Facing American Country-Based Injuries, Part 3

Politics!

Any American knows that in the last few years, politics have become an even more central part of our daily news, comedy shows and talk shows. It is often commented on, how upset so many Americans are these days about politics. Our next presidential election is over a year away, and yet dozens of politicians have begun actively campaigning, and nationally televised debates between these candidates have already happened in the last couple months.

I’m continuing to learn more about the country-based injuries Jesus and Mary brought up with me in feedback last year, and I’m finding it confronting but also interesting.

The main inspiration for this Part 3 was really just that I recently found more Divine Truth videos that discuss these country-based injuries. They really hit the nail on the head in terms of explaining and clarifying issues that I’d started to wonder about. When I watched them I just felt, Man I’ve gotta post these videos on the blog NOW because they’re so pertinent for Americans! So I wanted to share those videos here and also later in the blog share a bit about some of my recent personal thoughts on the topic.

The first video is from the Forgiveness & Repentance series that Jesus and Mary have been releasing over the last few years, and the video discusses many issues relevant to Americans and those in Western countries. I really recommend watching the entire F&R series, because there is vital information throughout the series related to country-based injuries. If you did want to start from the beginning of the series, you can click here for Session 1 Part 1, and watch in order from there.

The video below is partway through the series, so you may still want to watch the previous material first, but this video contains specific examples about politics. When I watched this I was both confronted but also felt like, BOOM THERE IT IS, yes.

Additionally, I found that the discussion in the video above was a great follow-on to some discussions about politics that Jesus mentioned in some of the 2016 Assistance Groups. Specifically, the following two videos contain some examples (I’ve embedded the time code in the link so the video starts to play at the particular question):

I’ve found myself thinking a lot about politics in the context of the American country-based injuries, and so wanted to share some of those thoughts. As always, my disclaimer is that my views, and this blog, are not endorsed by Jesus and Mary, nor affiliated with the Divine Truth organizations, and my analysis and statements may not be accurate. They’re just my own contemplations while in the process, and are always subject to the influence of my emotional injuries.

Ok, politics: I have no formal history or experience in politics, however over time in my adulthood it has become something I’ve found myself following more closely, though as I mentioned before, any American would probably know it’s hard to avoid politics nowadays with it being everywhere.

I’ve particularly been thinking about what Jesus seems to have said about how at the moment, the politicians in America become “successful” politicians in part by feeding the addictions of Americans. This turned some things on their head for me, because I’ve wanted to believe that our politicians and political system are not giving us what we want and deserve. I think many Americans see it this way. And so my first thought was, “I wonder really how many Americans would even agree or see that often the politicians are pandering to us“.

However, when I think of the kinds of addictions politicians could be feeding, I think of all the conveniences, luxuries and resources that we have and have come to expect, and especially how we feel like we deserve to have them regardless of their potential negative impact on the rest of the world. I also think of the fears we have that we want our government to defend us from. I also think of our personal lack of responsibility and desire for the government to take over a lot of that for us.

Recently I’ve observed myself watch certain political candidates give speeches, and talk about their promises if they gain the office they’re campaigning for, and I’ve at times felt “inspired” or “relieved” by those speeches. I’ve then thought…. Hold on, if this is making me feel good, and yet most politicians are feeding addictions to get the favor of people, what’s really going on here on a soul level for me?

That observation then made me think about my personal interactions with Jesus, Mary and others who have confronted the country-based demands in me that I haven’t wanted to see, and that I still want to justify and keep. When that’s happened, I’ve been very emotionally defensive, resistant and angry, as I often become when addictions that I want are confronted. I’ve felt that I don’t want to hear about these country-based addictions, would like others to please stop telling me about them, and have generally just felt flipped upside down emotionally and very jumbled when the topic comes up. What I’m trying to say here is, I feel very different emotions when Jesus and Mary talk to me about truths about country based addictions to the emotions I feel when I hear certain political leaders campaign and speak about the country.

I’ve then thought, If the politicians were in the right space from God’s Perspective, wouldn’t I feel the same way when I hear them talk about America to how I’ve felt when Jesus and Mary have confronted my country-based addictions? And if I don’t feel similarly confronted, isn’t it logical that these politicians must be pandering to and supporting the addictions in me, thereby creating the ‘nice’ or optimistic feelings I sometimes get when hearing them talk?

And so it seems that I must keep looking at what appeals to me about what they say, and why.

By the way, an important clarification here: I’m not saying that everything that politicians promise or want for the country are things I believe are unloving. For example, before there was marriage equality in the USA for gay and lesbian couples, some politicians voiced the intention to make it so. I think marriage equality is absolutely a loving thing, and of course it makes sense people would be very excited and optimistic about hearing politicians talk about something like that.

So in this blog I’m just focusing on the issues that may not be loving from God’s Perspective, and the things that are addictions from God’s Perspective (which by the say, I’m not even clear on everything that is or isn’t).

Additionally, when I listen to candidates aspiring for high positions in federal or state governments, I’ve noticed that they rarely, if ever, talk about what Americans should not feel entitled to. They don’t talk about what we’re constantly getting that is not ethical and moral, and how we need to change our demands. Rather, they usually talk about how great Americans and America are, and most of the time, their speeches feel like a reinforcement of how much we do indeed deserve all we get, and more, because we are so wonderful.

Politicians also rarely talk about whether or how something Americans want affects the rest of the world. They talk about America in a way that makes us sound like an island; like there is no outside world to really consider with regards to what we want or have. I’ve noticed I rarely hear about countries outside America at all in these dialogues, except ones we think might be a threat to us. Occasionally, politicians will position America as generous and helpful towards certain countries, though I can’t help but wonder if they’re countries that barter with us, and pander to us, and therefore helping or supporting them benefits us selfishly. So I have noticed politicians don’t talk in the context of the entire world, and how we can benefit everyone on the planet; we only talk about our own benefit. And these are the same emotions reflected that I personally have: a lack of interest or desire to give to the world, and only an interest in myself and what benefits me.

I’d never before even clocked that there was anything unusual with how candidates gained favor, how they got elected, and what they talked about. I never noticed they didn’t talk about our impact on the world much. But I can see that this is because I have always been in agreement in my soul with these attitudes. I can see that this same self-focus and disregard that our country displays as an entity, are also personal emotions I have, and ones that play out when I am in day-to-day situations with others. And even though I have a lot of resistance to it, I can see what Jesus is saying in the videos above about the personal responsibility we each have, and how I can’t really blame it all on our politicians as if they are not reflecting the collective and the issues of love in myself.

So with this blog, I wanted to share the videos, and to share that I think it’d be interesting for us all to observe how we feel emotionally when Jesus talks about the truth about America, our politics, and our country-based injuries, and then compare that with how we feel emotionally about politicians that we are inclined to like (and maybe also the ones we don’t like), and how we feel about their their promises and visions. I think this comparison could tell us a lot.

So that’s it for today, and I wanted to update my “Master List” of DT material I’ve found so far that has information on American country-based injuries or general issues in western countries including the USA:

20070914 General Discussion – Q&A From People In Cocoa S1P2: This video includes discussion about the USA’s destruction of the natural environment. I have embedded the link directly to this question.

20120218 General Discussion – Blocks To Spiritual Progression In The USA

20150930-1400 Judgement Towards Others: This video contains relevant reflections for many in first-world countries.

20161108-1350 Governance Principles: In this video the question is asked, “If Governance Principles ensure restriction of those in lower development, why do evil people seem to be in power on Earth?” and a discussion relevant to America ensues. I have embedded the link directly to this question.

20161122-1510 Responsibility Principles: In this video I ask Jesus, “Why do humans often give societal power and authority to people who are not self responsible or developed in love?” and a discussion relevant to America ensues. I have embedded the link directly to this question.

20161123-1350 Compensation Principles: In this video Jesus discusses how our fear contributes to countries going to war. I have embedded the link directly to this question.

20170919-1630 God’s Laws of Forgiveness & Repentance: This video contains discussion about American politics.

All Forgiveness & Repentance videos, which highlight how not forgiving and repenting personally contributes to country-based, societal and global pain.

xo,

Courtney

Photo credits: Ashton Bingham, David Everett Strickler, Drew Hays, Josh Johnson

Facing American Country-Based Injuries: An Introduction

“America is the greatest country in the world.”  -Muhammad Ali

During this trip to Australia, one of the main sets of emotional injuries I have which have been highlighted to me by Jesus and Mary have to do with country-based injuries from being born and raised in America.

Here are some bits of feedback and truth I have received from Jesus about my country-based injuries and attitudes, which also apply to many other Americans, or in some cases, all other Americans as well:

• A demand that other countries satisfy western countries’ demands.
• People of western countries tend to believe they are superior.
• Belief that America doesn’t have the problems that other countries have; we are less violent and more law-abiding (it actually only appears this way due to a collective facade).
• The USA is a bully as a country and has a bullying mentality stemming from a sense of superiority.
• This superiority is within every person in America.
• We have had a feeling that our country is the best country in the world (which is not actually true).
• We want our country to be responsible for our safety, security, welfare, food, clothing and more (we do not want to take personal responsibility for these things and most Americans believe they are far more personally responsible than they really are).
• An attitude of “I want what I want”… and when I don’t get what I want, I will get angry.
• On top of this, myself and many people in America have a problem with thinking we are in a better condition personally than we actually are, and an addiction to a facade that we don’t have lots of rage and expectation.
• Many Americans, including myself, learn to cover over our issues with a facade of niceness that covers over a very dark, evil direction emotionally.
• For many Americans, myself included, as soon as a bit of feedback is given, we pull back from the interaction to avoid any additional feedback which would challenge the facade and addictions.
• Many Americans, myself included, use manipulative ways to avoid feedback.
• The USA will not be a nice place to be should there be economic upheaval, earth change events or events regarding country-based revolution because everyone there has feelings they should always get their addictions met.

I decided to look around the magical, endless land of the interwebs as I was writing this. I came across an article which cites a poll of American citizens that concluded,

“A majority of the public (85%) says either that the United States ‘stands above all other countries in the world’ (29%) or that it is ‘one of the greatest countries, along with some others’ (56%).”

Before coming to Australia this time, I hadn’t spent much time outside America with the exception of a couple of weeks or months here and there to other first-world countries. I did spend a day in a poor part of Mexico when I was a teenager and looking back, my American snobbery and superiority was in full swing within my head: “They live in those kinds of houses?” “Doesn’t anyone follow traffic laws here?” “I’m so glad I don’t live in this country.” In America I’ve been surrounded by everyone who pretty much has the same attitudes as I do, and so this is in part why I didn’t see how I act these injuries out all the time. After all, if every person in the USA has them and we all agree with each other, who will pull us up on them? (Ideally, God, if we wanted to hear the truth about it, which I personally don’t).

I would like to write a series of blogs on the issue of American country-based injuries over time as I hopefully work through my own. For this first blog, I have been unsure about which country-based injuries to start with. You see, if I am to share from personal experience, I could share anything from what it’s like to grow up in a military family with many members who been sent on missions overseas, right through to what it’s like to grow up with attitudes that you shouldn’t have to stand very long in a line to buy something at a store.

And so I have debated: discuss issues such as my family and many Americans’ attitudes towards military conquest in other countries? Or discuss how I expected to get lots of gifts for Christmas every year? But then I realize: these things are not unrelated. It is not an either/or scenario. In fact, the demands for gifts at Christmas may be part of the reason why we use military conquest to dominate and take from other countries. Perhaps the impatience of having to stand in a line reflects the same attitudes that cause America to disregard the welfare of poorer countries.

I am going to navigate writing about these issues the best I can with where I am currently at. And where I am at is not far into dealing with these problems. I don’t see how I act them out all the time and am often “surprised” when I am told, but this is because I don’t want to notice. I want what I want, and if I see what I’m doing from God’s Perspective, then I may not get what I want. My attitude at the moment is, No thank you God, you can take your conscience mechanism back with you out the door, thank you very much, I don’t want to know what I’m doing is wrong!

I also don’t feel how sinful it is to justify and act in these emotions. If I did, I might want to change them. However, at the moment I don’t care that much how my demands damage others and myself and often doubt whether they really even do: that’s how strong the rage of my entitlement is to getting these addictions. When push comes to shove, and I might have to forego something I really want in order to be loving in a situation, in my current condition I will not choose the loving option. Rather I will push aside, step on and drain from whomever I need to in order to get it anyway. In fact, I actually find those whom, through their own injuries, will give me what I want, and then manipulate them to get what I want, thereby exploiting others’ weaknesses in order to fulfill my addictions. And on top of this, I have a well-developed facade to pretend I don’t have these kinds of motivations.

I am only a tiny way out of full-fledged denial. I am still in denial, maybe just a smidgen less than I was six months ago. But maybe at some point I will decide to sincerely work through these problems, in which case maybe some of the things I learn in that process could assist other Americans to do the same.

I thought to start, I’ll share a bit of background about my own life. If my understanding from Jesus is correct, it seems that the above bullet-pointed issues at the top of this blog are ones most or all Americans have to some extent. However, I want to be clear that my personal experience and resulting emotions are obviously not perfectly representative of all Americans. It is a diverse country with many residents who are significantly less “privileged” than I am, to use a common sociological term. After all, I am white, heterosexual, able-bodied, and grew up economically in the middle-class and within the most accepted religion in America. There are many Americans who have far less privilege than I do and their experiences growing up were far less privileged than mine were.

However, I also know that there are millions of people who did grow up very similar or somewhat similar to myself, where a similar set of attitudes was taught to them in childhood, and so my theory is that sharing truthfully about the emotions I am seeing in myself, and where they came from, may help others to examine their own as well.

I grew up in a quintessential, white Republican patriotic household: the kind which to those in other countries may sound straight out of an Hollywood movie, and yet is accurately representative of a very large percentage of families. My family was a military family who celebrated patriotic holidays–and all holidays for that matter–to their fullest commercial and festive capacity, drove a Jeep while listening to country music, my Dad owned a gun, we went to a tiny Methodist church every Sunday, and also regularly went to real church: watching American football on TV and the parties associated with it.

My dad was a fighter jet pilot in the Air Force military and retired only a few years ago as a colonel, a fairly high-ranking in the Air Force. My dad’s father before him was an engineer who worked for a company that developed military jets and otherwise contracted to engineer for the military. My dad’s family was Methodist Christian and devoutly religious. My mom came from a family who loved–nay, worshipped–the American military as well. Many of her family are in the military and she couldn’t have been prouder to be a military wife to my dad. She was also brought up very religious and extremely conservative.

Both my parents, in varying degrees and varying ways, were racist, homophobic, religiously discriminatory, and generally had superior attitudes. There is a lot I could talk about with regards to the attitudes they tried to teach me towards certain groups of people which included other Americans, but for this blog post, I’ll stick to the attitudes about America versus other countries.

My family would have readily admitted half the attitudes Jesus mentioned Americans feel in my bullet points above, and they’d have stated them proudly. We were the best country in the world. Everyone else wasn’t as good as us, that was just a fact. America did everything better. We have a better society, and pretty much, God just loves Americans more. I remember when I first realized that my family believed America won wars over other countries because God favored us to do so and was baffled at the logic. I didn’t get it. If God loved everyone like the reverend in our church said, why did he want some of us to kill others and certain ones to die and others to live? I used to lay awake at night as a kid feeling very upset after learning there was such a thing as war and that this was supposedly the normal way the world worked. We never really volunteered anywhere, were taught about charity of any kind or serving anyone in any way. It was all about us and what we could get from life.

Looking back, it is like I grew up thinking that the USA was the only country in the world, or certainly the only one that really mattered. I was never sat down by my parents and told about people who existed in other places in the world that lived differently to us. I only absorbed that there was a world outside America (and Europe, which my parents liked) through osmosis as a I got older.  It was as if other people than white Americans and Europeans were as inconsequential to our lives as a random insect native to Connecticut that I’d never heard of.

Americans’ status in the world, and our lifestyle, was considered the norm. How we lived is how it should be, what we deserved and how God intended us to live. My family had the attitude that many “right-wing”/conservative Americans had: the other people in the world should just start working harder if they wanted a better life like we had. We pull ourselves up by the bootstraps, and so should they. It’s not our fault their lives suck; maybe they should work harder and be smarter and adopt some of our ways of life and systems which clearly work wonders. There was no regard whatsoever as to why other countries were in a terrible position or what America was doing to them. A word was never once spoken about this in my family.

As an American you may relate with some of my experience, or you might not. You might not have grown up as ignorant as I did or had parents who loved the military, guns and patriotism. But what if we take a microscope to our typical lives and look at the day-to-day choices which reflect the country-based injuries I bullet-pointed at the beginning of the blog? What can these attitudes look like even for those who didn’t grow up in the specific kind of American family that I did?

Well, let’s look at issues of demand related to getting what we want, when we want it, in our daily lives. I’ll use myself as an example.

When I was little, I got gifts every Christmas and every birthday. My parents had us make lists of what we wanted and I was irked if I didn’t get the ones I wanted most. My brothers and I expected them. We went trick-or-treating on Halloween as most Americans do, which is pretty much repeatedly showing up to strangers’ houses and knocking on their door and expecting them to give you candy. We even got some gifts on Easter and Valentine’s Day. In fact I feel my family is still upset at me that I have stopped engaging in the expected gift exchange during holidays.

My mom also did a lot of things for myself and my brothers. I didn’t have to do many chores except when my mom enforced outdoor manual work or cleaning as punishment on me. My brothers and I were not taught self-responsibility in a loving way. I feel my mom did most things for us because of a few key big injuries of her own, including one which created in my brothers and I huge expectations of others/life and a lack of responsibility: she endeavored to give us a far easier life than she had as a child living on a farm, as one of eight children, in a family far poorer than we were, and where she had to do a great deal more chores and duties than she ever asked us to do.

When I was little I observed demanding behavior in my parents: anger if they couldn’t buy what they wanted at a cheap price, frustration if the air-conditioning or heating in any situation wasn’t to their standard, upturned noses if a public bathroom wasn’t spotless, snide remarks under their breath as a waiter walked away if they took too long to bring the food out. At any suggestion we were privileged, my family defended: “Come on, we’re not rich! We have lived in homes with only one bathroom for the family of five! There are people with so much more than we have!” In fact, my parents have throughout their lives have carried a feeling that they’ve been hard done by and had resentment towards people with more assets and possessions than they have, or who they perceive have had it easier than they do, and this is also an attitude I have taken on.

When I first got feedback here in Australia about my American attitudes, I thought, hold on now! I have never had much money, I shop at thrift stores, I’ve owned one car in my life which I still have and it’s 20 years old and lots of its paint is peeled off. I’ve lived in tiny places and try to stretch out my haircuts as long as possible. And yet, I can see that my standards of what I should get, what is normal and reasonable to “need” from life, are extremely luxurious compared to what most people in the world have, though they are standards most Americans would also agree are reasonable as a baseline.

When I’ve noticed my American attitudes coming out, even here in Australia, I have nervously laughed to myself at certain times–or felt completely justified at other times. While Australia is still a first-world country, people are more self-sufficient and less addictions are met living in rural Australia. Some examples of my actual thoughts in certain situations:

As my friend Lena will tell you, when I went to the Australian grocery stores and they didn’t sell chipotle, I couldn’t believe it. In fact I can’t believe they don’t have 4 kinds of chipotle to choose from. I mean, who doesn’t stock chipotle? Isn’t that BASIC?

I order things online sometimes and I can’t believe there isn’t much free shipping. I mean, come on. Who pays for shipping anymore? Paying for shipping is so 1995.

Internet data is limited here. It had never occurred to me anyone in the world who had internet access (something I also consider a reasonable demand for anyone with a heartbeat) would ever have limits on the usage. You mean I can’t stream YouTube at 1080p while downloading a movie for later while video-Skyping my boyfriend? You mean unless I pay and arm and a leg, these things pretty much have to go out the window? How will I live? What is there to live for?

I’ve gotten somewhat used to using buckets and similar receptacles for human waste, my own and others, emptying them, burying the contents and cleaning the receptacles. If I had been told 5 years ago I’d have to do that, I’d have sooner sold my firstborn to the circus than consider such a lowly experience.

I imagine all it would take to trigger the average American into an emotional meltdown in a Volunteer Selection Project at a Learning Center would be to, for an extended period of time:

-Have no modern plumbing

-Have no home heating and cooling systems

-Have no access to any kind of internet nor roaming data access, nor television services

-Remove coffee & caffeine

I reckon at this point few of us would last very long without having some kind of emotional meltdown, much less adding to that situation work like cleaning homes, outdoor manual labor in the heat or cold and personal feedback to the mix.

I jest, because occasionally I find the issues a bit funny, but in all seriousness, these issues are widespread and our demands have far more implications globally that we imagine or than I personally yet understand. I am only slowly realizing the influence that the American demands for comfort, convenience, safety and security have on the rest of the world. While I grew up with an attitude that we were the best country, I never really realized how much many people in other countries aspire to be like us and to have the same addictions that we can readily fulfill. The sad thing is that many of these other countries, by aspiring to be like us, will actually be aspiring to darken their soul condition down to the collectively low soul condition of America.

When we justify and agree with each other in our demands and addictions, and then continue to act in them, we are assisting the rest of the world as well as ourselves to degrade in condition. America is the biggest bully of the world and at some point we are going to have to accept that and examine in what ways we each contribute to that. Many Americans, including myself, like to put all the blame on our politicians (particularly the other political party from whichever one we lean towards), religious leaders, or the super-rich of the country, but we need start looking at our own personal entitlement, greed and narcissism as individuals.

When you go to another place with less self-absorption and expectation, you find that these country-based injuries actually affect every day, practical interactions with others and decisions that need to be made. Country-based attitudes are not some nebulous, indeterminate set of injuries with unclear consequences and which we can easily dismiss. These emotions of demand, expectation and superiority play out daily and are actually some of the main issues degrading our individual and collective condition, and I’d guess in many cases even more than many other issues that as individuals we may want to think are our biggest issues personally.

I am pondering the idea that country-based injuries are childhood injuries and they have personal, deep pain associated with them; country-based injuries are not impersonal. They are not attitudes we can change just by watching documentaries about less privileged people in the world or buying fair-trade chocolate. My understanding is we will have to examine what emotions have been passed down to us from our parents, families, school teachers and others in our childhood and find the personal pain that must be associated with those emotional injuries, and go through an emotional process to shift things within ourselves.

Growing up, I saw some of the attitudes and emotions that my conservative, right-wing family had and I rebelled to some extent against them. As a teenager I got involved in human relations organizations dedicated to addressing discrimination and bias, in my adult life I’ve signed oodles of petitions against discrimination of many kinds, rejected organized religion, have gotten caught up in American politics and ended up adopting most of the polar-opposite political viewpoints of my family, and felt extremely triggered by political and religious figures in America that reminded me of my parents. I’ve wanted desperately to be nothing like my family and to reject the superiority, narcissism, and entitlement I saw in them.

And yet, I must come to terms with the fact that I still have a lot of these same issues myself. While I have rejected the extreme forms of superiority that my family justify proudly, I have to face that I am still left with many extreme addictions based on growing up in America. I feel entitled to things that I think I need but don’t actually need, I have a demand for others/the government/the world to make things easier and less scary for me, a lack of personal responsibility, a far bigger desire to take from the world than to give to it, a willingness to exploit others’ injuries to get what I want, and more. It is inevitable I will have these attitudes, and that I will in many ways be the same as my parents and the people in my childhood, because after all, they created my injuries.

I’ve also had a facade about being one of the “nice, reasonable Americans”. I like to tell myself I care about other countries and am informed about what’s happening in the world, and that I share nothing in common with what I consider the extremists in our country (who are a lot like my family). And yet, the idea that in actuality the soul condition of America is collectively quite dark, and that the collective evil in Americans is also within me at the moment, is something I don’t like to face. I find myself wanting to defend America and myself as being nicer than that, and yet continuing the way I am now will be the road into hell, even not withstanding any of my other unloving desires or poor attitudes that aren’t from country-based injuries.

Sometimes I still want to be in denial. “America can’t be that bad! It’s just our politicians and religious leaders that are the problem! It’s a great place, after all we’ve invented this thing, and we have that brilliant organization, and we do this good thing in the world! I love America! Don’t take my America away from me! We are very nice people who are responsible and well-rounded and law-abiding and just, well, great! And look at me, I’ve changed, I’m not like my family! I’m not superior and demanding!”

And I don’t know, maybe Americans do have some good qualities and attitudes and not all our achievements are off the backs of others; it’s a bit hard for me to tell right now where the line truly is in what we can really take credit for achieving through loving means.

But now in facing the idea of giving up my entitlement for everyday things to be easy and to revolve around what works for me, I often get really angry. “I shouldn’t have to change this! F*** anyone who tells me I should be happy to use a bucket for human waste, suggests I should learn to fix a car myself or thinks it’s reasonable to ask me to go through a summer over 100 F with no air conditioning! People should understand my plight! Woe is me! They should make it easier for me! WHY DOESN’T ANYONE LOVE ME IN THIS SITUATION?” I am literally like a spoiled 3-year old having a tantrum.

I also thought I was sick of America, particularly with the political drama of recent years. But if I’m honest, facing the idea that I will have to give up the demand for these everyday addictions in order to grow in love feels like a breakup. America feels like a person to me sometimes now, one I’ve been in a relationship with for 31 years and who I thought was really quite awesome. I thought we were close, I thought we were doing great things together in the world, I thought it was love and we’d reached the epitome of an awesome relationship that surely anyone would aspire to if their eyes and brain worked properly. And then someone comes along and tells me this relationship is actually a toxic one, and that we are destroying ourselves and others in the way we are living together.

It feels like a loss to consider giving these addictions up, like something precious, that I love, and that is vital for my happiness is being taken away from me. And I’m angry about it. I feel like I’m being jilted and love is being withdrawn (what I consider love to be). I know it may sound silly, but it’s how the idea makes me feel. I am told that when we give up addictions or come down from superiority, it can feel like a loss, even though God’s Truth is that we are not in actuality losing anything at all. I am told that in the end, giving up addictions always results in more happiness, and that retaining them creates more pain. God’s Perspective on these things, it seems, is extremely different from mine.

Sometimes I wonder, what if a lot of my pain is actually because of these issues? Maybe I have always felt lonely and isolated in part because I was taught addictions and worldviews that set me up for certain disconnection from my brothers and sisters in the world, and therefore, also from God. Maybe there is actually deep pain in feeling and acting entitled and there is suffering for me at the core of getting what I want, when I want it, how I want it.

I haven’t been to many places that aren’t first-world countries, but when I’ve seen photos or videos of those far less privileged than myself in the world, through my injured perspective I have wondered how in the world they could possibly be happy. I’ve seen photos of children with splitting shoes in front of shanty houses with a bigger grin on their faces than I have likely ever genuinely reflected in my life, or women cooking on dirt floors with their single pot and they seem more at peace than I’ve felt. I’ve thought, how could they be happy without all the comforts and things that I have? What are they excited about? It has utterly perplexed me; they have almost seemed like extraterrestrials to me. And yet, it makes me wonder how the soul actually works, and under what conditions feelings of joy, connection, and love are possible.

Though I’d heard Jesus discuss country-based attitudes and the emotions of those first-world countries, it never felt to me like whatever American attitudes I might have absorbed would hold nearly as much importance, or personal pain, as say, feelings I have as a result of having been hit by my dad in my childhood. And yet the more I ponder it, the more the former seems as potentially pain-inducing and soul-damaging as the latter. After all, how can we minimize the effects of parents brainwashing their children in a way that disconnect their hearts and souls from the Soul and Love of God and of other people in favor of addictions masquerading as love?

Jesus said to me recently that every person in the USA will have to go through the process of challenging the facade of niceness, but Jesus has yet to meet anyone from the USA who is sincerely going through the process of coming face-to-face with their facade and how it affects their lives, others and themselves.

I haven’t yet decided to be one of the Americans to start doing this. Right now I pretty much just want the addictions despite the cost to myself and others, and I am very angry. But it’s something I’m thinking about personally and these are issues that hundreds of millions of people in the USA have, and which I’ve gotten some very interesting truth about from Jesus and Mary, and so I thought I’d share some of the truths I’ve been gifted with you. If we can shift as Americans, maybe we can cease being the chief destroyer of the world and the people in it as we are now, and our change in attitude, behavior and our repentance could be beneficial for the world instead.

Here are some Divine Truth videos I recommend to look at these issues. I will come back and add to this list over time as I find snippets mentioning issues in America or first-world countries generally.

20120218 General Discussion – Blocks To Spiritual Progression In The USA

20161108-1350 Governance Principles: In this video the question is asked, “If Governance Principles ensure restriction of those in lower development, why do evil people seem to be in power on Earth?” and a discussion relevant to America ensues. I have embedded the link directly to this question.

20161122-1510 Responsibility Principles: In this video I ask Jesus, “Why do humans often give societal power and authority to people who are not self responsible or developed in love?” and a discussion relevant to America ensues. I have embedded the link directly to this question.

20150930-1400 Judgement Towards Others (Selina Mytting): This video contains relevant reflections for many in first-world countries.

All Forgiveness & Repentance videos, which highlight how not forgiving and repenting personally contributes to country-based, societal and global pain.

Till next time,

Courtney

photo & gif credit to unsplash.com, pixabay.com & giphy.com

The Divine Truth Training Program

I’ve now been back in the US for coming up on 2 weeks after an amazing 9.5 weeks in Australia, during which time I attended the Understanding God’s Loving Laws 3.2 Assistance Group presented by Jesus and Mary Magdalene, followed by the Divine Truth Training Program.

As I gaze out my window at the snow outside here in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA–a stark contrast to the near 100-degree F Aussie summer I just came from–and feel about writing this blog, I realize I could write a book about what I learned in education and about myself while there. It’s hard to know where to start! I can always write more later about particular specific topics, but still, I feel like I will be reflecting on everything for years and still not have digested it all. How do I do the experience justice via writing? And when I think about the magnitude of the gift I was given, I feel like I’ve been one of the luckiest people of the last 2000 years. And so with that in my heart, I think, well, I’ll try to share as much as I possibly can in the case it might also benefit others for me to do so.

This is probably a good place to recommend Mary’s blog post which discusses the groups, training program and more, as well as a couple blogs Eloisa has written mentioning it as well. Mary’s blog discusses criteria and the process for the upcoming New Volunteer Induction Program, so check that out if you find the idea of volunteering appealing. Some great pics of our stay to be seen on their blogs too!

Mary’s January Newsletter

Eloisa’s God’s Way Update

Eloisa and Pete’s Personal Update

I’d been to one weekend seminar Jesus and Mary gave in November 2013–almost exactly three years earlier–in San Diego, California, so this was my first Assistance Group and first time to Australia. It was so wonderful to see Jesus and Mary again after so long, and to meet the volunteer team and others who I’d seen on videos or who I’d interacted with before via email or forums. It was incredible to be able to get a glimpse into just how much preparation goes into each group and how much love, care, and time is taken in creating the material. I was also amazed to witness the full technical operations for the group: it is truly massive. There is so much work that goes into it prior to it happening (apparently over 500 hours by Jesus and Mary!), and then there’s all that goes into the live recording hours of the group itself, and then J&M and Lena and other volunteers are often working still when most of us have a day off during the AG and they often don’t have days off. I just came to appreciate it all so much more.

Assistance Group Homework!

A dawn walk along the water.

I loved the material in the Assistance Group and I loved watching Jesus and Mary’s love and enthusiasm for the subjects. The material itself many times touched my heart and brought me to tears, and at other times, I was quite shut down and struggled to pay full attention. It makes me sad that I missed fully absorbing as much as possible while physically there, which happens when we have resistance to what’s being taught and are suppressing our own emotions about it. Spirit influence can shut us down too, though that also only happens through our suppressing our own feelings. It’s such a gift to be able to watch the groups again on youtube later; I’ve been looking forward to them so much. I highly recommend watching all of this third group. As Jesus and Mary say, it contains some of the most important information for our entire existence both here and later in the spirit world. Who am I kidding… I highly recommend watching every minute of every subject of their material! Nothing is better!!

Jesus cracked my heart open! Sometimes there’s no escaping.

After the group, I helped a bit in the packing up day (holy equipment!) and then my friend Nicky from the UK and I headed off to the countryside with Tristan, where we would begin the Training Program along with the third overseas participant from Barbados, David, as well as several local participants.

In my first weeks, I stayed with Tristan for a week followed by Catherine for a week, and was so grateful to have been able to spend extensive time with both of them in their homes. Thank you both so much for hosting me!

Our first task was to deep-clean the Learning Center house which the three of us would eventually stay on. I like cleaning and so this day was, while long and physically taxing, mostly enjoyable for me. I’ll never forget my first longer chat with Eloisa–about soulmates–while I chipped off hardened mud wasp nests from the toilet with a knife on all fours and she stood in the shower scrubbing it top to bottom.

Cleaning is as important of a task to have a good attitude about as learning software or shoveling things outside. We had another cleaning day as part of the training towards the end of our trip of the studio and Jesus and Mary’s home which we all utilized during the training.

Catherine, Tristan and Nicky hit the sponges!

It was incredible to learn about all the technology and software used for DT from Jesus and Lena, as well as Igor and Mary. In the first weeks our other activities and education included unpacking all the equipment from the Assistance Groups and organizing and labeling what was to be stored till the next group, learning about the particular cameras that are used for both groups and studio recording, and how those cameras are all connected with other aspects of the recording and an overview of the entire recording flow. Lena and Igor gave presentations on attitudes to service and what loving volunteering really is about. Mary gave us a talk with additions and amendments to their presentation, as well as a talk called “Good Practices for Presentations”. I really enjoyed hearing about how to, non-addictively and with love, give good talks from her.

Lena setting up cameras

Lena, Igor, Nicky, Eloisa, Tristan when we learned studio setup

I also got out in nature and went with groups led by Cornelius twice to the Bunya National Forest, a subtropical rainforest with incredible plant and animal life which Jesus said that long ago, was how a lot of Queensland was, over a much larger area, even as far away as Wilkesdale where the Learning Center is and where Jesus and Mary live, though it’s an hour’s drive away. A lot of Australia’s countryside has been depleted by agriculture–primarily animal agriculture. Cornelius invited us to consider how God created an ecosystem like that to work and where God’s Principles could be seen in it, and how that kind of terrain could potentially be restored long-term in depleted areas nearby.

The Bunyas!

Lena and I playing Tarzan

We had several sessions of being taught and having Q&A’s about sound editing from Jesus and it was so cool to watch him work and hear him talk about it. Of course, he’s got decades and decades of expertise in computer technology and so many other areas in technology; I just got a glimpse really into the incredible amount he knows. I personally didn’t even know what a hertz was a few months ago (when I told Jesus this, he joked, “A rental car company!”), much less about decibels and how to remove “clicks” in audio and what compression and timestamps are for, so it was a steep learning curve for me. But, over the course of the weeks I started to really enjoy it. Fixing things–audio included–is fun! There’s something crazy satisfying about seeing a problem and then clicking a few buttons and BAM–it’s vanished!

Jesus explained to us that sound is the most important part and so that is why so much time is spent on it–a lot more time than the video editing. And basically the whole time I was there, Jesus was putting in massive amounts of hours doing that editing on the computer, day in and day out, usually for 12-hour days. Yet another of the countless things I was able to see which made me that much more astounded at the work that goes into producing every youtube video and downloadable audio file. It’s so easy in our world of entitlement and instant gratification to just go watch the DT videos on youtube, which are provided for free, and not even think of the amount of effort and time that goes into not only producing them, but producing them at such a high quality. I really can’t say enough about what really goes on behind the scenes. We also got to learn some about the mixer and switcher from Jesus as well.

Jesus teaching sound editing in the studio.

Another part of our training was to give a ten-minute presentation in the studio discussing some aspects of love and using at least one of six Bible verse options Jesus and Mary picked for us, which we’d then get feedback from them on our structure, delivery, content, and our personal emotions that affected them. Soon after, Jesus gave a wonderful talk on how to give good public presentations. I was still living in a lot of fear of doing one myself (more on that later), but I really just adored hearing him talk about it. I was like, “OMG I’m learning about teaching from the ultimate master teacher ever!” We learned about flow of material, audience considerations, delivery, structure, preparation, emotions and addictions, and so much more. It gave me such good stuff to consider when creating my own presentation.

My own presentation preparation was one of the more emotional sagas of my time there. When I first got the assignment, I just felt terror. I put off developing my presentation for a little while. When I finally desired to feel about what I might want to talk about, I had some ideas come and began creating a structure for it. I started to feel a bit better as I wrote things out; enjoying playing around with the organization of it and prioritizing what I wanted to say. I rehearsed it by myself a number of times and felt pretty good about it. Then, my Learning Center housemates Nicky and Dave and I decided to rehearse all of ours with each other. When I got up to do mine, I completely disconnected from myself and somehow my 10-12 minute talk went to 5 minutes. Every second of it I wanted to run away. Afterwards, huge emotions for me came up about not wanting anyone to look at me or watch me, feeling like everything I say is a waste of time, and I have nothing of value to give–ever. I went away and had a sob for a couple hours about it.

When presentation day came around, compared to how I was in my first rehearsal, it was miles better! I didn’t forget half of what I wanted to say and I was more connected to myself than the first time. However, I have a such long way to go with those fears and feelings about myself, and so Jesus told me I was very nervous still and wasn’t being myself in my talk, and gifted me with some reasons emotionally why that was. But I also had this weird feeling like, hmm, I have such terror about this and yet I can kind of feel like if I get through some emotions I might actually really enjoy public speaking! Jesus also gave me a really great explanation about one of the verses that I’d misinterpreted (*facepalm*: misinterpreting Jesus’ quote to Jesus), so that was awesome to learn about as well. Note to self: feel about the real meaning Bible verses thoroughly!

Can I just say that almost everything I write here I feel like could be its own long blog post. This blog ended up being about 8 hours to do and I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface. It’s ok y’all, I’ll eventually recap it all in detail over like five years time…

But yes, the presentation days were awesome. Eight or nine of us did them, and I just loved watching everyone’s talks and learning from the feedback Jesus and Mary gave all of us afterwards. I learned heaps and heaps from those days and it was just such a gift to have that opportunity to practice sharing Divine Truth with an audience and then be given feedback and direction about how to do it better next time. I also got to try out switching the video live during one of the presentations, which takes lots of attention and practice to know what camera angles to choose when and why, but I thought it was really fun.

Mary & Tristan doing camera switching while Eloisa sets up her talk.

Jesus and Mary giving feedback on talks. They’re THE BEST.

Another major aspect of the training was about environmental restoration. Jesus gave another stellar talk (I feel like I’m needing a thesaurus now so I don’t have too many “awesome”‘s and “amazing”‘s in this blog) on restoring land and eco systems. We have all impacted the environment severely, primarily through eating animal products and also through various other addictions we have in our lifestyles and consumerism. Because most of us have consumed so much meat, dairy, eggs, leather, etc., we have compensation for that. What Jesus was wanting to hit home with us was that it is no easy task–in fact it is extremely difficult and it takes incredibly long–to restore an environment that’s been decimated. In his presentation we learned about how certain plants play certain roles in the recovery of an area, and how to foster that recovery with various methods. We talked seeds, water, soil, how insects and animals help restore land, and tons more. I personally have such a passion for educating people on the main way we destroy the planet–through consuming animal products–and also I love nature and eco restoration, so this all really excited me.

And then, it was time to take it from the classroom to the outdoors, and we had several days of long manual labor, which included shoveling and moving softwood and hardwood chips, some days for eight hours in the heat. I really enjoy manual labor as I’ve always been into physical fitness, though often heat/humidity makes me feel oppressed, and so there were times that, because I didn’t want to feel how I felt about it, I instead went out of body and wasn’t connected to myself but rather just doing the rote movements of shoveling and physical labor but not feeling. Circumstances like hard manual labor in heat can trigger us into emotions we have that are good for us to feel through if we’re humble to them–I wasn’t.

Jesus, Mary and the softwood we moved a lot of. Photo by Eloisa L-H.

After a couple days of this labor, I thought to myself, “If every person had to do an equivalent amount of compensation via manual labor eco restoration immediately after having a burger or a glass of milk, a lot more people would be vegan!”

We got some great tours from Mary and Jesus around their property about what the land used to look like, how it’s progressed so far and how they’ve done it, and shown various methods and experiments they’ve done on their property. One of my favorite parts was Mary showing us a huge trench they’d had dug uphill from where their fruit trees are. This ditch was originally very deep, and it was also quite long, and she explained how they’re throwing in organic material which retains water so the water soaks in the ground rather than sliding off the surface of the hardened dirt terrain. Despite how dry it is there, the fruit trees downhill from this trench were green. They were “happy little trees” as famed American artist Bob Ross would say.

Mary showing us the soil experiment. Photo by Eloisa L-H.

Cornelius also gave us a tour of his property, which is adjacent to Jesus and Mary’s, and what he’s working on there to restore it. He taught us a great deal about human manure and how it can be used to help restore land as well. Pete also gave us a cool presentation on waterless container gardening. There are so many cool ideas to try out and it’s such a gift a lot of the guys there in Queensland have been experimenting with so many things so we can learn what hasn’t worked and what’s worked better. And hopefully come up with our own experiments!

Corny and his fully decomposed soil/human manure mix!

Some of Corny’s orchard

Eloisa and Tristan gave a really interesting talk on education and how God’s Way of Education for both children and parents might look like and the experiments in education they’re already doing in that area with Eloisa and Pete’s three kids. I’m so excited to see what these guys continue to create. We got a digital tour also by Barb, who heads up the transcription and translation teams–another massive volunteer undertaking.

I just absolutely loved learning everything. I felt like I was soaking up all this new information and every single part of it mattered so much for such a bigger important purpose. No learning was superfluous, every morsel was vital and interesting. Sometimes, I struggled to understand the full scope of things, particularly the technological side, though I realized that was mostly about my own feelings about not being capable and my fear of making mistakes, particularly since technology is an area I usually feel comfortable with and enjoy. But I started putting pressure on myself to understand everything perfectly, yesterday, and so that’s where I stumbled and in the end actually prevented absorption of new information at times. Overall I felt a bit like I was in college again, trucking my notebook in every day to learn totally new things to me. It was great.

I also got to attend in-person the mentor meetings for those desiring to share Divine Truth with the world that I’ve been so lucky to be a part of for the last six months. Mary led two great ones while there, one primarily about self-responsibility (following off what we began to learn about it in the AG) and another primarily about unloving attitudes towards Jesus. All so important for any of us to effectively and lovingly share God’s Way, because how can we share God’s Way when we’re still majorly opposing living it ourselves?

Post-mentor meeting chatting

And of course, it was wonderful to hang out with everyone in various casual settings at shared meals and informal hangouts of various kinds, whether swimming in dams or hiking some great little mountains. Speaking of shared meals though, I gotta be real here: if I felt like wouldn’t be disproportionate for me to post 30 photos of the incredible food I ate there, well, I would. It’s like there’s this secret little grove of incredible vegan chefs hiding away in rural Queensland. They’re like a delicious pot of gold at the end of a rainbow and my waistline by the end of the trip proved it!

The delicious farewell meal Jesus and Mary hosted for us

At this point in the blog, I’m thinking to myself, wow, I feel like I just recapped the activities themselves in about 1% of the detail I could, and I haven’t really even gotten to the emotional part of it, the how did I feel part of it, and really, as we were reminded often during the program, our attitudes and emotions are far more important than how much we know skill-wise.

I am tentative to share about how I felt about things, which is partly because I feel again daunted how to write that all out, as that could hypothetically be a really long blog post too. But also, I have a set of emotions which makes me not want to share how I personally felt and rather just hide behind a recap of the events themselves and then sign off. I want to share the info with you, but not myself. However, this is one area I was gifted a lot of feedback on from Jesus and Mary and others while there, and is a big area of growth for me to come. And that is: I want to hide from the world, I want to not be taken notice of, I want to not be known.

It only took a few days for several people to point out I was not showing my nature, was not opening up and being myself. At first this was a surprise to me. I knew I’d been really shy most of my life but I didn’t realize it was such an issue; I was just being how I was all the time, but others were sensitive to it immediately–more sensitive to it than I was even with myself. I learned that when I am subdued in fear and want to hide, it actually places a demand on the environment to work to get to know me, and it makes others have to put quite an effort forth to know what I really think and feel about things, which is unloving to them and myself. I also keep my heart closed to others until I’m sure they’re trustworthy, which sadly is something I did even with the most trustworthy and loving people in the world–Jesus and Mary. I missed a lot of opportunities to connect with them and others and to enjoy myself both in personal interactions as well as in the learning and activities themselves. On one hand I feel quite sad and regretful about that missed opportunity, but on the other hand given how suppressed and oppressed I’ve been in my life, I was the most open and the most myself I’ve ever been while there.

Bridges in Noosaville

But of course, everyone was only impossibly kind and gentle in their helping me see these issues. Recalling the love and care it took to not only notice, but the fact they desired to know the real me… well, I get really emotional every time I feel about it. I received such immense gifts of friendship, love and care–I daresay the first experiences of real friendship, love and care that I’ve ever experienced in my life from other people. Jesus and Mary helped me see why I’ve felt apologetic for everything about myself, like I’m a bother and an imposition to everyone, bad about myself and terrified of connecting to myself.

My avoidance of and living in fears of various kinds also dictated many of my experience and choices. I was afraid of sharing myself with others, and also another of my biggest fears–making mistakes and doing things wrong–affected things heavily at times. When I live in this fear, I defer to others who may or may not know better than me, and then in that process I in fact made more mistakes and contributed to more problems, which is precisely what I was trying to avoid. Even if a person does know more than me, deferring to them out of fear can mean I lean on them in an addictive way to tell me what to do and spell things out in a way they shouldn’t have to, which is a form of demand on the person who knows more and an avoidance of my own self-responsibility. This terror of getting it wrong also causes me to not take action, and not experiment, which affects everything in my life and affected how I behaved in pressured environments during the training.

Sunset at Tristan’s house

There were also instances where my fears of various kinds–some which I’ve mentioned above as well as others–caused me to not be generous and to force others to serve me because I was too busy living in my own desire to hide, engage minimally, not stand out, defer to others. In this way my fear makes me very selfish and self-centered and at times oblivious to others. I realized that truthfully, fear always makes me self-centered, every time. It causes me to think only of how to protect myself from my fear and how to serve it as my god, not how to love and serve others.

As I mentioned before, I will be digesting and absorbing the experience for a long while to come, and all the emotions I need to work on in order to get closer to God and share God’s Truth will also take a long while to come. But the experience for me helped me to connect to the fact that yes, sharing Divine Truth is what I want to do! It was the best 9.5 weeks of my life. In my heart and soul I can feel all I want to do is contribute in any way I can for others to know that God’s truth–and a relationship with God–is available to them if they want it. I don’t know God really yet and I don’t know much about love either, but I know Jesus and Mary’s teachings of God’s Truth have changed my life and are continuing to change it and I’m so passionate about it when I bypass some of my fear and bad feelings about myself.

Nicky, David, me

So, my desires are these: I want to return to Australia to continue training and learning how to help share Divine Truth. There’s a visa for those still under a certain age bracket which would allow me to go back for 1-2 years, which will largely just depend on my having the funds/donations to do so. In the meantime, I’m wanting to face some of my fears about sharing myself and the full scope of what I’m passionate about with God’s Truth. This is something I want to do in general, as well as in my current work as a nutritionist, where I assist people with going vegan and dealing with food addictions and eating disorders. I’ll also keep writing on this blog, and, though the idea makes me so nervous, I’m thinking perhaps to create some video “vlogs” as well, potentially both with my health/nutrition/food addiction work but also regarding anything else about Divine Truth.

Thank you to God, Jesus, and Mary for the massive gift of this experience. Thank you Jesus and Mary, for everything they do for all of us–I don’t know how to begin to express how grateful I feel for their gifts to us, for who they are, for what they’ve discovered and are now teaching us. Thank you to everyone who gifted me the experience with training, hosting me at your homes, hosting me at the Learning Center, and so much more. Thank you Lena, Catherine, Eloisa, Peter, Cornelius, Igor, Tristan and everyone else who gifted their resources, time, love and care to me. I love you all so much.

Love,

Courtney

Veganism, Ethics, and Love

“Few of us are aware that the act of eating can be a powerful statement of commitment to our own well-being, and at the same time the creation of a healthier habitat. Your health, happiness, and the future of life on earth are rarely so much in your own hands as when you sit down to eat.”  

-John Robbins

At the time of this blog, it was about 11 years ago that I decided to go vegan. Going vegan has been one of the best things I’ve done in my life and I’m really grateful that I came across truth about it at such a young age, and I’m so passionate about how it can impact the world in such a massive and positive way.

I’ve written lots about veganism on my other blog associated with my work as a vegan nutritionist, including a post last year for my 10-year “veganniversary” last year, which you can read here. So, I was thinking to myself, Well, how would I want to write about being vegan here on my Divine Truth blog? My work blog is primarily about vegan nutrition advice, juicing and recipes, so I thought it would be really great to talk in this post more about being vegan from the emotional, moral and ethical perspectives.

I’ve decided not to make this blog a list of facts and truths about animal agriculture, because there are so many fantastic resources already out there on that. I’ll mention some of my favorite books and other resources throughout the blog, and also a list at the end so you have plenty of options for looking into the details.

How I Went Vegan

Growing up, I was nowhere near vegan. As a competitive swimmer and water polo player throughout school, I ate lots of meat, eggs, dairy, and sea creatures, just as my teammates did and my family did. I had never considered any kind of deviation from eating lots of animal products, nor was I one of those people who “never really ate much growing up anyway.”

When I learned the truth about animal agriculture, through a book I read when I was 18 called The Food Revolution by John Robbins, my heart broke open. To this day I think it’s one of the best books on veganism out there. Mr. Robbins writes this book in a compassionate tone, meanwhile citing incredible amounts of studies and well-researched facts. He never downplays or shies away from the truth about animal agriculture, but he also is warm and understanding with the (likely not vegan yet) reader. His book is full of inspiring invitations to see moving into veganism as a part of personal growth, being loving to animals, loving to oneself, loving to the environment, and loving to other humans in the world, and indeed, even a potentially spiritual choice.

This book found me at a time when I felt like my life had no meaning at all, and I had no ability to do any good in the world. The truths cracked through my numbness, and deep amounts of sorrow–that I had never known all this and hadn’t known the damage these things caused in the world–surged through me. For the first time in my life, I connected with grief about the state of the world and the colossal amount of pain and destruction in it. At the same time, I felt more optimistic than I had in many, many years. Realizing the impact I personally could have on the world through just this one area was probably the first time since being a young child that I felt much inspiration about anything.

I realized self-love would dictate I be vegan for the health of my body. If that wasn’t enough, then I learned about what happens to animals in the animal agriculture industry and how awfully they are abused and tortured, and indeed, how no matter how they are treated, exploiting them and/or killing them is wrong. And if that wasn’t enough, then I learned that the single most environmentally destructive thing on our planet is the production of meat, dairy, eggs, seafood, leather, etc.  They contribute to climate change, deforestation, water monopolization and contamination, and ocean destruction more any other factor. The consumerism of animal agriculture is absolutely annihilating our planet.

And if that wasn’t enough, I learned that my not being vegan directly affected the quality of life and dictated the very life or death of other people in the world–Oh. My. Goodness. I was blown away. No other industry, no other cause, has a bigger impact on malnutrition on this planet. No other factor contributes to deaths from malnutrition more than our choices to eat dairy, eggs, meat, etc. Animal agriculture robs thirsty populations of clean water, robs them of good land that could be used for crops to feed humans, destroys topsoil that’s essential for growing plants of any kind. It is an established fact, by the U.N. and other top organizations, that if the entire world were vegan, there could be no malnutrition nor deaths from malnutrition anywhere in the world. If we were all vegan, we could feed the world several times over. Think about that! People suffer and die because we don’t want to be vegan. They may be able to live if we make the choice to be vegan. It’s incredible to me.

“There is a great loneliness of spirit today. We’re trying to live, we’re trying to cope in the face of what seems to be overwhelming evidence that who we are doesn’t matter, that there is no real hope for enough change, that the environment and human experience is deteriorating so rapidly and increasingly and massively. This is the context, psychically and spiritually, in which we are working today. This is how our lives are reflected to us. Meanwhile, we’re yearning for connection with each other, with ourselves, with the powers of nature, the possibilities of being alive.

When that tension arises, we feel pain, we feel anguish at the very root of ourselves, and then we cover that over, that grief, that horror, with all kinds of distraction – with consumerism, with addictions, with anything that we can use to disconnect and to go away.

We’ve been opening ourselves to the grief, to the knowing of what’s taking place, the loss of species, the destruction of the natural world, the unimaginable levels of social injustice and economic injustice that deprive so many human beings of basic opportunities.

And as we open to the pain of that, there’s a possibility of embracing that pain and that grief in a way that it becomes a strength, a power to respond. There is the possibility that the energy that has been bound in the repression of it can now flow through us and energize us, make us clearer, more alive, more passionate, committed, courageous, determined people.”

― John Robbins

Needless to say, I cried all the way through this book, and felt like I’d taken the pill in The Matrix. It felt surreal, and like I’d been taught so wrongly all my life without having known it, by my parents, by the media, by the entire world. How did nobody know the truth? How can it be that nearly everyone on the planet believes in such huge lies? Why are we not aware of how much good we can do in this area?

It took me a month or so to give up all meat and fish, and then about another year to get to a place where I wasn’t willing to eat anything with even a small amount of dairy or eggs. At the same time as I gave up meat, I had stopped buying things with dairy or eggs, and was eating vegan the vast majority of the time, but I made compromises here and there for pre-made stuff that might have contained some, such as a non-vegan cookie.

I’m tempted to make this blog a big list of facts about animal agriculture and how powerful being vegan can be for world change because I find it so inspiring, but I’ll leave that for other books and documentaries. Now, I’d like to bring the discussion to the day-to-day in an individual’s life and heart, and about the biggest blocks I’ve seen over the years in people going vegan staying vegan.

Getting Adequate Nutrition As a Vegan

As I mentioned before, I won’t make this a nutritional blog, though I have lots of that info over on my other site. What I wanted to say here is that it is certainly possible to be a junk-food vegan these days, but it is important to be a healthy vegan. While I still have the draw to a vegan muffin or slice of pizza here and there myself, to be a healthy vegan you do need to have a varied, unprocessed, whole foods diet that is primarily raw food.

Additionally, Jesus has said that if a person has deficiencies or other issues going vegan, it is always due to emotions they haven’t released. This is discussed in more detail in this awesome email response from Jesus that has been published. The link to the entire response is below as well as an excerpt from his letter:

Jesus Answers Questions About A Vegan Diet

“Most people eat a heavy meat and carbohydrate based diet in order to suppress their emotions relating to how they feel about themselves.

When a person becomes a vegetarian, and then a vegan, this addiction to suppress these emotions is not met as easily through food. Since the addiction’s cause has not been addressed (which are the deeply held emotions of a lack of self-worth, and related similar feelings), the body begins to reject the food (because the emotions are demanding another food be consumed that will assist in the suppression of the terrible feeling of low self-worth).

The body is demanding what the emotion demands, and that is food that will assist in the suppression of the painful emotions of self worth, rather than feeling those emotions.”

-Jesus

If you find you have issues digesting a mostly-raw vegan diet, or any other issues, including deficiencies or not feeling good, it’s good to look at what emotions may be causing the body’s reactions to eating in a more loving way.

Family and Societal Judgments

I always tell people that I feel that going vegan and staying vegan is like taking an academic course in the subject of Not People-Pleasing. I see so many people willing to compromise their ethics in their eating or other consumer choices because of what other people think. And I don’t mean to make out that I’m very good at the not people-pleasing thing overall, because veganism is probably the only area that I’ve got that down and in other areas I have major problems with compromising for what others might think.

But back to veganism: There will probably always be some people who judge you for it. Granted, when you’ve worked through your own emotional holes that cause others to sense there is a chance for them to sway you, judgment happens significantly less. But the judgements don’t necessarily stop completely.

When I first went vegan, none of my family accepted it. One of my brothers said it was just a crazy, unhealthy diet I was going on that was no different than having an eating disorder. Some of my family were less judgmental but worried I wouldn’t be healthy if I was vegan. To this day, my dad thinks I’m only vegan because “food normal people eat isn’t good enough for me”and intentionally tries to make sure there is no vegan food available whenever I visit him (which I don’t anymore, for numerous other reasons than that). But positive things can happen too: my mom was one of the people worried about whether veganism was healthy at the beginning, but has gone vegetarian in the last couple years herself and aspires to be vegan.

Even though it hurt to see how unsupportive my family was at the beginning, I had already had such a huge emotional shift about the truth that veganism was the loving way to go and how much sin there was in eating and using animal products, that none of their projections swayed me into eating animal products. It really is true that when you’ve had a shift in your heart and soul about something, nothing will sway you and nothing will cause you to compromise. I think to be successfully vegan long-term, that is where you have to get to: you simply have to not care what people think about it.

To get there, that can be a very emotional process, and it requires us feeling the fear of and the pain about the projections that we receive from other people about going vegan. How does it feel when someone thinks you’re crazy? When they tell you you’re going to hurt yourself and create health problems for yourself? When you’ve lost their approval? When they’re condescending and critical? When they’re angry or even rageful? When they reject you from events or dinners now that you are?

“Vegan living, like love, is not about getting something for myself; it’s about giving: giving mercy and kindness to others who are vulnerable in our hands. Going vegan to get health is like getting married to get wealth: it’s typically not a lasting motivation and corrodes the integrity of our commitment.

If we don’t deepen our motivation beyond personal health, it’s easy to fall prey to the “cravings” fro an adverse affair of some kind – the bacon smells so enticing, the neighbor is so attractive. Motivation is at the heart of both love and veganism, as well as of our spiritual evolution.”

-Dr. Will Tuttle

Taking Personal Responsibility

While people-pleasing is one of the biggest blocks to being vegan, on the other hand, I feel there are a lot of lessons of self-responsibility we have to learn in going vegan.

When I went vegan, I realized just how easy things had been before to get food–in every scenario. I could go into any restaurant and order anything I liked, stop at any gas station on a road trip and find something quick and convenient to eat. When I went to visit family, food was often made for me and I could take my pick of many options. After going vegan, I quickly realized that things were not going to be that easy anymore.

I find that a great deal of demands, expectations, and lack of personal responsibility are revealed in a person when they try going vegan. People often get angry about the lack of availability of vegan options in restaurants where they live or mope about not being able to eat their aunt’s pudding at Christmas. They complain about not having the time or knowledge to make vegan food at home. It’s always worth getting back to what the emotional factors in childhood may have created this anger or demand or lack of responsibility as there are always reasons we have them–but we do need to resolve them.

Being vegan requires a great deal of self-responsibility. We have to learn how to prepare tasty vegan food, and that takes an investment of time and effort. And I have compassion for how much of a learning curve that can be: it can practically be like re-learning how to cook and re-learning how to eat. But it can also be a fun learning curve! The key though, is you have to take responsibility for your own meals and food. For some people, this means having come from a life of quick and convenient food options to now having to be a person who spends a fair amount of time in the kitchen. But in my opinion, spending time in the kitchen making yourself good food is a part of self-love and self-responsibility.

When it comes to friends and family: we cannot expect that others now adapt to our new vegan diet. People don’t have to make anything for us–even our parents. They don’t have to have groceries ready for us when we stay for an extended time. If they do, that’s a gift, but no one has to conform to how we are now eating. This was a big shift for me also. Before being vegan, when I visited family, I didn’t do much of my own grocery shopping or preparing my meals. When I was invited to a dinner party, I didn’t think twice about what food might be there for me to have. But after going vegan, I did a lot of my own grocery shopping and pretty much all my own meal preparation when I visited family. Now my mom and my other brother have learned a couple great vegan dishes and have gifted me with some of them, but that wasn’t the case for the first 9 or 10 years of my being vegan.

If you are invited to a dinner party, don’t expect the host to make food specially for you. While vegan inclusions are awesome, no one has to do it for us. When I’m invited to an event involving food, I always let the hosts know ahead of time I’m vegan and let them know I’ll take care of my own food and bring it along–even if it’s not a potluck. Many times, the host has offered to adapt something to being vegan for me, but it’s not an expectation I have of them and I consider it a cool surprise and a gift anytime a person makes or adapts anything vegan for me.

Vegetarianism and Every-Circumstance Veganism

I say this with the deepest understanding of how challenging it can be for some to go fully vegan: vegetarianism is not enough. While meat has a slightly larger impact on the environment and natural resources and on other humans, dairy and eggs and seafood etc. are not far behind meat in their impact on the environment, animals and populations of people in the world. Dairy, eggs, and seafood are massively destructive in their own right, and actually, the commercial industries of both dairy and eggs directly feed the meat industry. Most commercial egg and dairy farms are responsible for killing as many animals as meat operations are, so to many well-researched vegans, it feels no different morally and ethically to eat something with milk in it than to eat meat.

When we haven’t had a soul-based shift yet, we will try to do the bare minimum when it comes to the ethics about our diet and animal agriculture. Many people would like to go vegetarian and not any further, wanting to tell themselves meat is significantly worse than dairy and eggs and that being vegetarian is almost the same as being vegan, even though this is not true. There are also many who are staying in the mostly-vegan phase (just as I also went through), where they make exceptions for the occasional item that has dairy or eggs, and this will also stop when we’ve had a true emotional shift. We make exceptions for animal products–even small amounts–when we still have addictions to them, as well as other emotions driving us to not want to make the full shift into a loving way of eating and living. When there is a soul-based shift, there won’t be a desire to stay in the dark about any aspect of animal agriculture, and no matter how inconvenient it makes life to learn the truth, we’ll still want the truth.

“Until we are willing and able to make the connections between what we are eating and what was required to get it on our plate, and how it affects us to buy, serve, and eat it, we will be unable to make the connections that will allow us to live wisely and harmoniously on this earth. When we cannot make connections, we cannot understand, and we are less free, less intelligent, less loving, and less happy.”

― Will Tuttle, Ph.D.

Additionally, the traditional definition of veganism has never been only about diet. While diet is the daily and largest component in our participation and support of animal agriculture, there are numerous other areas of ethics to look at. We have to shift as many parts of our lifestyle and consumerism away from animal agriculture as we can. This means not buying new leather, suede or wool in our clothing, shoes, car seats, furniture, and household products. We have to read supplement and food labels to make sure they don’t have gelatin and whey and casein. We’ll check hair and body products for whether they are tested on lab animals, not buy hair brushes and artist’s painting brushes that require killing animals for their hair. Our awareness about it will extend to everything. And while there is simply no way at this point to live on earth and have zero negative impact on animals, the environment, and other people, we simply have to do our best. We have to choose the loving choice in every scenario that we have the opportunity to.

The Emotions of Lack and Deprivation

Many feel their life will be much more limited and that they’ll feel deprived if they go fully vegan in both their diets and in their other consumer choices. But I feel this goes back to the same principles Jesus teaches us about everything: that in the end, living in harmony with love always brings more freedom and joy, not restriction. That choosing the loving option will always be expansive for the soul. I feel that if we can identify the emotions that cause us to fear that living vegan will be limiting for us and work through those feelings, we’ll find being completely vegan to give more meaning to our lives and connect us to more love and joy. The soul-based knowledge of the positive and loving impact on the world that we’re now having will feel really good. To know we’re no longer contributing to destruction, death and no longer sinning in this particular way is an awesome thing.

“I do feel that spiritual progress does demand at some stage that we should cease to kill our fellow creatures for the satisfaction of our bodily wants.”

-Mahatma Gandhi

Addictions and Soul Change

For us to feel, in our soul, a passionate desire to go vegan and a steadfast commitment to stay vegan in every circumstance, a big emotional shift has to take place. There has to be a major inner revolution, where you feel in your soul that going completely vegan is the moral, ethical, and loving thing to do–indeed, that it is the only option. In people who have had this shift, there is a feeling from them that no matter how hard it might be, they can’t not do it.

When the awakening to the truth about veganism happens in our soul, it feels like no matter the consequences, there is no other way forward. It becomes a shift we want to make, we are eager to make, and the desire for it outweighs the challenges that might come with doing it. We are willing to stay completely vegan in every circumstance without compromising for anything or anyone. And when we’re there, it will never once feel restrictive or difficult. It will feel like freedom, it will feel effortless and it will feel enjoyable.

“Your life does matter. It always matters whether you reach out in friendship or lash out in anger. It always matters whether you live with compassion and awareness or whether you succumb to distractions and trivia. It always matters how you treat other people, how you treat animals, and how you treat yourself. It always matters what you do. It always matters what you say. And it always matters what you eat.”

-John Robbins

Resources

Now I’d love to give you some resources for learning more about all this. I’m so passionate about how everyone going vegan would transform the world in so many ways!

Divine Truth videos on veganism:

Eating Meat and Being Vegan

Making Loving Food Choices

Justifying Our Unloving Actions Towards Animals

Why Animals Eat Other Animals

Soul Damage of Eating Meat

Foods and Drinks That Prevent Spiritual Growth

Soul Causes of Physical Illness

Books on the ethics/scientific facts/emotions about veganism:

• The Food Revolution by John Robbins (and many of his other books)
• The World Peace Diet by Will Tuttle, Ph.D.

Books on vegan nutrition (the physical side):

• The China Study by T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D and Thomas Campbell, M.D.
• How Not To Die by Michael Greger, M.D.
• Crazy Sexy Diet by Kris Carr

Documentaries:

• Cowspiracy (environment-focused)
• Forks Over Knives (health-focused)
• Earthlings (online only; animal-focused)
• Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead (health and juicing focused)

Raw Vegan & Vegan Recipe Books/Blogs:

• Raw Food Made Easy for 1 or 2 People by Jennifer Cornbleet
• Crazy Sexy Juice by Kris Carr
• Appetite For Reduction by Isa Chandra Moskowitz
• www.OhSheGlows.com
• www.TheRawFoodKitchen.com
• www.CourtneyPool.com

Happy vegan-ing!

Courtney