This changes everything, really

On Saturday 14th August, it was a real joy to team up with JR Westen and present for the first time in the UK the When Everything Changes, Change Everything workshop. JR is Lead Teacher at the Conversations with God Foundation in the US and has worked alongside Neale Donald Walsch for over a decade. Neale’s latest book, which goes by the same title as the workshop, offers “in a time of turmoil, a pathway to peace”. When JR got in touch a few months back and asked if I would like to co-create this event, my answer was a big YES!

So 18 of us gathered together at the Window, a beautiful, peace-filled space in the heart of London’s Zone 1 district of Islington. “What brings you to the room?” is the question we explored as the spotlight of our attention moved around the circle and lit up each person’s life. I had a sense of us standing on the edge of a swimming pool with some souls diving into the depths and others preferring to stay in the shallows. As the safety of our container expanded, more and more people were able to give voice to the challenges that change brings whether this is with family, friends, work, health, relationships or finances.

As one person after another spoke of their pain or uncertainty, I could feel their experience of this shifting as their words emerged. I was reminded of Jesus’s teaching “Confess your sins to one another”. There is great healing to be had in the speaking and sharing of one’s pain. My understanding of sin is not that this is where we go “wrong” in our lives from a moral standpoint but it is where in our lives something is not working because we are not experiencing a “free and joyous” life, as JR put it.

To live life in the fullness of joy, creativity and connectivity is our birthright. When we are not feeling this abundance, we are “missing the mark”. It is this gap that is “sin” in my understanding (the word “sin” has its roots in archery). What helps us to cross this chasm most quickly is to be honest with ourselves and others about where we are right now. We can find real healing by dwelling with others in dialogue. The truth will set you free is a spiritual principle which stands for all time. But we need to feel safe to express our truth and we hear our own truth most clearly when we are met with the loving acceptance of others.

We went on to explore the Mechanics of the Mind and the System of the Soul, as outlined by Neale Donald Walsch. Understanding and applying these insights can help us navigate change in our life. Instead of seeing change as “something ending” we can shift our perspective to see it as “something new coming in”. Even more radically, we can reach a place where we see that all change is for the good, including divorce, illness or redundancy. From a spiritual perspective, life is about evolution of the soul and it is through change and challenge that the individual stretches into the new.

Having been a professional psychologist for over 10 years, I am very clear that it is in the combination of psychology and spirituality where the potential for real transformation is found. The tools and techniques of psychology can make life more effective but it is the wisdom of spirituality that will make life more effortless. The technology of psychology can make life more productive but it is the reality of spirituality that makes life more passionate. The “peace that passeth all understanding” comes only when our hearts finds rest in the Larger Presence that some call Life and others call God.

Shifting our perspective on change does not make loss, pain or disappointment disappear from our lives. What it does do is to help us move through these experiences more quickly and easily. There was a moment in the workshop where there was a rumble of thunder and it started raining. I thought back to my days living in Spain where even after heavy showers, the pavements would be dry a short while later. In England when it rains, the pavements stay wet for ages. Seeing change differently means that we don’t stay soggy for so long. Life will bring us its challenges, of this we can be sure, but suffering because of those challenges is something that we can change. A workshop like this can show you how.

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