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May/June 2005 Living Now
Wisdom From a Higher Plane

by Candace Doyle

Inspired by A Course in Miracles, Candace Doyle has been hearing and sharing the Voice of the Holy Spirit within her as a discernible, conversational Voice for over 10 years. Candace and her husband, DavidPaul, are the authors of The Journey That Never Was, a guide to hearing God’s Voice regardless of one’s faith, religion, or personal beliefs. For more information or to submit a question, please visit their website at www.rightmindedness.com.

Am I Doing the Right Thing?

My fiancé and I just broke up, and I need to know if this was the right thing to do or not. I love him more than anything else in the whole world. We were planning on being married in April. I just felt like he put himself above me in his priorities. He would make plans with me and then go play golf instead, or he would simply forget to call because something more important came up. I love him and miss him very much, but I feel like maybe it's best for us to be apart until he can change this selfish aspect of his personality. Should I be patient and stick it out or move on?
Nicole

"Greetings and blessings to you precious one. To say that this person has a tendency to be selfish and to have the idea that you can change his personality, or that he can, is perhaps not very realistic. What is more realistic in making a lifetime commitment to someone is to make a commitment to who that person is in their entirety, to accept the things about them that you cannot change, and even different than that, to accept everything about them as potentially something that can never be changed, that who you know and see before you now is the person you will spend everyday of your life with. It is important to marry who is standing in front of you today and to not marry them for who you think they will become or to not marry them for who you are afraid they might turn into. It is the one in front of you who is real and who you would be spending your days with.

"If you cannot live with the selfishness of this person now, it may only be magnified over days, weeks, months, or years in a marriage. Can you imagine yourself in this relationship with these tendencies multiplying over time? Or can you see yourself making peace with this and not having this person’s selfishness impact you? Are you strong enough to not be affected by this person’s selfishness? Or would you rather make a lifetime commitment to someone who does not have selfish tendencies? If this person is selfish with you, what will they be like with your family, your children, or over a lifetime?

"This is an opportunity for you to do some soul-searching. If you experience this person as selfish, in what ways does his selfishness make you uncomfortable because you are selfish? What kinds of things about yourself would you like to change? What types of things about you would you like to experience differently? In what ways would you like to be different in a relationship? It is important for you to focus on you and to focus less on this person, their flaws, and the changes that they should make. Take this time to focus on you. What shifts can you make so that you like you better? In doing so, you will come to like yourself in such a way that you will attract and keep someone who equally likes themselves and who is equally committed to knowing themselves and working toward being the best person they can be.

"Have faith that this process is one that is serving you in every way. Blessings to you precious one. Amen."

Help Me Overcome My Addictions

I am having trouble letting go of an over the counter addiction and smoking. I really need the Holy Spirit to guide me and strengthen me so I can overcome these things.
Shari

"Greetings and blessings to you precious one. To want to give up the addictions you are speaking of is, of course, the first and biggest step. To know that there are things that you are doing that are not serving you is the most important awareness that can happen to shift addictions. At the same time it creates pain because you suddenly become aware that this is not something that is serving you, and yet you are still doing it. There is a time lag between the awareness that what you are doing is causing you pain and the inability to stop doing it. Know that once you get to the other side, there will be tremendous peace, and yet you can still have peace in this process knowing that your awareness has taken you to the first and the biggest step in changing something you are unhappy with.

"There will be a time when these addictions will be behind you and you will have the blessing of addiction in your experience and the strength and the confidence that comes from overcoming it. You will then be able to encourage and inspire others as well. This transition period is painful, confusing, paradoxical, and at the same time exciting and door opening.

"It is important to be patient, to be loving, and to be kind and accepting with yourself right now. Battling, fighting, and abusing yourself to give up something such as an addiction is not the best way, although it is often the most common way. Be patient and kind and know that for you, the more that you love yourself, the more you can let go of these things that do not serve you.

"Spend time each day consciously noticing yourself, admiring yourself, loving yourself, thinking about what it is about you that you like, that makes you special, that you want to share with others, and that you wish others knew about you. Focus on those things and experience them within your heart and mind. Experience the love that you have for yourself. You do have tremendous love within you, though for you it is just buried, confused, and doubtful at times. Underneath all of that, there is a very deep and abiding love that you have for you. That love is what will carry you through this process.

"The more you love you, the more you cannot do the things that do not serve you. The more you love you, the less room there is for anything other than that which is good. Spend more time loving you and there will be less room for these addictions. It is truly that simple. Eventually, you will run out of room within you to do those things that do not serve you. Love yourself and have faith that this day is coming.

"Blessings to you precious one, Amen."

I Have a Secret to Share

I have been through a lot over the last 3 years. I have divorced, suffered from cancer, and started a new relationship with someone I care a great deal about. One of my problems is that I have been trained professionally to be a very secretive person. I have kept things and told lies to this person because of my secretiveness. Needless to say, it has created problems in this relationship. I know that this is wrong, but when you are trained this way, it is a hard habit to break. Please give me some insight as to how I can break this habit. Thank you."
Marie

"Greetings and blessings to you precious one. Your request is to overcome the 'habit' of your secretiveness. It is one thing to say that your secretiveness comes as a result of the work you have done, but it may be true that you chose the work you did out of a desire to be secretive. Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

"In your case you have been protecting yourself and doing your best to avoid being hurt any more than you have already been hurt. You have created the idea that to be secretive, to close down, or to hide is the best way you know to protect yourself. This keeps you from letting someone in, and it keeps you from being able to come out. There is the fear that if one were to know you completely, they would not like you or love you. There is the fear that if you love or that if you are loved, you will ultimately be hurt.

"There are many ways to experience life's lessons. Every experience can teach you something, yet the same experience might teach ten people ten different things. If one reaches into their oven to take something out and they are burned, one person might say that reaching into a hot oven will cause you to be burned. Another person would say to use your oven mitts when reaching into a hot oven to prevent getting burned. Another person may decide that baking is dangerous and they give it up altogether. Some people might think that they had been stupid and deserved to be burned. You can see that the same experience can offer people many different conclusions. You have had certain experiences and based on those you came to believe that it is better to hide and better to not love or be loved. Those conclusions do not need to be your truths any longer.

"If you think it is better to hide so that one cannot know you and have the opportunity to not like you, you also close the door to the opportunity for someone to like you for who you really are. The key here is for you to break the 'habit' of not liking yourself and being afraid to love yourself.

"Spend some time each day contemplating what you can do every day, what tiny step you could take that day toward liking yourself and loving yourself. Eventually you will look forward to the opportunity to be honest and to put yourself out there. Eventually you may go to the one you are in relationship with now and say to him honestly, 'I am sorry I have not been truthful. I did not know that I was afraid that you might not like what you found and I did not know that I was afraid to love and be loved. I want to like who I am. I want to share that with you, and I want to learn to love and be loved.'

You have everything you need to be able to make that statement and mean it.

"Blessings to you, precious one. Amen."

My Fairy Tale Is Gone

My girlfriend and I recently split up. I called her a few days ago and she said that it was over and that she did not want to discuss it with me anymore, that I had gotten on her nerves to the point where she didn't see any point in communicating with me, ever. I told her I was completely devastated and depressed. She said, "I know, but that happens to people everyday and you need to act like an adult for once."
I just don't understand what happened. I am so hurt and confused and lonely. I bought her flowers almost every week we dated and treated her like a princess. I cry and pray every day for her to return. How can I get my fairy tale back?
Jeff

"Greetings and blessings to you, precious one. What is attractive about a person is their character, their strengths, their goals, their beliefs. In some cases, it may be external things, and yet, for the most part, it is who they are and all of the richness they bring into the world and share with another. That is what you brought to this relationship in the first place. Who you became over time was a person who is in love with this other person, rather than a man of character, virtue, ideas, and goals. You lost who you were in the process of this relationship, and you lost what made you desirable to her in the first place.

"You have not done anything wrong or bad. This happens naturally for people in relationships when they are not strong and certain about who they are and about their character and strengths. Those become lost in the course of a relationship. For you, it would be best to allow your fairy tale to read onto the next page where it says, ‘And they lived happily ever after. The End.’ You close the book and say, ‘That was a nice story. God bless those characters.’ And you move on.

"Give thanks in your heart for having known this person and for having learned that in the course of falling deeply and wonderfully in love, you lose yourself. Then go about your life, without this person, rediscovering your strengths, your character, your virtues and goals. Focus on these and strengthen these. They are already instilled within you in a very deep way. Make contact with those things on the deepest level that you can, so that you bring them into the world and into your relationships, rather than bringing your neediness, your dependence, or your suffering, which came as a result of losing yourself in this relationship.

"Rediscover within you all of these things. You are the person that you want to get to know. When you feel strong and confident in who you are, bring that into the world and allow another relationship to unfold in your life, being mindful not to lose yourself in the process. It is not to be self-centered when you step into a relationship, but to continue to make yourself, your relationship with God, your family, your work, your goals, and your priorities as important as they truly are.

"You have everything within you that you need to accomplish this. It is only for you to make the decision and take the time to do this. Allow yourself to be motivated to maintain who you are and to allow your partner to maintain who they are so that the relationship becomes the blessing of the gifts that you each bring, knowing that you are stronger as a couple than the sum of your parts.

"Blessings to you on this happy venture. Amen."

My Daughter is Testing the Waters

I have a 13 year old daughter, and I need guidance in making the best choices for her and having the courage to carry it out. My daughter is a good girl, though she is testing the waters with me. Please help.
Valerie

"Greetings and blessings to you precious one. Indeed, a 13-year-old comes with their own set of challenges. Yours is not unique, and as you say, she is a very good girl. It is necessary for her to test the waters with you. It is necessary for her to be experimenting with the boundaries within your household of what is acceptable and what is not. This is a required part of being thirteen. If it is not done at thirteen, it will be done at some other time with bigger, loftier challenges, with things that are perhaps more intense, impacting, life-threatening, and so on. To allow her to do this at thirteen is somewhat safer than not allowing her to do this now and attempting to control a 13-year-old out of testing the waters and waiting for them to do this at a later time, because it will happen at some point.

"It is important for you to be clear with yourself as to what the boundaries are. What are your priorities? What are the things that matter to you that you need to set boundaries or rules on? Then allow everything else to fall away. Anything that is not worth taking a stand on, let go, and allow the few things that are left to become very clear to you. Then make a commitment to yourself that you will stand by these until you feel differently. Communicate to your daughter that these are the boundaries. These are the lines that you cannot compromise on, or this is the way that you can compromise in these areas, and be very consistent and clear and steady with those boundaries.

"Your job right now is to be consistent, to be committed to your priorities, and to communicate with your daughter at every opportunity. As she comes to you either having crossed a line or wanting to cross one and wanting to talk with you about it, sit with her. Talk with her. Share with her why these things are important to you and ask her why is it important to her to cross this line. Then listen. Actually listen to your precious daughter and hear why it is important to her. Perhaps you will change your mind. Perhaps you will not. It does not matter. The most important thing is that you will have expressed why it is important to you, and most likely this will involve how much you love her, and she will have expressed why it is important to her and you will have listened, and that is the most important part of the transaction. The kindest, most rewarding thing you can do with and for a 13-year-old is to actually hear them. You do not have to agree, but to listen and to hear is something that is not happening for a 13-year-old in many areas of her life.

"You have it in you to listen and to do that which is best for your children. Continue to find that place deep within your heart and your mind that can allow you to just listen. Even when you are afraid, even when you know better, even when you do not like what your daughter is saying or doing, just listen and share from your heart your concerns or why things are important to you and do your best to not fight what is occurring. You can do it.

"Blessings to you precious one. Amen."

There Is a Void Within Me

I am a 27 year old wife and mother of two beautiful girls, ages two and four, yet I still have this empty feeling within me. I have a lot to be thankful for and have a terrific family but still there is a void. I have gone through years of my life dealing with cancer in my family. My grandfather passed away almost 7 years ago from cancer, and my life just doesn't seem to be the same. My father then got prostate cancer only to be followed by a brain aneurism. Then my husband got testicular cancer to be followed by my grandmother with breast cancer. What do I do?
Joanne

"Greetings and blessings to you precious one. Indeed, you have had many challenges within your family. It is important to remember that these types of challenges are most often wake up calls. They are calls to those who are afflicted and to those who love them, to wake-up in whatever ways one might be asleep. If any of those with cancer or any of those who love them have been seeking more faith, more awareness of God, a deeper, richer experience of God, a deeper appreciation for life, for nature, for family, for relationship, for those things that truly matter, often times a life threatening illness will do just that.

"If one has prayed for a richer experience of their life on earth, what better way than to be on the verge of losing it to appreciate it fully. You say there is a void within you, and perhaps this void is God. For you, despite how many life-threatening illnesses you are surrounded by, there is still a void where God is concerned. That in and of itself is a wake-up call. Each time there is something before you, such as an illness or a physical condition that threatens one's life, that is the time to stop what you are doing and join with God. That is the time to pray. That is the time to ask God to join you in your heart and mind and bring you comfort, bring you peace, bring you the knowing that regardless of what happens, everything is ok.

"You have so many opportunities and inspirations to join with God and now is the time to do that. Stop whatever you are doing, and join with God. Stop what you are doing and pray. Look around you and see what you have. It is so easy to focus on what you have lost and what you are losing and what you might lose, and now it is time to turn 180 degrees and become aware of what you have. Become aware of the richness and gifts and people and joy and beauty and grace in your life on a day to day basis. You have the laughter of your precious little daughters and the joy on their faces when you play with them. You have the witnessing of their learning and unfolding. You have the pleasure of a loving family. You have the beauty of all that is in front of you. There is so much richness, and yet the focus is on loss. You can see that what one focuses on becomes their reality.

"Perhaps the void is that you have turned your back on what is good and beautiful and wonderful and amazing in your world. It already exists. It is already there. You are just facing the other way. When you turn around you will see all of the beauty and the grace that you already have. It is so easy to turn away from the good in one's life when the focus is on tragedy. In what ways do you gain by focusing on tragedy? In what ways do you lose by turning away from the Life in your life?

"You have these two beautiful children brimming over with Life, and yet they do not outweigh the tragic. Each of these experiences is your opportunity to join with God, to deepen your faith, to look around and see what you do have, to appreciate each moment, to appreciate waking up, to appreciate your family, to appreciate your home, to appreciate the ways that you laugh and learn and play and struggle on a day to day basis to deepen the gratitude you do have. It is a wake-up call. The ones in your life who have become sick have given you the gift of a wake up call. Now is the time to wake up. The alarm is going off.

"Blessings to you, precious one. Amen."

Inspired by A Course in Miracles, Candace Doyle has been hearing and sharing the Voice of the Holy Spirit within her as a discernible, conversational Voice for over 10 years. Candace and her husband, DavidPaul, are the authors of The Journey That Never Was, a guide to hearing God’s Voice regardless of one’s faith, religion, or personal beliefs. For more information or to submit a question, please visit their website at www.rightmindedness.com.