November, 2012
Neale Donald Walsch said recently, “A master lives in gratitude at every moment.”
How can we guide our children to find their own meaningful experience of a life of gratitude?
In the U.S., the month of November is often a time to reflect on one’s good fortune. As we approach Thanksgiving, social media is inundated with “30 Days of Thankfulness” posts, while many renew their attention to charitable giving and volunteering as an outpouring of their gratitude. These phenomena are demonstrations of one of the core concepts of Conversations with God, “There is Enough,” which teaches us that the world is an abundant place in which every person can get what they need and that scarcity only exists as we, collectively, allow it to persist. Feeling this way in November is a great step toward a thankful life, but what about feeling gratitude during the other months of the year?
In a society which is centered on external factors of happiness — acquiring more material things, improving physical appearances, and glorifying competition — it can be difficult to instill a constant and unshakeable sense of inner completeness in your family’s hearts and minds; however, when approaching life through your spirituality, you learn that instead of looking out there, you must start searching within to find fulfillment. In fact, the root of all happiness is gratitude. Being grateful helps us to see everything more positively, even the aspects of our lives we wish to change. Encouraging children to embrace and embody gratitude assists them in their spiritual development, as well as their view of the world around them.
Children learn by example. One way to demonstrate your own gratitude is to, as they say, find the silver lining in negative situations, and share those sentiments with your children. Another way is to share your abundance with others by donating time, resources, or just a kind word to another. Giving of yourself to another person helps you appreciate your own gifts and blessings. A daily practice of gratitude allows it to permeate your thoughts more fully, becoming an integral part of your Be-ing. To this end, children, whether school-aged or even younger, can contribute to your family’s daily gratitude journal by drawing pictures, writing words, or even verbally expressing gratitude (for you to write for them).
Whatever way you choose to bring an awareness and practice of gratitude into your home, it will bring you closer together. I believe you will find that it takes the edge off of a rough day, endears you to each other, and easily becomes a large part of your dialogue and vocabulary…allowing you, and your children, to live in gratitude at every moment.
(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.)
On Tuesday, November 6, 2012, President Barack Obama was re-elected to serve four more years as President of the United States of America. This particular result may be cause for celebration for some and perhaps feel disheartening for others, depending on where you personally stand in this year’s heated election. It is not unusual for clashing belief systems and opposing views to quickly turn an election into an experience of conflict and discord, even among those who most often are agreeable. But no matter who the perceived “winner” of this presidential race is, let us not lose sight of Who We Really Are.
There IS something much bigger going on here.
Many people hold a belief that politics and spirituality do not mix, that they are opposing energies. However, the freedoms and liberties we enjoy in this country provide us the perfect opportunity to flex our spiritual and intellectual muscles and to demonstrate and experience individually and collectively why we are here. Because while our Ultimate outcomes are guaranteed, we do have the ability – the gift – to choose how we desire our human experience to be, where we want our human experience to go, and, of course, who we desire to be in relation to ALL of it.
Therefore, the most important “win” of all is the one in which we use an experience like this, the election process, as a catalyst to unite and connect, not to divide and segregate. Even if in this year’s election there was an absence of a candidate that embodied ALL of the concepts and ideas and visions that are important to you, continue to lean your energy in the direction of what you would like to see our world evolve into and watch that consciousness create and give birth to that future leader. That is spirituality in action!
The most important win of all is the one that facilitates an experience of Oneness, not division; the one which holds our relationships with each other as Holy, not negligible; the one which uses our differences and diversities as a context within which to experience our Highest Self, both as aspects of Who We Are and Who We Are Not in this never-ending process of experiencing, expressing, demonstrating, and remembering.
It is not possible to lose in this Life Game…so who will you choose to BE in relation to what it is presenting you now?
(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 keep hearing that I am “creating my own reality.” Yet things happen in my life right and left that I do not want, have never wished for, and certainly am not actively choosing to create. Why is this occurring, and how can I get it to stop?
— Elizabeth S., Davenport, Iowa
Dear Elizabeth,
Creating our own reality. Yup, that’s being thrown around a lot these days, isn’t it? Neale Donald Walsh has said that he believes this notion is one of the most dangerous things being put out there by the New Thought community these days, in fact. Why? Because no one really explains what this means.
Do you create your own reality? Yes, and kind of! I will begin with “kind of”. Life, as we live it, and experience it, in form and function, is never completely our creation. Life is a co-creation. All who have any connection to an event, great or small, co-created that event to give each the opportunity to experience something for Divinity. Of course, this is on a soul level. It is also assuming that you believe that we are all here, in this reality, so that Divinity may experience what Divinity knows.
It’s like we are all building a sky scraper together. Each of us is in charge of one piece of the whole, and we are doing our very best to do our part as well as we are trained to do it. Then there is an earthquake, and the skyscraper falls down. Perhaps one of the builders was lax in their job and can take some responsibility for the skyscraper being vulnerable, but no one created the earthquake that revealed that/those vulnerabilities, and no one person can take responsibility for everything.
The events of the building and the collapsing of the skyscraper did, however, create the situation in which you ARE responsible for creating your own reality. How did you feel about and during each situation? Did you get up eagerly to go to work and do your job? Did you drag out of bed and curse each moment on the job? Were you sad when the building fell? If your job might have created the weakness, did you take responsibility? Did you fall into fear and depression? And on and on.
Everyone who had anything to do with that skyscraper, from beginning to end, including observers and reporters, and cleanup crews and people who read about the accident 10 years later, has co-created the skyscraper and its events so that each can experience what THEY choose, on a soul level, to experience through that event.
CWG says that everything is presenting us with the opportunity to decide, declare and do who we really are.
Elizabeth, I am really sorry that you are experiencing so much in your life that you do not desire. You ask how you can get it to stop. I have a suggestion.
Change your mind about these events.
Don’t look at them as things that oppose you and your desires. Consider looking at them as opportunities to be who you really are. Then do something else that, in our culture today, seems very counterintuitive. Be grateful for it all.
I have found that by moving into gratitude, I move away from being stuck in the emotions that hold my feet to the ground, and prevent me from moving forward. I acknowledge that I had every right to be sad, or mad or whatever, but that now it is time to see these things as signals that something isn’t really working, and thank them for being in my life.
I can now look at my life and see that things I thought were perfectly awful at the time, were placed in my life so that some time in the future I could use the experience to help myself or others from a higher knowing. Mostly the worse I perceived the incident to be, the more I found I was able to use my knowing from that incident to help others that much more powerfully.
You can not, and do not create your world all by yourself, Elizabeth, but you do create your own experience of the event…and you are capable of changing how you do that. The book, “When Everything Changes, Change Everything”, by Neale Donald Walsch, explains how to do this and gives some very powerful tools to use as well. If you haven’t read the book, and can’t afford to buy it, it is available to read on the site for free! And there are volunteer Spiritual Helpers there to be with you as you integrate the process.
I hope this has helped,
Therese
The question seems simple enough. Should foods containing genetically engineered ingredients be required to be clearly labeled as having been genetically modified?
Simple or not, voters in California appear to be undecided, and so ballot Proposition 37 has no guarantee of passing when the votes are counted Tuesday night. If what would appear to be a “no-brainer” decision can’t be easily made by California residents, it may be in no small part the result of the “No on 37” campaign which has received funding in the multi-millions from some major food companies.
“Top contributors to the anti-labeling campaign include biotech giants Monsanto, Dow, Bayer CropScience, Syngenta and BASF,” according to a news report from Erika Bolstad of McClatchy Newspapers, posted on the Internet. “Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Kraft Foods and Nestle all have donated more than $1 million” to oppose labeling, her report went on.
The anti-label forces has raised around $45 million to get Californians to vote “No” on the measure, while the campaign to make labeling the law has had to work with only about $7 million, the McClatchy story said.
At issue is whether consumers purchasing food at retail outlets should be told clearly, on labels, if foods have been modified from their original, organic form. Many products now labeled as “natural” would have to have that word removed from the label if the initiative passes.
Those favoring Prop 37 say that the word “natural” on food causes people to be confused as to whether the product has been genetically modified or not. Some cynics among consumer groups go so far as to claim that this is, in fact, exactly why certain food manufacturers use the term “natural” on their labels, even though the food inside their packaging has been genetically modified, with their DNA altered.
One typical form of alteration is to “re-engineer” a food crop with genes from other plants, or even by adding animal genes to plants, as well as certain viruses or bacteria. The purpose of such alteration is to maintain the growing life of a food (some bio-tech crops are modified to combat pests or to tolerate herbicides) or to prolong the shelf-life of the food product—or to produce both results.
Pro-Prop 37 spokespersons say that what consumers want is not to eliminate or remove genetically modified foods from the marketplace, but simply to be able to make informed choices — to be able to “vote with our pocketbooks” whether they choose to eat food that has been engineered away from its organic form, as one person put it.
The ballot measure is an effort to “increase the transparency of the American food system,” the McCatchy story quotes Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma.
Why would anybody oppose the measure? And why would consumers be confused about whether to vote for it?
Big Food sources have opposed the proposed labeling law on the basis of cost, they say, which would have to be passed on to families already stretching their food budget. It could cost the average family up to $400 a more per year, their argument declares.
Opponent also say that the measure, if passed, would provide inconsistent information to consumers, since it applies only to food purchased in retail stores, and not to food found in restaurants, for instance. Nor would it apply to some meat products—even though many animals are raised on genetically modified grains. So, Big Food says, people wouldn’t be fully informed about which of the foods they are eating are engineered or not anyway.
Supporters of the measure say that more information is better than less, and that just the forced removal of the word “natural” from food that is not “natural” at all, plus adding the words “genetically engineered,” or other words similar, would go a long way toward making it easier for the average shopper to make informed choices about which foods to buy and eat.
Consumer protection groups allege that Big Food does not want such labels specifically because major food producers are afraid that consumers will then shy away from their products.
On Tuesday, California voters will decide — and that decision could have major ramifications across the United States, persons on both sides of the issue say. If it passes, the new law in California would “bring one of the biggest consumer markets and food producers in the country in line with labeling laws in 61 other countries,” the McClatchy report from journalist Erika Bolstad said. And that, observers agree, might well force the issue in other U.S. states as well.
The New Spirituality invites a new way of creating all of society, not simply its food industry, and that way is called Total Transparency. There can be no real reason in an enlightened society not to tell everyone everything about everything, such a model suggests.
And your thoughts…?
Located in the area of the brain commonly know as the “mid brain” swirls the thoughts of survival. Have you ever put your hand on a hot stove or pot? Did you think to yourself, “Gee, this is hot, I should pull my hand away before I get burned”? Of course you didn’t. Your hand was flying back and away from that pot before you were even aware it was hot. This is your mid brain functioning to keep you safe, providing for your survival.
In the mind of the person with a spiritual deficiency disorder, also know as addiction, the act of taking a drink or a drug or placing a bet or having risky sex or exerting power over another human being is happening before the person can rationalize that what they are doing is harmful. This is how a perversion of the mid brain function takes over a person’s life.
Here is the hope for those afflicted: There is always a pause. There is always an opening for recovery to happen. The alcoholic eventually sleeps after a long night drinking; the sex addict feels deep shame after their binge, and when he awakens, he is momentarily able to consider the magnitude of his powerlessness. Many will cry out, “I will never do that again,” only to find themselves right back in the same pattern only hours later.
Without a spiritual connection, a healthy coping response is virtually impossible. The addict has no power over what is taking place in the mid brain when the reward chemicals are flowing. The possibility for change without outside intervention is minuscule. For recovery to take place, something or someone must take advantage of the “window of opportunity” as it opens. Being aware and present for that brief moment is a difficult task, and the closest friends or family members are rarely capable of providing the help needed.
I have had the experience of the “window or opportunity” opening and feel very fortunate to have had support in getting the help I needed. I look back now and see how it was truly a Divine intervention that had occurred. All of the exact right things lined up at exactly the right time, and I said exactly the right words to the right person: “Dad, I am ready for help.” Three hours later, I was in a detox ward at a local hospital.
Most would say we have no control over the autonomic system and would use the argument that you can not consciously stop yourself from breathing. This would indicate that we have no power over our survival mechanism. Is it true, however, that we actually can stop ourselves from breathing by other means — for example, strangulation. In this example, we used a deductive reasoning to work around a built-in safeguard, effectively achieving the same outcome: our death.
There is much we do not know about the brain and what it is up to most of the time. Some have said that we only use 10% of our brains at any given time. So the possibility exists that somewhere in the brain there is a connection to the divine, a WiFi, if you will. It has been written in many religious and spiritual books “Through Him all things are possible.” I take this to mean that nothing is out of our reach, and nobody is beyond help.
The right brain is known as the intuitive, holistic, spiritual side of the brain. The left side is the logical, rational, thinking side of the brain. There is a super highway, so to speak, that connects these two sides, and it is called the corpus callosum. It is my theory that this highway could be the highway to heaven and that our greatest mystery is happening along that stretch of road. When we ask for help sincerely, powerfully, passionately, the Spirit crosses over from the right side of the brain to the left and infuses our decision-making with healthy, positive, and Holy energy.
This may be an oversimplification of our brain functioning, and I am sure there are many scientists that would rebuke my analogy. The statement I find true is, “No prayer goes unanswered.” We may not listen, we may not always hear, but the fact remains that the request has been answered. It is entirely up to us to listen and acknowledge the presence of God in our lives.
(Kevin McCormack is a “Conversations with God” Life Coach, a Spiritual Helper on www.changingchange.net, and an Addictions Recovery Advisor. To connect with Kevin, please email him at Kevin@theglobalconversation.com)
…for a candidate whose platform does not emulate my highest thoughts, core beliefs, and creative visions for our world.
I WILL be voting for someone who will champion the type of change that benefits not just a select few, but ALL of humanity. The inclination I feel towards one candidate or another has less to do with issues of money and more to do with freedom, choice, and compassion.
I WILL be voting for the candidate who will tirelessly fight on the side of same-sex couples who desire the same benefits and recognition afforded to heterosexual partners in marriage, someone who will pave the way for gay couples to be afforded an equal opportunity to freely demonstrate their love and commitment both legally and socially.
I WILL be voting for a candidate who understands and supports freedom of choice and promotes women’s health, empowering women to make their own decisions regarding whether or not to have sex, whether or not to use contraception, and whether or not to deliver a child into the world.
I WILL be voting for the candidate that holds the beauty and life-sustaining bounty of our world in the highest regard, enacting laws that protect and nurture our planet earth, creating revitalization in areas that have been depleted or abused, and steadfastly guarding our most precious resources.
I WILL be voting for the candidate who recognizes the importance of affordable and sufficient healthcare, someone who develops and offers programs which enable those whose lives are less than easy to receive medical care and compassion, regardless of age or socioeconomic status.
Will it make a difference when I throw my spiritual hat in the political arena and cast my vote?
I believe YES.
I believe that every problem has a spiritual solution. And I further believe that not only do we all have the ability to recreate ourselves anew within the context of our personal relationships, the ones we hold as intimate and most cherished, but we also have the ability to recreate our world anew through the collaboration of our collective thoughts and an elevation of global consciousness.
We are all in relationship with each other. We are not separate. What you think does matter. Your vote does count. And what you choose will make a difference.
YOU are the author of the New Cultural Story…What will you write?
(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.)
Spiritually-minded families are “awake” to society’s challenges and advances. Your family may speak freely about helping others, how the world works…or doesn’t, how war is not beneficial, and/or environmental sustainability. Children have a clear sense and understanding of the spiritual concept “Love is all there is,” so these topics are easy for them to latch on to and hold dear.
What happens, then, when these spiritually-minded and socially aware families experience a contentious political cycle or hear of tragedy in the news? The news can lead children to experience distress and, yes, even anger when they observe things that they don’t think are nice, fair, or “right” (within their own understanding of the words). They may even point out a politician or person in the news and say things like:
“He tells lies.”
“He doesn’t seem care about poor people.”
“He doesn’t seem like a nice person.”
(Angst is building…)
“He is so mean!” “Mommy – that man is bad!”
Parents who live a life inspired by the messages of Conversations with God might ask how to best support their children and seek ways to help their children have more clarity and understanding around their thoughts and feelings. Many parents who believe that there are no absolutes, such as “right and wrong,” “good and bad,” etc., are replacing those Old Cultural concepts with different notions:
Is my choice beneficial or harmful? Positive or negative? Productive or non-productive?
Do my actions demonstrate Who I Really Am?
So when your child feels and expresses such powerful and raw emotions, you might wonder how to — or if you should – begin a conversation with your child, creating an opportunity to explore more deeply how they feel and why they feel the way they do.
Conversations with God says “There is nothing you have to do” and “There is no such thing as right and wrong.” Therefore, you may want to begin with the understanding that there is nothing wrong with a child’s expression of anger and you don’t have to do anything. You can choose to let her have her own experience of the event or you can choose to help her process it. Either way, you may want to start by remembering that what your child said is not about your parenting; it is not evidence that you haven’t taught her principles of love and acceptance. It is about her own sense of how the world should work.
In fact, that very outburst may facilitate a deeper remembrance of Who She Really Is. That moment of passion might be the turning point which leads her along a path toward establishing world peace!
Given that she is an individual with her own sense of fairness, you may wish to help her process those feelings through the lens of Love and Spirituality. Rather than “making her wrong” for calling the person “bad,” invite her to explore and discuss her feelings and expressions. Assist her in creating constructive and meaningful ways to share her message, not only with the people she agrees with, but even those with whom she does not agree with, gifting her with the level of clarity and wisdom to effect positive change within herself, within her personal relationships, and within the world.
Helping your child arrive at the decision rather than telling him or her what to do is a huge step in his or her spiritual growth. The New Spirituality is not about prescribing behaviors or telling children who to be; it is about guiding them to choose and create, to experience and demonstrate, to announce and declare Who They Really Are.
(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 Parenting@TheGlobalConversation.com or Emily@cwgforparents.com.)
Recently I ran into a friend of mine who had been traveling for some years. After a long hug and reacquainting ourselves with new smile lines and fledgling gray hairs, she asked me what I had been up to since we’d last seen one another. When I responded, I found myself saying: “You know, what I’m up to these days could best be described as a gentling.”
I’m not sure if I came up with this word or not, but all I know is that when I said it, it sounded True, like the first, wonderful warble of sound from an instrument played after many years of lying in dusty silence.
Yep–-these days when people ask me how I’m doing, I just want to say: “Gentler.”
It’s taken a very long time for me to start to be gentler with myself. Perhaps for the majority of us the initial moment we realize we could and maybe should be our own best friend occurs only at a very low point in our lives–when we can no longer afford to make our self adversary, but instead must become advocate.
Becoming kinder with our selves is a process. I think for me it started by watching what happened when I felt regret after an “unskillful” exchange with another. I began to pay attention to a sequence of thoughts about myself that became progressively less generous and increasingly more hateful–a whole lot of “yuck” turned inward. This was a first step in seeing where and when I turned against myself and how immediate the loneliness of that experience was. It was very painful. And I had to become realistic: If I couldn’t befriend myself, how could I expect everyone else to?
Someone once told me, “You teach people how to treat you.” I believe this is a very accurate statement. How people respond to us and treat us is how we are treating ourselves on the inside.
Forget worrying about everyone else for a while–where do we disregard our own boundaries? Where do we lie to ourselves; betray ourselves; act disloyally with ourselves? Where is it that we, in fact, aren’t kind, respectful, generous, considerate, and loving with ourselves? And yet we expect everyone we come into contact with to respect us, honor us, be loyal and unconditionally loving with us–or else!
Do we really believe that people in our lives should be “unconditionally loving” and “nonjudgmental” even if we haven’t yet learned to give our selves that same courtesy?
A while back I was doing some yoga in the living room. I’ve practiced various styles of yoga for many years now and I go through phases where going to a yoga studio feels good, and phases where “living room” yoga feels better. So there I was one morning, stretching this way and that into whatever posture felt like the next, best one, and the next posture I flowed into was one that had me low to the floor and reaching a hand under a leg and around and out of sight behind me, where apparently my other hand would somehow find it.
But as I reached under and around and up through space my attention wandered and, no longer focused on my breath, my mind was lost in thought–so much so that when one of my hands opened and gently took the fingers of my other hand into it I was surprised. It was as if a kind stranger had suddenly taken my hand and had softly squeezed it. Warm tears sprung to my eyes. I squeezed back, shaking hands with someone I was pretty happy I’d be getting to know.
Who knew I could have my own back and my own hand at the same time? That’s Yoga for you.
And also Kindness.
– em claire
To Love Yourself
To Love your self start here:
Take your own hand, and
put it to your lips.
Then,
lay the soft of your cheek
to the round of your shoulder–
where the faint musk
of the enduring dreams
and the labors of your life
perfume you.
It’s a start.
It’s a beginning.
Now the ache of your heart
has
a
surface.
“To Love Yourself”- em claire
©2005 All Rights Reserved
(Em Claire is an American poet whose work appears in her book Silent Sacred Holy Deepening Heart, as well as in When Everything Changes, Change Everything. She may be reached through www.emclairepoet.com)
Perhaps one of the most important health choices I make these days is my Yoga practice. I was introduced to Yoga in my thirties by a friend; she went for 30 days and I went for 3 years. Within in a short period of time the benefits of Yoga transformed me and life has never been the same.
Yoga, meaning “union,” has been practiced for more than 5,000 years, and currently, millions of Americans are enjoying its health benefits. Yoga can hardly be called a trend. Most yoga classes focus on learning physical poses, which are called asanas. They also include some form of breathing technique, and I like classes that include meditation as well.
Yoga classes are designed for energy and relaxation while teaching you how to move your body in new ways. The focus of Yoga is on honoring your body where it is today, moving toward your “edge” but not past it. Each practice is new, so we meet our body again for the first time with each pose. The health benefits come from enabling you to develop your flexibility, strength, and balance, but this is only part of the gift of this powerful practice. Yoga is about creating balance of body, mind, emotion, and spirit.
The practice of Yoga, which for me is meditation, works remarkably well to achieve this harmony and helps the mind to work in sync with the body. How often do we find conflicts in our mind that weigh heavily upon us? The Yoga mat is one of the best places to leave this worry and stress behind.
The meditative practice of yoga helps in achieving an emotional balance through detachment or what I like to call “dropping the rock”! Meditation creates the space to be here now; a place where you are not negatively affected by what’s going on around you. This, in turn, creates a remarkable calmness and a positive outlook, which has tremendous benefits on physical health. I leave my stress at the door, at least for an hour at a time, and I find with continued practice the leaving-it-all-behind benefits last longer and longer.
Yoga is a light, which once lit, will never dim. The better your practice the brighter your flame. – B.K.S Iyengar
Here are just some of the tangible benefits that can be achieved through yoga.
Physical Benefits:
Improved Digestion
Weight loss
Improved posture
Increased flexibility & strength
Optimal breathing
Reduced headaches and upper body tension
Reduction of symptoms from old illnesses and injuries
Deeper sleep
Mental Benefits:
Increased ability to manage stress
Improved focus and concentration
Better memory
More creativity
Emotional Benefits:
A sense of emotional freedom
Increased enjoyment of life
Increased freedom of expression
More peace of mind
More feelings of empathy & love
Increased self-confidence
Aids in grief recovery
Spiritual Benefits:
Connection with the purpose of life
Experiencing more joy
Brightness of spirit
Increased optimism
Increased creativity
I think you will agree that the benefits of Yoga are many.
With the popularity of Yoga now, most places have Yoga centers. Find one in your town and try it out. If you don’t have a studio near you, bring Yoga home in the form of a DVD. Yoga truly is one the most powerful, profound technologies available today. And with regular practice, you can improve your life greatly at every level. And with that said, I am off to do just that! – JR
(J.R. Westen, D.D. is a Holistic Health & Spiritual Counselor who has worked and presented side-by-side with Neale Donald Walsch for over a decade. He is passionate about helping individuals move beyond their emotional and spiritual challenges, transforming breakdowns into breakthroughs. His coaching provides practical wisdom and guidance that can be immediately incorporated to shift one’s experience of life. As is true for most impactful teachers, J.R.’s own struggles and triumphs inspired him to find powerful ways of helping others. Sober since June 1, 1986, J.R.’s passion for helping individuals move through intense life challenges drove him to also specialize in Addiction and Grief Recovery. J.R. currently shares his gift of counseling & coaching with individuals from around the world through the Wellness Center, Simply Vibrant, located on Long Island N.Y. In addition, he works with Escondido Sobering Services and serves on the Board of Directors for the Conversations with God Foundation. He can be contacted at JR@theglobalconversation.com, or to book an appointment, write support@simplyvibrant.com.)
I am a really nice, peace-loving, spiritual person at heart, yet sometimes I catch myself reacting in a less than evolved fashion in different life situations. For example, I get so angry when I encounter bad drivers or people who clearly have no regard for others, and my tendency is to get angry and sometimes even rude, steaming about it for sometimes days afterwards. At the same time I see myself reacting in such ways, I know that it is not who I really am. How can I walk my talk more, and keep my cool in situations that evoke such instant anger?
Martha, Los Angeles
Dear Martha,
First of all, good for you for being aware of a behavior of yours that is not in alignment with who you really are – a lot of people don’t ever even get to that point! I have got a lovely exercise for you to try, one that I found in the CWG Book 1 Guidebook years ago and that I use with pretty much all of my clients at some point. Rest assured that this challenge is not unique to you, we all at some point in our lives show up as “less than evolved”, or react harshly to certain situations life throws our way, some of us more than others. The trick is to not react, but to instead act on it; in other words, decide ahead of time what your new reaction will be. And there’s a fun and easy way to do this:
~ Take out a piece of paper and draw 3 vertical columns. Title the first column, “Situations That Commonly Occur”, the second column, “My Usual Reaction to It”, and the third column, “My New Reaction”.
~ List as many situations you can think of where you find yourself reacting in a way that you don’t like, identifying your usual reaction to it, and then choosing your new reaction, or how you’d like to show up when that situation arises.
~ Finally, put it into practice! The next time you find yourself in one of the situations you’ve identified, choose your new reaction!
So much of what we experience in life simply calls for awareness and a small turning of our attention, and making conscious choices. You’ve already got the awareness and attention part down here, now you can enjoy making a conscious new choice based on who you really are, and in my humble opinion, there is no greater joy.
Now, while I’ve found this exercise to be extremely useful in my clients’ lives as well as my own, it does not account for every situation. For example, if you’ve got some deep-rooted emotions connected to some of your “usual reactions”, it may serve you to speak with a professional about it, process what you need to process, and finish your unfinished business. But for many of our daily experiences, habits and patterns, this exercise works like a charm, and begins assisting you in creating more and more experiences that you can be happy with and proud of. Enjoy!
(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. )
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