The Global Conversation

Tag: creation

  • Create some new thoughts

    All of our thoughts are creative.  We have countless numbers of thoughts in our head daily, yet we only give special attention to some of them.   Most of us tend to spend our time entertaining the same thoughts day in, day out.  In this way our life and reality never seems to change.  Doors we wish would open remain impenetrable.  Feelings of lack of purpose and fulfillment follow us in all we do.

    What were to happen if we simply tried to pay attention to another thought about our self, our life, and our God?  What if we intentionally begin each day conjuring up a positive, expanded, grand perspective of what life is really all about?

    Is anyone willing to try this? How about giving it seven days?  Wake up and tell yourself that life is conspiring in your favor, and events are lining up to bring your reality to a whole new level.  Try repeating it seven times looking into your own eyes in the mirror.

    Are you having a hard time manifesting something?  Is it sobriety?  Is it happiness? Is it true love?  Is it passion? Is it desire to make an impact?  What would you really like to manifest in your world?

    I cannot promise you that you will end up with a BMW or house of your dreams overnight.  What I can tell you is that you can improve your state of mind, your health, and your energy by consciously directing your thoughts in a direction that is counter to your current thinking habits.

    Have you tried making “I am” statements?  The universe will move mountains to see to it they are realized.  Are you looking to improve a health condition?  “I am healthy.”  Do you wish to be happy?  “I am Joyful.”  Do this seven times a day for seven days and see if anything changes.

    Do you want to see these things become part of your reality quicker?  If so, do the things that a healthy person or happy person would do.  Healthy people exercise or choose healthy foods.  I find for me that simply purchasing organic foods makes me feel healthy.  Happy people greet other people with a smile or kind words.  Happy people go out of their way to share their happiness with others. They know that by doing so they get to experience their own happiness because people will always reflect that back to them.

    If this article sounds like a pep talk it is because I have been practicing this myself and it works.  Just today I was greeted by a person who seemed grumpy and irritated.  My first reaction was to shut him out and just get my job done.  But a little voice in my head told me to open up and start a conversation with him.  By the end of our time together he had put his hand on my back and his other out to shake my hand wishing me a good day. It was a complete reversal of attitude from 30 minutes prior.

    So many times in life we are tempted to respond to others with the same energy they give us.  When we look to rise above our initial thought and step into a state of being that is engaging, it never fails to produce harmony.  We have the power in every single interaction to control, to some degree, the level of vibration.

    Will you take the seven and seven challenge?  Seven times a day for seven days, decide ahead to be different, to be creative, and to be powerful.  You can be in alignment with the universe simply by staying focused and committed.

    (Kevin McCormack, C.A.d ,is a certified addictions professional and auriculotherapist.  He is a recovering addict with 26 years of sobriety. Kevin is a practicing auriculotherapist, life coach, and interventionist specializing in individual and family recovery and also co-facilitates spiritual recovery retreats for the CWG foundation.  You can visit his website here for more information. To connect with Kevin, please email him at Kevin@TheGlobalConversation.com)

  • Why Did I Create All of This Pain?

    Last year there were many changes in my life. My husband and I went into bankruptcy. My marriage ended against my will, I left my husband after 20 years together still loving him.  I returned to my parents’ house in another continent, where living conditions have nothing to do with Europe. One of my daughters went to heaven.  All I’m assimilating the best I can, knowing that everything was produced by me. But I want to know what my daughter in heaven thinks or feels about me. Was it necessary to live all that pain? How I can make my life from now on one not through pain? Please explain what I did wrong and how to correct. My two children that I still have with me need and deserve a good mother, to accompany this process in the best possible way.

    ~ Maria

    Maria,

    Thank you for reaching out.  I am very sorry to hear of all the pain you have experienced in the past year or so, my heart goes out to you, especially in the loss of your daughter.

    Hear me when I say you did nothing wrong.  This is not your fault.  There is nothing to “correct”.

    Here is the misunderstanding about creating our experience that I see many people have: while it is true that we are the creators of our experience, we are not necessarily the creators of the events that show up in our lives.  Rather, we are co-creators of the events that show up in our lives.  Each and every person that experiences an event with us has played a part in creating the event itself.  For example, if you experience the event of a car accident, it was not created by you alone.  It was co-created by everyone who was impacted by it: the other car involved, the witnesses who saw it happen, your friends and family who are concerned and who you may have told about it, even the people who built the road that the accident happened on.  Our role as conscious creators is how we choose to experience an event, how we choose to experience the car accident.  Does this make sense?

    So let me be very clear, it is not your fault that your daughter passed on, you did not cause that.  And I can tell you with utter certainty that she doesn’t blame you, isn’t mad at you, and in fact, loves you so much that her soul agreed to depart at the time it did in order to give all the co-creators involved the opportunity to experience themselves as certain things within the context of “loss”.  It is okay to feel the pain, to be sad, to miss your daughter.  That is part of your experience.  But you also get to decide how you want to experience life after loss; in other words, who do you want to be now?  I hear that you want to be a good mother to your children who are still with you. So your job is to decide what that looks like and be it.  It may also be beneficial to write your daughter who passed on a letter, for your own healing, telling her everything that is in your heart to tell.

    In regards to your question of how to move forward without the pain and struggle, my answer is to let go of the story you are telling that life is painful, that you are creating pain.  Begin to shift your focus on all that is wonderful in your life, and keep it there as much as possible.  This is the most powerful thing you can do for yourself and for your family at this time.  In fact, I recommend developing the practice of daily gratitudes.  That is, begin writing down at least 10 things that you are truly grateful for, that you love or appreciate, every single day.  And furthermore, consciously choose to make your last thoughts before you fall asleep at night, as well as the first thoughts you have when you wake up in the morning, thoughts of gratitude.  This is where we become the creators of our own experience.  If you choose to focus on the “negative”, or the “pain” or the “struggle”, then you will continue to create more of that experience.  But if you choose to focus on and pay more attention to the beauty of life, what you do have versus what you don’t have, what you love versus what you resent or don’t like, then you will create more experiences of good things.  It is really quite remarkable.

    The other thing I recommend is to continue reaching out to others, do what you need to do to heal yourself from what happened, and know that you don’t have to do it alone.  Meditation and journaling are also great ways to both heal and to live more consciously without pain and struggle, as well as being able to better deal with pain and struggle when it does show up.  I think you a remarkable, wonderful, beautiful woman and mother, Maria.  You have the power to experience your life any way you want to.  Please let me know if I can assist you in any other way, and thank you for being willing to share your story and for trusting there is a better way of living for you and for your children.

     

    (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.)

     

    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.

  • If everything is perfect, why bother?

    “If everything is perfect, happening in Divine order, why bother doing anything?”

    This question was recently posed to the audience of The Global Conversation’s Facebook page in an effort to find out what people think about what may be one of the most asked about — and perhaps most misunderstood — concepts in the new-thought community.

    If there is a larger spiritual design to all of this — that is, all of life — if our ultimate outcome is already guaranteed, why in the world do we need to worry about changing or creating anything during our time on earth?  Can’t we just sit back and enjoy the ride?   Let the chips fall where they may?

    Our Facebook question triggered some wonderful and diverse responses from people around the globe.

    Yoga Wahyudi says:  “because there’s no such thing as perfect.”

    Could that be true, that we actually are less than perfect?  That nothing is perfect?  Is much of the world striving and struggling and reaching for what they may never be able to attain?  Is it true that there is no higher purpose or all-encompassing perfection involved here?

    There are religions in our world today that support the idea that we are flawed from the moment we enter into the realm of physicality.  If we embrace that belief system, one that requires us to believe ourselves as separate from God, upon what then do we base our decision of whether or not to become active participants in the happenings in our world?   Is it merely an exercise of atonement for our perceived defects, earning or receiving credit for our “good” deeds?

    Tony Meade shared a quote from Albert Einstein:  “Nothing happens until something moves.”

    And Deanne Steinbeck offered this thought:  “Even divine order requires action, every action you make has a butterfly effect and it may be one of your actions that inspires someone else and so on. We are here to learn, grow and love and for us to action our best self…..divine order requires each of us to action love into the world.”

    So perhaps it is within our actions, our doingness, our creativity that we are experiencing the perfection of our choices?  Would we ever be able to know who we are, to declare who we are, or express who we are if we never engaged in demonstrations of who we are?

    The answers to these questions will depend largely upon what your belief and understanding is about why you are here, on this planet, to begin with.  Conversations with God shared this powerful message with us:

    “My divine purpose in dividing Me was to create sufficient parts of Me so that I could know Myself experientially. There is only one way for the Creator to know Itself experientially as the Creator, and that is to create. And so I gave to each of the countless parts of Me (to all of My spirit children) the same power to create which I have as the whole….My purpose in creating you, My spiritual offspring, was for Me to know Myself as God. I have no way to do that save through you. Thus it can be said (and has been, many times) that My purpose for you is that you should know yourself as Me.”

    And it is within this message that I believe we are offered an understanding that most clearly explains the dichotomy that exists between “everything being perfect” and the call for creation.  It comes to us not in the form of a commandment, but rather in the form of a gift from God, so that we may experience ourselves as the Divine and so that the Divine may know Herself experientially.

    So when we are at the choice point, and we find ourselves being given an opportunity to decide, the important questions to ask ourselves are:  Who am I? Where am I? Why am I where I am? And what do I intend to do about that?  When we purposefully transform our thoughts into actions, we become powerful creators and active participants in the evolution of life…not only for ourselves, but for everyone.

    – Rosa Parks experienced this when she chose to stand up to legally imposed racial segregation and faced her own arrest.

    – Hotel workers at theTaj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai, India, experienced this when they placed their own lives at risk in efforts to protect guests during the deadly terrorist attacks in 2008.

    – Nancy Lublin experiences this in her capacity as CEO at DoSomething.org, one of the country’s largest nonprofit organizations championing for young people and creating social change in the areas of bulling & violence, environment, homelessness, and human rights, just to name a few.

    – Cassandra Curley experienced this when she walked 50 miles in each of the 50 states in 50 weeks in conjunction with her 50th birthday, spreading the message to anyone who would listen that peace is our natural state and that conflict is generated by fear.

    So I pose the question again:  If everything is perfect, happening in Divine order, why bother doing anything? 

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

  • Tree of Life

    Everything taking place within the realm of our experience is subject to the application of our thoughts, perspectives, and beliefs…which is why you will either deeply appreciate Director Terrence Malick’s movie “Tree of Life” or you will leave feeling bewildered.

    This 139-minute film has very little dialogue except for the occasional voice-over narration asking enigmatic questions to God like, “Where were You?  Where do You live?  Are You watching me?  I want to know what You are.  I want to see what You see.”  This movie does not tell you what to think, or how to think, but rather it provides the movie-goer an opportunity to think about and actually participate in some of life’s most perplexing and unanswered questions about evolution, God, death, heaven, human connection, the end of the world — and to become a collaborator in its meaning.

    The movie centers around a troubled family in Waco, Texas, in the 1950s where three pre-teen boys are living with their strict authoritarian father (played by Brad Pitt) and gentle loving mother (played by Jessica Chastain), each parent symbolizing a different perspective about the “way” through life…the way of nature or the way of grace.  She is ethereal, a loving presence, angelic; he is a businessman and a traditionalist who is prone to anger.

    Awe-inspiring and dramatic cinematography contrasts ideologies of “spirituality” and “survival of the fittest” within the world of this young family’s triumphs, conflicts, and day-to-day life experiences, connecting them with the birth, evolution, and eventual demise of the universe.  Predominantly placed in the film is a breathtaking 15-minute video sequence containing stunning footage of the “Big Bang,” the creation of the earth and the earth’s first organism, the age of the dinosaurs, concluding with the destruction of the earth by a large meteor.

    Writing a review for a controversial movie that is so wide open to interpretation is a challenge without sharing what the film personally meant to me.  So I would recommend that if you want to experience a movie that will make you say “Wow!”  “What?”  “Hmm,”  “Aww,” “No Way,” “Oh, I get it,” “Wait, I’m confused,” and “Amazing” all at the same time, that you check out “Tree of Life.”

    “Tree of Life” can be found on Netflix and is available on video from most movie rental sources.

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

    (If there is a book, movie, music CD, etc. that you would like to recommend to our worldwide audience, please submit it to our Managing Editor, Lisa McCormack, for possible publication in this space. Not all submissions can be published, due to the number of submissions and sometimes because of other content considerations, but all are encouraged. Send submissions to Lisa@TheGlobalConversation.com. Please label the topic: “Review”)

     

  • Stuck in Short-Lived Happiness

    It seems like every time I find myself feeling really good and happy about my life, it is short-lived.  One minute I’ll be happy and in no time at all something will happen to throw me into a tailspin and I don’t know which way is up! How can I stay happy for longer periods of time?

    ~ Melissa, Indiana

    Dear Melissa,

    First of all, I so know what you’re going through!  Truth is, we all do.  What you are experiencing is the Law of Opposites at work; that is, as soon as you make a declaration to the Universe (i.e. “I am happy.”), its exact opposite will show up in some way.  Admittedly, this experience can be frustrating, especially if you aren’t aware of what’s really going on.  But the existence of this law isn’t to punish or to deter us, it actually helps us create what we want in life.

    Allow me to explain.  The Law of Opposites is based on the principle: “In the absence of that which you are not, that which you are, is not.”  In other words, you cannot know yourself as happy unless you know of the experience of sadness.  If you were happy all the time, and were only surrounded by happiness, you would cease to even know what happiness really is.  But when its opposite shows up, and you experience that contrast, your experience of happiness becomes greater.  So you see, the Law of Opposites works in harmony with what you are trying to create more of.  The key is to recognize what’s happening and choose happiness again.

    So the next time you have this experience, in whatever context, try this:

    Step 1: The moment you notice the seemingly not-so-great stuff showing up in your world, take the time to stop and recognize what’s happening.  Choose to see it as the Law of Opposites doing its part to bring you what you have called forth.  If you dare to, choose to see the “bad” stuff as a sign that the process of creation is indeed working, and say “thank you.”

    Step 2: Make a new choice, or, rather, choose your original thought again.  For example, if your original declaration was “I am happy,” then choose it again, and focus on everything that is alignment with happiness.  Make the conscious choice to not give any more energy to the negative stuff that is appearing in your reality.

    Step 3: Pat yourself on the back for being the creator of your own experience.

    I’m not saying applying any of this is easy, unless it is, of course.  But I am saying with a little conscious thought, intention and awareness, you can have an entirely different experience than the one you mentioned in your question.  Good luck!

    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.)