Voice for the Minority
The world is constantly changing. There is never a moment it is not changing. The universal question is not whether change will occur, but rather what kind of change do we desire?
We here at The Global Conversation have placed ourselves at the forefront of a gentle but powerful spiritual movement to revolutionize the evolution of our planet and all the people who share this Holy Land by collectively orchestrating the kind of change Humanity is visibly yearning for. It is an exciting time for all of us as we are being given an extraordinary opportunity to experience the ability to transform our experience here on earth by stepping into the power of our own creativeness.
This is also the perfect time for us to take a look at how we can also apply these same larger-scale perspectives and changes to the individual one-on-one relationships we enter into with our spouses and partners on a daily basis. While it may appear at times that we are making very little progress, if any, as a society in redefining our relationships, when we step back and look at the larger picture, there have been noticeable shifts over the years in the way we have come to interrelate with each other personally and intimately. But we still have work to do.
In a world where half of the population is dissolving their marriages and another large segment of the population who desires to be married is being told they cannot, we have engineered relationship gridlock. What we have declared to be the “right” way to be in relationship is demonstrating itself to be “wrong” in the sense that it is not working for half the population. The box we have constructed to house our relationships has been erected with faulty materials — distorted thoughts, judged past data, imagined truths – and it simply can no longer be relied upon as the formula we use to regulate or govern that aspect of who we are.
The time has come for us to revolutionize our relationships — the way we enter into them, the way we engage in them, and even the way we depart from them.
The time has come for us to end our search for someone to come into our lives, and rather begin placing ourselves intentionally into the lives of others.
The time has come for us to remember that there will be times when our Souls yearn for different experiences, and that the richness of our partnership is not determined by only those moments in which we see eye to eye.
The time has come for us to understand that even on those occasions when life has called upon us to experience contrast, or when we have stepped off the path of remembrance, forgetting who we are, that these are moments, most of all, for us to hold the sanctity of our relationships in the palm of tenderness and compassion.
The time has come for us to be mindful of and know when it is time to simply create a gentle, loving, quiet space which allow others to shine so that they may experience their highest selves.
And perhaps most importantly, the time has come for us, in the process of reshaping and restructuring our relationship framework, to reshape and restructure our beliefs about God, replacing old ideas with new, opening our hearts and expanding our consciousness, and recognizing that the way we behold God is the way we ultimately behold each other.
I part with a wonderful quote by Maya Angelou which says, “When you know better, you do better.”
Isn’t it time for us to do better?
(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.)
“Every act is an act of self-definition.”
If I hold this concept as true – and I do — who am I defining myself as if, when I engage in the seemingly simple exercise of selecting which articles of clothing to wear for the day, I choose to outfit myself with a t-shirt which displays a large rebel flag boldly front and center on my body?
Brad Paisley, in his new song called “Accidental Racist,” is asking us to believe that people who don large rebel flags on their chests do so because it is an announcement of their affinity for the southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd, and not because it symbolizes one of the largest examples of oppression, hatred, and racism towards an entire race of human beings.
Paisley’s recently released song has ignited a firestorm of controversy surrounding his attempt to address racism and whether his efforts were ill-intended or well-intentioned, whether it was a desperate grab for publicity or whether it was a sincere effort to soothe and heal some deep, painful wounds from the past.
The Confederate flag is one of the few symbols today that is both hated and loved, both vehemently denounced and proudly defended, both strongly resisted and loyally embraced. Of course, the flag in and of itself – the type of fabric, the colors and design — holds no particular meaning, as does anything in life. It is merely a construct of a variety of materials. Rather it is the meaning that we place upon it, the value that we give to it, that produces our experience of it.
Nothing in life has meaning, save the meaning we give to it.
The Confederate flag is only one example of what happens when segments of society cling unbendingly to external symbols that reflect an ideology or a belief system which, when held as absolute truth, serve to divide rather than unite. It would not be difficult to list more ways we humans do this. But I think the more important inquiry here becomes, if we have any interest at all in creating the kind of world which produces the outcomes we all say we desire, what are we willing to do differently? How are we going to redefine the ways we relate to and with each other? If we know that our actions could be easily and largely confused to mean something different than what our purest intentions are, why are we continuing to make that choice?
The title of Brad Paisley’s song plainly implies that the existing fallout of racism from those that came before us is “accidental,” that he should not be held responsible for his predecessors’ actions, nor are we able to re-write history.
Personally, I find myself only being able to accept those two statements if the person declaring them is not making choices and engaging in actions that continue to resurrect, perpetuate, and carry forward the same energy which created the historical events giving rise to and sustaining experiences of racism in the first place. We may not be able to “re-write history,” but what we are able to do is author a New Story.
And this is the opportunity we have placed before us: to decide, to declare, and to announce to the world this New Story which carries with it a New Awareness and a New Way of being in relationship with each other. We have the option of continuing to embrace an accidental life of random occurrences — a life which is happening to us – or we have the opportunity to embrace a life of creation and intention – a life which is happening through us — one which reflects our ability to see with transparency the perfection within each other, one which produces an experience of interconnectedness simultaneously existing within our diversity, one which replaces thoughts of separatism with feelings of Oneness.
Mr. Paisley himself makes the declaration at the end of his song that he is a “son of the new south.” I wonder if abandoning the choice to wear a symbol that is likely, or even holds the slightest possibility, to be construed as a statement of superiority, intolerance, and separation is included as part of his “new” story?
Every act is an act of self-definition.
(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 can think of no wiser words than those that 8-year-old Martin Richard scrawled in brightly colored markers on a poster for one of his school assignments:
“no more hurting people”
However, as perceptive and hope-filled as his short and powerful message was, ironically Martin Richard’s life on earth came to an abrupt end at the Boston Marathon while he excitedly waited for his father to cross the finish line, not knowing that a bomb was placed within a short distance of him and his family by someone who had the specific intent of doing the very thing he was championing against: hurting people.
The utterance of these four words “no more hurting people” should cause us to pause and put some serious thought into where it is as a world we want to go – and how we are going to get there. Martin’s call for peace is one that we have an opportunity to carry the torch forward on. Does anybody out there feel a responsibility to at least make an effort to see to it that a world like the one that this young child envisioned and yearned for will one day be a reality not only for a handful of people, but for all of Humanity?
If even the youngest in our society are choosing to be part of the change, what will you choose to do?
If even the most innocent in our world are stepping up and declaring their thoughts and ideas, what will you declare?
If even the most vulnerable among us have the courage to demonstrate Who They Are, who will you demonstrate yourself to be?
In the process of answering these questions, we may find ourselves wondering if God has anything to say about any of this. Conversations with God tells us that God talks to everyone. All the time. The question is not to whom does God talk, but who listens?
Are we willing to consider the possibility that one of the ways in which God is speaking to us right here, right now, is through this bright young man named Martin Richard? Perhaps in the same way that She spoke through another young man almost 2,000 years ago named Jesus?
If we are willing to consider that possibility, then the bigger question for each and every one of us to consider is: Are we going to listen — and stop hurting people?
(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.)
Stark. Gray. Cold. Inanimate. Apathetic.
These are just a handful of words which describe the bleak environment inside the concrete walls of Fishkill Correctional Institute in New York, a space reserved for those in society whose behaviors have resulted in a loss of their personal freedom, and in some cases an irreversible sentence of a lifetime behind bars. These particular individuals are the castaways, the unredeemable, the lost causes. They are the uncompassionate, the unfeeling, the disconnected. These are the men for whom society has given up all hope for, categorically labeling them as “impossible to rehabilitate.”
Thankfully, Glorida Gilbert Stoga, in collaboration with veterinarian Dr. Thomas Lane, did not believe these blanket generalizations to be true and moved into action by creating a revolutionary program called “Puppies Behind Bars,” providing these forsaken men an opportunity to experience what has been largely denied to them by society: a second chance.
This organization places puppies with inmates in prison as part of a program to train these dogs to become guide dogs for returning injured service men and women, law enforcement officers who have been injured in the line of duty, and disabled children and adults. The puppies spend 16 months with their assigned inmate, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, where they are trained and cared for until the day the dogs are presented to their new family.
As difficult as it is for these men to say goodbye to these beautiful animals with whom they have developed strong bonds and unique relationships, they have each said that the opportunity they were given to connect to a side of themselves they have forgotten they had the capacity to experience is immeasurable. By engaging in a relationship whose intended purpose and outcome is to help someone else, these inmates are discovering that their lives are not about them – at least not in the way they had so far imagined it to be. And through the path of service and compassion, giving back to a world that perhaps they have thus far only taken from, they have been given the greatest opportunity to remember and to experience who they really are.
If a man who has done the unthinkable — perhaps even someone who has taken the life of another human being — can remember how to love and how to feel compassion again through the tiny life of a puppy, don’t we ALL have the ability to begin again and to recreate ourselves anew in any given moment?
The other exciting aspect to this story is the fact that someone just like you, just like me, created this wonderful program simply from an idea, a thought. And instead of burying it in a sea of doubts, fears, and apprehensions, she chose the action love sponsors and is changing the lives of thousands of people for the better by taking the first step. I hope this story serves as an inspiration to you, as it did for me, to move into what’s next. Life really does begin “at the edge of your comfort zone, as the messages of Conversations with God advise us. If you already thought you would succeed, if you were already guaranteed to “win,” would you go for it? Would you take the jump?
What then would you be allowed to know about who you really are and why you are really here?
Note: The Conversations with God Foundation also sponsors a CwG Prison Outreach program in order to share the message of the Conversations with God books with people in jails and prisons, places of darkness where its light is most needed, empowering prisoners to spread the CwG message in their own facilities and to live this message so that they can effect change within their own sphere. For more information about how you can be involved in this wonderful outreach, click 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.)
“I, Tina, take you, Tony, to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part.”
Couples around the world, thousands of them, on the threshold of entering into life partnerships with each other, commonly recite these traditional vows. And while there is nothing “wrong” with these particular words, or their meaning, I wonder how much thought or consideration is given to whether or not these declarations actually reflect the highest level of their commitment, the deepest expression of their love, and the clearest intent and very purpose for entering into the relationship to begin with.
I don’t think I would be too far off the mark by making this perhaps bold statement: These same couples, thousands of them, have no idea why they are entering into their relationships to begin with, nor do they have any understanding of where they are going. The fallout is demonstrable and inarguable as we continue to witness growing numbers of painful divorces and separations – or, for that matter, perhaps even a larger number of people staying in relationships that either no longer serve them well or have become downright harmful. That is not to say that longevity is the sole indicator of the value or worthiness of a relationship. We could probably all share an experience where in a fleeting relation with another we were provided us some of our most profound remembrances and realizations, demonstrating the idea that ALL relationships create a context within which we are given an opportunity to choose and decide Who We Really Are.
However, as our world gently transitions out of its Old Cultural Story and into its New Cultural Story, we are given another opportunity, perhaps an even grander opportunity, the opportunity to redefine and recreate our relationships with each other not only on a global scale — politically, socially, and economically — but individually, within our most intimate relations and interactions. This shift holds within it the gift of change and the awareness to create. And the most beneficial place to begin is, quite frankly, at the beginning.
This change is not always obvious or easy. We are constantly barraged with mind-numbing television programs which degrade the holiest of unions by exploiting brides who behave poorly or by aggrandizing extraordinarily decadent and over-the-top weddings or whom offer us the advice of “relationship experts” who tell us the way our relationships “should” be. As a result, for so many, more energy and thought is expended on the pomp and circumstance of the wedding event than is given to the actual commitment.
People spend more money on multi-tiered designer wedding cakes than they are able to practically afford in order to please their guests, a large majority of whom they don’t even know. Women starve their bodies for weeks in an effort to fit into a wedding dress one size smaller than they naturally and comfortably fit into. We smash cake in each other’s faces, we pollute ourselves with so much alcohol that we can barely even remember what took place, and we, as I earlier mentioned, allow the very first words that we utter as an expression of Who We Are to be something we cut-and-pasted from Google.
If we are going to change everything, and reconnect to the intended purpose for our relationships, where do we begin? What kind of an experience would a “ceremony of commitment” or a “declaration of unity” under The New Spirituality present itself as? What would a couple in love, being love, expressing love offer at the dawn of their relationship as a declaration and demonstration of a spiritual partnership that would exemplify the very reason they have chosen to unite in the first place?
Conversations with God, Book 1, Chapter 8, offers to us the following:
“If you both agree at a conscious level that the purpose of your relationship is to create an opportunity, not an obligation—an opportunity for growth, for full Self expression, for lifting your lives to their highest potential, for healing every false thought or small idea you ever had about you, and for ultimate reunion with God through the communion of your two souls—if you take that vow instead of the vows you’ve been taking—the relationship has begun on a very good note. It’s gotten off on the right foot. That’s a very good beginning.”
What would you, from within the framework of your own understanding and your own experience, offer to someone who has come to you seeking a new definition and a new experience of “happily ever after”?
(Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation. She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.)
“If everything is perfect, happening in Divine order, why bother doing anything?”
This question was recently posed to the audience of The Global Conversation’s Facebook page in an effort to find out what people think about what may be one of the most asked about — and perhaps most misunderstood — concepts in the new-thought community.
If there is a larger spiritual design to all of this — that is, all of life — if our ultimate outcome is already guaranteed, why in the world do we need to worry about changing or creating anything during our time on earth? Can’t we just sit back and enjoy the ride? Let the chips fall where they may?
Our Facebook question triggered some wonderful and diverse responses from people around the globe.
Yoga Wahyudi says: “because there’s no such thing as perfect.”
Could that be true, that we actually are less than perfect? That nothing is perfect? Is much of the world striving and struggling and reaching for what they may never be able to attain? Is it true that there is no higher purpose or all-encompassing perfection involved here?
There are religions in our world today that support the idea that we are flawed from the moment we enter into the realm of physicality. If we embrace that belief system, one that requires us to believe ourselves as separate from God, upon what then do we base our decision of whether or not to become active participants in the happenings in our world? Is it merely an exercise of atonement for our perceived defects, earning or receiving credit for our “good” deeds?
Tony Meade shared a quote from Albert Einstein: “Nothing happens until something moves.”
And Deanne Steinbeck offered this thought: “Even divine order requires action, every action you make has a butterfly effect and it may be one of your actions that inspires someone else and so on. We are here to learn, grow and love and for us to action our best self…..divine order requires each of us to action love into the world.”
So perhaps it is within our actions, our doingness, our creativity that we are experiencing the perfection of our choices? Would we ever be able to know who we are, to declare who we are, or express who we are if we never engaged in demonstrations of who we are?
The answers to these questions will depend largely upon what your belief and understanding is about why you are here, on this planet, to begin with. Conversations with God shared this powerful message with us:
“My divine purpose in dividing Me was to create sufficient parts of Me so that I could know Myself experientially. There is only one way for the Creator to know Itself experientially as the Creator, and that is to create. And so I gave to each of the countless parts of Me (to all of My spirit children) the same power to create which I have as the whole….My purpose in creating you, My spiritual offspring, was for Me to know Myself as God. I have no way to do that save through you. Thus it can be said (and has been, many times) that My purpose for you is that you should know yourself as Me.”
And it is within this message that I believe we are offered an understanding that most clearly explains the dichotomy that exists between “everything being perfect” and the call for creation. It comes to us not in the form of a commandment, but rather in the form of a gift from God, so that we may experience ourselves as the Divine and so that the Divine may know Herself experientially.
So when we are at the choice point, and we find ourselves being given an opportunity to decide, the important questions to ask ourselves are: Who am I? Where am I? Why am I where I am? And what do I intend to do about that? When we purposefully transform our thoughts into actions, we become powerful creators and active participants in the evolution of life…not only for ourselves, but for everyone.
– Rosa Parks experienced this when she chose to stand up to legally imposed racial segregation and faced her own arrest.
– Hotel workers at theTaj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai, India, experienced this when they placed their own lives at risk in efforts to protect guests during the deadly terrorist attacks in 2008.
– Nancy Lublin experiences this in her capacity as CEO at DoSomething.org, one of the country’s largest nonprofit organizations championing for young people and creating social change in the areas of bulling & violence, environment, homelessness, and human rights, just to name a few.
– Cassandra Curley experienced this when she walked 50 miles in each of the 50 states in 50 weeks in conjunction with her 50th birthday, spreading the message to anyone who would listen that peace is our natural state and that conflict is generated by fear.
So I pose the question again: If everything is perfect, happening in Divine order, why bother doing anything?
(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.)
The body of Yvette Vickers lay unnoticed and unmissed in her California home for what some have speculated to be several months beyond the moment of her passing. The B-movie actress and former Playboy Playmate, perhaps best known for her role in the cult classic film “Attack of the 50-Foot Woman,” not only died alone, but her physical presence was not missed by even one of the over 7 billion people that currently occupy our planet for an unimaginable amount of time. In spite of the fact that people at one point actually paid money to view her naked body in Playboy magazine and people paid money to be entertained by her roles in a few low-budget films, not one single person checked on her, asked about her, looked for her; and most disappointing of all, not one person expressed love to her.
How can something like this happen? How is it even possible for someone’s life to end virtually unseen, unheard, and unloved? And perhaps the bigger question is: What can we do to change that?
As disturbing as this particular story may be, the fact that millions of human beings on our planet today live in isolation and loneliness is perhaps even more disturbing. The statistics surrounding an ever-increasing population contrasted against the staggering numbers of people moving through their days alone seems absurd and completely implausible. A logical mind would struggle to understand such a contradiction in facts, let alone understand how an entire population of people could continue to do very little, if anything, about it.
What piece of the puzzle are we missing?
At what turn did Humanity get so horribly off course?
While a percentage of our population is benefiting from living in a world pulsing with the frenetic energy of fast-paced technology and more advanced ways of communication, we may want to pause and take notice of the large percentage of our population that is being, quite frankly, forgotten and left behind. And even among those who have immersed themselves in the fast lane of the “information super highway,” it is becoming more and more evident that we, as a society, seem to be aloofly drifting away from the true intention of our relationships: to touch, to gaze, to smell, to hear, and to BE with each other in such a way that we may know experientially Who We Really Are.
But the fact that so many people live day after day, week after week, month after month, and year after year clouded in loneliness and feelings of insignificance cannot be entirely and solely attributed to modern-day advances in communication. Somewhere along the line, we have simply forgotten what matters. We have forgotten that our neighbors matter. We have forgotten that the elderly lady pushing her shopping cart in the grocery store matters. We have forgotten that the children who are ignored on the playground matter. We have forgotten that the man sleeping on the park bench, without a home to go to, matters. We have forgotten that every single solitary expression of life which lives and breathes on this planet matters.
Of course, on a spiritual metaphysical level, no one is ever truly alone. But there is certainly a huge disconnect somewhere between the knowing of that and the experiencing of that as millions of people are struggling right now, in this very moment, to feel some semblance of meaning and purpose in their lives.
But how does somebody make a difference in the life of another if they don’t feel their own worthiness or experience their own significance? How can anyone possibly give something they simply don’t have in the first place?
Conversations with God offered to us the powerful message of: “Whatever it is that you wish to experience more of in your life, be the source of it in a life of another. There is a universal law that plays its effect here. When you give what you want to another, you cause yourself to notice that you have it. And since reality is a matter of perception, it is your perception that has caused you to imagine that you do not have it. When you give it to another and cause them to have it, you suddenly come to the realization that I could not give it to them if I did not have it to give. Suddenly you become aware that you had it all along.”
And when we live our lives within this framework of understanding, what then have we allowed ourselves to discover about ourselves? About life? About God? About Who We Are and Why We Are Here?
Could we all commit to stepping outside of our comfort zone to present someone who feels unseen the opportunity to be seen? Or to hear someone who feels unheard? Or to love someone who feels unloved? Even if the person who feels unseen, unheard, or unloved happens to be you?
(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.)
The parents of two California grade school students have sued to block the teaching of yoga classes in their children’s physical education class, complaining it promotes eastern religions. The action was filed by The National Center for Law & Policy, an Escondido, California-based nonprofit “legal defense organization” focusing on “protection and promotion of religious freedom, the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, parental rights and other civil liberties.”
NCLP attorney Dean R. Broyles filed the lawsuit against the Encinitas Union School District in San Diego County on behalf of plaintiffs Stephen and Jennifer Sedlock, claiming “The program is extremely divisive and has unfortunately led to the harassment, discrimination, bullying and segregation of children who, for good reasons, opt out of the program.”
The integration of yoga into the physical education program has been highly effective in reducing hyperactivity and stress. In schools around the nation who are implementing yoga into their health and wellness programs, they are seeing a marked decrease in the number of students who harm others and/or themselves and a reduction in aggressive behaviors which are commonly associated with violence and drug use. The yoga classes, which incorporate breathing techniques to alleviate stress, promote relaxation, and increase body circulation, have been proven to increase students’ confidence and overall well-being.
So with all these demonstrated obvious benefits, why would anyone resist such an advantageous program, one that has a proven track record in schools and communities around the world of noticeably enhancing lives in both a physical and emotional way?
The complaint in this case is citing that the introduction of yoga in the school unlawfully promotes religious beliefs. The lawsuit objects to eight-limbed tree posters they say are derived from Hindu beliefs, the “Namaste” greeting, and several of the yoga poses that they say represent the worship of Hindu deities. The plaintiffs are not seeking monetary damages; they are asking for the removal of the program in its entirety from the school’s physical education program.
In this particular situation, once again, deeply rooted fear-based religious beliefs (ironically, the very thing being protested against) are attempting to crowd out change, an example of inflexible belief systems clinging desperately and fearfully to an Old Cultural Story which embraces an idea that “THEIR way is THE way.” Or it could be entirely possible that they have NO idea what “their” way even is and just simply believe that “another” way is arbitrarily wrong.
But why do stories like this continue to exist where the fear that holds this Old Story together is so enmeshed in its antiquated concepts that it prevents those who hold it as true from being able to welcome change, even when such a change has been demonstrated to be beneficial and life-enhancing for so many people?
Could it be possible that Old Cultural Stories continue to exist because the concepts held within them actually are best?
If that is so, perhaps there is no place in schools for yoga, and our children should only move their bodies in largely approved and unmistakably pragmatic ways, such as doing jumping jacks or kicking a ball on the playground or, better yet, throwing balls at each other. Perhaps unruly children who have not learned how to quiet their minds enough to sit in class and pay attention for any length of time should continue to be medicated with mind-numbing drugs and/or sent to the principal’s office repeatedly to be punished for “acting out” in class. Perhaps children would be better off not knowing how to control their breathing and utilize it as a holistic tool with which to calm themselves in moments of anxiety or pressure. Maybe, if we wait long enough, the dysfunctional system that we have in place will one day eventually demonstrate itself to be beneficial. And in the meantime, we should just shelf all these crazy new alternatives that are currently available — and working — for our children.
The way I see it, if we still did things in alignment with what they thought was “best” when I went to school years ago, our administrators today would be liberally spanking our children with a wooden paddle. Fortunately, that belief system has changed. And fortunately, for the students who attend the Encinitas Union School District, they have someone like Superintendent Timothy Baird who is standing behind the yoga program and will continue to offer it to their students because of its health benefits.
What do you think?
I say: Bring on the yoga.
(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 have never been a fan of flying. As a matter of fact, I downright dislike it. There is probably not a better example in my personal life of a time when fear-driven thoughts crowd out clarity and dominate and distort my reality.
What if they forgot to tighten a bolt?
What if there is a leak in the cabin pressure?
What if we hit a flock of birds? Hey, that’s actually happened before!
I once said to my husband while boarding our flight, “If I could just look into a crystal ball and be assured that we will make it safely to our destination and land without incident, then I could relax and actually enjoy this.”
Of course, those “crystal ball” assurances I am looking for never appear, just as they never appear in any of my day-to-day happenings. What I do recognize, however, is the mere fact that I desire an assurance for a particular outcome only serves that aspect of me that doesn’t understand the much broader interweavings of what is going on here in this process of life. And, oh, how quickly my Mind is willing to buy into the story that events must unfold in a certain way, one that protects or preserves or prevents, which only perpetuates the false thought and, thus, belief that I have something to lose.
How many times in life do we hold back or avoid certain situations because we think we have something to lose? And what exactly is it that we believe we will no longer have if we do a particular thing? Or if we enter into a new relationship? Or if we depart from an old relationship? Or if we change careers? Or write that book? Or if we demonstrate who we really are to everyone…all the time?
What I have come to know for myself is that in those moments when I come from a place of fear, I guarantee my own loss. Not the loss of what I think I might lose; but rather the loss of something much more significant: the loss of my Self. In an effort to avoid a perceived loss, I actually cause loss to occur — the loss of experiencing my Soul’s desire. It is only when I include the perspective of my Soul that my field of vision expands to see that there is nothing to lose except that which I deny myself in the process of thinking that there is.
If I withhold my expression of love in my relationships for fear of rejection, even in the smallest of ways — a look, a gesture, a kiss, a touch, in words — I am losing the opportunity to experience myself as an unconditionally loving being. If I avoid challenging tasks in my career for fear that I might “fail,” I am losing the opportunity to experience the full spectrum and outreach of my capabilities. And if I fear flying in an airplane, afraid of losing my life, I am causing myself to lose the opportunity to know myself as an eternal soul.
And those, to me, are the greatest losses of all.
(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 never really fully understood the purpose of “giving up” something for Lent. As a child, growing up in the Catholic religion, I just simply did it because I was told I was supposed to do it, never really grasping the intent of this long-held ritual. However, I guess in some way, from the perspective of a child, I approached it as a personal challenge just to see if I could do it, but always wondering why God would want me to give up pizza or chocolate, which were my two favorite “things” as a young child; and, therefore, the two things that I must forgo during Lent. Because, as we all know, in order to truly be in God’s favor, you must give up something that you love, some object or experience that would cause you to suffer in the absence of that particular thing. And as a very small child, pizza and chocolate had grown to be my “loves” in the universe of my short and tender years.
Fast-forward now 40 years later, while I understand the history behind the Lenten season, I still remain unclear as to the purpose of giving up “something you love” in the 40 days that fall between Ash Wednesday and Easter…or at ANY time. At this point in my life, it has become abundantly clear to me that I experience more joy, more peace, and more of a knowing Who I Really Am when I align myself with that which is serving me and to change what is not. Why would God desire, or actually command, me to remove experiences from my life that bring me joy? Must the path to God be traveled on a road of suffering? Why have we imagined a God who manipulates love in such a way?
Lent is not the only example of how we, as a society, have bought into an idea of forgoing and suffering as a path to The Creator. There are Yogis who live in the Himalayan Mountains who devote their existence to a life of renunciation, abandoning material comforts and even food in their pursuit of spiritual enlightenment. It is commonly known that Catholic priests refrain from not only sex, but they resist even entering into a romantic relationship with another based on a belief that it will allow them to better serve and please God. People who observe the Jewish and Seventh Day Adventist faiths abstain from eating pork and shellfish because of beliefs they hold about what God wants. Those who belong to the Jehovah Witness faith will not celebrate birthdays, nor will they even receive a blood transfusion in medical emergencies, because of beliefs they hold about what God wants. Many women in the Pentecostal faith will not cut their hair because of beliefs they hold about what God wants….just to name a few.
Now, an idea that I could more readily embrace would be engaging in 40 days of placing intention on the things that foster our ability to realize and actually experience our Highest Selves and our ever-present connection with God. I can remember no time in my life where the deprivation of something I love has led to an experience of knowing God. I can, however, recite numerous occasions where allowing the things I love to flow into my life abundantly most certainly and vividly created a deeper understanding and knowing of Who I Am and what my relationship with God is.
This idea of suffering has long been misunderstood and misused as a way to “win” or “earn” God’s love. We are pained to see the visible suffering in the world around us, but we are quick to voluntarily suffer in an effort to seek approval and acceptance from the one source of unconditional love that we actually have. Why do so few embrace an idea that we do not have to do anything to receive God’s love? Is that thought too frightening? Is that concept too easy? Is that idea too risky? Would we place that expectation on our own children in order that they may experience our love?
After all, we are making it all up here, aren’t we?
Why are we making it up in a way that feels so hard?
(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.)
