So,
New month,
New theme.
Like I said,
Our theme this month is expanded.
And when we expand it,
Sometimes we at the very least feel like we're defying gravity,
Feel like we're bending reality,
As I've said many times before.
But we have the power to do that.
You know,
This year so far we've checked our belief,
We've checked our love of this power and presence,
We've observed and authenticated it in all of life,
In nature,
In our senses,
We've learned to embody it in ourselves and what that means,
We've connected to it and in connecting with it,
We've also decluttered our subconscious and even our unconscious beliefs through that power.
Well now it's time to stretch it,
Stretch it,
To transform,
Transcend,
Grow,
Expand its use into our everyday lives.
I mean,
Think about this,
Every once in a while we must tune up our cars,
Especially our older cars.
It makes our engines easier to start,
It improves our fuel economy,
Lowers emissions,
It restores lost pep and power especially,
And it improves the engine performance,
Right?
Well wouldn't you like to start your day,
More easily improve how much energy you feel,
Restore your pep and power,
And lower the amount of negative experiences going on in your mind as well as in your life,
And improve your performance in life?
Well then you have to get support.
Think about this,
When you go for like a chiropractic adjustment or you take some yoga or have a Pilates session,
What happens?
It tunes you up,
It aligns your spine,
It strengthens your core,
It centers your mind.
When you also like to realign with the infinite.
And lastly,
When you go to the dentist,
What happens?
It not only improves the health of your teeth and the vitality of your gums,
Right?
But it also improves your entire body,
How your whole body works,
Not just your mouth.
When you like to have increased vibrancy and vitality in every aspect of your life,
Well then you have to get support.
You have to get spiritual support.
You have to pray it up,
Meditate it up,
Affirm your connection and your communion with the best of you,
The best of you,
The most divine of you.
Call,
That's what we need to do.
We need to call the universe right now for your spiritual tune up and watch your life soar.
It's as simple as that.
The work sometimes doesn't seem as simple,
But just calling the universe and getting a spiritual tune up improves everything.
Now you may not get Ginsu knives with this and data fees and air time may apply and it is the sole responsibility of you,
The customer.
But you got to remember it's available 24 hours a day for infinity.
That support,
That spiritual support.
Remember our brains,
Our hab elasticity,
Neuroplasticity it's called.
They can expand,
They can adapt,
They can change our minds,
Our brains and thus our minds.
But once you're in tune you can take it past the limits to infinity and beyond,
As they say.
To stretch though,
We have to learn and many of us have to learn,
Not in all parts of our lives,
But in some parts of our lives at least,
We have to learn.
We must be teachable,
Really is what I'm saying.
To stretch we must be teachable.
We must flex our wonderment muscles.
We must flex our listening muscles.
We must reach out,
Stick out,
Put out and allow ourselves to receive.
Are you reaching out for new information,
New ideas,
The new,
The next adventure or journey in your life?
Are you sticking your spiritual neck out for more wisdom?
Centering your mind and body and allowing more wisdom to show up?
Are you putting out the vibes of love and curiosity and ready to receive those vibes right back?
These are questions we need to answer for ourselves.
And I know it sounds simple and most will answer,
Well yes,
Yes,
Of course I am.
I'm open,
I'm ready.
But you know what,
Rev,
You might say,
Nothing shows up or nothing good shows up.
I get it.
I get it.
And the answer,
And I'll tell you the answer because it's the answer for me,
So I don't see why I'm any more special than you are.
Because we all are special of course,
But that's not what this talk is about.
The answer is to dig deeper.
Is to listen closer and not just with your ears,
With your inner ears.
Your inner ears.
What is it you're listening to in your innerverse,
So to speak?
May have to evaluate things where you need improvement.
And I don't mean just out here in our lives,
In our pocketbooks and all that.
But inside.
What needs improvement inside?
What needs improvement in our belief system?
And we have to know that that's going to show up.
And we also have to know we don't want to do it in a general way.
We got to get specific.
Now you can get specific in general ways too,
But you want to get specific.
You want to,
You don't want to,
Well,
You could start that way,
But then slowly you want to funnel into something to deal with,
To talk about with the universe,
With yourself,
Your divine self.
Because you know,
It may be obvious,
It may not be obvious.
And if it's not obvious,
It's probably because it's hiding.
We hide things,
You know,
Pain,
Trauma.
We hide our fears,
Our past fears,
Our old stories.
Maybe it's been around so long we don't even notice it anymore because it's become a habit.
This pain or trauma,
This belief,
This woe is me belief or anything like that,
Or maybe laziness.
Maybe we've just gotten lazy after a while.
Maybe just letting it happen.
You know,
Going with the flow is a great thing,
But it also,
If you're not careful,
Can make you lazy and just.
Yeah,
Whatever.
Yeah,
Whatever can bring,
Yeah,
Not so great too.
All that gets in the way.
But those are the places where we have to learn to be teachable,
You know.
Those are the places where we need to be bold and brave and take that journey and go out on the limb,
As they say,
Or jump over the cliff mentally.
You see,
Subconsciously and probably sometimes unconsciously,
We see those pains and those traumas and those old stories as failures.
And when we see them as failures in our lives,
Our self-esteem plummets as we start tying too much to those old stories and those old things that happen.
That's not where our self-worth should be tied to.
And also our self-worth shouldn't be tied to our successes either.
Now,
I understand we don't want to dredge up those memories and feel lousy about old parts of our lives and things that happened that still seem to be crawling around in our subconscious.
I certainly don't.
But as we stretch our sense of intrinsic value,
Intrinsic value,
Not value because you graduated this or you won that or you've made this or you own that,
But the intrinsic value of you as a spiritual being having a human experience,
Your divine self,
Then the ability to not only withstand quote-unquote failure or criticism,
It increases your ability to withstand that.
Also your ability to not make successes be all that you're about.
So the power of those supposed rates of success and failure has really less impact because the impact that is going on,
The base of everything is your intrinsic value as a spiritual being and as one that the divine is within.
And then we realize there's nothing wrong with us,
That some curiosity,
Some openness,
Some expansion of our lives and our minds and our spiritual practice won't fix.
But we got to stretch.
We got to open ourselves to stretch.
In order to grow,
You must learn.
And in order to learn,
You have to be teachable.
And to be teachable,
You have to have an open mind and an open heart ready to expand.
I think this is a perfect time to bring in Ernest Holmes and from my favorite book and maybe some of yours favorite book,
This Thing Called You.
So let me read a quote.
He says,
You should let go of the lesser in order to experience the greater.
This is not a bad bargain.
If you lose a sense of unhappiness,
You will become happy.
If you lose a sense of confusion,
You will be at peace.
This is not the easiest thing to do.
When you are in pain,
It is difficult to affirm peace.
When you are in want,
It is hard to affirm abundance.
But this is the true meaning of losing your life.
What you lose is a false sense of being.
What you lose is a false sense of being.
You are trading the unreal for the real,
The false for the true.
If you wish to live in the kingdom of heaven,
Forget hell.
If you wish to live in the kingdom of heaven,
Forget hell.
What's your hell?
What's your hell,
My friends?
What are you replacing unhappiness thoughts with?
And I don't mean in rose-colored glasses kind of way,
But what are you focusing on?
Because the kingdom of heaven is within,
Right?
You can change the terms in that phrase all you want.
The power and presence of the creative power,
The big bang,
The energy that made the entire universe is within,
Within our very cells.
It's inside you waiting for instructions,
Waiting to stretch.
And in order to stretch,
We must make room.
It's like jello after a meal.
There's always room for jello.
Well,
There's always room for improvement.
There's always room for upgrading.
There's always room for transcending in our lives.
Learning,
Learning,
Learning,
Keep learning,
Keep being creative,
Keep wondering how things are,
Keep questioning and opening your mind up.
Albert Einstein says,
When once you stop learning,
You start dying.
So let's keep living until the body's done.
And then we'll go on to the next adventure in the next body or whatever happens.
But we were born to learn.
We were born to adapt.
We were born to change.
So don't stop.
Don't die.
And mentally thrive.
Long ago,
When the world was very new,
There was a certain lobster who was determined that the universe had made a mistake.
So he set up an appointment to discuss the matter.
And he said,
With all due respect,
The lobster said,
I wish to complain about the way you designed my shell.
You see,
Just as I got used to one outer casing,
I have to then shed it for another.
Very inconvenient and rather a waste of time.
To which the universe replied,
I see.
But do you realize that it is the giving up of one shell that allows you to grow into another,
A more expansive one?
And I like myself just the way I am,
The lobster said.
Your mind is made up,
The universe asked.
Abso crustacean,
Rudely,
The lobster stated firmly.
Very well then,
Smiled the universe.
You ask,
You receive.
From now on,
Your shell will not change.
And you may go about your business just as you do right now.
Well,
That is very kind of you.
I appreciate that very much,
The lobster said.
And he left on his way.
And at first,
The lobster was very content wearing the same old shell.
But as time passed,
He found that his once light and comfortable shell was becoming very heavy,
Very tight,
And closed.
After a while,
In fact,
The shell became so cumbersome that the lobster couldn't feel anything at all outside himself.
And as a result,
He was constantly bumping into others.
And finally,
They got to the point where he could hardly even breathe.
So with great effort,
He went back to speak to the universe.
With all due respect,
The lobster sighed,
Contrary to what you promised,
My shell has not remained the same.
It keeps shrinking.
Oh,
Well,
Not at all,
Smiled the universe.
It has remained the same size,
Just as you asked.
What happened is that you changed inside,
Within your shell.
You see,
Everything changes continuously.
No one remains the same.
That's the way I've made things.
When you let go of your shell and choose to grow,
You build a new strength within yourself.
And in that strength,
You'll find a new,
Larger capacity to love yourself,
To love those around you,
To love life itself,
To expand your horizons,
Your mind,
Your life.
That was the purpose of the shedding of the shell now and again.
So tell me,
Mr.
Lobster,
What would you like to do?
In order to stretch,
We not only want to be open and ready to allow expansion and learning,
We want to be ready to lose and replace that which we don't want anymore,
That which doesn't work or serve us anymore,
Focusing on what we do want.
You got some unhappiness,
You got some judgment and some victim mentality to lose.
I think we all do a little bit.
Well,
You can lose it just the same way you found it,
By stretching.
It can create a ritual to let it go.
Remember we did the burning bowl ritual for ideas.
You could do that again.
You could do it 50 times and keep doing it until it sticks.
Because then we didn't close that door and we open a new window and reveal and accept wisdom and knowledge and love and whatever we desire to expect.
And maybe not just a new window we're opening,
Maybe just the drapes.
Maybe we're just opening the drapes.
I open the drapes here behind me.
Maybe we're just opening the drapes to allow light to come in and that light that comes in takes us on a new journey,
On a new path towards happiness,
Towards joy,
Towards the ideas that we require to step forward in our lives.
And two,
We must then share that which we want more of in our lives as well as have it.
So you want to have it.
So you want more peace?
Then find ways to share peace in the world.
You want more love?
Then find ways to be more loving to people.
You want more friends in your life?
Then be a friend to somebody first and quit venting the same stories and quit gossiping the same hate.
You want more of anything?
Sit down.
Take some time.
Make some time to evaluate who you are.
If that's not important,
Then why bother?
Sit down.
Take some time to evaluate who you are.
Who are you?
You are a divine being,
A divine spiritual being in a human experience for a hundred,
110 years,
Whatever you want to do.
And then figure out and see and decide.
Don't see like look back and go,
Oh no,
I didn't.
Not to decide what you want to be doing from now on with this incredible,
Miraculous power that you have,
With this life that you have.
Re-evaluate your life.
Not to look back and be sad,
Not even to look back and be proud,
But to move forward,
To change your focus.
So get a spiritual tune up this week and get spiritual support from our prayer practitioners.
Call the office or email us at info at newthoughtsc.
Org and we'll get you an appointment with a prayer practitioner.
If you need that kind of assistance,
Great,
No problem.
I certainly do it myself.
Be willing to be vulnerable and teachable and most of all,
Be willing to lose those things that don't look good on you anymore.
Judgment is not flattering on anybody,
So lose it.
Set it on its way and be expansive.
Take an expansive stance.
Break it up.
You know,
Keeping up with the Joneses isn't a way to stretch your abilities,
Success or even your stuff.
Stick with fulfillment better than success.
Start being that which you want to experience more in the world.
Be that.
You want to see the world more this and that?
Be that in yourself.
Because you already have it in you.
You already have the power within you.
You just got to take the time to listen,
To be with it and to allow yourself to stretch.
So join me.
Let's have a stretch.
Thanks so much.
God Namaste.
