A Letter to Neale

Dear Neale...

I am once again at a crossroads in my life with no money, no home and no job and I've been here before three times.  This time I am determined not to make the same choices and end up here yet again, but I am struggling.

I turned 60 in August and in September the business that I ran with my son-in-law went into liquidation leaving me owing £100,000 to the bank and meaning that I have to sell my house to pay back the money.  As I also have a mortgage, there will be very little left from the sale.  I care for my mother, who is blind and 87 and she is obviously worried about what will happen to us.  

I have been in a similar situation three times before and each time I have picked myself up, got a job or started a business, got another mortgage and then ended up in the same situation several years later.  I know that I am creating the situation because I am not enjoying what I do and because I am taking the first thing that comes along just to pay the bills, it repeats.  

I have until March 2007 to pay the debts, so I have some time and I have been rereading CWG books and praying for help. Each time I think I have made different choices, but looking back they are the same - just a different job that I didn't enjoy any more than the last one; a means to pay the bills. I just don't know how to do it differently this time.  

My children keep asking me what I am going to do; when I am going to get a job; how am I going to support myself and my mother; where am I going to live. It makes me want to run away.  I want to shout at them that I don't want A JOB I want a LIFE. I would like to move away to be nearer friends who are also changing their lives with CWG , but my daughter has asked me not to go and leave her and my grandchildren. I feel like I am being torn apart and I don't have any answers, just hundreds of questions.

I know that money isn't the answer but it sure helps! If I had a home and enough money that I didn't have to work to support us, I know exactly what my life would be - an expression of the greatest version of who I really am.  I just don't know how to get there.  Any help would be very greatly appreciated. 

Neale Responds

My dear friend...

I am going to make this direct and to the point, if not short and sweet.

FIRST...create or get any kind of job -- indeed, the "first thing that comes along" -- to bring some money flowing into your life again. Stop beating yourself up or fretting because it is not the work of your soul or something that makes you happy or causes your heart to sing. JUST CREATE INCOME. This is your particular and marvelous gift, you have shown yourself and the world that you can do this time and time again, so stop making yourself wrong about this because you think you are doing it in the "wrong way."

SECOND...understand that this work you are going to get or create is only TEMPORARY (The mistake you made in the past was that you allowed it to become permanent...and your soul didn't want it to be. That is why it always ultimately "went away").  The purpose of this here-and-now work will be to create a financial platform upon which to build your life and from which you may embark on your soul's real agenda. Doing this work IS embarking on that agenda; it is the FIRST STEP.

I tell everyone who is unhappy in their present work to stop complaining and start looking at it in a new way. Change your perspective and see that your present means of creating income is perfect for right now , in that it is fueling the engine of the larger experience you choose to create -- if, indeed, you are up to creating that. If you are not, you absolutely will be caught in a dead-end job, trapped in a prison of your own making.

Yet if you USE your present work as a TOOL in the CREATION of your most MARVELOUS TOMORROW, you will see this work in a new way: as a BLESSING and a PERFECT CIRCUMSTANCE; as an important PART OF THE PROCESS of NEW REALITY CREATION. Presently you are seeing the work you are doing as an IMPEDIMENT to that process.

It is vitally important that you CHANGE YOUR PERSPECTIVE about this. Remember what CwG tells us:

Perspective creates perception, perception creates belief, belief creates behavior, behavior creates experience, experience creates reality -- and our reality creates our perspective. It is a Circle -- the Circle of Life -- and everything in the circle changes when anything in the circle changes.

THIRD...put to maximum use the TIME that this work you are going to create will buy you. Use it to COME TO ABSOLUTE CLARITY about Who You Are and how you choose to manifest that in your life. Give yourself a deadline -- a Date Certain -- for when you will make these choices. Use the interim period to draw up a PLAN for implementation of your decisions. Have a FIRM START DATE as a part of the plan. It doesn't matter when that date is. It could be a year from now, six months from now, or whatever feels uncomfortable. Yes, I said "uncomfortable." Remember what CwG tells us:

Life begins at the end of your Comfort Zone.

The process I am outlining here encourages you to step outside of your Comfort Zone; to push yourself to new levels; to stretch beyond previous boundaries or limitations.

FOURTH...to make certain that you are "doing it differently this time," be sure that when you make the decisions regarding your long-term life goal and livelihood that you do so from a standpoint of BEINGNESS, rather than doingness. If you do not understand what I am talking about here, immediately read Bringers of the Light , a booklet that I wrote which focuses on creating Right Livelihood. You should be able to order it from Amazon.com. It should also be available from the Store at www.cwg.org .

FIFTH...see if there is a way to pay back the money you lost in your last business without selling your home. I would even declare bankruptcy before I left myself homeless. In most countries the bankruptcy laws protect a person from losing their primary dwelling. There is no reason to have to be without a home for yourself and your Mom. This is a made-up crisis that can be solved.

SIXTH...the secret is not to "move away to be nearer friends," but to move within to be nearer God -- the best friend you will ever have. However much time you are spending each day in meditation, double it. If you are currently spending no time, or if your meditative practice is sporadic, commit to meditating at least 15 minutes every morning. Extend the time as you can. I can think of no single device that will get you started on better footing every day than this. Then...if you wish to be closer to people who you feel can support you in living your soul's purpose, tell you children and your other family members what this is about for you, and then do it. Do not let the pleadings of others tear you apart any more. You are 60 years old and you have earned the right to do as you choose, to serve your inner self, and to "be good to You."

FINALLY....you say that if you had "enough money that I didn't have to work to support us, I know exactly what my life would be - an expression of the greatest version of who I really am..."  Wow, what an interesting point of view. Are you saying that having enough money that we "don't have to work" is the only way that we can have our life be what we want our life to be???? Are you saying that not having to work for a living is the only way for life to be "an expression of the greatest vision" of who we are? If so, you've just left out 98% of the world's people.

No, no, no....the trick is not to stop working, but to stop thinking of what you are doing AS "work"... whatever  it is that you are doing.  Whether it is that temporary job I talked about that bridges you from here to there, or whether it is your life vision -- think of it ALL -- think of ALL the activities of your life -- as the present-moment expression of the grandest version of the greatest vision ever you held about who you are.

TURN YOUR WORK INTO YOUR JOY by seeing it as a PATH TO YOUR GREATEST EXPRESSION, revealing the Divinity that is within you. And understand that, in the end, it doesn't matter WHAT you do, it only matters how you ARE while you are doing it. Are you happy? Are you helpful? Are you compassionate, understanding, patient, kind, giving, and healing of others? Are you creative, dynamic, daring, leading? You can be all of these things, no matter what your body is doing. Are you clear about that? Do you believe that exterior circumstances create interior experiences...or that it is the other way around? I assure you that interior experiences create exterior circumstances...and so, when you experience interiorly that your present job is a "staging area," a "platform" from which you can create and express the highest and best within you, your exterior circumstances will begin to reflect that.

Good luck, and do let me know in a few months of your good fortune!