The Global Conversation

Tag: manifestation

  • Conscious creation, a way out?

    In early recovery, the old-timers will tell you, “Take the cotton out of your ears and stick it in your mouth.“ This is not bad advice for the newly sober person, as listening is a lost art for people in general, not solely for the newcomer in sobriety. But I had ideas and desires, along with enthusiasm, yet not very much patience.

    You see, I wanted to start a Narcotics Anonymous meeting in my town. Oh, we had plenty of Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, and on some nights there were more than two happening at the same time. I had plenty of support in getting sober with the AA people, yet I desired something different. I had been to NA meetings while I was in rehab and really resonated with the people and message being offered there. For me, it was just something that I wanted to do and I set out to do so.

    When I began asking around as to how I should go about starting a meeting, I was told by everyone that I needed to wait until I had more clean time under my belt before taking on such a project. I didn’t understand, but I did accept what I was being told. I gave the old-timers the respect they had earned and did not want to endanger my sobriety. So I set a goal. At 90 days clean, I was going to start the first NA meeting in my home town!

    Little did I know at the time that what I was experiencing life in a new way. I had set a goal and now needed to wait for a time set in the future to have it materialize. During the next few weeks, which at the time must have seemed like an eternity, I gathered information and the contacts who would help to make my dream a reality. On or around my 90-day mark in recovery, myself and two others started the Tuesday night “Just For Today“ NA meeting in Port Jervis, New York.

    Setting goals and then watching them materialize is foundational work in our spiritual growth. We may begin with small goals and then work up to bigger plans. As more and more of our dreams and desires materialize, we begin to believe that the universe is a friendly place willing to support us. Remembering to give thanks to those who help us along, along with being grateful to life for supporting us, brings about a state of being that is positive and uplifting.

    Setting goals is pure creation. Tell the universe what it is you wish to do and watch it line up just the perfect people and circumstances for you to experience just that. It happens all the time to everybody. If you are not experiencing this, there can only be two reasons:

    1.  You are not finished yet. Never give up, never quit. Many times we cave in to defeat moments before victory is at our hands.

    2.  You have set the goals but there is some thought or action that is sending out a message that is either negating the original message or delaying the manifestation.

    So dream big, and small. Don’t be afraid to fail, because you simply cannot fail. Failure is quitting before the miracle. Do something each day to move yourself and the universe in the direction you wish it to go. If you find yourself thinking in a negative way about your goal, remember that thought is energy and the universe responds in kind. Believe in yourself, believe in others, and ultimately be thankful in advance for the successful completion to your ideas.

    (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, recovery coach, and interventionist specializing in individual and family recovery.  Kevin has a passion for holistic living, personal awareness training, and physical meditation. You can visit his website Life After Addicton for more information. To connect with Kevin, please email him at Kevin@TheGlobalConversation.com)

     

     

  • The Power of Words

    I have a daily practice of saying affirmations. I publish a new affirmation on my Facebook account every day (ok, on most days….). Affirmations are a way in which we can “reprogram” our subconscious mind, replacing thoughts that no longer support our highest goals.

    I hear so many people say something to the effect of, “Simply repeating the same thing over and over to yourself isn’t going to change anything! It can’t be that easy!”

    And yet these are the same people who are wearing “Duck Dynasty” hats, “Keep Calm and (fill in the blank)” T-shirts and who hum the latest jingle to their favorite fast food restaurant as they wait in the drive through to order.

    The Bible says “In the beginning was the Word.” Words are what creates. We first have a thought, which is nothing more than “silent words”, and those words are energy that is put out into the universe and when enough energy surrounding those words accumulates, those words take physical form.

    You’re frustrated at work yet you say nothing. Every day, your frustration level increases. Soon you begin to notice that you’re having stomach problems or your blood pressure is rising. These are physical manifestations of your thoughts of frustration.

    You think of a new idea for a more efficient way of doing something at work. You spend time putting together a presentation for your boss. She loves the idea and your original thoughts are now a new company policy and you have a nice bonus check to bank.

    You want to try skydiving, but you keep thinking “What if the chute doesn’t open?” or “What if I land in a tree?” and soon those thoughts create a real fear and you don’t ever go skydiving.

    There is an undeniable trend in society today: we are becoming more and more violent.  We see this violence manifested in our lives every day: mass shootings— some by children, suicide bombings, car bombings, people murdered over the clothes they’re wearing, road rage….

    Some say that art imitates life, but I’m of the belief that it goes both ways: life also mirrors art. The movies we go to see, the video games we play, the television shows we TIVO so we don’t miss a single episode, the books we read, the music we listen to— all have become so much more violent.

    The lyrics of some major artists like Eminem (among many others!) glorify the beating, degradation and even rape of women.

    Television shows, especially “reality TV” shows like Survivor and Big Brother, glorify lying, cheating, backstabbing and deception in order to win lots of money. “True life” shows like “Wives with Knives” and “Deadly Affairs” (among many, many others) make murder and violence a big money venture.  Other reality shows, like “American Idol” and “The Bachelor” take special pains to show some of the participants in their worst possible light, some even making entire episodes that are devoted to making fun of someone for following their dream.

    Video games, wherein a player gets to rape a prostitute or steal cars or shoot gays or burn down buildings, are being played by children who are far too young to understand the difference between fantasy and reality. The traditional joystick has been replaced by guns or steering wheels or “wands” that recognize the realistic movements one must make to accomplish what their character onscreen is doing, thus blurring even further for some the difference between reality and fantasy.

    Of course, the makers/publishers/producers/directors/writers of these violent media products deny that these have any influence on the level of violence in society. They say that they’re only giving the people what they want. Then they turn around and spend $4 million dollars on a 30 second commercial to play during the Superbowl because they understand the power of advertising and the power of words to influence what you buy and what you think.

    And that is the paradox with the power of words. Until you recognize that words only have the power that you give them, words have an enormous power over what you think, what you feel, what you believe and what you do. The more you understand that the power of words is in your control, the less power words have over you.

    We have been inundated with words from birth. These words, because we do not yet understand that words have no power over us, affect what we think, feel, believe and do. And we hear them repeatedly, time after time after time. The average person in today’s western society sees more than 240 images every day that are specifically aimed at advertising.  That’s not including the ones our brain does not register.  We’re hearing these messages over and over and whether we want to admit it or not, if we’re not doing something to consciously prevent it, those messages are becoming part of our subconscious thinking and directly influences our behavior and our thinking patterns. (There’s a reason subliminal advertising is illegal!)

    And so we come back full circle to the use of affirmations. Affirmations combat those messages from advertisers that say we can’t be happy unless we buy their product or we won’t be pretty unless we use this make up or we won’t find our true love unless we use this perfume or  we’ll lose our partner to another if we don’t know how to perform this particular act.

    Affirmations are taking conscious control of our subconscious. We are reprogramming the subconscious and building a wall of protection around it that limit the influence that media input of all sorts has on what the subconscious believes. In doing so, we are creating our own reality in which our happiness doesn’t depend on anyone or anything but ourselves. In which Love is not measured in how many times we have sex or how big the ring is on our finger. In which success is not determined by how big the house we live in or the label of the clothes we wear or the kind of car in our garage. In which beauty is not determined by weight, the appearance of age, the color of our hair or whether we have “flawless” skin. In which the world of peace and harmony and brotherly love that we all profess we want to live in becomes reality.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Upon second thought

    Thoughts are creative.

    “Does this mean all of our thoughts? Every single thing we think, every minute, all day long?

    No. And it is important to understand this.  Otherwise we’ll wind up making our-selves crazy, trying to monitor every single thought that runs through our mind.

    And that is an interesting phrase: “runs through.”  If a thought “runs through” your Mind, it does just that.  It runs through.

    MOST thoughts DO that. They run through our mind like water through a sieve.  Such thoughts have very little creative power.  They’re moving through our Mind too quickly to build up enough energy to impact physicality.

    It is only those thoughts that stick in our Mind that have power.  What gives our thoughts power is the repeated thinking of them.

    This places energy upon energy, building it up until it really MATTERS.  That is: energy becomes physical matter.

    SO!!!… if you notice that an idea is running through your Mind that you don’t like…. DON’T GIVE IT A SECOND THOUGHT. I mean that literally!

    It’s your second thought that gives it power. (To say nothing of your third, fourth, and fifth thought.)  If you repeatedly think something, you can be sure that you are magnifying its power.

    This is the same thing as a thought being held in Mind not only ONCE… but by A LOT OF PEOPLE at the SAME TIME. This, too, magnifies the power of thought.

    That is why collective prayer works.”  Neale Donald Walsch.

    Cravings, urges, compulsions, and obsessions are nothing more than our minds giving second, third, fourth, fifth etc… thoughts to an idea that should have just ran through our mind.  When we can harness the power of recognizing a thought that no longer represents who we say we are, and make a decision not to pay attention to it, we remove energy from the negative and turn it into a positive.

    And it is what we are Be-ing that is so very important in our existence here.  Most of us think we are doing sobriety and that can indicate that sobriety is only a temporary state for us.  When we decide it is our state of BEING, it becomes a permanent character attribute, one that we should wear on our sleeves so to speak.

    Creating successful transformations from any patterned behavior requires an initial period of discipline before the newly chosen behavior becomes the norm.  We perform regular functions so often, many times we find we do them without even thinking about them.

    This is what I have found to be true of recovery.  In the beginning I would entertain thoughts of using.  What kept me from acting those out?  I was also learning new behavior at the time.  The new behavior I was learning was to seek help with my thinking problem.  Sharing with other like-minded people, that I was having these thoughts, removed the power from them.

    Over time, many months to over a year, the thoughts of using drugs or alcohol became less and less.  To the point where, I can honestly say, I do not think about that anymore — ever.  I am keenly aware, however, that the absence of cravings or obsession does not make me somehow “fixed” of my addictive nature.

    You can see why a program of recovery from addictive or compulsive behaviors suggests that a person go to meetings on a daily basis.  When we place our-selves in the rooms with other like-minded people, we are not only building energy upon our new sober thinking, but we are using the collective thoughts of the group to strengthen our resolve.

    In order to manifest your hearts desires you must follow some simple steps.

    1. You must believe it is possible.
    2. You must acknowledge you are capable of creating it.
    3. You must set your thoughts in motion to creating this.
    4. You must be disciplined in keeping your mind focused on the task.
    5. Keeping in mind there is no such thing as time; remember to be grateful that what you wish already exists.  In the program we call this “acting as if.”

    Many times we allow our impatience to sidetrack us from our goals.  We tire of all the work and no apparent movement towards our respective task.  Ultimately, we give up and say things like, “oh well, it just wasn’t meant to be.”  I call hogwash on the concept of “meant to be.”  If some things are “meant to be”, then, others would be “not meant to be.”

    If that is the case then we really do not have free will and we are simply the pawn in some sick twisted game being played out by a higher life form.  If you believe the latter, you may want to ask yourself; what would the purpose of physicality be for the creator of all of this?

    I am aware of the challenges of being disciplined in our thoughts.  Negativity can creep in and  take  way our momentum.  I find a few things can help to keep us on our path.

    • Having a vision board
    • Having an accountability buddy
    • Being involved in a group of like-minded people.
    • Starting the day with a reminder that what you wish is already in existence
    • Ending the day with thanks for the experience of the journey
    • Taking at least one action per day towards your goal

    These are just a few of the ways we can remain true to our commitments.  If you have others please feel free to share them in the comments section below.  What works for you?  What hasn’t worked?  How can we support you?  How can you support us?

    (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)

  • My Will be done

    My life is in a period of transition, and I couldn’t be happier.  Change is inevitable and oftentimes met with resistance.  Spiritual teachers profess that happiness can be maintained through life changes by letting go of our resistance to them.  Suffering is the result of our unwillingness to accept the transformations as they occur.  Mastery is the result of intentionally inviting change into our lives.

    Suffering is the result of our unwillingness to accept the transformations as they occur.

    I have reached the point of mastery in my trade without really even knowing I was doing so.  18 years ago, I had my own business subcontracting window treatment installations for decorators and designers in a highly affluent area of New York.  I was very good with my hands and was very successful as a drapery and blind installer.  I had trained to be an interior plantation shutter installer and fell in love with doing those installations. The pay was fantastic, but it was the physical challenges and rewards I really loved.

    Very quickly I became the number one installer in the greater New York area, receiving recommendations by the top shutter manufactures and their wholesalers.  Shutters where not terribly popular in the Northeast back then.  And to this day, they still are not nearly as sought after there as they are in the southern and western states of the U.S.  But it was my dream to be just a shutter installer full time.

    My business was very successful and financially rewarding. I enjoyed being my own boss.  At the young age of 30, I was doing pretty well.

    One day, my then wife came home with the news that she had a great offer to work for a large entertainment company in Orlando, Florida.  She asked me if I was willing to move, and without hesitation, I said yes!  I had never really considered moving from New York, especially to Florida, but I knew that Florida was a good market for shutters.  Three months later, I was living in the Sunshine State.

    As soon as I hit the ground in Orlando, I cracked open the phone book and started calling shutter companies to see if any of them needed an installer. I landed a job the very next day.

    My time at that job was very short, as I did not resonate with the owner and the product they were using.  I had grown accustomed to working with the very finest shutters in the business and found my standards to be above what that company was used to.  So I turned to the company that had been recommended to me and I gave them a call.  Two days later, I would start working for them.

    It has now been 18 years for me with that company and I feel blessed beyond words to have had the opportunity to do what I truly love doing.  I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I manifested my desires and the universe was more than willing to oblige me.  I have mastered my trade at the highest level because I followed my passion and truly believed that it was possible for me when the opportunity to move presented itself.

    I have now come full circle with installing shutters.  I have worked in every aspect of the shutter industry and feel that my time here is nearly complete.  A little over a year ago, I went to my employer and told him that I was beginning to prepare for my next career and that I would likely only be with him for another year.  Now, that year has turned into almost 2, but my plans have not changed.  I told him that the one last thing I wished to accomplish was training a suitable replacement for myself.

    I can feel the universe lining up once again in my favor as I invite this change fearlessly into my life.  For the last two weeks, I have been training a new installer, and it appears that he may, in fact, have the very same drive I had over 18 years ago.

    A dear friend once told me that he would much rather initiate change in his own life than have life impose its changes upon him.  I couldn’t agree more.  I understand that sometimes change comes in uninvited.

    All change is for the better, and even though we may not see that, time will always reveal this great truth.  Today, when I was remembering my decision to move to Florida, I saw the perfection in life and knew that it wasn’t simply luck or coincidence; it was the result of pure desire and passion. If time has not revealed the gift of your change, you are simply not ready to view it yet.

    I eagerly await the transition that I am currently under.  At times I think, “Why isn’t this coming faster?”  “What am I doing wrong?”  And then I look back and realize that it just isn’t time yet.  I am doing all the right things.  How do I know this?  Because once again, I am following my passion and my desire, and experience tells me this works.

    I try to do something every day that moves me in the direction that I desire to go.  I surround myself with people who will support me in my journey.  I have taken courses to expand my knowledge of the industry I am choosing to be in and feel prepared to seamlessly transition into my next career.  Indeed, I am already doing it!

    We are powerful creators as human beings.  Many times we do not credit ourselves enough for the things in our life that bring us joy.  Without having the belief that these things can be ours, we will never have them.

    Join us Path to Peace recovery retreat in Orlando, Florida, October 24 – 27th.  JR Westen and myself are taking the messages found within the ”Conversations with God”  Cosmology, along with our combined 53 years of personal recovery from alcohol, drug, and food addictions, and offering these retreats as a means of returning people to their authentic selves.  We understand the difficulty people face with overcoming these challenges in life and offer a simple, compassionate, and effective means of living a happy, joyous, and free life. These retreats are not simply a weekend long reprieve from our troubles.  Each attendee will be introduced to past and future participants through our community Facebook page.  In addition, any past participant can attend any future P2P retreat for any donation they wish to make.  You read that right – any donation, from $1 to infinity.  We have seen the lives of people change and remain changed from these retreats.  If this is for you, click here to register.

    We understand that there may be financial hardships keeping you from attending this retreat.  If you feel you would benefit from this retreat but cannot afford it, please contact Will@cwg.org and ask about our scholarships.  It is our deepest desire to help those who truly seek change and we want nothing to stand in the way of that.

    (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 with JR Westen. You can visit his website here for more information. To connect with Kevin, please email him at Kevin@TheGlobalConversation.com)

     

  • a QWERTY kind of life

    Change is difficult.  Unwanted change can be painful and challenging.  Recovery from addictions, hard or soft, is no exception.  Anyone who has consciously made the effort to rid their lives of a behavior they deem destructive or no longer useful can attest to this.  So why is it that when we come to the realization that we desire change it then becomes difficult to follow through?

    Personally, I have chosen recently to stop drinking coffee or any other caffeinated beverages.  It has been 18 days of complete abstinence for me, yet I know this territory very well.  I have quit before for longer periods of time.  The difference this time is, I have been seeking the support of others and remaining aware of my tendencies.

    Thoughts create our urges and cravings.  Sometimes the triggers are subtle, other times they are very predictable.  I have just about every Starbucks in the greater Orlando area mapped out in my head.  When I am driving, occasionally I will have the thought “hey, there is a Starbucks right around the corner.”  This is the moment of choice.  Do I react or do I create?  Do I give in and damage my self-esteem or do I acknowledge my own power and move on?   I have found the best way to choose the latter is to enroll others in my journey.

    The frontal lobe of the brain is the cognitive center, and its function is to separate out thoughts and filter them in the way we direct.  The midbrain is the impulsive, reactive center in the brain.  The midbrain sends its messages 7 times faster than the cognitive brain operates.  This is because the midbrain’s function is to preserve life.  When we practice cognitive behavior, we are much better prepared to handle the impulsiveness of the midbrain.  Increasing our awareness is a slow process that takes practice and willingness.

    So how do we direct the frontal lobe to make choices that support us in where we say we want to go?  This is the great challenge all of us face in life.  What are the voices in my head? How many of them are there? And which ones do I listen to?

    Life can be a lot like typing.  We can hunt and peck our way through, hoping we create a document worth reading before we die.  Or we can blindly stroke keys and end up with a mess of letters on a page that do not form any meaning at all.  Or, lastly, we can train ourselves to memorize where the keys are and which fingers to use to hit the keys and really create a work of art in a much shorter period of time, allowing for greater amounts of creation during our lifetime.

    The “qwerty” way of living life takes a little more upfront  work in the form of practicing healthy patterns of living so that we can start to direct our life with more focus and determination.  Have you noticed that the things in life you pay most attention to are the things that manifest in your reality?  Positive and negative, this is how life works.  God provides us with exactly what we place the majority of our intention on.

    This is why it is so important to make sure you are sending out the message that you want to experience and not place your energy on what you do not wish to experience.  Many of us tend to fall prey to the thinking that life is not on our side and that we are somehow at a disadvantage to others.  So long as we play out that belief, it will appear true.

    “The Universe is like a big Xerox machine.
    It simply produces multiple copies of your thoughts”
    Conversations with God, Book  1

    When we decide to make a change in our life, circumstances will present in the form of “are you sure?”  I have had many “are you sure” moments over the last 18 days of abstinence from caffeine.  From the wonderful smell of the coffee tray coming down the aisle of the airplane I was on and mercilessly stopping right next to me for what seemed like 5 minutes.  God, it smelled good!  But I had support, people who knew what I had called forth in my life.  And whether or not I didn’t take the coffee because I would have been embarrassed to admit I didn’t succeed or I simply chose not to, doesn’t matter.  I remained resolved in my quest.  One day at a time.  One craving at a time.  One “are you sure?” moment after the other.

    The moments when a craving hits or an opportunity presents itself to relapse into past behaviors and we choose to rise above and recreate ourselves in a new way, we reinforce our new pattern.  After doing this repeatedly, the new pattern becomes the norm and the “are you sure?” moments become less frequent.

    So I choose to embrace these “are you sure?” moments and recognize them for what they are.  They are the spiritual barbells of the universe, making us more powerful in our ability to create our lives in a more conscious way.

    What are your experiences with “are you sure?” moments?

    (Kevin McCormack, C.A.d ,is a certified addictions professional. 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 with JR Westen.  The next retreat will be September 19 – 22nd in San Jose, California.  More information on retreats can be found here. You can visit his website for more information at www.Kevin-Spiritualmentor.com  To connect with Kevin, please email him at Kevin@TheGlobalConversation.com)