A kind of magic

On Saturday 5^th December a dozen of us gathered together for the last A New You workshop of 2009. I am always curious about who will walk through the door and to find out how each person found their way to the workshop. From what people write on their registration forms it is clear that there are different reasons people decide to come to the workshop. It might be to experience a guided visualisation, to find ways of living the messages of Conversations with God more fully or, most typically, to meet other like-minded people. Sometimes I think the workshop is just an alibi to get us all together in the same room!

Everything ready, A New You workshop, London, December 2009

At the start of the workshop Helen, my very dear co-facilitator, invites in Spirit (God, Love, Life) to move in us and with us and through us. Although there is a design for the workshop, it is loosely held and we go where the energy flows. It feels like a dance we do together where there are steps to follow but we are also free to improvise and make it up as we go along. It is always helpful for me to remind myself that ultimately I am not in control. The workshop unfolds most joyously when I get out of the way and allow what my yoga teacher would call the Great Choreographer to work Her magic and dance us.

Sharing together, A New You workshop, London, December 2009

When I trained with Neale Donald Walsch 3 years ago he said to us aspiring messengers that our most important task was to learn how to blend the different energies coming into the room. I have found this to be true in my own experience. People from all walks of life come to A New You and creating a sense of fellowship amongst a group of strangers feels like the most precious part of it all.

Energy exchange, A New You workshop, London, December 2009

In my days as a busker, earning my living juggling fire for crowds on the streets of Spain, I learnt that when there was some audience participation the show went onto another dimension. The crowd swelled, the clapping went on louder and longer and I doubled the amount of money in my hat! As a result of this learning the A New You workshop is designed to be interactive and, I hope, fun! My observation is that through the energy exchange of working in a participative and experiential way We are All One is no longer just a nice sounding concept but becomes a felt sense of a deeper reality.

Beyond all the design work and the clearly held intention to bring the messages of the New Spirituality alive for people, the A New You workshop still feels like a kind of magic. Like energy attracts like energy and the energy field that is created amongst participants is a joy to be plugged in to. There are moments of what I can only describe as pure love but really it is beyond words.

Magical connections, A New You workshop, London, December 2009

In a world where there is so much sadness, turmoil and pain, it is a precious experience to be raised up high by seeing myself, feeling myself, knowing myself in the shining eyes, in the open heart and in the truthful speaking of another. I am grateful to the depths of my soul to be in the room to heal the room, in the space to heal the space. There is no other reason to be there.

Sarah Rozenthuler and participants, A New You workshop, London, December 2009

A room full of love

A couple of weeks ago a group of 22 of us co-created the first A New You weekend workshop. We gathered together at Charney Manor, a beautiful retreat centre in rural Oxfordshire run by the Quakers. The invitation was to explore together and individually what it means to grow a friendship with God.

The room prepared, A New You weekend workshop, Charney Manor, Oxfordshire, UK, October 2009

We started by asking ourselves: who and what is God? Conceiving God as some kind of authority figure or parental substitute can lead us unwittingly into what Neale Donald Walsch calls a fearship with God. By contrast relating to God as a friend, as a Thou with whom we can be intimately involved, can mean that we move into a fully functioning relationship with God where we feel truly companioned and guided.

Early on in the workshop we also looked at whether there were any relationships we had on the human dimension that needed some attention or healing. Feeling stuck in a relationship with someone, for example because we have withdrawn, can block us getting closer to God. We did some exercises to help dissolve these blocks and clear the decks.

Exploring using Divine Force, October 2009

Our energies gathered together quickly and easily. On the joining instructions I had written that the most important thing to bring to the workshop, along with your towel and soap and torch, was an open heart and mind. And so people came, willing to share their wisdom and receive the gifts that others had to give. I quickly felt what I can best describe as a high frequency energy of pure love, gentle wisdom and creative sparkle moving in us and with us and through us.

Muriel was our resident musician for the weekend and sang her own songs full of soul and beauty. She wove her music into the fabric of the workshop with such expert attention and fine sensitivity that tears of joy and sadness flowed.  Her music touched our hearts and made our cells vibrate with the glory of being alive in all its trials and triumphs.

Consciously creating our futures, October 2009

In our conversations together, some insights emerged which rung me with their clarity and truth. One participant reflected “The God we experience is the God that is appropriate to the moment” whether this is God as comforter, God as inspirer, God as consciousness-raiser or God as discipliner. What matters is that we remain open to however God shows up in the moment. If we try to define God, we bind the Unbounded and contract the All in All.

Another participant shared with us that her key insight was that her friendship with God was unique to her. Just because it didn’t look like, say, Neale Donald Walsch’s friendship didn’t mean that her connection with the Divine was any less real or valuable. As it says in the book Friendship with God, we all have a friendship with God it’s just that some of us don’t know it.

The joy of experiencing We Are All One, November 2009

One of the highlights of the workshop for myself and others was the Saturday night cabaret. I decided in advance to “give away” this part of the workshop and invite people to bring with them a poem, a song, a sketch or make something up on the night. Did we have fun! It was a fine example of how life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

One participant who had never sung in public before sang us a Swedish lullaby in a voice so sweet and gentle you would want her to sing you to sleep always. When the lyrics escaped her in the third or fourth verse and she faltered slightly, the room picked up the melody and hummed it back to her until she found her way again. It was an exquisite moment in which we are all one became a felt reality not just a mystical concept. A precious, precious remembrance.

An exercise that looks simpler than it is, October 2009

Beyond our conversations we did some exercises involving movement to remind us that it is a joy to be with the body and a joy to be without it. We drop the body each night when we go to sleep and dream our dreams but much of life in this physical realm involves the body and it is good to consciously include it.

On Saturday afternoon Clare Backwell led a 5Rhythms moving meditation session.  As Gabrielle Roth, the founder of this practice says,  the quickest way to still the mind is to move the body. For many people this was their first experience of 5Rythms and it blew them away…

Success! Although as it is said "You never fail to succeed", October 2009

The only hard part of the workshop was saying good bye to everyone at the end. We had created such a vortex of love and deep connectivity, it really pulled on my heart strings to move away. A little like having to say goodbye to your dance partner after a mighty groove together. I came away feeling so full, so energised, so deeply connected with the Divine, the only thing I could do afterwards was to sit in a room on my own and stare at a blank wall to ground myself again.

I thank each of the wonderful and wise co-facilitators Helen, Ralf and Tricia and every participant who came to the workshop for enabling us all to have such a grand experience. As it has been said, the only thing that we deeply desire is to love and be loved and the weekend workshop helped me to remember that in my bones. Thank you God.

A parting gift with thanks to Tricia and Mike, October 2009

How to have a conversation with God

On a balmy evening in London whilst the sun was setting and children were playing in the garden, I met for a BBQ with some friends I know through the retreats of Neale Donald Walsch. I love the sense that I have in those moments when it feels like we are all back in the room together, so to speak – that of a tribe of souls vibrated by the powerful messages of Conversations with God.

I spoke of my observation that what really matters is YOUR conversation with God. It met with nods of agreement. The conversation that matters most is not mine, not Neale’s, not my Mum’s nor my neighbour’s but YOURS. It’s important to get this message across because we’ve so often been led away from our own experience. At the risk of contradicting myself completely in my next gesture, I am going to quote from Conversations with God  Book 1 because I think the articulation of this point is so powerful:

You have all placed so much importance on the Word of God, and so little on the experience. In fact, you place so little value on the experience that when what you experience of God differs from what you’ve heard of God, you automatically discard the experience and own the words, when it should be the other way round…My most powerful messenger is experience, and even this you ignore. Especially this you ignore.

The question this brings up for me is: What  then is my experience of having a conversation with God? How does it work? Perhaps if I understood my own experience more, my conversation would deepen, expand and even extend to help others deepen, expand and extend their  conversation with God. So coming up are my 3 biggest observations about what helps me to stay connected with the Divine.

 

Helping each other to have their own conversation with God, A New You workshop, March 2008, London

Firstly, my conversation with God is unique to me. Love is a response to that which is unique as it says in Neale’s conversation with God. Some years ago I did a workshop with one of the founders of the Findhorn Foundation, the spiritual and ecological community in Scotland. Dorothy Maclean, a sprightly, white haired lady with shining eyes and a very sharp perception, shared with us her experience of coversing with the Divine.

Whereas the other, perhaps more famous, founder of the Findhorn Foundation Eileen Caddy, author of books such as God Spoke to Me heard a “still, small voice inside” (rather like Neale) Dorothy said that she did not. Rather:

“I had to keep refocusing, and sift thoughts and feelings clearly before putting them into words. I heard no actual voice; there was a delicate and pure inner prompting which I tried to convey in my own words, as my art form.” (from To Hear the Angels Sing by Dorothy Maclean)

The lesson here? Go with whatever form your own conversation takes. Don’t get hung up or despondent or dismissive if you don’t hear a clear, quiet voice inside speaking to you. God communicates with us in a thousand different ways across a million different moments with infinite creativity and love. 

 

Making new friends, A New You workshop, March 2008, London

Secondly, I find that it helps to talk to God as a friend. No formalities required. No long words or flowery language necessary. I believe that part of the genius of the Conversations with God material is its formulation that God is our best friend, our closest ally, the Unseen Companion that is always and in all ways on our side.

Over 2000 years ago Jesus spoke of God as his Father, “Abba”. It was a radical re-conceptualisation at that time because it communicated an intimacy between Jesus and God in a way that had not been there in the typical Jewish view of God. Casting God into the role of father however no longer has the resonance it did two thousand years ago and for many of us that articulation simply doesn’t work any more.

So if God is our friend, what does that mean? What are the practical implications of that? Like with our human friendships, it means spending time together. It means making it a two-way street. Listening to what the Other has to say (in whatever way it comes) and also expressing oneself in return.

Use God it urges us in the book Friendship with God. I understand that, like a true friend, God likes to be asked to step in, to help, to intervene in some way. Asking God for guidance, for help, for sustenance when we are weary is not about being small-minded, self-absorbed, “please-can-I-have-a-parking-space” but relating to Divine Force with a wide open mind and trusting heart. 

Keeping a prayer journal can be a wonderful way of tracking your communication with God. As the old wisdom says, God works in mysterious ways and the responses do not always come immediately or in the form we would most expect. Conversations with God can take unexpected loops and turns and have backtracks and waiting times. Journaling and recording can help us to build trust in God’s ability to always answer and provide whatever is best for us even if that does not look like what we think is best for us.

Reminding each other of Who We Really Are, A New You workshop, March 2008, London

Finally, I think it helps to be reminded that there is nothing more real than having our own conversation with God. Even if it sometimes feels like the most intangible, finely choreographed dance we do. As Mother Theresa had written on the wall in her house for children in Calcutta:

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered.  Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives.  Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies.  Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you.  Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight.  Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous.  Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten.  Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough.  Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God.  It was never between you and them anyway.

What matters is YOUR conversation with God

It’s been over two years now that I’ve been running A New You workshops. It’s taught me a number of things. Not least is how much truth there is in the saying that it’s not until you try to impart what you understand that you find out how much understanding you really have.

I spent nearly 10 years reading and re-reading the 3,000 odd pages which make up the Conversations with God books. I thought I understood much of the cosmology and held the words close to my heart. But when I try to articulate the wisdom of the New Spirituality to others, there are times that I stumble for words or struggle to speak with the clarity I know is there in the texts. Being a messenger is certainly a work-in-progress!

Messengers all of us: Participants at A New You workshop, May 2009, London

The time of the single teacher is over. Over 150 people have participated in A New You to date and I have learnt as much from them as I hope they have from me. The question is not are you a messenger? The question is what message do you choose to share? As my dear priest the wonderful Rev Melanie Toogood (her real name!) likes to say Be careful how you live your life for it is the only gospel most people will ever read.

One of the things I’ve come to appreciate more and more as I journey deeper and deeper into the New Spirituality is that what really matters is my conversation with God. Although the conversation with God recorded by Neale Donald Walsch is amazing, profound and expansive, it is in your conversation with God where your salvation lies. It is by going within to find your own connection with the Divine that you will save yourself from getting seduced by the illusions of earthly life such as judgment, failure and separation.

 

Helping each other to find the truth of their own experience: Participants at A New You workshop, May 2009, London

As it says that the start of Communion with God:

This book does not claim to be The Truth. It is intended to guide you to your innermost wisdom. It is not necessary for you to agree with its contents for it to do that. In fact, agreeing or not agreeing will be irrelevant. If you agree it will be because you see in this book your own wisdom. If you disagree, it will be because you do not see your own wisdom. In either case, you will have been led back to your own wisdom.

That’s where the rubber hits the road: in your own sense of where there is truth and light and love. In Conversations with God we are urged not to make a new orthodoxy out of the material. Rather we are reminded time and time again that we each have an inner compass, an internal guidance system to bring us back home to ourselves and to God. For it is one and the same thing. We Are All One and God is in on that too!

Talking God: Coming out

One of the joys of living in London is being able to go to Covent Garden and be amongst the street performers, stall holders and people pottering about. I recently met up with a potential colleague for a coffee on a sunny terrace in the piazza and found myself talking with him about the A New You workshop.

“So do you actually mention God?” he asked “Or do you keep it below the radar and talk about energies instead?”

“Oh, I talk God”, I replied, “I don’t pussyfoot around”.

His question reminded me how precious it can be to talk about the Divine in a society so bent on its secularism. I sometimes wonder if it’s a little bit like coming out – a risky move that could invite rejection, ridicule or a good ribbing.

Making a huge assumption, these days I start the A New You workshop with the first message of Conversations with God, Book 1: God communicates with all of us all the time and ask participants: “When was the last time God communicated with you? How did you know it was God? What impact did it have?”

No one balks. In fact people share with great enthusiasm all sorts of stories about how God has communicated with them – through dreams, songs on the radio, other people and even sea gulls. God uses what’s available, my Mum taught me. I am continually amazed at God’s creativity at getting through to us. The Universe seems to be configured for us to wake up.

A New You workshop, March 2009, Cornwall

At the A New You workshop I ran with Tricia Wilson on Saturday at the Eden Project in Cornwall, we did an activity I like to call the cocktail party. The invitation was to turn the clock forward exactly a year, so it became 21 March 2010, and to step into that moment. It’s an opportunity to tell a new story as if it were happening now.

“Describe what your life is like a year from now” I encourage participants. “Don’t worry too much about the details”, I say, “Get to the feelings. That’s where the real creative edge is. Practise saying “I feel really fulfilled. I am so in my joy. I am feeling so contented. I love being so satisfied with…””

Conversations with God reminds us that it is more important what we are being than the specific thing that we are doing. The soul doesn’t care what you do for a living and when you die neither will you. Your soul only cares about what you are being whilst you are doing whatever it is you are doing. 

Creating the future with our word, A New You, March 2009, Cornwall

 

With this in mind, I invited participants at this imaginary cocktail party to focus more on what they were experiencing in terms of being rather than doing. Before we got started one participant shared that she might find the exercise a challenge: “I’ve got less vocabulary for being”, she mused, “I seem to be better at describing my doing”.

It felt like an accurate observation that could apply to many of us.  Telling a new story about our lives and the feelings we choose to experience is not something we do everyday. It becomes much easier however the more we practice and the more we can be with others who don’t think it’s a completely crazy thing to do.

Getting into the room to explore our spirituality with others demands a certain degree of courage. You might have to push through all sorts of resistance and fears to even sign up for a workshop like A New You. There is a big reward, however.  It’s the joy of experiencing “I’m not alone. They are others who think like this. I’m not the only one who’s insane!”  Coming out is a powerful and affirming experience. Unless it isn’t? Leave a Comment and let me know what you think…

 

Talking God, A New You workshop, March 2009, Cornwall

 

 

 

 

The power of a shared experience

I recently attended an evening talk in London at St James’s Church, Piccadilly. It was given by Rev Pete Owen-Jones who has starred in several excellent programmes on the BBC such as Around the World in 80 Faiths and Extreme Pilgrim. The pews were full and there was an atmosphere of anticipation at what this freethinking, open-minded priest might have to say.

I’ve been to many such talks hosted by Alternatives but this one was different. Pete gave a short introduction and then invited questions about the TV programmes as well as about God, faith and life. From then on the whole evening was unscripted. No prepared stories or carefully crafted beginning, middle and end, just a flow of dialogue between him and members of the audience. This led Pete to talk about the need for Christianity to die in its current form, of how 3 weeks of solitude had changed him and how some people seem to survive perfectly well without a faith.

The whole evening left a strong impression on me. There was an aliveness, a fluidity to the talk that is so often missing when it is choreographed. I was reminded of jazz gigs where the music seems to be at its most charged when the musicians depart from the score and improvise. It is in those moments of pure creativity that the audience feels most gathered and the room rocks with a pulse of energy beyond anything an orchestra or choir can generate.

What enabled this to happen that evening at St James? No doubt it was something to do with Pete’s openness and courage to be in the moment without the need for a structure to contain any anxiety he was feeling. But there was more to it than that, I mused. Each of us who was there had already engaged in a shared experience: watching his TV programmes. This provided a communal context out of which the questions could emerge and flow. 

A New You workshop, December 2008, London

The experience made me reflect on what makes A New You different from many of the other workshops on offer in the spiritual marketplace. I think that because participants have the shared experience of reading Conversations with God before they walk in the room,  this common understanding facilitates a sense of real fellowship emerging quickly amongst strangers who may only spend a few hours in each other’s company.

I believe that nothing shifts our perspective more quickly or changes our truth more profoundly than when we are touched by the story of someone else’s real life experience. Providing space for heartfelt sharing as I do at the A New You workshop is greatly enabled by the publishing phenomenon that is Conversations with God. I will always be grateful to the author Neale Donald Walsch for the joy of this mission shared and the power of a collective experience that his books provide. 

Making it real

I learnt to be a roadie when I spent 4 years travelling around the north of Spain in an old camper van. I earned my crust (and sometimes it was literally just that) by performing fire shows in fiestas and passing the hat for some psetas. Knowing how to travel light and get to grips with a different town each day are skills that come in surprisingly handy doing A New You workshop up and down the country.

On Sunday 15^th February a group of 13 of us gathered for A New You workshop in Portslade Townhall, Brighton. When I arrived in this unfamiliar place I found myself feeling the same trepidation as when I walked into a Spanish plaza and put down my bag of circus tricks. Would I be able to pull a crowd? How would I entertain them? To steady my nerves I reminded myself that that was then, this is now and at least I wouldn’t have to juggle fire over somebody’s head this time…

In the dozen workshops I’ve run to date this was the first time I had handed over the logistics of the workshop. I was able to quickly relax when I saw how impressively well organised Penny and Dawn were – they had cool boxes for our shared lunch, bowls for the fruit and even tea towels for drying up our mugs. Creating a space for high vibrations to flow through includes taking care of all the practical details as the Brighton team so ably did. 

Participants at A New You workshop, Brighton, February 2009

As I pinned up quotes on the wall and laid out notebooks on the chairs, something a colleague had shared with me recently kept popping into my head. “The mind works best with what is real”. I felt there was a ring of truth to that and pondered, how can I apply that to my teaching? I wanted to find out…

So the day unfolded and we began sharing some of the stories of our lives. It is in the telling of stories – openly, honestly and without shame or showiness – that the heart begins to open and the mind expand. If we listen carefully enough I believe we can find ourselves in the story of another. Becoming aware of the feelings that are invoked as we hear of others’ trials and triumphs makes a felt reality of one of the key messages of Conversations with God: We Are All One.

I want people who come to A New You to feel the wisdom of Conversations with God vibrating inside their cells not just their heads. More importantly I want them to get more deeply in touch with their own wisdom. It doesn’t matter whether you agree or disagree with the contents of the books or the activities of the workshop, what matters is whether you come away with a stronger sense of what is true for you. This is what brings more colour and meaning to your life, as one of the participants put it.

Heartfelt sharing at A New You, Brighton, February 2009

We spoke of many things in our circle of souls on Sunday. Of betrayal and relationships, of work and even winning lottery tickets. I shared some of my own experiences including the unexpected gift that dental surgery had brought me. I used this as an example to bring to life the principle that if we own our part in the creation of something, even when it has been created on an unconscious level, then we can change our experience of it and find the blessing in it. Even something as mundane and painful as root canal work.

Neale Donald Walsch talks about living his life as an open book. I am getting a much keener sense of how it is to reveal the twists and turns of my journey as I come into contact with more and more fellow spiritual travellers through leading A New You workshops. The opening up makes me feel vulnerable (what will people think?) and my fear of rejection can rise quickly to the surface.

Having nothing to hide also makes me feel more powerful. I believe that it is in sharing our vulnerabilities that we can connect most quickly and deeply with others. I wonder what stops us from sharing more of ourselves with others outside the safety of a workshop? What would help us to take more risks and close the gaps between souls even when we’re not gathered together to do that? I would love to hear your thoughts so do leave a Comment.

Doing some soul work together, A New You, Brighton, February 2009

 

 

 

 

 

 

Growing a spiritual community

Welcome to A New You Workshop. In this blog I share my observations about what happens when spiritual seekers get together to inspire, encourage and bear witness to each other. I would love to hear your comments – please use the Comments facility to share your thoughts too.

I run A New You workshops in London and throughout the UK to bring together like-hearted people. Traditionally those on a religious path are part of a faith community and regularly visit their mosque, church, synagogue or temple. For the increasing numbers who describe themselves as “spiritual but not religious” the lack of a faith community is a real gap. They miss out on the support and the challenge of having spiritual kin close by.

One of the intentions of my workshop is to provide a safe space where people can meet on a soul level outside the contours of a traditional religious path. I welcome people of all religions and none. Participants at the workshops I ran in London in 2008 included a Buddhist practitioner of 20 years, a Reader in the Christian church, a long term student of the Native American wisdom path and a healthy sprinkling of what I might call lapsed atheists. A rich and exciting mix.

A New You Workshop, London, March 2008

Neale Donald Walsch, author of the best-selling Conversations with God books, talks about the cutting edge of spiritual evolution being “to honour our natural impulse toward the divine without making anyone wrong”. This is work that can only be done collectively but unfortunately the opportunities can be few and far between.

I believe that there is nothing we need to learn on a soul level. The challenge is one of accessing and applying what we already know. Have you ever had the experience of something “ringing true” for you? That’s because, deep down, you already knew it.

Feeling the energy of someone else’s truth is a precious way of getting more in touch with your own truth. Even if you don’t agree with it. Especially if you don’t agree with it.

I recently attended an inspirational workshop with Byron Katie in London. The event was a complete sell-out with the auditorium full of around a thousand participants. People were keen to learn about Katie’s work, but I noticed that they were just as hungry to connect with others. Realising that you are not alone in your spiritual quest and that it is safe to “come out” is a huge step forward into joy.

Sitting in a room on your own to meditate or pray is a vital part of the spiritual journey. But in the absence of more communal activities we can be like the coal taken out of the fire and our light can diminish.

What experience do you have of keeping your faith strong through community? What wisdom do you have to share about these observations of mine?

Sarah Rozenthuler
www.anewyouworkshop.com