Evolving Out of Not Enough – Step 1: Decide | Rev. John Riley

Breaking Free from Scarcity

Good morning, unity. Good morning. Well, we are in the process of evolving out of not enough. How’s it going so far? Wow, that’s incredible. You’re way ahead of me. Well, this is a, a exciting time as we go through this six week, seven week process of learning how we can look at ourselves and find out where there’s a sense of not enough within us, because that is the one thing that’s really holding us back. And the challenge is, you come, we come up with these ideas, right? This last week. If you’re involved with the fall enrichment program, you may have met with your small group and talk about the things that you want to, you know, do in your life, the things you want to improve, or what you want to grow or what you want to get out of, or perhaps a goal or a dream. Anybody have a goal or a dream that they want to think about in the next few days? Yes. We all have something. We’re, we’re pulled up by Spirit. We’re pulled up by Spirit to, to live a more full and abundant life. To live those principles. But the challenges are, we get all excited about that. And then what happens next?

The Power of Making the Decision

Yeah, nothing happens after that. We get back to our old routines, we get back to our old patterns and those dreams that spark that initial idea starts to become a distant little flicker in our consciousness. And what happens is that we, when we’re looking to grow with what we wanna accomplish and, and how we wanna move forward, we have these ideas, these sparks that come and we say, that’s it. And then life happens. We get back to our old routines, right? So we are here to help us move beyond that point. And the first step in that process is making the decision, making the decision. You could write that down. There’ll be a test afterwards making the decision, right? Because we all have those goals and dreams and ideas. But the first thing that comes into our mind is, yeah, but have you experienced that? And it might be the idea of, yeah, but I I don’t have enough skills. Yeah, but I, I, you know, I need, first I need to learn this, or first this needs to happen, or first, all of those people outside of me need to change.

Navigating the Drift Between Dreams and Reality

So what happens during that time is we begin to drift. We begin to drift out of that sense of our oneness with Spirit. You know, we have this idea, we might have an experience in meditation, and then we go home and, and life takes us into that drift of all of the things that are happening in our world that tend to distract us. You might have a, you may be part of, or somebody who thinks, you know, I need to, if I, if I have a dream, I need to have a goal and I need to have an action plan. And for some of us, it’s that massive giant, humongous action plan. And we spend so much time creating the action plan that we never actually start the doing, the walking, the being. Have you experienced that before?

A Path to Achieving Your Dreams

When I was in high tech, I had a colleague that was in the product marketing group, and he was finally promoted to he was promoted and given a product to take on. And so he made his lists and he remade his lists and he remade his lists. He put little flags next to them. But the problem was nothing really ever moved forward because he was too focused on, what do I need to do? He was too focused in the sense of, I don’t have enough skills, I don’t have enough motivation, I don’t have enough to move forward in that idea. So we start to distract ourselves. We may distract ourselves with, I don’t know, the dishes. Anybody need to do the dishes when they get home. That’s the first thing you’re gonna do. Kent, we may distract ourselves with the gardening, with the shopping. We may distract ourselves with a good book. There’s nothing wrong with any of those. I’m fully in favor of Kent doing the dishes. Yes, I am fully in flavor, in flavor, in favor of clean clothes and, you know, beautiful gardens and, and wonderful books. But those can also become distractions when we’re trying to move in a certain direction and lift ourselves up.

Staying Aligned with Your True Path

So those things aren’t bad, it’s just when do we use them or when do we go to them as a distraction from what we wanna accomplish? So noticing when we are distracting ourselves with other things, instead of doing what we think we ought to do. Where the mo where the movement, where the initial idea was drawing us to, we, we may start to redirect, right? I know one of my patterns are that I’ve seen, okay, one of my patterns are I just owned myself. I just outed myself. One of my patterns is if I see something or you know, I, there’s a way I need to go, I start redirecting the energy, I start redirecting the energy into another project. I start redirecting the energy into something that’s not quite as important, but it’s easier. Oh, I hear a lot of yeah. And then we start leaking energy. Since we’re doing all of those things where we come out of it drained, or we look at this idea, this grand vision of who we’re supposed to be or who we’re who we’ve come here to be our goal. And we look at it and it’s draining us. And we just feel so tired that I’ll get to that tomorrow.

Choosing Growth Over Stagnation

Well, it’s two years later. And here we are. So, when, when does that happen? Not if when, because we all have that instinct within us. We all have that instinct that’s within us to just slow down. Everything’s fine. Exactly where you are. You’re safe if you don’t move from right here. The problem is, we’re not safe. And we won’t ever grow if we don’t decide to make that choice. Right? We make the decision so we’re too busy focused on the shadow. Here’s the thing. With every spark, with every spark, there is a shadow with every spark of light, every inspiration, every, every glimmer of ideas or fascination, any, any anything that we’re drawing any spark within us. We see that. And yet it shines a light on us and reveals our shadow. And we’re so busy focused on our shadow that we’re not paying attention to the spark. We’re so focused on the yeah, buts. I can’t do that because of this. And so then we start to treat the Abbotts, right?

Transcending Fear to Embrace Your True Goals

Then we start to, we, we we’re focusing on the shadows and we’re thinking, you know, is this goal the right thing anymore? It’s, I cannot, I cannot hardly remember what I said two weeks ago, right? Is that the right thing? We might say, you know, I don’t have the right, fill in the blank, as a way of focusing on our shadow. We might say, I’m blaming other people or other conditions out there because I can’t get to where I need to be ’cause they won’t do what I need them to do. And we might even blame it on fear. We might even say fear is the enemy. Fear is not the enemy. We might say fear is an absence of love. Fear is not an absence of love. Rather, it is the proof that there is love. It’s a love with attachment. It’s a love with attachment, afraid to lose something.

Navigating Doubt and Redirection

That’s what fear is. Fear is a great warning sign. And what it’s telling us is there’s something within us that needs to shift. And so when we’re focused on all of those things, we’re focused on the shadow. And the shadow is not the problem. Everyone take a nice deep breath. ’cause They know the contradiction in your head is like, yeah, but, I do question if this is, is this is the right thing? I do wonder because I get redirected. Well, maybe the universe doesn’t want me to go in that direction.

Unveiling the Power Within

You know, I do question those things. I I question them all the time. But the shadow is not the problem. That’s the symptom. Your, your shadow self, those false belief, those that shadow self, how that comes, comes about and comes around is not the problem. It’s just the symptom of the false belief that lies underneath it. And that’s where our power lies. If we go to that false belief and start to question it, that’s where we can move beyond it. That’s where the shadow, we bring the shadow into the light and say, Hey, look at me. Look how I redirect. And I’m aware of it. Isn’t that great? You can say yes, it’s okay. The key word there was aware, right? But notice your resistance. Notice the resistance to the symptom. ’cause None of us like to, likes to feel the symptoms. We wanna feel the goodness, but the belief is the cause of those symptoms. And so we treat the cause, we look at how we can, can evolve out of that belief that we are not enough. The belief of I am not enough.

The Power of Decision

The belief of I am not worthy. The belief of there, you know, there is not enough, which is an extension of I’m not enough. And so here’s where the key turning point lies and your decision to say, here’s my goal, here’s my dream. I know that I want to evolve out of this idea. I know I want to of not enough. I know I want to accomplish greater things. More importantly, I want to be greater things. I want to be that light in the world. I want to shine that light into the world. And so when we have that turning point, this decision point, all we have to do is say yes and make the decision to move in that direction. Now that sounds easy, doesn’t it? And the challenges come back to, you know, this, the shadow knowing, okay, here are the symptoms. And here’s here’s the point. If you see those symptoms in you and you’re aware of them and you’re aware, oh, here’s where I’m drifting. Oh, here’s where I’m blaming. Oh, here’s where I’m moving my direction somewhere else. What great strength there is in that awareness. Instead of making that your enemy, make that your friend, oh, here I am, I’m doing it again.

Embracing Self-Discovery and Empowerment

Well, let me just right the ship. Let me just move with ease and grace over here. It makes a big difference the mentality that you take around it. Because when you’re blaming and shaming yourself about all of the things that you’re doing that’s preventing you from reaching your goal, all of that shadow material that you’re blaming, shaming, and guilting yourself about, it’s dragging you down even more.
That becomes the lens through which you see that, that solidifies that belief in you. The belief is right, I’m not enough. Here’s my proof. Let me unpack my shadow for you. It’s something that I created and, and I own it. And when I own it, then I can bring it into delight and make friends with it and say it’s okay. Because I know it’s just the belief that lies behind it, that I’m not enough. So how do we do that? How do we, how do we start this process? Well, if you have something that you’re working on, a lot of people raised their hands when they said they had goals or dreams or something they wanted to accomplish in life, something they wanna be in life, you know, a greater sense of self. What, what Casey called that, that I am consciousness of living into.

Unleashing Your Original Blessing

That I am consciousness that was ushered in so many years ago and living more into that. Well, first we need to take a look at our vision because most of us have very cloudy visions. We have this idea that’s out there, and yet we’re coming at it from that sense of not enough. We’re coming at it from that belief of not enough. So get clear on your vision from the sense of, from the standpoint of, I’m overflowing and this is my natural next step. In unity, we teach that you are an original blessing. We teach that each of you is that spark of divinity. And we teach that each of you is that that individual spark that looks and shines brightly uniquely as you. And so when we own that part of us, we’re coming from that part of us. We’re coming from a sense of overflowing, the overflowing of Spirit, the overflowing of love, the overflowing of peace, and how can I give more of that to the world?

Embracing Life’s Course Corrections

So get focused on your, on your vision. Now, next week Rusty’s gonna be our speaker and he’s gonna lead you through a process to do just that. Get focused. The second part, there will be mistakes, there will be errors, there will be failures along every road. There is a bump that we trip on. We talked about it earlier, right? Life, life is, life is. And all of those things will happen in life. And when we come at it, those bumps from a state sense of not enough, it just takes us deeper into that. And it prevents us from moving forward. But when we come at it from a, from a sense of, oh, here’s, here’s a redirection for me, this is a, this is a course change. This is a course correction. That’s all it is.

Embracing Mistakes and Growing from Failures

There’s a bump in the road and I need to figure out how can I move out of it? How can I move in a different direction? How can I learn from it? How can I grow from it? And the way that I do that, that’s been really helpful lately, is through the idea of being transparent. So a mistake happens. Be transparent with yourself. What’s mine to own? What’s mine not to own? You know, where do I take less than a hundred percent responsibility? Where do I take more than a hundred percent responsibility? And where can I let go of that and just own what’s mine and own it transparently? And how can I be more transparent with those I’m working with or interacting with or being with, so that I’m not hiding that true self. I’m trying to hide my mistakes.

Unmasking the Power of Transparency

I’m trying to hide my failures or my shortcomings. And that with that, I hide all of me. When I’m hiding those things, I’m not moving forward. I’ve made the decision to stay put, to be silent, to not shine, to be just one of the cogs. So be transparent with yourself about where that shows up in your life and be willing to own what’s yours. And there will be times when there are setbacks. There will be times when things don’t go quite the way we planned. I have my ma my giant action plan and it’s not working. Anybody have one of those? Anybody experience that you have a plan and it just doesn’t go quite the way you want it to go.

The Journey of Self-Discovery

Last week we talked about the story of Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt and how the burning bush inspired him. That was the spark. That was the spark that said you were to usher in this new era, the I am consciousness. And Moses said, no, I’m okay. I’m good. Thanks. Anyways, ask my brother. He spent 40 years as a shepherd and then he finally said, okay, I’ll do it. And he starts leading the Israelites out. And some say it should have only taken 11 days. I don’t know. It took 40 years. So again, the metaphor of the Bible, the Bible is this re reflection of our consciousness.

Navigating the Wilderness Within

We are in that 40 year wandering period when we are attached to our shadow, when we’re attached tSo the key here is making the decision is deciding, I’m going to keep going when it’s tough. I’m going to keep going when it’s difficult. When I’m, I’m running up against my own blocks, I’m gonna keep going when you know there are tomatoes and rocks being thrown at me. ’cause They just don’t understand. There’s somebody who’s lost in their own shadow. Can you see that perspective? How about this perspective, when you were throwing the rocks in the tomatoes, that was us living from our own shadow, our own sense of not enough, our own sense of anger and frustration. Blaming, fear, blaming the other, blaming everyone except for knowing our own oneness with God.

From Complaints to Manifestations

The infinite intelligence of allness that’s always there, always present. And so I’m going to give you a key now to help you make the decision, the decision process where you get that idea and you move into it and you start doing it. To this feeling of not enough, the sense of not enough. I’m wandering in the universe, in the wilderness. And I love what Exodus says in chapter 16, verses one through three. So here’s what’s happening. They’re on their way out with the whole congregation of the Israelites set forth from elem came to the wilderness of sine, which is between elem and Sinai. On the 15th day of the second month after they departed the land of Egypt, everyone got that math right. The whole congregation of Israelites started complaining.

Navigating the Wilderness of Life

They complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The Israelites said to them, if only we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, who we sat by the pots of meat and ate our fill of bread, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill us. This whole assembly with hunger. So have you ever felt that you’re on the way in the path and all of a sudden it’s hard, there are setbacks and you’re like, I wish I was just staying where I was, eating myself full of good stuff. Not growing, not moving, not achieving, not being, I’d rather die that way than to struggle and die of hunger. But you see, the hunger is also the metaphor within us, because we are all hungry for that experience of oneness. That’s the metaphor of of this message, is that hunger that’s within us that gave you that impulse to begin with, that sparked to begin with that goal, that dream, that hunger within you. And instead of when you’re feeling that hunger instead of moving forward, we wander in the wilderness and then we complain about everyone else, especially those who are the leaders.

Exploring Unity’s Five-Step Prayer Journey

I have, oh, they’re on the printer. I have reflection sheets on the printer, which I’ll put out on the welcome table after we’re done that you can pick those up. If you’re in the fall enrichment program, they have the study guide questions that can help you deepen your relationship and, and talk to one another about it. And, and if you’re not, you can pick one up anyways and just allow it to help you deepen your experience of it. Last week we talked about the five step prayer practice, and we’re all experts now, right? I’ll,l refresh your memory. The five step prayer practice in unity, our Unity’s affirmative prayer practice. The first one is relaxation. Step one to relax. The second step is concentration. Thank you Joe. Concentration. Concentration brings us into meditation, concentration, mindful meditation, focusing on your breath, focusing on a mantra, focusing on an affirmation, but giving your brain something to do so that it begins to relax and move into meditation. The third step is realization. That’s when we’re in, oh, sorry, go ahead. Meditation sorry, sorry.

The Path to Prayer

So say it again. Relaxation, concentration, meditation. Real realization. Sorry. Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. Okay. So I’m gonna adjust it a little bit ’cause I can concentration, get focused. Meditation. Wait, dang it, I already screwed that up. Relaxation. And I’m a minister. I studied this stuff. We all make mistakes. Yeah. We all have errors in our life. We relax, we begin to focus our mind and our attention and our breath on our affirmation, on our, our sense of self. We move into a state of meditation. And in that meditation there is, we enter into the silence. In the meditation, we enter into that realm. When, when our thoughts are relaxed, our ego is relaxed and we’re in the silence. The realization is when we affirm the truth. When we say, I know I am one with the infinite flow of life for love and wisdom.

Embracing the Five-Step Path to Spiritual Oneness

I am one with all of life. I am Spiritually whole. Regardless of what’s happening around me or in me. I’m Spiritually whole. That’s the real that’s the, that fourth step realization. Thank you. And then the fifth step is Thanksgiving. Oh my gosh, I can’t believe that you guys didn’t get this this last week practice.

It’s our, that’s why it’s our daily practice. Thank you very much. I love you too. It’s our daily practice. And when we practice a daily, we have the experience of being more in that oneness in our daily life and living that in our daily life by doing the daily practice. By doing it daily. So here’s a story. I was listening to a book called the Five Second Rule by Mel Robbins.

Overcoming Resistance and Embracing Your Vision

Has anybody heard of it? Yeah. And I’m sitting here listening to her, her actually narrate it and and, and discuss it. And I’m thinking the five second rule and everything makes sense to me because what she’s talking about is what we’re talking about here. That moment that you get that idea, that moment that you have that spark, that that great passion within you, that idea that says, oh, this is it. Here’s my goal. I can see the vision. This is it. The moment you get that, you have to move your feet within five seconds.
What happens after five seconds? This takes over. The brain takes over our sense of not enough takes over our, yeah, but takes over. So think about this. When you’re having that next idea, when that occurs in five seconds, you have to make a decision and take over that self before your ego, self shadow belief takes over. Once that’s in, in drive, in the mode, it’s a little bit harder. So I was reading this book and it’s amazing her story. She was in deep depression for many years. She couldn’t get out of bed some days. Her family was falling apart.

The Countdown to Transformation and Empowerment

Her career was non-existent. She was in such bad shape that she didn’t know what she was going to do. And so she’s lying there in bed one day and on the news is alive, shot of the space shuttle about to take off. And she hears the words ’cause nothing else is really going on in her head at that point. She hears the words 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, blast off and up the shuttle went. And she said to herself, that’s it. She said to herself, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, go. And she got out of bed. She did that every day and got out of bed. She did that every day and rebuilt her life. She did that every day to help her move through these Yeah, buts every time a yeah, but came in, she just went back to the countdown. And you go backwards because if you go forward, there’s six and seven and eight. And I’m not a mathematician, but I think it goes on pretty far.

Overcoming Self-Doubt and Realizing Your Potential

So go backwards to zero and go five seconds. Now she started doing Ted talks and in one of her Ted talks, her most famous Ted talk, at the very end almost she throws into this thing, oh yeah, I’ve been doing this. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 thing. And that was the thing that everyone loved. She’s, but what about the rest of the TED talk? No, no, no, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. So she started investigating it. Well, why did that work for me? And she started cautiously writing a book. She started researching it. And all of the brain science and what we know from the quantum living class and what we know from the, the things that we’ve studied, when we look at, when we have that idea, if we allow that shadow sense of not enough to take over, it’s an uphill battle with ourself, not with everyone else around us, with our ourself.

Igniting Action and Overcoming Resistance

So the research showed that within five seconds, the amygdala starts to cue in that, Hey, there’s this great idea that’s happening. I better keep us safe. So the shadow, the the fight, the fight, flight, freeze or please mechanism goes into play. And usually we just stop and say, no, I’m good. That’s risky. But if we can interrupt that pattern within the first five seconds, we can move on. So I started practicing this and I did it when I was getting out of bed. Now, how many of you are snooze button pushers? Yeah, that’s great, isn’t it? Boop, boop, boop. So I set an attention the night before and I said, okay, I’m gonna get up at six o’clock in the morning and write The alarm went off. I’m like, oh, you know, I could, nope, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And I wheeled myself up and I did that every day for the next week. And that changed everything because that one practice was the skill I needed in the moment of having that deep inspiration to say, move forward on it. Don’t analyze it.

Aligning with Divine Guidance and Taking Action

Don’t figure out what you don’t have, don’t figure out why it’s not gonna work. And you know, throw the swat analysis out the window because what you wanna focus on is moving one step forward right now. And so I started using that. Whenever I started having doubts about my talks about the false program, about anything, I just thought, okay, stop. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. And what I realized is I was doing the five step prayer practice in those five seconds by calling it the Spirit, the five step spiritual check-in trademark. Step number one, breathe in and affirm I am at peace. Step number two, breathe out and ask the question, am I on the right track? What’s my next step?

From Anxiety to Inspired Action

One question, I’m at peace. What’s my next step? And in that moment, I got the sense, I got that answer in the silence, the realization. It’s like I’m on the, then a breath in, I’m on the right path, breath out. This is, I’m grateful. And gratitude became something different. Gratitude wasn’t, oh, that was so nice. What a lovely experience. So grateful gratitude was, alright, I’ve got the energy, let’s go. And the fifth, the last part was go. So 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Breathe in, affirm, I’m at peace. Breathe out. What’s my next step? Breathe in. Pause. Listen for the answer. Listen for the impulse. Breathe in. Affirm what is true. I’m on the right path. Breathe out. Thank you, Spirit, go. This helped me every time. You know, when you get stressed and the anxiety starts to kick in, we all know that feeling right? We start to get worried. We start pacing around the room, we start talking to ourselves. Or is that just me?

From Worry to Empowerment

Luckily I have an office way in the back, nobody can hear me. When I realized I was doing that, I went back to 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I’m at peace. What’s my next step? And I got the impulse go. I’m grateful. Here’s the step. I’m grateful. Go. Every time it worked. I didn’t know what the results were going to be. I didn’t know whether I was going to succeed or fail. And ultimately I still don’t. But what I do know is that I stopped worrying. I stopped feeling the gravity holding me back. I start stopped feeling that inertia. I stopped distracting myself. When I got to the point where I want to go, distract myself. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. I’m at peace. Is this the right thing to do? Yes or no grateful and go, because sometimes it was, sometimes I needed a, a brain break. But it was authentic. I was transparent with myself.

Trusting the Spirit’s Guidance on Your Journey

When it was not true, I was transparent with myself. This is not the right thing to do. So go back to doing what you’re doing, push through. It was telling me to push through. Now I, we all, I always get the ideas or the questions around whether you know, well, what if this isn’t the right thing to do or not. What if you know, how do I know that it’s the right thing to do? I, you know, the only thing that I know is that if you turn within to Spirit, you will get a direction and answer. What I like to ask myself is, is it beneficial for me? Yes or no? Is it beneficial for everyone involved? Yes or no? The answers are yes, that I’m moving forward and I may not know where I’m going. I may forget the five step affirmative prayer practice or unity. I may stumble along the way, but I am going to keep going towards that higher goal of evolving out of not enough.

Embracing Your Destiny and Spiritual Wholeness

So let’s go to our, well, let’s, what am I gonna do now? Here’s the wrap up. It’s up to me. You’ve heard the saying, if it is to be, it’s up to me. I think it was William Jensen who said that if it is to be, it’s up to me. It’s up to me. No one else in this room can prevent me from being who I’ve come here to be. No one else outside of this room. No condition within my body. No condition outside of me can keep me from being who I’ve come here to be. And if I follow that belief, that idea, that knowing that truth, then whatever happens around me, I’m showing up as my highest self and I am a beneficial presence to the world. Get transparent, be authentic. Own yourself and only yourself. And have those, that sense of spiritual boundaries, that sense of spiritual wholeness. And have faith. Faith, I love Charles s Fillmore’s definition of faith. He said, faith is more than mere belief. It is the very substance of which that is believed. It works by love. That’s all we need to worry about.

Living with Focus and Faith

Any thoughts of condemnation, enmity, or resistance must be released so that divine love can be declared. So we can open ourselves up to that which is already within us. That energy, that love, that, that peace, those ideas are all in there. Now let’s move to our affirmation. I’m going to read our affirmation, then invite you to affirm it with me. With focus and faith, wonder and worth. I seek the truth and live full out together.