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Special Relationships

Most of our relationships are based on the belief that we are not whole, that we are missing some vital piece of ourselves, and that we can get that missing part if we just hook up with the right person.  We seldom are aware, on a conscious level, just what it is that we are missing. So here we are with this fuzzy idea that something is missing and that someone else can complete us. I don?t know how we expect to find that missing piece when we don?t even know what it looks like.

The reason we feel incomplete is because we feel separate from God. I am a child of God, created by Him, created in His image and after His likeness. And yet, am I truly comfortable with that definition of myself, or do I try to keep a barrier between me and my Creator? Because if I do, if I think there should be some gap between us, a place where neither God is, nor am I, then I am going to feel incomplete, less than whole.

And so that is why I spend my life trying to achieve that sense of wholeness. I look for ways to identify myself as a whole person. I try to become special in whatever way I think will work. Most of us start out dreaming of success and wind up settling for much less, but always we seek for some elusive thing that says I am special in some way. Some people look for specialness on the other side of the street. I am especially bad, or especially lost, especially dysfunctional.

Our true identity as a child of God needs nothing to improve upon it. It is complete in itself, but how many of us believe in our true self, the perfect self that God created? If that person is listening to this sermon, you can just take a little nap, because I?m not talking to you. I?m talking to the rest of the folks who feel like they have a bottomless hole in their soul that just cannot ever be filled.

I?m talking to the people who eat when they are not hungry because they mistakenly think that food will fill up that hole. I?m talking to the people who think that alcohol or drugs will satisfy that emptiness. I am addressing this to the folks who think Dillards is the god of happiness, or at least it is his favorite home. Have you ever indulged in an ?if only? fantasy; you know, if only I won the lottery or if only I found that perfect soul mate? If you think that your next partner is going to be your savior, then I am talking to you.

I am talking to you because none of those things is going to complete you. Nothing outside of your mind can add to who you are. You are already whole and complete. What would the perfect creation of God need to make him self better? So if this is true, and logic tells us it is, then what happened? How did we get to the place that we find ourselves?

We all feel like something is missing. If we didn?t then we wouldn?t be spending all our money on stuff we sell at the next garage sale.  How many people do you know who have been divorced at least once? Let me make this easier, ?How many people do you know who have never been divorced?? I read an article that referred to first marriages as throw away marriages.

Where did this attitude come from? It comes from the idea that we are not complete, and that our completion comes from outside ourselves. We think that if only we found our perfect soul mate, then we would be complete. If the truth were to be known we are saying, ?I?m looking for you to help me feel more special to make up for the feelings of lack and unworthiness I experience in myself.?(from 905: Special Relationships Vs Holy Relationships) And so we set out on the hunt for the one who will help us feel whole and worthy, and when we are not in a relationship the attitude is that something is wrong. And that if we are in a relationship and we are not happy, it must be that we made a mistake in choosing our partner and that it is time to move on.

Sometimes it is time to move on. There are legitimate reasons for doing so. However, if you are looking for happiness in your partner or anyone or anything else, you are going to be disappointed. We get out of a relationship what we bring to it. Cinderella is a fairy tale. We do not get married because we want to live happily ever after. Well, often we do, but it doesn?t work that way.

Relationships are a wonderful classroom, a place where we can do real work toward revealing our true self. When we go into a relationship with this spiritually mature attitude, we can make great headway. Look at your relationships, romantic or otherwise, and ask yourself some questions about your expectations. Why do you want to be in this relationship? What do you want to get out of it? What do you expect the other person to do for you?

When I was married, I expected to get someone to talk to, to wake up next to. I expected to be special to that man, to be first in his loyalties, to be first in his love. I expected him to be true to me and to love me even when I got old. I had many expectations.  I am certain he had many expectations of his own, and I am certain he was as disappointed in his expectations as I was.

What if I felt absolutely complete in myself? Would I have needed him to make me feel special and loved? If I am complete and whole, I don?t need anything. So what if I went into a relationship knowing that I don?t experience myself as I really am, but that I want to, and that I want someone to join me on this path.  My relationship would still have many challenges, but now ?I? becomes ?we?; we are working together in full support of each other as we grow spiritually.

In a practical sense, what is the difference? Ok, let?s use the first relationship as an example. Jim and Susan are involved in a typical special relationship. They both want the other to be loyal. They want each to be first in the other?s life. Jim and Susan are supposed to be going out to eat. Jim says that he has changed his mind about going out because his friend wants him to help carpet his new living room. Susan becomes defensive. She has an agenda. She wants to be first in his loyalties and now feels betrayed. She feels that her agenda has been threatened, and since her agenda reflects her need to be made special, it feels like a personal attack. He is taking away her sense of specialness.

Feeling attacked, Susan quickly designs a defense strategy. She decides to go for the old tried and true guilt trip. ?How could you choose him over me? We never get to do anything together. I already bought a new dress and did my hair.? In other words, ?Feel so guilty that you give me my way.? Susan is speaking not from her true self, but from her ego which is in constant battle, with guilt being the glue that holds its relationships together. (From 905: Special Relationships vs. Holy Relationships)

Now Jim feels guilty, and in need of defense. So he thinks up a defense strategy. He decides to take the offensive and convince Susan that she is a selfish, self-centered, umm, ?witch.? The battle escalates. And that is what they have now; not a loving relationship, but a pitched battle, one of many in a war that they call a marriage.

This does not have to be the way it is. The relationship became a battleground because of the purpose they gave it. They set up this inevitable result when they decided that the purpose of the relationship was to get something from the other.

Course 905: Special Relationships VS Holy Relationships expresses this succinctly: In truth, love in this world of bodies really means, ?I want to be special, but I also feel alone, lacking and unworthy, which I can?t stand. Will you be my special partner and promise to keep your body around and help me feel special? This will help submerge my pangs of loneliness, lack and unworthiness. I will get the specialness, acknowledgment and attention I want so desperately. In return I will shower you with specialness. I will agree to give special attention to you and shower you with my exclusive ?love.? Through our alliance in being special partners, we will avoid the side-effects of loneliness and guilt that our desire for specialness brings. We will be happy our way, in our little world of specialness. We will be each others idols and replace the Love of God.?

This doesn?t have to be. We can choose differently. We can recognize our oneness in God and by setting a clear intention to express that truth of our selves; we open our mind to the Holy Spirit for the healing of those specialness thoughts. We don?t have to do it alone, and in fact cannot do it alone, but to receive His help, we need only to look honestly at what we are doing and ask for correction.

Suppose they had chosen another purpose. A Course in Miracles says, ?The value of deciding in advance what you want to happen is simply that you will perceive the situation as a means to make it happen.? Can you see how different that will make things? Suppose their purpose in having a relationship was to support each other in their spiritual growth, and to learn to have a relationship built on unconditional love rather than special love. In this case, when Jim decided to back out on the event, Susan might still be angry because she wanted to go out. However, because of their shared purpose, it would not have to escalate into war.

Susan could express her disappointment in the change of plans without needing him to capitulate. The need to be right that was experienced in the first relationship stemmed from a need to be special. It stemmed from a need to have specialness make her feel whole. In the second relationship, she still experienced the need to be special, but she will probably recognize that error because it is her intention to see things differently.

Jim is her partner in this process and wants to help her get there. He knows that giving in to her perceived needs may not be the most loving thing to do in this situation, because that would be reinforcing the idea of special guilt relationships. So he may still go to help his friend, but because he understands the dynamic he doesn?t feel personally attacked, and so is able to be loving in the situation. Even when they slip into the attack/defend mode, they both know that this is not the answer, that specialness is not the goal, and so at some point one of them will get off the merry go round.

The point is that whoever is saner at the time can stop the cycle of attack and defend. It doesn?t matter who does it because no one is trying to win on a personal level. They recognize that unless both of them win, neither wins. They are in this together. No one is trying to get something from the other.

Just recognizing that we are trying to complete ourselves through our relationships and that this never works is enough to open our mind to another possibility. There is a way to be in relationships that honors our self and our partner by honoring God as our Creator. We can achieve this by looking honestly at our relationships and asking the Holy Spirit to correct our errors. 

© 2006, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
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Transforming Your Life

Here is a good question for you. Are you happy with your life? If you were to die tomorrow would you feel satisfied with what you have accomplished, with the way you have lived your life? It?s kind of funny, but one of the things that got me moving in my life was reading the obituaries, which, by the way, was a practice my kids thought was pretty morbid. As I tried to explain to them, at a certain time in your life this is as good a way as any to keep up with old classmates and acquaintances.

But anyway, one day while I was reading the obituaries, I wondered what my obituary would say, and realized it would be really short. I?m not saying I had not done anything with my life, but it did make me start thinking about how I would feel if I died today. What could be said of my life? I set an intention at that moment to do something about my obituary. I decided to live my life in such a way that I would leave a legacy when I went.

This was not a well formed intention, but it was an open door and I went through it. We are Sons of a Creative Force and therefore we are creative, as well. Our intentions are powerful, and if followed through, will transform our lives. Rev. Jack Boland said, ?March forth-and transform your life. Be the person God intends you to be.?

I can?t say that at the moment of the original intention I began marching forward. That was more of an intention to set an intention, but even that was enough to set my life in a new direction. The Universe wants us to succeed, and will conspire to assure our success with only the least invitation.

However, the Universe does not do it for us; It does it with us. Setting an intention is the important first step, but it is just one step. Once we decide to be the person God intends us to be, He provides us with all the support we will ever need. Previously closed doors open, but we must walk through them.

An important thing I learned was that transformation does not take place outside me; it is the work of the mind. Oh, I can learn to use the power of intention to manipulate my world; my job, my finances, my health, my home, all of that. But this doesn?t really change anything. It is like a child spending endless hours rearranging building blocks. It may be entertaining for awhile, and distracting, and even briefly satisfying. But at the end of the day, you just have building blocks. And after all the hard work, someone can just come along and knock them over.

The kind of change I am talking about is real. Change your mind and your world changes. Bring your thoughts in alignment with God?s plan for you, and the world sinks into insignificance. What is it that God wants for you? He wants you to experience yourself as He created you. He wants you to be like Him. He wants you to wake up from this bad dream you are having and realize that you are still as He created you and that you are still part of Him, and He is part of you.

I am not suggesting that there is anything about your true nature that needs to be changed. You are perfect the way you are. There is nothing about you that is wrong or needs to be fixed. We do not have to improve upon God?s creation. The change I am talking about is one of experience. If you are not experiencing yourself as God created you, then there is a way to change that experience. There is a way to awaken from the dream of lack and limitation, and to experience the abundance of God.

There are steps you can take to bring you to this awakened state. The first step is intention. I set an intention to wake up and know God. I didn?t know how to do this, but I did know I wanted to. It has been a stop and go process because this was not my only intention. When my focus is on God, my life begins to take that form. I am peaceful. I experience love, both in the giving and receiving. I am joyous.

When my mind wanders to other goals, things change. I spend my time and energy trying to make life conform to these new goals. I struggle and fight and work hard for little gain. Even when I do attain what I think will make me happy, I am inevitably disappointed.  It all seems so hard because I am fighting my own nature. When I acknowledge my Creator and thus my own true nature, I move back into the ease of being a child of God. Nothing else fits me like that role because nothing else is worthy of me as a Son of God.

Once I set my intention to live the life God has planned for me, I needed to develop some mind training. The problem is that my mind wanders. I intend to keep my mind on my goal, to make this my only goal, because a split mind in ineffective, but I get easily distracted. I chose A Course in Miracles as my vehicle for mind training. There are others to choose from, but this one suits me and offers a faster, surer way than most.

So the way this works for me, is that I designed a practice around the Course. The Course has three parts and one of them is a workbook with a lesson for each day of the year. I get up in the morning and make a cup of coffee. With my coffee in hand, I begin to read my lesson.  I plan carefully so that I have time to do this. If I have to be someplace early, I plan the night before to wake early enough to do this. I make time for God in my life. In fact, I make sure that God comes first in my life.

It is so easy to find excuses for putting this time off. Life intrudes with seemingly urgent problems. I choose not to respond to these. I put my trust in God. I know that if I give my attention to God first, everything else will fall in line. This is my trust and it does not fail me. I make my commitment and I show up for my commitment.

Rituals can be an important part of a spiritual practice.  Once practiced, they send a signal to yourself that it is time to set aside all distractions and begin your sacred work. Some people like an elaborate ritual with candle lighting and gentle music. Some incorporate yoga and lengthy meditations.  It is helpful to plan a quiet time that will not be interrupted and to use the same process everyday, a repeatable pattern of behavior that becomes an automatic call to your attention. Because I am often in different places when I wake up, I have created a very simple ritual, but I adhere to it daily.

My spiritual practice does not end with my daily lesson and meditation. My life is my spiritual practice. I practice being aware, that is paying attention to my life. It is through the stories of my life that I can see where my thoughts need correction. I don?t focus on changing the behavior because then I am back to playing with the blocks again. But particular behaviors signal a need to examine my thoughts.

So much of our life is spent in a fog of inattention. We say and do things without even noticing what is going on. Our life just seems to happen to us without our input because we aren?t paying attention, and are not examining our thoughts to see what caused our life to take that turn. Our life is not someone else?s fault, nor did it ?just happen.? Our life is the cumulative effect of our thoughts.

From the spiritual intention of the morning?s ritual, I open my mind to God?s Voice within me. Throughout the day I deliberately ask for guidance. It is not that God needs to be reminded, but that I need to remind myself to step back and let Him lead the way. Through my attentive focus, I notice when my thoughts are not leading me to peace, and I ask for correction. When I am uncertain what to do with circumstances in my life, I ask God how He wants me to use this. It is in this way that my life becomes my spiritual path.

Love is at the heart of every spiritual practice because God is Love. And because God is Love, so are we who were created in His image. To live my life according to God?s plan I must live a life of love. This is not romantic love, though God?s love can be expressed in this situation, too. It is not a special love for a special person. God?s love is impersonal. It is the same for everyone. Nothing is outside God?s love because nothing is outside God. This is my model. I do my best to express universal love; loving without conditions or limits.

Universal love is expressed as patience because I know that God?s Will must be done and so I can afford to wait. It is expressed as compassion because I know that none of us experiences our true Self all the time. It is expressed as devotion because we are all one in God, and my brother deserves my devotion. It is expressed as service because service to my bother is service to the Creator of my brother.

So, am I happy with my life? Yes I am. I am not living a perfect life, but I do the best I can every day. I start and end my day with prayer and I look to God for guidance in all things. I am, more often than not, at peace. I am happy. I don?t know that my obituary will read any different, but I know that at the end of my life I will leave a legacy. I will have made a difference in the world. You won?t read about my contribution in any history books, but the people in my life know they are loved and appreciated. My legacy will be to have lived the life God planned for me to the best of my ability.

© 2006, Pathways of Light. https://www.pathwaysoflight.org
You may freely share copies of this with your friends, provided this notice is included.

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