Between the Cracks: A blog by Albert Clayton Gaulden

Oftentimes I feel as if God has forsaken me until I remember that, since He is within me, I must have abandoned myself. My despair is not of the Santa Claus variety of consciousness: I want what I want when I want it and if I don’t get it I will throw stones at and/or ignore the Almighty. More to the point is a prevailing notion of ‘what’s the use?’ The world will go up in smoke or it won’t. Ah, this smacks of attachment and I call my hand on it.

I met a man and his wife at breakfast the other morning and among other things he gave me a couple of books: A New Christianity for a New World by the former Bishop of the Episcopal Church of the Newark, New Jersey diocese, John Shelby Spong and The Heart of Christianity by biblical scholar Marcus J. Borg. Both books enrich the idea of Christ teachings as a way of life, and for me, he joins Buddha and Ramakrishna as one of the world’s great teachers. I recommend these books for those of you who need to feel as if two men were writing how you believe but feel alienated and marginalized in today’s religious culture.

What Vedanta teaches me is that all paths that lead to God are right paths. And the Vedas remind me that God is within me not somewhere in outer space. Buddha tweaks me every day to wake up and self-actualize when I become too attached to the material transitory world of illusion.

Where are you this Holiday Season? Join me in thanking God for what I have and more grateful for what I don’t. My presence this year is offering presents to those who need a share of the blessings God afforded me. Won’t you join me in doing the same?

Albert Clayton Gaulden is the founding director of the Sedona Intensive and author of You’re Not Who You Think You Are: A Breakthrough Guide to Discovering the Authentic You. For more information about Albert and Sedona Intensive visit http://www.sedonaintensive.com/.

Purchase You’re Not Who You Think You Are at http://www.yourenotwhoyouthinkyouare.com/

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I saw the figures for Super Friday shopping—the day after Thanksgiving—and consumers are spending 18% over that same 30-day ‘shop ‘til you drop’ period last year. All retailers are pulling out all stops: discounting everything in the store or online 20%-40% from the first day of bonanza retail buying. It makes you wonder how we ever got so attached to outspending and out buying our neighbors. Talk about keeping up with the Joneses!

But I have a better idea about where to get that rush from the Holiday Season. The greatest gift you can ever give someone is yourself. It can be something you baked or made—or it can be literally giving yourself to volunteer at a soup kitchen, visiting shut-ins at a local nursing home or a long-term care facility or finding a needy family to surprise with a few sacks of groceries and a special toy for the youngsters under fourteen. If you ever want to experience the real joy of what the Holidays are all about give of yourself. And don’t forget my favorite slogan for Christmas: What can I do for you?

Happy Holidays and a Prosperous 2010

Albert Clayton Gaulden is the founding director of the Sedona Intensive and author of You’re Not Who You Think You Are: A Breakthrough Guide to Discovering the Authentic You. For more information about Albert and Sedona Intensive visit http://www.sedonaintensive.com/.

Purchase You’re Not Who You Think You Are at http://www.yourenotwhoyouthinkyouare.com/

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President Barack Obama is in Norway to receive his Nobel Peace Prize and to attend the Global Warming Conference in Copenhagen. This is a momentous time in history, whether it is signing on to end the ecological damage of global warming or passing a Health Care package that promises all Americans have health coverage or most of all, to have peace on earth in these troubled times.

President Obama spoke of peace requiring sacrifice and I weigh in to say that all of the programs I have mentioned require sacrifice. Many times I feel that we as a nation are not willing to give up our comforts in order to see that all of us can have decent medical coverage when we are sick. We can ignore the ravages of toxic emissions at our own peril—the planet will not be able to survive if we don’t take measures to clean it up. And peace will come with sacrifice and none dearer than having to accept the cultures and religions of the world. We must stop the rhetoric that we are justified in invading someone else’s country. I remember only too well how McCarthyism sprang up because one US Senator and his cronies tried to convince our country and the world that communism was a cancerous menace that threatened to take over our country, if not the world.

Are you a person of compassion? Do you feel that we are all interrelated and interconnected? Open yourself to all possibilities for all of us.

Albert Clayton Gaulden is the founding director of the Sedona Intensive and author of You’re Not Who You Think You Are: A Breakthrough Guide to Discovering the Authentic You. For more information about Albert and Sedona Intensive visit http://www.sedonaintensive.com/.

Purchase You’re Not Who You Think You Are at http://www.yourenotwhoyouthinkyouare.com/

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There are more caveats regarding working one’s way up in the world, particularly with public-eye-kind-of-success, than in a recession-biased credit application. There is something about having a bigger-than-life status that puts the climber under the most unwanted microscope that tabloid scandal sheets make a living from. Just ask Tiger Wood.

Sometimes I catch a glimpse of justice under television’s Judge Judy and I have to say that she is one smart cookie. She knows how to sift nuggets of truth from all the cockamamie made-up fairy tales that both the plaintiff and defendant can dish out in ten minutes. I wish that Judge Judy had Tiger Woods in her courtroom. IF he had asked her how to make his life right—what price to pay and how to pay it—he might be on the links playing golf tournaments instead of being plastered all over The Inquirer, The Star and other prying and scurrilous rags disguised as journalism.

Perhaps an alternative to Judge Judy, turning to the wisdom of the late and great psychotherapist Dr. Carl Jung, Tiger might find out that by integrating his shadow—the woman who can keep him monogamous and happy at home—would be the therapy he needs to stop acting out. To be sure, this is how a lot of successful men live their lives—anonymous sex—until something like the car crash Tiger had sets off a domino-affect maelstrom of unwanted women claiming to have had sex with him.

The dark and dangerous and lying and cheating and stealing Ego is so powerful and so destructive that it can take someone’s reputation and smash it into smithereens before the big-piece-of-stuff can say Gesundheit. The Ego thrives on distortion and the favorite excuse, “…because I can!” If one ever is able to become whole within him or her, the shadow can not cause mischief by throwing a monkey wrench into the marriage. Rather the shadow—recognized and integrated—can make someone happy to be where he is in his relationship or glad to be single.

Albert Clayton Gaulden is the founding director of the Sedona Intensive and author of You’re Not Who You Think You Are: A Breakthrough Guide to Discovering the Authentic You. For more information about Albert and Sedona Intensive visit http://www.sedonaintensive.com/.

Purchase You’re Not Who You Think You Are at http://www.yourenotwhoyouthinkyouare.com/

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Sitting with a man or a woman day after day, year after year, looking deep within his soul to see if we can possibly find the core of his true self has been both exhausting and exhilarating. The futility of the signs of our times—the harsh economy, the two wars, terrorism, job loss and other back breakers—many have been sensing in the past couple of years has made the playing field seem too uneven for some to cope with. The approach I use with clients is to try to get them to trade in what they think is reality for their own brand of recreating their perception of the world and their part in it. It is fun when it works and frustrating when so many of us hold on to worn-out concepts that no longer are worth the effort we give them.

I was working with a woman today who, when I talked about the imaginative and optimistic child within, beamed from ear to ear and we spent the hour talking about incredible possibilities for her life. Although she was married with children she found room to create something for herself and have time to be a wife and mother. Her attitude was the proverbial ‘glass half full’ and that is how she lives her life.

How do you see yourself in these turbulent times? Do you see yourself as a victim of circumstances or play the hand life dealt you as a challenge you accept with grace? I live in Sedona famous for its vortices—supposed whirling pockets of incredible transformative energy. But it is my knowing that we are all whirling energy which we can use for good or continue to play the blame game.

Which are you playing today?

Albert Clayton Gaulden is the founding director of the Sedona Intensive and author of You’re Not Who You Think You Are: A Breakthrough Guide to Discovering the Authentic You. For more information about Albert and Sedona Intensive visit http://www.sedonaintensive.com/.

Purchase You’re Not Who You Think You Are at http://www.yourenotwhoyouthinkyouare.com/

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