The Kingdom: The Power Of Your Thoughts

I'm Justin Michael Williams,

And welcome to the kingdom.

This is Spiritual Church for Everybody.

We begin each session with a prayer.

Everybody,

Hands over your heart if you'd like,

Or whatever position you prefer to take for your prayer.

I normally am like this.

Take a deep breath in just so we can all land here together,

And a deep breath out.

Close your eyes.

God,

Spirit,

Universe,

All that is,

All that ever has been,

And all that ever will be,

We thank you.

Thank you for opening our hearts and our minds.

Thank you for bringing us here together to this incredible session that we're going to share.

Thank you for making sure that each and every one that is here receives exactly the message that they need today.

God,

Spirit,

Universe,

All that is,

All that ever has been,

All that ever will be,

Let all the words that are spoken today,

Whether it's in the chat box,

From me,

Or from anyone else,

Be for the benefit of all,

Be for the highest good.

May we be guided and used to be of greatest service to all.

May we learn to conquer and learn to live with and understand and build a relationship with our own thoughts so that we can rise above them and through them,

To step into the lives that we know we were born to live and be ripples of change to all those that we touch.

Thank you for bringing us here.

Thank you for our health.

Thank you for this moment that we have to come together with so much suffering in the world today.

We are grateful and thankful.

Thank you.

Please use us today.

This is a moment now to welcome in your own personal prayer.

What is your intention?

What are you calling in?

God,

Spirit,

Universe,

All that is,

All that ever has been and all that ever will be.

Thank you.

May we transform.

May we be fully present.

And may we remember that we are powerful beyond measure and that we rise together.

So it is.

Thank you.

Here we are.

Here we are,

Kingdom.

Here we are.

Today's session is a big one.

And again,

It's one that I've been kind of building us up to have the capacity to hold.

And this one is called the power of thoughts,

The power of thoughts and how we can learn to use our thoughts,

Not so that they work against us,

But so that they work for us and how we can understand the toxic thoughts and the thoughts that we have that make us think we're not good enough and the thoughts that we have that hold us back and the thoughts that we have that run our lives,

Even when we don't want them to be,

The thoughts that make us hard on ourselves.

And we're going to get into the power of our thoughts today,

The power of our thoughts.

And we're not just talking about toxic thoughts,

Which some of you have heard me teach about before,

But really understanding the power of your thoughts and how you can take the reins even if you're stuck in rumination or stuck in a loop or a cycle,

What you can do to overcome.

And this is a big one for me.

I think one of my,

My friend,

Tim,

Who's on here right now from the Aloha state,

We talk about this all the time that I've said that one of my personal kind of,

Even one of the reasons I got into meditation,

All this kind of stuff is like,

I get stuck with rumination all the time.

Like if I'm in a space where I can't hear my intuition or I can't trust,

Or I can't this,

Like I can start to overthink.

Anybody else have that?

Y'all know what we do here?

Hands up,

Hands up if you hear me or a smiley face if you're with me.

And so what happens to me is I get stuck in these loops,

Loops,

Loops,

Loops,

Loops.

And that was one of the things that even brought me to my spiritual practice and brought me to meditation and brought me to mindfulness is how do we get out of these mind loops?

And if you're not somebody who gets stuck in mind loops,

There'll be more,

But that rumination makes a big,

Big,

Like I thought if I could get rid of rumination in my own life,

I would just be so happy,

Right?

Because it's not like ruminating solves anything other than making you miserable.

And so we're going to get into this concept of the power of thoughts.

We're talking today about the power of thoughts,

The power of thoughts and how to stop being so hard on yourself so that you can grow and that you can heal.

And what we have to remember is our thoughts are incredibly powerful.

However,

This is going to be a big one for some of you.

There's this saying that we hear so often that your thoughts create your reality.

We hear this all the time.

Your thoughts create your reality.

How many of you have heard that before?

And what you have to know and you have to remember is that this idea that your thoughts create your reality comes,

It's something that we're undoing in the wellness world.

We're undoing in the spiritual world because your thoughts don't create your reality.

Your thoughts influence your reality.

And the reason for this adjustment,

The reason for this edit is because what's happened in the world as we've had the colonization of our wellness practices,

I just realized my breakfast sandwich is behind me.

The colonization of our wellness practices is we've.

.

.

I'm just going to keep it super real with you guys.

The human potential movement,

This movement for human potential,

Which is where all the spiritual self-help books come from,

The spiritual but not religious,

The mindfulness,

The this,

The that,

All of that kind of stuff,

That all really came to be in the United States around the 60s,

1960s.

And so I want you to think about what happened during this era.

During the 1960s,

There was a movement where a bunch of primarily white men and some women disappeared from the world and went into the woods and went to spiritual retreat centers like Esalen and some of these other places that many of us love.

And they started creating this human potential movement that said,

Focus in on yourself.

And as long as you yourself are good,

You're not responsible for anyone else.

All you have to do is your thoughts,

Your thing,

And your problems,

You take responsibility for your problems,

I take responsibility for my problems,

And we all are inside these individual bodies and it's the me that matters,

The human potential movement.

So I want you to think about what else was happening in the 1960s.

So just think historically,

What was happening in the 1960s?

Somebody type it in for me.

There we go.

The civil rights era.

The civil rights era was happening in the 1960s.

So you have one group of people,

Martin Luther King and the Black Panthers and all the people who like now are fighting for justice and equality and equity.

And then at the same time,

You have this other group of people who said,

You know what?

We're not going to deal with all that.

We are going to go and escape to the mountains and just focus on our thoughts.

And if our thoughts,

If we just have our thoughts right,

Then we get to create our reality.

And so there's these two worlds happening at the same time.

And so then you understand how this movement for wellness became so white,

Because it was happening in this little context.

And you see the anti-war movement,

The feminist movement,

Women's rights movement,

Civil rights movement,

The revolution,

All of this was happening,

Vietnam.

And so there is a level,

And I'm not even saying that anything is wrong with this context.

I'm just saying that this is what happened.

This is literally just what happened.

And so what you have to remember is that these laws of the universe,

Like your thoughts create your reality,

Right?

This shit comes from people who were privileged enough during the civil rights era and the women's rights movement.

And one of the most massive revolutions in the United States next to what's happening now had the ability and the privilege to go like,

You know what?

We don't got to worry about any of that.

We're just going to go over here and we're going to make sure that like,

I'm good.

And if I'm good,

Then everything is good.

So as long as my thoughts are good,

That everything is good.

And so the reason I share this context is because when we hear these words,

Like your thoughts create your reality,

It sometimes gets used as a weapon against our own selves and against other people.

Because when something bad happens to you,

When something happens to you that you feel like,

Oh my God,

Like how is this happening to me?

Then what happens is we start thinking,

Well,

What am I doing wrong?

Because my thoughts must be creating this.

I remember I had this,

Right?

When I was going through some certain times in my life,

I said,

What am I doing wrong?

I must be off.

And then you think about it in a greater context.

When you have African American and African American man who gets pulled over by the police for maybe or maybe not running a stop sign and then gets shot and killed by the police in front of his children.

Did his thoughts create that?

Like do we dare say that?

When you have African American women who experienced birth trauma in the United States only African women don't experience this.

African American women who die at higher rates than any other race in the world when they're giving birth.

Is it their thoughts that created that?

When you have women who are in the workforce not receiving the right pay and not getting treated equally and getting abused and getting sexual violence against them in the workplace,

Is it their thoughts creating that reality?

No,

No.

You know what I mean?

And so this is when it comes to,

Yes,

Your thoughts influence your reality,

But they don't create your reality.

It's one of the most privileged things that you can think to just go,

If I just sit and I just think this and I just get my mind right and I just think this,

Then the world's going to unfold as I wish.

And you can imagine that there is a specific demographic of people who that happens for,

Right?

There is a demographic of people who that happens for.

So those laws,

Just like so many of the laws of the countries that we live in,

Don't apply to everybody.

They don't apply to everybody,

Right?

And so this is a big concept because as we're learning and we're thinking about the power of our thoughts,

We have to also remember that action,

That our actions are an important step.

And so all of our thoughts,

All of our,

Meaning all of the collective thoughts that we're having,

Okay,

And then those thoughts influencing our actions and those actions influencing one another is how we co-create this reality that we're living in together.

Because you're not off in a spiritual retreat center somewhere where you're the only one that has to think about what you're doing.

We're all connected to one another.

And even if you were at a spiritual retreat center,

You being there is affecting the whole web of reality.

I see lots of hands up right now.

I see lots of hands up because y'all feel me on this.

Okay.

And so the biggest thing that you have to remember is that when you're,

Excuse me,

When you're in a negative space,

When you're in a space where your thoughts are going crazy and you feel like you're in a bad head space,

Okay,

Or you're in a head space that feels uneasy for you,

That doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong.

Listen,

It doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong.

And what happens is when we get into a head space that we feel like we can't handle,

We start to beat ourselves up.

We start to get hard on ourselves.

We start to run away from our pain,

Run away from our thoughts.

And that just puts us in the same cycle because we're constantly running away from something and not dealing with what's happening at the root.

Does anyone else have this experience?

And so this is the power of our thoughts.

Our thoughts do have power.

We do want to create a positive environment for this to live in,

But we can't always be in a positive environment.

And when we're in an environment that feels a little bit more challenging,

Internal environment is what I'm talking about.

Here's some tools that I want you to have,

And that's what I'm going to get into today.

Are y'all with me today?

Yes,

I think y'all are with me.

Okay.

So I want to read something to you from,

I'm opening up on my computer,

Stay Woke.

And this is from page 220 of Stay Woke.

And here,

Let me just put the right slide up for you all.

And this is a practice that I have in my book that's called Stop Being So Hard on Yourself.

And the mantra for this practice is I trust,

I let go.

I'm going to read this to you now.

So here's what it says.

All of our lives are a mess sometimes.

Yes,

Even mine.

We all have highs and lows.

We all find ourselves in unimaginable situations.

We all feel lost,

And we all feel confused and hopeless sometimes.

Life can be messy.

And I think if more of us need to be,

And I think that more of us need to be honest about that,

Social media will have you believe that other people are out here living these perfect,

Easy,

Lavish lives.

But listen,

You cannot compare yourself to other people because you do not know what they sacrificed to get where they are.

I'm going to let you in on a little secret.

Having it all doesn't make you happy.

Knowing your purpose doesn't make you happy.

Success doesn't make you happy.

There's something else that makes you happy.

Connection.

Connection is what makes us happy.

Connection to self,

Connection to others,

And connection to something greater.

So the next time you're feeling alone,

Depressed,

Sad,

Or like you don't have it all figured out,

Relax.

If it's really for you,

It'll happen.

You don't have to try so hard.

You don't have to force it.

You don't have to be so hard on yourself.

And so the mantra that goes with this practice is a big one,

And it's,

I trust,

I let go.

I trust,

I let go.

And I think one of the quotes that is the most important from that line is you cannot,

You can't compare yourself to other people.

You don't know what they sacrificed to get there.

So I'll give you all a personal example.

I talked about this in the liberation experience a little bit last week.

So many of you know,

And I talked about this on social media this past week as well.

So many of you know that I struggled pretty bad in college with an eating disorder.

And you know,

Right now I weigh,

I'm about six feet tall,

Almost with my hair,

With the hair I'm six feet tall and I weigh about 160 pounds and probably 165 now because of COVID.

And at my lowest during college,

I weighed 115,

115 pounds.

And I still thought I was fat.

Right?

And we all have our own stories of how we've compared ourselves to other people and how we've not realized what other people have gone through to get where they are.

And I remember looking at these certain people when I moved to LA and I was 18 and I would see these people with these ripped bodies and all this kind of stuff and these careers and this money and these cars and this and look at them and see and go like,

Why am I not like that?

Why am I not there?

I must be wrong.

Something must be wrong with me because I'm not there.

What am I doing wrong?

Again,

Like we started in the beginning.

How come I'm not thinking right?

What kind of head space am I in that I can't be like measuring up to what are these other people are doing?

And we all have this,

Whether it's about our art or our writing or our music or our bodies or our jobs or our whatever.

We look at other people,

Especially on social media,

And then we start to compare anybody.

And so I remember I'll never,

Ever forget this moment.

Okay?

I don't think I've ever told this story in public.

I told it.

Some of my close friends know the story.

My mom might or might not know the story.

So I remember after the eating disorder time was over,

I kind of swung to the other side and I started working out like crazy.

I got a trainer every single morning and I was going to the trainer and I was at this trainer and I was there five days a week spending thousands of dollars at 7 a.

M.

Working out for months to get ready to go to this party.

It was a white party in Palm Springs.

I just looked,

I showed him a picture.

I saw all these other guys in the gym and I said,

I want to look like that.

That's how I want to look.

Okay.

And so he's like,

You got to come in every morning.

You're going to eat this.

I was meal prepping with chicken and broccoli and it was terrible because I love food.

Right.

And so doing this for months,

For nine months,

Every day.

And we get to the end of the nine months and I look in the mirror out there at the gym and I was so disappointed.

And I said,

I've done everything.

Why don't I look like that?

Why don't I look like that?

I'm asking the trainer.

I said,

I've done everything you said above and beyond.

And some of us have had this experience,

Right?

Whether it's about our work or our job or these different things,

I'm sure you're thinking of something that we feel like we've done everything and we're still not there.

And so then we get hard on ourselves.

And what the trainer that day,

He pulled me into his office and he said,

I'm going to tell you something in private right now.

And I said,

What?

He said,

Every single guy that you're looking at and that you're pointing at is doing steroids.

They're doing steroids.

That's how you get like that.

They're doing steroids.

They're injecting themselves.

And I looked at him.

I said,

What?

Like I was,

That was so out of my like frame of reference.

I had thought as like when I was in my early twenties,

I thought that was only for like bodybuilders,

You know?

It's every single one.

I know.

He goes,

I know because I've done them too.

And so in that moment I look at him and I said,

Get me some,

Get me some,

You know?

And I'm like,

But in that moment also having this moment of thinking,

What?

Like I'm sitting here trying to compare myself to these people and they've been doing steroids and I didn't know.

So it was that quote goes back to that quote of like,

I didn't know what they sacrificed to get there,

Their health and their wellbeing and their all this kind of stuff to do that.

And so for about six weeks when I was 23,

I did steroids.

And then what happened is I started to get this little lump and this like feeling in my back and in my arm and on my neck.

And I said,

Hold on.

Nope.

No,

Nope,

Nope,

Nope,

Nope,

Nope.

This is not worth it.

This is not worth me getting lumps or getting sick or getting anything like that.

And I thank God I stopped and I never did it again.

Okay.

And it was crazy because I was recognizing the space that I was in that because listen where I'm getting to here.

Okay.

Everybody.

Because I had created this thought in my head that something was wrong with me.

And because I was running away from that thought,

Running away from it,

I said,

I don't want to feel like something's wrong with me.

I don't want to have these negative toxic thoughts in my head.

So I'm going to run away from them.

And the way to run away from them was to do more working out or to do less eating or to do more this or to do more that or to do steroids,

Anything to get away from these thoughts.

But what we have to do,

My friends,

This is the trick is when you have those thoughts and we try to do all the things that we do to run away from them,

We run toward them instead.

We have to run toward them.

And when you run toward these thoughts,

You build an intimacy with them.

You get to know them.

This is the shadow.

This is what shadow work is all about.

And you go inside and you uncover and you see what is this coming from?

Where is this coming from?

Why does this thought have so much power over me?

And what am I so afraid of?

And so I share this personal story with you,

Not for any reason to just because I want to share my story.

This is not a story that I even necessarily like sharing.

It's just one to show you like this is real.

This is real.

And like Emily says,

You have to go into the belly of the beast to get past them,

To get past these stories.

And so we all have a story.

And so I'm going to ask you all a question right now,

And I want you to just put your hands over your heart for a quick moment.

Hands over your heart.

Close your eyes.

And I want you to just ask yourself this question that's on the screen.

What are you hardest on yourself,

It should say about?

What are you hardest on yourself about?

What are you hardest on yourself about?

And we're just going to go through a little practice together here in the moment to make you feel this and to make you really understand what this is.

So right now,

I just want you to keep your hands over your heart.

And when we come in and out,

If you're willing,

I invite you to type your answers into the chat box.

And if you don't want to type it into the chat box,

Don't feel obligated because this is really personal.

Okay?

But just answer the questions for yourself.

So we're going to kind of go in and out of this listening.

This is not a meditation practice.

This is like a deep inner listening practice.

And so I'm going to give you some sentences,

Some incomplete sentences like mad libs.

And I want to invite all of you to fill in the blanks.

Here we go.

The first sentence is,

What I am hardest on myself about is.

What I am hardest on myself about is.

And type that in.

What I am hardest on myself about is.

You either type it in or just say it to yourself.

The second one,

What my critical voice says about me is.

So in between,

You just close your eyes and listen.

What my critical voice says about me is.

And Amber,

We're with you.

What does that voice say to you about yourself?

It could be you're too fat or you're too this or you're not at this enough or you'll never this,

Or you're always this or it's going to be too hard or whatever.

Okay.

And then the third one and how I feel when it says that is.

How do you feel when that voice says it to you?

What's the emotional quality that you feel?

Now let's dig a little bit deeper.

The first time I remember feeling this way was.

The first time I remember feeling this way was.

Just go with the first thought that comes to mind.

Don't overthink it.

Just trust whatever arises.

You don't have to get it right or wrong.

Let's go to the next one.

And the person who most influenced this critical voice is.

Who in your life?

What in your life?

It could even be multiple people kind of combined in one space.

Who most influenced this critical voice in you?

Be tender with yourself.

And now just imagining holding that version of you at that age.

So imagine,

Feel that age,

Whatever age it is that you were when you first felt this way.

Imagine yourself.

And then here's your next sentence.

Back then,

What that younger me needed the most was.

Back then,

What that younger me needed the most was.

What did you need?

And then finally,

The most empowering thing I can say to the younger me now is.

What is the most empowering thing you could say to that younger you now,

Whatever age?

That's the one I want to make sure everybody types in that last one.

Can everybody read those affirmations coming through the most empowering thing I can say to the younger me now?

Knowing everything you know now as the adult.

What is the most empowering thing you can say?

Beautiful.

And now just be with that for a moment.

Just be with it for a moment.

You are not alone.

You are loved.

You are stronger than you think.

You are loved.

You are enough.

It's okay to make mistakes.

You will have all the love and beauty you need.

You are worthy.

I love you.

You are safe.

You don't need him to love you to be lovable.

You are worthy.

You are stronger.

You are beautiful.

You are not too much.

Young younger me,

I love you.

I forgive you.

You are beautiful.

Beautiful.

I got you.

You are unconditionally loved for who you are,

Not what you do.

The reason we did this practice in particular,

This is a big thing.

When I was in Mexico,

I had the blessing of getting to teach this.

I can't wait till I can be with you all in person again.

This is huge because what you need to remember,

When you are having those voices in your head,

You will notice that you revert to the silence or to the emotional state of that childhood you.

You revert to that childhood you.

What happens,

I'm going to put this on the screen right now.

This is again a quote from Stay Woke.

It says,

Our toxic thoughts often originate from trauma in early life.

You all said it here,

From church,

From this,

From that,

From family,

From all the places.

Although those traumas and situations are usually non-existent in our current reality,

What we've done is we've internalized those hateful voices.

Then we've learned to rerun an outdated script that was never ours to begin with.

It's not you.

This is not you.

What you have to remember is here's what happens everybody.

Okay,

Listen to me closely.

If you don't catch all of this right now,

Just let it land in you and see what unfolds and what blossoms in you.

When you're in that space of being hard on yourself,

Of hearing those voices that are saying all the things that you said,

You're not good enough,

You're not this,

You're not that,

What happens is you fuse.

You fuse.

The adult you fuses with the childhood you,

With that younger you.

The key to your healing,

This is the biggest key,

Okay,

Is to recognize that there is a separation and to not fuse with that child you because when you become the child you,

Listen,

This is a word,

When you become the child you,

You can't be there for the child you.

When you become the child you,

You can't be there for the child you.

You can't protect the child you.

You can't show up to love and support and tell the child you,

You are enough when you've become it.

The biggest thing to remember,

And sometimes this takes a day,

Sometimes it takes an hour,

Sometimes it takes weeks,

Sometimes it takes years depending on where you are in your journey and there's no judgment,

But the biggest work is when you're in that moment,

When you're in that space is to go,

What am I feeling?

How old do I feel?

As soon as you remember to ask yourself that question,

And it's a practice,

As soon as you remember how old do I feel right now?

I feel nine,

I feel 12,

I feel 20,

I feel whatever,

Then boom,

As soon as you recognize that you create a separation and that childhood you might be screaming and yelling and taking all the intention and you could probably barely feel the current you,

But when you can create the separation,

You can show up and be there and parent the childhood you in the way that you were never parented when you were younger.

You can show up and be there for the childhood you,

You can protect the childhood you in a way that you were not protected when you were younger.

But if you fuse,

You can't be there and you end up recreating the same reality for yourself that you had when you were younger because again,

No one's there to tell you that you're enough.

And so this is why the work matters.

And it takes practice.

It takes practice and practice and practice and practice and practice and you get better and better at it and faster and faster at it.

And so when you separate now,

The you that you are now can show up,

Can show up and can say,

Hey,

This thoughts that I'm having,

This is not me,

This is little Justin.

This is 14 year old Justin.

This is Justin who was doing steroids.

This is Justin who had the eating disorder.

And guess what?

Justin at that time didn't have any one to talk to,

But now he does.

Now he has me.

And so you hold it and you caress it and you hold them in and you expand your heart,

Expand your heart.

Remember that your adult heart has the space for this little fear,

Just like if there was a little kid coming up to you,

Dealing with the same thing,

The adult you has the space for it.

And so you expand your heart and you hold it in your heart,

Not outside of your heart,

Not running away from it,

Not the little kid coming up and saying,

Help.

And you go running the other way to try to think positive because the kid is too negative.

Do you see how this is working?

You welcome them in to your heart and you hold them and you say all those things.

You're enough.

I got you.

And just like a little kid who's having a complete meltdown,

They may not right away get quiet.

They may not right away feel better.

They may not right away trust you.

But over time,

You build a relationship with them and you heal.

It's never too late to have a good childhood because you can show up for yourself now.

And so this is what it's all about.

This is what it's all about.

And so what we get to here is this.

We must turn toward our toxic thoughts instead of trying to drown them out.

We turn toward them,

We hold them,

We be with them,

And we learn what is it that's coming up to be healed.

What's coming up to be healed.

And when you build that relationship with that little you,

With whatever that voice is in you,

Then you recognize that there's actually a third voice.

So there's the voice in you that thinks you're not good enough.

There's a voice in you that thinks you're enough.

And then there's the voice in you that's listening to the whole thing.

The voice in you that is experiencing that voice and that voice.

In the middle,

There's a third.

And that third voice is you.

That's you.

And so it's not about over identifying with the one that says,

You're enough,

You're enough,

You're enough,

You're enough.

Because that's the one that says,

Go,

Go,

Go.

I can be better.

I can be positive.

And it's not about identifying with the child or the one that says,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No,

I can't.

I'm scared.

I'm not good enough.

It's not either of those.

It's the you that's right in the middle.

That's holding the wide open space for both.

Because they're both in you.

Until you heal it,

Until you go in and heal it,

You're going to keep having the same situation come up again and again and again and again and again,

Looking slightly different.

Oprah says something about like her abuser,

Her childhood sexual abuser kept showing up for her in all these different ways.

Sometimes she showed up in a skirt.

Sometimes it showed up in a different pair of pants.

Sometimes it showed up whatever.

But it was that same thing until she was able to face the thing inside of her that needed the healing.

And we all experienced that.

Okay.

And so just know that I'm holding space for all of you right now.

And all you have to do right now is be with that you.

Don't run away and ask these questions.

Okay.

So I'm going to,

I'm going to pull something up right here for you all.

Okay.

Because we're turning toward them.

We're not drowning them out.

And what you have to remember is that these thoughts are here to teach you something.

They're a marker.

They're an indicator.

They're a flag in the ground that are pointing you toward your healing and your growth.

And so when you have these thoughts come up,

It's not about like proving them anything or forcing anything or even listening to what they're telling you to do.

It's to ask a question of in what area of my life do I need additional healing and support?

And so I want to,

I want to give you all a little practice and action that you can take with you.

Where stay woke.

Okay.

I'm just going to pull it up on the computer.

So here's,

Here's your,

Here's your takeaway.

Give me one second.

So if you go to the toxic thoughts exercise in my book on stay woke,

That's on page 71 starts on page 71 and 72 and you should read that section,

Right?

There are a few steps,

Four steps that are simple that you can start to take to help you get in a better relationship with this.

And it's not going to instantly solve.

It's going to come back and then you practice it again and it comes back and then soon you heal.

Now for me,

When I get into these little loops,

They last for like 15 minutes.

They used to last for years.

You know what I mean?

And now they last for 15 minutes.

It's really bad.

They last for a few hours.

Right?

And so this is like what happens over time.

And so what you first identify is you can even go back to the steps that we took is what is the thought?

What is that toxic thought?

And then the second thing is how do you feel?

The third thing is where did it originate and how old were you?

How old were you when this,

How do you feel in this moment?

And then the fourth step is to separate yourself from that you and be with yourself.

Not this,

Not this,

Be with yourself.

Not fusing,

But being with.

You with me?

Are you with me,

Everybody?

Okay,

So I feel called.

I'm going to put this slide back up on the screen for you because I think some of you are going to want to take a screenshot of this because this is a little bit more of a robust way of walking through it.

But if you use these sentence stems,

I'm putting them back up for you.

Take a screenshot.

There's one typo in the first one.

It's what I'm hardest on myself about is what my critical voice says about me is and how I feel when it says that is.

And the first time I remember feeling this way was,

And the person who most influenced this critical voice is,

And back then what that younger me needed most was.

And the most empowering thing I can say to the younger me now is if you go through,

If I could read you Stay Woke,

I would do it like this.

And if you go through this process,

Then you'll create that separation so that instead of being hard on yourself,

You can be there for yourself.

Right?

I think it's time.

I was going to do this a little bit later.

But I think it's time for a song.

So it's interesting.

I didn't have this context in my head that I was going to be singing it with this way.

But this is a song that you all know,

Or many of you will know at least,

My guitar.

And it's Stand By Me.

And it's interesting,

Because when you think of Stand By Me,

We often are thinking of somebody else that we're standing with.

And it is important that we remember that we're standing together.

But when you also think of Stand By Me in a slightly different context,

You can think of standing with yourself.

And so this is that you and the childhood you and then the you that's in the middle,

Standing together and being there for yourself.

Here we go.

Let me know if you guys can hear the guitar.

Can you hear the guitar?

I just learned it.

So if I mess up,

Excuse me,

I am enough.

Let's hear it.

Let's hear it.

When the night has come and the land is dark and the moon is the only light we'll see.

No,

I won't be afraid.

No,

I won't shed a tear.

Just as long as you stand,

Stand by me.

So darling,

Darling,

Stand by me.

Oh,

Stand by me.

Oh,

Stand.

Stand by me.

So darling,

Darling,

Stand by me.

Oh,

Stand by me.

Oh,

Stand,

Stand by me.

If the sky we look upon should tumble and fall,

For the mountain would crumble to the sea.

I won't cry.

I won't cry.

Oh no,

I won't shed a tear.

Just as long as you stand,

Stand by me.

Together everybody.

Oh darling,

Darling,

Stand by me.

Oh,

Stand by me.

Oh,

Stand.

Stand by me.

All together.

Oh darling,

Darling,

Stand by me.

Oh,

Stand by me.

Oh,

Stand.

Stand by me.

Oh,

Stand.

Stand by me.

When the night has come and the land is dark and the moon is the only light we'll see.

No,

I won't be afraid.

Oh,

I won't be afraid.

Just as long as you stand by me.

So we stand together.

We stand for ourselves.

We stand with one another.

We stand.

We stand.

And when you learn to separate from that voice,

From that voice,

You can be with it.

Not to run away from it,

But to be with it and be there for yourself.

And so as we close today,

I would love to just have you all take a moment.

There was a lot to take in today.

Oops,

I'll go back to that.

To take a moment to think about what your personal golden nugget is.

What is your golden nugget?

What is the one main takeaway that you want to make sure you're taking away from this session today?

What's the number one thing you've learned?

Because you're not going to remember all of it.

Depending on where you are in your journey,

Certain things are going to land in you and it's going to blossom open.

Some right now,

Some next week,

Some next year.

Some you're going to hear something later and go,

Oh,

I get it.

So what is your one takeaway from today?

Stand by me.

Stand by me.

Stand by me.

Stand by me.

Oh kingdom,

Kingdom stand by me.

Oh stand by me.

Oh stand.

Stand by me.

Stand by me.

I'll be standing with y'all for a long time.

So I'll close with this.

I have been looking in,

My mom has this book in her living room.

My mom loves Oprah just as much as I do y'all.

And there's on page 175 of Oprah's book,

A Path Made Clear.

She has this beautiful story and I'll share it with you right now.

These are the words of Oprah Winfrey.

So she says,

I was seven or eight years old when I first figured out that the Wizard of Oz was more than a story about a bump on the head and a fantastical dream.

The moment I realized that the Scarecrow,

The Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion were actually Dorothy's friends from Auntie Em's farm,

Something clicked from deep within me.

Here's what else she has to say.

I didn't have the words to express it at that time,

But as I grew into my own path of awareness,

I understood the Wizard of Oz to be one of the great spiritual teachings of all time.

Dorothy was on what the great philosopher Joseph Campbell so famously called the hero's journey.

The yellow brick road represented the path toward her true self.

Along the way,

She encountered the disempowered parts of herself.

The Scarecrow's wish for a brain,

The Tin Man's desire for a heart and the Cowardly Lion's longing for courage.

And like so many of us,

Dorothy believes she needed something outside of herself.

In her case,

The great and powerful Oz to bestow the cherished virtues on her friends and to bring her home.

But in what I believe Oprah says is the most powerful moment of the film,

Glinda,

The Good Witch says the words that spiritual teachers have been trying to convey for thousands of years.

And this is my message to you as well.

Glinda the Good Witch tells Dorothy,

You don't need to be helped any longer.

You've always had the power.

Dorothy's most trusted companion,

The Scarecrow asked Glinda,

Then why didn't you tell her before?

And Glinda replies,

Because she wouldn't have believed me.

She had to learn it for herself.

This is what we're doing here together at the kingdom.

And this is the power of you and the power of our thoughts.

Let us close with a closing prayer.

God,

Spirit,

Universe,

All that is,

All that ever has been and all that ever will be,

We thank you.

Thank you for welcoming us home to ourselves.

Thank you for giving us tools.

Thank you for giving me tools that I can share.

Thank you for the challenges that I've been through,

The challenges that we've all been through so that we can show up and change and heal for ourselves,

For our families,

For our children,

For our nieces and nephews and cousins and the future generations to come.

Thank you for bringing us all here together.

Thank you for our health.

Thank you for our wellbeing.

Thank you for each of us creating the time and space to be here now,

Today,

To come together and heal the world.

May we all be happy.

May we all be free.

May we all find everlasting peace.

So it is,

Ashe,

Aro,

Salaam,

Amen,

Sat Naam,

Shalom,

Om.

Thank you.

I hope you enjoyed this session of The Kingdom.

One of the best things that you can do right now is share this session with somebody that you love.

It is only by each of us sharing inspiration in the corners of the world that only we can reach that we will rise together.

Thank you so much for joining me for this session of The Kingdom.

I'll see you in the next one.

This is your moment,

Baby.

We are enough,

Let it shine,

We are enough.