Notes from Neale

The CwG Reader

Holiday Special

Let me speak this week about the process of deciding Ahead of Time
what Feels Good.

You will remember (if you are a regular reader of the Weekly
Bulletin) that we have been discussing here the school of thought
that says we should always move, in life, toward what Feels Good.
And that this is also a good measure of whether a decision we are
contemplating is the "right" one. It is Feels Good to have made a
particular choice, that’s a pretty good sign that you’re heading in
the "right" direction.

Of course we know from Conversations with God that there’s no
such thing as "right" and "wrong," but here we are using of the word
"right" to mean the course of action that feels most immediately
beneficial. (All courses of action are beneficial, it’s just a
question of which one will produce benefit most quickly, within our
constructs of Time and Space.)

And as we’ve explored this idea, I’ve been saying here that we don’t
have to wait until after a decision has been made to take a look at
that. We can notice ahead of time which choices and actions feel
best to us, bring us the most peace, joy, and happiness, and we can
have our feelings determine our choices rather than having our
choices determine our feelings.

This is the road taken by all Masters.

I have observed in life that people fall into one of three
categories. They are either Masters, Students on the road to
mastery, or Participants in life who are moving through their days
and nights with no particular or specific thought in mind as to what
they are doing in most moments, or why they are doing it, but just
mostly in a reactive mode, doing the best they can with what is
happening from minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day, week to
week, month to month, and year to year.

Participants make their life choices and decisions mostly as a
reaction to something, while Masters make their choices and
decisions as a creation, and Students fall somewhere in between.

Masters decide ahead of time not how things make them feel,
but how they wish to feel when things occur. Let me give you
an example…

A Master decides ahead of time how she finds that the front desk
clerk at the hotel cannot find her reservation and does not have a
room he can offer her when she arrives at 3:30 in the morning after
a 14-hour flight. A Master can decide this because a Master knows
— especially if she travels regularly — that things like this
are bound to happen, that there is no surprise in this, and that she
can depend on it occurring sometime in her journeys. Knowing this,
she can choose ahead of time exactly how she wishes to experience
the moment, and then express herself in a way which announces,
declares, and fulfills Who She Really Is.

A Participant in life may be a person who is surprised by such an
event at a hotel front desk and has not thought for a moment about
how he or she wishes to react and respond in that moment. The
participant therefore reacts spontaneously, in a way which more
often than not will fail to be an accurate demonstration of who he
or she really is.

In our annual Christmas CwG Spiritual Renewal Retreat (coming up in
just a few weeks…still a chance for you to grab a space for
yourself or a loved one — or both!) we explore this whole process
of Advance Creation. We invite retreat participants to take out a
sheet of paper and make a list of at least three life encounters or
incidents they know of a certainty they will be experiencing again
before too much more time goes by.

These could be occurrences as simple as "my spouse is late — again
— getting us out of the house for a dinner party" to something a
little more impacting, such as "the checking account has been badly
overdrawn," or "the furnace has stopped working and the repair guy
can’t make it out for a day and a half," or…"the clerk at the
store has not given me the service I deserve and paid for…"

There is no doubt that these, or other, similar, incidents will
occur in your life sometime in the future. The only question is, who
do we choose to be in the space of that?

Having made this decision, we can begin to apply it to even bigger
incidents and more challenging moments — until we find that we
have literally "mastered life." Ah, but what is there to do after
that?

Hmmm….a good topic for next week…until then, have a wonderful 7
days.

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
= = = = =

This week’s offering: Just recently Neale posted on the
Reader’s Forum in his personal website (www.nealedonaldwalsch.com)
a short treatise on the subject of what it means to be
"self-serving." The article met with a wonderful response from a
member of the Forum, included here following Neale’s writing,
because we think others may have the same reaction after reading it
…

Thank you Neale.

I have always tried to wrap my mind over the two truths, namely:

1. Your life is not about you, but about those whose lives you
touch.
2. Do first always what serves the Self.

I’ve tried to reconcile the two statements in my understanding.

Many times I’ve tried to explain it away as a divine dichotomy, but
I always knew there was a deeper truth, deeper understanding behind
those truths.

Namaste,
Shriram.

NOTE: Not all events are sponsored by the ReCreation Foundation, but
because all of the events move forward the message of
Conversations with God, which is the mission of the Foundation,
the Foundation is pleased to inform you of them.

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