photo: Valentin Ottone on flickr

Dear Meli,

“Love your neighbor” is a common phrase. But whoever said that didn’t know my neighbors. When they first moved in, everything seemed fine. But three years and twenty police reports later, everything looks a little different. Domestic violence, drug use, arrests. You name it, they’ve done it. I know I’m not supposed to pray for harm to come to another, and I certainly don’t wish that for them. But I own my home and I don’t want to move. AND I don’t want to live next to my crazy neighbors anymore. Help!

Just Say “No” to the Neighbors

Dear Just Say No,

I’m so sorry to hear that you’re in this situation. It’s a tough one! I know. I’ve been there.

I have two different practices I do in such situations. In my own life, these have powerfully helped many situations turn around quickly and smoothly, with no additional effort on my part. In two cases, and from two different homes, difficult neighbors suddenly moved.

1) Affirmative Prayer

The first time I had neighbors like yours, I felt stuck in the same way you describe. I did not wish them harm. I just wanted them gone.

But when I pray, I make sure I am not giving the Divine the details. So when I tried to figure out what to pray for – and worked to narrow it down to exactly what I wanted – this is what I came to: “I want to feel grateful, and only grateful, for my experience of my home.” I didn’t need to like my neighbors. I didn’t need to want to hang out with them. I didn’t even really need the current neighbors to go away! I just wanted to be happy in my own home, which would, of course, include appreciating my neighbors.

This was a radical realization for me!

The reason I loved this revelation is two-fold.

First of all, Spirit can (and does) do miraculous things all day every day. When I pray for the experience I want to have in this way (leaving all the details to Spirit), I allow for the answered prayer to be something way better than I would’ve come up with.

Secondly, this prayer left it open for the current neighbors, or even for me, to change in order for my prayer to be answered.

So I prayed . . . and I prayed. I asked Spirit to move through the entire situation – through my own consciousness and everything else – in order to allow for my experience of happiness (and only happiness) about my home and neighbors.

I practiced, every day for months, feeling an overwhelming gratitude and relief about the people next door. I got better and better at thinking about the house next door and feeling joy!

Next thing I knew, suddenly, they were moving out. I found out later, from another neighbor, that they had been renting this place for over 13 years. But they suddenly had to go, for some reason. Not only that, after they left, a renovation of the house left it looking much nicer, too!

2) The Oh-My-God’s!

The above example was quite a few years ago. I since have moved. And since living with Z, we had a very similar experience.

Z and I have a beautiful spiritual practice we do together every night. We call it the OhMyGod Practice.

The last phase of this practice is called the “Oh-My-God’s!” We call them this, in part, because those are often the words we use when we do them.

We each tell each other five things we’re grateful for. Only, in this case, the five things we are grateful for haven’t happened yet.

We give all the details of how we’ll be feeling when a particular shift has happened. But we give those details as if they are already true now.

Again, we leave out the details of why we feel so happy, leaving those to the universe to handle.

For example: “Oh My God! I am SO grateful for our neighbors! All of them! I feel so safe and wonderful in our home. Whenever I think of the house next door, I feel grateful, happy and relieved. It is SO AWESOME that our neighbors are so perfect for us!”

We did this for a period of time while, of course, continuing to call the police if things were scary. And, once again, suddenly our neighbor had to move. And now we feel exactly the things we used to say we would feel about our neighbors.

Here’s the thing about these practices. First of all, they really work! You do have to stick with it, even when you feel impatient. But hang in there, do these regularly, and something will happen! Heck. For all you know, Spirit has a new home for YOU because of some exciting opportunity in a new town!

But also? These practices make you feel really good in the moment! And that’s a key component.

So here’s to you feeling good about your neighbors – first in practice and then in real-time!

Blessings and Love to you in all you do,

Meli

What’s your experience with answered prayer? Share your comments below!

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