Author Archives: newthoughtmama

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I love the way the steps are set up.  There is an order to them that makes it easy, for me at least, to move from victim to empowerment.

I know that it is common to hear, in 12 step meetings, that we must continually acknowledge our powerlessness.  In all my research of the steps, and in my personal experience of 29 years of incorporating them into my life,  I have failed to find any evidence that advocates powerlessness as a way of life.  Instead, I find much evidence that says powerlessness is like a doorway into recovery.  Powerlessness is for beginners.

In a way, much of life is like this:  when we first encounter a new concept, a new way of living, a new way of being, we must be open to possibilities, even though the unknown is sometimes much scarier than the known, as unsatisfactory as the known may be.  But if we admit to not liking the way things are, and to acknowledging that there must be a better way, then we somehow open ourselves up.  Powerlessness is that doorway.  Yes, we are in a powerless place in the beginning....but only in the beginning.

Once we get to step 10, we get our power back.  (Actually in my personal experience it comes much sooner in the process, but I know it isn't that way for everyone)  Here are the 10th step promises in the textbook of Alcoholics Anonymous:

"And we have ceased fighting anything or anyone—even alcohol. For by this time sanity will have returned. We will seldom be interested in liquor. If tempted, we recoil from it as from a hot flame. We react sanely and normally, and we will find that this has happened automatically. We will see that our new attitude toward liquor has been given us without any thought or effort on our part. It just comes! That is the miracle of it. We are not fighting it, neither are we avoiding temptation. We feel as though we had been placed in a position of neutrality—safe and ­protected. We have not even sworn off. Instead, the problem has been removed. It does not exist for us. We are neither cocky nor are we afraid. That is our ­experience. That is how we react so long as we keep in fit spiritual condition."

Jean Houston writes, in the Foreward to the Science of Mind textbook, that in thinking of God as something within us, it moves us from a state of powerlessness to one of power.  "This grants us tremendous power and with it the innate responsibility to make or break our world through the extraordinary working power of our minds. Thus the practical emphasis in The Science of Mind of schooling in the power of trained thought."

So....we move  from a state of powerlessness in the beginning, to one of power by the tenth step.  The steps teach us to live in 10 and 11, inventories, meditation and prayer.  New Thought teaches us to consistently do our spiritual practices, with introspection (inventory) and the resulting personal awareness, and meditation and affirmative prayer making for a lifestyle that does indeed move from powerlessness to being safe and protected, from victim to empowerment.

This is a lifestyle that works, and I am so grateful for it.

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You can purchase the book at Amazon.com or Balboa Press, in e-version or paperback.

Thank you for reading.  I would love to see your comments!

 

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I was speaking with someone the other day who said to me, "You don't have much fear do you?"

My response was that no, I no longer have a lot of fear.  I'm not speaking to the kinds of fear that keep us from touching a hot stove.  I'm speaking to the kinds of fear that limit us.  I'm sure you are familiar with them.  The ones that say "I'm not doing THAT!" or "I'm not going THERE!"  Even though a part of you is nudging and saying, "YES....DO THAT!  YES....GO THERE!"

When I first began this new way of life in recovery, I was literally afraid of everything.  Almost paralyzed with fear.  I couldn't drive, couldn't hold down a job, couldn't carry on a conversation with people.  Hugs were threats, and life was one big "I can't."

I didn't like that limitation, and some part of me knew it was self imposed, but at the time I didn't know how to move beyond that kind of fear.

Geneen Roth speaks to this fear, and its antidote, when she says, "Compulsion is a state of isolation, one that includes self-absorption, invulnerability, low self-esteem, unpredictability and fear that if we faced our pain, it would destroy us.  Love expands, compulsion diminishes."

I didn't know that love expanded and compulsion diminished when I got into recovery.  What I did know was that with each step I worked, more of my fear went away.

And I did not know at the time that both Ernest Holmes and much of 12 step literature promises that fear will go away.

Holmes says that "perfect love casts out fear and joy transmutes sadness into song."  He also says, "all power is from within, and as the deep within is awakened, weakness, fear and failure disappear."

He also says that what we are really afraid of is social and economic insecurity, and in the textbook of Alcoholics Anonymous, it promises us that after working steps 1-10 that "fear of economic insecurity will leave us."

Every day I get more and more evidence that working these steps is the most powerful way I know of to release our fears.

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Copyrighted photograph by Image Angels Photography Services
Copyrighted photograph by Image Angels Photography Services

I've been thinking about forgiveness lately, mostly because I will be doing a workshop this Sunday in Davis on the subject.  If you are in the area I would love to see you!  Here is the information for that workshop.

While forgiveness is not specifically mentioned in the textbook of AA, I've discovered that it is a huge and important benefit to doing an inventory.  And forgiveness is one of the most powerful spiritual practices we can do.  It frees us up to live life freely, without the limits we place on our lives because we've not forgiven others or ourselves. ...continue reading →

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One of the biggest barriers to freedom in life is the inability to get along with others, especially in the long term.  Steps 8 and 9 (with help from 4 and 5) can be of great value in terms of our ability to get along with others and have successful relationships.

The key in all the self reflection, and all the inner searching, is the "our part."  For it is only when we can honestly (and without blame) look at our part that any healing can happen, and it is only when our own healing happens that we can successfully navigate the twists and turns of relationships.  And experience personal freedom and happiness. ...continue reading →

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If you are going to be in the San Francisco Bay Area this Sunday, July 19, I would love to see you at the first stop of my book tour!  I'll be speaking at the Center for Spiritual Living Solano Bayside at 11 am, with a workshop to follow at 12:30.  The $30 fee for the workshop includes the book!

I'll be doing this workshop in other locations as time goes by, and I really do hope to meet you at some point.  Of course you can always order your print or e-version copy of the book through either my publisher:  Balboa Press, or Amazon. ...continue reading →

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I was having a chat with another New Thought minister the other day.  She had this to say about the book, "This book answers the unanswered questions."  I had to agree with her, it does.  What are the unanswered questions?

Here's just a few:

  1. How does a New Thought person, who isn't powerless, address the first step?  It isn't about powerlessness, it is about recognizing the need for and desire for change.  Instead of fighting what is destined to be a losing battle, we focus on what we wish to be and embody.  Turn the focus from what you don't want and put it on what you do want.
  2. How does a New Thought person, who believes that God is everywhere present, address the implication in the traditional wording of the steps, that God is something separate from us?  In the Text book of AA, it tells us that we found the Great Reality deep within.  It is referring to God.  In New Thought, we teach that God is everywhere present.  Don't let the wording scare you off.  Over and over again we are told to find some sort of God as we understand it.
  3. How then, would someone turn their will and life over to the care of that something?  Again, this is about focus, and asking ourselves how we would like to be.  And, if you can't find anything else as an ideal, I suggest you use this process.  Move through it, commit to it completely, and when you are done I'd be willing to bet that you will then have an understanding of this concept that works for you.
  4. How is one supposed to approach the 4th step, with it's emphasis on character defects, and mention of the seven deadly sins, when in New Thought we don't believe in sin as it is traditionally defined?  In New Thought, we go to the original language in which the Bible was written, and we take into consideration that the people who were alive during the time the Bible was written taught in metaphor.  The Bible mentions sin quite a bit.  But if you go to the original definition of sin, a totally different perception emerges.  Sin was an archery term.  It meant that one missed the mark.  Picture an archer, poised with bow and arrow, aiming at dinner.  Perhaps the aim was a bit off, or a gust of wind came up just as the archer released the arrow, or perhaps the target moved.  The archer sinned, or missed the target.  So in terms of the 4th step, what we are seeking is not where we have sinned, but where we have made mistakes.  This removes all the shame from the process.

These are just some of the most commonly asked questions, and some brief answers.  In future posts I will go into more detail on each question.  You can subscribe to updates to the right of this post if you are on a computer, and below if you are on a mobile device.

 

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Sometimes as I’m cruising the news and posts, I think about us humans and I wonder.

Early in our days, we worshipped multiple gods. We worshipped the sun goddess and we worshipped the moon goddess and we worshipped the rain goddess, and all kinds of other gods and goddesses. This worship was closely tied to the seasons, to bless and celebrate things like planting of crops and harvesting of crops. There was a lot of fertility worshipping going on around the planting of crops. I remember learning in one of my classes that the goddess of the moon was worshipped more than the goddess of the sun, not because the moon was more powerful, but because it was closer than the sun, and thus more accessible.

So I read posts about the moon waxing and waning and about mercury being in retrograde, and this is why stuff is happening the way it is, and I can’t help but think that we’ve gone back to worshipping the goddess of the moon.

Nothing wrong with that.

But for me, I prefer to worship a bit closer to home. If indeed worship is the right word. It comes down to what I believe in that gives me comfort and peace and power and safety in a world gone mad. Because I happen to think that is what life is about. It’s about feeling comfortable and peaceful and powerful and safe, no matter what.

All of of that stuff, the New Age stuff and the traditional religious stuff, just screams of separation to me. It screams of attempting to find peace in something outside of myself, and that has never made any sense to me.

Don’t get me wrong, I love my candles and my rocks and my crystals and my altars. I love the rituals and the ceremonies. But that is all stuff to take me back within really. They are just tools.

I don’t care whether it is a traditional God that lives in the sky, or whether it is the moon waning, or mercury in retrograde, to me it is all separate from me, and thus, not where I want to place my attention. That is called duality, and duality has created more problems than just about anything else in this world. A belief in duality says that there is your side, and my side, and then we must take sides. A belief in duality says that I am separate from you, and isn’t that a lonely place to be. A belief in duality says that we can’t get along. A belief in duality says that god is separate from me, wants things from me, does things for me, but only if I am worthy, but really, I’m not worthy at all, because that is the nature of humanity.

None of that has ever made sense to me. What has made sense is oneness.

I have known my entire life that god is a part of me and I am a part of it. I have known this deep inside in the unreachable places, as well as in the more reachable ones. As my life has progressed, I’ve encountered various teachings that implied god was somewhere else besides inside of me, and I’ve sometimes been amused, sometimes not, but always have known, “yes, perhaps, but god is within me.” And this belief and this god has served me well through much.

And when life got to be a bit more painful than I had anticipated, I knew where to go. I knew to go to a place that taught about this god within, and learn more, and connect more, and get a deeper understanding of this god within so that I could feel better about myself and about life.

And before I get too much further into this, I just want to clarify: God is ALL. Everywhere present. Not just within me, but within everything, manifested as everything. It simply is, it is ALL. When I say within, please consider that an encapsulation of this, because this essay is already getting a bit wordy.

I went home, to a place that is currently called the Center for Spiritual Living, but that’s just a new name for a system of teaching and thinking and believing that was first put into words in the 1700s by people like Swedenborg and Mesmer, then by people like Emma Curtis Hopkins and William James and Joel Goldsmith and Christian Larson,, and further refined by Masahauru Taniguchi and Charles and Myrtle Fillmore and Ernest Holmes. All of these great minds and more contributed to a system of spiritual psychology that today is called New Thought. There are several New Thought organizations today, but of course I’m very fond of Centers for Spiritual Living, which was founded by Ernest Holmes in the early 1920s.

We aren’t really a religion, except in the places where we are. We teach more than we preach. We don’t give sermons, we give talks. Our ministers are called Reverend (and I still very much enjoy it when someone says to me, “hey Rev!”) and can do all the stuff other ministers do like weddings and celebrations of life and blessings. We are not exclusively Christian, although we do refer to the Bible frequently, as well as the Torah, the Koran and the wisdom of the Buddhists and the Indians and the Eastern philosophies and the Greek philosophers and the great psychologists. Some of us even embrace the moon waning and mercury in retrograde.

I prefer to keep it simple. I believe in a God within, and that is what I teach. After almost ten years of study, I have this wonderful thing called an accredited Masters Degree, and a license that says I am a minister.

Today I look back on that bleak time in my life and I become grateful for this teaching that empowered me and allowed me to know a deeper understanding of what God is, because that is what ended the bleak time, ultimately.

So if you are seeking something, and you aren’t sure what it is, and you’ve been jumping around from the moon waning to the retrograde mercury to the crystals and candles and the latest New Age fad, or you’ve realized you are tired of being called unworthy because you didn’t do God’s will, or perhaps because none of that stuff makes sense anymore and you still feel like there is something missing, come join us and take a journey within.

I promise you we won’t tell you how to think or belief, but we will give you tools so you can figure it out yourself, and when you do, we will continue to love you and accept you.

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I love the 12 steps. They have made my life what it is, and continue to do so, serving as a strong foundation for everything I do and everything I am. Specifically, the concepts presented in steps 10 and 11.

Yes, 10 and 11 are my foundation, not 1,2 and 3.

Why?

The steps were originally created for people who were in a bad place. The steps are for those who recognize that perhaps it might be time for a change in their lives. We aren’t always going to want such radical change, and those first three steps are pretty radical. Those first three steps are not for the long haul, they are to introduce us to a way of living that works. They are tools to allow me to move beyond the limiting conditions and beliefs that currently affect the conditions in my life.

Step one, in using the terms powerless and unmanageability, is pretty definite about what is happening in our lives. Yet, I can’t tell you how many people I have spoken to who have said, “the steps are not for me, I am not powerless over anything.” In New Thought, we learn that our thoughts are powerful, so the concept of powerlessness goes against everything we believe to be true. But what happens with that is that line of thinking puts up a solid road block to progress.   And people continue to suffer. What is it about that one word, powerlessness, that makes all of our self defense mechanisms stand up and fight for our right to be wrong? Yes, we have power, lots and lots of power, but in terms of the steps, we don’t get that power until step 10, and we certainly don’t have it when a substance has all the power. Our minds are clouded with drugs, alcohol, food, or insane lifestyle choices that limit us, and until we can rid ourselves of that, yes we are powerless. You could say that we are without choice.

Put that first step in New Thought lingo, and it is all about where I want to place my focus. I can focus on fighting against that first drink or drug, saying, “I don’t want to drink” over and over again. We all know where that gets us: drinking! Or, I can say, I want to be sober. And we can envision what sobriety would look like, we can see ourselves as sober people, we can imagine ourselves as non drinkers, we can view with excitement all the gifts a sober life can bring. This is how I did my first step, and when viewed this way, I never needed to revisit it again. I just envision the new way of life, and move on from there.

Steps 2 and 3 are also for beginners, for people new to this way of life. It’s an introduction to a lifestyle. Those steps are saying, find a God, call it whatever you want, and begin to form a relationship with that. And, make a decision.

I don’t know about you, but God has never been separate from me. This is one of the basic fundamental teachings of New Thought: God is not separate from us, but a part of us, and we a part of it. So, turning my will and life over to something within me doesn’t really make a lot of sense. However, making a decision to follow the wisdom of a path, in this case the path carved out by the rest of the steps, makes perfect sense. In doing so, we change our beliefs, our attitudes, and our reactions to life.

I’ll go more into steps 2 and 3 in future posts. For now, I want to go back to the focus of this post, steps 10 and 11 as a foundation for successful living.

Step ten is about self awareness, and Ernest Holmes, in the Science of Mind textbook, talks about inner awareness being a path to divinity, which leads us right to step eleven, where we are urged, every day, to renew and strengthen our relationship with whatever God works for you.

This is where the power and strength lies. This is where the dignity lies. Self-awareness or inner contemplation is recommended by every spiritual path and religion we are aware of. Even if your god is one of science, you will find that simply paying attention to the messages of your body will tell you much about how you are feeling. And knowing how you are feeling is of upmost importance, because when you know how you are feeling, you will be able to track the beliefs that created the feelings, and change them when necessary to ensure maximum good stuff in life.

And step 11 is simply a natural next step after nurturing self-awareness, because it is about nurturing Self-awareness, that God self that is within us.

So, a sort of magical formula would be: go within and nurture your relationship with self, and with Self. That’s with who and what you are, and with the God within. Do this daily. Repeat. And when your awareness tells you that something needs to be changed, change the insides, and the outsides will naturally follow.

More on the magical formula in future posts. You can subscribe to this blog on the right side of the page (below if you are on a mobile device). I look forward to hearing your comments!

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Does your life suck?  Or maybe not all of it sucks, maybe only one aspect sucks.  It doesn't matter:  suckage is suckage, whether it is your entire life or just one part of it.  If you have some suckage going on in your life, the only thing you need to do to begin to change that is acknowledge that you want to change it.

That's it.

The traditional wording of the First Step speaks to powerlessness.  I prefer to look at it this way:  my life sucks and I want to change it.  Then I begin to envision what I want to change it to.  There is no shame here, no blame, and certainly not a lack of power.  It's about focus, and training our minds, and this is the beginning of that process.

This is the beginning of the empowering process that allows us to totally take personal responsibility for our lives.

If this scares you, welcome to my world.  It scared me too.  No longer could I blame the circumstances of my life on God, or someone else, or them, or even alcohol.  Scary, but also a doorway into a life I never dreamed possible.

Someone once told me in a class that if my dreams and visions did not scare me, they weren't big enough.

Life sucked, and at that time my dreams and visions were very small:  start life over again with a new way of living that did not include alcohol and drugs.  It wasn't a matter of hanging my head in shame for being an alcoholic.  It was a matter of refocusing my attention to what I wanted to occur in my life.  I wanted to live differently.

If you want to live differently, then you have made a beginning.  Acknowledge that.  Then begin the process of dreaming big.  Do not deter  your focus from the prize.  Take your focus off a life that sucks and place it on that which you wish to be and do.

I'd love to hear about your journey!