The Global Conversation

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  • Moving from ‘fight or flight’ to ‘love and light’

    (This article was contributed by Guest Author Herby Bell, DC)

    After watching the militant Muslim reaction around the world — the purely insane response to a substandard film created by another fanatic about God knows what — I got to thinking about a startling analogy.

    I’m in the healthcare business.  My biggest competitor is the sick care business, and here’s how it works (and stay with me–I’ll connect the dots):

    We have an innate genetic intelligence that responds in a healthy way to whatever is in the environment.  Our environment has become increasingly deficient and toxic in terms of the water we drink to the air we breathe, along with countless other modern living stressors.  Accordingly, our body’s healthy, genetic response is to place us in a state of “fight or flight” in order to survive.

    The problem arises when this fight-or-flight state of being becomes the rule, rather than the exception, due to the ever-present and increasing environmental stressors. Dis-ease and ultimately disease ensue.  Maybe you’ve heard mention lately of addiction, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis, fibromyalgia, depression, fatigue, decreased sex drive, anxiety, obesity, indigestion, lack of sleep…etc., etc.

    All of us are in some state of fight or flight, more often than not, when living in this culture–in this world.  Instead of decreasing the stress and improving adaptability by being taught to eat well, move well, and think well — the health care business — we are carpet bombed by literally dozens of sound bytes and video images per day about “taking” something to “kill” the pain or to trick our bodies out of their pristine, invariably reliable intelligence — the sick care business.

    Recently I gave lectures about this well-documented stress response to a local high school human biology department.  I asked the students to close their eyes as I played the audio only, including the side effects disclaimer of one of the drug commercials we hear on television, day in and day out.  The students reported that they did not even listen to or hear the words anymore, that it had become just background noise. The pretty images on television stick and the devastating side effects get reduced to white noise.  Good news for the sick care business, a subliminal auto suggestion marketing vehicle that pays off handsomely.  Repetition is the mother of all invention…

    All right, now back to the militant Muslims.  If the human ecosystem is barraged with stress and its correct and healthy response is to develop chronic lifestyle diseases, doesn’t it stand to reason that the collective ecosystems or the culture –any culture — is susceptible to the same reaction after being inundated with sick propaganda–here, there, everywhere!–and certain factions of that culture, like a neoplastic growth in cancer, will react in that deadly, perhaps unpredictable, but inevitable way?  It’s happening.

    We have to stop kidding ourselves.  The world is in a chronic state of fight or flight.  THE SICK CARE INDUSTRY IS NOT HELPING. Let’s teach our kids to eat well, to move well, and to think well and decrease our stress while bolstering our immune systems instead of waiting for some magic pill or potion to come along to save us.

    Let’s be honest that the preventable, man-made atrocities and insanity all around the world are directly related to how well a culture’s individuals are caring for themselves, how well they are eating, moving, and thinking.

    Let’s get out of the sick care business and into the health care business.  The well-being of the world may just depend upon it.  Let’s move from fight or flight to love and light.

    (Dr. Herby Bell is owner and director of Recovery Health Care, an integrated approach to addiction treatment in Redwood City, California. For more information please call 650 474 2121 or email:  herbybell@me.com.)

  • Who IS this Santa guy anyway?

    Around this time of year the old “naughty and nice” list and the “Elf on the Shelf” get pulled out. Parents, at their wits’ end the other eleven months of the year, rely on Santa’s powers of persuasion to gain a few weeks of peace.

    Have you ever questioned if Santa is being used as a human substitute for a judgmental God, as the arbiter of “right and wrong” on earth?

    Do you ever wonder why parents buy in wholeheartedly?

    Since the New Spirituality frees us from judgment by God, does this utilization of Santa as a mechanism of control continue to work to help our children attain their Highest Selves?

    My own childhood experience of Santa was one of distant trepidation. My parents didn’t really use Santa to elicit “good” behavior from us to the extent that others did, so I wasn’t really afraid of him in the light of day. But every Christmas Eve, as I tried (and failed) to sleep, I shivered and shook in my bed in anticipation that this strange guy in a red suit would visit my house while we slept…and what if he looked at me in my bed? Wasn’t that a violation of my privacy?

    These impressions and fears of him, as a sort of boogey man, were all my own interpretation from things I heard outside of my home. I wanted to be excited about Santa…but it just never worked for me. With such a love-fear dynamic between me and the jolly ole’ fella, I was determined to prevent my daughter from having such an experience of fear. Don’t get me wrong, I love the spirit of giving that Santa personifies and I wish for my daughter to see magic all around her in the world. I just hope she can experience magic without manipulation and fear…and without me having to lie to her.

    Neale Donald Walsch has a beautiful children’s book called Santa’s God which describes Santa with magic and love, but no fear.  And we share the messages of that sweet book with our daughter often.  But early on we also decided to allow her to guide and create her own concept of Santa based on her own feeling. We have never spoken of Santa as fact, and certainly not as a judge and/or jury to determine her worthiness for gifts. We have always told her that if Santa is to have a role in our life, he has to follow the rules of our house…even if they are different from what her friends think he is or does.

    In our house, Santa cannot predicate gifts on behavior, he cannot visit any room other than the family room, and he is not allowed to “check up on her” because, well, even as an adult, that concept still creeps me out!  One of the difficult aspects of this has been working to teach her that Santa is a very personal concept which many people view differently. We have tried to demonstrate respect for other people’s traditions by keeping our own ideas to ourselves because we do not wish to ruin other families’ ideas and customs regarding Santa.

    When she asks about the more impossible aspects of Santa, like, “How can he make it to all the houses?” we say, “What do you think?”

    When she asks, “How does he know we moved?” we say, “Well, Santa knows what Mommy and Daddy know.

    “When she pointedly says, “Mom, this Santa guy’s job seems impossible; I just don’t think it can happen the way they say!” we encourage her to explore what that statement means to her.  And on the occasions that she has persisted, we answer that, yes, we agree it seems impossible, always giving the reigns back to her so she can decide how far to go for herself.

    We had many friends and family argue that by “stealing” his power we would also steal his magic, but the opposite has been the case. What has resulted is that she has chosen to embrace the wonder and magic of Santa without the fear – even during the times I can see in her eyes that she suspects we are Santa.  At the end of last year, she all but told us she knew he wasn’t real, and now this year she seems to believe again. She is truly guiding her own experience – even year to year.

    Is this a path you would choose? Or do you wish to embrace the magic story of Santa? It is really a very personal choice. There is no right or wrong approach; only what works for the individual family.

    Are we doing it “right” for her? Who knows? She may grow up to write an article that says “I wish my mom and dad had encouraged me to believe in Santa.” But she may, on the other hand, say, “Wow, my parents never lied to me about anything…except Santa.”  Each of our children’s interpretation of our parenting decisions will be about the child’s own perspective, faith in us, and their own understanding of how they create their individual realities.

    You may be reading this article, thinking to yourself, “This woman really thinks too much about little things! Let the kid be a kid!” Maybe I do; I have been accused of overthinking things before. But I wonder if maybe… just maybe…by allowing her to choose her own behavior, for the intrinsic value of aligning with who she really is, rather than for material gain, we are actually allowing her to be herself.

    Could it be that by giving her freedom to question, we are assisting the development of her critical thinking process? And probably most important to my own conscience as a parent, by not using Santa as a mechanism of control, could we be affording her a life free of fear, free of manipulation, and free of trembling, shivering, shaking moments waiting to hear some stranger casing our house in the middle of the night?

    What do you think?

    (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.)

  • Read the book that started it all, here!

    The 25 Core Messages of Conversations with God are summarized in the One Thousand Word Statement of Eternal Truth found in the Top Of Page story now running on the Home Page. Please read them there, and accept our invitation to join the Civil Rights Movement for the Soul.

    The website you are currently visiting is an outgrow of the writing in the book The Storm Before the Calm, in which you have been invited to co-author a New Cultural Story for Humanity. That book is now being posted here, one chapter at a time. (See First Installment, below). It is important that you read this if you wish to become part of the Civil Rights Movement for the Soul.

     

    THE STORM BEFORE THE CALM

    Chapter One

    My dear, dear friends…my wonderful companions on this human journey…

    I’m so glad that you’re here, and I hope that your answer to the question just above is yes, because it’s very important that you hear this: We’re experiencing something quite extraordinary on the earth right now. I’m going to give it a name here.

    We are experiencing The Overhaul of Humanity.

    This is not an exaggeration. This is reality. It is observable at every turn.

    Yet here is something that is not so observable: Things are not as they seem.

    And I think, before the world and its people get too far along this road, we all need to be aware of that.

    We also need to be aware that there’s nothing to be afraid of in our future if we will all but play our role in creating it. And that role—the role we are being invited to play by Life Itself—is going to be very easy to play.

    I have more that I want to share with you around all this. Let me give you a summary of everything I have come here to say:

    * A major shift is occurring on our planet

    * There is nothing to be afraid of if we all play our role in this shift

    * Our role is easy to play, and it can actually be fun

    * It involves having fabulous conversations revolving around seven simple questions

    * The asking and answering of these questions can result in the creating of solutions to humanity’s biggest problems

    * It is time for us to place before humanity a New Cultural Story, sending us in brand new directions in politics, economics, culture, education, relationships, work, marriage, sexuality, parenting, and every area of human endeavor; a manifesto created by all of us, working as co-authors.

    * There are some exciting opening thoughts about what that document could contain that I think you should hear.

    Oh, and I don’t want to talk with you just about “world conditions” or “the global situation” or “our planetary crisis.” As important as those topics are, I’m clear that the Overhaul of Humanity is overhauling each of us. One look at how much has changed in your life in the past three years will tell you that.

    So I’d like to have some exchanges with you as well about easing any struggle or negativity that may be present in your own personal life.

    Okay, there you have it. The whole agenda. Can we talk?

    ###

    The Overhaul of Humanity is not a small thing. The words I’ve used to describe this phenomenon are dramatic because the event is dramatic.

    It is going to involve (indeed, it is already involving) every aspect of our lives: our governance and politics, our economics and financial stability, our commerce and industry, our social conventions and constructions, our educational systems and approaches, our religions and beliefs, our customs and traditions—in fact, our entire Cultural Story.

    We can participate in the Overhaul of Humanity or we can merely witness it—but we cannot stop it. Nor would we want to.

    This can be the greatest thing that has happened to our species since our appearance on this planet. The years just ahead, and some of the trials and tribulations we’re going to see, can bring our planet to a new and wonderful place when the process is complete. And the process will be complete in a relatively short period of time.

    And you can help bring about that completion if you choose to.

     

    ###

     You don’t have to simply read this

    Life is inviting you to not have this be a book that you simply read. Life is inviting you to have this be an experience in which you participate. This is your opportunity to join me and others from around the world in the conversation that is being initiated here. You may do so at any time by simply stopping your reading, marking your place, then getting on the Internet and navigating to…

    www.TheGlobalConversation.com

    There, click on the icon labeled The Storm Before The Calm. Find and post any comment you wish at the numbered “Conversation” you’re currently reading. (You’ll notice that this book is not broken down into “Chapters,” but rather, into “Conversations.”)

    At this special website there’s also a separate icon inviting you to post your ideas, your thoughts, your concepts, and your inspirations regarding the contents of Humanity’s New Cultural Story. It is for this purpose that you have come to this material.

    If you are like many others, you have long been asking, “What can I do? How can I help to make things better?” This is an answer to that question.

    The New Cultural Story co-created here by adding your insights and inspirations and heartfelt hopes and dreams for our world will be placed before humanity in a separate book: Our Collective Dream: A New Cultural Story for Humanity. This will be a book read around the world, and a book that you co-author.

    So what you are reading now is not an ordinary text. This is your gateway to participation in what I am clear could very well be The Conversation of the Century. Your voice is valuable and needed in this exchange, in order that the exchange itself may sparkle with the vitality of a wide variety of ideas, insights, and visions. So do, please, consider interacting with this book, as well as reading it, yes?

     _________

     POINTS I HOPE YOU WILL REMEMBER…

    * A major shift is occurring on our planet.

    * There is nothing to be afraid of if we all play our role in this shift.

    * Our role is easy to play, and can actually be fun.

    * What Life is inviting us to change is our Old Cultural Story.

     

    ACTION I HOPE YOU WILL TAKE…

    * Check out the website that has been specially created to allow the conversation that has been started here to continue. Go to  www.TheGlobalConversation.com and see what you think.

    * Return to that website any time during your reading of this book that you see something you want to discuss further. Create your own Topic Board if you don’t find the subject you wish to discuss already being explored there.

    ============================

    End of Chapter. Now, a Note from Neale…Portions of this website referred to in the above opening chapter of The Storm Before the Calm have been temporarily moved to the background of this site. These icons will be brought forward again in the near future. In the meantime, you are invited to continue reading the book here day-by-day, and offer any input you wish to make in the Comments Section under this posting. Thank you for your interest in helping us all to create a New Cultural Story for Humanity.

  • A CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
    FOR THE SOUL IS IGNITED

    A Civil Rights Movement for the Soul, freeing humanity at last from the oppression of its belief in a violent, angry, and vindictive God, has been re-energized by The Global Conversation, with nearly 100 people saying ‘yes’ to the invitation placed in this space just four days ago.

    The purpose of the movement, which is the prime mission of a global community known as Humanity’s Team, is to release our species from a dogma that creates separation and competition, replacing it with unity and compassion, and to put Spiritual Activists on the ground in cities, towns, and villages around the world, challenging us to examine our old spiritual beliefs and ask, honestly: Are these doctrines working?

    The end of our Old Cultural Story and the writing of a new one based on the spiritual truth of who we are and what is really so about Life has, of course, been spoken of, and yearned for, for thousands of years. But now humanity has the tools with which to finally make this dream come true.

    First, it has answers now to life’s most critical question. And second, it has a way to get those answers to millions of people rapidly.

    Life’s most critical question is: How is it possible for 6.9 billion people to all want the same thing—survival, safety, security, peace, prosperity, opportunity, happiness, and love—and to be unable to produce it, even after thousands of years of trying?

    The answer is that we have been going after the wrong thing. This idea is fully explained in the book The Storm Before the Calm.

    In addition, the true coming of age of global instant communication is now making it possible to send that information to multi-millions virtually overnight. And that is what the Civil Rights Movement for the Soul is all about.

    Within days of it being discussed here December 5th, nearly 100 people signed on to join the Movement, and one of them — a man named Eric Silver — said “Yes, with a condition: A simple, practical blueprint for achieving this. For example, a distillation of the principles and premises of ‘Conversations with God’ and other enlightened materials into a one or two page, incorruptible, guide to life and living that even a child could understand and apply intuitively. (And don’t say it can’t be condensed down to that, because it can.) When heeded, its truth will be indisputably evident through the lifestyles of those who follow it.”

    Well, Eric, it just so happens that just such a statement has been given. I, too, have been asking for such a summary — a quick read that could say all that needs to be said and open the door for further exploration and discussion by people around the world. And I was given, a while ago, a simple statement that fills your request perfectly, reducing 3,000 pages of CWG dialogue to 1,000 words.

    Eric also wrote about the changes in human behavior that such a single summary could produce. In the Comments section below he asked: “Can such change occur without a massive ‘environmental’ (physical, mental, and spiritual) calamity to motivate it? At no point in human history have people gotten together and said, ‘Gee, we are doing this Life/Living thing wrong; let’s all fix it,’ unless some severe external/internal pressure forced them to do so. Perhaps this will be the first instance?”

    Yes, I believe so, Eric. This Civil Rights Movement for the Soul can be the first time. So here is that summary statement you were looking for Eric…

    Here, in 1,000 words, is all that the human race needs to know in order to live the life for which it has yearned and which, despite trying for thousands of years, it has yet to produce. Carry these messages to your world:

    God talks to everyone, all the time. The question is not: To whom does God talk? The question is: Who listens?

    We are all One. All things are One Thing. There is only One Thing, and all things are part of the One Thing There Is.

    There’s enough. It is not necessary to compete for, much less fight over, the resources you have been given. Simply learn to share.

    There’s nothing you have to do. There is much you will do, but nothing you are required to do. God wants nothing, needs nothing, demands nothing, and commands nothing.

    There are Three Basic Principles of Life: Functionality, Adaptability, and Sustainability. Thus, there is no such thing as Right and Wrong, there is only What Works and What Does Not Work, given what it is you are trying to do. What you are trying to do and what you will do shall determine who you are and how you evolve as a species in the cosmic community of sentient beings.

    Love is all there is.

    You are the creator of your own reality, using the Three Tools of Creation: Thought, Word, and Action.

    Your life has nothing to do with you. It is about everyone whose life you touch, and how you touch it.

    You are not your body, you are not your mind, and you are not your soul. You are the unique combination of all three, which comprises the Totality Of You. You are an individuation of Divinity; an expression of God on earth.

    The purpose of your life is to recreate yourself anew in the next grandest version of the greatest vision ever you held about Who You Are.

    There’s no such thing as Right and Wrong. There is only What Works and What Does Not Work, given what it is you are trying to do.

    There is also no such place as hell, and eternal damnation does not exist. There is no such thing as Space and Time, there is only Here and Now. Death does not exist. What you call “death” is merely a process of Re-Identification. There are no victims and no villains, and no one does anything inappropriate, given their model of the world.  

    The moment you declare anything, everything unlike it will come into the space. This is The Law of Opposites, which produces a Contextual Field within which that which you wish to express may be experienced.

    There is no such thing as Absolute Truth. All truth is subjective. Within this framework there are five levels of truth telling: Tell your truth to yourself about yourself; Tell your truth to yourself about another; Tell your truth about yourself to another; Tell your truth about another to another; Tell your truth to everyone about everything.

    The human race has created a precise set of illusions. The Ten Illusions of Humans are: Need Exists, Failure Exists, Disunity Exists, Insufficiency Exists, Requirement Exists, Judgment Exists, Condemnation Exists, Conditionality Exists, Superiority Exists, Ignorance Exists. These illusions are meant to serve humanity, but it must learn how to use them.

    The Three Core Concepts of Holistic Living are Honesty, Awareness, and Responsibility. Live according to these precepts and self-anger will disappear from your life.

    Life functions within a Be-Do-Have paradigm. Most people have this backward, imagining that first one must “have” things in order to “do” things, thus to “be” what they wish to be. Reversing this process is the fastest way to experience mastery in living.

    There are Three Levels of Awareness: Hope, Faith, and Knowing. Spiritual mastery is about living from the third level.

    There are Five Fallacies about God that create crisis, violence, killing and war. First, the idea that God needs something. Second, the idea that God can fail to get what He needs. Third, the idea that God has separated you from Him because you have not given Him what He needs. Fourth, the idea that God still needs what He needs so badly that God now requires you, from your separated position, to give it to Him. Fifth, the idea that God will destroy you if you do not meet His requirements.

    There are also Five Fallacies About Life that likewise create crisis, violence, killing and war. First, the idea that human beings are separate from each other. Second, the idea that there is not enough of what human beings need to be happy. Third, the idea that in order to get the stuff of which there is not enough, human beings must compete with each other. Fourth, the idea that some human beings are better than other human beings. Fifth, the idea that it is appropriate for human beings to resolve severe differences created by all the other fallacies by killing each other.

    You think you are being terrorized by other people, but in truth you are being terrorized by your beliefs. Your experience of yourself and your world will shift dramatically if you adopt, collectively, the Five Steps to Peace:

    Permit yourself to acknowledge that some of your old beliefs about God and about Life are no longer working.

    Explore the possibility that there is something you do not fully understand about God and about Life, the understanding of which would change everything.

    Announce that you are willing for new understandings of God and Life to now be brought forth, understandings that could produce a new way of life on this planet.

    Courageously examine these new understandings and, if they align with your personal inner truth and knowing, enlarge your belief system to include them.

    Express your life as a demonstration of your highest beliefs, rather than as a denial of them.

    These 1,000 words, embraced and acted on, could change the world in a single generation.

    ================

    (From the forthcoming book WHAT GOD SAID: The Words of a Spiritual Revolution. Now, you are invited to take a step with us. Help create a New Cultural Story for our species, based on the message above. Answer the following question: Who will join Humanity’s Team? Place your answer in the Comment section below. But be careful. Because if your answer is yes, you’re going to be asked to take part in the biggest civil rights movement in the history of humanity. A Civil Rights Movement for the Soul. That is, Neale Donald Walsch and Humanity’s Team will get in touch with you personally and invite you to become involved in what could produce a spiritual renewal on this planet the likes of which we could only have dreamt of until now. The Moment of Our Tomorrow has arrived. And nothing, not all the armies of the world, can stop an idea whose time has come.)

  • The five levels of truth-telling

    The first time I read about this concept, it resonated deeply within my soul.  But I must admit, I was a bit fearful that it would not be easy to apply on an everyday basis.

    Sure, in my years as a patient, and then as a therapist, I had learned the value of truth and did my best to honor it both in my professional and personal life…most of the time.

    So what was still keeping me from being truthful in certain situations?

    Well, I told myself it was in order not to hurt others – to protect them, you might say.  But in reality, as it is for most of us, I was paralyzed by the thought that if I tell my truth, I may lose the interest, love, and appreciation of others. I was the one scared of being hurt.

    Of course, Life, benevolent and loving as it is, heard my interrogation and was already working at creating the perfect circumstances for me to experience the power of truth-telling.

    It started with a conference call with Neale Donald Walsch (being a spiritual helper on WECCE, I am so very fortunate to participate in those).

    On that particular call, a helper asked Neale – given his extensive life experience and wisdom – what piece of advice he would give to a young person starting in life. Neale did not have to think over it twice.

    “To tell the truth all the time” was his first and foremost answer.  He went on to add that even though it wasn’t easy, it was one of the soul’s highest goals, and that truth should be told in a peaceful, respectful way.

    So there it was again, taunting me to look at myself squarely and stop hiding behind false pretense.

    I went back to the 5 Levels of Truth and started applying them to the situations in my life where I felt difficulty or conflicts. Sure enough, I was not being totally transparent in those exchanges.

    It all starts with:

    Telling the Truth to Yourself About Yourself

    This one may sound like a no-brainer, but it’s really not. Often we tell ourselves what we tell others: nice little fibs. We are afraid of the truth itself.  We imagine awful consequences to our revelations and use them as pretexts to stay in an uncomfortable “comfort zone.”

    Still, I felt pretty sure I knew my truth. In my present situation, it had to do with a very close friend who was making jokes and comments which conflicted with my values.

    So I moved on to the second level of truth-telling:

    Tell the Truth to Yourself About Another

    This one had me pondering. I mean, obviously we have a hard time staying neutral about others, but shouldn’t this be a goal?

    I was forgetting an essential truth:  Seeing is not judging.  Judging is forming an opinion based not on our feelings but on our thoughts; whereas seeing is simply observing from the soul’s point of view.  This was pretty subtle, but I could see where this was taking me.

    It was taking me beyond my pride and prejudices.  Suddenly I could see what was at stake – namely, not my opinions on defensive humor and criticism, but the reality behind it:  my friend’s psychological and spiritual well-being.

    The next level was:

    Tell the Truth About Yourself to Others

    I thought I could do that and started having conversations with him around this subject. Yes, around…not totally addressing it. Once again, this is something we all do at one point or another (especially if you’re a woman and have been taught you should not hurt/make waves/contradict others for the last 2,000 years).

    A bit taken aback by the lack of result my endeavors were having, I moved on to the fourth level of truth-telling:

    Tell Your Truth About Another to the Other

    This left me feeling sad and at loss, because I tried and tried and tried again, but he would not take my advice on consulting a therapist, nor reading books that might provide with some guidance.  In fact, this only served to separate us more.  I thought our friendship was just coming to an end and I had to accept it.

    Still, I moved on to the last level of truth-telling:

    Tell Your Truth to Everyone About Everything 

    That sounded impossible and yet it jerked me awake.  I realized that I had been so entrenched in my own little drama (the fear of losing my friend, the fear I wasn’t providing efficient help) that I still had not told my initial truth.

    Not telling this very same truth had separated us a first time many years ago. It was now poisoning the relationship, like every secret, every lie always does.

    So I decided to follow Neale’s advice to a “T.”  I worked on ways to convey my truth in a peaceful, non-judging way, and then asked to see him.

    Neale had been right, it wasn’t easy.  It took some courage, some guts even.  And then all hell broke loose, the relationship ended…and not nicely.

    Still, I felt liberated.  I knew I had demonstrated to myself and to my friend respect by putting words on my feelings.  Whatever pain or sadness I encountered in the following months over this ending, there wasn’t a trace of regret in me about telling my truth.

    In fact, this prompted me to honor my truth more and more, in every aspect of my life, making my relationships happier and easier.  Now, I won’t lie to you, sometimes I lose sight of my truth, I feel uncomfortable about something and it takes me some time to identify what it is and then some more to convey it in a proper way.

    But you know what? The Soul leaves no stone unturned.  Lies and half-truths will come back to haunt you until you set the truth free.  And once you do, not only does this works, it ripples…

    A month ago, my friend came back. He had started seeing a therapist and was starting to feel much better.  One of the things that had strongly prompted this change was our conversation and the ensuing break-up.

    Tell your truth and expect miracles…both inside and around you.

    (Sophie Lise Fargue is a therapist working with energy, animating workshops and giving seminars on Personal Development in Paris, France. She also volunteers as a Spiritual Helper at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. You may connect with her at www.revenirasoi.com or slfargue@gmail.com.)

  • Missing the feeling of Unity I once had

    I have had the experience of knowing that I am one with everyone. It was a time in my life that I will never forget and would love to feel that again. I do not know if it feels better to have had this experience for a couple of years or to not have had it at all.  I feel like I am striving to “get there” again, but I understand that what you resists persists. I have to accept where I am at now and let it all flow as it will. I feel like I should be reading, having quiet time (meditation), and focusing on more positive thinking more often. I try to do this as often as I can, but sometimes it feels difficult to do this consistently because of the demands of my 3 little children. I am struggling to feel this sense of “we are all one” on a daily basis… Kim

    Dear Kim… You are incredibly blessed to have had a direct experience of Unity with everyone for two years! You have the consciousness of that now, which will make it easier to manifest again. This is true of anything you’ve had in your life. Once you’ve experienced something, you have the consciousness of it and can more easily create it again. This is why we see millionaires who lose it all only to make it all again!

    I can imagine that three wee ones are very time-consuming, but if you can carve out even fifteen minutes a day to get in touch deeply with your soul, it will help make the rest of your day feel more peaceful. “Stopping meditation” also works for busy moms on the go. Every so often, just stop what you’re doing for ten or fifteen seconds, close your eyes, and touch base with your soul. This is very refreshing! Before you know it, you’ll start to feel that connectedness again.

    (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.)

  • Bridging the gap between ‘that’ God
    and ‘no’ God

    I recently stumbled upon a Facebook page titled “Grief Beyond Belief.”  It is a support page, whose members exceed 6,000, created for the specific purpose of being a gathering space for people who are experiencing grief as a result of loss in their life.  The common denominator, however, for this unique website is that those who subscribe to the “Grief Beyond Belief” updates are not simply people who are suffering grief and loss, but these are people who do not believe in God.  

    As I perused through the comments on this Facebook page, I read post after post from people struggling with unanswered questions and trying to make sense of some type of loss, whether that was showing up in the form of a relationship ending or the death of a loved one, or even the loss of a beloved pet.  The pattern was quick to see, people seeking and searching, yearning for comfort, but unwilling to adopt any ideology or concept that invites them to consider anything larger than what simply lies before them – many of them so disenfranchised by the “in your face” religious zealots that they have elected to believe in not believing.

    It is interesting how this particular page showed up for me today as I recently put my own belief system “to the test” while visiting the website of Sam Harris, a well-known critic of religion and one of the “four horsemen” — together with Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Christopher Hitchens — in the “New Atheism” movement.  A wonderful quote taken from his writings on stem cell research led me to his website, where I watched several hours of him debating the existence of God with religious and spiritual leaders from around the world.  And while I understand that his pushback is more particularly directed at organized religions, namely Christianity and Islam, for a brief period of time, I allowed myself to imagine a life without God.

    I imagined how it would feel to not know, or even consider the possibility, that I am connected to all of life in some significant way.

    I imagined how different my life would be without a higher purpose for any of my thoughts, any of my expressions, and any of my choices.

    I imagined for a moment that this was it, that my life was reduced to the 60, 70, 80, or 90ish years that I may randomly and singularly experience and how I could possibly “make the best” of them…or what that would even mean.

    I imagined for a moment that my relationships were circumstantial – and, for that matter, that everything that happened in my life was circumstantial, arbitrary, and spiritually meaningless.  What would now be the purpose for my relationships?

    I imagined the day my son was born and how that would have been an entirely different experience.  In the absence of God, the overwhelming sense of divine perfection and soul connection would have been diminished to a matter-of-fact scientific explanation involving sperm and eggs.

    There were times in my life where it felt scary and lonely to imagine a God who punishes and judges, a God who condemns, a God who is separate from me.  But imagining that God did not even exist allowed me to experience aloneness and fear on a whole new level.   The fundamental question of “Who am I?” suddenly meant so little as it could no longer produce an answer that expanded beyond physicality, thereby limiting my entire human experience to simply a body made up of cells, blood, tissue, organs, veins, etc.

    If there is no God…then who am I?

    And why would it even matter why I was here and where I was going?

    The atheism movement is growing at a surprisingly impressive rate, presenting a robust resistance to religious fundamentalism and righteousness.  This secular segment of our world is made up of people who are no longer buying into the story which casts as its leading man an angry, needy, and vengeful God; yet this same group of people have likewise abandoned any concept of connectedness, divine design, higher purpose, and eternal life.

    And this is why the New Spirituality movement is vital, a collective consciousness that does not support the “man on a cloud” theology, yet embraces divinity and oneness.  The New Spirituality is a space that gives hope and cultivates purpose and bridges the gap between “no God” and “that God.”  The New Spirituality does not teach people what to think, but rather that they can think;  it does not tell you  how to live your life, but rather how to create your life.

    (Lisa McCormack is the Managing Editor & Administrator of The Global Conversation.  She is also a member of the Spiritual Helper team at www.ChangingChange.net, a website offering emotional and spiritual support. To connect with Lisa, please e-mail her at Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com.) 

  • An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure…

    We can all agree that without health, little else matters. If I look to my experience of how I have helped myself and others to create wellness, it always comes back to the simple principle that the whole being must be considered and addressed. Holistic Health is taking the approach that all areas of life affect the living force of a human being; that is, every choice matters. Wellness is created in everything we choose: what we think, what we eat, what we do.  Every thought, decision and action we make affects the whole of us. You can be as fit as a fiddle, for example, but if you are carrying around wounds from the past or unexpressed and unresolved emotions, your health can become just as compromised as any other unhealthy behavior.

    As important as what we think and feel, eating the right kinds of food is crucial. Our intake of nutrition is the primary and fundamental means that sets us on a course that either heals or harms us. Eating alkaline foods and balancing pH is essential and perhaps the most powerful means of healing and balancing the physical body.

    Second only to breathing and sustaining our heartbeat, the most important metabolic function that our bodies perform is maintaining an ideal pH level.  pH stands for “potential” of “Hydrogen.”  The pH level is a measure of acidity or alkalinity, on a scale of zero to fourteen, with zero being most acid, fourteen being most alkaline and seven being mid-range. The pH level is one of the most important balance systems of the body, and the most important pH level that the body must regulate is the blood’s pH level. The body’s blood pH level must be maintained at 7.4 or slightly alkaline.

    Unfortunately, in today’s environment of high stress, on-the-run lifestyles, eating to much junk or fast foods, poor or not enough sleep, and a greater exposure to toxins that surround us, most people are operating in an unhealthy acidic environment internally. Many doctors believe this to be a major contributing factor to increased illness and dis-ease.

    When your body is too acidic, it will try to balance itself by utilizing existing alkaline minerals. If your diet doesn’t contain sufficient balancing alkaline minerals, it will either build a more acidic environment or pull nutrients from other important areas like calcium from your bones which can lead to diseases like osteoporosis. Not at all what we want to create.

    Diet is probably the most important change we can make to balance our natural pH. What’s important is not so much the pH of the food as it goes into our bodies, but the pH level once the food is broken down. Considering whether a food is acid–forming or alkaline–forming is key. For example, even though we think of citrus as acidic, fruits like lemons are alkalizing, because when they’re consumed, they break down and provide alkaline mineral salts. Similarly, foods we might normally think of as good for us may have a negative impact on us as they are actually acid-forming…things like grains and pasturized milk are two such examples.

    When we have an acid state, the body, in its own protective wisdom, will create a chemical process to protect itself from being harmed by the acids. This buffering process requires the use of many nutrients from the body, including electrolyte minerals. In order to maintain the blood’s critical pH balance, the body will compromise other “less” important functions. Once the electrolyte reserves become depleted, the body begins to steal these electrolytes from other various organs and systems of the body to maintain the blood’s pH level. This is where the imbalance begins.

    To maintain good health, we need to eat at least 75 to 80 percent alkaline-forming foods. The bad news is the average American diet consists of about 80% acid-forming foods, which puts us on the wrong side of the health scale. As we talked about a few weeks back in the column “Get out of that box,” processed and refined foods are extremely acidic to our systems and promote dis-ease, not health.

    A proper, slightly alkaline diet suggests taking in at least 80% of alkalizing foods, like green vegetables, and never more than 20% of neutral and acidifying foods, acid-forming foods like meat, dairy products, bread, and all kinds of other yeast products, alcohol, carbonated drinks and coffee. Try to avoid the acid-forming foods, and instead consume as much alkaline-forming foods as possible, like vegetables, greens, sprouts, and most kinds of seeds. Eating alkaline foods transforms your body pH from the dangers of acidic to alkaline or slightly above neutral.

    Eat more green food and alkalize your body pH today. An alkaline way of life is the perfect start to restore and maintain your overall health. By transforming your nutrition into an alkalizing pH diet, by eating vegetables, and perhaps adding green food nutritional supplements, the body’s pH level will gradually begin to balance. When the nutrients of alkaline foods get into your bloodstream, the cells in your body will begin to be regenerated. An alkaline diet thus helps to boost your energy levels, improve skin, reduce allergies,  and enhance mental clarity. Above that, when pH balance is achieved and maintained, the body instinctively drops to its ideal, healthy weight. As soon as the acidic environment is eliminated, there will be no need for new fat cells to form, and the remaining fat in your body is no longer needed to store acid wastes, and therefore simply melts away.  An alkaline way of life will restore good health; you will not only see, but also feel the difference.

    Nature has provided us the perfect packages filled with all of the elements we need to have this state of health.  All we have to do is make these good choices for our body to benefit. Begin by eating more alkaline and cut out or greatly limit refined and processed foods and sugars. Avoid things with corn syrup, agave, maltose, or aspartame in it. Instead start your morning with, say, cucumber and lemon in spring water or one of my green smoothies.  Add JR’s Lemonade mix to the mix… 4 lemons squeezed to 1/2 gallon of fresh spring or filtered water with 4 squirts of liquid stevia. Liquid stevia is an ideal sweetener. Fresh, raw, organic cucumber is massively hydrating and alkalizing, so are lemons. Get creative, because eating healthy does’t have to be a drag.

    Here are some more examples of foods to include and avoid:

    High Alkaline Foods – Include: String Beans, Banana, Dandelion greens, Dates, Figs, Prunes, Raisins, Swiss Chard, Almonds, Avocado, Beets, Blackberries, Carrots, Chives, Cranberries, Endive, Grapes, Kale, Peaches, Persimmons, Pomegranate, Plums, Raspberries, Spinach.

    Neutral Oils – Include: Cold Pressed, Expeller Pressed, Almond, Avocado, Coconut, Canola, Cottonseed, Linseed, Olive, Safflower, Sesame, Soy, Sunflower, Walnut.

    Alkaline – Include: Agar, Alfalfa, Apple & Fresh Apple Cider, Apricots, Artichokes, Bamboo shoots, Beans sprouted, most Berries, Blueberries, Broccoli, Brussels Sprouts, Cabbage, Cantaloupe, Cauliflower, Celery, Cherries, Chestnuts, Chicory, Coconut Milk, Collards, Corn fresh and sweet, Cucumbers, Daikon, Eggplant, Escarole, Garlic, Ginger root, Gooseberry, Grapefruit, Guava, Horseradish fresh and raw, Kelp, Kohlrabi, Leek, Lemon and Peel, Lettuce, Lime, Loganberry, Mango, Melons, raw Milk, Acidophilus Yogurt, Whey.

    Acid – avoid or limit: Alcohol, Bread, Caffeine, Coffee, Corn, Custards, Drugs, Flour, Grain, Soy, Bread, noodles, Pasta, Sugar, Tobacco, Egg yolk, Fruit Jellies (Jams Canned, Sulphured, Sugared, Dried), Pasteurized Milk Products, 

Acid Fats, Butter, Cream, Margarine, Lard.

    To live in a state of health and wellness is to develop and adhere to a daily holistic health plan that makes sense for you and prevents dis-ease and promotes health. Along with proper thought, emotional healing, and understanding the divine nature of all things, the power to experience health becomes self-evident when we shift the food choices we make, because what passes our lips doesn’t just end up on our hips! Begin today by limiting the acid-forming foods and replace them with alkalizing ones. Go green and get colorful organic foods, and you will feel the benefits that a balance pH lifestyle provides. As always, to your health! – 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.)

  • How Can I Manifest a Baby?

    My husband and I have been trying to have a baby for over a year now, and I feel like we have tried literally everything, even IVF – needless to say nothing has worked.  I’m at my wits end with this process.  I want a child so badly, yet I can’t continue this cycle of disappointment, it’s making me miserable and is even beginning to affect my relationship with my husband.  Medically, chances of us conceiving are very low, but not impossible.  However, I am one who believes that anything is possible and I don’t want to give into the odds!  But what can I do?  Where is my baby?  Feeling very desperate at this point, don’t know if you can help but I follow CWG books closely and thought I’d give it a try.

    ~ Jeannie, Arkansas

     

    Jeannie my heart just aches for you.  I feel the pain in your words, and your frustration is palpable.  I so admire your strength, courage and perseverance, it speaks volumes to who you are as a person.  I wish I could wave my magic wand and make it happen for you.

    But since I can’t, I will offer you my intuition on your situation.  When we want something so badly in life that it consumes all of our attention and creates a boatload of negative feelings in us, the resistance that we feel around the whole subject actually begins pushing it away from us further.  Conversations with God describes the using of the words, “I want” as a declaration of lack, of the thing you want not being there right now, and the Universe responds to this and gives you more of the experience of wanting.  To take that even deeper, it isn’t the actual words “I want” that produce more of the wanting, it’s the vibration you are offering when you speak them (or, the Sponsoring Thought – the thought behind the thought).  For example, when a child sees a commercial about a cool new toy and exclaims in excitement, “I want that!”, he isn’t coming from a place of lack, he is coming from a place of desire and joy at the thought of having that toy.  But when a person living paycheck to paycheck declares in frustration, “I just want more money!”, they are all too aware and consumed by their lack of money.

    I’m describing the above to you, Jeannie, for two reasons: 1) You’ve created a lot of resistance (quite understandably, I might add) around becoming pregnant and 2) you’re speaking and thinking about it from the vibration of lack.  I know that may sound harsh, and I assure you that I am not implying that you caused any of these “problems” in the first place, I am simply pointing out how you can approach this energetically and spiritually, as I too, am a believer that anything is possible.  So, then, let’s look at what you can do about it.

    Declare your intention from a place of desire.  In other words, what can you say about this that actually feels good to say?  An example might be, “I look forward with joy and gratitude to the day when we conceive.”  Do you enjoy praying or communicating with your guides/angels?  Then by all means pray for it, but offer up a prayer of gratitude.  The gratitude acknowledges that it is already there, or is at least on its way.  One of my favorite prayers of gratitude from CWG is “thank you, God, for helping me to understand that this problem has already been solved for me.”  See how much better that feels?

    Next, back off from it.  Move from this state of resistance to a state of allowing.  You see, our only job here is to be clear on what we want and decide that it’s coming, and you only need to do this once – it’s the Universe’s job to figure out “the how”.  It doesn’t mean stop trying to have a baby, it means let go of the resistance around it, and take action from a good-feeling place.  So what might that look like?  It could look like diving into a fun project, getting artistic and creating something, practicing daily gratitude, taking up a hobby and inviting more fun and lightness into your life.  It could look like going out on dates with your husband and appreciating the free time the two of you have right now, making love simply to express how you feel for one another.

    In short, you know you are in a state of allowing when you feel good, you feel light.  Let it go for now.  Let the Universe do its job and give yourself a break.  Your faith and belief are so strong, Jeannie, I can feel that about you.  Backing off and giving yourself permission to feel good about life is your way of exercising that faith, and wonderful things come of it.

    Sending you lots of love throughout this process,

    Nova

     

    (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 Only Intended to Make the Front Page!

    While reading the headlines, an interesting news story flashed across my computer screen: “Woman Accused of Robbing Bank and Bragging About It on YouTube.”  I clicked on the link, and then followed the eccentric story of 19-year-old Hannah Sabata, who decided that simply robbing a bank at gunpoint and stealing a car right after wasn’t enough of a victory for her. To completely call her escapade a success, Sabata decided that she needed to post a video on YouTube that flaunted her stolen $6,000 and her newfound abilities as a thief. Needless to say, the video became circulated wide enough to reach the police headquarters, and they were able to easily link the video and the incident together, and Sabata faces a December 26th date with court.

    After I read this, I was incredibly confused. Why would anyone lack that much foresight about their consequences? Why did she consciously decide to not only commit such a crime, but also let it be so publicly known? Why would she confess herself to the world, and allow her actions to so quickly face the harsh light of justice? Though still a teenager myself, I was incredibly confused, shocked, and quite disturbed that someone in my generation would be that mindless to link these two events. As the question of Why? Why? Why? kept spinning around in my mind, a moment of epiphany stuck my mind: this was the intention of Hannah Sabata. Her intention was not to go off free from these crimes, but be recognized and emblazoned as their perpetrator. Hanna Sabata intended to be known for her offense.

    So, is this really the society we live in? Is this really the message that our generation of teenagers has learned, that the fulfillment of our intentions can only be achieved by showcasing our dangerous behavior to generate enough “likes”, “followers”, and simple “attention”? Our intention for attention – pushed to the extreme by easy access to billions of others across the globe – has led us to forget about our much higher intentions. Do we really want to continue to be the culture that is driven by fame, by fortune, that does things purely for the roaring response of the people, to reach some undefined level of success through “popularity”? Is that really the message we want to send out about humanity itself?

    We can determine whether or not we will continue to have our intentions driven by our newly intensely cravings for attentions. We can choose to have different intentions – ones that are based on purpose, compassion, and understanding – that will have a far greater impact than the 15 minutes of fame that might, on culture’s whims, given you for completely changing the definition of Who You Are. By simply being aligned with higher intentions, you WILL gain far more attention that WILL make the world more aware and more conscious of its own miraculous journey. Instead of merely the front page of the Friday newspaper, you can find yourself with an entire book of your experiences to share with the world. With the very root of every thought, word, and deed stemming from sources of love, guidance, and joy, our own journey transforms itself from a burdened daily struggle into a magnificent adventure with wonder and awe around every corner. If this is the way we INTEND for life to be, then it CAN be that way.

    Teens, we have the choice to make. Will we change or continue our current intentions? We will make this decision, and we must also make sure we share this decision. Whether it be right here in the Global Conversation community or even in your own community, share your intentions, and let others be transformed as well. Let yourself be known, and so you face no difficulties expressing your new intentions. The higher they are, the stronger they be.

    (Lauren is a Feature Editor of The Global Conversation. She lives in Wood Dale, IL, and can be reached at Lauren@TheGlobalConversation.com)