Lessons from the Wilderness
How I came to understand the biggest mistake I ever made and how to avoid it
21 days ago, I completely lost the plot. I had a massive catastrophic and complete nervous breakdown. I was ‘out’ for three days and was then kept going by the love and friendship of two people – you know who you are – who ‘picked me up brushed me down’ through their daily intercessions.
“Forgive me Father for I have sinned” – not something I would normally say or address the Higher Power, but over the past few years I have made a huge error in how I have seen life, the universe and everything. The thing is in one way or another, sometimes small, sometimes large, most people unwittingly or deliberately make the same mistake.
Today I clocked up 77 years of life in this incarnation, seventy seven years on planet Earth, I’ve seen a lot and although not the subject of this message I feel I can honestly say the world, despite all which went on before I came here in 1947 is in the worst state I have ever seen it. Certainly, there may have been worse times in history, but the records are sketchy, and history is always written, except in very rare cases, by the ‘winners’.
A new plague
Since the first decade of the 21st century the world has been suffering a new plague. Something far more infectious and catastrophic than anything which has gone before, but this is not the subject of this message and I’ll get back to you on it soon.
After 21 days of misery and soul searching, I made, as I wander in the wilderness of my mind, a discovery and realisation about what went wrong with my life and why. As I continue my 40 days and 40 nights ‘wilderness time’ I will come to understand more about how the error can be rectified and my life put back together again. I may need, in fact I will need, help in this as, at the moment, I’m unsure if I can do it alone.
The breakdown 21 days ago was brought on by a total lack of money and significant debt. I could see no way to recover the income I had enjoyed up until around a year ago when the work I do to help people – coaching, consulting and therapy – just ‘dried up ‘and my income was restricted to an inadequate pension which doesn’t meet my needs by a long way.
The fatal mistake
You see, the mistake I made a couple of years ago, the huge mistake which I wrote about at the time, was to reject ‘money’. I wrote that money didn’t exist, that money was a distraction, that we didn’t need money, and so on.
I was wrong.
I misunderstood. I didn’t see money for what it really is. Wallace D Wattles in ‘The Science of Getting Rich’ talks about a ‘thinking stuff which pervades the Universe’ and money is similar. He was talking about energy and money is an expression of energy.
My mistake and the one most people make is to see money as something tangible, as a ‘thing’ which we possess, or not as the case may be. It’s not, money is a form of thought energy which we represent as physical tokens, coins, notes and so on. The trouble is when we focus on those, we forget what money is really all about and what it does.
Exchange of Value
First and foremost, it’s a catalyst for exchange of value. It facilitates one person or organisation doing something for another. It’s used as a recognition we have provided a useful service or ‘product’. In the words of the song ‘Money makes the world go around’ and by rejecting the concept of the existence of money we cause our own personal world to stop turning and that’s exactly what I did.
How do I get myself out of this mess? The remaining 20 days in the wilderness will, I trust, provide the, or at least ‘an’, answer as I explain what I can do for people and re-enter the world. Not the ‘world of work’ but the world of exchange where I can genuinely help – from the benefit of all I’ve learned and experienced over 77 years, especially this one – those who are ready and willing to take advantage of what I can do for them.
You’ll be hearing from me again as the days go by. More lessons from the Wilderness. Thanks for reading and if you’d like to get in touch please reply to this message.
Yours
Ben Coker
What Is The Freedom Academy?
Problem Solving and Opportunity Development
The Freedom Academy provides coaching, therapy, and learning. We have lots of resources you can use and will be holding many evets you can attend. Our learning and coaching programmes span three levels: ‘Learning’ (the basics), ‘Development’ (advanced level) and ‘Transformation’ (the ‘graduate’ level). In other words, the ‘what’, the ‘why’, and the ‘how’ of life.
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