The Global Conversation

Tag: advice

  • What does a friend say?

    A good friend of mine is going through some major changes in her life – angry separation from family, decrease in career/income, and her gentleman friend called and told her he’d found someone new.

    She’s in a panic and turning to me and another good friend for support.  I offered her the WECCE book, which she started to read and then put down.  At this time she’s in no mood to hear that these changes may be for her own good and/or that she created them.

    I want to support her, but am unsure what to say to her or do for her.   I cannot in honesty say “poor dear”, because I DO believe WECCE (it’s worked in my life many times).  I can agree with her that it’s a frightening and sad time for her, but she’s not ready to hear that the choice not to be frightened and sad has to come from within herself.

    I’ve told her that I know (from experience) that there’s really nothing I can say to make her feel better, that’s a decision she must make for herself.  But that I will support her totally in her choices to create the life she really wants, and that I love her.

    At one point in WECCE Neil says to stay with a feeling until it no longer serves you.  Maybe that’s what she’s doing – staying with the saddness, anger and fear until it no longer serves?  Then when she asks for help, what does a friend say?

    Thanks, K

    Dear K,

    You have given her the book, and when/if it is time for her to read it, she will.  How lucky she is to have a friend like you who cares enough to not just talk, but to give tools!

    There is nothing wrong, by the way, with saying, “poor dear” to her at this point in her changes, K.  This human experience is all too real and all too painful, more so for some than others.  Saying “poor dear” now, does not mean that you must continue to do so, which would, of course, be enabling her to not even consider changing her mind about what is going on.  So, yes, for now she must experience sadness, anger and fear until it no longer serves her…but, of course, everything does eventually serve.

    The mistake that your friend may be making, regarding the “she created them” statements in the book, is forgetting that we are co-creators…and even then we are co-creating on a Soul level, and for a Soul purpose!  We most often have no direct control over the total picture, because we are rarely alone in that picture!  However, and this is the big “however”, we do have control over our own reactions to the events of our lives.  The big lie, if you will, is that we can not consciously control who we are, in any given situation.  WECCE, as you know, gives us tools on how to do just that.  It gives us tools to overcome past data and become conscious co-creators and not victims.  The biggest example I give is Nelson Mandella.  He was in prison for many years, unjustly, and yet he knew that this was just his external circumstance, and that it had nothing to do with who he really is.  The same can be said of Jesus, or Ghandi, and many others.  There were surely people in that same prison with Mandella, imprisoned falsely, who thought of themselves as victims.  The two thieves on the cross with Jesus…one found gratitude and love, the other stayed in victimhood.  They each made a choice.

    You might consider, when you are around your friend, and she is negative and in victim mode, asking her gentle questions and gently pointing out different ways of looking at things.  For instance, when she points out how horrible her boyfriend is, you might ask her if it isn’t a good thing that he isn’t lying to her any more so she can move on with her life in truth…or if it isn’t a good thing that she isn’t taking any more risk of disease.  I am sure you get where I am going.  There is always a positive side, if one is willing to change their mind.

    Of course, if the negativity continues, it may come to the point you refer to above, and you simply have to say, “I can see that you are hurting, but I can also see that none of the things that I have said mean anything to you right now.  I would like you to find the help and support you require, but it is clearly not coming from me right now.  I love you, and will be here when you think I can really be of help to you, but I can’t just sit here and let you live in misery and enable you to do so.”

    I would encourage you to encourage her to look at what fear (panic) is doing to her, and see that it doesn’t really serve her in the way she might think it is serving her.  Those are emotions that only cause us to stay in place, whilst looking backward with longing…but she can change her mind about her future!

    Thank you for coming here, and thank you for being a good friend, K!

    Therese

     

    (Therese Wilson is a published poet, and is the administrator of the global website at www.cwghelpingoutreach.com  She may be contacted at:                                                              Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)

    (If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com, where our team is waiting to hear from you.)

    An additional resource:  The CWG Helping Outreach offers spiritual assistance from a team of non-professional/volunteer Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less. Nothing on the CCN site should be construed or is intended to take the place of or be in any way similar to professional therapeutic or counseling services.  The site functions with the gracious willing assistance of lay persons without credentials or experience in the helping professions.  What these volunteers possess is an awareness of the theology of Conversations with God.  It is from this context that they offer insight, suggestions, and spiritual support during moments of unbidden, unexpected, or unwelcome change on the journey of life.

  • Are you in a “trade” relationship?

     

    I am so angry.  I have been in a marriage for 32 years.  I have been faithful.  I have given him children.  AND I have had a full time job.  Now I find he wants a divorce, and wants to be free to be with other women.  Now I am all alone, he wants to leave me with the kids, the stress is making my job performance suffer and I am at risk for losing my job, and he is off having his fun.  I need him!  Is this God being fair??  

    Rhea 

     

    Dear Rhea,

    I am so sorry you are going through this right now.  I get that it doesn’t seem fair.

    Since I don’t have the luxury of an ongoing dialog, like I do over at The CWG Helping Outreach, I am going to be quite direct.

    You talk about your relationship in terms of him getting what he wants, and you not being treated fairly…you do not speak of losing your soulmate, or the love of your life or any other endearing term.  Which leads me to ask what you expected of marriage…why were you in the marriage?  I often ask, and I will ask you:  What is your definition of Love?

    I think that what “Conversations With God” has to say about this subject is particularly pertinent right now.  In chapter 8 of book 1, it talks about how we define Love.  In this chapter God says:

     

    “For most people, love is a response to need fulfillment.

    Everyone has needs. You need this, another needs that. You both see in each other a chance for need fulfillment. So you agree—tacitly—to a trade. I’ll trade you what I’ve got if you’ll give me what you’ve got.

    It’s a transaction. But you don’t tell the truth about it. You don’t say, “I trade you very much.” You say, “I love you very much,” and then the disappointment begins.”

     

    A relationship that is healthy, even if it does not last forever, begins with knowing that we are complete with or without that other person in our lives, and having a desire to share that completeness with another, hoping to enhance their lives and yours in the process of sharing.  We all need help along the way, and none of us live in this perfect little love zone all of the time, but it is what healthy relationships are based on, and what they return to when the dramas in life end.  In fact, getting back to that space is what causes the drama to end.

    Further, Rhea, we most often think of “relationships” as having to do with romance.  In reality, we are having a relationship with everything in our world all the time.  We know who we are relative to all that is around us, and how we act on those relationships depends on our thoughts about those things, including our thoughts about who we are.  Our thoughts create our experience.  Hard to believe, I know, when we are in the middle of traumatic changes in our lives, like the ones you are going through right now.  Our thoughts do create our experiences, (not to be confused with events) and you can change your experience right now by changing your thoughts about why this is happening.  One very good tool, among many good tools out there, to help you change your thoughts, is the book, “When Everything Changes, Change Everything” that Neale wrote.  (Information about the website is below, and the book can be read for free on the website!)

    I am a person who always looks for the “silver lining” in things.  Even when things that appear awful are happening, my mind goes back to the times when things looked hopeless, yet they ultimately proved to be things that opened up doors for me.  (For instance, the hopeless co-worker relationship actually had to happen to me, so that I wouldn’t be attached to that job, and I was open to the next.)  When I do simply accept that there is more, my mind relaxes and gives me a break.  I calm down and am able to let my mind filter what my soul is saying.  Can you see even a tiny bit of silver?  Can you look back at anything in your life and see the silver lining now, that you couldn’t see then?

    Rhea, “justice”, by the way, presumes that something is “wrong”.  There is nothing wrong.  Each person simply has their own soul path.

    I am going to write a little story around what you say about your ex…I might look at him and think that he is a very insecure person.  Why? Because he is looking for love and acceptance outside of himself.  He seems to need validating by temporary things.  Who he is, doesn’t seem to be enough for him.  Which leads to many questions as to why…

    What I have done, by doing this, Rhea, is write a story that moves me from pure judging, to looking for understanding of his actions.  Not necessarily because I think that those actions are working for him in any way, but because I wish to understand that HE thinks that they are working…otherwise he wouldn’t be doing them.

    We don’t have to stay with those people, Rhea, we don’t even have to fall out of love with those people, but when we move to understanding, we stop doing one very important thing:

    We stop hurting ourselves.

    And when we do that, we stop hurting those around us, even if we were hurting them unconsciously.  (Maybe that’s what people are reacting to at work?)

    And when we stop the hurting, things seem to fall into place…because we believe that they will.

    Ask yourself, Rhea, what might be needing to be looked at within yourself that is causing you to feel that you need someone in your life who has said he doesn’t want to remain in yours.  Is it because you are being treated unfairly in your “trade” agreement, or is it because you are not defining love in a way that includes yourself.

    Therese

    (Therese Wilson is a published poet, and is the administrator of the global website at www.cwghelpingoutreach.com  She may be contacted at:                                                              Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)

    (If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com, where our team is waiting to hear from you.)

    An additional resource:  The CWG Helping Outreach offers spiritual assistance from a team of non-professional/volunteer Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less. Nothing on the CCN site should be construed or is intended to take the place of or be in any way similar to professional therapeutic or counseling services.  The site functions with the gracious willing assistance of lay persons without credentials or experience in the helping professions.  What these volunteers possess is an awareness of the theology of Conversations with God.  It is from this context that they offer insight, suggestions, and spiritual support during moments of unbidden, unexpected, or unwelcome change on the journey of life.

     

  • Unto Thine Own Self Be True…

    Dear Therese,

    I had dreams and plans that had to be put on hold because of family circumstances.  I made promises that I sincerely wish to keep, but I, none the less, find my mind wandering to those dreams and plans more and more.  I don’t want to back out on my promises to others, but I would really like the opportunity to follow my dreams.  What can I do?

    Darla in Fargo, ND

    Polonius:

    This above all: to thine own self be true,

    And it must follow, as the night the day,

    Thou canst not then be false to any man.

    Hamlet Act 1, scene 3, 78-82

    Dear Darla,

    In CWG terms, betrayal of yourself, so as not to betray another, is the greatest betrayal of all.

    Why?  Because there is no other.  When you betray yourself, your giving is tinged with the energy of betrayal in all you do.  You serve no one as well as you think you are serving them.  In some way the people to whom you made the promises know that you are giving from your lack and not your fullness…and that means they know that at least some piece of you is far away from them.

    It has been my experience that when I finally let go of the notion that I am the only one that can do something, or that I only have one way of fulfilling my promises, those promises have a way of still being kept!  One way of importance is that I enable others to step in and take the burden off, enabling them to demonstrate their greatness.

    When we think that we are the only ones who can do something, or that there is only one way of having dreams fulfilled, we get frustrated.  We move into expectation instead of preference, which is so very limiting…and why do we keep limiting a limitless Universe?

    Perhaps you could give a thought to fulfilling your dreams where you are?  Have you looked at the possibility of combining old and new dreams?  Maybe you can include the people to whom you made promises in your dreams?  Maybe they are ready for an adventure?  Consider, also, that you are where you are for a reason, if only for now.  What are you being called to look at?

    Of equal importance in this process is this:  Once you have decided it is time to be true to yourself, you must also tell the truth to yourself.  Admit all of the negative as well as the positive emotions surrounding this.  You may find that there is something entirely different than you think driving your feelings.  When you tell the truth to yourself, Darla, then, when you talk of changes to the others you wish not to betray, they will know they are hearing the truth.  This does not mean that they will react in a positive way necessarily, but it does mean that they will know, if only on their soul level (only??), that you are being true to yourself, and by extension, them.

    Finally, be Grateful for it all.

    Gratitude for all that is, is the engine that drives what is to come.  Yes, difficult sometimes, but can’t we all look back at our lives and see how something that seemed “not good” at the time, turned out to have one heck of a silver lining?  Look for that silver lining right now.  If you can not see it, know that it does exist!

    I know that’s a lot to take in, Darla, so take things as slowly as you wish right now, and when/if the time is right to make a change trust yourself.  It may be kind of scary, but know that it is also an adventure, and an opportunity to experience Life as fully as you can!

    Therese

    (Therese Wilson is a published poet, and is the administrator of the global website at www.ChangingChange.net . She may be contacted at:                                                              Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)

    (If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com, where our team is waiting to hear from you.)

    An additional resource:  ChangingChange.net offers spiritual assistance from a team of non-professional/volunteer Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less. Nothing on the CCN site should be construed or is intended to take the place of or be in any way similar to professional therapeutic or counseling services.  The site functions with the gracious willing assistance of lay persons without credentials or experience in the helping professions.  What these volunteers possess is an awareness of the theology of Conversations with God.  It is from this context that they offer insight, suggestions, and spiritual support during moments of unbidden, unexpected, or unwelcome change on the journey of life.

  • Accept my gift of love.

     

    Dear Therese,

    Recently someone I know sent me a really nasty e-mail out of the blue.  I admit I don’t know this person well, but it still came as quite a shock and surprised me at how much I am upset by this.  Should I write back?  If I do, what should I say?

    Surprised

    Dear Surprised,

    I don’t think it is going to come as any surprise that I am going to ask you to look at yourself in this situation.  Not because I think you have done anything to cause this particular situation, mind you, but to simply ask yourself what in this situation is your moment of growth.  Is this type of thing a usual trigger?  Does someone being upset with you usually cause you to be unusually effected?  Why do you worry so because this person was “mean” to you?  I am sure you can come up with others to ask yourself!

    I ask these questions because what you are experiencing is actually quite normal.  What isn’t normal these days is to stop and understand that it doesn’t matter what anyone else says, it matters how you accept what they say, and how you choose to feel and be in the aftermath of the words.  The children’s nursery rhyme had it right…sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never harm me!

    I heard a little story (paraphrasing here, of course) that tells of the Buddha teaching the wife of a wealthy man.  Her husband noticed that his wife had changed, and he did not like the change, so he found the Buddha and approached him in anger.  The Buddha simply held up his hand and said, “I do not accept your gift of anger.  Accept, instead, my gift of love.”  And walked away, leaving the man standing silent, not knowing what to say.

     

    “Start telling the truth now and never stop. Begin by telling the truth to yourself about yourself. Then tell the truth to yourself about someone else. Then tell the truth about yourself to another. Then tell the truth about another to that other. Finally, tell the truth to everyone about everything. These are the 5 levels of truth telling. This is the five-fold path to freedom.” ~Neale Donald Walsch

     

    Surprised, what would happen if you gave a response that told her, even though gently, how you felt when she used those hurtful words?  Not what you thought about them, but how you felt.  Would that harm, or example how to appropriately communicate?   I would suggest you respond with your gift of love.

    I don’t know if you will see an instant change in the situation, although you may, but I do know that responding to her from the space of anger will not change anything.  Share the truth about your feelings, expecting nothing but the ability to share as your reward for doing so.  Plant the seed of example.  Then let the universe handle how and when it will grow.

    Therese

    (Therese Wilson is a published poet, and is the administrator of the global website at www.ChangingChange.net, which offers spiritual assistance from a team of Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less, and offers insight, suggestions, and companionship during moments of unbidden, unexpected, unwelcome change on the journey of life. She may be contacted at Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)

    (If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com, where our team is waiting to hear from you.)

     

     

  • Do you create your own reality? Yes, and kind of!

    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

     

     

  • Your words really do have energy

    “I am so lonely, and I want so much for someone to love me.  I’ve been trying so hard to be centered and forgiving and understanding of others.  I need someone to understand me for a change.  My friends say that I am too negative and that my words have energy. What do they mean?”  C.L.

    Dear C.L.

    When you are in the situation where it seems like everything you desire from life is being kept from you, it is difficult to see just how words reflect where we are sending our energy.  From a distance, however, one can see where your energy resides. In “want” and “need” and “try.” What we often can not see, when we want and we need, is that we get exactly what we ask for…want and need. There is a quote attributed to Dr. Michael Beckwith, “Trying is failing with self-protected honor.” Always, in reality, honoring the possibility of failing, and not honoring what you are actually doing and desiring.

    C.L., one of the least understood things about the Universe, is that its greatest desire is to give you exactly what you ask for. It has no judgment as to how good or bad it is for your life. It only knows what you are giving your energy to. Are you giving your energy to want and need? Voila! The Universe joyfully gives you want and need!

    (Now, I am not saying that every time we use those words we are going to be asking for want and need. Let me be clear that I know we use all words casually, and they have no impact on what we are energetically asking for.)

    The power of words is by no means simply a personal thing. Since this is the end of a particularly vocal political season here in the United States, let me share my personal observations of the energy of words on a larger group of society.

    During the last election, I was asked if I really believed the words I was hearing. Words like hope, change, “Yes, we can!”  Yes, I did.

    This election I have been asked if those words don’t now ring hollow.

    My answer is that those words still have power. It doesn’t even matter if the person saying them believes them, it matters if the person hearing them believes them. The words “hope and change,” the words “change starts with you and works up,” the words of Ghandi, “Be the change you wish to see,” affected me, and others, greatly. Those words caused me to do things in my own life, and in my own community to make my world a better place, and caused others to do the same thing. Those words caused me to move away from fear and hatred, and the feeling of being divided from my fellow American, and into a powerful, unifying energy, symbolized by those words.

    So, in this election cycle, I look at the power of the words being used. I listen to my body when I hear the words of people who would represent me and my country. Do I feel hopeful and motivated, or do I feel fearful and immobilized? Do I feel I want to reach out to my fellow human being, or do I want to protect myself and my things? Do I look at others as part of Divinity, or do I look at them as opponents and enemies?

    C.L.,  we are all letting the energy of our thoughts and words enter into our every day lives, so you are definitely not alone in not understanding the power of those words. What energy are you sending out most powerfully?  I would suggest you change to words like, wish, hope and prefer…prefer to have a certain thing or outcome, but do not expect anything in any certain way.  This keeps you open to whatever way the Universe wishes to give to you.

    What we also often fail see is that the energy of our words doesn’t stop with us.  From us that energy expands to our family, community, country and our world.

    Most of us are using this power process unconsciously.

    My advice would be to know that we can all change this, and that the change does begin with us.  We can change how we use our words and the thought we have associated with those words.

    In “When Everything Changes, Change Everything” it says:

    “An event is one thing; your reality of it is another. Events are created by conditions and occurrences outside you. Reality is created by conditions and occurrences inside you—in your mind. It is here that events are turned into data, which are turned into truths, which are turned into thoughts, which are turned into emotions, which are turned into experiences, which form your reality.”

    Words, you see, are the expression of our thoughts. If we can make a change, right there in the process, imagine how different our reality might be…personally and globally.

    Therese

     (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.)

    (Therese Wilson is the administrator of the global website at www.ChangingChange.net, which offers spiritual assistance from a team of Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less, and offers insight, suggestions, and companionship during moments of unbidden, unexpected, unwelcome change on the journey of life. She may be contacted at Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)


  • Can you make someone choose your reality?

    This is my first time asking this kind of question. I’m not too sure on how to compose it without sounding disrespectful or too naïve.  People can create their realities, right. Can someone choose his reality to continue a permanent partnership with someone that would not necessarily want to? If he wants to have that relationship to work, he has and will continue to put energy into it. The partner doesn’t see it that way.  She wants out of this relationship. His mind is surely going to explode. He cannot understand why!  He’s not an abusive person in any way. He’s a good provider, a good person.. He has a lot of feelings for his wife.  

    Sometimes he feels like a fool for letting her stay in the house until she finds a place to go live.  Of course, she doesn’t gave him much attention and told him she has filed for a divorce. What is going on here? They both are very spiritual and believe it’s their path to become better persons and show, teach, and spread the Love.  Enough of this rambling! I don’t know if any of this makes sense to you, but can you shed some *light* into this?  Thank you so much!

    PS: You’re right, I’m talking about my own marital situation.  P.E.       

    Dear P.E.,

    The answer is no…you can not create a reality that someone else is not willing to create with you.  Every soul has its own agenda, and every soul has free will.

    P.E., I get that you would have a desire for someone you love deeply to want to stay with you.  I get that deeply.  It is a natural thing.  I would, however, suggest that you are already creating the reality that your soul wishes to experience.  You have defined yourself as “a good provider, a good person, spiritual,” etc.  Can you see that you can Be these things in any relationship?  Can you see that you can Be these things in no relationship?

    Thinking that the current relationship with your wife is the only way you can demonstrate these things is expecting life to show up in only one way.  And God and Life provide more for you than just one way, or one love.  Ask yourself, What is this relationship giving me the opportunity to experience?  Why am I in this relationship?  In fact, what is the purpose of being in a relationship at all?  I believe it is to give the other back to themselves.  It is to give the other person every opportunity to be who they really are; and through doing that, I also get to be who I really am.

    I am not saying that you should give up.  What I am saying is that you should never force another, physically or energetically, to do anything.  The best you would receive is surrender.  What I am also saying is that if this relationship has a chance of moving in a different direction, it will be because you move in a different direction.  That direction, to me, would always (only?) include what your wife’s wishes may be. Is it impossible to believe that even apart can still be a spiritual way for both?

    Interestingly enough, when you move into this space, it opens up the door for more than one way for your wife to be in your life.  One of these ways could be supremely satisfying ways you least expect!

    This, of course, is just my general answer.  There are tools in the book When Everything Changes, Change Everything that can help you find your own answers, in your own way.

    Therese

    (Therese Wilson is the administrator of the global website at www.ChangingChange.net, which offers spiritual assistance from a team of Spiritual Helpers responding to every post from readers within 24 hours or less, and offering insight, suggestions, and companionship during moments of unbidden, unexpected, unwelcome change on the journey of life. She may be contacted at Therese@TheGlobalConversation.com.)

    (If you would like a question considered for publication, please submit your request to  Advice@TheGlobalConversation.com, where our team is waiting to hear from you.)