A New Earth

“You do not become good by trying to be good, but by finding the good that is already in you, and allowing that goodness to emerge.” (page 13)

Why I read this book

I watched several people, famous and regular people, talk about how this book had opened their eyes or changed their lives. I thought that it would be interesting to read; that there might be something in the book that spoke to me. I have been struggling with depression much of my life and what looking for answers. I didn’t know who I was and had no passion. I felt that life was meaningless and the only reason I hadn’t killed myself was because I loved my husband and promised to him that I would never give up completely. I constantly prayed to God to send me a sign that my life could change.

I tend to procrastinate. I didn’t buy the book. In fact, I even made an online order for two other books and not for “A New Earth”. When my order arrived, I had also received another order (presumably by accident) and in it was the book. My first thought was to contact the company and return the order even though I wanted to read it. I thought it would be “bad karma” to keep something that wasn’t mine. Morals aside, I had asked God for a sign. How rude it would be to ignore one dumped in my lap!

How the book changed my life

When I first picked up the book, I was thinking that it might have something useful in it’s pages that could help me in my struggle. I was also sceptical of the people I had seen talking about it on Oprah, thinking “How much can a book actually change your life?!”

Within the first three chapters, my life had changed!

My path to awakening

I have always been someone who thinks. I constantly thought about thinking. Why did I do things I did? Why did I think the way I thought? I pulled myself out of the present moment to ponder what was going on, how I reacted to it, what it all meant. I once had a psychologist say that she had never met someone who thought so much about their own thinking. When I first started reading, I thought, “Wow, I must be really awake…” That was my ego talking! I had been so identified with the voice in my head. I walked around everyday in a cloud of darkness. Negative thoughts bombarded me constantly. I was a person who would be in a situation and think things like “I hate being here” and “I wish I was anywhere else but here”. People told me that I was my own worst enemy and that it was my negative thinking blowing things out of proportion that made life so unliveable to me. They told me all I had to do was change my thinking. Easy for them to say, I thought. They hadn’t been in my head and didn’t know how long this pattern of behaviour had been going on. How was I to just change? “A New Earth” was the answer.

Recently, I had been very depressed and thinking about suicide. I couldn’t live with myself. I felt I wasn’t myself but it had been such a long time I felt this way that I didn’t know who myself was. I felt so lost. It was within this mindset that I began reading the book. For me it was like a movie that takes awhile to get into. (Like Oprah says, at least give the first fifty pages a try).

Once Tolle began talking about the voice in the head as not you, I had my first 'aha-moment'. That’s why I knew this state I was in was not me… I was living my life as if my ego was all that I was.

I don’t know precisely where in the book things changed for me but I realized the most important things: I am not my ego, I was making the present my enemy, and what a power NOW held. In an instant, my unhappiness left me. It still rears its ugly head from time to time but I am getting better at creating that space around me and my emotions and I can then choose how to act. My new motto is, “It is what it is.” I remind myself “This too will pass.” When I feel myself that I am not the person I (my ego) want to be, I can accept it and say, “I am who I am” and feel peace.

My struggles with these ideas

I am trying to accept “this too shall pass” and view materialism accordingly. I have become less attached to objects and feelings but what I struggle with is my attachment to my husband. Before I read the book, the only reason I was alive was because I loved my husband. I knew that if it weren’t for him in my life, I would have absolutely no reason to live and no want to live. At the time I started reading, he was away for six days for a business conference and I wallowed in my worry that something could happen to him and he might not come back. Needless to say, I am very attached to my husband! We are very close and have always say things like we are made for each other and we are soulmates. I’ve often viewed him as an angel sent from God who saved my life. I feel a very deep connection on a non-material level. If I put it into my own words, my soul (my “Being”) is connected to his soul.

Tolle doesn’t mention an afterlife or what happens to our being when we die. I get the idea that we “return” to the conciousness and I believe that to an extent. I know it’s not over when our bodies are lifeless. I believe our souls go somewhere else. But then what? Do our connections with our loved ones continue? And in what form?