What are you aware of?  Last evening during The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz’s words reminded us that until we are ‘Aware’ in this ‘Now’ moment, we cannot change any of the old agreements we have made through the process of domestication.  Awareness is the process of perceiving in the moment, recognizing where I am in this now moment and understanding the steps necessary to change or move forward. 

Interestingly, today is Unity’s World Day of Prayer and the affirmation is,

I celebrate the vast possibilities for my life.

As we discussed Wednesday evening, how many times am I aware during my day that many times those vast possibilities come through the silence.  When will each of us remember, “I could pray instead of worry, pray instead of trying to figure out, pray instead of becoming upset, pray instead of taking this personally, pray instead of assuming?   

I hope you will join us this Sunday for a very inspiring service.  It will be Multigenerational in nature, because our Youth will be sharing skits with us that they created themselves about The 4 Agreements, then the Prayer Chaplains will share some statements about how prayer can shift first ourselves and then the world. 

Special Music will be our very own Voices of Unity with a few special surprises along the way. 

It’s me, It’s me, It’s me, oh Lord

Standing in the need of Prayer,
 

Rev. Denise

And the Assumption is?  Have you ever made an assumption about someone or something only to realize that you were way off? 

Making assumptions seems to be a part of everyday life.  Most of us do it without even noticing that we are doing it.  It is difficult at best to always be aware of how much our own beliefs influence and potentially distort the truth. 

Ask yourself these simple questions: 

I hope you will join us on Sunday Morning as we delve a bit deeper into the 3^rd Agreement, the area of Assumptions.  I think we will all get to the place of acknowledging Awareness as the key.  Think of how much better our lives could be if we made a conscious effort to be more aware of our own thoughts and to make a conscious choice not to assume.  Maybe that would add to our feeling of freedom. 

The awesome Deborah Bishop will be joining us again this Sunday with Special music.  I leave you with a few of her words:

“I know where I belong. 

It’s where my heart beats strong. 

Where love, grace and faith they fill me. 

And it’s a Miracle – to finally Feel – Free.”

Rev. Denise

Marianne Williamson states in, The Gift of Change, that every change is a challenge to become who we really are.  Has anyone else but me began to take a look at all the changes that have happened and that are happening around us daily?  And when there is soo much change isn’t it true that sometimes we lose touch with who or what we are as people? 

Another profound take away from her writing is that the only way to claim your power or to remember who you are in a world that seems to be moving fast is to slow down.  Isn’t that just the opposite of what we have been told?  Who told us to keep up with the Joneses?  And did you ever wonder who those people were and what were they doing that I needed to “keep up with?” 

This Sunday we will be taking a deeper look at the 2^nd Agreement.  Yes it has taken us 4 Sunday’s to truly dig deeply into being Impeccable With Our Words.  The 2^nd Agreement is Take Nothing Personally.  When I begin to know the importance of speaking with integrity about myself and others, then I can begin to step into this second agreement.  Taking nothing personally actually means not taking personally the good stuff or the bad stuff.

We had an in-depth conversation last evening in class about is it ok to accept a compliment.  And the answer is still yes – but have you ever been in a situation where someone gives you a compliment just to use that same compliment to get you to “do something for them or an organization?”  That my friends is the trap of domestication.  And that is where the 2^nd agreement comes into play.

The 4 Agreements are the ways to let go of the agreements I may have made in my life to walk the path of domestication or keeping up with the fast pace of the world around me.  If I am living and moving and having my ‘beingness’ in the place where God shows up, I will not be swayed by statements that others make about me because I will know the truth of my being.  I am a divine child of the universe.  As I begin to shift my perception through knowing who I truly am, guess what?  My perception of the world begins to shift also.  

Join us on Sunday morning as we continue to look at our own Spiritual Potential through the 4 Agreements.  Our very own Praise and Worship Team will be Sharing Special Music. 

So we left Jonah in the belly of the whale on Sunday.  Jonah had been running from his divine purpose and then the process of running away literally “ate him alive.”  What we will begin to unveil this week is that he made it to Nineveh even though he attempted to run away. 

Each of our personal challenges assists our personal evolution as a human being expressing  our divinity.  Each situation challenges how we think about ourselves, how we show up and how we choose the people we hang with without sacrificing who we are and what we value. 

So in every moment as I become more and more impeccable with my words, am I aware that my self-worth is not negotiable.  Join us on Sunday morning as we affirm together, I am willing to show up and be me – courageous and vulnerable.  Our own Voices of Unity will be in the house sharing music that will heal our souls and raise us to the vibration of love. 

Living, Loving Spirit be with each of us this week as we continue this courageous quest we call living.    

Rev. Denise

Have you ever been divinely inspired to do or be something?  As I continue to focus on The Four Agreements and get clearer on what it means to be ‘impeccable with my words’, I begin to really understand that it all begins with me.  Until each of us begins to realize that Jesus the Master Teacher was speaking truth when he said, Love your neighbor as yourself, then, and only then, can we begin to love ourselves in a way that causes the world to shift.  That my friends is answering the call or the invitation to the light. 

It is interesting to be in Lunch Bunch and Wednesday evening class right now and to be sharing with our spiritual community conversations that are about not only how I would change, but how the world would change if I realized I was made of light.  How do I do that you ask?  Spend time in the silence.  I must recognize the light within and when I do, nothing can hold me back from the invitation to be the light everywhere I go. 

This divine inspiration is “encoded in light and moves us in a direction that is expansive, infusing us with deep desire – beyond the wish for anything personal or material.”  Those words come from Jacob Israel Liberman and a book entitled Luminous Life.  In this book he writes further that when I begin to act in the direction of expansion, my desire is for oneness with the vision I have been given – and this vision is about creating a peace that will make my life full of enchantment and bliss.  The question is, “When am I going to be willing to step into the invitation?” 

Join us on Sunday Morning as we discuss what it means to Love and Respect Myself and how that is deeply connected to my personal invitation to light.  This conversation is also deeply rooted in the first agreement:  Be Impeccable with my words. 

Our own voices of Unity will be joining me in a song with Nickie Conley and Becky Duffield melding their amazing voices to move you to a place of saying yes to the light. 

So in preparation for Sunday ponder this affirmation:  

I allow my Christ Nature to be present.  I am light.

Where did July go? It seems just yesterday Judy and I were planning for our family’s July 4^th celebration at Harmony Haven, and now it is August 1^st.  As a spiritual community we have focused on Freedom and as we turn the corner into August our focus will  be placed a bit beyond Freedom to the topic of Agreements - and it will continue to touch into personal freedom in many ways.

Have you ever thought about the Agreements you have made with persons, organizations, your culture or possibly your family of origin?  As children, the adults in our lives prepared us to be a part of their society.  We learned to live in the same dream our parents were living in.  Our personal belief system many times got trapped in the structure of that dream, and that dream became normal for us. Or, possibly you were one of those kids that pushed against the norm and were possibly punished for doing so. 

I don’t believe that the adults in our lives, for the most part, “domesticated us” with any bad intentions.  The adults can only teach us what they know; they cannot teach us what they don’t know. You can bet that they had all kinds of judgments about themselves, and that everybody else was judging them too.  They lived in a kind of rewards/punishment society – and guess what – it’s the same society we live in today.  Are you ready for a change?  

During the months of August and September we will be looking at the Agreements we have made and the Agreements we as Divine Spiritual Beings choose to keep.  Many of those agreements have kept some of us living our lives in a type of hell.  This “hell” has produced a toxic fear that keeps many of us from creating the lives we are here to live.   

Want to create heaven here on earth?  Join us this Sunday for, ‘Understanding the Power of Our Words’,  and how they are attached to these very same agreements.  Our special music will be Beck Duff.  She will be bringing to us some tunes that will not only stir our souls, but cause us to think about our words and how very powerful they are in the creative process. 

Learn to live your life with arms wide open.  Choose your Agreements mindfully. 

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

This is where your book begins . . . . .the rest is still unwritten.

Rev. Denise

Life is a balancing act between our human experiences and our divine expression.  Some days seem to be like walking a tight rope over the Grand Canyon and others feel like a stroll on the red carpet.  Which one are you experiencing today?

We are continuing our conversations during July on Freedom.  As I begin to understand what true freedom really means, I am able to show up to the human situation and pay attention – not only to what is going on outside myself, but also to what is happening inside myself.  I then can reach inside and find the strength to “Tell the Truth” about my experience and to remember that I am also an expression of divinity.  My divine nature gives me the faith to first balance my insides.  As that balance happens, it seems miraculously the situation begins to shift.  “As within – so without.”  Am I truly that powerful? 

Join us this Sunday for Part III in a Four Part Series entitled Invitation to Freedom:  4 Mind Movements & 4 Evolutionary Steps.  Our very own Voices of Unity will be sharing some of the music they will be performing at the International New Thought Alliance Conference on Tuesday Evening July 23^rd. 

Last week we began the process of offering freedom to ourselves, understanding that the process of freedom is an inside job.  We also discussed that each step has two parts. Freedom is first created in the mind before it is expressed in real time. Knowing that one fact gave us the parameters to begin our conversations.  Sooo . . . last week we began by giving ourselves permission to dream or think about our Divine Purpose.

 
Am I aware that I came to the planet on a mission?  Am I also aware that I did not come to the planet just to work hard, pay taxes, and die?  At some point before I slipped into this physical body I made two important decisions:  One to experience humanity and second to Express Divinity.  What does that commitment look like in my life? 
 
This week we will be answering three very important questions.  These are the same questions we have used in our two Real Talks with our spiritual community.  These questions get to the heart of what we want to create moving forward:
 

 
I hope you join us on Sunday as we dive into the Second Mind Movement & Second Evolutionary Step on our collective Freedom Journey.   Our Special Music will be Michael Elley and Beck Duffield.   They will be sharing songs to spur us forward in our process of Commitment & Setting Clear Goals. 
 
Freedom is an inside job.  You’ve got to make your own kind of music – even if nobody else sings along. 
Rev. Denise

Have you ever gone through a drive-through window and after you went through the process of ordering into the system, realized on the other end (or even worse), when you got home, that you did not receive what you ordered?  Where did the communication break down?  Was it with the delivering or the receiving? 

During the month of June we have been focusing on “Summer is a State of Mind”.  To bring another perspective to the conversation Rev. Deborah Bishop will be sharing with us this Sunday morning, “The Universal Drive-Through Window.” 

We humans make decisions, select choices, and speak them into the universe every day.  Each of these choices will bring us closer or move us further away from the purposes we have set for our lives. Am I 100% sure that what I am ordering up from the universe is clear and that when I receive it, I will recognize what I ordered? 

Every choice we make gives us a new opportunity to learn, grow and evolve . . .or stay stagnant, small and stuck.  Every choice we make either opens doors to new possibilities or closes doors that may no longer be an option moving forward.  Some doors that are open usher us into a new way of thinking, acting and behaving.  Some doors that are closed leave us in old belief systems and patterns of living. 

We make hundreds of choices each day and some of them are soo habitual that we may not even be aware that we are making them.  I hope you join the spiritual community of Unity of Music City and Rev. Deborah Bishop as she leads us forward in looking at the daily decisions and choices we are making and how those decisions are moving us closer or further away from the life we want to create. 

Life is a matter of choices and every choice we make shifts the protectory of our lives in one direction or another .  Sometimes it is the smallest of decisions that can change your life forever.

Namaste’

Rev. Denise 

Today is June 20th, 2019. Doesn’t it seem that June just began and here we are close to the end of the month. Time really does seem to fly by. The question I continuously ask myself as a Mindfulness Coach is, “Can I remain mindful (awake) in each and every one of those moments? That is my goal, and I admit, some days are easier than others because of the situations that stand before me.

Sometimes I choose to step out of my body and be the observer so as to not feel the full brunt of a situation. Other times I choose to allow it to flow fully through me. At this point in my life, most of those times are a choice, not something that happens out of habits from my past (although there are moments when I still like to blame my mother, my teachers, etc. . . . for what I seem to find myself in the middle of) In those moments it seems to be done “To Me.”

Our focus for the month of June has been Summer is a State of Mind. We’ve framed that fact through the four elements: Fire, Earth, Water and this Sunday, Air. The discussions around each element has brought us closer to the knowledge that there is a power greater than ourselves that can restore us to sanity. It is our thoughts and beliefs that either have us living life to the fullest or have kept us stuck. Simply from the 12 Step perspective, do I choose sanity or not?

From the moment of our birth into these physical bodies we have breathed in the breath of life. In that very moment we became a living soul, an expression of the divine in human form. The question remains, am I aware of that fact in each and every moment? When I am not aware – what or who helps me to remember? Those are the questions we have been pondering during our Wednesday evening Metaphysics Class.

This Sunday we will be discussing ways to remember that fact. How do I allow the air I breath (Reset Breath) to assist me during those human limitations that I or others may be experiencing? It is then that I am able to touch love, joy or peace for myself or to share with others. That is really my power as a spiritual being having a human experience.

This Sunday I am affirming that the words spoken by myself, by others and the songs sung by our Praise and Worship Team along with the amazing Becky Duffield (you don’t want to miss her songs!!!) will create an opening for deeper knowing. May we as a spiritual community begin to feel it within ourselves – knowing where it comes from.

Love Can Build a Bridge; don’t you think it’s time?

Rev. Denise