Letting Go of Yesterday

Every night I lie in bed

The brightest colours fill my head

A million dreams are keeping me awake

I think of what the world could be

A vision of the one I see

A million dreams is all it's gonna take

A million dreams for the world we're gonna make

      ~Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, "A Million Dreams" from The Greatest Showman 

I wanted to remind you of a few things about your yesterdays. This isn't to get you off the hook of the work of acknowledging, releasing, and letting go of the old stories that are cluttering your consciousness and getting in the way of manifesting your dreams. Our past experiences, stories, yesterdays can have a significant impact on our beliefs, and many times we don't even realize it's happening. Sometimes we have to dive deep to even realize they are there just so we can acknowledge them, even before we face them, forgive them, neutralize them, release them, and replace them.

I've talked about radical self-forgiveness that has nothing to do with the other party. And even if it does have something to do with another person - as Oscar Wilde said:

Always forgive your enemies—nothing annoys them so much.

I've given you the tool called PLACE (see "What's Your Response?"):  Pause, Label, Ask, Choose, Express. So you respond vs. react to situations because reactions come from yesterday's stories.

There's the 4-step shame and regret process I shared (see "What Are You Looking At?")to get squeaky clean with our ethics and integrity and neutralize the power yesterday's story has a hold on us.

Or you could follow Tony Robbins' (and others) advice to:

1. Turn "letting go" of the past into a “must”

Gaining a clear sense of purpose to move beyond the hold of yesterday and serve as your emotional drive when you feel like raging, hiding, etc. 

2. Identify your emotional habits

Emotions are like a muscle. The trauma or challenging incident can train us to feel frustrated, sad, stressed, untrusting. However, you can train yourself to stay passionate, joyful, and strong, even when something bad happens in your life or reminds you of your yesterdays. When you catch yourself falling into a negative emotional habit, try to cut off the thought and switch gears immediately. This new conditioning will re-wire those emotions to have less or no effect as a trigger.

3. Condition your mind and work on personal growth

Feed your mind and soul with empowering stories instead of limiting ones.  Surround yourself with people who make you better and put yourself in a peak state of mind and action. Focus on learning and improving your mind and heart, and thus your self-respect and perception.

4. Create empowering rituals

Build momentum by practicing gratitude, meditation, affirmative prayer, journaling, etc. All the spiritual practices we talk about and work.

5. Focus on what you can control

You can’t take back an unhealthy relationship, but you can learn from it. You can’t go back in time and fix a bad childhood, but you can realize that “Your past does not equal your future.” From the minute you wake up, you make choices. In fact, that could be your greatest birthrights - volition and choice. Learning how to let go of the past means breaking the pattern and focusing on creating the life you deserve, not dwelling on the one you used to have.

7. Give back

No matter how broke you may be or how broken you feel, you have something to offer others – even if it’s something as common as a smile or a listening ear. Realize that the secret to living is giving.

Not a Tony Robbins or NLP fan? Alice Morse Earle put it very plainly in the early 1900s:

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present. 

Here is the most important thing happening in the present that I want you to grasp onto, awaken to and allow Its transformative abilities to take hold:

If God is all there is, then EVERYTHING in our life is God speaking.

Doubt, pain, resistance, and misery are a calling for reconnecting our humanness with our spiritual essence.  It holds no judgment or opinion of the experience! When you begin to see yesterdays that pop up in our 'todays' as a blessing, you tap into an opportunity to remember the fundamental truth that God is all-in in your life and ready to wave the flag and hold your hand, if need be, and point us to the Truth to:

REALIZE  ACCEPT  KNOW

• Realize your feelings are valid
• Accept that God has given you all that is needed to step through yesterday's junk
• Know you have the power of choosing and then choosing again and again and again

I would like to conclude with a poem I heard about and found on this subject.

She Let Go

by Safire Rose

She let go.

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of the fear.

She let go of the judgments.

She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.

She let go of the committee of indecision within her.

She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.

Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn’t ask anyone for advice.

She didn’t read a book on how to let go.

She didn’t search the scriptures.

She just let go.

She let go of all of the memories that held her back.

She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.

She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn’t promise to let go.

She didn’t journal about it.

She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer.

She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper.

She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.

She just let go.

She didn’t analyze whether she should let go.

She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter.

She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment.

She didn’t call the prayer line.

She didn’t utter one word.

She just let go.

No one was around when it happened.

There was no applause or congratulations.

No one thanked her or praised her.

No one noticed a thing.

Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort.

There was no struggle.

It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad.

It was what it was, and it is just that.

In the space of letting go, she let it all be.

A small smile came over her face.

A light breeze blew through her.

And the sun and the moon shone forevermore…

You will probably face setbacks and challenges, I have. But with conviction and a purpose that drives you, you will stay focused and dedicated when those yesterdays show up. Then you can acknowledge, release, and let go. Don’t beat yourself up for what has happened in the past - all god's children's got stuff. Beyond your own self-work, please seek out spiritual counseling - I do, cognitive therapy - I have, and know that you can and will let go of your yesterdays and manifest your million dreams.

I know you can!

p.s. I am available for spiritual counseling. Contact my office at ntsc@newthoughtsc.org

Peace and blessings to you!

Affirmative Incantation

I welcome my new stories. 

My todays are filled with wonderment, excitement, imagination, and the best of infinite possibilities. I am moving forward with everything in my life. I am energized, authorized, crystallized, concretized, exercised, harmonized, and recognized as the Divine Light that I Am born to be.

I now forgive, release, and neutralize the blocks, triggers, and walls of indecision, victimhood, and strife. And I welcome the new stories of strength, wisdom, plenty, and love. I am rockin' it from this day forward.

What Are You Looking At?

Photo by Tachina Lee at Unsplash

Last week we talked about where it is best to look from. The Divine Matrix is the synergetic alchemy of using the head, heart, and gut-brain systems to use Divine Intelligence, our feelings, and Divine Wisdom and inspiration to reveal, transcend, and achieve in life.

Today, I want to talk about what we are looking at? What are we observing? Are we looking at trouble - with a capital T, and that rhymes with P, which makes you a fool? Are we looking at limitations or infinite possibilities?

Spiritual growth is the act of letting go of any ideas, beliefs, and attachments that no longer serve us, like shoulda/woulda/coulda's, yeah-but's, and “I don't deserve it” junk thinking. When we are consistently focused on those kinds of ideas, we are not only not letting go of them, we are seeing everything through the lens or the perspective of that junk thinking.

New job interview? Thoughts surrounding you may be “they won't like me," or "I shoulda gotten that degree.”

New love relationship? Thoughts popping up could be “yeah, but something's gotta be wrong with him/her/they, it always is.”

New idea in your career, for the world, or creatively? Thoughts swirling in your head may include “Why bother, I never follow through.”

Those words and phrases are red flags about your belief system, your perspective on that activity, and what is getting in your way. So let's first look at letting go.

Forgiveness for errors, injustices, or debts

This is something that has gotta happen to allow space in the head and the energy you exude. Remember forgiving is not condoning. Forgiving is the release of those limiting ideas' hold on your perspective. When we practice radical forgiveness, we are awakening ourselves to our highest, most capable self. It emancipates us from discord, making room for a greater good to be expressed or received, for change to take place, and for healing.

Spiritual Law tells us that spiritual growth cannot take place until we are open to learning, till we awaken to catching Spirit’s ideas about what we need to let go, and allowing the removal of obstacles and impediments which fog our way of living. As we let go, so too will Spirit’s highest ideas then be able to reveal themselves more frequently and powerfully. We forgive and let go to create openness and spaciousness so the Universe can release into our consciousness the greater idea, the best perspective.

When we look from our Divine Matrix, and embrace Spirit’s highest ideas and let go of the untruths and release the Truth, we automatically make room for being lifted out of wrong tendencies, discord, and illness. 

Our job is to ask Spirit what needs to be revealed to us and our work is to be still, listen to the voice within, and follow its guidance. 

Can we successfully release and let go of beliefs, ideas, and limitations without embracing their replacement? While we may see what to let go of and sometimes dig into it a bit for clarity, what we want to look at is the replacement of that belief.

Where your attention goes, energy flows, and manifestation then follows.

When we:

1)  Put our conscious attention on asking for Spirit’s highest vision of what needs to be let go;

2)  Keep our attention on this question long enough to receive the visionary insight on what needs to be allowed in and what we must awaken to; we then 

3)  Manifest our vision by committing to embrace the conscious and creative stages, in mind and action, of this intuited information.

When your attention goes to the possibilities, your energy flows from the intuited Divine nature, and your manifestations then come pure and clean.

Ignorance stays with us until the day of enlightenment, until our vision toward the Spirit broadens and casts out the image of a no longer useful littleness…. The will should hold it in place until the creative genius of the inner life transforms the image of limitation and transmutes it into liberty under law.   ~Ernest Holmes

Are you looking at the possibilities or the limitations? 

Have you heard of Bethany Hamilton's story? At the age of 13 as a rising surf star, Bethany lost her left arm to a 14-foot tiger shark, seemingly ending her dream career. However, through a foundation of faith, determination, and passion, one month after the attack, Bethany returned to surfing and within two years had won her first national title. At 17 years old, she realized her dream of surfing professionally and is an active surf competitor to this day, currently competing in the World Surf League tour events and other special events. In 2016, Bethany beat a six-time world champion and the top-ranked surfer in the world. In 2017, she was inducted into the Surfer’s Hall of Fame. 

Bethany sees her passion for surfing as a gift from God and is what compelled her to go back to the sport against all odds. She is constantly re-writing the supposed rules of logic, what's possible, and living her greatest life. Her story is dramatized in the movie ”Soul Surfer” based on her book of the same title, and her perspective of the incident is shown in the docs “Heart of Soul Surfer,” and “Unstoppable” along with her many other books like “Be Unstoppable” and the children's tale, “Unstoppable Me.” Bethany reminds us:  I don't need easy, I just need possible.

While it is not always easy to let go of our troubles or give up the things we resent and regret, when we connect what we are looking through with what we are looking at, we listen to Spirit’s highest ideas on what needs to be released and forgiven. And we:

• Live to be present
• Look for things to be grateful for each day
• Set boundaries to protect the important things
• Say no to the excess stuff or doing too much
• Aim to use time wisely to include sweet moments and see a world of possibilities.
• It's our daily choices that determine our outcomes.

With repetition, we’ll catch more insights and habitually expand our vision/mission/purpose. There’s a spiritual solution to every problem/condition. Stress, illness, or trauma might crack us, but it doesn't have to end us.

There is an ancient Japanese art called Kintsugi or golden joinery. It is a technique using a lacquered or resin-based gold dust for repairing broken pottery with seams of gold.  We can use a spiritual version of this practice through our Divine Matrix to repair any damage.

Are you looking at old stories or creating new ones?

Are you having a vision or dream that just floats around or are you envisioning and embodying it in the Divine Matrix?

Here is a process to see what shame and/or regret you may have that is fogging up everything you are looking at in mind and body, family and love relationships, community, friends, money and work, and in your connection to Higher Self and Source. Each piece of shame and regret story has 4 steps:

1. Summary of the shame and/or regret story
2. When did it happen (beginning and ending time)
3. Where did it happen
4. What were the deeper consequences of what you did and how did this affect your relationship with yourself and your life now? This step is the one to dig deep into.

When you have finished writing down (best with pen and paper) your Shame and Regret list, keep it safe from anyone else except a trusted friend, counselor, therapist, spiritual practitioner, or spiritual leader to who you will later read this. When you do choose the one person you will share the list with, please remind yourself to not allow any justifications to arise and to not solicit or allow any judgment, good or bad from the one you are reading this to. This process is only about communication with a trusted other and the openness to let it go. The release comes through the non-judged venting, to get it out of our heads both as a story and the energy it carried. When we have our ethics and integrity 'squeaky clean, we open up to receiving in a huge way and step into living our life large and free and powerful! 

Declare what your new story is NOW. 

When you look around you, what are you looking at?

• Are you looking at agitation or serenity? What you expect, you'll receive.
• Are you looking at a “woe is me” life or a “wow is me” life? Living life with wonderment and creativity is remembering that the power of You is essential no matter your age.
• Are you looking at the reflection of a victim or victor? The pain of any sort of trauma is not necessarily eliminated in this work, it is neutralized and replaced. To release and let go is to neutralize the pain from the old event and its hold on your perspective of life.
• Are you looking at practicalities or possibilities? Living with an attitude of being practical may feel safe, but understanding the infinite possibilities the Universe has available will expand your outlook, opportunities, success, and happiness.

Remove “impossible” from your vocabulary. The art of the possible tells us that we take our options and make the best of them. And our options are limited only by how we look at things. So become a wiser, stronger, more evolved human being by filling your cup / your mind with what you want to attract. Focus on that, not the old stories.

Then what are you looking at is...

a joyous, rich, succulent, fun, loving, peaceful, happy, and vibrant life.

Affirmative Incantation:  

I release.

I let go.

And I let the Divine in me inform, inspire, regulate and interpret all my dreams and desires.

Through the eye of any storm, I stand steady and nimble like the olive tree, in the zone of awakened awareness, and with Spirit-empowered readiness to take on all that steps into my life with ease and grace. My intellect, compassion, and instincts are handy and ripe with the smartest and most loving choices...the best choices for this day.

In this moment, and the next ones hereafter, I rise to my highest Self, confident of my fitness, goodwill, and willingness to be in my prime, vibrating at the speed of the Divine.

TAKING COMMUNION

Photo by Heike Mintel on Unsplash

Between God and me there is no in-between  ~Meister Eckhart

When you commune with the Divine Presence, you are communing with your highest self; the part of you, that is really all of you, the sense of Self which, inseparable from God, bridges with Divine Intelligence. It is the Divine in you, revealing ItSelf as you - a communion with all creation.

What have you done lately to commune with your Self and to exchange intimate thoughts and feelings on a deep spiritual level? We all have barriers to connecting w/Divine Intelligence. Most of us began by praying to God. As you begin to transform your thinking, you pray through God and, once transcended, you pray with and, ultimately, as God. You may wonder what can we do to release barriers of communion?  Take a walk with me...

God is where we are, who we are, all the time. Each of us is God showing up as [place your name here], and this Divine Intelligence continues to flow no matter what is happening in our lives; grief and unemployment or the best day and a big fat checking account. 

We are in an Infinite Mind and Infinite Mind is also in us.  It is by this Mind that we think. This Mind is eternal, therefore, we are eternal.  This Mind is complete, therefore, we are spiritually complete, though we do not appear to be so.     ~Science of Mind

Between our body and our soul or essence of our Being...there is no in-between. There is no duality between our bodily and spiritual experiences. When we understand that our spiritual identity is one with the Divine, we realize we are never alone. Each of us is filled with the Power, Presence, Love, Joy, Wisdom, and Beauty of the Divine; unique, but at one with all; individual, but indistinguishable. You are a flask, ready to be filled!

Let us take communion seriously. 

The most powerful prayer, one well-nigh omnipotent, and the worthiest work of all is the outcome of a quiet mind. The quieter it is the more powerful, the worthier, the deeper, the more telling and more perfect the prayer is. To the quiet mind all things are possible. What is a quiet mind? A quiet mind is one which nothing weighs on, nothing worries, which, free from ties and from all self-seeking, is wholly merged [with] God... Such a one can do no deed however small.   ~Meister Eckhart

The quiet mind is a trusting Mind in ourselves as God. When we open our hearts, minds, and souls to receive love, joy, and wisdom we can release any barriers or old stories that we’ve told ourselves. This open and quiet mind allows us to Truly feel that Divine connection to the Divine Intelligence and receive our greatest good. 

Some people prefer solitude. They say their peace of mind depends on this. Others say they would be better off in church. If you do well, you do well wherever you are. If you fail, you fail wherever you are. Your surroundings don’t matter. God is with you everywhere — in the market place as well as in seclusion or in the church. If you look for nothing but God, nothing or no one can disturb you. God is not distracted by a multitude of things. Nor can we be.  ~ Meister Eckhart

It's like bandwidth with the internet.  In the range of frequencies, there is a signal only you can transmit to the Universe. It may sound like mine, look like mine, but it is not – it is like each of us, universal but individualized, shared but unique, and we must widen this bandwidth with the power of conviction, spiritual practice, and love.

Conclusion and Call to Action

God is at home, it’s we who have gone out for a walk.  ~Meister Eckhart

To realize God is not just living, but God is Life, is to experience a connection with God. Happiness is a state of mind-wandering. Joy is a state of Being at one with the Presence within. In joy, we heal what is ill or dis-eased. 

To realize God is Truth – absolute and ready to serve is to experience a connection with God. When your gut feeling speaks, listen to the inspiration it brings. When you seek inspiration, open your heart and listen. 

To experience love and compassion is to experience a connection with God. There is no condition that enough Love will not heal. With fear, love is stunted. The important thing to realize is that Divine Love must be in your own heart and cannot operate from outside of It.

Got unanswered prayers? Remember Life and Truth expresses Itself through each of us. Practice love every day; watch your thoughts, your tongue, your deeds, and your prayers so that nothing contrary to love finds expression there. 

When you clearly realize that this is an intelligent universe run in principle, you experience your connection with God. Spirit has no limitation, and is infinite, all-knowing, timeless, boundless, unconditional with Its love, the Source, and Substance of Creative, manifesting our beliefs without exceptions. It does not change its stripes

When we realize God is a soul Spirit, we experience our connection with God. You are Spirit. Spirit cannot die. Your true self was never born and will never die. You are eternal, divine, unchanging Spirit in your true nature.

All we humans are doing is allowing God to “complete the circuit” within us—until we both see from the same perspective.  ~Richard Rohr, "Immortal Diamond: The Search For Our True Self"

When you feel out of it, it's like looking out at the street through a window made of fluted glass; it is a distortion made crooked by your perception, a false vision causing us to know ourselves through an illusion. 

This is the Truth:

The eye with which I see God is the same with which God sees me. My eye and God's eye is one eye, and one sight, and one knowledge, and one love.           ~Meister Eckhart

If some responsibility or task seems too great for you...

• Relax and Surrender to Life
• Remain in the Now
• Commune with Divine Energy, the Universal Flow
• Radiate with an open heart
• Cut through the noise to clarity by communing with Source in a spiritual practice
• Realize that you are one with God and the task will become “our business” instead of “my business”
• Laugh, howl, be a warrior to your open heart and liberated spirit

When you speak to yourself, you speak to God - that is taking communion. Best to do so intentionally.

AFFIRMATIVE INCANTATION

I Am mindful of how magnificent I Am. 

I Am mindful of the gratitude I have. 

I Am mindful of the faith and ease which dominates my thinking and the deep feelings with which I back my desires. 

I Am mindful of the Power that is within me and the Love that surrounds me. 

With this mindfulness, I lead a life of health, prosperity, creativity, love, peace, and honor. In the vast infinity of Life, perfection, wholeness, and completeness reign supreme, and today I continue to be mindful of my part in It all.

2020 The New Thought Guy