Voice of the Spirit

I now revitalize myself through being grateful for all the blessings that are in my life!

Need affirmations or personal, one-on-one guidance to help you on your journey? I can help. Click here to begin your own private reading with me.

In the movie Rocky,we see a common everyday guy who struggles and goes through a tremendous amount of pain; yet against all odds, he is victorious in the end. All of his suffering led him to the incredible redemption of his dreams coming true – as he becomes a boxing champion.

While most of us aren’t boxers, with the pain and suffering we all go through in our own personal situations, we want to believe that like Rocky, things will always work out for us. Whether it’s in a romantic relationship, with our family and friends, health, money, career or in any area of our lives, we assume that our struggles also lead us to a “positive” ending. 

This means that our dreams and the suffering we’re going through will ultimately bring us to the absolute victory we’ve been fighting and waiting for. Our struggles do have deep meaning to us, so we hold onto the conviction that we will be redeemed when it’s all said and done; and we believe that we’re going to get what we want in the end! And with that, the “right” conclusion becomes a complete validation of our long-standing pain and dreams.

It’s something we have all felt and been through, as after all, who wants to believe that all of their trials and tribulations have merely been in vain? Where is the value in that?

Of course, everything happens for a reason, but…

 We take spiritual phrases such as everything happens for a reason, and tell ourselves that the “reason” in the situation we’re going through is that we will get what we want in the end. We reinforce this through believing that our pain and suffering has merit, is righteous and it will be validated by us winning in the end. That is the “reason,” we convince ourselves!

Of course, everything really does happen for a reason in our lives and nothing occurs at random in this world. Behind every effect is a cause, and physics proves that immutable law of the universe. Yes, there always is a legitimate “reason” — but it may not at all be the one we had emotionally hoped for.

That is where we get thrown off course: We take the spiritual mainstay of everything happens for a reason, and we combine that truth with our distorted, subjective beliefs. However, we can never assume that the “reason” for our struggles is for the story to conclude in any particular fashion – especially only in the way we desire. In short, sometimes we get what we want, while other times, we don’t.

The level of our personal suffering doesn’t determine whether things work out in the way we want — or that they even should. There are so many “reasons” and spiritual lessons as to why things occur in our lives, and there is no simple rule of thumb where any of us could say, “My suffering must lead me to the happiness I want in the end.”

Our false assumptions

We make completely false assumptions about our situations, which cloud our judgment by taking elements of truth, intuition, logic, our own emotions, unrealistic expectations, self delusional beliefs, advice from others (sometimes right while other times wrong), and mix it all together in a blender. However, with all of these contradictory components, the results are completely confusing, unrealistic, and self-debilitating.

Yes, we can affirm, visualize, and believe anything we want as we do have the freedom to do so, but that, in and of itself, doesn’t make it true.

However, when things don’t ultimately go the way we have architected, these horribly disappointing experiences put us in a free-fall, isolate us where we feel terribly separate and disconnected – especially because we have really suffered. Even if we put ourselves through this pain of our own choosing and the suffering is totally self created, it still doesn’t erase the fact that we are hurting – and badly.

We ask ourselves, “How could this have not worked out? I believed it in my heart, knew that it was damn well supposed to happen and did everything I could to make it work. How could my suffering have not led to victory?” We’re absolutely dumfounded that we didn’t get what we thought was absolutely going to occur, because we’ve struggled, paid our dues, and in our own minds, we deserve to get the prize in the end.

Yet it’s not just that we as individuals have each created our own little separate belief system that our pain and suffering always leads to a worthwhile conclusion with a celebratory victory lap. This is something that has been quite deeply culturally engrained into all of us for thousands of years – even if we don’t realize it.

The battle of good versus and evil – and good always triumphs in the end!

In the Bible, we hear countless stories of good versus evil — and what we’re told to believe is that after all the pain and suffering, trials and tribulations, good will ultimately be victorious! In the story of David and Goliath, little David (against all odds) is able to conquer Goliath (the giant who would seem to have easily won the battle). In addition, the Bible is filled with countless stories of the Devil versus Jesus/God – and once again, no matter what, good always triumphs in the end.

Throughout history we have been conditioned over thousands of years through the power of religious beliefs of all kinds (not only Christian) that we live in a world of right and wrong; good versus evil – and no matter how much sin, darkness, and death befalls us, when it’s all said and done …yes, good shall win out.

So just how far will people take these beliefs? Most of us transfer this epic, eternal struggle of good versus evil into our own personas lives.

Jennifer believed that Tom was her “destiny”

As many of us have experienced, Jennifer had a situation that she believed was her “destiny.” It happened when she was thirty-five years old and met Tom, a new coworker who was married with three children. Instantly, Jennifer emotionally felt that the two of them shared a “deep connection,” and felt hooked. In Jennifer’s mind, this was it. He was the one.

Yet, from the beginning, her intuition made her feel uncomfortable and unsettled about the situation. Jennifer knew it would be difficult, and that she would suffer on some level through getting involved with him. Here we see that Jennifer did indeed receive the truth of what this “connection” and “destiny” would really lead to; it was the exact opposite of what she thought would happen with Tom.

However, Jennifer dove into a sexual relationship with Tom anyway, and after about a month, Jennifer let her emotions and ego lead the way. She silenced her intuition by convincing herself that Tom would eventually divorce his wife Brenda, and Jennifer believed that she and Tom would end up together in the end. This belief was not based on Jennifer’s intuition; but rather, her self-delusional emotional beliefs.

Jennifer told her friend Maggie, “I know he’s the one and don’t kid yourself, I know that it won’t be easy, that there will be a lot of ups and downs and heartache for me, but in my heart, I know we’ll be together and that’s the truth.”

In fact, Jennifer convinced herself that God was speaking to her and told her that ending up with Tom was her crusade, which then ascribed Biblical importance and meaning to the relationship. This gave Jennifer a false sense of “destiny” about the situation and all of the hurt she was experiencing.

Jennifer let herself believe that her suffering was absolutely worthwhile, noble and righteous, and would lead to redemption. She believed that she would get what she wanted in the end. However, this was merely the stubbornness of her ego taking control.

In the beginning, Jennifer saw the red flags right away: Tom was emotionally inconsistent with her, he wasn’t open in his attitude, showed very little consideration for her feelings, and perhaps worst of all, Tom openly flirted with other women in the workplace.

However, Jennifer believed that her pain and suffering was merely a part of the “destiny” she was experiencing, and was willing to hang in there because victory would ultimately be hers. Therefore, she had to make someone “the Devil,” which was easy to do. Who was in the way of Jennifer’s dreams? Of course, ostensibly, Tom’s wife Brenda was. So predictably, Jennifer made Brenda the “bad” or the “evil one.” This allowed Jennifer to further justify the relationship with Tom.

As the affair progressed, Jennifer, now in deeper turmoil, once again spoke with her friend Maggie about the situation: “Tom’s wife Brenda is a monster, a hateful bitch who treats Tom horribly. She has been hurting him for so long. It’s not his fault; he’s only there for the kids. I know it. She is as rotten as they come and pure evil! I know I’m suffering now, but when he divorces her and ends up with me, we’ll be forever happy, because it’s meant to be.”

No matter how inconsistent Tom was, how many other women he flirted with right in front of her, and the fact the he never made any move toward a divorce, Jennifer still believed that Tom getting a divorce and ending up with her was “destiny.”

So Jennifer, refusing to give up, went through a tumultuous up and down relationship with Tom for eleven hard years until Tom eventually dumped her for another woman named Anna. Being with Tom for so long caused Jennifer to squander the time period of her biological clock to have a child. Ultimately, there was no prize for Jennifer, no breaking out the champagne or riding off into the sunset with Tom. Rather, she became so depressed that she lost her job.

After the break up, she often asked herself, “How could I possibly have suffered so much if things didn’t work out in the end? That doesn’t make any sense and isn’t right at all.” For years after, Jennifer kept questioning how all of her pain and suffering didn’t lead to the outcome she wanted. She had convinced herself that being with Tom was already a spiritual fact, and that it was just simply a matter of time before everything with Tom would all come together.

Why didn’t our pain and suffering lead to the victory lap in the end?

Just as Jennifer wanted to win, we all want to be victorious in our lives, too. No one wants their suffering to all be for nothing. However, when our struggles don’t lead us to success, we become totally confused and can’t figure out why things didn’t ultimately work out.

We like to see ourselves as the race car driver who through lots of hard work, discipline, fatigue, sweat, struggle and nerves of steel, sees their pain and suffering pay off through winning the race. We’ve seen it a million times before: after all the struggles, the winner, grinning ear-to-ear, takes his victory lap around the race track proudly, and victoriously while champagne flows like a fountain.

We look at that festive scenario and ask ourselves why the same type of victory didn’t happen in our situation? We are dumfounded that all of our trials and tribulations have seemingly been in vain, without the validation we’ve been so tenaciously banking on.

Yet, there are answers to our questions, no matter how frustrated we’ve felt. It’s just a matter of if and when we’re ready to hear them. Let’s take a look at the many reasons why our pain and suffering didn’t lead us to “riding off into the sunset” in the end, and the varying possibilities involved from a spiritual perspective:

*Sometimes what we want is just not in the divine plan, just not in the cards, not meant to be or for the highest good of anyone involved. Therefore, nature won’t support it. In this situation, we won’t get the prize in the end, no matter how much we’ve suffered. The emotional fallout we experience is what facilitates the learning experience. The situation was not pre-destined, just like what happened to Jennifer in her relationship with Tom.

*Even if something is just not in the divine plan, we can sometimes still force it into being for a while through the power of our own personal will. This type of situation would be like jamming a size-seven foot into a six-and-a-half shoe. It would never really fit, but the situation could be in our lives temporarily, but in the long run, it wouldn’t work out.

*In certain instances, the other person involved is not agreeable with what we want from them. That is a matter of what their individual choices are, which our forcefulness can’t change. An easy example of this is that if we are in love with someone but they are not interested in us or the same type of relationship we want. It doesn’t matter how much suffering we go through waiting and hoping; it just won’t happen.

*There are times when something is possible for us to have, yet through the negative way we’ve handled it, we’ve sabotaged the possibility of things working out in the long run. We’re given an opportunity, but make the choices that didn’t allow it to work out.

*Other times, there are spiritual lessons in a situation we’re supposed to learn, but they provide us with an experience that gives us something other than the conclusion we wanted. Sometimes a relationship doesn’t work out, but we learn to be a stronger, more independent person on our own, which was a lesson that we needed to go through for our spiritual growth. It can be very difficult for us when we don’t see what it is that we were supposed to learn, and that awareness can take time. However, the experience and its outcome have been for our highest good.

Yet, even though we see here that from a spiritual perspective, there are legitimate “reasons” on a multitude of levels as to why things have turned out the way they did, we still have to deal with perhaps, the most difficult part of it all…. That is to find a way to emotionally come to peace with what we’ve been through and move forward with our lives.

Take the lesson, and throw the rest (meaning the emotions) away!

At this point, we all may have considered many of the spiritual possibilities as to why things didn’t work out for us, yet we are still holding onto our suffering. After all, it’s all we really have left from the failed situation and in a perverse way, our pain becomes a friend — and that’s better than nothing….

In our resistance to moving on with our lives, any of us can go into denial and wait for the situation to come back to us in the future – remember, it is destiny, right? Anyone who disagrees with us can be seen as someone who just doesn’t understand, or as our enemy.

Sometimes, we’re so stuck on what happened before, that we can even recreate the same type of situation we’ve been through all over again. However, this time we live it out with different people, places and circumstances.

Yet, with all of these mechanisms of denial, we’re protecting ourselves from a feeling we’re terrified of, which is that we’ve been wrong all along. Since we didn’t get what we wanted and we’ve invested months, years, and even decades into the situation, we can’t face that fear. So instead, we refuse to let go, because that would only add up to us being a failure in our own minds — so one way or another, we keep holding on.

However, sooner or later, we must face reality, let go and release the old dreams that didn’t work out and cleanse ourselves of the intense, dark, self-destructive, volatile and painful emotions that have been crippling us all along. These feelings will continue to debilitate our lives until and unless we learn to do one thing – which is to take the lesson and through the rest away.

“So what do we do, then,” one might ask. “How could so much of our pain and disappointment possibly be healed?”

First, in addition to making every attempt to let it all go every day, here are some tools that will absolutely help in the emotional healing process:

*Ask yourself, “What have I learned from this experience?” Remember, there is something divine that comes out of all situations. If you can see what you’ve learned, that knowledge and awareness will stay with you and help guide you to better choices in the future.

*“Am I a better person for what I’ve been through?” is a great question to ask yourself. You’ll be surprised that as you quiet the emotions, you’ll see that you’ve made a journey, and have grown as a person. 

*If you feel duped, manipulated, or played but what happened, ask yourself this: “Where there red flags all along?” You’ll find that there were warning signs in many ways. It’s not whether the red flags were there or not, as they were; it’s a matter of us choosing to ignore them or not. By realizing that it was you played yourself through denying the warnings that were there, you don’t ever have to do that again. Therefore, pain and suffering are able to be avoided in the future.

*Look at what you expected out of the situation, and pose this question to yourself: “How much did my expectations and emotions replace reality?” As we saw in the example of Jennifer, she believed that she would ultimately end up with Tom. She replaced reality with her own subjective beliefs.

For any of us, it doesn’t matter what we feel, or how intensely our emotions take hold. If our expectations and feelings become out of line with reality, we enter into an alternate world where what we believe as fact is distorted fantasy. We need to do our best to keep our expectations and emotions in line with reality so in the future, we can avoid the horrific disappointments that happen from falsely investing into a situation.

*Here’s a good question to ask yourself: “How do I not ever end up in this position again?” Never forget that the divine universe is not a trickster and God is not in the business of fooling us. Therefore, we need to just look at what’s right in front of us, as the information we need to make the right choices for us will always be there. Just look at the truth, make your decisions accordingly, and you’ll be okay.

Finally, ask yourself the question, “What can I do to truly move forward with new dreams?” You have to be able to trust that somehow whatever the outcome came to be was for the highest good, no matter how emotionally hurt you have been. By believing that it all worked out as it was supposed to from a spiritual perspective, it gives you the hope and optimism that the universe is on your side, and that you’re not somehow cursed, but rather, blessed! It is only with hope that we can move forward. However, we must temper it with the awareness, wisdom and insights we have gained through the situations that did not work out in the end.

We love to believe that life is a simple formula of Redemption = getting what I want in the end. As we look back at what we’ve been through and ask ourselves the question, “Was it worth it in the end,” do we still feel the same? Through our pain, we’ve learned now that this formula doesn’t work for any of us. Rather, we keep learning, growing, and evolving to where what we Emotionally want = whatever is in the divine plan of our journeys is now our new mantra.

We do this through redirecting and raising our emotional desires to all that is in the divine plan. It is an effort well worth making, as we not only avoid so much unnecessary pain and suffering, but we receive the divine conclusions that are spiritually for our absolute highest good.

Jim1537 can help guide you. Whether you are interested in custom affirmations to help you acheive your dreams, or in having your own private reading with Jim1537, he can help. Just click here to begin.

I make the right choices now which set up my future to be prosperous and successful!

Need affirmations or personal, one-on-one guidance to help you on your journey? I can help. Click here to begin your own private reading with me.

We have all seen our New Year’s Resolutions fall flat and short. Within days of our supposed “New Me” plans, we’re back to our same old habits and patterns. You know, the ones that didn’t ever help us to have a better New Year before and certainly won’t this time around, either. Instead of us making a change for the better in our lives when we ushered in prior New Years, we lost our motivation and aimlessly watched our resolutions fall by the wayside. 

For 2011, let’s not repeat that same old exercise in futility; but rather, follow the plan for a resolution that just isn’t said in a fun moment at a New Year’s Eve party, but something that can truly work and transform this potential new beginning for us!

Instead of trotting out the same old tired New Year’s Resolutions that have proven time and again to not work, we’re going to change ONE CRUCIAL thing and in doing that, we will change everything. Let’s take a look at a fresh New Year’s Resolution that you’ve probably never considered or ever heard of before – and it is one that will work not just for 2011, but can make a positive difference well into the future.

Today can begin a transformation in our lives where we’re about to make a wondrous change that only takes five minutes of our time — literally. Here’s what we’re going to do: We’re going to revolutionize our relationships with the people in our lives: family, friends, lovers, coworkers, children, neighbors and anyone else. By doing that, people will begin to interact with us in ways that are for the highest good.

How could we do this? Aren’t people merely going to act toward us any way THEY want to? How can WE affect the way they treat us? The answer is through one simple spiritual tool and it just takes a few words spoken clearly with sincere conviction and five minutes of your time.

How it all works

As spiritual people, we know that others come into our lives for a reason – but it’s usually those who have brought us great trouble and difficulty who stand in the way of our happiness. As we feel frustrated, angry, resentful and wounded, these seemingly problematic individuals keep bothering us in a multitude of ways which upsets our center and keeps us immersed in our negative, lower-self emotional reactions.

However, instead of seeing and relating to those people as a burden and a curse, we’re going to metaphorically turn lemons into lemonade – but from a cosmic perspective! We’re going to transform these frustrating relationships through the atomic power of our spoken word and they way WE view them, which will in turn, change the way they treat us.

Noted metaphysical practitioner Catherine Ponder once provided the following affirmation to assist us in dealing with those who are difficult in our journeys. We need to think of the person in question and visualize them in our minds eye when we say: “I behold the Christ within you and glory in your perfection.” You may also insert the person’s name in the affirmation and say, “I behold the Christ within ________________ and glory in his/her perfection.”

With this affirmation, everything will begin to change for the better. Through the life-altering power of the spoken word and Ponder’s divinely channeled affirmation, we transform everything quickly. There is an energetic spiritual shift on many levels that verifies how this positive new beginning works:

 By saying this affirmation, you are changing the energy in a positive way through affirming the divine in this person (“Christ” consciousness and glorying in their perfection). The reason this brings about a good shift, is because you are affirming the REALITY of who they are, versus the illusion of their lower self which is where they negatively act out from.

Keep in mind that the divine exists in everyone, even the worst of hardened criminals. As all of us are created by divine mind in timeless perfection, we originate from this source and ultimately return to it. It is who we truly are, not our lower self where we hurt others and create additional negative karma. You are simply declaring who this person really is – and they will respond accordingly by behaving in ways toward you that come from their higher and real self, which is loving and kind.

It would be as if you had been calling someone by the wrong name (which represents their lower self) and they would react in ways that are based on that dark, lower energy. However, if you started calling them by the right name (as indicated by their higher self), they would now behave in ways that are built from that source of perfection!

By using this affirmation, we are able to change this type of behavior by raising and elevating the energy to a higher level. From this point forward, we are affirming that the interaction between others and us is loving and divine – just as it’s really supposed to be from a spiritual perspective!

Ask yourself this question: Why have these “difficult” people have been able to bother us and cause problems in our lives? It is not just by accident or at random, but through parts of ourselves. Whatever is negative inside of us such as: low self-esteem, self-contempt, anger, rage, resentment, fear, guilt, selfishness, uncertainty, self doubt, arrogance, and cynicism works like a magnet. These qualities within us attract attack back to ourselves and also open the door widely for us to be treated badly by others.

There is a great old concept that states that the lion takes its fierceness and its ability to attack you from your own fear. This is metaphysically correct. However, through this wondrous affirmation we are now using, we turn the “lion” of viciousness into a “baby cub” of kindness; therefore, assaults have been transformed into loving gestures and actions toward us!

I’ve seen this magical transformation occur in my own life and in the journeys of my clients as well, so I am not basing what I’m saying here on faith, but on the reality that I have witnessed countless times already. As the atomic power of the spoken word changes everything immediately, we see that when this transformational tool is harnessed correctly, better results do indeed occur in real time.

Sonya changed from being a monster to a mother

Sonya had always been belittling, condescending and degrading to her daughter Suzie since she was a small child. Of course, it affected Suzie’s self esteem, which led her to make negative choices such as destructive relationships with men, negative career choices and the manifestation of poverty. The totality of all of this fostered a tremendous level of emotional baggage within Suzie that she still carried with her as an adult.

Every year during the holidays, Suzie would just dread having to see her mother Sonia as she would always have something negative to say about Suzie. During the 2009 holidays, Sonia zapped Suzie at a holiday family dinner: “So, it doesn’t look like you’re any closer to getting married, plus you can’t seem to find a better job. I guess thing just don’t ever get better for you, honey,” her mother said. Enraged and hurt, comments like this ruined the holiday for Suzie and brought her right back to the poor self esteem she’s always carried inside.

However, for the 2010 holidays, Suzie decided to try something different. Before going to see her mother, she started saying out loud: “I behold the Christ within my mother and glory in her perfection” – and when Suzie said these words, she felt it, meant it and believed it. This was so important, as the words need to be propelled by the internal belief of the person saying the affirmation.

So when Suzie arrived at her mother’s house for a holiday dinner in December 2010, Suzie was armed with a new tool: the life-altering power of the spoken word. Saying her affirmation repeatedly as she drove toward her mother’s house, Suzie could feel a cloud lift and a feeling of peace came over her.

When Suzie greeted her mother, Sonya immediately said, “Suzie, it’s so nice to see you. You seem happy and you just look great! I bet things are going good for you!”  However, that was only the beginning. Through the entire dinner, Sonya didn’t verbally attack Suzie – even one time. In fact, Sonya told everyone what a kind person Suzie was and how she had always had a good heart!

By Suzie pronouncing her mother as an entity of Christ consciousness and perfection, Sonya changed from being a monster to a mother. Suzie’s words directed the situation to its highest good, which energetically lifted the relationship above the zings and zaps of Sonya’s lower self. These jabs had plugged right into the part of Suzie where she had been vulnerable based on the terrible self-image she had carried all these years. Now, the energy has changed between mother and daughter through this simple, yet powerful tool.

In addition to family, we often deal with the passive/aggressive attack oriented personalities in the workplace, and for any of us who have experienced such people, it can make being at work a living hell. Except now, we are equipped with a brand new tool which will change all of that for the better!

Miguel’s boss changed from bully to buddy

Miguel is in the high tech field, a hard worker and someone who always does his best to please his boss William; however, William is a mean spirited, moody and arrogant man. Because of being the boss, he is able to get away with treating Miguel badly, and frequently, William has been verbally abusive toward Miguel. It’s William’s way of flexing his metaphorical muscles and unloading whatever personal frustrations he’s feeling at the time.

“Miguel, I guess you can’t do anything right, can you? The report you just submitted is about as good as something a freshman in high school would write. Just get out of here, okay, and I’ll decide what you need to do with this junk later,” William snapped.

However, this report that Miguel issued was excellent; William was just behaving like a schoolyard bully, except in the setting of the white collar workplace as opposed to the playground. This type of interaction occurred regularly and each time it did, it always crushed Miguel, as he was not only committed to his job, but hoped to be able to advance his career and get a raise.

At his wits end, Miguel didn’t know what to do: after all, he couldn’t afford to quit his job, but didn’t think he could take much more of William’s abuse. Miguel then came across Catherine Ponder’s affirmation, and immediately, something clicked within him. As Miguel was open to spirituality, he intuitively knew that saying this might change things for the better for his relationship with William.

A few days later, William summonsed Miguel to discussing the situation regarding the report. Before walking into William’s office, Miguel began saying with great conviction: “I behold the Christ within my boss William and glory in his perfection.” In fact, he said it several times over the period of about five minutes.

Miguel could feel all the hurt, anger, fear and resentment lift out of him and he just let it all go. He literally felt the earth move in that moment, and went into William’s office unafraid.

William turned to Miguel and said, “In thinking about it, this report you wrote is pretty darn good. I don’t know what I was thinking. Who knows? Maybe I was just having a bad day.”

Miguel responded by simply saying, “Thanks so much. I really appreciate it.”

From there, William decided to give Miguel an even more important assignment, where Miguel’s performance exceeded his boss’s expectations. After that project was completed, Miguel did get the raise and promotion he had rightfully wanted and deserved. It all started with the simple and profound cosmic tool of the affirmation that elevated the energy between William and Miguel to its absolute highest good!

Affirming the reality of who others are supposed to be in our lives

Remember that in any relationship you’re experiencing that may be giving you difficulty, you can use Ms. Ponder’s affirmation to change it all for the better as you begin 2011. It doesn’t matter who it is: family member, friend, lover, spouse, neighbor, boss, coworkers, or anyone in your journey.

Don’t ever succumb to the illusion that another person’s negativity controls the relationship as well as the energy between you and them – it doesn’t. When someone’s behavior is based on their lower self, their actions and attitudes are mean, aggressive, loud, vicious, dark and damaging — all on purpose. The force of such energies can take us back and cause us to feel intimidated and overwhelmed.

However, there’s nothing to be afraid of. It is just like being a parent and looking at your three year-old child having a temper tantrum. Is that child really in control of the situation? Are they dictating the relationship between the two of you? Furthermore, are you supposed to be feel bad about yourself because of their “childish” actions? Of course not! As the parent, you have the power to direct the situation in the correct way and establish all that is loving and right.

Even though we may have a hard time comparing a child’s acting out with an adult doing so, it can be viewed in essence as the same thing. Don’t be taken off guard by adults who are causing us problems, as they’re just behaving like bratty children in a grown-up body. Never be intimidated by it, angered, flustered or scared.

There is great power in non-resistance, and by being undisturbed by the situation through declaring this great affirmation, the eternal, loving highest good now directs the relationship and energy between you and them.

Never forget the spiritual truth which is that eternal divine love is always in charge. You just need to call upon the atomic, healing transformative power of the spoken word to bring about that reality by elevating everything between you and others to its spiritually correct energy and essence.

It is time to see this New Year as the truly new beginning it is – an opportunity to turn things around for the better. We often think that what we need to make our New Year great is to improve ourselves where we declare such things as: “I wanna lose weight!  Now I want more money! I have to get a better job! I need a new lover!”

However, there is nothing more important in our lives than the interactions and relationships we have with others – and often, this is where our biggest and most frustrating problems occur. We are not islands and cannot do it all alone as we must relate with others.

Therefore, it is time to get to the heart of the matter and fix it right now, but not through yelling, reducing ourselves to the level of other peoples’ lower selves, getting defensive and attacking back. That just diminishes ourselves to the darkness and ugliness of the lower-self and drags us into a dogfight where no one wins!

But rather, by raising the complete interaction and relationship between others and ourselves to its divine highest good which is the prototype and image that divine mind has already created. That is how we start the New Year in a fantastic way!

Here, we don’t just affirm some lofty fantasy or a passing, unattainable hope. We manifest reality, truthfulness and all that is natural which is that people are here to be a golden link in the chain of our highest good, and vice versa.  Knowing that allows us to live far better daily lives as we interact with others in a peaceful and harmonious way!

This reality already exists in divine mind and is simply waiting for us to call upon it through the power of our spoken word. Imagine manifesting loving interactions with those around us in your daily life – and now, it doesn’t have to be imagined any longer – it can be real.

This takes absolutely no money, no therapeutic techniques, no complicated struggles, but merely five minutes and the right words that are spoken truly from the heart with conviction and sincerity. Claim it, own it, declare it and start your New Year in the right way, as the relationships we manifest will determine what happens now and well into the future.

This way, we can step outside of the protective hurt and fear from being wounded before that has crippled us and held us back for far too long now – as here is a new beginning; one that is long overdue and rightfully deserved.

You can have a private consultation with me,  personally tailored to fit your questions, needs and concerns. Just click the link to begin.

I welcome the New Year with openness to all that is for my highest good!

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Since the advent of the self-help revolution in the 1960’s, beginning with the book I’m OK You’re OK, we’ve seen a transformation in society regarding how people see themselves and in the ways they interact with others. Before the self-help revolution began, people had far better manners and were more respectful of others but over the last four decades, that has all changed….

We currently live in a world where people’s main concern in life is about themselves – rather than for society as a whole. Now, people only look out for their own self interests often at the expense of everyone else, interrupt and talk over others, step on people to get ahead and disregard any concern for who gets hurt in the process. As long as we can be who we are and get what we want, it’s okay. Regarding romantic relationships, people only want to be with someone solely for what it brings to them –and not vice versa.

Because none of these qualities I’ve just described are flattering, some people pretend that they’re not behaving in these ways at all but claim to be kind, loving and considerate as a smokescreen to camouflage and hide the narcissism that fuels today’s society. On the other hand, others boldly celebrate how they could care less about how their actions affect others and proudly do whatever they want in any situation because they’re just being themselves.

How many times have we heard someone defend their actions with the comment, “I don’t care if you like it or not, because I’m just being who I am?” Sometimes people push it even further with the bold proclamation, “It’s all about me!” Think for a moment how odd it would be to hear someone say the opposite phrase of “It’s all about we!” I can’t recall ever hearing anyone say that.

Others declare, “I just have to speak my truth!” which is often a way of someone emotionally unloading whatever they want on another with little or no regard for the actual truth of a situation. However, using the word “truth” to preface their comments adds an aura of credibility.

So with this current cultural revolution of self-help that has been in the making for over four decades, people have now become boldly and selfishly empowered, louder, ruder and more inconsiderate than ever. Being loving toward others is seen as a weakness that sets us up to get stepped on. We say to ourselves, “I need to be pushy in this world to get what I want,” while looking out for #1 is seen as the ultimate positive thing to do. So is this a cultural crisis or just a sign of the times…?

The answers to truly understanding how society has so dramatically changed lie in us taking a deep look at how the self-help revolution has changed the way we see ourselves in relationship to the world as a whole. When looking at who we are and our actions, we now need to separate the bad from the good, the light from the dark, our higher spiritual self from our lower animal survival instincts — and not just defend our actions with the catch-all phrase, “I’m just being me!”

Being a victim — the gift that keeps on giving

Through the self-help revolution in our culture, we are taught to believe that we’re a society of victims and therefore, not responsible for our actions. What we do now that hurts others is not really our fault, but based on the negative things that happened to us before. Whether it’s our abusive childhood, being wounded in love, persecuted for being different, discriminated against or any other hardship we’ve incurred, there’s always a reason, explanation and a justification for our current negative behavior. In the 1990’s, the term the abuse excuse was a phrase constantly bantered about by lawyers discussing criminal cases on cable television when referring to defendants who tried to sidestep or claim diminished responsibility for their crimes based on being victimized before.

I have never met anyone who doesn’t feel that they’ve been abused in one way or another; bad things happen to all of us which is a terrible thing, but the real question should be, “What do we do with our former pain?” Do we heal our lives and become better people or does being the victim give us a free pass – to behave however we want to and feel like we’re entitled because of what we’ve been through before, all under the guise of proclaiming, “I’m just being who I am?”

When it’s the latter, we act out in selfish and harmful ways toward others and the world at large – cloaked in the seemingly excusable identification of victimization. As a society, what we’ve learned to do is to capitalize on being victims which helps us to not take responsibility for our actions. This allows us to just “be ourselves” but not stop and look at HOW we’re “being ourselves” and behaving toward others. Just being who we are is never good enough in and of itself as the explanation for how we interact with others.

Here’s a scenario of someone using victimization to strike out at others which I’ve experienced as a reader: A man was sexually abused when he was 9 by his mother so now at the age of 40, he’s someone who still hates women. Instead of trying to heal his pain, he excuses hurting the multiple women he’s dated for the last 20 years all because of what his mother did to him before — even saying to people who wish to help him, “I’m sorry, but this is just who I am and it’s because of what my mother did to me.” As we’ve all heard the old mainstay a million times of two wrongs don’t make a right, this is the excuse this man uses.

However, I’m not trying to trivialize his former pain, but to shed light on how he uses his past to justify that he’s just being who he is versus taking responsibility for his current behavior some thirty-one years later, regardless of what happened to him before.

Some people use excuses based on what happened to them in the past even when they’re merely casually involved with someone. Joe is a man who has been seeing Mary off and on for about a year and says to her, “I was so hurt by my ex wife that I can’t commit to you. I can only just be who I am now. I’m reading a new self-help book that’s teaching me how to take care of myself and learn to be me!”

However, Joe’s using what he went through along with reading a new self-help book as an abuse excuse of sorts to be able to behave selfishly and however he pleases with no consideration for Mary, all under the guise that he’s just being himself. His past hurt excuses his inconsistent behavior, his unwillingness to make a commitment and also allows him to cheat on her as well. Ostensibly, it all starts with Joe being a victim.

As a society, we no longer just sit there and take it lying down like we did so many decades ago, as we’ve been conditioned through the self-help movement to empower ourselves and stand up for ourselves – yet we need to ask the question, “Are all forms of empowerment really such a good thing…?”

Empowerment through being a victim – a terrible cocktail

Often, self-empowerment means that we become louder, more self-centered, narcissistic, and act out toward others. By initially feeling that we’re victims, it’s like pouring gasoline on fire; the justification of the pain of the past  makes us feel that we are entitled to hold our heads up high in a misguided way where we disregard and harm other people directly and egregiously.

We’re told that our problem is that we don’t like or love ourselves enough and that we must increase our self esteem – and that through doing that, we’ll become who we TRULY are and better yet, get all we want. However, there’s a catch: When people are wrapped up into the self- righteous feeling of victimization as the basis of their empowerment, their perspectives and actions are distorted, skewed and not clear-minded or spiritually centered. Such is the case in today’s world.

Overall, it’s gotten to the point where society as a whole builds its sense of empowerment through being victimized which means that the approach of our world is ripe with intense self-righteous justification, distortion, selfishness, pain turned outward at others, anger without filters and a warped set of narcissistic standards. This isn’t just witnessed in extreme circumstances such as an abusive romantic relationship, but in a setting as common as the workplace.

Marc was a man who felt that he had been unfairly targeted and unjustly fired at his former job. In the aftermath of losing his job, Marc began reading self-help books that taught him to be himself and become more empowered. So about 6 months later when he obtained a new job, he was determined to do just that which to Marc, meant saying whatever he pleased and not filtering or self-censoring himself.

In his new job, Marc immediately started giving his opinions to coworkers about what he liked and didn’t like about the workplace, even though it wasn’t solicited. In meetings, he interrupted, talked over others and didn’t listen to what people said to him but Marc made sure that his opinions were heard. When coworkers tried to explain to him that he was doing something wrong, Marc would respond with statements such as, “Are you my boss? Since you’re not, I’ll do things my way.”

Because he initially got away with such behavior, Marc became worse. He would sometimes try and get others to do his work for him, and even tried to take credit for work that others did. Needless to say, Marc’s sense of empowerment through feeling like a victim led to him behaving in selfish, inconsiderate ways with complete disregard of how he affected upon others. This all caused him to get fired once again, just as he was before.

When empowerment is highly emotionally charged based on past victimization without clearly defined parameters of how our actions affect others, we hardly stop to look at the various shades, dynamics and tones of our behavior. It’s as if we erroneously believe that we’re just standing up for ourselves and that everything about us is okay – which is not true. All parts of ourselves are not good, likeable, lovable or even tolerable as we saw in the case of how Marc treated others in the workplace.

So what do we do, then? Is it all too complex to fix?  On one hand, we don’t want to hurt others, but we keep telling ourselves that it’s a tough world out there and have to look out for number 1! Worse yet, do we really even care enough as a society to do anything about this? If we’re being honest, we’re on a quest to simply get what we want and be whoever we want to be without concern for others.

The death of polite society, manners and self-censorship

We now live in a world where people don’t really take responsibility for their actions anymore. We’ve come to believe that we’re a society of victims which means that we didn’t create our problems in the first place, and therefore, we have to empower ourselves to supposedly feel better and live happier lives. However, in order for any of us to become healthy individuals from a spiritually centered perspective, we must take responsibility for our actions and how we treat others. Being wounded, as we all have been, shouldn’t ever excuse or justify behaving badly toward others.  

Through the last four decades or so, we’ve slowly seen the erosion of polite society, manners and the consideration of others, which ties into everybody’s quest to boldly behave in a “me first” fashion. As the great science fiction writer Robert Heinlein once said, “Manners are the oil that greases the wheels of society.” Without manners, society starts to crumble. I think everyone would agree that we live in a harsher, less considerate, more violent and frightening world than before. We use to have filters in our behavior which greatly minimalized the narcissistic and even sociopathic behavior so commonplace today.

Ken, like many of us, doesn’t care about manners or being polite and just does whatever he pleases without consideration for others. When he bought a new house and moved in, Ken immediately started parking only in front of his next door neighbor Alice’s house. Ken wouldn’t park in front of his own house even though there were two open spaces there because he always wanted to leave those parking spaces for his friends in case they visited him. In addition, it was also a statement of territorial dominance over Alice.

What he did wasn’t illegal, but certainly was inconsiderate, rude and cruel, especially because Alice had serious trouble walking which Ken knew about, so not being able to park in front of her own house meant longer distances for Alice to walk.

When Alice tried to ask Ken to please park in front of his own house, Ken told Alice that her legs weren’t his concern and that he could park wherever he wanted to. Because of Ken’s lack of consideration for the situation, the condition of Alice’s legs became far worse as time went on as there was nothing she could do about changing the parking situation.

As with Ken, it’s quite easy for us to lose our manners and behave harmfully toward others because of how society has eroded along with giving into our animalistic human nature. Very few people posses the level of spiritual evolution to resist and rise above the seductiveness of their lower self, so we simply forget about being polite or having manners at all. Since it’s the way of the world, we can do it too.

Hurting others is easy, because it ties into our deep seated instinct to survive and stay alive, where we need to feel superior and in control by dominating and stepping on others. It is still the ancient kill-or-be-killed mindset that we’re living by.

When we join our survival mechanisms with empowerment through feeling victimized, lose our manners and forget self-censorship, it creates a disaster in society where we’re once again back to living in the jungle — except now we have fully functioning cities to act this out in.

We have all the justifications we need to make us exempt from responsibility and give us a green light for our actions: victimization, empowerment, being who we are and disregarding manners. Whether it’s in the office, with our spouses, how we treat our neighbors or interact with the world in general, we’ve lost the basic sense of consideration, politeness and self-censorship that must be restored to our world if we hope to see society functioning in a better, more harmonious and peaceful way.

 Your higher self “me” vs. your lower self “me”

As we look at the dramatic changes that have occurred over the last four decades or so in our society, we need to ask ourselves if we’re contributing to the problem or helping to make the world a better place. The key to understanding our behavior is to see that there are two clearly different sides to us as it pertains to being ourselves.

One side comes from the individuality within our higher self. This is where we were created in Divine mind and where our uniqueness is true to our essence. Here, we behave lovingly toward ourselves and others at all times and are considerate, supportive, helpful, giving, kind, and generous.

Conversely, the other side of our individuality comes from our lower self. This is where we behave in ways that are selfish, inconsiderate, seriously hurtful to others, and where our existence is based on primitive survival mechanisms.

So instead of just blanketly proclaiming, “I’m just being me!” we need to separate the positive parts of our individuality from the negative. In short, we all have both good and bad qualities; which on the surface sounds so utterly simple to grasp. However, when we’re on a quest to just be us based on victimization, empowerment due to being a victim and throwing away our manners, we completely blur the good and the bad together.

The key to accurately understand how we’re behaving as opposed to just blindly “being ourselves” without concern for how we impact on others is to see the clear distinction between our higher self and our lower self. As your individuality exists in both parts, it’s important to first learn how to recognize the difference between our higher self and our lower self to begin the healing process.

First, remember that from a spiritual perspective, life is never just one-way, but always a two-way street. Meaning, it something is truly spiritually for the highest good, it benefits EVERYONE involved and not just one person versus another.

There is a great concept that lays the foundation for understanding the difference between your higher self “me” versus your lower self “me.” Always look at every situation and ask yourself if your actions are first loving toward yourself and then, are they also loving toward all others involved. If your answer is truly “yes” to both, then you’re being yourself in a positive way that is both enriching to you and everyone you interact with, which brings good to others and back to you. By building positive karma and being a benefit to this world, the quality of your life and everyone you interact with will improve immeasurably.

Usually, most of us don’t have a problem being loving toward ourselves as we usually put us first even though we like to pretend that we don’t. However, what about everyone else who is involved? Our actions MUST be loving toward them as well; not just when it’s convenient to us, but all the time. That takes consistency and diligence because as a society, we’ve sunken to an all time low of selfishness, inconsideration, stepping on others and narcissism.

If what we’re doing harms another, it’s not coming from our higher self. However, we rationalize and make excuses for our actions as a way of still holding onto our desire to just behave in whatever way we want to. Doing the right thing (which always takes others into consideration) requires real effort and spiritual growth. Just giving into phrases like, “I’m just being me” and “Too bad if you don’t like it” require no work at all.

Just because we don’t kill people or commit heinous crimes does not mean that we aren’t creating negative karma on a regular basis. Most people on this earth don’t murder or rape others. The negative karma we create is being done in socially acceptable, tolerable ways and/or in situations that are hidden from view. Remember, infinite intelligence sees and records everything, so we never really “get away with it” as we so erroneously tend to believe.

The solution is not to just increase your self esteem, like and love everything about you, forget manners while becoming narcissistically empowered, but to begin looking at how what we do impacts on others in all situations.

The solution for a better world where you’re still you

We tend to think that either we’re being who we are which we see as empowering and liberating, or that we’re going to have to hold ourselves back by blending in with others which means that we have to “sell out” and behave in ways that everyone else deems appropriate. However, that is not true.

From a spiritual perspective, each of us is a unique one-of-a-kind masterpiece. Only you can do what you were sent into this world to do and absolutely no one else on this planet could even begin to take your place and fulfill your purpose.

However, we are here to offer our individuality through our gifts to others and to the overall collective which contributes to this world by serving the Divine purpose. It is never about us just behaving like spoiled children and loudly shouting, “I want what I want!” and “I’m just being myself!” with disregard as to how we impact on others and the world in general.

Physics prove that we are all interconnected and NOT separate entities as we have falsely believed. It is impossible for any of us to not touch others, no matter how long we live or what we do. By the mere fact that we were conceived in and of itself transforms other peoples’ lives – forever.

Before the self-help revolution began, people worked together more as a whole. As the World War II generation has been referred to as the greatest generation ever, we saw how people sacrificed for a common overall goal back then, often at the price of death. Yet, conversely, in those times, it was harder for people to be who they were, especially if that meant going against societal standards. Certainly, being gay would have been much harder back then versus how it is dealt with now.

Then, with the self-help revolution, we swung to the other extreme as a society where people certainly learned to become individuals: loudly, harshly and narcissistically. Even though what makes people different is more tolerated now, there is a great loss of community, neighborly consideration and society working together as a whole.

However, there is a solution to make our society a better place – a call to action, which is to have the best of both worlds. Of course, we need to be ourselves, but with the clearly defined parameters that if we hurt others, what we’re doing isn’t correct and should not continue. Also, while being individuals, we must spiritually understand that we are always and forever connected to everyone and everything else in the universe. The sense of how we are all each a golden link in the chain of the Divine plan must be championed – not just disregarded by a “me first” attitude where we think that all of our actions can be explained by the simple statement of, “I’m just being me!”

It is the combination of the individual and the overall collective world coming together that achieves this tremendous blend of what infinite intelligence wants for us — which is to shine as the unique masterpieces we are and through that radiance, contribute what is priceless and irreplaceable about ourselves to this world with joyous love, freedom and consideration of others to enrich not only our lives, but everyone else’s.

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My actions are always loving toward myself and to others in every situation!

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