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Betrayal and abandonment are tremendous themes that I notice in my counseling practice and the trainings I’ve been conducting for over 27 years. I have worked with thousands of people who feel they have been betrayed by someone that they were very close to: partner, lover, boss, sister, brother, best friend, family member, parent, or child. One of the most amazing things that happened in these 27 years was when I taught a very large course in Darlana, Sweden, the home of St. Nicholas, the Swedish version of Santa Claus. I found in that training that at least half the people had the feeling their mother or father had abandoned them. This was a town that was strongly dedicated tremendously to family values and Christmas, had no movie theater, and stores closed on Saturday at 1pm and opened again on Monday morning. When the theme of this training became abandonment, I realized there was more to the process than what the evidence in the world showed. When I became a student of the Course in 1990 I realized that the feelings of abandonment and betrayal I saw everywhere were really the feeling that we had abandoned and betrayed God and chosen this ego world of specialness and special bodies.

I believe that no one I have ever met personally remembers this choice of specialness and choosing to come to this ego world, yet everyone I know has some form of feeling that someone has abandoned or betrayed them. I have done thousands of Clearings, particularly about abandonment and betrayal. One thing I can say about these Clearings is that everyone thinks it is the other person who abandoned or betrayed them. They have lots of evidence that supports their story. One of the reasons we have so much of this going on in the world is our lack of 100% communication. We think we are communicating to people, but most of us are communicating what we think, feel and believe at a 20% level. Therefore there is a lot of ambiguity, confusion and misinterpretation about what they said and what you said, going on constantly. It seems like we are afraid to totally communicate, because if we did, we wouldn’t have a reason to attack in the form of betrayal and abandonment and we would be freer in our lives. We want to have the attack in our lives as a form of power over other people. Guilt has amazing power over the people we love.

In the last 3 months I have had the opportunity to do 2 family clearings, in which every member cleared with every other member. This took many hours. In listening to the comments of all the members when they finally heard what each person felt and thought and what they think happened and what was said, I saw again how little people actually communicate with each other. These people had been living in the same house for years and never really said anything real or total in the form of communication.

This fear of communication is especially evident in all the couples I work with who are going through divorce and legal battles. Some of these legal cases have cost them more than $100,000 but were completely resolved in 10 hours of clearing where we do all the forgiveness of what was misinterpreted. A person hires a lawyer for a large amount of money to do everything that they could do themselves because they are afraid of communicating, and believe that no one will listen, no one cares, and the other person will not receive them, ever. One of my greatest joys in life is to see all parties fully communicate, and realize there is nothing to be upset about in the first place – nothing to forgive – it was all one big misperception between two ego minds. No one can do for you what you are not willing to do for yourself, and this is especially true in the world of communication. In any upset or misinterpretation, I can ask myself – “have I said everything here that I need to say with nothing left out?” this includes what I think happened and what it meant to me and all my perceptions and interpretations about the situation I developed in reaction.

More than 20 years ago I had the pleasure of working with Ralph Baker who was one of my clients. He was known as the Love Lawyer. He wrote a book, and in it he said “I will only help you with your divorce if you can fully tell me with truth that you love your partner, tell me all about the process of loving your partner and come back to full love with them.” I thought of course this was a brilliant idea; that people must be complete with their love, including feeling of abandonment and betrayal before their divorce or parting separate ways.

The only danger of taking the Clearing course if you are getting divorced is that you might get back together again. This is especially dangerous if you are married to a new person!

One of the greatest themes I also clear is the Will theme; who got what in the inheritance and why they got it. This brings up huge betrayal and abandonment if a person thinks they didn’t get what they deserved in the final act of their family member. I cannot tell you how many people I watch fight over thousands of dollars and end up spending it all just to settle it through the law. This Will betrayal could have been handled by Clearing every misinterpretation they had through forgiveness.

I have a friend / client who fought for years over the money that was left by her mother to her and her sister. After 5 years and hundreds of hours of attack and defense, there was only about $3000 left. I have another client and friend whose first and second wives are still fighting over what was left ambiguously in his will. The second wife was asked what she wanted, and she said “I don’t need anything,” but proceeded to fight for equality with the first wife. I believe to this day they are still fighting over this. We are not willing to ask for what we want, exactly and specifically. When we know what we want, we feel too guilty to ask.

We are all writing in our ego minds the movies, or “scripts” of our lives. We must commit to ourselves that we will recognize the payoffs and benefits we receive when we hold on to ego beliefs about who we are. What am I getting by holding on to the belief that I have been betrayed? I am able to feel victimized. I am able to blame others. I am able to get sympathy. I am able to project guilt I have on to others. These are BIG benefits in the ego’s mind, but are really just suppressing the truth of who you really are. So I must ask myself: Do I want to be RIGHT about being betrayed, or do I want to be HAPPY?

In closing, I will say after writing about betrayal, I can see how important to myself and everyone else that we demonstrate, by living it, that betrayal is not the TRUTH of who we are. You cannot betray God; once we remember this, there is no reason to project that betrayal on to others. We can give up the attack and defense game for the sake of our freedom and peace through the forgiveness process. I commit to doing this myself and sharing it with everyone I meet. I ask that you join me in this purpose.

Sandy Levey-Lunden, for more information go to www.sandylevey.com or call (360) 527-2796. Sandy has many evening presentations and workshops.

By: Sandy Levey-Lunden

In the late 16th century, Shakespeare’s Juliet asks the eternal question, “What’s in a name?”  Shakespeare probably had no idea that 500 years later this question would still be uppermost on the minds of women as they contemplate a name change due to an impending marriage or divorce.

In this three part series, we’ll delve into the rules and regulations that surround a woman’s legal name change.  We’ll discuss the pros and cons of changing your name and we’ll give some real life examples of women who have made the decision one way or another and their experiences based on that decision.  We’ll also provide a handy list of documents that the government both federal and state expect you to have as part of the post 9/11 real identification legislation.

But to start with, just for fun, let us examine some of the customs of naming.  Interestingly, even in our modern, post-women’s rights world, some of the old traditions linger.

“Naming” has a long and intricate history that has evolved over the centuries.  Across cultures and across religions, the name given to a newborn has great significance.  The name can be intended to imbue certain attributes to a child, give the child a spot in his or her lineage and seat a child firmly in the religious beliefs of the parents.

Anyone who has seen the mini-series Roots remembers the emotionally charged scene where the father lifts his newborn baby to the sky, calling out the baby’s name to the stars above.

Much of the “etiquette” surrounding names in modern day America came over on the boat with the first settlers from England.

English surnames can often be traced back to the trade or occupation of an ancestor.  Cooper is a perfect example.  A man named John who made barrels for a living would be referred to as John the Cooper or John Cooper.

In England as well as many other countries, a surname was sometimes decided based on the father’s name.  For example, a man named Jack, son of a man named Thom might be called Jack Thomson.

In Jewish tradition the phrase bar, ben or bat can be used to indicate “son or daughter of.”  However, sometimes the name was more poetic…instead of using the father’s name, the surname could be something like bar Ilan which translates to “son of the trees.”

First names or given names were given at birth and were often recorded in church baptismal records and later on birth certificates.  Once upon a time, people referred to their first name as their Christian name since it was intertwined with a church ceremony.

A woman, having no legal stature of her own was identified with the man that was responsible for her…either her father or her husband.  She was not given a surname independent of the male she was attached to.  So unmarried she carried her father’s surname also known as her maiden name and married she assumed the surname of her husband.

Emily Post, America’s maven of manners wrote this rather amusing entry in her book of etiquette in 1922 when people still left calling cards when they visited a friend or neighbor.  Following an elaborate description on how the cards were to be engraved to be considered “impeccably correct,” Ms. Post offers up this detailed advice on how a woman may be addressed:

“And a widow no less than a married woman should always continue to use her husband’s Christian name, or his name and another initial, engraved on her cards. She is Mrs. John Hunter Titherington Smith, or, to compromise, Mrs. J. H. Titherington Smith, but she is never Mrs. Sarah Smith; at least not anywhere in good society. In business and in legal matters a woman is necessarily addressed by her own Christian name, because she uses it in her signature. But no one should ever address an envelope, except from a bank or a lawyer’s office, “Mrs. Sarah Smith.”

While this advice seems archaic to most of us, there are still some circles in America where women are happy to be completely identified by their husband’s full name.

The women’s rights movement began to erode these long held naming traditions and by the 1970s, women had chosen a form of address that skirted the issue of marital status entirely.  No longer were Miss or Mrs. the only correct forms of address, but a woman could choose to be referred to as Ms. making her married status an enigma.  Gloria Steinem named her magazine Ms.giving the “honorific” title widespread exposure and in 1972, the federal government approved the use of Ms. in government documents.

The casual use of first or given names has become increasingly common and in the past several decades women have opted to hyphenate a maiden/married name or to keep their maiden name upon marriage, working out a surname compromise with a spouse on the names of the children.  There is even the very rare occasion where a husband will take the wife’s maiden name as his own and in some cases, a woman known professionally by a previous spouse’s name has opted to keep that name despite the fact that she has remarried.

In other words, a woman has the freedom to use any name she chooses, but once that choice is made, there are certain regulations that must be followed in order for that name to be recognized by the government on legal documents.

Next time we’ll explore dotting the “i”s and crossing the “t”s on a name change in a post 9/11 world.

Do you have an interesting story about changing your name?  We’d love to hear it.

Whilst divorce may be on the rise many still remain in unhappy relationships. Be it for the fear of being alone or having someone is better than having no one. This naturally is deemed one of the same, but the mentality behind this however, is not.

In the perfect world marrying a person that is loved and will be loved for the rest of that individual’s life sounds like absolute bliss, and rather unachievable. Because the belief already exists that it is unachievable what will happen to the person’s aspirations, expectations and ultimately delivery within the relationship before the first date.

Then the expectations of the man and woman after the marriage. What is expected will occur from children, weight gain and most of the time something of a negative connotation. This does not make it true however, to that person that has taken on these beliefs this relationship is likely to face these kinds of behaviours and attitudes.

Many do not marry for love and it tends to be secondary more than most believe. Some marry for convenience, because “it is time” or the “right thing to do” and as such, it is no surprise that the marriage fails. Or even worse, fails but continues to exist. The impact of this on the individual is detrimental as it is on the children, if there are any and it can only spiral down from here.

Not many can call themselves experts on relationships but there are some fundamentals that even the novice can determine. Divorce can sometimes be a positive release from a bad relationship and whilst the divorce isn’t often a bed of roses the alternative of remaining in a relationship with someone that is not loved, that doesn’t understand that individual let alone want to align to that individual’s passions and dreams seems obvious.

By no means should divorce be taken lightly or even considered until absolutely necessary but it is more asking the question of why get married if the aim is for divorce or a relationship that co-exists, being not much different from flat mates or unhappy flat mates?

People change, evolve, grow and within a marriage it is possible for the two people to do this journey together. Whilst it does take work if both parties aren’t on the same page to begin with then what chance does the marriage have? What impact will this have on that individual as a person, as a parent and as someone seeking to be with someone that cares?

Divorce and marriage are one of the same – to be done for the right reason. This right reason needs to be congruent with that individual not for ego but for what it represents in their life.

The only person to ever judge is that individual – so if you are going go judge your actions be sure that you own your actions.

Own Your Actions

By Hally Rhiannon-Nammu

Equality vs. Power, Something to think about in today’s society with all this invasive technology. The words themselves are something to think about. Power means authority, control, supremacy and muscle on the other hand Equality means fairness, and justice. We ask ourselves: Who has the most technological devices, whose are bigger, or better? Of course the one that is bigger is better and they have more control. Well, I take that back, in technology it seems to be the smaller, more compact is the best.

What seems to be missing in our society is respect, flexibility, trust and support? When I talk about relationships, I’m not just talking about intimate ones but relationships at work, in your physical environment or just your friends. I saw a great commercial the other day emphasizing some technical gadget and everyone at the restaurant was “alone” playing with their “gadget”. It made me say, mmmmmmmm. Does that look appetizing to people? Not me. I’m a women, I like to talk and be heard. How about you?

What has our society come to? What is technology doing to relationships or what are we doing to technology and relationships? I was just at a seminar on “abusive” relationships. You tell me, is it abusive to sit across from your beautiful wife playing or working on your “technical gadget” when she is trying to talk with you. Or how about when your children want to play with you and you are too busy working on your “device.”

What is the true definition of Abuse? Some synonyms are neglect, misuse and cruelty. You tell me, are we neglecting the people in our environment when we are busy texting or working on our I pads? Is that being “cruel” to the other person by ignoring them? I myself don’t enjoy being ignored and when that happens I usually will say something because as I said before I am a woman.

In our society it has become common for people to “ignore” others and I can’t believe I am going to write this but women are even starting to put up with this. In the old days, women would use their womanly ways to get attention but how do you compete with a piece of equipment?

This is when boundaries are important. Boundaries are what protect you and the other person. Wasn’t it Mrs. Regan who said, “Just say No?” That sounds good to me. The next time you are feeling neglected or disrespected just say “no” and let the people know what you want. Of course do it politely. Remember we are working on modeling “respect.” Let me know how it works.