How to Achieve Your Goals | Rev. John Riley

To get up here. Now, The Voices of Unity. Praise team. That was fabulous. Beautiful, wonderful. Welcome everyone. Well, it’s the end of January. Can you believe it? We’re on our way, aren’t we? So a quick question for you. This is just a sidebar. You know, it’s the end of January. Have you put away all of your ornaments yet from whatever holiday you were? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yes. Some yeses, some nos. A definite yes. You know, last year there for us, there always is like one ornament that doesn’t get put away. One thing this year, it’s a candle with bells around it, so it’s somewhere else. Now, in our living room last year, there were two little ornaments that as we were putting their, their, their friends away, they scurried underneath the TV console and hunkered down for the whole year. And then at the, when we’re ready to decorate the tree, the next year, they came on out and said, Hey, we’re here. So yet, the whole year long, they were, they were out. Well the other thing that’s interesting about the end of January, I think, is that this is about the time when those new year resolutions begin to fade from our memory.Anybody have that, that experience? 

They start to flicker away. So this morning, I thought, you know, why is that? And I went online, I did a quick search, and here are the top five things, the top five reasons that those New Year’s resolutions tend to flicker away. Now, I want you to listen to them, listen to me, listen to them, and see if you can hear a  theme or see if it’s, see how it shows up in you. So the first one is setting unrealistic expectations. Wanna resonate with that one? How about not going step by step? Too many goals at once. An inability to identify the obstacles. Now, in those top four, are you hearing a theme of what’s it saying to you? Anybody? Unrealistic expectations. Yeah. So too much stuff. What’s it saying about you?

Lack of limitation, lack and limitation. Not enough. I’m failing. Oh my gosh, you set too much unrealistic expectations. Can you believe that you did that? I know Karen’s looking at me like, how can you say that to me? You’re not going step by step, Karen. I’m just saying there are too many goals at once. All of these things are like shaming us and blaming us. Of course, you’re gonna fail. The fifth top reason. Stress. Well, yeah, you’ll look at the top four, of course, it’s gonna be stress. We put so much weight on ourselves for these new year resolutions.

Patterns and Habits 

Have you experienced that? So much weight on us. And then we blame ourselves for it. Flying away. It just flickers away. And we blame ourselves. And of course that creates stress. But here’s the thing, the real problem is not that you have unrealistic expectations, because I think that whatever you are imagining for yourself, whatever good you’re imagining for yourself is within your realm of possibility if you choose to do it. But I think what really gets in our way is that we are battling those old patterns, our old past and our old perceptions. So it really doesn’t matter what you’re going to put in front of you. It could be easy peasy lemon squeezy. But the problem is, if we have these old perceptions that say, you know, I can’t really get there, I’m not gonna do that. And those perceptions, what we call those beliefs bs, it’s a spiritual term.

What’s it stand for? Belief system. I had to get that out there right away, just in case anybody went, took it in a different direction. Thank right? Those beliefs start to act up and they put up a fight. And our, our automatic behaviors put up a fight because that’s the way we’ve always done it. And most of it’s unconscious. Most of it is, is beyond our realm of understanding, because we just aren’t looking within for that solution. So what is it that I can do to move beyond that? Will we become aware of those emerging possibilities? And that’s another wonderful word for a resolution. An emerging possibility. A possibility for each of us and what we can become and how we can live life now we can experience life when we become aware of those emerging possibilities, all of those past present, all of the past, our perceptions and our patterns fight against it because it means they’re in trouble.

Find The New You! 

Because something has to give in order for this newness to emerge, you have to make space within your consciousness before these new ideas, these old ideas, these same idea, the same set of resolutions that you had 2, 3, 4 years ago can come into manifestation. There has to be an, a safe space for it to land. And let me tell you, there is a war going on inside of your head whenever you set a goal, whenever you have that emerging vision of something, of you being a more of who you’ve come here to be, I like to call it my authentic self. You might call it, you know, that spark of divinity, that higher self, you know, but that, that better half that Christ consciousness, that part of me that is that pure essence. I just want to give a little bit more to the world and to experience with a little bit more from that perspective. And all of the old patterns start to kick in and start to create. And then we start to identify it with people out there and things out there and experiences out there. The biggest challenge that we have are these old patterns, pasts and perceptions that are embedded within us that we tend to adopt as our sense of self.

So the things that happened in the past become our, you know, story of who we are in the present moment. They have been a long time ago. And yet we’re still expressing and experiencing it in this present moment because we’re bringing it up right now. All of those, the pasts, all of those perceptions, those old perceptions about who people are and what they’ve, what they’re like. And you know, I have this perception of somebody when they come in the room. I’m just expecting them to be that way. And I’m only gonna see that perception. I’m not gonna see anything else unless I take the time to disengage, to let go of the old stuff in the Tao Te Ching, Lao Sue said, “when you let go of what you are, you become what you might be by letting go. It all gets done. I let go of all desire for the common good and the good becomes as common as grass. If you can let go of the dow, if you can let go of that state of consciousness, if you can let go of your efforting to be enlightened, if you can let go with your mind and surrounded with your heart, it will live inside you forever.” Let’s unpack this a little bit because the first one here, when you let go of what you are, you become what you might be. And so we have to let go of the old patterns, the old pasts and the old perceptions that we have made, our sense of self, all of a sudden that’s who we are. We’re so unconscious that we’re walking through the world with this persona, right? And not and less of our authentic self because those old things are driving us now. 

Let Go and Start Being Who You Want to Be

We did the Burning Bolt service at the beginning of the year and that was our way of one practice, of letting go.And then we did our whitestone service, which is our practice of filling in that space with who we’ve come here to be. And, and the, the sense of who we want to bring into the world, that authentic part of us that we want to give more to the world. What a beautiful experience. And yet at some time down the road, you may have felt that you have let go of some things. And yet here it is again. Anybody have that experience besides me? Oh, thank you. I’m not alone, right? We let go of some of this and then it just comes right back. Why is that? It’s because we’re not done with it yet. We’re not done with it yet. And it’s interesting cuz you’ll see people, you know, will get into conversations, oh, I’m so over that, you know, they’re not. The more enthusiasm and energy they put into the saying they’re over, it means there’s a little bit of attachment there still.

This is from experience. So this, I’m talking about myself here. None of you, of course, I’m not talking about you talking about myself and, and you know, I know when I’m done with it, when I, it just isn’t a a part of me anymore. It doesn’t come up anymore. I don’t, you know, it’s not something that I remember as much. It’s like, oh yeah, okay, I remember that. But you know what, it’s just, it’s now in the archives. I’ve clicked that archive button and that email’s gone. I don’t know where it goes, it’s just in the archives. I’ve never found the archives. I’m sure they’re there somewhere if I ever want to rehash it, but I really don’t. So we have to let things go and to bring forth that emerging possibility, that greater sense of freedom. So any emerging possibility that’s coming up for us, what we want is the experience that’s behind it, right?

Be Your Authentic Self – Be You

We want the experience of sensing, of feeling a greater sense of freedom. We want the experience of having greater peace of mind, more love in our relationships of being kinder, of having a sense of oneness. Whatever those senses are that we feeling. That’s that’s a product of us being more of simply our authentic self. There isn’t anything that we have to do to achieve it. And that’s what he means by if you say, if you let go of the dao, then you will experience in your mind, then you will experience the dao in your heart. If you let go of this awaking moment and just allow it, you’ll be it. It’s all the efforting that gets in our way, right? If we’re, if we’re so concerned about bringing good in the world, as he said, let me reread that line by letting go, oh wait, I let go of all desire for the common good and the good becomes as common as the grass I let go of all desire for the common good.

You see, we get so caught up in our attachment for things being right and good that we want to create right and good in the world, and we want to be that beacon for, and that’s all fine. But that attachment also means that we’re coming to the situation with a sense of what lack. It’s all messed up. And you know, if we are holding consciousness, the world is messed up trying to bring good, what are we gonna bring? More messed upness. I dunno if that’s a word or not. You can, the arians can, I don’t know if that’s a word. You can correct me later. But you see, it’s that consciousness. And what, what Lao Sue is saying is that if we let go of the attachment to it, we’re not saying it’s not important. But if we hold such an attachment to anything in our lives, anything that we call good in our lives, we’re holding that attachment.

And we’re looking at it from the perspective of I don’t have it. So that grip is enforcing. I don’t have it. I’m not, and  the having it isn’t even what we want. What we want lies behind the thing. What we want is the experience of it, the thought of it. What we want is the sense of freedom. What we want is the sense of inner peace, of contentment, of joy, of bliss. And when we let go of our attachment to it, we’re letting go of the I’m not it. And we’re just allowing what is already within you to come forward. We’re allowing that divine essence, that spark to shine a little bit more so you can experience it. I think we’re all looking for that aha moment. And, and most I think all religious traditions have some aha moment, have some awakening moment, have some moment when you experience something. Now not everybody in them has experienced that. But when you experience it, what I’ve noticed is that I don’t experience it when I’m striving to experience it. I’ve had meditation experiences that were just out of this world, that were fantastic. I walk out of them and the world is different. The world is shimmering. It’s like a burning bush. The trees are all shimmering. And when I try to do it again, what am I doing? I’m efforting because I think I’m not there.

Stop Efforting

So instead of efforting, they’ve all happened. When I stopped efforting, I do the practices, I do my daily meditation, I do my daily affirmative prayer. You know, I walk out in the world and, and there are times when it’s like, ah, joy, bliss, oneness. Oneness. And not even a nest, just one by efforting less by allowing that storm in our brain to calm down. So in our daily lives, what does this really mean? I, one of the most one, one thing that really is so heartwarming for me, it’s so rewarding for me is when somebody comes and tells me how they’ve taken, you know, a spiritual principle and they’ve applied it to their life in the world, <affirmative> in their job, as if, you know, there’s a difference between spirituality and the rest of your life. For me, there isn’t. It’s all one thing.

And we talk about being spiritual beings. Yeah, you’re a spiritual being and everything you do in life is spiritual. And it’s wonderful to hear this person came back to me and said, you know, I applied this and this is how I looked at it. And she told a teammate of hers, they’re basically what she said is that there are three boxes. So this all relates to letting go of the past, okay? Because the past is what I think were really gets in our way more than we think. Because all of those automatic patterns, all of those automatic beliefs, the past, are all generated from our past. And so by letting go of them, and we can live more into them, we can live more into who we’ve, we’ve come here to be. Yes, that make sense? So she said, what I did was I came up with the idea of three boxes. And you know, she told her teammate, you know, when we were going through this exercise, cuz they’re doing it, they’re talking about the past, meaning like two weeks ago.

And you can do this, the past, meaning, you know, 20, 30 years ago, it’s the same thing. Cuz two minutes ago is no different than 20 years ago, it’s still in the past and whatever we, whatever we’re holding onto from two minutes ago, or two weeks ago, is what we’re living in the present moment. So she came up with the idea of three boxes. Let me get this out and make sure I get this right. So here’s the first box. Box number one, as they’re looking at things that had happened in the past and looking at maybe what went right and what went wrong, the first box was, you know, this are the stu this is the stuff that’s out of my control. Okay? So we, they did a project and something happened, and this happened and that happened. It doesn’t matter what it is in life, but they were out of, it was out of that person’s control. They had no control over it. So this is the box for, you know, this is not in my control. I can put it in this box. Anybody have one of those situations in their life? Okay? So what can you learn from something that’s out of your control?

How Can I Do Better? 

Let go. Acceptance, non-resistance. It’s like, okay, this is just what is, it’s outta my control. I can learn from myself. I don’t have to stress about it anymore. It was outta my control. I can learn from this that, you know, even if it feels uncomfortable at a time, I can show up how I want to show up. I can show up as my better self in those situations, recognizing, okay, it’s outta my control. And yet here I am willing to do the work. The second box, we’re gonna take a nice deep breath. Okay, I made a mistake.

There’s something that I did that wasn’t quite right, I was at fault for something happening. So we take all of those and we put them in this box. This is my mistake box. What can we learn from our mistakes better? How to do better? Yeah. And not just how to do better, like write better code or do a bread or spreadsheet or write words that make wordy, wordy sense. Clearly I can do better there, but how can I do better in the situation? And how can I own? What’s mine to own? You know, okay, I was a knucklehead.

I can own that and not blame and shame myself. I can put it in the box. You see, the thing is we’re not putting it in the box. What we’re usually doing is hiding it, right? Oh, I made a mistake. I’m not telling anyone, everyone keep their mouth shut, no one will know. And what we’re doing is we’re pushing the blame off on other people or when it comes up, oh yeah, and I made a mistake, don’t worry, I’m not gonna worry about that. Yep, I’m done. I’m done with it. I figured out how to be better. So we just kind of push it aside, we bypass it, we ignore it, we pretend it isn’t there. And what happens? It’s not in the box, it’s still, we’re still holding onto it. It’s still within us, and we’ll still make those same mistakes. We’ll still show up that way. It’s like, oh my gosh, I thought I was done with this because we weren’t finished processing it, we weren’t done with it. See, all of these ideas, these past things are not, you know, not here. They’re not bad.

What if we thought of them as evolutionary drivers? What if we thought about everything in that box? Now is is a tool for me to learn from? It’s like, oh, I’m making that mistake again here. Let me pick up my box. I have it categorized. What did I do last time? How can I move through it a little bit more effectively here? How can I use it to, for my good to bring out more good? How can I shift the energy around it? How can I own what’s happening instead of projecting onto other people? The third box is for, you know what, it was in my control. I didn’t make a mistake. There’s just a new way to look at it. There’s a new perspective.

Now, this was a very real world example in a high tech company. There’s just a, a new, someone came in with a new way to look at it and a new perspective. And how many times when you have that new way of looking at it, perspective, do you shut down? Do you say, nope, my way is the only way. Well, can you learn from that new perspective? Anything that we learn in our spiritual talk here today that’s new for you? Hey, this is just a new perspective. Why am I pushing it away? And what can it u what can I use out of it? If I look at it, one of the things that I do all the time is question my sh my stuff, whatever. I’m all this I’m trying to think of a word. This, this blabbering that I do up here.

That’s a good wordy thing. Yeah, right? All of these talks, I always question these principles. I always question to see, well, how is that really showing up for me? I always try to embody it so that I can see what the truth in is it, what, what truth is there in it for me so I can be a better wordy person? Yeah. Today is just not happening. I don’t know, it must not be spirit coming through me. I don’t know. But but so I can articulate it better so I can give you better examples so I can show up how see, to show how it might be relevant to you. So if you took everything that I said and questioned everything that I said and said, how would this work in my life? That’s our fifth principle. How can I put this into work in my life so that I can experience more joy, more bliss, more peace of mind? How can I put this in my life? And then measure the difference. And see sometimes, you know, in this, in this growing up phase of the cleaning up phase of a cleansing our consciousness and growing up phase of, of spiritual growth, we don’t know it until we’re there. All of a sudden it’s like, oh, I’m less off.

That’s general. I’m generally in favor of that. How about you? Yeah, so, oh, there’s a little shift in me. I’m, I’m a little kinder, you know, if I look back, because a lot of times we don’t see it until we’re in it, you know, and if we look back five years or 10 years, it’s like, oh yeah, I’m a different person. That’s because we didn’t bypass it. We didn’t shove it away. We just, we, we, we put it in the box and used it. Now, when you’re done with the box, when the box is full, you’ve taken it out of your consciousness, out of your awareness. You’ve categor, you’ve put it in the box, you can certainly give the box away, although I don’t know if anybody’s gonna wanna wear that. But what most of us do is package it up and put it in the attic, right?

Because those experiences, the, the events don’t go away, but our perspective about it goes away. Our, our perspective about it changes, our belief about it changes. And so we’re ne when we’re able to change that story, that structure about that belief, you know, all of those, that information is still there. And when it comes up again, it’s like, oh, okay, I remember it’s in this box, in the attic or in the basement, depending on where you live and or in the closet or in the storage unit. And I can go get it and I can say, ah, yes, here’s what I learned. Here’s what I can continue to learn from it. So instead of bypassing it, we’re, we’re using it as an evolutionary driver. We’re using it as something that will lift us up and do it in a way that’s less efforting, less trying, and just being in it and allowing it with more ease and grace.