Should I leave or stay? Neale Donald Walsch

Everywhere I go I get many, many questions-and of all the questions I get, many, many of them have to do with human relationships. And the one question I get about relationships very often is this one, contained in a heartfelt letter that I received from a woman I shall name Sanra – a name I made up to protect this lady’s privacy.

Here’s her question…

Should I leave my spouse?

Right now I am struggling in my marriage. I am always looking for change for the better and keeping faith and hope in the terrible times I am in right now, but how can one keep going when you have a family member constantly not helping to look on the positive side and always living in the negative illusions?

I bring in new ideas with faith and hope to change the energy in the space, but I get caught up in the negativity of my husband and I am losing my faith and what little bit of hope I have in me. It’s a constant battle in this area.

I know that one solution is to move out, but what do you do when your children won’t understand that getting out is the better way? Ironically, my mother is in this same situation, where she feels she can’t leave one person because he got her stuck in this illusion as well.

How can I fix this and move in a new and positive direction the way God wants? It’s amazing how one negative person whose fear of change and fear of the positive can get everyone stuck up into their illusion.

I hope you can answer and give me some insight here. God bless you.

Love, Sanra

Dear Sanra…I know and understand the difficulty you are having, and the challenging circumstances which have created it. First, you must know that it is not always necessary to change your location (that is, “move out”) in order to change your environment. Your environment, Sanra, is an internal experience, not an external reality.

The first step here could be to move into gratitude. I know that this sounds almost absurd, and yet it is an extraordinarily empowering tool.

Allowing ourselves to speak our gratitude to God and to the Universe for every aspect of the situation at hand-and to feel that gratitude inside as a genuine experience-often moves us into an unexpected space of peace and clarity, for gratitude opens us to the truth of what is happening: that we are being given an opportunity, perfectly designed by God and by our own inner self, to express who we really are and what we really want next.

It is this expression for which we came to Earth, Sanra. It is what we are doing here. We came here to know our grandest selves in our own experience. This is both our highest desire and our greatest joy. Therefore, we open to our most wonderful inner experience when we see in our exterior circumstances the perfect building blocks for our next greatest expression of ourselves. Or, as my wonderful friend Barbara Marx Hubbard puts it, “all calamities are evolutionary drivers.” They are necessary to move us forward on our own evolutionary track.

Yet there is, Sanra, a central question within the human experience that we all ask ourselves at one point or another in our lives: Is it okay for me to be happy? And the answer is, yes.

What we do not have a right to do is to be dishonest or cruel, for dishonesty damages the psychological underpinnings of every human, and cruelty injures the physical and mental being. Therefore, in all things be both true and kind. Speak your truth, but sooth your words with peace and kindness.

If your truth is that you cannot be happy in your present circumstance, you have a right to tell your truth about that-and then to change your circumstance if you wish. If you fail to do so only because you do not wish to betray others, you only betray yourself. CwG says, “Betrayal of yourself in order not to betray another is betrayal nonetheless. It is the highest betrayal.”

Try your very hardest not to betray yourself, Sanra. And try your very hardest not to betray others. You betray others even if you remain with them if in doing so you are living a lie.

Yet whatever you choose, do so with great love. Bless those who helped you come to this new awareness of yourself; honor those who have gifted you with this moment, exactly as it is. For there are no villains and no victims in this world-yet only masters know this.

Find community, Sanra. Create a spiritually supportive community in the place where you live. Start a CwG Discussion Group. Become a Spiritual Life Coach to others who have lost their way. What you wish to experience within yourself, give to another.

Pray each day, Sanra, but pray a prayer of gratitude, not a prayer of supplication:

“Thank you, God, for bringing me the right and perfect conditions, circumstances, and situations within which I may create, notice, and experience my Self in the next grandest version of Who I Am. Thank you for the insight, the strength, and the courage to do that. Thank you for this Life, which is sacred and bountiful in every way that my heart will allow. And thank you for all those who touch my life in any way, for I know that you have sent me nothing but angels.”

Go, now, Sanra, and set off on your journey of self-renewal and rebirth, gliding into your brightest future on the wings of a new tomorrow created with love by an ever-embracing God.

In soft understanding…and with…

Love and Hugs,
Neale

© 2010 ReCreation Foundation – http://www.cwg.org – Neale Donald Walsch is a modern day spiritual messenger whose words continue to touch the world in profound ways. His With God series of books has been translated into 27 languages, touching millions of lives and inspiring important changes in their day-to-day lives.

Judgement or observation – Neale Donald Walsch

My dear friends…

I’ve decided that I have to stop confusing the simple act of observation with negativity.

Some people, in an effort to not “put any negative energy into the space,” refuse to say anything about anybody or anything that could be construed as being negative in any way. And if anyone else says anything about any person, place, or thing that is not wholly positive, many people will criticize the speaker for “spreading negative energy.”

Soon, a certain dogmatism springs up around all this, and suddenly it becomes unacceptable in some “new age” circles to do anything but smile 16 hours a day and say nothing but positive things about everything. In these circles, when someone offers the least little comment, prediction, or description that is less than totally positive, someone else is sure to say, “Are you wanting to create that?”, or “Why are you creating that?”

(Example: “Gosh, I have a real headache this morning.” “Well, why are you creating that?”)

After a while, people feel so hogtied, they feel so straight-jacketed, that they’re afraid to say anything about anythinganything unless they can glow from head to toe with positivity.

I call this a New Age Bypass. It’s psychic surgery, on the psyche itself. It can also turn into a game of “make-crazy,” where people can’t even objectively describe something they’re seeing right in front of their face without running the risk of being labeled a “downer,” or a “negative thinker.”

(“The stock market certainly had a bad day.” “Well, aren’t you the downer…”)

Yet an Observation is not a Judgment, and a Description is not a Condemnation. We would benefit a great deal from noticing the difference.

It is perfectly okay to say “The rain is coming” when, in fact, you can smell it in the air. I remember a day a few years ago where I was at a huge picnic, with about 40 or 50 people attending, when one of the guests happened to say, “Looks like it’s going to rain.” His wife nearly had a conniption fit. “Don’t SAY that!” she snapped. “Are you trying to MAKE it rain?”

Now I understand perfectly well that we create our own reality, and I have read all the messages ofConversations with God and virtually every other New Spirituality text that is out there that says we do so with the triplet tools of thought, word, and deed. I know all about the As-You-Speak-It, So-Shall-It-Be school of thought on this subject. I belong to that school. But does that mean that we cannot even offer a simple observation, bereft of any judgment or announcement of preference, about what we are experiencing in our lives?

Of course not. Saying “oh-oh, it looks like rain” does not mean that you are at cause-and thus, at fault-when the rains come. It simply means that you are observing what is going on around you. It means that you are aware. And awareness is one of the greatest attributes that any person could develop.

The message here is: do not substitute passivity for discernment; do not–in the name of “positivity”–insert total blindness where once there was keen observation. Covering your ears does not make the wind howl any less, and putting your head in the sand does not make danger disappear.

The ability to observe the environment around us, the ability to discern one thing from another, is what comes with evolving to a higher level of consciousness. Observation is the act of seeing something; it is the simple act of witnessing without assessing. Discernment is the act of differentiation; it is the simple act of telling one thing from another.

Observation is a statement that says “what’s so.” Judgment is a statement that says “so what”? As sentient beings, humans have a desire to notice what is going on around them. Indeed, they have aresponsibility to do so.

When you consciously and deliberately stop noticing something because you “don’t want to put negative energy into the space,” you forfeit your most precious gift as a creative being: the gift ofdeciding. You cannot decide what you want, you cannot consciously choose your own future, if you are refusing to look at what is true so far.

I’m going to keep on working to remove judgment and condemnation from my experience, but I shall never remove observation and discernment. The teaching is, “Judge not, and neither condemn,” it is not, “Observe not, and neither discern.”

Love and Hugs,
Neale.

© 2010 ReCreation Foundation – http://www.cwg.org – Neale Donald Walsch is a modern day spiritual messenger whose words continue to touch the world in profound ways. His With God series of books has been translated into 27 languages, touching millions of lives and inspiring important changes in their day-to-day lives.

Freeing the voice within – Eva Gregory

We each have an inner guide, that voice that has the right answer but is sometimes overlooked. Our inner guides are always with us, but often muted. Later when it is realized that the voice, intuition, or instinct should have been heeded once it’s too late to correct the initial decision. But we are at choice at every moment! Sounds a little hard to believe, right? Who would choose to have a marriage dissolve, or a career end? But a little investigation will often uncover a “feeling” that this person is not exactly what was desired, but maybe close enough, or the job paid very well, so even if some of the tasks were not in alignment with the idea of the ideal job it was worth it. So in essence choices were actually made to gag one’s inner guide and roll with the situation.

How many times have you thought “Man, if I had only listened to my instincts!” That was your inner guide telling you which way to proceed and it was ignored. Do you know who the largest population of inner guide listeners are? Children. That’s one of the reasons they tend to get in so much trouble with adults, because they do what their inner guide advises without thought to consequence, feelings, or safety. Their one goal is to do what they believe will make them happy at any given point in time, and they do. Children do not realize that the world does not revolve around them, but they also have not been taught that it’s their job to make and keep everyone happy (a true fallacy in today’s society.) If everyone accepted responsibility for their own happiness, a possibility by listening to our inner guides, the world would be a much happier and harmonious place.

Madison was sitting in Pre-K and was bored. She didn’t like circle-time, but preferred free-play. She looked longingly at the pots and pans and began to squirm and fidget while Miss Karen discussed the story. Unable to stand circle-time for one more moment Madison began to inch herself away from the circle, closer to the play kitchen cubbies. Madison finally made her way to the pots and pans and was in about to dive in when Miss Karen busted her. She was called back to the circle and told to remain in place. A few minutes later Madison again began to look at the pots and pans, and decided that since she couldn’t leave the circle perhaps Miss Karen wouldn’t mind if she brought the pots and pans to the circle with her. That didn’t fly either. Finally, unable to contain herself any longer, Madison jumps up from the circle grabs a pot and spoon and placed herself in the time out chair! She knew what she wanted, knew that it wouldn’t be appreciated by her teacher and that she would be punished, but didn’t care one bit. She got what she wanted…happiness. She was tapped in, tuned in and turned on to her inner guide and did not stray.

Adults could take lessons from children. Remember that the ultimate goal in life is j-o-y, and it is ones’ responsibility to create for themselves. But it cannot be done without focus, intent, and practice. Learn to quiet the conscious thinking of the mind for no more than 15 minutes each day and allow the inner guide to come through.

Here’s how:

• Focus on breathing, or the flicker of a candle, or use an audible like “Om.”

• Once the mind is quieted, physical detachment will occur and you will be in a state of “allowing.” This is when the inner being will take over. You may feel an involuntary movement in your body, like just before you’re falling asleep and your foot moves, or you feel as if you’re falling – this is THE state where the energies are in alignment.

• Determine your path for allowing your alignment energies to come through. It could be through blocks of thought, writing, a voice or through some other manner.

Everyone has the ability to do it. The key is to find the time to make it happen and not censor what is coming through. Be consistent and a mere 30 days is all that it should take to get into the swing of things. Simply learn to relax, allow and receive. Your happiness depends on it.

We each have an inner guide, that voice that has the right answer but is sometimes overlooked. Our inner guides are always with us, but often muted. Later when it is realized that the voice, intuition, or instinct should have been heeded once it’s too late to correct the initial decision. But we are at choice at every moment! Sounds a little hard to believe, right? Who would choose to have a marriage dissolve, or a career end? But a little investigation will often uncover a “feeling” that this person is not exactly what was desired, but maybe close enough, or the job paid very well, so even if some of the tasks were not in alignment with the idea of the ideal job it was worth it. So in essence choices were actually made to gag one’s inner guide and roll with the situation.

How many times have you thought “Man, if I had only listened to my instincts!” That was your inner guide telling you which way to proceed and it was ignored. Do you know who the largest population of inner guide listeners are? Children. That’s one of the reasons they tend to get in so much trouble with adults, because they do what their inner guide advises without thought to consequence, feelings, or safety. Their one goal is to do what they believe will make them happy at any given point in time, and they do. Children do not realize that the world does not revolve around them, but they also have not been taught that it’s their job to make and keep everyone happy (a true fallacy in today’s society.) If everyone accepted responsibility for their own happiness, a possibility by listening to our inner guides, the world would be a much happier and harmonious place.

Madison was sitting in Pre-K and was bored. She didn’t like circle-time, but preferred free-play. She looked longingly at the pots and pans and began to squirm and fidget while Miss Karen discussed the story. Unable to stand circle-time for one more moment Madison began to inch herself away from the circle, closer to the play kitchen cubbies. Madison finally made her way to the pots and pans and was in about to dive in when Miss Karen busted her. She was called back to the circle and told to remain in place. A few minutes later Madison again began to look at the pots and pans, and decided that since she couldn’t leave the circle perhaps Miss Karen wouldn’t mind if she brought the pots and pans to the circle with her. That didn’t fly either. Finally, unable to contain herself any longer, Madison jumps up from the circle grabs a pot and spoon and placed herself in the time out chair! She knew what she wanted, knew that it wouldn’t be appreciated by her teacher and that she would be punished, but didn’t care one bit. She got what she wanted…happiness. She was tapped in, tuned in and turned on to her inner guide and did not stray.

Adults could take lessons from children. Remember that the ultimate goal in life is j-o-y, and it is ones’ responsibility to create for themselves. But it cannot be done without focus, intent, and practice. Learn to quiet the conscious thinking of the mind for no more than 15 minutes each day and allow the inner guide to come through.

Here’s how:

• Focus on breathing, or the flicker of a candle, or use an audible like “Om.”

• Once the mind is quieted, physical detachment will occur and you will be in a state of “allowing.” This is when the inner being will take over. You may feel an involuntary movement in your body, like just before you’re falling asleep and your foot moves, or you feel as if you’re falling – this is THE state where the energies are in alignment.

• Determine your path for allowing your alignment energies to come through. It could be through blocks of thought, writing, a voice or through some other manner.

Everyone has the ability to do it. The key is to find the time to make it happen and not censor what is coming through. Be consistent and a mere 30 days is all that it should take to get into the swing of things. Simply learn to relax, allow and receive. Your happiness depends on it.

We each have an inner guide, that voice that has the right answer but is sometimes overlooked. Our inner guides are always with us, but often muted. Later when it is realized that the voice, intuition, or instinct should have been heeded once it’s too late to correct the initial decision. But we are at choice at every moment! Sounds a little hard to believe, right? Who would choose to have a marriage dissolve, or a career end? But a little investigation will often uncover a “feeling” that this person is not exactly what was desired, but maybe close enough, or the job paid very well, so even if some of the tasks were not in alignment with the idea of the ideal job it was worth it. So in essence choices were actually made to gag one’s inner guide and roll with the situation.

How many times have you thought “Man, if I had only listened to my instincts!” That was your inner guide telling you which way to proceed and it was ignored. Do you know who the largest population of inner guide listeners are? Children. That’s one of the reasons they tend to get in so much trouble with adults, because they do what their inner guide advises without thought to consequence, feelings, or safety. Their one goal is to do what they believe will make them happy at any given point in time, and they do. Children do not realize that the world does not revolve around them, but they also have not been taught that it’s their job to make and keep everyone happy (a true fallacy in today’s society.) If everyone accepted responsibility for their own happiness, a possibility by listening to our inner guides, the world would be a much happier and harmonious place.

Madison was sitting in Pre-K and was bored. She didn’t like circle-time, but preferred free-play. She looked longingly at the pots and pans and began to squirm and fidget while Miss Karen discussed the story. Unable to stand circle-time for one more moment Madison began to inch herself away from the circle, closer to the play kitchen cubbies. Madison finally made her way to the pots and pans and was in about to dive in when Miss Karen busted her. She was called back to the circle and told to remain in place. A few minutes later Madison again began to look at the pots and pans, and decided that since she couldn’t leave the circle perhaps Miss Karen wouldn’t mind if she brought the pots and pans to the circle with her. That didn’t fly either. Finally, unable to contain herself any longer, Madison jumps up from the circle grabs a pot and spoon and placed herself in the time out chair! She knew what she wanted, knew that it wouldn’t be appreciated by her teacher and that she would be punished, but didn’t care one bit. She got what she wanted…happiness. She was tapped in, tuned in and turned on to her inner guide and did not stray.

Adults could take lessons from children. Remember that the ultimate goal in life is j-o-y, and it is ones’ responsibility to create for themselves. But it cannot be done without focus, intent, and practice. Learn to quiet the conscious thinking of the mind for no more than 15 minutes each day and allow the inner guide to come through.

Here’s how:

• Focus on breathing, or the flicker of a candle, or use an audible like “Om.”

• Once the mind is quieted, physical detachment will occur and you will be in a state of “allowing.” This is when the inner being will take over. You may feel an involuntary movement in your body, like just before you’re falling asleep and your foot moves, or you feel as if you’re falling – this is THE state where the energies are in alignment.

• Determine your path for allowing your alignment energies to come through. It could be through blocks of thought, writing, a voice or through some other manner.

Everyone has the ability to do it. The key is to find the time to make it happen and not censor what is coming through. Be consistent and a mere 30 days is all that it should take to get into the swing of things. Simply learn to relax, allow and receive. Your happiness depends on it.

Eva Gregory, master coach, speaker and author of The Feel Good Guide To Prosperity has instructed thousands on the Laws of Attraction in person, on the radio and in dozens of teleconference training seminars and programs. She is the author of several books and e-books and has co-developed several telephone-based and internet-based training courses on the Laws of Attraction. To learn more about her products and services, visit http://leadingedgecoaching.com.

Beyond the peak experience – Leonard Jacobson

Question: I once woke up in the middle of the night and understood all. I was all. I knew like I have never known before or since, that everyone in my life was an aspect of me. There was only I.  My mind was totally quiet and yet I knew. It lasted but a couple of hours. How can I be in this state always? Is this what being present is or enlightened? Does this happen when the mind is totally quiet for a long period of time?

Another time in the middle of the afternoon after meditating, I felt a joy that was not so intense and for no reason at all! It was bigger than love. I couldn’t help but smile. It too, passed a couple of hours later. Was this being present? I love your teachings. They speak to my heart and quiet my mind. I would like to permanently live in this state of joy.  I never felt like that even when I was most in love.  It was free and for no reason.

Leonard’s Answer: The experiences you describe are awakening experiences. They are peak experiences. You awakened into the truth of life, and the truth of who you are. It is the enlightened or awakened state of consciousness. It is a blessing beyond imagining. It is what is revealed at the deepest levels of Presence when your mind is silent and you are fully present and available to what is here now. It is transcendent of your mind and ego. And it is natural that joy would arise out of the silence. But the moment you ask how to be in this state always, you are taking yourself into the future. You are bringing the mind and ego back into play, which will disconnect you from the very experience you are trying to hold onto. From the perspective of one who is awake, there is no always. There is only now. To remain fully present and awake, we have to release our involvement in the past, including peak experiences, and be available to what is present now, even if it is ordinary.

I usually tell people who have had experiences similar to yours to regard it as a blessing to be grateful for. It is as if God had said to you, “I am going to give you a taste of the truth of life. I am going to give you a taste of the truth of who you are. I am going to give you a taste of the Eternal. It will last several hours, and then it will go away, because I then want you to do the work. I want you to bring consciousness to all the ways you are pulled out of Presence and truth. I want you to discover how to function in the world of time, and yet remain fundamentally present. I want you to become a Master of your mind and ego. Otherwise you are not truly free.”

Being present is always instant. You cannot be present a moment from now. Arising in Mastery of your mind and ego is a process that occurs over time. It is a process of integration of the awakened state. I reveal how this is accomplished in my latest book, Journey into Now. It involves coming into right relationship with every aspect of yourself, including your ego. It involves transcending judgment. It involves releasing emotions repressed within you from the past. It involves bringing the human dimension of you that participates in the world of time into alignment with the Godly or Eternal dimension of you, which is your true nature. I describe it in my book as a two step dance of awakening.

~Leonard Jacobson

http://spiritlibrary.com/leonard-jacobson/beyond-the-peak-experience?utm_source=Spirit+Library+Updates&utm_campaign=6421a694c9-Daily_Update&utm_medium=email

Linear thinking – Shang Lee

Linear thinking, a method to think logically from A to B to C. We have used it often enough. It’s taught in schools when you are forced to memorise what comes after the letter ‘P’. Remember the multiplication tables? They start from 1 x 1 = 1, 1 X 2 = 2, 1 x 3 = 3 etc… And when you grew older, it’s memorising chronological events, i.e. the dreaded history lesson. Want more examples? Your name on the register list is listed from A to Z. Your exam report is handed out by some order, alphabetical or worse, by ranking! You queue up linearly for your food in the canteen. And when we are asked to think outside the box, no wonder we have so much trouble doing it. We are conditioned throughout our lives to think in a straight line! Nevermind imagining a 3-dimensional box, and then thinking outside of it. Our brains are wired into a 2-dimensional state!

I use a to-do list so that I can tick off one task after the other, linearly. I may also list things in order of priority, so that I can accomplish those task that seems most urgent, first. In a large hierarchical orgainisation, information is passed from one to the other linearly through the organisation’s ranking system. For example, in an office environment, if you’re a fresh graduate recently employed into the company, your report will be read by your manager first, and then by his manager, and then by her manager etc.. until you reach the top of the pyramid where the board of directors will read it. And if the directors don’t like the report, the information (or their wrath!) will be passed down the same line. This way of passing information is true for a lot of the organisations out there. Think of religion, politics, military, school, even your run of the mill tai ji class! The senior students will get more “secrets” passed down to them than the more junior ones. The common excuse? The person is not ready yet, i.e. you haven’t proven yourself to be worthy of more information.

What’s so bad about thinking in 2D? Everyone does it! The system works. It has been working for a very long time. It provides us with a structure to make sure everything is running in an orderly manner. The industrial age of specialisation, courtesy of Henry Ford has given us a production system that works linearly. Every part of the production line in the car assembly system depends on the previous part, i.e. you make the shell first before putting on doors and tyres. This mode of thinking is pervasive enough to be the structure of organising humans. But why do I feel something is not right? Something in my mind is gnawing this idea away. Something in my mind is resisting it, and not just resisting. Something in me is fighting it, looking to break free. To break free from what? Isn’t this what we are supposed to do? To think linearly?

I have come to realise that this is what we have been trained to do from young. But this is not actually how our mind works. It takes real effort to be able to think through logically from A to B to C. You’re forcing yourself into a mode of thinking that computers use. Sooner or later, computers will be doing that thinking for you and your mode of thinking will become obsolete! You were trained to think how a machine would think, but you are not given the opportunity to allow your own mode of thinking to flourish!

Our sub-conscious mind can assimilate a lot more information than our consicous mind can. We can recognise someone instantly without going through the following mode of thought:

distance between eyes is 2 cm
highest point of nose is 2 cm
colour of eyes is brown
colour of hair is red
length of hair is 30cm on average
ratio of distance between nose and forehead, and noes and chin is 1:1
etc…
Instead, if we met someone we’ve seen before, we’ll just say “hey, I like your new hairstyle!” or “nice make up you’ve got on. it suits you.” Can you possibly imagine the amount of information required to actually make those statements? You have to know what the previous haircut was. You have to know the length and shape of the previous haircut. You have to know how long haven’t you seen that person. You have to take into account the change in hairstyle to recognise the face. You have to know what age can do to a person to still recognise the face. We tap into the large reserve of our sub-conscious mind to make a seemingly trivial statement. And yet we hardly use them in our consicious decisions?

So I urge you as much as I urge myself, to let go of linear thinking, even some of the times. Just let your sub-conscious do the job. Some people call it gut-feeling. Others call it intuition. Whatever you call it, you know it when you use it. See if it changes the way you do things. Something on your top priority list may not be that urgent after all, your sub-conscious mind knows it, but you’ll need to let it tell you. Allow it to surface once in a while. Let it come out to play a little. You might be surprised with the answers it can bring you. You can even try it now, as this article suggest, as there’s no better time than now.

So, what are you waiting for? Why think outside the box when there isn’t even a box!

http://shanglee.com/blog/2006/05/31/linear-thinking/