Intuition, From God

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Happy spring! This is my favorite season of the year. Like many other folks, I am always reminded of rebirth and starting anew, fresh. And, sometimes, I really need that reminder… like after two-plus years of much isolation due to the pandemic and feeling a bit stuck.

It was in the beginning of spring of 1990 when I started learning about and practicing the Twelve Steps, and it was truly a rebirth, BIG time. There was so much to learn, so much to incorporate into my life, along with so many supportive people coming into my life. That led to me being more receptive to try out activities that I’d not engaged in before; one of these was yoga.

The corporation I worked for at the time had a fitness center, which in addition to the usual exercise equipment, offered yoga classes, a bit progressive in those days. Not only did I make use of the equipment, which was new, I attended an after-work yoga class.

Emmanuel's BookThe instructor would end the class by having us sit in meditation (yet another new thing for me) for a few minutes, and then close with a reading from ‘some’ book. It turns out he was reading from “Emmanuel’s Book: A Manual for Living Comfortably in the Cosmos” and I was amazed as I listened!

You see, I seemed to already know what I was hearing. But how could that be?! I’d been a devout atheist for close to 20 years, more than half my life—how could such a person know about the spiritual matters Emmanuel spoke about?!

Let me mention, in case you don’t know, that Emmanuel was not in a human body, but channeled through one (Pat Rodegast)—add exposure to such phenomena to my new-to-my-life list!

As I spoke to others further ahead of me on their conscious spiritual journey, I learned that I had that knowledge because this wasn’t my first time living as a human on the planet; and, I was a spiritual being first and for always. That knowledge was within me, intuition, given to me by God, no matter my human belief system. Wow!

This morning I was reminded of the aforementioned when I read the following:

“Intuition is an inner knowledge too easily discounted in our culture.

“The things our intuition tells us are not made up by us. Our intuition arises from the deep well of knowledge that comes from God.

“God offers us the information and guidance we need when we rest our mind and allow the messages to come from within.”

– “In God’s Care*: Daily Meditations on Spirituality in Recovery,” March 20
*As We Understand God

I am reborn during each spring equinox just as I have been reborn into each life throughout eternity. And I’ve never been alone in the cosmos as God gave me inner knowledge and wisdom to draw on regularly. I simply need to trust intuition as another source of Spirit’s guidance.

Pass It On

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Pass It On“When we get interested in spirituality, few of us have any intention of getting carried away with it. We don’t consider ourselves holy. We want simply to make use of the power we have learned is available to us for the asking. But once embarked on this spiritual journey, we find that something is required of us. The love, the peace, and the joy that come to us —we have to pass on.”

– “In God’s Care*: Daily Meditations on Spirituality in Recovery,” March 19
*As We Understand God

The above passage has been true for me. I got into recovery seeking help with my eating disorder. That help came through in the form of the Twelve Steps, which included finding a Power greater than myself and being involved in the fellowship. Hence, I embarked—more like was thrust (happily)—onto my conscious spiritual journey.

At that time, I had barely even heard the word ‘spirituality’ and surely did not see myself as holy nor expected my life to change in all areas except hopefully in the food department. Yet, with God as my focal point, a guide in to how to live (Twelve Steps), and supportive folks, my psyche, and therefore my life, was wonderfully transformed. I just naturally wanted to pass on the love, the peace, and the joy that had come to me. I wanted everyone to experience the rich life that I came to have. I also needed to pass it on, as part of Step Twelve to carry the message to others in the same predicament, and to keep the organization thriving so it would continue to be there for myself and others.

The love, the peace, and the joy that came to me: I am so delighted and grateful to pass it on. Thank You, Spirit!

Expectancy

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expectancy

“We are dealing with a creative Power that acts upon our thinking…It operates upon us like all other forces of nature. With this in mind, we have every right to expect all that is desirable.

“The creative Power is always reacting to us as we act in It. It is always creating in our bodies and in our affairs. Consequently, we should all learn to live in a state of joyous and enthusiastic expectancy… Nothing is too good to be true. Nothing is too much to ask of that Power that can do anything.”

– “365 Science of Mind: A Year of Daily Wisdom from Ernest Holmes,” March 18

 

“Knowing the impossibility of lack and limitation, I now declare the Spirit within abundant and prosperous.

“This life gives back to me everything I give of myself.”

– “Science of Mind Magazine,” March 18, 2022

When I was growing up, if I was excited about some situation or some opportunity that seemed absolutely perfect and fabulous, I was often told “it must be too good to be true.” What a depressing way to look at life and the world!

We have a Power that can accomplish anything! Coming into the New Thought movement, I was delighted to hear “Nothing is too good to be true.”

I feel uplifted knowing there is a creative Power that can accomplish anything. But what It accomplishes is dependent on my mindset as It reacts to my thoughts and beliefs. Cause and effect. If I want more love, fun, money, or anything else in my life, I must believe it is possible. Expect it, welcome it, feel enthusiasm for it because that adds more power to it coming into being.

But I think the final key is that what I put into life is what will be given back to me.

If I want more love, I must be more loving. If I want to have more abundance in my life, I must be more generous in giving to others my time, talents, and treasure. As I sow, so shall I reap. As I sow, I joyously expect that which is to come.

In my rich and blessed life, with joyous expectancy I generously share what I possess, and that which I desire is returned unto me. Thank You, Creative Power!

God’s Direction

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God's Direction“Each of us brings different gifts along on our journey… We don’t, however, always know how to use them. Some people seem to know how to put their talents to good use. Many of us botch them until we get help from God, who gave them to us.

“Each of our talents has a purpose. We weren’t given them by accident… But we don’t live up to our potential without God’s direction.”

I put my talents in God’s hands so that I can live at full capacity.

– “In God’s Care*: Daily Meditations on Spirituality in Recovery,” March 17
*As We Understand God

I am clear that we each have talents and gifts unique to just us. I discovered more of mine when I got into Twelve Step program and got to practice Step 12, “Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to compulsive overeaters and to practice these principles in all our affairs.”

This step is about being of service, volunteering, and sharing your time, gifts, and talents. When called to give of myself to keep the organization operating, to strengthen my recovery, as well as to show my gratitude, I was pushed to learn new skills, try out new things, and see what dwelled deeper within me. My creativity was revealed, as was my strong administrative skills, and my knack for bringing people together through producing and facilitating events.

Like John Denver sings in Heart to Heart, “I haven’t quite been around the world, but I’ve been around the block…” I have gone through quite a number of revolutions around the sun. Yet still, with my eclectic educational background, career adventures, and life experience, I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up!

Here I am in my sixth decade of life, and I’m still trying to figure out what it is that I was destined to contribute uniquely to the world, to realize my potential. Like all things in life, it is always best to consult Spirit for guidance and direction. I get distracted by everyday life, and before you know it, the years have gone by.

It’s time again for me to ask God’s direction specifically as to what I am meant to do, to be. What path am I to follow so that I make use of my talents and fully live up to my potential.

I am excited. I am eager. I am grateful.

Early Evening Serenity

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Early Evening Serenity

Photo and verse by James Milsted

This evening I came upon the above quote and image and it was perfect for where my heart and soul are right now. After today’s occurrences and emotions, early evening serenity is most welcomed and soothing.

It made me think about The Serenity Prayer, the first prayer I uttered in the Twelve Step rooms, when I starting coming to believe.

God grant me the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can, and
Wisdom to know the difference.

This often-recited prayer in the rooms is an excerpt from a longer prayer commonly attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr. It is considered a Christian prayer, and although its origins are a bit unclear, its impacts are not. The Serenity Prayer serves as a focal point for the very spirit of the Twelve Step program. You can see that even more so in the longer version, which speaks of living “one day at a time,” a hugely powerful slogan heard regularly, even said by folks not in the Twelve Step program.

There are numerous variations of the long version; here’s one:

God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference.

Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardships as the pathway to peace;
Taking, as He did, this sinful world
As it is, not as I would have it;
Trusting that He will make things right
If I surrender to His Will;
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life
And supremely happy with Him
Forever and ever in the next.
Amen.

I am grateful for this prayer to help me with my evening serenity.

 

Getting Back to Joy

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Getting Back to Joy Board

Click on the image to see a clearer, larger view…

Ever feeling down in the dumps for no reason? I know there are plenty of reasons these days to not feel quite like oneself or joyful… plenty of external circumstances, that is.

I know joy comes from within, where loving Spirit resides. Still, sometimes I really need to pull myself out of a funk. I can do that by listening and singing to music, reading, or getting outdoors in the fresh air and sunshine, to name a few ways.

An additional way I can shift my energy and help me access my joy is to look at the final project I created for my recent “A Consciousness of Joy” class. It’s sort of like a vision board; it contains images and words that make me smile, sometimes make me laugh, helping me back on the road to joy.

Looking at it also reminds me of the fun I had making it, being creative, and playful, which doesn’t happen often enough.

Another tool in my arsenal for getting back to joy is reading and affirming powerful statements of Truth like the following:

“Declare further, “Everything necessary to the full and complete expression of the most boundless experience of joy is mine now.” Know this, see it, feel it, and BE it.”

– “The Science of Mind,” by Ernest Holmes, page 290

And so it is!

 

Communicating with Humans vs. Spirit

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Communicating with humans is a challenge.

My team works remotely and sometimes we don’t connect for days at a time. On Friday, I noticed one colleague I’ll call Cathi, a project manager, was offline, but I didn’t want to text her privately. I figured she’d decided to take the day off, either to just relax or perhaps to provide some extra emotional support to her mom who is first generation American from Ukraine and, not surprisingly, especially distressed these days.

This morning, Cathi wasn’t online again. And then, I and the other two members of my team got a meeting invitation from another manager with an agenda stating it was to introduce herself to us. Uh-oh. Turns out we had a new manager and Cathi had been let go with no notice; what a shock. We are all contractors with the same staffing agency and the new manager thought we’d been told—ha! Corporate America strikes again with lack of transparency and courtesy!

But it’s just not them. I was involved in another situation over the weekend where the other person refused to speak to me honorably.

Communicating

Communicating with humans is such a challenge—it doesn’t seem to matter that we have additional devices and technology that didn’t exist a couple decades ago like email. cell phones, text messages, chats, social media, and anything else you can think of. It’s not like people have gotten any better with being respectful in sharing information or being honest nor have improved their skills to clearly convey what they mean and understand others.

There seems to be a lack of courage, honesty, courtesy, and authenticity in interacting with others. Relationships are the most important thing in life and are forged with clear communication. Without that, the chance of meaningful, trustworthy, and authentic relationships is unlikely. And, that serves no one well and bodes ill for the future of the planet.

I personally strive to stay in integrity and use language, be it the written word or verbally, to clearly communicate and be authentic with whomever I interact. And when I fall short, I make amends to remedy the situation and strengthen the relationship. I must say though, that as of late, I wonder if it’s worth it to put my whole, authentic self out there to try to build human relationships when so many people are sloppy in their communication skills and are not in integrity.

Thank heaven I can always be my whole, authentic self with Spirit. And, we can communicate through literature, prayer, meditation, song, and more. I know that Spirit is all-loving, all-peaceful, and wants only the best for me. There is no questioning of motives, there is no insincerity, no dishonesty. Spirit is Truth.

Spiritually Alert

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“God speaks to us in many ways at many times. If we are spiritually alert, we will know it when it happens.”

– “In God’s Care*: Daily Meditations on Spirituality in Recovery,” March 13
*As We Understand God

When I joined a Twelve Step program, I had no problem admitting I was powerless over food and my life was unmanageable. That took care of Step One.

But as a devout atheist, I really had to read a lot, speak with many people (inside and outside of the rooms) in order to take Step Two: Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

I had always been looking for hard evidence to prove the existence of God—even as an atheist! If you could prove God’s existence to me, I would have become a theist on the turn of a dime! But no one could prove God’s existence with scientific evidence. Still, I needed help with my eating disorder and had to somehow come to believe in a Power greater than myself, which the Judeo-Christian traditions called God.

One of the most important ideas for me espoused in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous is found on page 12: a friend suggested to Bill Wilson (who would go on to co-found Alcoholics Anonymous), “Why don’t you choose your own conception of God?” It was quite a novel idea to Bill and surely was to me too! I thought religions defined what God was, and I had had no interest in what they had to say. In addition, the Big Book told me I could choose my own name for this concept too! The aforementioned gave me the freedom to open up to come to believe in something greater than myself that could restore me to sanity.

I read a lot of Twelve Step and other spiritual literature. I listened to people in the program recovering from their drug of choice and learned how that in turn impacted the rest of their lives positively. Their lives were manageable, actually far more: they were “happy, joyous and free.” I started getting an idea of this Power greater than oneself, realizing these huge changes in individuals’ lives were miracles. These shifts and transformations were the result of working and practice the Twelve Steps, which of course included relying on a Power greater than oneself.

AlertSo how did I finally actually come to believe? I stayed alert to God, to Spirit, the main go-to name I chose for this Power greater than myself. Spirit spoke to me mainly through synchronicity, in brief, the idea that there are no such things as coincidences. Synchronicity, coined by Dr. Carl Jung in the 1920s or early 30s, describes circumstances that appear meaningfully related yet lack a causal connection. Incredible, no discernable causal connection?! A simple example is repeatedly seeing a word and looking for connection and meaning in that experience. Read the famous scarab example that occurred while Dr. Jung was treating a patient.

I stayed alert to Spirit and experienced this phenomenon of synchronicity time and again. Somehow Something had to be orchestrating this. Some very powerful circumstances occur and I simply had to admit a Power greater than myself was involved in it all. Hence, it was mainly through synchronicity that I came to believe. It was the evidence I’d been looking for to prove the existence of God—I’d just been looking for evidence from an incorrect perspective.

I continue stay spiritually alert to the universe’s messages and synchronicities, which grow my faith in this Power greater than myself and conveys to me that I am not alone.

Resentment is Deadly

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I have a resentment. That is deadly for me.

I don’t get them often anymore; perhaps that’s due to reduced interaction with people since COVID entered our lives two years ago 😊. However, I’d like to think that my consistent spiritual practices have kept me in good stead.

I had volunteered to train Sally (name changed) for a task she was assigned to at her job. I don’t know her well, but she seemed enthusiastic and even grateful. We went ahead and set an appointment on a weekend day when I would be off from my own job. When the appointment day arrived, she never showed and never called me. I got concerned that perhaps she was ill, there was an emergency, or the like. I waited a couple days to see if she would contact me, and when she didn’t, I called her office. Someone else answered the phone and said Sally was there, couldn’t talk, and would call me back. When I didn’t hear back within a couple days, I called again; this time I left a voicemail. I never received a call back.

The following day I saw a copy of the completed work project that I was supposed to help Sally to accomplish—I was shocked! Good for her. Regardless of how she accomplished that feat, I still haven’t heard a word from her. I know my ego is having a field day with this. Character and ethics are hugely important to me, so my mind is also thinking about the lack of respect towards me, her not acting responsibly, good communication, and the like.

But with my ego on top of mind, I just want peace. Thank heaven I am no longer used to carrying resentments and I am used to peace and serenity.

So what to do about my resentment? I am grateful I am grounded in the Twelve Step philosophy, which guides me in interactions with people and situations. Here’s the solution provided in the main text of Alcoholics Anonymous, fondly known as the Big Book:

Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous“If you have resentment you want to be free of, if you will pray for the person or thing that you resent, you will be free. If you will ask in prayer for everything you want for yourself to be given to them, you will be free. Ask for their health, their prosperity, their happiness, and you will be free. Even when you don’t really want it for them and your prayers are only words and you don’t mean it, go ahead and do it anyway. Do it every day for two weeks, and you will find you have come to mean it and to want it for them, and you will realize that where you used to feel bitterness and resentment and hatred, you now feel compassionate understanding and love.”

– “Alcoholics Anonymous,” Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc., Fourth Edition, page 552

So that is what I am doing, praying for this person so that my soul is at peace. In the past, hanging onto a resentment, led me to hitting the food, binging. Of course, that was no solution at all; it never resolved my feelings towards the person and in fact added to my burden with feelings of guilt and remorse because I’d overeaten. Not to mention the physical repercussions.

These days, I have the Twelve Steps that provide a plan for living. I have other spiritual tools from other philosophies as well. But, first and foremost, I have a Power greater than myself that is ever-present and loving, and restores me to peace and sanity. I am so grateful beyond words.

The Gift and the Giver

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Gift from the heart“There can be no real gift unless the giver goes with it. Giving includes more than the giving of money or things; it includes the giving of service or whatever we have to others, but always the gift and the giver must go hand in hand. The surrender of everything we have and everything we are into the joy of its own self-expression—this is the way God gives. This is the way we should give.”

— “365 Science of Mind: A Year of Daily Wisdom from Ernest Holmes,” March 11

Ya know, I really do get joy from giving of myself. I get to do so on a weekly basis at the very least, when I tithe to those people and organizations that nourish my spirit. Writing a check (signed by “Joyce S. Kaye and Spirit”) with a note to an individual expressing my gratitude increases the giving. Even when searching for a greeting card, I put my whole self into the task, being present through the One Mind with the intended recipient and feeling joy. The gift and the giver are one.

I express my authenticity as well open myself up to being vulnerable if, for instance, the person or organization doesn’t like what I’ve gifted. Knowing I did the best I could, was thoughtful, generous, and expressed caring and love, I release the situation to the Universe.

I no longer give a gift from obligation as I might have years ago; that kind of energy serves no one. It must be heartfelt and given with enthusiasm (“with God”)— then it blesses all the involved parties. This, of course, is also true when I volunteer to be of service, I must be committed and serve with joy.

There can be no real gift unless the giver goes with it—I and the gift are one.