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🌱 Break the Cycle: How to Stop Repeating Patterns and Start Cultivating Real Change

🌿 Do You Really Love Change?

Do you love change? Raise your hand if you love change.

There’s… Oh, okay, there’s about 20% of us. That’s pretty good.when we got in this morning, I said, “Russell, do you love change?” And immediately he said, “I have a lovely avocado salad that I’d like”

and then he kept on walking.

Do you like change? How many of us feel that way, though? when we’re forced to change, when we have that wave of change coming over, sometimes it feels a little overwhelming. we don’t all love change and yet we all want change.

🌊 Wanting Change in Others vs Changing Ourselves

We all want change, and usually this wanting has to do with things outside of us, people outside of us, those things out there that we want to change. Does that sound familiar? Yes. Sure. We all want that change and unfortunately, we don’t have any control over the things that are out there.

But when it comes to changing ourself, that’s where our resistance shows up, and it shows up in a number of different ways. last week I talked about the idea of riding the wave of change and what happens when that rogue wave suddenly appears, and you have the opportunity, you’re either gonna get pummeled by it, or you have the opportunity to maneuver and learn how to ride it and go with that energy or direct yourself in that energy.

🌱 The Difference Between Reacting and Cultivating Change

Today I want to talk about a different kind of change. This is the kind of change, not the kind of change that hits you out of the blue, but the kind of change that you cultivate. There’s a difference between reaction and cultivating. Reacting and cultivating. Reacting says something out there needs to change, someone out there needs to change.

Those things, those conditions, those situations out there need to change. That’s our reaction to things. But cultivating says, “What is ready to grow within me? What change am I willing to cultivate within me so that I can meet life better? So that I can show up as my higher self? So that I can be more present when those rogue waves hit?

And how do I want to change and grow through my lifetime? How do I want to show up in life?” See, much of life is actually not very random. Much of our experience of life is not random at all. It’s all patterned. Our experience of life comes from the, patterns within us and the things that we do day in and day out, the reactions that we have day in and day out, the things that we eat, the things that we do, the things that we say.

All of those things are patterned in our life. We may have the same frustrations, the same reactions. We may have the same weeds growing. We may be using the same, mm, fertilizer to grow those weeds.

🔁 Repeating Patterns and Expecting Different Results

We’re looking at the outcomes to be something that we want them to be. We want the outcomes to be something different, and yet we’re not willing to change what’s within us to create that difference. There’s a wonderful story in the Bible in Exodus that talks about this.

📖 The Exodus Story and the Power of Inner Patterns

It’s the story of the Israelites wandering in the desert. They had a very dramatic exit from Egypt. They were allowed to leave.They were leaving oppression. They were leaving control. They were leaving the limitation that was imposed on them.

They were leaving that consciousness, and when they went out into the desert, they wandered. They were told that they were going to the Promised Land, but then they wandered around for forty years. And they wandered around because while they may have left Egypt, Egypt did not leave them.

That same sense of oppression, that same sense of control and limitation, those patterns still existed within them, and so they wandered around until those patterns could be worked out. Now, in Unity, we look at the Bible as a metaphysical or a spiritual aspect of us, kind of a textbook of life.

How can we look at the story and see, how does that relate to me? Metaphysically, Egypt represents that bondage, the mental bondage to sense thought, the mental bondage to material consciousness, the mental bondage to our sense of lack and limitation. We get stuck in these patterns, and that’s where we live, in bondage to these ideas that we’re holding onto.

And when they leave, we have to be able to release and let go and build something new in our consciousness, build some new ideas of who we are and how we’re h- here to be. the Israelites wandered for forty years, not because, there was no path forward but rather because their consciousness was still shaped by where they had been. We often think resistance is pushing against something or forcing something, but it’s really something more quiet within us.

🌿 Resistance as Attachment to Familiar Patterns

It’s holding on to the familiar way of being. Even when we’re not creating the life that we want, we’re stuck in those patterns. So when we look at that story, the Exodus story of the Israelites leaving that consciousness, having the idea of Moses leading them and saying there is something better, there is the promised land, there is a better life when we live more from the truth of our being.

We say yes, we leave, and then we get back into our old patterns. We get back into our daily routines and our stuck way of thinking. We don’t really wanna transform our life by fighting those patterns because that’s the challenge. When we see the pattern, it’s like, “Oh, there’s something I have to stop,” and we start fighting it.

We start fighting against it. We start thinking about ourselves, “Well, I’m no good. I’m terrible. Look what’s happening. Here I am again.” And then it shifts to life. Life keeps doing this to me, these people, these relationships, these situations keep happening to me. And so it’s not a matter of shifting the patterns and the things that are out there, it’s a matter of really shifting what’s in here.

🌼 Cultivating Change Instead of Forcing It

We transform our life by cultivating something new, by cultivating a new vision of ourselves, by cultivating a new pattern for ourselves in how we show up every day in the daily practice that Lisa calls the secret sauce of Unity. The daily practice, the cultivation of that inner change. It takes some effort, it takes some patience, it takes some planning, it takes intention.

🌱 The Garden Metaphor: What Are You Growing?

If you’re planting a garden, it’s pretty hard to make the flower grow, right? You can’t make the flower grow by pulling up on it. You can’t make the flower grow by stretching its leaves. You have to allow it to grow. You have to allow that transformation, that change to occur naturally. But there are things that you can do,

We get to choose what we plant. We get to choose the ideas, the seeds that we’re planting. And when we notice that what we’re planting is based off of something unhealthy, we have the opportunity to pull it up and plant something different.

We have the opportunity to create the conditions in our life that foster that cultivation, that foster that plant, that idea, so that it can grow within us. We get to choose what we plant and when we water it. How many of us are out there watering the weeds? We’re watering our weeds with our anger, our hate, our frustrations, our resentments.

We’re watering the weed by our patterns and saying, Oh, there’s another weed.” But we don’t do anything about it. We complain about it. “Look at all the weeds in my garden.”

🌿 What Are You Feeding Your Life?

We get to choose what fertilizer we use. What are we feeding the plant? Because if you’re feeding your intentions, if you have… Lisa had a great sermon this morning when she said, when she was talking about, our thoughts and the law of mind action, the things that we’re thinking about and planting.

You may have an idea, an affirmation, “This is my goal. This is what I wanna grow. This is where I’m at. I wanna have this beautiful flower show up.” And yet day in and day out, we’re fertilizing it with our anger, our frustration, our sense of lack and limitation. We’re like the Israelites wandering around in the desert, wandering around this plant, wondering why isn’t it growing.

It’s not growing because I said my affirmation. Okay, God, where is it? Universe. We said our affirmation, but we’re… 23 hours of the day we’re fertilizing it with something completely different. So the idea here is that we, to cultivate that growth within us, to cultivate this love that Margot sang about, to cultivate this connection that we all want in the world and the change that we wanna see in the world, we have to cultivate that in ourselves first.

🌱 A Simple Practice to Shift Your Patterns

You have to cultivate that and water it and feed it and weed it. over time, something new emerges. And it takes time. and when you see the weed, you pull it. I garden. I have my backyard as my oasis, and my front yard I don’t like quite as much. But I pull the weeds out there. I wait until the little yellow flower turns into white seeds and flies around.

I said, “Oh, I should’ve, I should’ve pulled that weed earlier.” Yeah. Anybody have a situation like that in your life? You should’ve pulled the weed earlier when you first saw it. But we thought about it, and we talked about it. I better take a picture of it and see if I can look up what it is. go to my gardener and talk about how we can solve it, but I didn’t actually pull the weed.

The practice is simple. Think about something that you wanna change in your life, something that you want to grow into, something that’s healthy, something that’s positive, something that you want to experience in life. Think about that idea, that desired change, and then notice your patterns around it.

Here’s step one for our practice. Just notice your patterns. Notice what seeds you’re planting, what fertilizer you’re using, what weeds are growing, and what gardening habits you are holding around that idea. Step two Notice what’s being produced, what’s being created. Is this healthy for you?

Is this what you really want? Or are you simply wandering around in the desert hoping something will change out there? If it’s not producing what you want, it’s a great opportunity to look at and say, “How can I change what I’m doing in this situation? How can I change how I’m approaching it, how I’m reacting to it or responding to it?

How can I change my patterns around it?” Step number three: Name what you want to grow instead. Here’s my intention, here’s what I’m growing, what I really wanna grow and experience is this. Name it again, and then plant new seeds. Plant seeds of love versus hate. Pull the weeds. Change your gardening habits.

⏳ Change Happens Over Time

Be more present simply to what is. Sometimes change happens in a moment like a rogue wave, but most of the time change happens over time. Most of the time change happens within us slowly one day at a time, one step at a time, one intention at a time. And so when we align those intentions and those steps and those days with that one Presence and Power within, the allness of life, as we use our spiritual tools, our spiritual power to draw upon that inner strength, to open ourselves to divine wisdom, to allow those, inspirations to guide us, we can take one step at a time, one day at a time, one moment at a time.

We don’t always cultivate what we expected, but if you move in this pattern, in this creating a new healthy pattern within you, if you move in that direction, you’re going to discover greater things than even you thought of. But it will grow according to the energy that you put into it.

👁️ Seeing Your Patterns Clearly

And sometimes we don’t always, get what we want. We don’t always see the patterns clearly. Sometimes it feels like life is chaotic and I don’t see myself in it. It may feel normal to us. It may not feel like there’s anything wrong. I’m just going through life and, I’m comfortable in it. It’s familiar. It’s just the way it is.

I don’t know what there is to change until something helps us to see things differently.

🌟 The Moment of Awareness (Margo’s Story)

Can I have the microphone please? Margo, would you join us on stage please?

Sometimes something outside of us shows us what’s happening within us.

there’s this woman, a homeless woman in my town, and I see her everywhere. She’s walking over here, she’s over there, she’s at the convenience store. She’s walking across the bridge. a couple days ago,

I’m driving over the bridge, and I see the woman, but she’s not there. I see the woman in my eyes, and she’s walking all over the place. And I heard, “She’s just like you. she’s like you.” That’s what I kept hearing, “Just like you.” I pulled over as I got off the overpass, and I said, “Whoa.

What does that mean?” And it just looks different, but those patterns, I do those patterns, right? Like, I do the same thing almost every day. So that was deep for me.

when Margo told me this story, just a couple of days ago, she got to that point and she said, “That was me.”

And It hit me like a ton of bricks. I’m like, “Oh. That’s me, too.” How am I moving through life repetitively? How am I going from here to there to there to there? Because that’s the pattern. there’s no intention with it, I’m just moving along my life. How am I like that? It’s a moment of self-awareness.

🌿 Breaking the Pattern with New Intention

out of that self-awareness, we had this idea, of changing Singing 101 to a way for us to break out of this pattern, It’s not really about learning how to sing. It’s changed its name. It’s now

The Singing Collective. And there’s a new intention behind it. Tell me about the intention.

Well, it’s just so that you can get out of your pattern and connect with yourself

tell me about your vision.

I want you to sing this song that I’m gonna teach you.

You’re gonna learn this song, and then we’re gonna walk across the Golden Gate Bridge and sing this song, Walking For Love. Together. But the whole idea about Singing Collective is that you need to be connected. if you can’t connect with yourself, you can’t connect with anybody else, you can’t change your patterns.

That’s what I say.

Mic drop.

🎤 Small Shifts That Create Big Change

Lisa will talk about when the Singing Collective starts and how you can participate I’m going to be there. It’s an opportunity for us to break out of that pattern and try something new.

It’s like, when you’re singing in the shower and no one can hear you. Anybody do that? Yeah. How about when you’re driving in the car, windows are rolled up, the music’s blaring, and you’re singing as loud as you can until you get to that stop sign and look next to you and someone’s going

And then you stop. It’s singing like that. It’s singing without fear, without, concerns.

there are so many ways in which we can shift our patterns in small, easy ways, in ways that we can intentionally make a change so that we’re no longer sitting in that same mindset of being stuck.

Without any BSG. No blame, shame and guilt. The world gives us enough of that. Don’t blame yourself. Don’t shame yourself. Don’t guilt yourself. Just simply shift your mindset around it. Make a new choice. Make a new pattern. And from that self-awareness, change begins.

🙏 Affirmation for Cultivating Change

Let’s move to our affirmation, Felix. I’m gonna read our affirmation, and then I’ll invite you to affirm it with me. Centered in the Presence within me, I release old patterns and cultivate new life with intention, faith, and love. Together, centered in the Presence within me, I release old patterns and cultivate new life with intention, faith, and love.

And so it is. Let’s take that enter, into our time of meditation and affirmative prayer.