a lot. I wonder if in some of these seemingly unsteady moments his soul is engaging in a breathtaking waltz with his beautiful wife?
I learned from Bob that even though he is no longer able to travel around the country in his motor home as he once did with his Beloved Other, there is a wonderful channel on his Dish network that shows beautiful scenery from around the world — majestic mountains, tranquil beaches, and colorful fields of flowers. And if you get up really early in the morning, at 4:00 a.m., as he does, you can watch that program and “feel like you are right there. ” And “if you are a believer,” as Bob offered to me, “they even scroll some scripture across the bottom,” to which he gently and thoughtfully added, “if you want that.”
I learned from Bob that even though his life partner has continued on in her soul’s journey, he still greets each new dawn with purpose and appreciation. While he oftentimes yearns for the physical presence of his wife, he understands that he still has soul work to do and a life to live and experience – and he has decided to show up in his own life with humor, kindness, and intention.
There was a point in my life, not too very long ago, when I would have missed entirely the enormous gift being presented within this relationship and within this experience. There may have even been a time where I would have avoided this wonderful elderly gentleman altogether by inconspicuously burying my face in my phone or casually dismissing him with a polite smile. Boy, am I thankful I am not living in that space anymore.
My encounter with Bob is a reminder that what I think is going on isn’t always what is going on. My well-laid plan to beat the crowd at the DMV and to make sure that I avoided an uncomfortable personal experience had nothing to do with what I originally imagined. Bob and I had a soul agreement long before our bodies arrived at that particular location at that particular time and in that particular way.
How would our lives change if we viewed every person with whom we interacted as an intentional and purposeful gift? Have our souls chosen the people who are in our lives and those that are held within our next choice? Or are we just randomly bumping into each other? It is easy to view our own biological families and chosen partners and our children and friends as gifts. But what about the passers-by? What about the person next to you in line at the grocery store? What about the “overly tired, underpaid, and under-appreciated government employees who spend long dreary days in a gray office with no windows”?
We sometimes realize after-the-fact that something big, something of importance, something Divine has just taken place. But when we come to this same realization “in the moment” we are actually experiencing it, we can see the opportunity we are being given to remember a little bit more about who we are and why we are here, and we become powerful creators and flow-throughs of God’s love.
At 8:30 on the nose, the doors to the DMV opened and I followed Bob into the building. We parted ways to go to our respective service windows, immense feelings of gratitude welling up inside me. When I arrived to meet the person who would be assisting me that morning, the person to whom I had projected unfavorable predictions upon, the individual whose mere existence I was a short while ago resisting, I was warmly greeted with a radiant smile and a cheery, “Good morning! How may I help you today?” – and I immediately knew another opportunity was presenting itself to me.
(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)
Isn’t it heartwarming and wonderful to watch very young children, two-, three-, four-year-olds, who express and demonstrate their love so spontaneously and unreservedly? It’s not unusual to hear the collective sound of a harmonious “awww” from observers on a playground witnessing two new young friends sharing in an impromptu hug or unforeseen kiss on the cheek. These children live in pure awareness. Their love is unfiltered, not yet programmed, authentic, allowing them to exemplify the level and kind of love we all yearn for but have somehow forgotten how to experience.
But why have we forgotten?
At some point in our childhood, we are exposed to and told to believe in a different kind of love. This different kind of love works swiftly to reprogram what we come here already knowing: that we already ARE love. This different kind of love then works tirelessly to convince us that if we “do this” or “be that” or “do things in a particular way,” we will finally earn and be rewarded the love of another. Haven’t we all, at some point or another in our lives, yearned to hear the words “I love you”?
But what do we really mean when we utter these three words to another with an underlying hope that we will, in turn, hear “I love you” back? To say nothing of the paralyzing fear that the possibility exists that we may not be the recipient of another’s confirmation of love. Would it be possible to be in a relationship where the knowing of one’s love was so palpable that the desire and need to hear this verbal affirmation would no longer present itself?
Somewhere along the way, in an attempt to capture the essence of love in a way that makes sense, we boxed it into our language, as we do many of life’s esoteric ideas and concepts, and formulated our own version of love. We have minimized, twisted, stretched, warped, contorted, and manipulated this small but powerful phrase — “I love you” — to the point that its meaning is almost spiritually unrecognizable. We hinge or hasten our expression of love upon some need-driven expectation of what we may or may not receive in return.
Imagine a world where we did not condition our love, or the expression of it, upon an assurance and acknowledgment that we will be loved back, a world where everyone demonstrates their love freely, openly, and unconditionally, where love was not bartered over or bargained for. I have, on more than one occasion, found myself asking the question: Are we even capable of experiencing unconditional love for a period of time beyond an occasional moment or two?
And the answer I receive is that if we fully awakened to who we really are – all of us – we would never place another condition upon our love. We would not need to prove love’s reciprocity because we would already know and feel its omnipresence. Fear and doubt would never cause us to hesitate in expressing our deepest gratitude and affection to anyone, as we would no longer buy into a perceived need to self-protect; but rather we would each place into the world our highest intentions and actions, giving freely from the source of our own abundance, understanding that the entire purpose of our being here in the first place has very little, if anything, to do with ourselves…and everything to do with all those with whom we share our path.
I once saw an interview with Tony Robbins, the well-known motivational speaker, where he was asked if he gets nervous before he walks out on a stage in front of thousands of people. His answer was (paraphrasing): “If I thought that going out on that stage had anything to do with me, I would be nervous, tongue-tied, struggling to find my words. But going out there has nothing to do with me. It is about those people in the audience. I am here for them.”
That, to me, is unconditional love, giving your gifts absent the necessity to receive anything particular in return, a choice and demonstration of your Highest Self which arises out of a deeper understanding of why you are here. Unconditional love asks, “Who am I in the room to heal? And how will I let them know I am here?”
Perhaps as our world continues to shed its Old Cultural Story, the one which carries with it a “different kind of love,” we will collectively begin to once again behold the world as our playground, just as we did when we were children, spontaneously and unreservedly declaring and expressing, returning to Love and a remembrance of Who We Really Are.
(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)
Day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year, hundreds of thousands of people travel from all corners of the globe to the small southeastern European country of Croatia to communicate with a man named Braco, to engage in a unique “conversation,” if you will, that surpasses spoken words, an interaction which has demonstrated itself to be impervious to religious preferences, nationality, race, age, sexual orientation, gender, or any other brand of identifier we could place upon ourselves. These exchanges do not even discriminate against those who have little or no financial ability…as they are completely free to every single person who wants to attend.
Braco does not speak, he does not make physical contact with anyone, nor does he use any type of nonverbal suggestions.
He simply gazes silently into each and every person’s eyes.
For 5 to 7 minutes, in a room filled with people, the only form of communication taking place is a silent gaze into each other’s eyes, where participants can see themselves reflected back through Braco’s eyes, connecting to something greater than themselves. And while Braco does not claim to be a healer, but rather a flow-through of the positive and beautiful feelings and energy which we all carry within us, thousands profess to have experienced significant transformations in their life after a silent gazing event.
As with many nontraditional forward-thinking concepts, these gazing events have not gone without criticism by skeptics and nonbelievers. But why are thousands of people flocking to this man, yearning for this experience? My intention for writing about this phenomenon is not intended to be an advertisement for Braco, but rather he caused me to reflect upon and explore more deeply how we could apply this very same methodology in our own personal relationships right here, right now, without the need to embark on a pilgrimage to Croatia.
The way we choose to communicate in our relationships determines and changes the way we experience our relationships. We are pretty good at speaking our minds when we have something to say, but how good are we at using our bodies to communicate? If our body language is not in harmony with our words, is our message being conveyed the way we would like to believe it is? And when someone is communicating with us, are we “gazing” in their eyes? Are we leaning in to them? Are we being a “flow-through” for the energy exchange taking place…or are we resembling something more like a brick wall?
I am sure we can all come up with several instances where the loving glance of a parent reassured us or the pinched brow of a partner conveyed feelings of hurt, without the necessity of words. So often we drift out of the present moment, excitedly gathering our thoughts about what we want to say next, perched so closely on the edge of telling our story that we even go so far as to actually talk over the sacred expression of another. How can we receive if we do not create the space of silence for it to be placed within? How can we truly hear if we are striving so desperately to be heard?
In the most heartfelt and intimate of conversations with our loved ones, we are more apt to settle into a space of intention and commit to being fully present and open and available. But what prevents us from entering into that space with all of our relationships? Our co-workers, our parents, our neighbors, our children, each and every person we encounter each and every day?
Perhaps Braco is really on to something here. Hundreds of thousands of people from around the world seem to think so. Maybe we as a society are too busy talking, writing, thinking, intellectualizing, planning, analyzing, and strategizing. Perhaps it is in the stillness of our being and in the reflection of each other’s eyes that we hold the ability to understand each other on a level never before experienced.
And if we are willing to consider that possibility, could it then be possible that the answer to the question that would change life as we know it on our planet — “How is it possible that 6.9 billion people can all claim to want the same thing (peace, security, opportunity, prosperity, happiness and love) and be singularly unable to get it?” — could also be found not within our words, but rather within the sacred and silent gaze of our eyes?
(Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
My friends and some of my family members think I am selfish because I am honest with them when I don’t want to do something or attend a function I’m invited to. They tell me I only think of myself, I only do things for myself, and that if I’m not careful I’m going to find myself all alone one day soon. I’m conflicted because I don’t want to hurt their feelings, or be disliked or alone, but I don’t feel I’m in the wrong for speaking my truth. How do I make them understand?
Julia, London
Hi Julia,
I’ve heard it be said that selfishness is the vibrational alignment with self, and that is never a bad thing. I happen to see selfishness as a good thing, actually, when used in the right context. Everyone is responsible for themselves, and most unhappiness comes from the belief that we are responsible for the happiness and well-being of others. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a wonderful thing to bring happiness and well-being to others, by doing so we receive the same thing. But the distinction lies is whether or not we are responsible to do so. We’re not. Each soul on this planet came here with its own agenda, to experience particular things, and each soul knows what it’s doing. Therefore, being “selfish”, or as I look at it, paying special attention to the soul’s desire or agenda, is not a bad thing at all.
So what if doing what’s best for you, or “being selfish” appears to hurt another? I’ve also heard it be said to “speak your truth, yet soothe your words with peace.” Take a moment to evaluate how you are speaking your truth to others. Do you sometimes come across as harsh, indignant, condescending maybe? If so, ask yourself how you can soothe your words with peace when expressing what you desire. In terms of “making them understand”, well, I’m afraid that’s just not possible, Julia. We can’t make anyone do anything – remember, it is not we who are responsible for the reaction of another, that is completely up to them. But there is great comfort and peace in knowing that you have been true to yourself, you have spoken your truth with great kindness and compassion, and have chosen to show up as authentically you, regardless of how another chooses to react. There is also great freedom in allowing another their own experience. It’s one of the best gifts you can give another.
Also keep in mind that when people are upset with you, or don’t like something you are doing, you are giving them the gift of deciding who they are in respect to that. And they’re reaction to you gives you the same opportunity. And finally, sometimes we simply “grow in a different direction” with some people in our lives, when the purpose of your relationship has been served. You may want to take a moment to ask yourself the difficult question of whether or not that applies to some of the people you are referring to. And if this continues to be in an issue, this lack of understanding one another, that is, with certain people who you’d like to keep in your life, consider getting some counseling or a mediator involved to help close that gap in understanding.
This isn’t an easy topic, this business of relating with those closest to us, it’s always a bit of a hot button. But remember that you are responsible for YOU and only you, and if you are making choices from a place of authenticity, honesty and alignment, than you’re doing pretty darn well as far as I’m concerned. Hope this helps.
P.S. You may want to read about the 5 Levels of Truth, covered in “When Everything Changes, Change Everything”. It offers great clarity around all of this speaking our truth to others business.
(Nova Wightman is a CWG Life Coach, as well as the owner and operator of Go Within Life Coaching, www.gowithincoaching.com, specializing in helping individuals blend their spirituality with their humanity in a way that makes life more enjoyable, easy, and fulfilling. She can be reached at Nova@theglobalconversation.com. )
(If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to: Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com, where our team is waiting to hear from you.)
I was born on the last day of the year. So the annual transition of “out with the old and in with the new” feels especially pivotal to me as I reflect with gratitude upon what once was, I look forward with hope and anticipation for what is yet to come, and I explore more deeply the larger reason for my birth. And, yes, I do make some “New Year’s Resolutions”; however, they have nothing to do with resolving to fit into last year’s pair of blue jeans. And while more money flowing into my bank account rather than out of it would bring some much-needed financial relief, I will not be making that my top priority either. Nor will I be committing to get a better job or setting my sights on traveling around the world sampling exotic foods.
Part of the reason why I believe New Year’s Resolutions “fail” is because the purpose for which we enter into such agreements with ourselves has very little to do with the purpose of our lives. I am sharing a letter I wrote to my 18-year-old son, as it captures the essence of how I feel about the arrival of a new year. The gifts I have been given the opportunity to receive and give within the context of my relationship with my son have been some of the most profound and life-changing. And I believe deeply that by allowing the gifts to flow through me to you, they become a gift to us all.
“Dear James,
As night gently falls on 2012 and the promise of a new dawn in 2013 hangs in the air, billions of people around the world will be resolving and committing to make changes in their life, hoping to stick to long-lasting resolutions that will finally deliver to them the things in life we all desire most — abundance, prosperity, better health, joy, security, happiness, and love — believing that this time, this year, their well-intentioned efforts will resemble more than simply a “to do” list for the first week of January.
I wonder if you, too, feel that yearning, if you hear a beckoning to a higher calling, if you desire to make new choices with an eye on shaping and defining not just your experience for a particular year, but with an eye on shaping and defining the entire purpose of your life. Ah, the purpose of life — the question that has perplexed scholars and religious teachers around the world, the question which has led countries into war and tested and stretched the fabric of every relationship we enter into, the question that is most looked at in the final moments of our physical being here on earth:
What is the purpose of my life?
My Beloved Son, I am here to share with you the answer.
I will begin by sharing with you what the purpose of your life is not. As my good friend, Neale, has shared many, many times, the purpose of life has very little to do, if anything, with “getting the girl, getting the car, getting the job, getting the house, getting the spouse, getting the kids, getting the better job, getting the better house, getting the promotion, getting the grandkids, getting the gray hair, getting the office in the corner, getting the retirement watch, getting the illness, getting the burial plot, and getting the hell out.”
And so far, in the 46 years that I have been blessed to have on this earth, this has demonstrated itself to be true – life is not about any of those things. I’ve had most of the things on that list, and some of them more than once. And I am here to tell you that the purpose for my life was not realized or remembered by “getting” or “having” any one of them.
So if life really isn’t about any of those things, then what is it about?
This is what I know to be true:
The purpose of your life is to create the purpose of your life.
When you were a very young child, it mattered not to me whether you played baseball or joined Cub Scouts, whether you went swimming or read a book, or whether you ate pizza or spaghetti. And now, as a young man who is living on his own, it matters not to me which career you choose or what area of the world you reside in, what you have for dinner, how you enjoy your spare time, or what kind of clothes you wear.
Do not confuse “not mattering” with “not loving.” My love for you is without conditions. These choices would only matter to me if somehow the level of my love for you was attached to a particular outcome designed by me or hinged to a misguided idea that somehow you could fail in this Life game.
I want for you what you want for you.
And here is where it gets even better, James:
God wants for us what we want for us.
Society will tell you that in order to “earn” God’s love, you must be a certain way and do certain things. Have you questioned this for yourself? Have you wondered why a God who is “unconditionally loving” would place such conditions upon his love? Have you dared to imagine a different kind of God?
And if God wants for us what we want for us, and the purpose of our lives have nothing to do with what we have or what we get, what will the arrival of a new year mean to you? What will you strive for? What will you draw upon to ascribe meaning to the experiences in your life?
Your life is an opportunity. Within every occurrence, there is an opportunity for you. And within every relationship, you are an opportunity for someone else. Will you see those moments and embrace those gifts, both those that are being given to you and those you have to give? As the world collectively and consciously welcomes the New Year, perhaps the largest number of people purposefully and simultaneously placing positive energy and intention into the world, how could our world not become a better place? Where will you be in that process? And WHO will you be in that process?
What will you decide and what will you declare the purpose of your life to be, my beloved son?”
What will the arrival of a New Year mean to you, my friends? A new car? More money? Fitting in last year’s blue jeans? Or perhaps at last the answer to one of life’s biggest questions: What is the purpose of my life?
(Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team atwww.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
Pope Benedict XVI said, no, we are not in his annual Christmas message to the world, one of his most important speeches of the year, where he once again proclaimed that same-sex marriage is destroying “the essence of humanity.”
“People dispute the idea that they have a nature, given to them by their bodily identity, that serves as a defining element of the human being,” he said at the Vatican. “They deny their nature and decide that it is not something previously given to them, but that they make it for themselves.”
He further went on to say, “When freedom to be creative becomes the freedom to create oneself, then necessarily the Maker himself is denied and ultimately man too is stripped of his dignity as a creature of God.”
Could it be, as Pope Benedict suggests, that life truly is a shallow existence of “what you get is what you get”?
What would the Pope tell a child born a hermaphrodite, a condition in which someone is born with both female and male sex organs – a body given to him by God, by the way? Too bad? You deserve no one? Or perhaps the contrary: “Lucky you, you can have a relationship with whoever you want”?
And what about the Pope himself who has been “defined” by God as a male, given a penis, and yet chooses not to fall in line with that “identity” and chooses not to express romantic love to a female and chooses not to enter into intimate relationships? According to his own definition, is he not “denying” his own “nature” that God intended for him to share in intimacy with a woman and to reproduce? Is he not participating in his own freedom and creativity in an effort to self-define who he is and what he believes about why he is here?
Aren’t we ALL doing that very same thing?
Why are we being told to feel bound to our physicality when it comes to S-E-X, but celebrated when we demonstrate our capacity for greatness beyond our bodies in other ways?
My friend, Mark, whose body is partially paralyzed and riddled with unrelenting pain – again, the body given to him by God — climbed 108 floors of the Sears Tower in Chicago…and plans to do it again this year. I imagine it would be quite difficult to find anyone who would say Mark has “stripped himself of his dignity” by creating a new definition of himself that expanded far beyond his physicality.
But again, I get it. We are talking about the unspeakable, the shameful, the only-talked-about-in-a-whisper topic of S-E-X.
However, the Pope’s declaration of “Gay marriage, like abortion and euthanasia, is a threat to world peace” appears to be falling upon deaf ears as the Constitutional Court in largely Roman Catholic Spain upheld the law legalizing gay marriage last month, the British government announced it will introduce a bill next year legalizing gay marriage, and in France, President Francois Hollande has said he would enact his “Marriage for Everyone” plan within a year of taking office last May.
These are the visionaries, the writers of our New Cultural Story, the mold-shatterers and rule-breakers who do not believe in a God that makes mistakes. They are not buying into the twisted idea that God would create something so extraordinary and then make it wrong.
What these New Cultural Story global authors do believe in is Love. They do not believe same-sex marriage is destroying the essence of humanity, but rather that it IS the essence of humanity. They believe that love transcends everything and is denied to no one, that Love that has no rules and is certainly not reserved for only a select few to be experienced in a select way, and that the biggest continuing threat to world peace is not found, as Pope Benedict suggested, within the loving union of a same-sex partnership, but rather in a belief system that embraces and promotes a vengeful and judgmental God.
(Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team atwww.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
This year Christmas did not arrive for me wrapped up in pretty packages with shiny bows, I did not feel the essence of Christmas by getting that front-row parking space at the mall on the busiest shopping day of the year, and I did not experience Christmas by savoring all the extraordinary food and festivities that plentifully show up this time of year.
I experienced Christmas in the airport.
As we joyfully awaited the arrival of my son’s plane near the gate, I noticed the people gathered around: little children in their pajamas, parents poised with video cameras, families hugging, laughing, crying, some people sleeping on the floor, men with flowers, women with gifts, all anticipating the return of someone special.
The realization was palpable.
You could see Christmas.
You could hear Christmas.
You could smell Christmas.
You could FEEL Christmas.
But it had nothing to do with trinkets or doo-dads, shopping malls or Christmas sweaters, cookies or egg nog, churches or Santa Claus.
It had everything to do with our relationship with each other.
Christmas serves as a reminder of our presence in each other’s lives. And on this particular day, in the wee hours of the morning, I experienced the significance of being in that Holy Space, witnessing and feeling the significance of who we are to each other. And while I was especially tuned in to the long-awaited reunion with my beloved son, I became keenly aware of the larger picture, that this night was an opportunity to experience unity with all those gathered together; that what I became a part of was no coincidence, but rather an invitation to carry forward what I was experiencing beyond the walls of the international airport, out into the world, and into the lives of others.
And not only to carry this experience forward simply through Christmas Day, but to extend the appreciation of and gratitude for who we are in relation to each other in every moment of my life…even in the moments when we must physically part once again with a loved one. In two weeks, when I find myself at the international airport again, but this time to say goodbye, I will enter the space with those gathered around with intention and compassion, knowing that we are all in that Holy Space not only with each other, but for each other…and that we are ALL each other’s loved one.
And I will once again discover Christmas in the airport.
(Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team atwww.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
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.)
As we transition into the first week of December, the radio stations are also transitioning into their holiday musical line-up and beginning to play Christmas tunes, some stations devoting their entire program exclusively to “sounds of the season” 24 hours a day, seven days a week, all the way up to Christmas Day. So during my early-morning commute today, I was not surprised to hear Elvis Presley crooning “I’ll Have a Blue Christmas Without You” and Jon Bon Jovi belting out “Please Come Home for Christmas” and Mariah Carey sorrowfully singing “I Miss You Most at Christmastime.”
I’ve heard these particular songs hundreds, if not thousands, of times before. But today these three melancholy tunes caught my attention in a new way, one which invited me to think about how many people, myself included, are physically separated from their loved ones not only at Christmas, but for prolonged periods of time, whether that separation is as a result of children growing up and moving on to the next chapter in their lives, or due to a special friendship parting ways, or perhaps a loved one who has left this earthly realm to continue on in their eternal spiritual journey.
These physical separations have the potential to stir up a wealth of emotions and confusion, especially when the way we desire our relationships to be experienced is entirely different than the way in which they are actually physically showing up – or not showing up – in our lives.
But are we as separated from our loved ones as we imagine ourselves to be?
Is there a way to actually experience the presence of those who no longer share a physical proximity with us? Not only at Christmas, but all the time?
If we limit our definition of “relationship” to include only that which we experience in physicality, our answer to that question may cause us to miss a most extraordinary spiritual opportunity.
Have you ever experienced the essence of someone you love without them being physically in the room with you? Have you actually felt the wonder and intimacy of a Beloved Other even in the absence of their physical being beside you? Has a particular aroma or unique sound or distinct taste triggered an opportunity to actually relive, in a palpable way, a moment with somebody who is no longer physically here?
We are provided infinite opportunities to experience our loved ones through the path of our consciousness. For me personally, the smell of roses delivers to me an experience of being a very young child, cuddling on my mother’s lap after she bathed and luxuriated herself in Rose Milk Body Lotion, instantaneously drawing into my consciousness my mother and an opportunity to be with her in a way that transcends physicality. The gentle sound of an acoustic guitar gifts me with an opportunity to linger within the essence of my 18-year-old son and his music, who now resides on the other side of the country. A large percentage of the people in my life with whom I share an intimate or especially meaningful relationship live nowhere near me, yet their presence is significant and certain.
And this is because what we choose to focus on and what we choose to see will determine What we experience and Who we experience and How we experience. Life calls upon us to do and be many different things. And as a result, we may find ourselves physically separated from what we have come to know as our most important and cherished relationships. Yet day after day, year after year, lifetime after lifetime people manage to move through these transitions and changes, most often to experience an even deeper level of love and a more profound level of awareness. And this is because we truly are never separate from each other.
Our relationships never end, as we imagine or perceive they do. The existence or magnitude of a relationship cannot be measured in terms of physical distance or closeness. Relationships simply change the form in which you experience them, and a physical “separation” may be just the thing that allows us to know and experience not only who we are in relation to each other but who we are in relation to our Self.
Perhaps this holiday season will provide you an opportunity to create a new experience, one which celebrates the presence of a loved one in an extraordinary yet familiar way. Maybe the warm embrace of a loved one will be experienced through the surrogacy of a child’s tender hug or seen in a stranger’s smiling eyes or warmly felt through the gentle touch of an unknown passerby.
Maybe, just maybe, you truly are as close as your next thought.
(Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team atwww.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
I remember from reading the CWG books that Neale mentions here and there the concepts of building and maintaining a conscious relationship. However, I was wondering whether there is any specific material out there that is solely focused on this topic. Blessings and joy to you…Annalisa
Dear Annalisa…Neale addressed a similar question in our Spiritual Mentoring Program call on Saturday by saying this:
“1. Need nothing. 2. Understand everything. 3. Love all.”
Please allow me to elaborate:
1. In a relationship if we Need nothing specific from the other, we can save ourselves a lot of grief. For example, I have found that with my family, sometimes we are pulled in different directions, each of us having our own agenda, especially around the holidays. Things run much more smoothly for me if I don’t attach myself to any particular plan—if I don’t Need anything in particular to happen—allowing Life to lead me where it will. This appeases everyone, so therefore, I am at peace as well!
2. Entire relationships, indeed, entire lives have been ruined by people who misunderstand the actions of another and hold grudges against them, rather than sitting down, talking things out, and arriving at mutual understanding about why they did what they did. When we Understand the reasons why others do what they do, forgiveness is automatic. Neale calls this “Forgiveness Forgone” because forgiveness is a foregone conclusion when we Understand the reasons people do things we might consider negative.
3. To Love all doesn’t mean “free love” in the 1960s sense, as the hit song from that era, “Love the One You’re With” recommended. Rather, it means, Love everything that shows up. Byron Katie’s book Loving What Is explains this beautifully. Another author, Rick Steves, who is my favorite travel writer, says, “If something isn’t to your liking, change your liking.” This is a very profound statement that takes on a much deeper meaning than simply what to do while traveling. If we learn to love Life exactly as it is showing up—if we can see the perfection in all of Life—then we live the path of least resistance. This is not to say we are not at choice in every moment. We are, and we’re always invited by Life to Choose Again… to re-create ourselves anew in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever we held about Who We Are. Yet, to do this while living a life resisting nothing is to walk the path of the great Masters.
(Annie Sims is the Global Director of CWG Advanced Programs, is a Conversations With God Coach and author/instructor of the CWG Online School. To connect with Annie, please email her at Annie@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.)
