Following Jesus

Last night, at the beginning of a parenting class that we are hosting at Unity Spiritual Center Denver, I was given a few minutes to speak to the class about Unity and what we offer at our center. With few exceptions, the vast majority of the thirty or so participants do not attend Unity services. It was a welcomed opportunity for me to introduce them, albeit briefly, to what we are about.

During my talk, one of the participants who does attend Unity, said “talk about the way shower.” I knew immediately that he wanted me to share about how Unity views Jesus as the example of what is possible for each of us, rather than as the one and only son of God sent to save us through his death on the cross. He and I have had a lengthy conversation about how Unity differs from traditional Christianity in our approach to understanding the life and legacy of Jesus. It was one of the things that first attracted him to Unity. 

My initial reaction to his request was resistance. Not knowing who was in the room, or where they might be coming from in their religious view, I hesitated. However, I moved through it quickly and shared a sentence or two about Jesus as our way shower.

This morning, during my quiet time, I reflected on my hesitancy. I realized that, more often than I care to admit, I resist speaking what I know as truth when I fear that someone will have a negative reaction to it. I have empathy and compassion for myself in this regard because I have experienced others being triggered by my views and arguing with me to convince me that I am wrong.

As I reflected further upon the topic I was hesitant to discuss, however, I realized that if I am to truly follow in Jesus’s footsteps as my way shower as I profess to do, it is imperative that I boldly and unabashedly speak what I know in my heart to be true. From what we know of the life of Jesus, he did not hesitate to speak truth to whomever was in his presence. 

Further, I reflected on other ways that Jesus was a great teacher and way shower. I also reviewed whether or not I am truly living his message.

I sat with this awareness as I entered into my meditation time during which I invoked the spirit of Jesus. I imagined him reaching out to me, grasping my hand as we began to walk together. Hymn lyrics began to sing in my head,

Where he leads me I will follow.
Where he leads me I will follow.
Where he leads me I will follow.
I’ll go with him, with him, all the way. 

In that moment, it occurred to me that today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent in the Christian liturgical calendar. Lent is traditionally a time of penitence, fasting, and repentance of sins in preparation for the celebration of Easter. The encounter with Jesus took on a deeper meaning within the association of Lent.

No, I am not returning to the religion of my childhood. However, I am making the conscious choice to use this Lenten season to more fully explore what it means for me to follow in the way of Jesus the Christ; to live into our Unity belief that Jesus is our way shower. I do not yet know what direction that will take, but I am open to the possibilities.

I invite you to join me in this exploration. Beginning Tuesday, March 3, at 6:00 MT, and continuing each Tuesday through April 7, I will host a video call on Zoom for anyone interested in joining me for this journey. If you would like to participate, please email me at David@UnityDenver.org, and I will send you the necessary information.

My hope is that I, that we, will more fully embrace, embody, and live the example of our way shower – Jesus.

Unsung Heroines

In observance of February as Black History Month, I have focused my Sunday lessons for the past two weeks around the profound contributions of Harriet Tubman and Rosa Parks, respectively. In her own time and place, each of these women furthered the cause of freedom for African Americans in this country. You may listen to or watch recordings of these lessons.

There are many other well-known and lesser known heroes and heroines of the black community, those who spoke, stood, fought and died for freedom, equality and justice. I could choose any one of them to use as an example of Unity’s fifth basic principle which states that we are to live the Truth we know.

However, as I have considered my lesson for this coming Sunday, I have thought more about the many unsung heroes and heroines, the men and women who suffered indignities and hardships, and who day after day continued to get up and show up for life, no matter how unfair it may have been. I would like to share personal reflections of two such women.

I was born in Washington, Georgia; a town that has the distinction of being the place Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy, held his last Cabinet meeting and voted to dissolve the Confederacy. While things have changed in the century and a half since 1865, in the 1960s and 1970s there was a distinct atmosphere of discrimination and prejudice, and while not to the same extent, sadly continues today. I did not live there growing up, but we spent a great deal of time there with both sides of my family.

As a child, I would often visit my maternal grandmother in Washington for weeks at a time during the summer. Every day, I walked from her house to the city pool where I would stay until closing time. I loved to swim and play in the water. It never occurred to me at that time that there was anything wrong with the fact that there were no black children playing in the pool. They had their own pool on the other side of town.

Sally was a black woman who worked for my grandmother when I was young. I loved Sally. She was kind and caring. She always had a smile and a warm hug for me. I didn’t understand why Sally couldn’t stay and eat with us. Instead someone had to drive her home to the other side of town where she lived in a small weathered frame “house” that most of us would consider a shack. Every morning, she would be waiting on her porch when we came to pick her up, ready for another day’s work. She never had the advantages of an education or a job that paid a decent wage simply because she was a black woman living in the legacy of slavery in the South. Still, she persevered.

My paternal grandmother lived outside of Washington in a little community called Ficklin on the land where my father was born and raised. My uncle, aunt and their two daughters lived with her in a two-story white house with colonial columns. It was not a fine house, but a large family farm house. I spent many summer days and nights there as a child, as well.

A young black woman that everyone called “Fuzz” lived with and worked for my grandmother. I now feel embarrassed to think where the name “Fuzz” came from, but that is what she was called. Her real name was Ida Ree. She came to live with my grandmother as a teenager and stayed with her until my grandmother’s death. It wasn’t until I was older that I learned that she came to live there because her mother couldn’t afford to care for her, and knowing that she would have room and board at my grandmother’s, sent her to live with her.

As children, my cousins and I often played board games. When we were finished playing and ready to go do something else, we left the board and the playing pieces all over the floor. When we returned, we always found the game neatly put away. After a bath at night, I would leave my dirty clothes on the floor. The next morning, they would be washed and folded. It was as if “Fuzz” was a fairy who followed us around, cleaning up our messes.

I now recognize that even though she was ostensibly embraced as part of the family, that in many ways she was treated little better than an indentured servant. Her room was upstairs in the coldest, draftiest part of the house. It was furnished with a single iron frame bed and a mattress not much better than a cot. The walls and ceiling were clapboard and the floor bare wood.

She cleaned the house, worked in the garden, walked around the farm and picked wild blackberries in the summer heat for my grandmother’s famous blackberry jelly. She showed up. Day after day, she lived her life with grace and humility in the shadows of the white people who could not and would never understand the privilege they enjoyed.

Sally and Ida Ree are just two of the many unknown and unsung black heroines who day by day, year after year, endured the hardships and injustice of a society who judged and treated them as less than. I will never know what their lives were truly like. I will never know what pain they endured. I do know that through their adversity, they persisted. They survived. They triumphed.

I salute them. I honor them. I thank them. Their legacy lives on in the lives of all of us who were touched by their strength, kindness, love and fortitude.

Shine On!

On Monday of this week, I was working my part-time job when I had a sudden realization.

No, I don’t have an official part-time job. I often joke at our Tuesday morning staff meetings that I worked my part-time job on Monday and over the weekend. I am referring to helping my spouse, J, with his mid-century furniture business.

In addition to occasionally staffing the store when he needs to be away, my “job” usually consists of moving, as well as frequently cleaning and refreshing furniture. That is what I was doing on Monday when it occurred to me that in addition to cleaning the metal frames of the Barcelona chairs we have for sale; I was being reminded of a very important life lesson.

I am not sure if someone intentionally coated part of one of the frames with something akin to shellac to protect it from scratching or if something was accidentally spilled on it and was not cleaned off. My guess is the latter. Whichever the case, it was not a good idea, and it was not easy to remove.

My first reaction upon seeing what had happened was disbelief and judgmental frustration. Firstly, I thought that surely no one in their right mind would do this on purpose. Secondly, I could hardly believe that if it was an accident that no one had taken time and effort to clean it off. After all, how could they not realize the beauty and value of these iconic chairs!

After getting over my initial dismay, I began working on removing whatever it was. My assumption was that it has been there for years. At first, I wondered if it would come off. I questioned if this was going to be an exercise in futility. I persisted, however. I soon discovered that the right solvent would help to dissolve the solution. It did not come off all at once. Thankfully, with patience and some elbow grease, layer-by-layer it gradually disintegrated, and the original beauty and shine of the chrome was revealed. 

It occurred to me that something similar happens to us humans. The original luster and shine of our True nature – our Christ Self – gets covered over by the false beliefs of our families, cultures and religions. By the hurt and pain we endure. By fear. By the lies we take on and believe about ourselves.

All these things can become solidified in our consciousness as what Unity cofounder Charles Fillmore termed the “adverse ego.” Instead of knowing who and what we are as the Light of God, we take on these limiting ideas of self that stymie the full expression of who we are and all that we have come here to be.

Our opportunity is to recognize it for what it is, do what we can to dissolve it, and to reveal the unique beauty of our Divinity.

Awareness is key. As author and teacher, Louise Hay, said, “If you want to clean your house, you have to be willing to see the dirt.” In addition, we must be willing not to judge the dirt or place blame on someone else for creating the dirt.

In order to clean the chair, I had to first see the substance. While I did judge the one or ones who were responsible for it, my judgement was not helpful to the process. It only caused me to enjoy it even less.

Further, we need the right solvent. It is Love. Love is the only power that can lift off the effects of the adverse ego. Loving ourselves right where we are in every moment is essential. Even when knowing that there are aspects of our lives that are not yet in alignment with who we have come here to be, Love is the only way to begin to remove the effects of the adverse ego-dominated mind.

As it was in my effort to clean the chair, patience is also key. The effects of years of conditioning will not, in most cases, go away in one fell swoop. Most often, it requires a steady, consistent spiritual practice of prayer, which includes meditation, denials and affirmations, and conscious alignment with Truth. I am confident that daily practice does work to lift off, layer-by-layer, the burden of the thoughts, beliefs and behaviors of adverse ego. Trust the process. As they say in AA, “It works, if you work it.”

Cleaning the chairs on Monday was a present reminder that life can, and often does, reveal to us in the most unlikely of places the lesson that we need to remember in the moment. Each of us is a unique, beautiful, invaluable work of art created by the Master Artist to shine brilliantly. Even though our natural sheen may get covered over by some inadvertent or intentional act of another or others, we have the power to free ourselves and let our Christ Light shine.

Remember, it’s a process. Awareness is key. Love is the only power. Patience is essential. Progress, not perfection. Practice daily. You are meant to shine. Shine On!

You Are Love Made Flesh

Earlier today, I arrived at the conclusion that I was not to write a post this week.

I sat in front of my computer screen wondering what to write. I wrote, but it was not from the heart. I realized that I was writing because I was telling myself that I “should” write. In case you’re wondering, “shoulding” on ourselves never promotes inspiration.

So, I stopped. I knew that I was forcing it. I knew it was all coming from my head and not my heart.

This evening (I’m writing on Wednesday), during our monthly contemplative service, I was inspired.

John 3:16 & 17 was one of the Scriptures I heard over and over again in the Baptist church. Along with hymns like, “The Old Rugged Cross” and “Just as I Am,” this Bible passage was a staple for nearly every service, or so it seems in my memory.

Here is the New Revised Standard Version,

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

During meditation tonight, the following interpretation came through.

For God, as Love, so loved that God poured Itself into being as you, so that the world, through the power of the love that you are, might be uplifted, healed and reclaimed in the conscious awareness of Love’s presence. As you know this as Truth, you realize that Love is eternal; therefore you are eternal. You are the Beloved of God. You are Love made flesh. You are the one sent to redeem the world for Love.

This Scripture took on a whole new meaning. I was uplifted and inspired.

My prayer is that each of you reading this will take it to heart. You are Love made flesh. You are here to be Love in the world. Be the Love that you are. Love is the only salvation of a world consumed by fear.

Say aloud or to yourself every morning and as often as it comes to mind –

I am Love made flesh.
I am the Beloved of God.
I am here to reclaim the world in Love.

Namaste!

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.