Why Am I Constantly Stuck in Negative Situations?
This post answers questions from a reader who goes by the name, cmw787, who says her life is on a downward trajectory and has been for years. She’s doing everything she can to fix her life, but she’s unable to do it. Cmw says it feels like every day will be worse than the day before, she’s living every day in misery, and she’s praying for death.
The Council begins by asking cmw how she thinks she can change her life when she expects every day to be worse than the day before and she’s praying for death? The Council says this alone will keep her vibration from raising higher so she can begin to change and bring in the sort of life that she would like.
Cmw says she’s sick of being lectured on the law of attraction. She says she’s practiced it and lived it, and it’s not working at all for her. She doesn’t understand why this is happening to her. The Council notes that cmw doesn’t want to believe in anything that’ll make her life better.
Cmw says she was contacted by people who came to Earth from the Pleiadian star system about 2 years ago, but she doesn’t understand what they want from her. The Council says Pleiadians are very loving and they’re trying to get cmw to focus her thoughts differently so she can raise her vibration.
The Council tells cmw it’s not wrong for her to want to know about herself, but she insists on looking only at what’s negative and trying to understand that. They say understanding isn’t necessary for cmw. What’s necessary is to change how she thinks about her life. She should ask herself if meditation will help you? Ask if helping other people will help? Will having a different perspective on your life help you? Will it help you to focus on something to be grateful for 10 minutes every day? If you do these things it will begin to change your vibration. The Council feels if cmw continues to focus on why her life isn’t working the way she wants won’t make her life any better.
The Council tells cmw she has the talent to become an oracle because in previous lifetimes she was a teacher in Atlantis, Lemuria, ancient Egypt, ancient Rome, and ancient Greece, and in her current lifetime she’s questioning these talents. Meditate on these time periods and ask for information. More information will come. As you tap into these past lives you’ll change your vibration without even knowing how you did this.
The Council says as cmw taught in these ancient places, there were some students that found it difficult to work with energy and change matter, and cmw had difficulty understanding this. So coming into her current lifetime she created a life where she has doubt and negativity to learn from it. She wanted to see how difficult it can be to change negativity into a higher vibration, and see how difficult it can be to go from expecting things to go wrong, to hoping they go right. The lesson was to go through these difficult times and when it seems the most difficult, to grasp onto the littlest thing and begin to change it with something more positive.
Cmw asks The Council what her soul purpose is, and why is she constantly stuck in negative situations. The Council says it’s because her belief is more negative than positive. Your purpose is to find a more positive way to live your life. The Council asks cmw to try to improve her life again, even if it’s with the tiniest seed of hopefulness, and she’ll find a difference.
The Council advises cmw to surround herself with a few crystals that she picks out for herself and begin to meditate, even if it’s just for 10 minutes. In Atlantis you worked with changing energy and taught with crystals. Familiarize yourself with this again and be patient. As you begin to change your thoughts the tiniest bit, you’ll notice experiences in your life will improve.
The Council says as cmw reads about these different ancient cultures she’s been part of, just by taking her thoughts off negativity and putting them on these better feeling times, she’ll connect with this higher vibration and her journey will turn in the direction she wishes.
The Council sees a positive outcome for cmw, but she needs the discipline she taught in these other lifetimes to concentrate on more positive thoughts. If she’s able to read about these ancient times, and surround herself with crystals and meditate, her life must change.
Listen to the entire audio recording of our session with The Council (below) to hear all their guidance for cmw787 and the rest of us, and let us know what you feel about it.
If you like the session, please consider clicking on the Like button in the section below the recording to let us and our other readers know. Thanks.
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Son’s Anger Issues Related to Lifetime in Ancient Rome
This post answers questions for The Council from a reader named Lavender, who has an 8 year old boy with anger issues and she wonders why. The Council says this boy is hurting very deeply inside and at this point he doesn’t know how to feel love. He has a lot of mistrust and believes he must be alone.
The Council says your son is deeply affected by a lifetime in ancient Rome and he’s got a lot to heal from this lifetime. He was a slave who was taken to the arena where gladiators fought and was picked to be in charge of other slaves. This gave him safety, but turned the slaves he was friendly with against him.
He carries a lot of guilt from this Roman lifetime that he’s going to try and work out in his current lifetime. Your son has an authority problem in his current lifetime related to the lifetime in Rome, he has difficulty following orders, and he doesn’t like being told what to do.
The way you ask your son to do things will either create anger or give him understanding. Explain why, when you ask him to do the littlest thing and thank him for being a helpful part of your family. He needs to know he’s included and not alone. In his current lifetime he wants to know he can survive by being himself and being part of a family.
Lavender feels guilty for having this son when she was young and The Council says there is no use for this guilt. She needs to take part in helping her son heal the issues he’s brought into this lifetime.
Lavender asks The Council for advice on how to guide her son and The Council says their pre-birth agreement was that she would give him confidence and accept him no matter how he behaves in the moment. He needs an explanation how some of his behavior upsets her and why. And follow these explanations with reminders of the good he does.
Lavender says she recognizes in her son the same internal struggles she went through growing up. She is also resistant to authority figures. The Council suggests she explain to her son that she also doesn’t like to be told what to do. Maybe you can work on this together and bond over it. With understanding his mind will open, acceptance of how different things can be will begin to flood in, and clarity will come.
Lavender says she’s tried to teach her son things like the law of attraction, self empowerment, chakras, and meditation, and she says from this he became an elaborate storyteller. The Council says children have a great ability to astral project, remember their dreams, and travel to different dimensions. In your son’s case these stories aren’t made up. He is very psychic and intuitive and these are important tools for him as he grows.
The Council says many times your son is able to see from his third eye and he imagines other people can also do this. Encourage your son to talk to you about what he’s seeing and you’ll be surprised how he changes.
Treat your son with kindness, understanding, and love. Explain everything that’s asked of him. Explain when things annoy you and how you think about it and change it. Let him know how you want to teach him why he and everyone else is here: to handle whatever challenges he faces, to acknowledge them, to work on them, and to turn them around with love.
Listen to our entire 18-minute session with The Council to hear all their guidance for Lavender and the rest of us, and let us know how you feel about it.
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An Abusive Marriage and a Way Out
This post is inspired by follow-up questions from a reader named Vacha, who’s having difficulties with her abusive second husband and she wonders if her spirit pre-birth planned for her to end up in abusive marriages.
The Council begins by advising Vacha to change her thought that she ends up in abusive relationships because as she holds onto this thought and feeling she will continue to create this in her life. Now she knows this is something she doesn’t want and she is able to recreate her life going forward by beginning to picture what she wishes to create now.
Vacha regrets not ending up with a loving companion and feels suicidal sometimes, but then she thinks of her son and that keeps her going. The Council says she’s got much to learn with her child and asks why she’d think of cutting this lifetime short when there’s so much goodness that can be experienced as she creates it moving forward.
Vacha asks if The Council can see happiness for her in a marriage and a career if she move back to India. The Council says it’s up to her, but they see her having a much different and happy life. They see many options opening up for her as she changes her thoughts, focus, and beliefs.
There is much joy that can come to her. She doesn’t need to worry how this will happen. The energy she creates will bring these opportunities to her when she understands why she needed to experience these difficulties which aren’t needed any longer. She is able to move forward and experience the joy she’s looking for.
The Council says to find a way for Vacha to look for and create love in her thoughts. Find the light within herself that’s her higher self and imagine love pouring out to every part of her and around her. And as this love goes out it will attract similar energies of love.
Listen to the recording of our 8-minute session with The Council (below) to hear their guidance for Vacha’s and the rest of us, and let us know what you think.
Vacha has posted two previous questions. You can read her first question here and our answer to it, and her second question here and our answer to that question. In addition, Vacha has posted another question after we did our current session with The Council, but before we posted their response. In her last questions she says she left her husband and moved back to India. You can read her last question here.
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Focusing on What You Don’t Want Will Attract It
This post is inspired by Marie’s questions about an ex-boyfriend who is trying to contact her even though she doesn’t want him to, and she asks The Council’s advice.
The Council says what Marie is saying she wants and what she is creating in her life are two different things, and they ask her to look at where she is focusing her attention. They say by focusing her attention on how she doesn’t want this man in her life, this focus is actually attracting him into it.
The Council suggests Marie focus on what she wants in her life rather than what she doesn’t want. Focus on the people she loves and be with them. Do things that make her happy rather than focusing on where this man is, what he is doing, and why he’s doing it.
The Council says the more Marie writes to us asking about this person, the more she brings this person and his energy into her life.
Listen to the recording of the entire 7-minute session with The Council to hear all their guidance for Marie.
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Jan & Will’s Telepathic Communication
This post is inspired by a question from Jan about an important friendship with a former student named Will who became like a son to her when his mother passed away. Jan describes feeling a spiritual connection with Will and believes that as spirits before they were born into this lifetime they planned to be in each other’s human lives.
But as Will developed from a child with autism into a young adult he proceeded to withdraw from friends, family, and finally Jan, to the point where she hasn’t heard from him in over a year and hasn’t seen him in three years. After reading one of our blog posts describing The Council’s advice to a reader experiencing a similar separation from her biological twin brother of 70+ years, Jan asked The Council for their view of her friendship with Will.
Click here to read the rest of this post→
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What You Believe is What You Create
How everything works in your existence;
how everything is created;
if you need a law
it is called the law of your beliefs.
If you believe in the law of attraction
it works for you.
If you believe in Murphy’s Law:
anything that can go wrong will go wrong–
it’s going to happen.
If you believe in the law of karma:
that in some lifetime you’ve been very good
and now you will be rewarded,
or you’ve been very bad
and you’ve got a debt to pay–
that is what is going to happen.
The only law we feel you will eventually get to a point of understanding
— and this is for the entire physical existence that you have all created —
you will eventually get to the law of beliefs.
What you believe
is what you will create.
And that is what we wanted to get across today.
There are no restricting laws.
There is no must-have, must-do, must-feel.
What you believe,
what you truly believe,
is what you will create.
So we are taking you
from kindergarten to college.
We are saying it is wonderful;
you can do these things,
read about them,
practice them,
but when you graduate
it will be to the law of beliefs.
Follow these other laws
if they help you,
if it is needed.
But in…we don’t want to say the end
because there is no end…
it will come to: what happens in your life,
to yourself, to the people around you, to your nation,
is what you believe.
You create everything
that you hear,
that you see,
that you experience.
—The Council
Excerpt from a session on July 8, 2012
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Is it Possible to Change Your Life Just by Changing Your Thoughts? + Helping Others
This post is inspired by the following simply stated questions from a reader named Freddy:
- How do better-feeling thoughts affect your life?
- Is it really possible to change your day-to-day life and your future with just a change in your thoughts?
On Thursday, June 14, 2012 we did a session with The Council to answer Freddy’s questions. During this session The Council surprised us with some related guidance about a question on Cynthia’s mind.
They observed that many of us who follow spiritual guidance related to the law of attraction and better-feeling thoughts, are limiting ourselves when we focus primarily on satisfying desires that aren’t also helping others.
The Council reminds us we are spiritual beings and that we planned with other spiritual beings to help each other bring the love we are as spirit into this physical dimension.
When we expand the focus of our attention to include these plans we made in spirit to help each other, these better-feeling thoughts allow us to experience the kind of spiritual expansion we came here for in the first place. The guidance on helping others begins under the heading: Cynthia’s Question about Helping Other People.
Recorded Audio Content
Images like this one 
in the post represent an audio player that can play a sound recording of a portion of our session with The Council. Typically the segment is related to the text that follows the player.
The quotation text in the post is an abridged and slightly edited version of the recorded session and is intended to provide a good sense of what we consider the most relevant aspects of the conversation. The posted audio segments often include additional session content that is edited out of the written post. It’s our hope these sound recordings help you connect more easily with the feeling of what The Council is talking about during the session.
To play an audio recording, left-click on the triangle on the right side of the audio player. The segment name displays in the player along with the time left in the recording. To pause the audio player, left-click on the icon that looks like this: 
. You are also able to left-click along the length of the recorder to skip forward or move backward in the recording. The volume can be adjusted by left-clicking on this icon: 
; click on the right side to increase volume and the left side to lower volume. Copyright ℗ 2014 Bob & Cynthia Dukes
You Sort Of Light Up
“First of all, better-feeling thoughts affect the whole body…your whole mood…your whole vibration.
“You can tell the difference between a thought [like]: ‘I hate this job…I have to get up and go there…’ [or:] ‘Oh, my legs hurt…my back hurts…my head hurts…I have to go to the doctor.’
“And then you have a thought: ‘Oh, I’m so looking forward to this vacation we planned in the Berkshires. Oh, I remember the first time I went to the beach…I was 5 years old…I can still remember the sand castle we built.’
“Each thought has a different vibration. The better-feeling thought is what we call a quickening vibration. It’s like you become more alive; you begin to sparkle. When we look at you…you sort of light up.
“The better-feeling thought also affects your body. When you have the better-feeling thoughts, every cell in your body reacts to it.
“Now is it true that it changes your life? Yes.”
“When you really focus over and over again on better feeling thoughts, your thought…your feeling, is a vibration that goes out into the Universe. And as you are all learning now [about] the law of attraction, you must get back the same vibration that you are putting out. So what will return to you is a vibration that will bring to you more and more of things that will help you feel better.”
—The Council
Similarly formatted text throughout the post represents The Council’s comments during the session. Text [in brackets] was not spoken by The Council, but has been added (where appropriate) to help you follow the conversation.
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Our First Audio Post – A Complete Recorded Council Session on Manifesting What You Desire
A Milestone Post
This post is a milestone for us. It’s our first post to include recorded audio content of one of our sessions with The Council, a group of non-physical spirit guides Cynthia is able to communicate with and channel (the process of letting The Council speak using her voice). For our first audio post we picked one of our favorite sessions with The Council, and we decided to include the complete session so you can get a feel for what these sessions are like.
This is an introduction to this post. Click here to listen to the recorded session with The Council→
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June 24, 2011 Thought for the Day
As you go through your day,
Notice if what you are thinking
Feels supportive of what you desire.
Every moment is an opportunity
To focus of your attention
To attract more of what you want
Into your life.
—The Council
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You Are Creating Your Own Reality
A Thought for the Day
You are creating your own reality.
Your reality does not just happen to you,
As it is commonly understood.
As you begin to ask for what you want,
Your faith that you deserve it,
Your focus of attention on it,
And your imagination of it,
Will attract what you desire
Into your reality.
—The Council
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June 12, 2011 Thought for the Day
From moment to moment
How you feel is important.
You attract into your future
What you are feeling,
Not what you are saying.
Your emotions create your vibration,
And your vibration attracts
What you create.
—The Council
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Law of Attraction for Skeptics – Consider the Possibility
During a recent session with The Council they seemed concerned many people question the validity of the law of attraction and don’t understand how to use it to their advantage. The information in this post is intended to help you experience the validity of the law of attraction even of you’re skeptical that it exists. It’s also intended to show you how the law of attraction can improve your life even if you don’t think it can.
Law of Attraction Makes it to Primetime
After the widely popular release of The Secret, a 2006 film and a 2007 book about the law of attraction that received a lot of attention in the media, and some bestselling books on this subject by Esther and Jerry Hicks, the law of attraction seems to have found a place in popular culture. Amazon.com recently listed over 1,000 books on the subject, including The Complete Idiot’s Guide to The Law of Attraction. But The Council says there’s a lot of misunderstanding about the law of attraction (LOA).
This is an introduction to this post. Click here to read the full post→
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What About This Idea That We Create Whatever We Desire?
This post is in response to a question from Diana about the idea that everyone creates whatever they desire. She’s read a lot on this subject and asks about the practical application of this idea for creating a relationship she desires. Diana particularly wants to know how this idea works if she focuses all her attention on being with a specific person, but this person is focusing all their attention in opposition to that and doesn’t want to be with her. She asks the logical question: How is it possible for both people to get what they desire if their desires are exact opposites?
What We Desire, We Create First in a Non-Physical Reality
The Council’s answer to Diana’s question provided Cynthia and me with some new insight and understanding into the process of getting what we desire. This understanding begins with the idea that when we have a desire for something, whatever we desire is immediately created in a non-physical, vibrational reality. In Diana’s example, The Council says her desire to be with this person (since a name or gender aren’t specified we’ll refer to this person with the letter A) instantly creates in a non-physical reality the experience that she is with A in every way she desires.
Given a choice, most of us probably prefer to experience our desired creations in our physical reality, not just a vibrational one. So the question is: how do we get our desired creation from a non-physical reality into our physical reality.
This is an introduction to this post. Click here to read the full post→
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What is Karma and How Does it Work?
This post is inspired by a question from Oksana who was confused about the subject of karma and wanted to know what The Council has to say about it.
Council Comments on the Meaning of Karma
“We like this question very much – the subject of karma… how one’s thinking creates their own reality. For many centuries this idea of karma has been elusive. In the beginning it was thought that the deeds you do in this life, you would pay for in the afterlife, such as heaven if you did many good deeds, and hell if you did many bad, hurtful, horrible things – you would pay for it in the afterlife.
“And then it evolved that if you were truly bad enough in many of your lifetimes, you not only had to wait until you went back to non-physical, but you would begin to pay for it in the physical body.
“So again, you would experience many challenging situations in your life. And many people who, not understanding where this came from, would begin to think: This is my karma. I know I’m not a bad person now. I must be paying for it from another lifetime.
“And we can only tell you that you create your own reality. And by believing there is a judgmental God that will cast these horrible situations onto you – we are here to tell you this is not how it works.”
—The Council
This is an introduction to this post. Click here to read the full post→
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Welcome
Bob & Cynthia
Welcome to Ask The Council, a blog where you can ask a group of loving and wise spirit guides a question and get an answer, for free. You can also contact us for a paid private phone session with The Council, and you can read the questions other readers have asked and the answers they’ve received. Other posts contain quotations from The Council that we hope you find inspiring, uplifting, and educational.
Ask The Council a Question
If there’s a question you’ve been thinking about and you’re curious how The Council might answer it, we encourage you to either use the blog’s Comments feature to ask your question, or contact us for a private phone session. You can click here to go to the ‘Let us know what you think about this post, or ask The Council a question’ section of this Welcome post and type your question there or you can type your question in the same section at the bottom of any post that inspires you to ask a question or leave a comment.
Since the blog is currently a project we do in our spare time it can take a while for us to do a session with The Council on a question and then publish a post on the session. Depending on the question and the session it can sometimes take weeks after a question is asked to publish a post with The Council’s answer. Please be patient.
The Council
Cynthia is able to communicate with a group of five non-physical spirit guides in a manner similar to the way Esther Hicks communicates with and speaks for the spirit guides, Abraham, and Jane Roberts communicated and spoke for the spirit guide, Seth. I (Bob) basically interview The Council as they speak through Cynthia during what we refer to as a session. Sessions generally last 5-15 minutes and are usually audio recorded. During the session Cynthia is aware of what The Council is saying and she also receives visual impressions and other types of telepathic communication from them.
The Council’s Basic Guidance
Since we began these sessions with The Council around 2009 they consistently emphasize a few basic ideas that we attempt to summarize here:
1) You are an eternal spiritual being in a physical body.
You are the energy and vibration of continuously expanding love, intelligence, and joy.
Your physical experience in your physical body and your psychological experience of your personality is a small part of the totality of who you truly are.
Let yourself imagine from time to time what it might feel like to experience more of the wondrous totality of who you really are, and don’t be surprised if you are able to experience this more often.
2) You are the creator of all that you experience.
As you open to the possibility your true nature is greater than you ordinarily perceive, it becomes easier to consider the possibility that this expanded you is truly the creator of everything that you experience.
If you’re used to thinking of yourself in a more limited sense, the idea that you are the creator of your experience may be difficult to understand. Our post, What About This Idea That We Create Whatever We Desire, offers insights into this idea.
3) You are here to expand the love you are into physical reality.
You chose, as a spiritual being, to come into this physical reality to experience the joy of expanding the love you are as a spiritual being, into this physical reality. This is your purpose for being here.
Finding Your Way Around the Blog
Home Page
The left-hand column on the Home page contain a long chronological series of posts with the most recent on top. Each post begins with a title. Clicking on a post title will take you to a blog page dedicated to that particular post. Following each post is a Like button where you can indicate to us and other readers if you like the post.
The footer section of each post identifies the date the post was published, the Categories the post has been assigned to, the keyword/keyphrase Tags assigned to the post, and a Comment link. If readers comments on a post, the Comments link will indicate the number of comments. If a post has no comments yet, the Comment link text appears as “Leave a Comment”.
Clicking on the Comments link takes you to a Comment text box on a post page dedicated to that post. Here you can type a comment in the text box and click the Post Comment button to have your comment displayed just below the text box. If you are replying to someone else’s comment, your comment will appear indented underneath the comment you are replying to.
At the bottom of the left column on the Home page is a ‘Previous Entries’ link that will take you to a page with a list of earlier posts.
Blog Features
The right-hand column of most blog pages contains this Welcome message. Below the Welcome message in the right-hand column are some useful features:
Email Subscription: Use this to subscribe to blog posts. You will receive an email notification with a link back to the blog each time a new post is published.
Search: Type a keyword or phrase and click the Search button to get a list of posts in the left column that contain the keyword or phrase.
Archives: The Archives list indicates the number of posts for each month listed. Clicking on the link for a month will display in the left column of the page a list of the posts published that month.
Categories: This is a list of keywords used to categorize posts. Posts can be included in more than one category, if applicable. Clicking on a category link will display in the left column a list of posts assigned to the category you selected.
Navigation Bar
The Navigation Bar at the top of each page contains a link to the blog Home page and links to the following additional pages:
Welcome: A link that displays this Welcome message in the left column (and the right column). At the bottom of the Welcome message is a Comment box where you can post a general comment about the blog or ask The Council a question.
Questions & Answers: Use this link to display a list of introductions to our longer posts, most of which are responses to reader questions. This is an easy way to check out these more in-depth posts. They are listed in chronological order with the most recent post on top. Clicking on the post title will take you to the page where you can read the complete post.
Contact Us: The Contact Us page contains a contact form similar to the Comment form mentioned above. The difference between the Contact Us form and the Comment forms is that the Contact Us form is a private message to us (Cynthia and Bob). It is not posted on the blog. Comments appear on the post page where the comment is posted. The Contact Us form can be used for communicating with us about private sessions or other private matters you think aren’t appropriate for posting in a public Comment.
Bob & Cynthia
Ask The Council 