Integritus Prime

Continuing our theme from last week, we are learning exciting details of how to live our true lives from the book, Friendship with God by Neale Donald Walsch. The book gives us three tools of creation, and explains five attributes of god that we will feel as we cultivate peace with ourselves and the universe. Together, these provide 8 tools for creating and sustaining peace:

1. Thought: is a first step to making something happen
2. Word: verbalizing gets you closer to doing
3. Deed: action makes things happen
4. Joy: happiness and humor
5. Love: not just falling in love, but self-love and love for life
6. Acceptance: being at peace with reality
7. Blessings: giving good energy to what is around us
8. Gratitude; being thankful for what we have

Of course, thinking, saying and doing are related, and can reinforce each other to make something happen, such as the use of affirmations and practicing something so we can get better at it, for instance learning to set boundaries.

Being totally joyful needs humor in our lives, like the saying goes: ‘laughter is the best medicine’ and the book also says that ‘a smile is a window to our soul, laughter is the door’. The joy in your soul needs to move through your heart to reach the mind. Feelings are the language of the soul. So, why are we not happy? We have been conditioned to feel otherwise. In some religions, we are told that we are born sinners. We must also remember that joy and sadness are part of the same continuum, like hot and cold, light and darkness, and all opposites. To transcend these dualities, we need spiritual practice that cleanses the mind, such as meditation.

Love in this context means loving yourself and everyone without condition or limitation. To be fully loving means to be completely natural. Loving is in our nature. Outside influences and teachings prevent us from being our true selves and from being natural. When we are being natural and truly loving, we are free and let others be free as well. We lovingly help people to take responsibility for their actions. All actions have consequences, and by our choices we can create the heaven or hell we choose to live in.

The attributes of accepting, blessing and being grateful are related to each other. First we need to accept what is happening around us without judging it. Only when we accept what is, then we can decide to change it, if we are not happy with what is.  There is no good or bad, but everything that happens has consequences. So instead of damning it we could bless it, learn from it, change it and be grateful that we can change the outcome. However, we need to accept that reality first, before we can change it. We cannot change what we do not accept or acknowledge as existent.

The strongest message that this book gives is that we are all one. What we do to one we do to all of us.

I recommend that you read this very interesting 400-plus-page book to savor the detailed and relatable examples. It will help you to reflect on your journey towards your true self and how to develop a friendship with God – the God within.

Our book, called The Dimensions of True Self – A Workbook for Living and Leading Authentically is also a great guide for how to discover and be your true self as a leader, with reflection questions after each chapter.

This blog post is written by the inimitable Dr. Margaret Cornelius.