Welcome to Spiritual Psychology.
My name is Renee LaValley-McKenna and I bring my 30 plus years as a recovering addict and ex-crazy person turned therapist and shamanic healer to bring you snackable teachings on spirituality,
Psychology,
And all things personal growth.
And today I want to talk about my favorite prayer,
The prayer for the highest good for everyone involved.
I love the perspective of win-win rather than win-lose.
And we could say that those are kind of a masculine or a feminine power dynamic,
That the masculine dynamic is more about having power over.
And the feminine power dynamic is having power with.
And there are times when each might be appropriate.
Certainly there are times when it's best for me to make decisions for my children rather than with my children.
They might not always like those decisions,
But I do have power over them because they don't have all of the information needed to make the best decisions for themselves all the time.
Although as they grow older,
They still may not have enough information to make the best decisions,
But they're getting to the place where they make those decisions anyway,
Just like I did.
Just like we all do as we stumble into adulthood,
Learning from our mistakes as well as our successes.
That's an important learning experience.
So even with my children,
I'm moving more into power with them,
Trying to open the dynamic where they're free to be able to talk to me without experiencing or fearing my judgment or condemnation of what they're doing.
And me more offering them friendly support and curiosity and humor.
My son spent the weekend with his grandparents this week.
They went for parents weekend to his college in the Southwest,
And he has a great relationship with them.
They're wonderful people.
But he said,
I'm exhausted from being on my best behavior all weekend.
So I was really bad as soon as they left.
And I asked him,
What does really bad mean?
And he said,
Mushrooms.
And we both laughed.
And I said,
What did you do?
And apparently there's some little farmers market in the nearby city.
And when the farmers market closes,
A secondary market opens up where people sell all their illicit drugs.
So they found the mushroom dealer and he bought four grams of mushrooms.
And he said,
Well,
Mom,
There's this great little space in the woods with a hammock behind the school.
And so I did a gram of mushrooms and I brought some Pink Floyd and I sat there by myself for four hours and I did a gram of mushrooms.
I said,
How was it?
He said it was awesome.
Well,
I never did mushrooms and I haven't done anything mood or mind altering in almost 35 years.
But I did a lot of psychedelics.
Never that intentionally,
Though,
I'll tell you.
Although more than once I tripped listening to Pink Floyd.
So that's really interesting to have that as a karmic repetition.
Can tripping with Pink Floyd be a karmic repetition?
Apparently it is in my family.
We'll see if it's passed down to my grandchildren.
So both of my son's parents are addicts,
Me being one of them.
And we talk frequently that he probably got the addict gene.
But so far it isn't causing tremendous trouble in his life.
And he's experimenting quite age appropriately with drinking and drugs.
And I know that me telling him not to is not going to make him not do it.
It's just going to make him keep it from me.
And I would much rather know what he's doing and be able to converse with him about it than try to give him some useless admonitions about how to behave.
And I actually do think it's age appropriate.
And I'm pretty impressed that he would do it so intentionally and have a positive experience.
He happens to be an atheist.
Maybe this will open his mind to the larger consciousness system.
More will be revealed.
And I frequently pray for his highest good.
So what does that mean,
Someone's highest good?
I still query that question myself from time to time.
One of my best friends and I have deep engagement with that on a regular basis because he says it reminds him of the idea of predestination,
Which he finds really distasteful.
If there's a highest good,
There's like a singular path.
And I suppose for some people that could be understood that way,
That there might be some predetermined highest good that we are aiming for.
And maybe there is.
I certainly do not claim to know really what's going on here.
I'm just another bozo on the bus of ordinary reality,
Bumping along,
Hoping I get off at the right stop.
But each person does seem to kind of have a bus route to some extent in their life.
I feel so deeply grateful that I have found my work in this world,
Which is to be a therapist and a healer,
And now a teacher and mentor to other therapists and healers,
And to bring the deeply transformative processes that have changed and redirected my life to the widest audience possible.
That's my bus route.
Now,
How that's going to happen,
What bus stops I might need to get off of at any given time,
And when I might need to get back on and move further,
Well,
That gets kind of revealed to me a day at a time.
I'm actually working on a business plan right now with a coach.
And there is a question of how much control I have over the routing of the bus route.
And it remains to be seen.
Some people are able to plan out things and they totally work out in that way for them.
My path seems to be more I aim for a direction and then the winds blow me in other places.
But I've got to be moving toward that direction in order to get blown to where it feels like I need to go.
I think about Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I've been into bodybuilding since I was a teenager on and off.
My father and I used to lift weights together.
And I read a few of Arnold's books,
Because he's just gorgeous to look at.
I happen to love really muscular bodies.
And in the back of the book,
He laid out what he wanted to do with his life.
He said,
I want to be in movies and I want to be in politics.
And this was in the 1980s.
And he talked about his singular drive to succeed in the weightlifting world.
And he's a legend.
Arnold won his first Mr.
Universe in 1967,
And he won three more times.
And in 2003,
He became governor of California and he made many movies in between all of that.
A very straight path of personal self-determination.
Although he was built for all of those things,
And that success was probably his highest good.
Now,
Fucking the maid and having a secret child,
Which ultimately unraveled his entire family life,
There's a question if that's highest good.
Are difficulties part of our highest good?
Is it okay to be human?
To make mistakes?
And is having a child a mistake?
It's certainly an experience.
And for me,
The prayer for the highest good,
The highest good of everyone involved,
To be sure,
That's the complete prayer for me.
Show me the highest good for everyone involved and grant me the power to carry it out.
My part in that highest good.
And I've had a lot of success in my life.
I've also had tremendous failure.
To divorces,
Bankruptcy,
Homelessness,
Drug addiction,
Depression,
Anxiety,
Serious eating disorders,
Sleeping with married men.
I could go on with my list.
It's pretty long.
Petty criminal.
Okay,
I'll stop.
But ultimately,
All of those things have become useful.
Some of them have provided great turning points and openness,
Willingness to change and grow.
So the highest good for me is a verb.
It's something we're always interacting with.
We have free will here.
And the choices that we make on any given moment determine our experience of the present and our possible futures.
Now I am,
Again,
Creating a larger business plan,
Which is very integrated with my life plan.
But there's a lot of unknown on how that's going to happen.
And the old saying that life is a journey,
Not a destination is absolutely true.
And the highest good unfolds in the journey and the thousand million interactions that we have with the people,
Places,
Things and creatures in our life and how what we do affects them.
And for me,
The highest good is something I feel in my body.
I like the idea that integrity is when my thoughts and my feelings and my actions are all in alignment.
And when one of them is out of kilter,
I don't feel good.
I might feel anxious or guilty,
Concerned,
Lost.
And that's for me where spiritual practice comes in and not just prayer and meditation,
But deep inner journey work to get guidance,
To look deeply and heal my anxiety,
To journal and process my guilt.
What's appropriate guilt and inappropriate guilt?
Appropriate guilt is when we do things that don't actually align with our own moral compass,
When we harm others or act out of integrity.
And it's really important,
That's our conscience,
To pay attention to our guilt.
It's one of the things that can call us to our own highest good within ourself.
Inappropriate guilt is guilt that is given to us by others from obligation or other people's manipulation,
Expectations or trying to have power over us.
And it takes away our free will,
Disempowers us.
At one point,
I decided to stop speaking to my mother for a period of almost two years because interactions with her was so excruciating for me.
I was in early sobriety and they made me actually want to use drugs and alcohol.
And although I felt guilty at different times for not talking to her,
It actually felt like the highest good because talking to her and harming myself was out of integrity with all of the work that I was doing.
Now,
Ultimately,
I came to the place where I did choose to start to speak to my mother again,
But it was because it was my choice,
Not because of some cultural implications or because of what she wanted.
I had to include my own highest good in the conversation.
I had to,
Or it might even be fatal because of the way that I used drugs and alcohol.
I realized that putting my mother's desires over what was actually good for me was some of the fuel that made me want to hurt myself.
So growing in integrity in the highest good,
It was imperative to actually be brave enough to put my needs ahead of the needs of other people.
And I was trained that that's a very selfish thing to do,
But there's a big difference between selfishness and self-care.
And if I don't care for myself,
Then I actually can't be of maximum service to others.
I've tried caring for other people at the expense of my own well-being,
And it doesn't work very well.
I end up depleted,
Resentful,
And the quality of my service is not very good.
All these old sayings,
Put your own oxygen mask on first.
It's really true.
If the flow of my own oxygen is sufficient,
Then I'm capable of helping others.
If I'm passed out,
I can't do anything for anybody.
So I've come to the belief that the highest good for one is actually the highest good for everyone involved because we're all connected on the ultimate level.
And that can simplify things a lot with this prayer for the highest good.
I actually only need to know what the highest good is for me.
Now I need to factor in my love for other people and if that is a selfish love or a selfless love.
And I recently did a podcast on conditional versus unconditional love,
Number 134,
If you want to hear more about my musings on unconditional love.
But that's what the prayer is about,
Prayer for the knowledge of the highest good for everyone involved and that it's something that I participate in rather than something I control or make happen.
I actually have very little control over my son away at college.
And from my prayer and contemplation,
Experiencing and experimenting with life in a supported way,
That he can talk openly about it and he's doing good in school,
He's making lots of interesting friends,
Seems like the highest good.
And we can tell the highest good actually,
Oh,
I'm just full of old sayings right now.
By their fruits,
You shall know them.
How are things working out?
Highest good is not wishful thinking.
It's very practical.
When my daughter and I started to think about moving to Manhattan,
The first discussion was kind of inspired.
We were in Central Park.
I looked at her and I said,
Do you want to move to Manhattan?
And she said,
Fuck yeah.
Are you serious?
I said,
Yes,
Let's think about doing it,
But we got to see if things work out.
And a week later,
She got into her first choice school.
That was the first green light.
I had to rehome my dogs.
That happened in a couple of weeks.
I'm happy to report they're really doing well because it just felt untenable to consider bringing dogs to New York when I didn't know where we were going to live,
What our circumstances were going to be.
It was too limiting.
And I know I need to focus this time on my work and on being there for my girl.
So,
It felt like the right thing.
I prayed for the highest good for the dogs.
And they found these wonderful homes,
Sad as it is to not have them.
Did not feel like the highest good to try to drag them here to the city,
Have them stuck in a little apartment.
We moved here and got an Airbnb for a month in the Upper West Side.
And the apartment market is madness in Manhattan.
Oh my God,
Don't even get me started anyway.
They have a thing called agents.
You have to pay someone thousands of dollars just to rent you an apartment.
It's ridiculous,
But it's part of what happens here.
And I did it.
We found an amazing apartment the first week we were here.
Another green light.
Now,
There's lots of things that don't work out.
Like I said,
I've been divorced twice,
I've filed bankruptcy.
I know that the highest good isn't always about getting everything I want.
Death,
Loss,
Letting go is part of this healthy cycle.
And Middle Earth and those perceived failures,
Which I don't consider failures at all anymore,
Have had tremendous positive implications in my life.
Both of those divorces were appropriate.
So was filing bankruptcy.
Huge learning experiences.
So again,
The highest good is a verb.
It's an unfolding.
How do we respond to the difficulties and verities of life?
And again,
This idea that all I have to know is the highest good for me.
And to trust that that highest good opens the possibility of the highest good for everyone involved.
This is one of the principles of Al-Anon.
And Al-Anon,
If you aren't familiar with it,
Is a 12-step fellowship for friends and families of alcoholics and dysfunctional families.
And often the obsession of the co-addict is to try to help the addict to deal with their dysfunction,
With their addiction,
With their suffering,
And often protecting them from the consequences of their behavior.
And as the addict is obsessed with their substance or addiction of choice,
The co-addict is obsessed with the addict.
And it can make for a very complicated system,
But it's a symbiotic system where everybody's kind of feeding off of the other person.
And addictive systems usually cause a lot of suffering.
And the co-addict is obsessed with loving and helping the addict,
Thinking they know what's best for them,
Whether they're keeping them out of trouble or keeping them from their addiction,
Trying to manage and control them,
Usually doesn't work very well.
And Al-Anon says,
Leave the addict be.
Let go or detach with love.
Mind your own business and get some business to mind.
I love that one.
And there can be a fear that if we let go,
The addict might die.
They might go to prison.
They might cause all kinds of havoc.
And that's true,
Actually.
My first husband died of addiction.
It wasn't directly because I let him go,
But I knew that was a sinking ship and I didn't want to go down with it.
And not infrequently,
When a co-addict gets into their own recovery and really starts to focus on themself,
Develops a spiritual life,
A fellowship starts to act from self-love,
Self-care,
Self-responsibility,
Rather than being responsible for everyone else.
It shifts the dynamic dramatically.
And the addict is suddenly responsible for their own behavior.
And they don't have to be in reaction to this person who's trying to control them all the time because the controls have been removed.
And when we truly,
Deeply take care of ourself and surrender,
Turn ourselves over to the universal life force,
Turn our will and our life over to the care of God as we understand God,
And let higher consciousness drive the bus,
The bus route often changes dramatically.
And it can provide actually the optimal circumstances for the addict to actually get sober for themself.
It doesn't always happen,
But it will certainly improve the dynamic.
And the co-addict is better off either way.
And so is probably if there's children or other people involved.
Because when one person is acting from the highest good,
From principles of honesty,
Willingness,
Openness,
Trust,
Surrender,
Humility,
Rather than operating from fear,
Secrecy,
Dishonesty,
Guilt,
Shame,
Isolation,
Defensiveness,
When we operate from those more spiritual higher resonances,
That is the recipe for highest good.
And highest good is usually a place of joy,
Fulfillment,
Happiness,
Life energy,
Flow.
Things work out easier.
We grow and expand.
We become more beneficial to others,
More creative,
More productive,
More useful,
Happy and whole in the world.
And that doesn't have to do with money or property or prestige or outward success.
Some of the happiest times in my life,
I was cleaning houses,
Driving a $300 car,
Living with a bunch of people,
Because I didn't make enough money to live by myself,
But I wasn't interested.
I loved living in community.
I was meditating and exercising.
Not that much different from my life today.
And when we are willing to grow and evolve and express our soul,
Self,
Our authentic being in the world,
To take risks,
Again,
To grow and evolve,
It inspires others to do the same.
Sometimes the dynamic shifts,
Like what happens when a co-partner goes into Al-Anon or just starts living their unexpressed life,
Feeding their own soul,
Whatever that is,
Following the calls wherever they may lead,
And it very frequently calls the partners and family members to shift accordingly.
Now,
It might not,
But when we raise the resonance,
The possibility is there.
And we only raise the resonance in ourself.
We cannot do it for another person.
The best thing that we offer others is the quality of our being.
It's more important than the quantity of our doing.
We don't have to know what the highest good is.
We can pray for knowledge of that.
Again,
My favorite prayer,
Show me the highest good for everyone involved and grant me the power to carry it out.
In a day at a time,
That will be revealed.
One snackable bite by snackable bite.
And so I wish you and yours the highest good for everyone involved.
Thank you so much for listening.
Blessings on your path until we meet again.
This is Renee LaValley McKenna for Spiritual Psychology.
