The Global Conversation

Tag: divorce

  • Re-contextualizing an old belief

    At your suggestion I have started doing Neale’s “How To Have Your Own Conversation With God” process on CWG TV. Today was my third CWG and it continues to be of tremendous help. I am still working on going deeper, but even now it is so good to go there, if that makes sense. 

    When I first went to CWG TV the other day, I watched Neale’s introductory video, where he talks about re-contextualization. I immediately put it to use in regard to my ex-husband because I have continued to go on believing that somehow I just didn’t measure up to him, that I was somehow an inferior person and he wanted to move on to someone better than me. I have been divorced for over a decade, so this is kind of embarrassing to admit, but it’s true.

    Well, the truth is I don’t know that for sure… and well, I guess you could say I just made it up and chose to keep believing it. So, like Neale said, why not make up something better, more to your liking. So I did. And I am sticking to it and feel so much better and am leaving that old “reality” behind. Do you have any insights or suggestions you can add to this? Thank you… Lee

    Dear Lee,

    You hit the nail on the proverbial head when you said you “chose to keep believing it.” A belief is only a thought that we’ve continued to think over and over, and the great thing about this is, we are always at choice as to what we will think about now! Yes, if this has been weighing on you for over a decade, it is high time for a New Thought. Change your thinking, change your life.

    While you are re-contextualizing this event, I invite you to remember that Conversations With God says, “I have sent you nothing but angels.” The relationship with your ex-husband wouldn’t have existed were it not for your ultimate expansion and highest good.

    My prayer regarding difficult situations is this: “Thank you, God, for helping me to see this through the lens of my soul, rather than through the filters of my mind.” Knowing that nothing happens to me, but that everything happens through me for my highest good, helps me rise to my God-perspective about things.

    An attitude of gratitude changes everything. If you can try hard, with your own CWGs’ help, to find things to be truly grateful for about the entire experience with your ex—the good, the bad, and the ugly—the leftover memories and confusion can begin to release their hold on your deep psyche.

    Now, about those personal CWGs: I am so glad you are doing them because they are enormously beneficial. Please, though, don’t feel you have to “work on going deeper”. Simply allow more information to come through as you become more comfortable with the practice. Different people have different depths of detail and some people’s CWGs are longer than others. The length of the response doesn’t matter, as long as you receive the clarity you desire.

     

    (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.)

    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.

  • Happily ever after?

    “I, Tina, take you, Tony, to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us part.” 

    Couples around the world, thousands of them, on the threshold of entering into life partnerships with each other, commonly recite these traditional vows. And while there is nothing “wrong” with these particular words, or their meaning, I wonder how much thought or consideration is given to whether or not these declarations actually reflect the highest level of their commitment, the deepest expression of their love, and the clearest intent and very purpose for entering into the relationship to begin with.

    I don’t think I would be too far off the mark by making this perhaps bold statement: These same couples, thousands of them, have no idea why they are entering into their relationships to begin with, nor do they have any understanding of where they are going. The fallout is demonstrable and inarguable as we continue to witness growing numbers of painful divorces and separations – or, for that matter, perhaps even a larger number of people staying in relationships that either no longer serve them well or have become downright harmful. That is not to say that longevity is the sole indicator of the value or worthiness of a relationship.  We could probably all share an experience where in a fleeting relation with another we were provided us some of our most profound remembrances and realizations, demonstrating the idea that ALL relationships create a context within which we are given an opportunity to choose and decide Who We Really Are.

    However, as our world gently transitions out of its Old Cultural Story and into its New Cultural Story, we are given another opportunity, perhaps an even grander opportunity, the opportunity to redefine and recreate our relationships with each other not only on a global scale — politically, socially, and economically — but individually, within our most intimate relations and interactions. This shift holds within it the gift of change and the awareness to create. And the most beneficial place to begin is, quite frankly, at the beginning.

    This change is not always obvious or easy. We are constantly barraged with mind-numbing television programs which degrade the holiest of unions by exploiting brides who behave poorly or by aggrandizing extraordinarily decadent and over-the-top weddings or whom offer us the advice of “relationship experts” who tell us the way our relationships “should” be. As a result, for so many, more energy and thought is expended on the pomp and circumstance of the wedding event than is given to the actual commitment.

    People spend more money on multi-tiered designer wedding cakes than they are able to practically afford in order to please their guests, a large majority of whom they don’t even know. Women starve their bodies for weeks in an effort to fit into a wedding dress one size smaller than they naturally and comfortably fit into. We smash cake in each other’s faces, we pollute ourselves with so much alcohol that we can barely even remember what took place, and we, as I earlier mentioned, allow the very first words that we utter as an expression of Who We Are to be something we cut-and-pasted from Google.

    If we are going to change everything, and reconnect to the intended purpose for our relationships, where do we begin? What kind of an experience would a “ceremony of commitment” or a “declaration of unity” under The New Spirituality present itself as? What would a couple in love, being love, expressing love offer at the dawn of their relationship as a declaration and demonstration of a spiritual partnership that would exemplify the very reason they have chosen to unite in the first place?

    Conversations with God, Book 1, Chapter 8, offers to us the following:

    “If you both agree at a conscious level that the purpose of your relationship is to create an opportunity, not an obligation—an opportunity for growth, for full Self expression, for lifting your lives to their highest potential, for healing every false thought or small idea you ever had about you, and for ultimate reunion with God through the communion of your two souls—if you take that vow instead of the vows you’ve been taking—the relationship has begun on a very good note. It’s gotten off on the right foot. That’s a very good beginning.”

    What would you, from within the framework of your own understanding and your own experience, offer to someone who has come to you seeking a new definition and a new experience of “happily ever after”?

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

  • I lost the resolve to follow my truth

    I attended a spiritual retreat earlier this year. Afterward, I had all this strength and clarity and felt so strong! I made a decision to leave my husband, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time because the marriage was a mistake from the beginning. When I got home I told him, and it felt really good to start living my truth and moving my life in the right direction. But then I lost my resolve and let him talk me out of it, because trying to figure out all the details of a divorce seems overwhelming. I feel terrible because I really don’t want to be with him anymore. How can I get back on track and stay there?… Carly

    Dear Carly,

    It is said that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. When making a big change in your life, don’t try to figure it all out at once. Just take it one step at a time, thanking God for guiding you every step of the way. Your feelings are your guidance and they come directly from God, via your Soul. God puts them there to guide you toward the most joyous life you can live, but the longer you continue to disregard the feelings that don’t feel good to you, the longer you postpone your joy.

    You already followed the first two steps of Truth-telling: “Tell your truth about yourself to yourself” and “tell your truth about yourself to another”. Yet, you say you’ve wavered in your resolve to act on it. Is it still your truth that you want to leave your husband? Knowing that this is a major decision in your life, please, once again, do some deep Soul searching about it. Then if it is still your truth, you may need to repeat that to your husband, as lovingly and compassionately as you can. You might soften the blow by telling him that relationships don’t ever end—they only change form. Endings can be very hard, so sometimes it’s easier if we think of them as changes, not endings. “We’re changing the way we interact together…”

    The way to stay on track is to stay in touch with your Soul, which knows all. You can’t figure this all out at the level of Mind, because the Mind’s information is so limited. However that works for you—prayer, meditation, yoga, walking in nature, chanting… whatever—make it a top priority every day. Better yet, make every waking moment a conversation with God. Learn to trust the wisdom of the Voice within you, knowing it is Divine Intelligence at work in your life. The more you follow that “still, small voice”, the happier you’ll be. And worry not about your husband, because he also has access to all the wisdom in the world. God is always with him too.

    Last but not least, you might find this mantra helpful as you encounter challenges along the way:

    “Thank you, God, for helping me remember that this problem has already been solved for me.”

    (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.)

  • The war is over

    My ex-husband and I padded the bank accounts of several high-priced attorneys and occupied over two years’ worth of courtroom time and resources, mired in the pain and enveloped in the confusion surrounding our divorce, a word which suddenly and ferociously became a synonym for our own personal “war.”  And most regrettably, we allowed our distorted sense of “victimization” and perceived “failure” to interfere with our ability to be the loving support system that our only son desired and deserved.  We, like so many others, found ourselves consumed with the upheaval in our relationship and paralyzed by the illusions of fear and need, as we found ourselves sinking deeper and deeper into despair and moving further and further away from any concept of who we once knew ourselves to be.

    Until one day everything changed.

    And I mean literally in one day.  And more profoundly, not only in one day, but as a result of one choice:

    I changed my perspective.

    It was glaringly apparent, after years of bitterness and conflict, that what we were doing wasn’t working.  So why were we continuing to do the same thing over and over again, making the same choices and expecting different results?  Which, by the way, is the phrase Narcotics Anonymous offers as the definition of insanity in its time-honored book on addiction.

    When I shifted my perspective and held my relationship, and the experiences provided to me within it, in a new light, this is what I was allowed to remember:

    First, our relationship was not ending.  It was merely changing.  The purpose and intent of our union always was and always will be integrated in our human experience in the way we choose for it to be.  We can choose to consciously and purposefully include and utilize the opportunities blanketed within this experience, or we can choose to continue to react to the experience as one that is happening outside of us and, therefore, to us.  Two very different realities are birthed out of each respective choice.

    Second, this relationship was drawn to and co-created by us both as a vehicle within which we were both given an opportunity to experience an aspect of ourselves not yet remembered, not yet expressed, not yet demonstrated.  And because I do not believe that life is a series of random happenings, and I also do not believe that life shuffles us through a predetermined script, I knew there was a larger opportunity being offered here to create meaning and to declare purpose and to know and experience ourselves at a higher level.

    Third, I was led to a deeper understanding of what “forgiveness” means…and what it doesn’t mean.  Neale Donald Walsch’s new book “The Only Thing That Matters” says, “Absolution is not necessary, since all human action is based, at its root, in love, however confused, mistaken, or distorted its expression.”  And as “Conversations with God” puts it:  “No one does anything inappropriate, given their model of the world.”

    The marrying of these two spiritual concepts created the perfect recipe of change for me and facilitated a new perspective, one that propelled me into a deep sense of appreciation and profound gratitude in relation to someone who once was my partner and who now is my friend.

    When some of the top stories in today’s headlines are “Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes’ Bitter Divorce” or “Real-Life War of the Roses,” as described in a story by ABC News where Michael Rose and Rona Rose’s divorce resembled the popular Hollywood movie that coined the popular phrase and amplifies the rage of a bitter divorce, I now understand the gift I have been given and value the opportunity to share my personal experience to help others.

    Why are we as a society enamored with the downfall of celebrity or high-profile relationships, as the rows and rows of tabloid magazines in our grocery store checkout stands reflect?  Perhaps it soothes our own perceived sense of failure to notice that the “most notable” in our society, too, are struggling with relationship challenges.  Perhaps our egos hurt less when we think someone else hurts more.

    What if, just for today, you assigned a new meaning to something that is changing (perhaps a relationship) in your life?

    What if you saw this event through the lens of an entirely different perspective?

    If there is a new perspective that feels better than the one you currently hold about a particular situation that you are facing, what is standing in the way of you embracing it?

    Could you “end the war” right now?

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