When Ancient Wisdom Meets a Child's Curiosity: Feel the Effect of Lasting Change
Do people ever really change? Fundamental change that lasts? Depending on your life experience, you may not believe it’s possible. We hear that a lot. That from the nature of birth or the nurture of childhood, we’re hardwired to be who we are. We can tweak around the edges, but not really change.
We know exactly how hard real change is, and we know that most of us don’t achieve it, especially as we age. But we also know it’s possible. We’ve seen it happen. In ourselves, in those with whom we work.
It happens when our desire for change exceeds our fear of it. When our awareness catches up to us in the present moment, and we see a different choice in time to make it. It happens to the extent that we’re willing to let go of all we think we know, see that what we cling to is our limitation. The more “certainties” we can let go, the deeper and more lasting the change.
We help people find the level of change they seek.
BEGINNER’S MIND
No one gives up power voluntarily. What we believe we know gives us a sense of power and certainty on which we come to rely because it creates the illusion of controlling the unknowns of life. We can give up an illusion…once we see through it. There’s a reason Jesus always held up a child as the emblem of his Way of life. Why wisdom teachers have always prized beginner’s mind—the ability to see things as if for the first time—as the beginning of enlightening change. Until we can make friends with what we don’t know, see like a child without preconception, we remain stuck in old patterns.
NEW THINKING
Wisdom is evergreen. It never changes. Ancient wisdom is just as true and relevant today as when first uttered, because anyone who becomes truly wise is always describing the same and only truth. But our ability to hear does change with time and technology, culture and language, making us less likely let truth break through our certainties and free us to change. At theeffect, we work hard to meet Jesus again for the first time—deconstruct two thousand years of entrenched thought about him to find a humble, childlike person showing us how to see all over again from the beginning.
NEW DOING
When you meet Jesus in his own context, time, language, culture, you find someone who speaks to everyone, nonexclusively, not about more things to believe, but how to go about seeing things as they really are. You can’t do that with more thought, you do it by stepping away from thought. You don’t think it. You do it. You do it by bringing silence, solitude, stillness, and simplicity into your life in a balanced and conscious way: in wordless prayer and meditation, in the mindful presence you bring to every moment and conversation. In this doing, thoughts and seeing become clear.
The Effect We’ve Had With Your Help
This is how we’ve helped guide many people to engage their own journeys— to question old thought patterns that limit them, change behavior patterns that harm themselves and others, and grow new resilience from the inside out with faith that is as practical as it is spiritual, as common sensical as it is mystical.
But our job is far from done. We need your help to keep our programs going.
GATHERINGS AND 12 STEP MEETINGS
The pandemic taught us to use amazing virtual meeting tools, and going online has opened our studies and discussion groups to a nationwide, even international audience. Up to half our weekly online groups are people from out of area, state, and country. But as powerful as these tools are, there’s no substitute for face to face connection. In addition to our Sunday and special event gatherings, which are also streamed live, we have 14 weekly 12-Step meetings onsite every day of the week, some of which are “hybrid,” both live and virtual. We’re working hard to guide more people to engage their own transformational journeys.
ADOLESCENT AND ADULT MENTAL HEALTH
Both teens and adults are reacting to an existential emptiness in our culture with negative coping behaviors such as overuse of social media, substance addictions, mental health issues, eating disorders, school failures, and even suicides. Understanding these issues helps us to extend our adult services to adolescents as well, treating symptoms with a physical, mental, and spiritual approach to help both teens and adults thrive and attain lasting transformation. And beyond helping people attain regulation and balance, we’re also working to take them further with online group workshops on resilience and recovery integration.
1 ON 1 COUNSELING
It’s no secret that the disconnection we’ve all experienced from a quickly changing world has brought stress, anxiety, depression, and complications with substance abuse and relationships to the surface. People are experiencing layers of stress from every corner of their lives, feeling overwhelmed, burned out, and not knowing where to turn at a time when mental health services are also overwhelmed. Many providers can’t even accept new clients, so we continue to work with our community members and all who seek us out, through individual counseling and therapy service availability including addiction, family, relationship, grief, and EMDR.
A Community of Faithful Doing
For over sixteen years, theeffect has been helping people push through times of hardship toward full recovery and spiritual transformation, leaving no stone unturned in life. The past few years have created difficulties for all of us, but we’re still here, committed to serving you by bringing ancient wisdom to your childlike curiosity, rekindling that curiosity to find theeffect of God’s love in your life, despite these unsettling times. Thank you for your continued support
Copyright theeffect 2019
27124 Paseo Espada, Suite 801
San Juan Capistrano, California 92675
Phone: 949.218.2228
