Tag Archives: change

What Just Happened?

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Many across the United States and the world are in a period of shock as we take in and process what just happened in our recent elections. The result was surprising and has left most of us trying to understand what this means for us. This seems to be true even if our candidate won. President-elect Trump was a different kind of candidate than any in my lifetime.

Regardless of political affiliation, including those with no party affiliation, it seems we are all being called to something. If this recent election is symbolized by anything, it seems to be a desire for great change. My recent blog, The Deeper Call of the Election, turned out to be quite prophetic in retrospect as I spoke of this desire for change as the reason why such different candidates as Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump gained popularity.

In discussion since the election, someone made the point that many argued that Donald Trump’s supporters included many who were uneducated, implying that those with less education somehow don’t deserve to be heard. Embarrassingly, I had to acknowledge that I was one who had referenced this fact.

Another wake up call for me was when I spoke to two young gay men in their twenties in Denver, a rather liberal city. They indicated they had voted for Donald Trump and I literally thought they were joking as they did not fit my profile of a Trump supporter in any way. What was the reason for their vote? They feel the country needs a major change.

This brought home to me what I had already wrote about – this is a time ripe for change as so many people are no longer willing to accept the status quo.

While some who voted for Trump may share some of his more extreme views that could be interpreted as racist, sexist, or otherwise discriminatory, it is hard to ignore this greater phenomenon of people insisting and demanding that we create a different kind of world.

It seems that our future hangs in the balance and each one of us is called to ask what kind of world we want to create. While many are anxious about what the President-elect will do once in office, rather than give in to fear, our energies are more worthy of being focused on what this is calling each of us to step up to.

Certainly, we should be vigilant and stand up to anything that would roll back progress around equality or in any other arena. At the same time, I believe the greater call is to take the opportunity to see where we each are not fully stepping up to fulfilling our own calling.

Many whom I’ve talked to are now feeling and acting on a greater sense of urgency and immediacy to usher in a world that represents the highest of what we want to create. It has been said that nature abhors a vacuum, and, in this atmosphere that is so ripe for change, there will likely be great change. Therefore, this is not a time to stand on the sidelines. Rather it is a time to be active with our voices, our actions, and our spiritual practice.

While the process of creation is not often comfortable, if we can open ourselves to the great possibilities that lay before us and replace resistance to change with active participation in change, it can also be a very exciting time.

With candidate Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote, Donald Trump winning the electoral college vote based on voting by state, Bernie Sanders winning a significant percentage of votes in the primaries, third party candidates Jill Stein and Gary Johnson getting significant interest, and President Barack Obama leaving office with a high approval rating, there is no mandate for anyone.

Let us join in prayer and action to create a world that works for everyone.

Enjoy the journey.

Evolution, Not Resolution

macchu pichu guide

Many speak of the value of darkness during the winter solstice. And the darkness truly is valuable. As Rickie Byars Beckwith sings in one of her songs, “the seed will need the darkness to change into new life.” What is also valuable about the winter solstice is the return of the light. As we pass the longest night and the shortest day, each day reveals more light.

As we come into this new year, it is a good time to ask ourselves, what kind of world are we choosing to create – not out there, but in here, deep within our own being.

We can begin to engage our imagination to see a greater possibility. In seeing that greater possibility, feeding it with our love and attention, and taking whatever steps are ours to take, we begin fashioning a new world.

It is so easy to just continue with past patterns and to believe that our past experiences define us, or that we are limited by them. A new year is a great time to break free from the past. In my experience, “resolutions” are not the best way to do that. I was joking with some friends recently about how crowded the gyms and fitness clubs are in January. By February, they’re back to “normal” levels.

No, it’s not by resolving to do something different that we evolve. It is by thoughtfully and prayerfully considering what is, and what is not, serving us and by beginning to truly release what no longer serves. This makes room for newness and we can fill that extra space in our consciousness with new intentions. We then align our actions with those intentions.

Without this clear inner look, where we honestly face ourselves in the mirror, look ourselves in the eye, and tell the truth about where we are, we are setting ourselves up to remain stuck. It is like trying on a new winter coat without taking the old one off – it doesn’t fit and it just makes us uncomfortable.

When we honestly look at ourselves in the mirror with the eyes of love, rather than self-criticism, we see a beautiful evolving being. There is nothing to fix, so no resolutions are needed. What we see are the next indicated steps along our path of evolution. And just as we must take off our old winter coat to put on a new one, we must release what no longer serves in order to put on new intentions.

While change can seem difficult, it is much easier when we realize we are not truly losing anything. We are replacing our old tattered coat with a brand new one. While we may be sentimental about our old coat, it is time to let it go.

When we do feel attached to people, situations, ideas, beliefs or ways of being and doing, we can create simple releasing rituals to honor the value they have had for us. For example, we can light a candle and spend some moments giving voice to our gratitude and symbolically releasing what no longer serves. In our rituals, we can also include accepting and embracing the new, what we are now choosing to step into.

Consciously making changes in our lives always involves releasing the old and embracing the new. There is always a letting go and an embracing. When we clearly and consciously make powerful choices, we might back pedal a little, but there is no turning back because we see, we know, and we choose our soul’s evolution over holding on to the restless comfort of yesterday’s joy.

Enjoy the journey.

The Breakthrough

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About 20 years ago I experienced financial challenges after leaving a corporate career to better align my activities with what I was beginning to see as my higher purpose. I was new to spiritual principles of prosperity at the time, but I was very committed to my spiritual study and practice. As I continued to move through the financial challenges, one morning I awoke suddenly at three or four o’clock with a very exciting thought: what I had previously believed about limitations on how I could make a living were not part of my conscious beliefs at any level.

I literally jumped out of bed and began celebrating as if I had won the lottery. In a way, I did, because when we completely transform limiting beliefs, a whole new world is opened to us. I felt a renewed sense of freedom even though the appearance was that I had not completely put the financial challenges behind me. My excitement was due to knowing that the thought patterns that created the challenges no longer existed, therefore the challenges could not continue for much longer.

In fact, a few short months later, the financial challenges were completely behind me.

Our breakthrough comes not when things change in the exterior, but when we have a revolution in our thinking and in our being. It is only a shift in our underlying beliefs and thought patterns that creates lasting external change. The slogan for Centers for Spiritual Living, the New Thought spiritual community of which I am part, at one time was “Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life.” It is as relevant today as it ever was.

Often there’s a tendency to exert our energies mainly on the external effects in an attempt to get our breakthrough. That is well and good as far as it goes, however, unless there is a shift on the interior of our being, we will usually end up creating the same or a similar challenge all over again. Lasting change comes from that deeper work that we do in prayer, meditation, contemplation, study, and through consciously aligning with higher intentions.

Some might ask, “How do I know what my underlying beliefs and thought patterns have been?” The simplest approach is to look at what has repeatedly shown up in our life. For example, if we have experienced multiple relationships where our potential mate is unavailable, a good place to start would be, where am I unavailable? Where do I have a set of beliefs and attitudes that represent unavailability?

The breakthrough comes when we interrupt existing thought patterns, when we introduce a new idea, release old ways of thinking and being, and make a new commitment to a higher choice.

Often the most challenging step is releasing the old. There can be a tendency to want to just add newness without releasing anything. Usually, this doesn’t work. Stepping into something new almost always involves letting go of something old. The scripture that admonishes not to pour new wine into old wine skins is right on point.

Five Common things to release are:

  1. A particular perspective or belief that is no longer serving us;
  2. Old hurts and wounds (by beginning the process of forgiveness);
  3. Attachment to something in the material world;
  4. Habitual ways of doing things;
  5. The idea that our current situation is “just the way life is.”

The most important thing to remember is that we are always at choice and our choices matter. When we decide to have a change, that is the beginning of a change occurring.

Enjoy the journey.

See It, Feel It, Be It!

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Philosopher Ernest Holmes said, “The limit of our ability to demonstrate depends upon our ability to provide a mental equivalent of our desires, for the law of correspondence works from the belief to the thing.” By “ability to demonstrate” he meant our ability to manifest something or bring it forth in our lives.

A mental equivalent can also be described as an inner embodiment that corresponds to what we want to manifest. We start with the end in mind and then we explore what would be an inner likeness to what we want to experience in the outer.

Before going too much further into it, let me share a personal story. This is a case where I manifested something I did not want to experience, and yet it highlights how what we become on the inner manifests in our lives. Years ago, I used to play basketball. I wasn’t the best player, but I enjoyed playing. One day as I was heading to the gym to play, I thought, with strong feeling, “Why am I even going to the basketball court? I’m not even any good.” Upon arriving at the gym, the first person I encountered quickly snapped at me, saying “Why are you even here? You’re no good.” My first thought was “how dare someone speak to me that way.” Before I could offer a retort, I remembered that I talked to myself that way. My own inner dialogue and feelings about myself had quickly manifested in the outer.

Manifestations don’t always happen this quickly, but this example shows how powerful we are. We manifest in our lives what we become within ourselves. What we become represents our predominant way of thinking and feeling, which in turn becomes our vibration. Our vibration is what attracts or brings forth what we experience in life.

The law of correspondence, to which Ernest Holmes refers, is the nature of life, and our experience of it, to correspond to what we become.

How Do We Build A Better Mental Equivalent?
A short way of thinking of it is: see it, feel it, be it. First, we begin to see ourselves having or doing what we want. Then we use our imagination to create the feeling we would have if we were experiencing what we want, and we allow ourselves to feel that right now, as the vibration that will create or attract it. Thirdly, we start to be the way we would be if our desire were fulfilled. We walk the way we would walk, and we talk correspondingly, and align all of our other actions and ways of being with how we would be were our desire fulfilled. In other words, we are becoming the thing before we even see it manifested.

By becoming the thing first, we draw it into our experience. Similar to how I created the undesired experience of receiving an unflattering comment at the gym, we also can consciously create the experience we want through the same law of correspondence.

If we want to manifest our perfect employment, we begin to get a picture in our mind of what that would look like. Would it be an office job, or outdoors, or one where we are working more independently? We see it. Then, as we see ourselves in this perfect employment, we allow ourselves to feel the joy, the sense of fulfillment and empowerment, the feeling of our creativity being expressed, and any other feelings that come forth as we engage our imagination while seeing ourselves in this perfect employment. Finally, we start to be all that the perfect employment entails. If there are particular skills needed, we acquire those skills. If there is a way of dressing, perhaps we begin to move our wardrobe in that direction. If there are publications commonly read by those in that employment, we begin to read those. We become it, before having the thing. And, soon enough, we do have it.

See it, feel it, be it. It’s yours!

Enjoy the journey.

Is It Time to Make a Change?

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by Gregory Toole

Making a major change in life is not something to be taken lightly. It is wisely done with great care, vision and forethought. At some point, the moment arrives when we are called to make a leap, a stretch into the unknown, or the lesser known.

It is this time that requires us to summon our courage, to move out of any inertia that might keep us stuck in what is comfortable. It is easy for us to rationalize staying where we are, sticking it out, or finding a way for minor modifications to make our existing circumstances more palatable or enjoyable. These rational choices may be perfect for us, unless we are ignoring or avoiding a greater calling into newness, perhaps from fear because the change represents a significant departure from where we’ve been.

Sometimes there is something that just won’t let us go. We may have tried to let it go, forget about it, or ignore it, and yet somehow it keeps coming back into our minds and hearts. It is a pull from somewhere deeper within us that wants us to go for more, that urges us to be larger, to not settle. It is the thing that we simply must do if we are to be at peace with ourselves, if we are to feel fulfilled in our authentic purpose.

Years ago when I was completing a master’s degree, the former presidential candidate, Ross Perot, came to speak at our school. This was prior to him running for president. Back then he was mainly known as a successful businessperson. It surprised me, being that he was a billionaire, that he told us to do the thing that we absolutely must do, the thing we can’t not do. That really moved me and I never forgot it.

While there are no easy answers to what is the right timing to make a major change, here are five questions to ask yourself that might help you decide:

  1. Is there a goal or vision that keeps coming up no matter how hard you’ve tried to ignore it?
  2. Have you postponed something for so long that continuing to postpone it is having an adverse effect on your energy and your sense of well-being?
  3. Are you at a point where your energy is not being directed into what feels authentic to you?
  4. Do you feel that you’ve played it safe for an extended period of time?
  5. Do you get excited, feel expanded or energized when you think about making the change?

Your yeses to these questions may indicate that it’s time to make that change. Only you know. Follow your divine wisdom, the wisdom of your heart. When the clear “yes” comes, go for it!

Enjoy the journey!

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Finding Security in a Rapidly Changing World

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by Gregory Toole

Someone said to me early in my career, “Your security is in yourself, not a particular job.” That turned out to be very wise counsel. It led me to focus on developing myself – my skills, knowledge, and inner resources. That way I was making myself valuable rather than holding the value as something that is received from the outside.

In today’s world that seems even more important. Employers today often hire temporary or shorter-term help. Technology is changing so rapidly that skill-sets quickly become outdated. Whole industries come and go in a much shorter span of time than in the past.

Rapid change is also a reality in so many other areas of life, such as relationships, health, and finance. Traditional ideas of relationships, dating, and marriage have changed dramatically, such that one who is newly single might feel a bit lost. In the field of health, there are so many alternative treatments and approaches. In finance, the defined benefit retirement plans that our parents and grandparents relied on for their future financial security are, for the most part, relics of the past.

The early advice I received, that our security is in ourselves, turns out to be consistent with the spiritual truth of how life unfolds from the inside outward. It speaks to that divine creative power within all of us that, no matter what our situation is, responds to what we give our attention to in consciousness. Ernest Holmes, founder of the Science of Mind philosophy said, “Principle is not bound by precedent.” There is a divine creative principle that only responds to what we believe and intend today, and responds to all alike no matter what mistakes, missteps, or missed opportunities we might have experienced before.

Spiritually, our opportunity is to begin today right where we are to fashion a new experience for ourselves. With work and employment, we can begin to design, with our imagination, a new way that we show up that highlights our value and leads to being well-compensated. In relationship, we can begin to cultivate love within ourselves and begin to recognize our own and others’ divine nature. In health, we can build on our sense of wholeness and lean into that inner divine wisdom to discern what is good for us. With finances, we may deepen our understanding that the source of all of our good is one divine source, manifesting in the world through one channel or another.

Once we recognize that our security is in us, then we are called to go in us more deeply, and more often. If it is in us, then why would we be looking for it outside ourselves? Going more deeply into ourselves is accomplished through more dedicated spiritual practice, including daily meditation, affirmative prayer, and being in spiritual community.

Before we say we don’t have time for these things, remember that the remedy for what ails us is in us. So we can think about all the time we spend on things outside ourselves, then choose to let go of some of those things in favor of the inward spiritual practice that will really make a difference in our lives.

Here are three simple practices that could have a major impact on your well-being and prosperity:

  1. Sit daily in silence for at least 15 minutes. Dedicate that time to simply communing with your divine nature. It is sacred time to just be. This time in meditation creates the spaciousness for more grace to operate in your life, thus moving you out of struggle.
  2. After your meditation, ask yourself what is it you are called to bring into your manifest world. Then in your mind and inner being, begin to claim that thing as yours now. Say “I am one with the divine whole. I deserve this good. I accept this good. I allow this good in my life. I am grateful for it. I let it be.” That’s your affirmative prayer.
  3. Find a spiritual community that resonates with you and regularly spend time with people who align with you and support you in your intentions. Notice when opportunities represent answered prayer, and act upon them right now.

Enjoy the journey, knowing you are safe and secure in the awareness and reliance on your great inner divine strength and creativity.

How to Be A Master Change Agent

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by Gregory Toole

Once when I was about to take on a leadership position with a global spiritual organization, a veteran of the organization congratulated me on my new role, then said, “You won’t change anything.” Upon hearing that, I was a bit perplexed as I have never been anywhere that I didn’t change something. In fact, my experience is that just the presence of someone new in a group changes things.

Ironically, by the time I left the position, we had changed so many things that many felt we had made too many changes. But that’s what happens when we embrace change – we are able to navigate major change as a regular course of things, albeit change may still bring about some feelings of temporary discomfort.

Being a ‘master change agent,’ in many ways, is something to which we are all called. After all, who among us is immune to change? In fact, who among us isn’t constantly experiencing change? Rather than resist this ever-present phenomenon, our spiritual journey is really about mastering it.

How do we master change? The first step is to acknowledge that change is the natural order of things. The next step is to embrace it. With these two steps, we are 80% of the way, if not more, toward mastering change. The last 20% involves practice and seeing more deeply into the nature of change.

The practice is simply continuously returning to steps one and two: recognizing that change is the natural order of things and embracing change as it is happening.

Looking more deeply into the nature of change, we see that its true purpose is to further our spiritual growth. Change moves us out of our comfort zone, out of our place of inertia. It causes us to reach deeper into our inner resources to discover those that we previously did not know existed. It calls on the infinite divine creativity within us to bring forth newness of form, which is in alignment with our evolutionary nature as spiritual beings having a human experience.

As we are moved out of our comfort zone, we discover that we are bigger than we formerly realized. We find that our gifts can be given and received more fully than previously.

Here are the ten essential traits and behaviors of a master change agent:

  1. They embrace change as natural and good.
  2. They are continuously inquiring into what is moving within them that is wanting more outward expression.
  3. They look at how what is moving in them is connected to what is moving in the world around them.
  4. They acknowledge and address underlying feelings of fear and resistance that might block effective change.
  5. They constantly push themselves out of inertia and into newness.
  6. They acknowledge their biases and then honestly consider other points of view and perspectives.
  7. They look beyond “comfort” to discover a greater good that can be served by change.
  8. They use their own sense of clarity and wisdom about the nature of change to support and guide others through the change process.
  9. They get help in areas where change takes them beyond their current skills or competencies.
  10. They focus their creative energies on new and original ideas that take themselves and their organizations into bold evolutionary directions.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to be a master change agent. You have what it takes, and the world needs you!

Enjoy the journey.

Do You Embrace Change?

Fleur -Amélie Soullier

by Gregory Toole

What does it take for you to change? For many it takes an emergency or crisis before they’ll consider changing. For others, they’ll change, even if reluctantly, when they begin to see the necessity for it. Then there are those who seek, or even crave, change. Where do you fit along this spectrum?

I will confess that I am one who seeks change and have even made changes in my life just for the sake of change. Once, in my 20s, I even changed my residence just because I felt like I was in a rut. Perhaps that was a bit extreme.

Since most of us know that change is the one constant in life, why haven’t we collectively come closer to mastering it, or at least being more comfortable with it? There is something in our human makeup (some might call it the ego) that resists change, until some conscious or unconscious shifts leads us to embrace change.

For the past 20 years I have been part of a global spiritual community that is all about change. A large part of the philosophy taught in the community is about the power that we have to create, or at least co-create, the kind of change we want in our lives. Even though this has been a large part of the teaching, one might be surprised to find that many in the community still struggle with and resist change. This is another example of how navigating change is a big part of this human journey.

Ultimately, I have found that consciously embracing change is what allows it to be a joyous and positive experience. What are the benefits of embracing change? The first is that it’s going to happen anyway, whether we embrace it or not. Embracing it is a much more pleasant experience than resisting it. But there are many other benefits, such as:

  • Allowing us to be more in the flow of life, opening the way for more ease and grace.
  • Providing us the opportunity to co-create how change takes place. Since we are going with it, we usually notice areas where we have choice.
  • Becoming proficient at adapting to change through practice, thus allowing us to reap the greatest benefits of new changes.
  • Opening us to deeper understanding about the nature of change, which allows us to then become master change agents in our own lives and in our world.
  • Gaining some mastery with change so that when major change happens, we are much more equipped to navigate it.

How could you embrace change more to reap its many benefits? A good start is to acknowledge and accept where we are now with change. Then we can ask our inner divine wisdom for guidance on what ways we could embrace change further. Thirdly, we can develop some daily practices or actions to support our intentions.

Change is your friend, if you first befriend change.

Enjoy the journey!

Doing It Differently in 2015

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by Gregory Toole

As we journey into this new year, many of us envision so much more for our lives. The beginning of a year is a great time to give thanks for what has been, and to look forward to experiencing more fully the vision for our lives.

But how do we do it differently? There is an inherent inertia in the human experience that seems to sabotage most people within a week or two of the new year, when old habits and patterns seem to resurface and we are right back where we were despite our best intentions and great hopes for something better.

Doing it differently really begins with being different. Anything else is just window dressing as the saying goes. So what does it mean to be different, and how do we be different? Being different requires a fundamental shift at the feeling level of our being. Rather than just setting a goal to be, do, or have something different, we enter into the vibration of the newness that we desire.

The vibration of what we desire is the feeling tone of it. We need to ask ourselves, what would it feel like to be, do, or have the desired good? When we uncover how we would feel if what we want were real right now, then we enter into that feeling. We evoke that feeling within us right now through the use of our imagination. The more we can feel that right now, the more real it becomes for us. In doing so, we are aligning with the vibration of our desired good.

The vibration about which I am speaking is the invisible substance that now takes form as we align with it. It is the substance that is spoken of in the scripture from Hebrews 11:1, “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” We have evidence of our good before it even arrives through our experience of its vibration. We are already experiencing it at a feeling level, so we have evidence that it is real. Aligning with the vibration is what actually brings the “substance” of it into form.

The more we align with the vibration, or feeling tone, of that which we desire, the more we become something different. And when we become something different, now our life will change in the direction of what we have become.

The human inertia that might have set in when we only worked on the outer with our goals is now neutralized, because at a deep level we truly are different as we move toward our goals, intentions, or resolutions.

The real beauty is that by becoming something different, we not only have the power to transform ourselves, but also to transform our world.

Happy New You! It is already turning out to be a great year!

Love and blessings,
Gregory

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