Why Me?

Recently, following a Sunday service, a congregant confided in me that he still grapples with the question, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” I wish I had taken time to inquire further about what had prompted him to share that with me. I am sure that my hasty answer, which was something about how we are the ones who judge what is “good” or “bad” was neither satisfying nor engendering of connection with him. My guess is that he or someone close to him had experienced something “bad” and that he was doing his best to make sense of it.

Interestingly, the very next day, my spouse, J, who I consider to be a “good” person, had a heart attack. Admittedly, I judged that as a “bad” thing. In my mind, it was “bad” because it was a life-threatening situation that jarred and frightened us both. It disturbed our sense of safety and well-being. It disrupted what had become the easy flow of our lives.

After being home from the hospital for a few days, J told me that the thought, “Why me?” had briefly crossed his mind, but he quickly dismissed it. As we talked about it, we were reminded of something that our first New Thought minister, Rev. Dr Kay Hunter, once said. She said that the question, “Why did this happen to me?” puts us in the mindset of the victim. In doing so, we give our power over to the circumstance. Rather than “Why me?” a more empowering question to ask might be, “How will I respond?”, or “What can I learn from this?”

In this or a similar situation, with a clear intention to understand, rather than to stimulate guilt or blame, it could prove helpful to question what past choices might have contributed to this. It might also deepen understanding to inquire about and research lifestyle changes that can better support physical health and well-being.

Further, the belief that things happen to us also places us the role of the victim. We can, instead, approach life as if everything happens for us. It may not appear so at the time from our personality perspective, but if and when we can shift our focus and are persistent in looking for the gift or the “good,” chances are excellent that it will be revealed to us in time.

In addition, it is always important for us to go within and contemplate our level of self-love. It is essential for us to be honest with ourselves about whether we are truly loving ourselves and making choices to take care of ourselves. If we discover that we are not, again without guilt or blame, we can set a clear intention and make conscious choices to do whatever is necessary to love ourselves just as we are, right where we are. We move forward step-by-step one day at a time.

We always begin right where we are. For the most part, questioning why something happened to us is not supportive of moving us forward in a productive way. Instead of, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” a more empowering approach would be “What good can come from this situation?”, or “What choices can I make now to bring forth the good in my life?”

While I would have said that J and I were eating healthfully before the heart attack, we are taking additional steps to change our diet, eliminating salt, most fat, dairy, and adopting a “heart healthy” diet. In addition, I am resuming my regular morning gym workouts which I have been slacking on since the holidays and a bought with a cold. J will be joining me in that as soon as he has recovered enough. Even though I have had no heart issues, I have chosen to join him in this lifestyle change.

I encourage you to check in with yourself. Are you loving yourself enough to care for your body? Are you eating the healthiest food available to you? Are you taking time to rest, relax and rejuvenate? Are you exercising at the level that you are capable? Please make choices today to demonstrate the “good’ for your life from a place of self-love.

At times, we all need encouragement and support in loving ourselves. Please reach out to me if I can do that for you. More than ever before, I am keenly aware of how important it is.

If you would like additional suggestions about loving yourself, please read my blog post Self-Love in Action. You are loved!

P.S. J is doing well. He is being treated with rest, medication, and eventually cardiac rehab. We are hopeful that he will soon be back stronger than ever.

Move Your Feet

Over the past few weeks, I have been reading and rediscovering some of the writings of Unity cofounder Charles Fillmore. I am grateful to Rev. James Gaither who compiled a selection of Mr. Fillmore’s writings in the book, The Essential Charles Fillmore. I find Rev. Gaither’s commentary at the beginning of each section of the book most helpful in summarizing the major points in the articles that he selected to include in this volume.

As I mentioned in my most recent posts, Mind and Manifestation and Been There, Done That, I have been inspired to revisit the foundational teachings of Unity and the New Thought movement. In large part, my inspiration has arisen from watching Rewired, the series on gaia.com presented by Dr. Joe Dispenza, as well as from my decision to participate in Mitch Horowitz’s 10-Day Miracle Challenge. Both offer practices that help one connect with and engage the innate power of the mind. In addition, Dr. Dispenza offers clearly synthesized scientific information about what happens in the brain, how the body responds, and the ways in which our entire energy field is affected as we engage in these practices.

As I have shared before, while the scientific knowledge we now have was not available to them, our cofounders Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, as well as other early leaders in the New Thought movement, knew the Truth of what they were teaching. They knew it at the deepest level of their being. They knew it by faith. They also demonstrated in their lives through physical healings, demonstrations of financial good, as well as by the manifestation of the Unity movement which expanded greatly in their lifetimes and beyond.

I am truly appreciating the opportunity to reconnect with these teachings. I find that I am having an experience similar to ones I have previously had with other writers. As I read and re-read Mr. Fillmore’s articles, I have the sense that he magically rewrote them since the last time I read them. That happens quite often when I revisit a book I have read in the past. I know that it is not possible for him to have rewritten the articles. I realize that I am reading them now from a different place in my evolution of consciousness. I am now able to read and understand things at a greater depth, things that I may have previously understood only superficially. The primacy of true prayer is one example.

If I had been asked even as recently as one month ago if I fully understood Unity’s teaching on prayer, I would have said, “yes.” Prayer has been one of my favorite topics to teach about and on which to facilitate classes and workshops. I have reveled in Unity minister, Eric Butterworth’s The Universe is Calling, a book on the function and nature of prayer. As well, I have devoured Unity minster, Linda Martella-Whitsett’s book, How to Pray Without Talking to God. These books, in addition to prayer classes I have taken on the path to Unity ministry and those I took while in Religious Science have given me a deep appreciation for the power of prayer. Still, I am now being taken even deeper into the nature and practice of prayer, as well as its true purpose.

Mr. Fillmore says in “The Omnipotence of Prayer,”

“What is the necessity of the prayer of affirmation if Being already is? In order for the creative law to be fulfilled. All things are in God as potentialities. It is man’s office under divine law to bring into manifestation that which has been created or planned by the unmanifest.”

He also said,

“Prayer is the recognition of the all-inclusiveness and completeness of Divine Mind.”
 - Jesus Christ Heals

“God is the great Mind reservoir of Divine Ideas” – Jesus Christ Heals

“Mind is the great meeting ground between God [Mind] and humankind, and it is only through the most highly accelerated mind action, as in prayer, that we consciously make union…” – Keep a True Lent

I interpret Mr. Fillmore’s words to mean that inaudible prayer is a spiritual practice in which we consciously connect and fill our minds with the Divine Ideas in the Mind of God; yet, prayer is not an end unto itself. It is but a beginning.

In prayer, we seek the Kingdom of God which is, as Jesus said, within us. It is not in some distant place that we reach after death, but it is within our grasp in every moment. The Kingdom of God is the consciousness of Unity, accessible to each of us. It is the recognition that, “The Mind of God is my mind,” or “The mind that was in Christ Jesus is my mind now.” Prayer is our path to enter the Kingdom.

In the Kingdom, we receive our inheritance as the offspring of God. Our inheritance is the realm of Divine Ideas that constitute the Mind of God, such as wholeness, love, order, harmony, peace, abundance, freedom, and the like. When Jesus said, “It is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32), he was not speaking about the things of the world, but of this realm of infinite Divine Ideas. Prayer opens us to receive.

Prayer is also the path to realization.

“Realization is the deep inner conviction and assurance of the fulfillment of an ideal. It means at-one-ment, completion, perfection, wholeness, repose, resting in God. It is the dawning of Truth in the consciousness. When realization takes place, one abides in the light of God-Mind.” ¹

Realization is the complete alignment and attunement, in body, mind and spirit, with a Divine Idea. It is knowing, feeling, and embodying the quality of it.

Additionally, prayer includes engaging our power of imagination to picture ways in which a Divine Idea may become manifest in the physical realm, claiming the truth of it, and feeling gratitude for it. We may end our prayers by grounding the realization in our bodies and through our bodies. I accomplish this with deep breaths, visualizing the breath moving through my body and into the Earth.

Prayer is powerful practice of opening, connecting, receiving, imagining, aligning, attuning, embodying and grounding. It feels good to pray. In prayer, we can become the emanation of spiritual energy that goes out to touch and heal the world. We serve the world through prayer. And, at least for me, prayer is a starting point that inspires action.

As Mr. Fillmore said, “It is man’s office under divine law to bring into manifestation that which has been created or planned by the unmanifest.” Our role is to bring those Divine Ideas into form. Yes, through the practice of prayer, but also through our words and actions.

For example, through prayer, we connect with Peace as a Divine Idea. We open and allow our minds to be filled with Peace. We realize the “Peace of God that passes all understanding” (Philippians 4:7). We align with and attune to the vibrational quality of Peace. We imagine how Peace may manifest in the world and in our lives. We feel gratitude for the knowing of Peace in our hearts, minds and bodies. We ground Peace through our breath. We radiate Peace through our thoughts and feelings.

This is all good, and right and perfect, still the experience we have in prayer is our point of inspired action. We are called to stand for Peace in the world. We are called to be the peacemakers in the world through our words and actions. We are called to be the manifestations of Peace in the world. We are called not just to contemplate Peace, but to take actions that help to demonstrate Peace in the world.

Don’t pray for Peace: Pray Peace. Be Peace. Speak Peace. Live Peace. Walk Peace.

Peace is just an example. We are here to bring into manifestation all Divine Ideas, including Love, Harmony, Justice, Equality, and all the rest. As the West African Proverb states, “When you pray, move your feet.” Let us pray. Yes! And, let us move our feet.

¹ The Revealing Word

Mind and Manifestation

One of the primary tenets of the New Thought movement is that mind creates our reality. While the progenitors of the movement did not have the scientific knowledge or vocabulary for much of what they were teaching, they had a knowing of this Truth. Not only did they know it; they demonstrated it. Unity cofounders Charles and Myrtle Fillmore both experienced physical manifestations of Truth as their bodies healed from what many asserted were a fatal disease and a permanent disability. There are many other cases of physical manifestations of Truth documented in the writings of other leaders and teachers in the movement.

In much of the early New Thought literature, the discussion of mind is primarily limited to thought. At the time they were writing and teaching, these pioneers, including Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, talked mainly about the power of changing our thoughts. They were not aware, or at least did not talk about, the correlation between thoughts, feelings, and physiology, and how all these elements work in tandem to form what we now refer to as mind.

We now know that the mind affecting our reality and our experience of reality is more than our thoughts. While everything begins with thought, the quality of our thinking affects our emotions, informs our words, regulates our body chemistry, and helps determine our physiology, all of which influences our actions and experience, which in turn impacts our thoughts. And, the cycle continues.

We can, and frequently do, get caught in a continuous loop of thoughts-feelings-words-chemistry-physiology-actions-manifestation-thoughts. When we do, we continue to re-create the same experiences, because our experience is now informing our thoughts. This not only applies to our physical body conditions, but also to our relationships, finances, careers, and creative endeavors. Because mind is an energy field to which the creative medium of universal substance responds, it affects every aspect of our lives.

Using the language of author, lecturer and researcher, Dr. Joe Dispenza, we get caught in the “habit of being ourselves.” Speaking primarily about physical conditions, he states that in the previously delineated loop, the body becomes the mind. He means, if I understand correctly, that the body condition continues to feed information to the brain which the brain receives and continues to reproduce in thought and manifestation. If we want to experience something different, we must learn to break the cycle. It all begins with our thoughts, just as our early New Thought ancestors knew.

This is echoed in the teaching of the Apostle Paul in his letter to the Romans,

“Do not be conformed to the pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good, and acceptable, and perfect.” -  Romans 12:2

Since its inception, Unity has taught denials and affirmations as a method of mind renewal. Denial is a process by which we negate the power we may have given a limiting thought. For example, “The thought that I am not enough is not true. I take back any power I may have given that thought. It no longer has any sway in my life.” Affirmations are empowering statements of Truth. For example, “I am a unique and wondrous expression of God, worthy of all the good that I am able and willing to receive.” Using denials and affirmations is helpful in the process of renewing our minds.

Likewise, prayer, a foundational spiritual practice taught by Unity, is a way of renewing our minds. As taught in Unity, prayer is conditioning our minds with Divine Ideas emanating from the One Mind. Prayer is not asking or beseeching God or conditioning the One Mind with our desires. It is, instead, opening our minds to the influx of inspired ideas and possibilities. In other words, prayer is opening our minds to the thoughts of God.

In addition, Unity teaches meditation as a mind-renewing practice. Much like prayer, in Unity, meditation is a practice that leads one to an experience of the “Silence.” The “Silence” is described as a state of consciousness in which one communes with God. It is the space in consciousness where the mind of man meets the Mind of God.

Using these and other practices, we open ourselves up to a greater understanding and acceptance of who and what we are in Truth. In doing so, our minds are renewed, refreshed and restored to the conscious awareness of our Unity in God and our perfection as the Life of God incarnate. To know ourselves as we are in Truth, I assert, is the will of God for each of us. In this state of consciousness, we are aligned to what Paul refers to as all that is “good, and acceptable, and perfect.”

In this state of aligned consciousness, our thoughts resonate with Truth. As our thoughts resonate, our feelings harmonize. The body chemistry responds to our harmonized thoughts and feelings, and our physiology begins to adjust. The body begins to manifest in attunement with our renewed mind. In this way, we are no longer “conformed to the pattern of the world,” as Paul said. In other words, our manifestations are no longer being informed by what has been. Because we know ourselves as the Divine expressing, we begin to manifest, in every aspect of our lives, all that reflects the attributes of the Divine that we are. We have begun to “break the habit of being ourselves.”

I encourage us to begin today by actively engaging in denials, affirmation, prayer and/or meditation practices. If you find it challenging to meditate on your own, I suggest listening to any of the free guided meditations available on YouTube. The following are links to some that I recommend.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVmTkKygAkE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeB8MYU__lg

I highly recommend Dr. Dispenza’s books, among them Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself and his latest release, Becoming Supernatural. You may also be interested in Rewired, a series he hosts and teaches now available on gaia.com.

Are you ready to have your life transformed by the renewing of your mind? If so, you can begin today. Start by becoming the observer of your thoughts. Begin by noticing the thoughts you think and the beliefs you hold about yourself. Who do you think you are? Transforming your thoughts about yourself is a powerful first step toward aligning your consciousness with what is good, and acceptable and perfect. I encourage you to begin right here, right now.

Been There, Done That

This past Sunday afternoon, as I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, I came across a post from Mitch Horowitz. Mitch is an avid student of the occult, New Thought, and other teachings on the power of the mind. He is frequent lecturer, and is the author of several books, including One Simple Idea, Occult America, and his latest release, The Miracle Club. He also offers a regular column in Science of Mind magazine.

This particular post was a link to a video excerpt from an interview he did with host, Michael Sandler of Inspire Nation, a podcast dedicated to providing resources that encourage and support people in creating empowered lives. In this video, Mitch offers a 6-step 10-day Miracle Challenge. I encourage you to watch it, as well as the full interview. I was certainly inspired by it. I started using it on Sunday.

I have been a student of New Thought for 25 years. At one time, I was on my way to becoming a Religious Science Practitioner with plans to become a Religious Science minister. Instead, Spirit led me to Unity. I worked through the 250 hours of Unity Spiritual Education and Enrichment classes, weeks of intensive leadership training and practicums required to become a Licensed Unity Teacher. I was ordained a Unity minister in January 2017 after serving as a spiritual leader for 9 years in two Unity ministries. I have learned the principles. I have practiced the principles. I have done my best to live the principles. Yet, watching this video, as well as other videos on this channel and practicing the 10-Day Miracle Challenge have helped to make me conscious of how I have taken for granted so much of the New Thought teaching that once thrilled and inspired me.

While I am reluctant to admit it to myself and to you, I now recognize that I had developed a complacent attitude about so much of what we teach. I had decided, whether consciously or unconsciously, that I had learned all that I needed to learn and that there was nothing new and exciting out there for me. I was surprised to uncover my ‘been there, done that, got the t-shirt, the certificate, the credential, the ordination” attitude. Yet, I am more than thrilled that I am now consciously aware of it and can make choices to change it.

This is a New Year and a new decade. While there is nothing inherently magical about the beginning of a new year or a new decade, culturally, we have created an energy of excitement and anticipation around the change from December 31 to January 1. This energy is even more potent when we move into a new decade. There seems to be a greater sense of potential and possibility alive in our consciousness as we move into 2020.

It doesn’t matter whether I am just making it up, or whether together we are making it up. What matters is that each of us can tap into the energy of this new beginning and embrace the possibility of each new day in this New Year and new decade.

I am choosing to ride the wave of this energy by approaching the Unity and other New Thought teachings with a “beginner’s mind.” I desire to recapture the wonder and excitement I felt when I was first introduced to the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Troward, Neville Goddard, Ernest Holmes, Charles and Myrtle Fillmore and others. I am choosing to reacquaint myself with the principles and practices of our tradition and to, once again, become a conscious practitioner of these Truth principles.

I sincerely believe, no, I KNOW that these principles can and will transform our lives when we learn them, integrate them into our consciousness, and apply them in our lives. I invite you to join me as I explore them, practice them, and share with you my experiences. I hope you will share yours with me, as well.

I challenge you to begin with the 10-Day Miracle Challenge.

Happy New Year! Glorious 2020! Amazing New Decade!