The Global Conversation

Tag: death

  • How can I heal the pain of my uncle’s death?

    How can I heal the pain of my uncle’s death?

    My name is Michael. I am a 37 year old man and nine days ago my very beloved uncle died. He was like a father to me. He always supported me, advised me, and was always so kind to me. When I was in trouble he always helped me. Now, after nine days since he left, I feel worse and worse. The pain I have in my heart is so terrible. How can I heal this pain, that I feel is killing me?

    Dear Michael… First of all, please allow me to offer my condolences. I’m sure it must be terribly painful, losing the man who was like a father to you, who was so kind and loving to you. Any time we lose someone in our lives who we were very very close to, it leaves a huge hole in our hearts.

    I would encourage you to allow yourself to fully feel all of the emotions that are naturally coming up for you, yet know that they won’t kill you. You see, even though it may feel terrible, grief is actually a blessing to us. It’s that emotion that lets us know that we have loved deeply. There is an age-old question that asks, “Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?” I think for me the answer is, it is better to have loved and lost. Imagine how different your life would have been had you not been blessed by your and your uncle’s mutual love for each other. I’m sure your life would be very different if he hadn’t been in your life, so yes, by all means, grieve for your loss. Allow yourself to cry or scream or whatever wants to be released in you as you are releasing him from your physical presence.

    Please know, though, that just because your uncle is no longer with you physically doesn’t mean he isn’t with you spiritually. Neale’s wonderful book, Home With God: In A Life That Never Ends says that the moment we think of a dearly departed one, their soul flies to us in an instant! And although we can’t see them with our eyes, it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Sometimes, if we are highly attuned we can sense their presence.

    Please also know that your uncle is your angel in heaven now. I promise you, he still loves you with all his heart, and is watching over you, blessing you and sending you his love. He may even try to find a way to let you know, by sending you a sign of some kind. If this happens and the thought crosses your mind that this could be him, please don’t disregard or disbelieve it. Allow yourself to entertain the possibility that he has reached out to you!

    Trite as it may sound, time heals all wounds, dear Michael. Of course, time will never cause you to stop loving your uncle, but it can help you stop missing him so much. After you have allowed yourself to grieve fully, gradually start getting back into your normal routine of life. This will help assuage the acute feeling of loss you are experiencing now. And this is good, because I know your uncle wouldn’t want you to grieve forever. He wants what any father figure wants for their child (or nephew): for you to be happy.

    Please buy a copy of Home With God and read it right away. It contains “18 Remembrances” that may change your understanding about the whole process of this thing we call “life and death”. When we understand what is really happening, we can be much more at peace about it.

    If, after reading the book, you are still grieving very deeply, please reach out to one of the Conversations With God Life Coaches or one of the Spiritual Helpers at CWG Helping Outreach. I’ve included a link to the website below.

    I send you much love, dear Michael, as, I’m sure, does your uncle. Blesséd be.

    (Annie Sims is the Global Director of CWG Advanced Programs, is a Conversations With God Life 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.)

    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.

     

     

  • More on personal power, plus media, abortion, and life…

    Dear Therese,

    Been reading some of your advice columns. I think your advice is so thought out and great. One question in particular I resonated with was the man asking where our leaders are and who do we follow. I really feel that is the question of my generation (30’s) and younger. I agree with you 100%,  but I just want to add a little. Your generation had real news (for the most part). It was opinionated and honest reporting, such as the hippie movement, Vietnam, and Martin Luther King, Jr.  My generation comes from filtered, agenda oriented, media. If there is an icon to follow, look to,  (such as the way many opinions were changed with MLK), our media makes them look like lunatics.  That is, if they even choose to do a story on them. If today was 1960, Neale would be main stream news with his new way of thinking. Hell no, you Google him today and he’s made to look like a crazy for saying God spoke to him. And that’s my point, anything to do with God is not news. The only news about Christians is about things like Westboro Baptist and how God hates fags (their word). Why? Because the news is that people who believe in God are insane. People who don’t believe in abortion are out of touch. My point here is that people like Neale don’t get face time anymore. I could go on here but my point is younger generations are lost.

    Also, its about finding the pure courage and sacrifice for speaking up and finding a graceful way of demanding a better way. We are taught that the only heros are fiction. Anyway, the word “peace” and its meaning, and how to achieve it in ourselves and others around, is completely mutilated and twisted.

    I also want to give you an example how what was taught to me, mainly through media, was so contorted and wrong. Woman’s right to choose. This act is to be empowering, it’s my body, I can choose to abort. Because I believed what I saw on TV, media, hidden messages in TV shows etc. I felt I was empowering myself as a woman to abort. Knowing what I know now, no, I was manipulated into this thinking and I chose wrong. I’m not empowered,  neither man nor woman has a right to choose this. Life can not be debated. A life is a life, period. If someone buys a gun, points it and kills someone, there is no debate, there is no empowerment. The man who held the gun and killed goes to prison. Why in the world have we bought into it’s ok to abort?? Let me be more clear,  why have we accepted it’s a woman’s right to kill a baby?? A woman who’s not in her right mind drowns her children in a tub  is demonized for the rest of her life for doing so. But it’s ok to rip a 6 month old fetus (in some states) out of the womb and break its neck and dispose of it??? It’s OK because the person doing it is a doctor?? And to think our country ALLOWS a person to choose killing babies on a daily basis as a PROFESSION??!! How twisted and numb we are toward life! My point is, I don’t feel empowered for exercising my right to choose, I feel like a killer and every woman who thinks twice about the decision will one day feel the same on some level. Or perhaps they won’t because they have chosen to bury the burden.

    I chose to share my insight about this to show you how I didn’t think twice because of what was fed to me. Just think of how manipulated younger generations are now because its taught more and more there is no God, only government.

    Georgia, in PA

    Dear Georgia,

    I left your letter pretty intact, because I believe these are important issues you raise.  I will not use this column to give any advice as to whether or not a woman should choose to have an abortion, but will address what I believe to be larger issues surrounding the specific issue, that may help you with the guilt you feel surrounding your decision to abort.  So…

    If you believe in God, you have to define what kind of God you believe in.

    I believe in a God who does not judge me or condemn me for things that I did when I did not have a fully formed opinion of God and Life.  Sweet lady, I don’t believe God would have any desire for you to have a moment of guilt beyond the point where it served you to think about something and form your own feelings about things.  Guilt harms our mind and our bodies, and God has no need for anything that harms us.  Her only desire is for our happiness.

    I also believe, if one believes in God, that no life, no matter how short, is without purpose.  I believe that even the aborted fetus (child), chose to have that experience.  You see, just as the life of a brother murdered in a drive-by shooting, or a beloved grandparent dying, causes us to reflect on the meaning of that person in our lives, so, too, does the life of that unborn child.

    My reflection on abortion has gotten me to the point where I don’t believe it is a matter of whether or not we have taken a life…because I don’t believe that life ever ends, and is, rather, something we will do again and again.  My reflection has me at the same point you are…why do we even think that this child isn’t Life?  Why do we value life, in general, so little?  Or is it something more?  Are we beginning to value ourselves, as women in particular, once again?  Inappropriately, to be sure, but just as the abused becomes the abuser, couldn’t it be that women, given choices now, don’t know how to make those choices very well sometimes?

    Or is the choice of abortion, and the purpose of those children, greater than even that?  Is it so much about the child/mother, as it is about culture (government/big business/media…are they really separate?), and religion that got us to the point of even thinking that there is a need for this choice?

    Let’s back up to before the point of making the decision to abort.  What would have to change in a woman’s life to change this decision?

    I believe what would have to change is that no woman, married or not, would ever be reviled, or thought to be sinful or wrong in their choice to carry a child to full term.  Nor would she be made wrong for choosing to give that child up for adoption.  I believe that when every woman knows that they will not be thrown into poverty because they have a child, or be given, essentially, second class citizenship, they will have those children.  And if abortion is to be something that no one ever chooses, then we must believe, as I mentioned earlier, that we lose nothing when we die…so dying in the act of birthing would not be considered anything but a natural continuation of life…of the mother’s and the child’s.

    I, with all of my heart, believe what CWG says regarding “right’ and “wrong”.  There is no right and wrong, only what works and doesn’t work.  Abortion IS working to get the conversation going…but it is NOT working as something we should choose once we have our moment of enlightenment on the topic, individually, then, hopefully, collectively.

    These changes in our world can happen.  I believe that there are so many abortions now, because these little unborn souls are choosing to get this dialog going.  I think that extremists (political, religious) , are currently monopolizing this conversation, turning it into a distorted dialog…that is tied up in the larger agenda of money/control, and until the dialog turns to how we think about ourselves, in relation to one another and to Divinity, it will continue to be a point that will never be universally resolved.  The issue of abortion, for me, is also representative of how we are re-thinking the killing another human being…period.  If it is not okay to end the life of an unborn child, how is it okay to end the life of a “born” child…through war?  via the death penalty?  We are having to ask ourselves why is the temporal deemed so valuable as to justify offering up human lives to possess?

    However, it is people like you and I, who will, ultimately, effect this change.  As I said in the column you referred to, I believe that WE are the leaders who will change the world, and we have to stop waiting for others to change it for us!  Change ourselves, change the person next to us, change the whole darn world!  (Shades of Mother Teresa and Ghandi!)

    Georgia, this is a very timely topic, and one with which many struggle, especially those who have had an abortion.  I thank you SO much for your input about this.  My thoughts about abortion have been floating around for about a month, and now I know why!  Thank you for giving me the opportunity to express them.  You might also consider that without your experience with abortion,  this column might not have been written, and others would not know your thoughts…and your thoughts could be part of the shift in this world we seek.

    Oh, one last thing…I agree that today’s news is very skewed and full of agenda, but that might just be a good thing, because it is, at least, very transparent now.  We definitely know who is the liberal and who is the conservative etc.  My generation (baby boomer), had very censored news in its own way.  Neale might have gotten more “face time”, but I doubt he would have been accepted. (But I get what you are saying…take the more transparency and lay it over today)  The point of any of the generations is that we must think for ourselves, and the best way to “think” for ourselves, is to feel what any input does to our bodies.  “Truth” and “Lie” feel very different in our bodies, but we have been taught to ignore our body for a very long time…way before your generation or mine.  Now is the time to teach our own children something different, don’t you think?

    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.

  • THE WORLD’S PEACEFUL WARRIOR

    NELSON MANDELA

  • Embracing the death of
    Nelson Mandela

    In The Times yesterday, the headline “End Nears for Mandela” caught my eye. The subtitle said it all, “Nelson Mandela, 94, has become critically ill after 16 days in hospital.”

    Reading on further, it made me chuckle when I read that the seven doctors traveling with Mandela were “in full control of the situation.” How preposterous!

    When the life energy withdraws from the physical expression, doctors are anything but in control. What can they do? The Soul energy has chosen to withdraw, to die… to Dissipate Identifying Energies.

    Rather than a morbid report, however, Nelson Mandela’s critical condition presents us with another opportunity to remind ourselves of the Sacred Passage of the Soul, and to remind ourselves of the precious Gift of Life that we have been given.
    One thing is certain: all of us must pass through the window of death, just as we have chosen to pass through the window of birth.

    In human terms, we enter at “conception” or “birth,” move along an imaginary timeline, and then experience “death.” This all seems very real to us, and so it should be, else the purpose of the Grand Illusion would be lost! However, as we grow in consciousness, we realise that this timeline is linear, so life and death exist because of it.

    Spirit moves in a circle… Is a circle… And we are part of Spirit. As part of that consciousness and energy, we are not bound to the linear timeline of decay and death.
    For those who have forgotten the Soul’s journey, who think that this life is all there is, Mandela’s death will be a tragedy. It will be a great loss.

    For those who have remembered the Soul’s journey, his passing over will be a triumph. It will be a celebration!

    Nelson-Mandela-006

    Nelson Mandela has certainly accomplished his Soul’s purpose, rising to the challenge of being here on Earth, and even surpassing his own expectations of what was possible. Only a Great Soul could have chosen such a path, demonstrating forgiveness and compassion so consistently, that the Giant Wall of Indifference and Separation (“Apartheid”) came tumbling down.

    Now it is time to let him go, with gratitude for all he has done for us.

    And so it is.

    (Jaime Tanna is the founder of Energy Therapy and an active Reiki Master and Spiritual Mentor, Healer and Teacher. Together with his wife Jennifer, their unifying vision is to empower others through spiritual education and energy-based healing treatments, to help them become aware of their true natures, and to live more joyfully and consciously. You can visit their website at www.energytherapy.biz)

    (If you would like to contribute an article you have authored to the Guest Column, 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: “Guest Column.”)

     

  • Why are you here?

    If someone informed you today that the number of days, weeks, or months you have left to experience life on this planet and in this physical form are suddenly limited, reduced to a period of time which is significantly less than what you had previously contemplated, how would that change the way you live?

    I met a man today who is living in that stark reality, a kind, kind person whose physicians have given him a prognosis of one year until his physical body will slowly and finally shut down and become unable to sustain life in the way he knows it.  And until that final and ultimate transition, he will painfully struggle for each and every agonizing breath he takes in every moment of his days, battling against a disease that is methodically paralyzing his lungs and robbing him of even the smallest and simplest of his day-to-day joys, like walking and talking and laughing.

    Boy, if there was ever a time to become clear about what matters and what doesn’t matter, I imagine facing your own imminent transition out of physicality would be it.  I also imagine that all the things that may have once seemed meaningful — a bigger house or a fancy sports car or plenty of money in the bank — would suddenly fall into the shadows of “stuff that’s not important” when your thoughts and energies are consumed with your next breath, and your next breath, and your next breath, and your next breath.

    If I was not paying attention today, I could have easily missed the opportunity to answer some really big and very important questions.  I might have confused my reason for being in that room as having to do with my job, believing that I was simply there to do what I was being paid to do.  I might have preoccupied my mind with my unfinished “to do” list, thinking about my almost-empty refrigerator and the long overdue grocery trip or that load of clothes in the washer (for the second time) or whether or not I remembered to tape my favorite television program.

    But I was paying attention, the result of which led to the first fundamental question I posed to myself:  Why am I here?

    I knew the answer to this powerful four-word question was really big and really important as it would chart the course for not only our time in this perhaps fleeting relationship, but long after and in large and unseen ways.  It would lay the foundation for not only my own experience, but it would significantly impact the experience of all those in the room.  And as I stepped into the clarity of which aspect of Divinity my Soul yearned to experience, I could hear more vividly, I understood more deeply, and I felt more perceptibly.

    My question also caused me to understand that this terminally ill man, whether intentionally or not, was in the room to serve as a reminder to me, and all those who are now reading this, to live into our own highest visions and ideas about who we are all the time, in every moment, embracing every opportunity as a chance to live our best lives.  If, as the book The Only Thing That Matters says,  98% of the people on this planet are spending 98% of their time on things that don’t matter, we might want to consider amending our “bucket lists,” which are most likely filled with all the things we want to “do” in our lifetime, to include the things we desire to BE in our lifetime — compassionate, fully present, kind, supportive, loving, understanding, patient, etc. — because these are the things that ultimately really do matter.

    Why are YOU here?

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

  • As she lay dying

    “Death can be seen as a period at the end of a sentence.” says Mother Amma. “After that comes another sentence.”

    If my experiences around death taught me anything in this life, it’s that grief is nothing compared to the regrets of not having voiced your love, your gratitude.

    So I try to say the words as often as I can, I pay the compliments where they are due, write the thank you notes, make the gifts. In other words,I let others know how I feel about them.

    Being given the opportunity to say your goodbyes, in person, to a dying loved one is even more special I find. As the body withers, the ego is being stripped of all its illusions and the soul comes closer and closer to the surface.

    No lies, no masks, no pretense of any kind can stand up in the face of death. Like a great gust of wind, it’ll blow it all away until you know deep down in your bones that truth, peace, and love are not mere words, but all there Is.

    Fears are amplified.  Love is multiplied.  And whether you are the one departing, a care-giver, a family member, or a friend, you are called on to pick a side.

    I picked a side 10 years ago, and I chose Love.  I chose to give way to my profound belief in the immortality of the soul and in the need for a gentle passage (as far as the circumstances allowed, but also to the best of our abilities, which are far grander than we dream them to be).

    So when given the opportunity to say goodbye, I welcomed it as a precious, priceless gift.

    But on this recent occasion, as a beloved family member of mine was nearing death, I realized I was quite alone on that side. Almost everybody around her was in fear and denial. And so was she.

    I was even warned that I should NOT voice my goodbyes, even and especially if she alluded to the subject herself.

    That put me in a very awkward position. How to tell her then how grateful I was for all she had taught me in this life? How to reminisce and laugh over endearing souvenirs? How to give from the heart if the heart was to be shushed?

    I took a train, came to spend the afternoon with her, and tried to find a compromise. I played by the rules, I tiptoed around fears, all the while trying my best to let my light shine in small ways: I suggested ways to make peace on the subjects that caused her anger, I made her laugh a little, I showed compassion, care.

    But deep down I knew I had let fear win.  And this was the exact opposite of what she had taught me, the exact opposite of who I wanted to be.

    She was the one believing I could be strong and confident, when no one else around me did. She was the one to speak words of truth in a family where most was left unsaid.

    A couple weeks flew by, I was walking around with a cloud above my head. I was worrying, complaining, but not doing anything about it. Her health was deteriorating, still I didn’t move.

    The discrepancy between who I am and what I was demonstrating grew to be so wide that I got sick. My throat burned, my head was in a fog, and I coughed and coughed and coughed some more. I guess my throat was itching from all the words that were stuck in me.

    This is when I read the article by Phoebe Lackawanna from December 1st,  about awakening. She said that once you’ve awakened, you can’t go back.

    And it hit me.

    Being awakened in a world where appearance, competition, and materialism hold such prominent places means you often have to take the path of resistance.  Resistance to old schemes and old ways, resistance to fear, to unspoken laws and limitations imposed in stealth ways.

    Other people are not and never will be the enemy, but fear is.

    The minute you start compromising with fear is the minute you start betraying your true nature, for fear is the great divider, while, in truth, nothing can be divided. We are One.

    And just like that,I knew what I had to do. I picked up the phone and asked to have a word with her. The feelings of fear around her imminent departure were so strong that I was never put in direct contact with her anymore.

    But love finds a way. And so I prayed and was sent a solution:  Another could carry my message to her ear…The circle of love would go on.

    (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 orslfargue@gmail.com.)

    (If you would like to contribute an article you have authored to the Guest Column, 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: “Guest Column.”)

  • 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”)