Fifteen years ago, after a 25-year silence, I started talking to God. I was at the end of my rope and knew that I had to find a different way of living. I was 45 years old.

I wouldn’t recommend living without a God. It’s hard work. Maybe when you’re young, it’s possible, but after 40, the law of diminishing returns kicks in. Whatever you’ve been doing to appease that hunger that wants to be filled with God begins to lose it’s effectiveness.

I used the word "God" inclusively to include: 1. Whatever or whoever you turn to for consolation and comfort when you are at your wit’s end. It could be a person, food, alcohol, drugs or any substance or activity you grab to soothe yourself. 2. Whatever or whoever you go to for an answer to the question: Why am I here and what’s the meaning of all this?

Maybe you’ve heard the term "self-will run riot". That accurately describes a life wherein one believes themselves to be acting in their own best interests, but ultimately what is needed is often for that person to get out of their own way. In order to do that and create a relationship with a Higher Source, one often has to SURRENDER. Our egos aren’t easily relinquished. They hang on for dear life. That’s the Ego’s job —survival.

The longer one is engaged in this process of "surrendering", the more one is asked to surrender. God just wants to give us more and more, but in order to receive it, we have to lay down our desire to RUN THE SHOW.

I imagine that when I’ve surrendered completely I’ll wonder around paradise all day just BEING. "Being" has a lot to do with God. At one of my 12-Step Recovery meetings recently, I heard it said that God’s permanent residence is in the present moment.

After struggling for so many years, (more than I care to admit), it seems ironic that not only was I in the way of manifesting what I wanted, I was actually preventing it from coming to me because I thought only the almighty "I’ "Ego" could deliver what I so badly wanted.

Lo and Behold, I was wrong. Over the past 15 years, time and time again, my God has given me exactly what I needed in each moment.

Most of my accomplishments in the last 15 years have come directly from surrendering myself to the God of my understanding. I don’t fight so hard anymore. I don’t resist guidance and help when it comes. I am humbled daily by what I can’t make happen in my life.

God (the universe) is continually conspiring to bring me my highest good. The problem is often my thinking that I know what’s best for me in any given moment.

My God has become the benevolent parent I never—the whisper that tells me as I’m walking out to the car that I forgot something; the voice that says, "it’s ok, honey, you don’t have to figure this all out today, take a little break."

I suspect that this God of my understanding was always there. I just never called upon it for guidance. Along the lines of this topic is the film, Conversations with God. I saw the film last night. It’s scheduled to open in theatres across the country next weekend. Oct. 27-29. I encourage you to see the film. By doing so, you can send a message to Hollywood that you are interested in movies about love, peace and hope instead of violence, aggression and competition.

The movie is based on the three books by Neale Donald Walsh, Conversations With God – an uncommon dialogue". Walsh was homeless when he hit his bottom, surrendered and asked God for help. His advance for his first book when he sold it was 1.5 million. Hardship as a pathway to God is a common theme among 12-Step Recovery folks. For more information about the movie and to learn where it’s playing in a theatre near you, visit www.cwgthemovie.com. I promise you’ll be touched by it. And if you haven’t read the books, I highly recommend doing so. Especially if your intuition suggests doing so. Intuition is how God speaks to us.

I wish you many blessings this month. Count your blessings and they will multiply. Keep a gratitude journal daily and watch your life begin to blossom. It’s about focusing on the positive thereby diminishing the negative.