"Dear Children", a Manual for Adult Children of Divorce: 25 Year Study of Spirituality and Overcoming the Effects of Divorce; Healing the World

DEAR CHILDREN,

A Manual for Adult

Children of Divorce

25 Year Study of Spirituality and Overcoming

the Effects of Divorce; Healing the World

Written by

William Hinckley

INSPIRED BY GOD

WWW.DEARCHILDREN.INFO

Copyright © 2012 by William Hinckley

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012909860

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ISBN: 978-1-4525-5316-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-5317-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4525-5315-3 (e)

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Balboa Press rev. date: 11/12/2012

Contents

Dedication

Preface

Introduction

Prologue

PART 1: LIFE IN THE IRON AGE

Chapter 1: Life Before Birth

Chapter 2: Childhood

Chapter 3: Teenage Adolescence

Chapter 4: Young Adulthood

Chapter 5: Adulthood

Chapter 6: Parenthood

PART 2: THE AGE OF ENLIGHTENMENT

Chapter 7: Who Am I?

Chapter 8: Why Am I Here?

Chapter 9: What Is My Purpose?

Chapter 10: What’s Next? Graduation!

Chapter 11: How Do We Obtain Knowledge?

PART 3: APPLICATION ENGINEERING OF SPIRITUALISM

Chapter 12: Religion vs. Spirituality

Chapter 13: Understanding True Principles

Chapter 14: Understanding the Drama

Chapter 15: Understanding God

Chapter 16: Understanding Life

Chapter 17: Putting It All Together

Conclusion

Book Credits

Dedication

To my leader, mentor and inspiration – God, who taught me about unconditional love, acceptance and inspired me to write this book. To my children, Chelsey, Evan, Benjamin and Rachel who gave me unbelievable joy as a father.

To my parents, who gave me my mortal body, and the opportunity to experience life.

To my God, who created this existence for my soul to be embodied and live a drama that could only be written by my Spiritual Father, to give my life meaning and happiness.

I hope to have only written things in this book that will produce high energy enough that it may elevate another human soul.

William

Preface

Dear Children, A Manual for Adult Children of Divorce is a practical guide to find meaning and happiness through a spiritual journey and to overcome the traumatic effects of divorce that often carry forward into adulthood. It is based on understanding the roots of childhood and how to follow a process to obtain spiritual peace through acceptance, forgiveness and finding true meaning in life. This book and its content can be read and applied by anyone seeking happiness and fulfillment in their personal life. It can also be used as a manual towards a better understanding of the challenges that someone may be facing as they deal with, or have attempted to deal with, the effects of divorce and separation. This is a story of my life and the effects that my divorcing parents had on me, but is not unlike many others who come to experience this earthly challenge of familial dysfunction. This book is not solely of my writing for the words have been placed on the pages through the inspiration of God himself. I was inspired to write this book and to ensure that it would be made available to others. While my experience may be somewhat different, each soul that enters this life is a gift from God – and has been empowered to fulfill their mission. This book is about that mission and what I have learned along the way. It is my hope that in reading this book you will find it informative, inspiring and applicable to assist you on your journey in this drama called life.

Introduction

Life is a wonderful expedition – but the wonder and joy is not always evident. With its many ups and downs, turns and loops, we are often left feeling empty inside and searching for a true purpose. We have many questions of life in every phase of our development. Even after many years of accomplishments, there are times we still ask ourselves if we have had a fulfilling life and whether or not the path that we have taken is the one that we are supposed to be on. We often look back with regret and disappointment and struggle to understand a meaning in life today.

Each individual that comes to this precious planet is unique in many ways. There may be times when we are mistaken for someone else that looks like us, but overall, each individual is distinct and not replicated in any other spiritual form. The closest means that we have come to replicating a human being is in the development of identical twins. Their DNA being an exact duplicate, produces an identical human form, however, the soul which is housed within the realm of each body is still unique and different from the other. Each individual has an exclusive character at birth and as each person goes through life experiencing a variety of social endeavors, the character of each person is further individualized by the events that occur.

Many times in life I have looked at my circumstances and questioned the purpose of my existence. I wondered why I had experienced one type of life as opposed to what my friend was experiencing or a complete stranger going through another set of circumstances. Often frustrated with my life and wishing to be living the life of another, I came to examine more closely - from a spiritual realm - the purpose for living. I began searching for the meaning of my life at a rather early age. I recall thinking to myself when I was 10 years old a scenario that was quite similar to the movie, The Truman Show. I believed that I was in a world of actors that were put here on this planet to contribute to the growth and development of my life and future. No doubt this was a time in my life when egocentric thinking had become engaged - but I would return to this thought almost 40 years later and realize that this idea was not that far from the truth.

My life has been filled with many joys and sorrows that have allowed me to develop into the individual that I am today. These experiences are what makes us who we are and gives us the character that we have. Modern psychology has evolved to help individuals and society learn how to deal with human dysfunction that has been caused through traumatic events generally occurring in the early part of childhood. It seems that the earlier this trauma is experienced in a person’s life, the more devastating the overall dysfunction and greater the challenge of dealing with correcting this at a later stage of life. My childhood was filled with the trauma of divorce which occurred in the mid 1960’s. I grew up in a small rural farming community in which divorce was exceptionally rare and any understanding of the long term effects virtually unknown. It has not been until recent times that some of the effects – as well as strategies for dealing with the effects of divorce have become more widely understood. The research book written by Judith Wallerstein, "The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce", is one such compilation of study. Ms. Wallerstien is a highly recognized child psychologist and has documented a study of children that she counseled from a very early age until adulthood. Her study looks at a comparison of children’s lives that grew up in homes of trauma from marital discord. She looks at two study groups - one set of children whose parents had divorced and the effects on the children as the parent’s continued to have ill communications or were undermining each other. The other study group consisted of families that had parents which were not happy, and often times experienced chronic arguing and discord in the family but remained in a married partnership where the children did not experience the separation of the parents. Ms. Wallerstein looks at the long term effects of how these two living conditions affect the adult relationship capabilities of the children that grew up in these homes. The research results indicate that the children who had parents that remained together, even with the presence of chronic discord, were much more successful in their own adult relationships as opposed to those children who suffered from the effects of parental separation.

Dear Children is a book that addresses the challenges of life as a result of my divorce experience. Marital separation is generally not amicable by any means, and often filled with conflict. In fact, the way in which parents deal with their relationship in most cases is unacceptable within the parameters of child psychology and social work. Even with the advancement of social sciences to assist families today, society and individuals still struggle with addressing the issues and needs of children who suffer from the effects of divorce - particularly at a very early age. For children of divorce, many of the dysfunctions they experienced in childhood are perpetuated within the realm of their own marriages and often to the eventual breakdown of the relationship. For the longest time, child analysts assumed the resilience of the child to adapt to virtually any situation that the custodial parent was deciding upon, would ensure the good standing of children. Such misguided thinking is built upon the idea that children can withstand whatever situation they may be placed in and emerge without any long-term damages or character-altering effects.

The divorce rate across North America has steadily climbed to 50% and higher for the past 30 years. I suspect the rate will continue to rise as a result of children being exposed to the effects of divorce. Some will have better conditions than others with respect to the child overcoming the unhealthy survival strategies developed in childhood but all will be affected. The intent of this book is to share knowledge towards an understanding of these effects and to correct the dysfunctions that developed as a result of the irreconcilable difference between the parents.

Dear Children is not only a book about gaining understanding, but it is also about hope and spirituality so that readers may find clarity in the meaning of life where meaning may not be completely evident. I will explain the path I took to come to an understanding and the complete healing that has given me great hope for the future and eternity to come. Knowing that my children also became victims of divorce, I was motivated to write this book in an attempt to explain to them what had happened in my life, and the understanding that had come to me as a result of my search. My hope is that with this understanding, they would be able to make corrections more quickly in their lives so that they would not suffer from multiple marriage failures and furthered broken homes to leave more children to suffer from this 21st century plague.

I credit this knowledge and the inspiration to write this book to a Spiritual Power, a Supreme Soul who created this great school called Earth and who has enlightened me through my own experience. He has given me purpose in sharing this knowledge with my children so that they may learn and benefit from my trials. This Powerful Being has directed me to put my story to paper and in the very least, benefit my children who are still in the early years of life. Even though divorce has affected the lives of these four children whom I love, my intent is to encourage them towards a different experience than the one that I had and possibly spare them at least some of the pain and agony by giving them the knowledge that I have come to know is true. For any others interested in learning from this experience, I hope you may benefit from whatever element of this story that speaks to you.

I have studied many different forms of religion and spirituality and have come to understand there is one God who manifests truth in many different venues. I have come to understand that there is truth in all religions and that the essence of goodness exists for all people to live by. All people and creations upon the earth share a common thread of elements which make up our physical beingness. According to the Hindu religion, all souls come to the earth and land on different branches or religions which fit the culture and geographic location in which we exist. Science has broken us down into water and elements from a periodic table which all matter on the earth shares and has some commonality to it. I believe one of our objectives in life is to understand how we are all the same and connected, rather than being apart and different. Whether people, plants and animals classify our species, or religion, culture, creed and race define our entity, we have the common essence of being at one with each other along with being one with God our creator. Our responsibility as parents is to ensure the sacredness of this understanding and to provide this oneness environment to our children.

I am an avid reader on books of spirituality. One source that has inspired me is a book written by Dr. Wayne Dyer called, "The Power of Intention". Along with my Creator, I believe this book helped me find the courage and strength to believe in myself and to align my life with the power of Intention in order to assist me in accomplishing my objective of sharing this information. Dr. Dyer’s book helped reaffirm the truth of God’s existence and the spiritual essence of our mortality without being associated to any specific religion. It has also lent very practical knowledge of how we can experience being a part of Intention, or in other words, God’s plan to co-create the world in which we live.

Dear Children is my personal memoir and what I have learned throughout life. I dedicate this book to my children and to the successes that they will experience in life as a result of a much greater understanding of our existence and ways in which to overcome the challenges of today. It is also a thank you to the many people and resources that have imparted knowledge that I might come to this eventual epiphany and to my least expected event of writing this book. It has been a privilege and joy to be able to create this book and share my words with others who may be suffering from the effects of being a child of divorce and the impact that it may be having on their personal lives and relationships. May we all heal from the devastating effects of such separation and grow to have improved relations and uplifting experiences that will give us the joy of living a full and complete life in a manner that God would want us to have.

Prologue

Before we begin this journey, I would first like to address a couple of issues. I would like to thank all of the people who have come into my life who have blessed me with knowledge, understanding and experience. There have been so many great teachers who have ultimately been actors in my drama and who have assisted me to learn and grow in truth. I take no credit for myself but give it all to God, my Creator and the author of my life story. He deserves complete praise for allowing me to share what has been compiled within the binding of this book. I quote from the scriptures, Glory be to God in the Highest.

I would also like to acknowledge other outstanding individuals who have helped me progress towards a better understanding of the effects of divorce. There are many people who have recognized the importance of writing books and giving lectures on the topic of divorce and its effects upon children. Books have been written to assist parents to