Life – Write Your Story | Rev. John Riley

There is a story within you, a powerful story that’s bursting to get out. It is the story of your higher self, your authentic self. You might call it, “the Christ within you, or the divine within you.” It’s the story of your authentic self in expression, just waiting to be out into the world, to live in your world. Today, we’re going to talk about that power —the power of that story, and what it can do for you as you move through it. Are you ready? Ready? Yes. All right. Well, I’m gonna start with a story. I’m gonna tell you a story, of the name of a guy named Jack Benson. This is Jack Benson. And I’m gonna tell you a little bit about Jack before we come back to me on the live stream. 

But this last week for three days, I was at a meeting of regional ministry leaders and teachers learning, growing. And I came across this story that was told by one of my colleagues, Reverend Sheri Larkin, who was the minister of Unity of Auburn, and she told me about Jack Benson. Now, in December of 2019 – believe it was December 20th – Jack’s wife Emma Jean Benson, a wife of 65 years, made her transition. And then three months later – the Covid..kind of call it “the Covid”…I’m gonna call it “the Covid.” So here’s Jack …he just lost his wife. He’s going into shutdown, like the rest of us did. As you can see, Jack wears braces on both legs. He walks with two canes, and he has only 5% eyesight. And I tell you that – which will become clear in a minute – the reason I tell you that. But, there’s one other thing that Jack had, and that’s Unity. Woo. Yeah. Well, Jack’s wife, Emma Jean, was a minister.

And so Jack said, “Okay, I’m not gonna let this Covid thing down.” …You can come back to me now, Ethan… “I’m not gonna let this Covid thing down.” I know… I’m going through a lot of transition. There’s a lot of things happening here. But he was inspired by a movie that he saw, and he decided that he was going to walk 90 miles. By the time he turned 90, he had 11 months. And so we called Reverend Shree and said, Hey, can you help me with this? And so Reverend Shree once a week would go there. And she mapped out a course around the neighborhood that was exactly one mile. And so when Reverend Shree was there, she would walk with him around that for one mile. And then during the week, Jack measured – you know the yard measure. And he would do laps, you know, like we would do in a pool he did in his backyard or in the yard where he was staying. And he did that every day, almost every day, I think. Can you take a guess? He was going for 90 miles by the time he was 90 and had 11 months. Can you take a guess of how many miles he walked?

120 is the top one. Any anyone else? 100, 180, 900. 900. Wow. 547 miles. Wow. Jack walked with with 5% vision, with braces on both legs, having to walk with two canes. Yep. 547 miles. Now isn’t that a powerful story? Does that story inspire you? Maybe to get up and, you know, to walk a mile in a month. Maybe walk a little bit each day, maybe do something healthy for yourself, or maybe take your mind off of the things that we are – that we have lost and put it into something that we can create. And that’s really the power of story. And so today we’re gonna talk about that. And there are so many kinds of stories, right? There’s universal stories or stories about humanity that translate all languages, right? There’s the overcoming stories, the rags to richest stories, the hero journey stories that everyone resonates with.

The Importance of Stories

Story is also how we experience culture. You know, what’s your culture like? Well, we experienced that through story, through the stories that we grew up with, through the stories that were passed down. Generation after generation stories are also how we interact personally. Our relationships are based on stories. Have you noticed that? Our relationships are based on our stories and how we interact with each other. And so I’ve heard it said that the universe is not made up of tiny atoms, but millions of stories. We live life literally, virtually through our stories. And our stories are how we experience life. Our stories cloud our vision, or guide our vision, however we wanna put it, whether we like it or not. If we don’t like it, I guess it’s cloudy. If we do like it, I guess it’s insightful. But our stories are how we are living life. And so they’re so important to us.

And so I’ve kind of broken it down into three categories. There’s the stories of our past, you know, all of those, those are the stories that inform us, right? Those are the stories that create that lens, that, that create that experience of this is what our relationship is like. “Remember back in the day”.. the story starts like that. That’s the story of the past. And then we have stories of the future. Would you call it our pre suffering? Our pre suffering? Yes. I know I’m not gonna be suffering enough in the future, so I might as well, you know, start on my quota of suffering and start right now. That’s our stories about our future. This is what’s going to happen to me. And we’re catastrophizing because of our stories from the past.

You get that? If we didn’t have those stories from the past, we wouldn’t know what to expect. And those expectations are what’s creating that pre suffering. And then there’s the stories in the present moment, which are the pre suffering, the stories in the present moment that we’re creating every day in our life. These are the stories that we’re going to remember as past stories when we get to the future. You’re with me? I haven’t crossed some…you know, back to the future paradox, have I? What we’re doing right now and what we’re thinking and what we’re creating right now, These ideas, these images, these thoughts are what we’re going to use in the future as who we are, because we’re defining ourselves not by that authentic self. We’re defining ourselves by our past, by all of those stories. Of course, we know that when we meet each other, well, what do you do?

This is gonna tell me everything I need to know about you. Oh, you’re one of those people. And then we start judging people because of our stories. You know, everything that we do, there’s this narrative that’s running around. The good news is we can change that narrative. We can change that narrative. Now, in the present moment, we can change the narrative for our pre suffering and change it into pre gratitude. And we can change the stories that we have in our past. Because if we really looked at those stories, we would realize that they’re not based on fact, right? The idea that whenever you get there, something happens, and, and they bring five people in the room to describe what happens, you’re gonna get five different descriptions because they’re all looking at it through their lens from their angle. They may, they may be able to recall some facts, but they’re all processed through our stories.

And today we’re gonna focus though on the present moment, on our present stories and what we’re creating today. That sound fair? Yes. Thank you, Lisa. This is why we made you platform leader. Don’t ever answer the minister otherwise, you’re gonna be on stage. Is that the message? No, that’s not the message. That’s my job. So, the interesting thing about stories is you know, our brain is wired for a negative bias. So all of those negative stories we have, just know that that’s the human condition, right? Our human condition is to be aware of dangers in the world. And anything that we perceive as dangers or something we just don’t, like, we, the brain puts into the category as danger. And that’s what creates our traumas, our, our ongoing, which is an ongoing residual effect of what had happened 20, 30, 40 years ago, five minutes ago.

So the brain is wired to look for these negative things, and immediately those stories start flying. And so the trick here as spiritual beings is to develop the habit of becoming aware of what we are thinking. I know that’s a big ask, but becoming aware of what we are thinking, because most of the time we’re just going through life unconscious. We’re going through life, you know, on autopilot. Anybody experience that? 

Increasing Self-Awareness

Okay, good. So I’m gonna give you four steps, four steps to creating a new story for yourself in the present moment. The first step is probably the most difficult, but once you get it, it get, it comes quicker and quicker. And that’s self-awareness. Now, self-awareness is the key to spiritual enlightenment. We know that, we’ve heard that, you know, that’s a great saying, But what does that really mean, right? How can we really develop self-awareness? Well, it’s by becoming the observer of our stories. And the way we become the observer of our stories is to remind ourselves over and over again, to be aware of our thinking. Now, this, this goes out the window as soon as we’re what triggered, right? As soon as something happens, as soon as something happens that goes out the window and that instinct to protect ourself comes right in.

So the way we start to recognize that is we start to look back and say, “Well, I was triggered today. What did it feel like? How did it feel in my body? Right? Where was I tense? Where was I stressed? What was my breathing like? What was I thinking? What was I doing? What were my conditions? You know, had I not eaten enough? Was I hangry? Didn’t have enough food – You know, hangry, hungry, angry, anybody know that? Or is that just me? Okay, good. – What were the conditions of our relationship? What was happening? You know, was somebody else upset? And that was, we were taking on that, that persona, what was happening?” And so when we start to recognize that and start to look for that within ourselves, that’s when we have the awareness of that aha moment. In the moment of the argument, say, “Oh, I’m arguing.”

And that’s the self-awareness that we’re looking for. Just that opening. Just the, “Oh, I’m triggered.” Because I tell you, if you can get to just that part, you’re gonna go from that triggered state that’s being driven by your emotions, emotionally, highjacked driven by your amygdala up into your prefrontal cortex. And then you’re thinking again, and then you can start to, to look at it more clearly. So the first step is really that self-awareness. And you start to think, once you have that, you can ask the question, “Well, what am I missing?” Because our triggered-ness or upsetness are all, what did we say earlier from our stories of the past? So what was I missing back there? What am I missing right now? If I’m in an argument, if something’s happening, what am I missing? What am I needing in this moment? Maybe it’s a sense of safety, maybe it’s a sense of being heard, of being wanted of, you know, being good.

I’m not good enough. Anybody have that tape running in their brain? It’s kind of …that’s one of those universal stories, right? The universal, I’m not good enough. So now, if you were to look at yourself and say, “Well, what can I give myself so that I can have that sense of good enough, that sense of safety, that sense of being heard right here within me.” We spoke a little bit about this last week. The idea of where are we sourcing it? Where are we sourcing it? Good are good. So once you’re self aware, the key thing is, I think what’s worked for me, and I think is very powerful, is to turn on the curiosity machine and start to ask questions. Gee, I wonder why I’m upset. I wonder what I’m missing.

I wonder what I’m believing about myself. I’m wondering what I’m needing. Now, you’ll notice all of these questions are about me, right? They’re not about the other person. I wonder what that person ate for breakfast..because that’s just digging in the story more, right? We’re here to unpack the story. So what am I missing? And as soon as you get curious about it, that gives you the opportunity to draw upon or to identify – you know, what you’re feeling, you’re missing. Maybe it’s a sense of love, maybe it’s a sense of being heard, whatever that is missing in your life. That’s step number two. So first step is being aware, being the observer of our thoughts, and to practice that daily when we’re not upset. Make a little note for yourself, because when you’re not upset, that’s when you can build the muscle.

Finding Inner Source

So what am I thinking today? The second step is to be curious. Why am I thinking that? Why is that the story that I’m coming up with? And the third step I like to call sourcing inner source, source, the summon substance of all that is life, love and wisdom. That infinite flow of divine love, that infinite flow of infinite wisdom, divine wisdom, infinite possibility, whatever you wanna call the God of your being, sourcing God within you, for God is everywhere present. And the whole of God is everywhere, present at every point. So that whole of God is there with you within you, ready, flowing. And so we’re sourcing that inner sense of wellbeing. We talked a little bit about last week about how sometimes we go backwards, right? We source it from out there. I’m gonna be happy when you do this.

I think that comes with it. Little salt shaker. I’m gonna be happy when you do this. I will never say should, except for when I say should. I’ll change it to you. Ought to. You ought to. Now you have a second shaming word, should and ought. Just different ways we hide it, right? Cuz the story, the story will try. And that negative bias, that belief that’s back there, we’ll try and reinforce itself by telling you that you’re wrong, by doing everything it can to fight against it. So source, go back to sourcing inner source instead of making God, instead of making the other person your source of love. God is your source of love. For God is love. Have you heard that one? This is from First John, chapter four, versus 17 and 16. Beloved, let us, love one another because love is from God.

Everyone who love is, who loves, is born of God and knows God. So we have all known and, and believe that love, love that God has for us. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love. And those who abide in love, abide in God. And God abides in them. Now is their way of saying, abide in God, abide in love. That love comes from within. And when you allow that love to come from within, it fills you up. I like this from Emilie Cady who wrote Lessons and Truth back in 19…in the 1920s, a series of articles that were later published in a book. This is from the article about thinking. She says, “Take that thought. God loves me and approves of what I do. Think these words over and over continually for a few days, trying to realize that they are true and see what the effect will be on your body and circumstances.”

God loves me and approves of what I do, infinite wisdom, infinite love, universe, whatever term you want to use. But that love comes from within. And when you come from that space, God loves me – everyone do this – God loves me, God, God loves me. Yeah. And start to feel, if you did that every day, start to feel how it changes. Because in this line of thinking, we start with our beingness, our authenticity, our our beingness of love. We can start being that love. And when we start being that love, that love wells up within us, it comes from within. And so we start having that sense of love in our life. And from that overflowing sense of love, we give love to other people. We express love into the world. That’s the state of what Wilber calls second tier consciousness, right? Going from being to having to doing. But most, most of us go the other way around doing, I’m gonna love you in all the ways that I can love you, waiting for you to love me back so that I can have love. And then, then therefore I can experience and be that love. But what happens when the outer world doesn’t agree with us?

Controlling the Triggers

So we start from within. Yeah, we start from within source, from within. So there the ideas of compassion, for example, if you’re in an argument, you know, it’s pretty hard to have compassion for somebody else until you start having compassion for yourself. If you’re in an argument, it’s hard to understand where the other person’s coming from until you can understand where you’re coming from. So, believe it or not, in the last month while I was in sabbatical, I got triggered. Anybody surprised? We all get triggered. That’s a human condition. And I was in an argument with somebody and it was like, it was, there was some deep stuff there that was churning up in me. And I noticed it’s like, okay, I’m in an argument. And you know, the person said, “Well, you’re judging me.” I’m like, “Yep, they’re right. I was judging them.”

So I stopped. I apologize for arguing. It took five minutes. I gotta tell you, five minutes is a world record for me. Now, how many of us live in that story for weeks? How many of us take that story and then make it, you know, this is who this person is. We, we tell everyone else about the story. Anybody, anybody? No, you don’t have to raise your hand about that one. So five minute turnarounds, pretty darn good. And I sat with it for a minute and then I realized, yeah, okay, I was judging. And I said, I apologize for judging you. You’re, you’re right. And I stopped. Woo. Oh, thank you.

It also helps if you know, if you’re a platform leader, to applaud your minister every once in a while – because my ego can’t – oh, sorry, that’s a different talk. We’ll get to that one later. So what happened was, you know, the, we went on to our relationship and their response wasn’t my responsibility. My response was my responsibility. And so I went back to noticing, you know, I went to, why was I triggered? Cuz I didn’t feel safe. I didn’t feel safe. I felt judged. So I started judging. I didn’t feel safe, so I started attacking. I didn’t feel safe. So I started getting defensive. Anybody have that experience in life or seen someone else have that experience in life? And what I did was, I just went back into that I’m safe. God loves me. I am loved. And so this is my somatic exercise for me, because I needed a way to anchor it in my body.

I was feeling stressed, my stress was in my chest, my stress was in my stomach. You know, “John, It’s okay.” And I realized, oh, so every time the thought came up, the yeah buts, you know, the culture of, yeah, but yeah, but they said this, You’re safe. You’re okay. It’s a gift. It’s an evolutionary driver for me, right? A gift may be going too far. It’s an evolutionary driver – that’s technical. My brain can handle that without my getting too afraid of it being a gift. I’m okay. I’m safe. I’m loved, I’m loved every time it came up. Now, I, I suggest you try this whenever, you know, get into a room where you’re by yourself and just say, I’m loved. I suggest you go, “Oh, John Riley, you’re loved.”

But maybe not in public or on the stage. I don’t know. No, this is the best place to do – It’s the best place to do it. Thank you. Yeah, I’m loved. God loves me. We won’t think badly of you. And if you do, then you can come talk to me about judging. I have old class about that. The Q process, the quantum living prep class. Anyway, so that’s what happened. So the second, the third step there, what was the third step? Sourcing inner source. Sourcing that love within you can give yourself. You have everything that you need within you because God is within you. You have all wisdom, all intelligence, all you know, love, harmony, peace. It’s all within you. And it’s the stories that take us out of that. And so we can start writing a new story. So after that, I started writing a story about love.

When I had understanding about where I was coming from and my needs, I can have, I can imagine where that person was coming from. I don’t know for sure, but I can imagine that person was coming from a place of needing to be heard, wanting to feel valued, perhaps wanting to feel loved. And when I have that understanding or that thought, that’s empathy. That’s real empathy. It’s nothing that I have to do about it. It’s just, ah, I see that in myself and I wonder if the other person is having that same experience. So that melted away the story about that person that rewrote my story about that person and changed it from a story of, you know, disaster or that, you know, those of heights out there to, you know, we’re just all doing our best. Now I can have compassion, now I can have kindness. Now I can express love in different ways. Whereas before, it was expressed as lack and limitation. It was expressed as pain and anger.

God is love. And all those who abide in love, abide in God. There’s always love available for God is always there. That however you experience it as a presence, as a power, as a principle. It’s the allness of life, love and wisdom. It’s the allness of life. And so when we come from that place, we can write a new story for ourselves in the present moment. And that’s step four. What story do I want to write consciously in this moment? What story do I want to create and bring into my realm of being so that in the future, I can recall this story.

I can recall my five minute triumph. It wasn’t about the argument at all. It was about how I triumphed over myself, over my adverse ego, over my stories. What story do you want to create today? If you’re bored, what are you missing? Why get curious. Why am I so bored? We live in an amazing place. There’s so many things that we can do here, but the doing isn’t the source, right? We can go to all the plays, we can go to all the games, we can do all the dances and walks and whatever. And sometimes that helps. But it’s not fulfilling because we’re not having, we’re not being it. So if you come from that place of, I’m excited for life and I’m gonna go to the show tonight. I’m excited for life and I’m gonna sit here and watch tv, binge watch TV for an hour or two. Binge watch. I guess that’s like five hours. That’s what I’ve heard. I’ve never experienced that personally,

Choose How You Live Your Life

So step number four is to write a story of love. Be conscious of the story that you’re writing in this present moment. So you can just say, Okay, what am I writing? What am I creating right now? What story do I want to create? Be the piece that you want to be expressed in the world. Be the love that you want to receive in the world. Be the authentic self that you’ve come here to be. And write that story every day. So it’s about awareness again, what story am I going to create today? Instead of pre suffering? We can have pre gratitude. The story I’m gonna write today is I’m so looking forward to being grateful for all of those people who joined us at our potluck. I’m so looking forward to being grateful for my kids’ enthusiasm. It’s my youngest daughter’s raise. It’s her birthday today, by the way. Happy birthday Ray. They’re off doing ray things.

She turns 14. Yikes. Yeah. See, there you go. There’s the eye. I wanted, my ego feels much better. What story do you want to create? Because stories are what last stories are how we live life. And you get to choose how you live life. So the four steps, again, self awakening. Being self-aware. Just question yourself. What am I thinking? Getting curious. Why am I thinking that? What am I missing? If I had a sense of of being heard, what I feel differently. The best way to feel heard is by sourcing inner source, going into the restroom and talking to yourself in the mirror and listening to yourself as you’re talking, listening, really listening to yourself. I, there’s no better way, there’s no, there’s never been a better time to do that, to talk to yourself than today, right? You put your earplugs in, you carry your phone around. Everyone thinks you’re on a conference call. 

Do it everywhere. You can be doing it. You can give yourself all the love and appreciation that you want. John, you were loved, you were, you were awesome. People walk by and go, I don’t know who he he’s talking to, but I want to, I want his conversation, I wanna talk to him. I want him to talk to me that way. Have those conversations. Sourcing inner source and writing a story of love for that’s what we are. We are that expression, that expression of divine love. We take these wonderful infinite intelligence and we get to bring in, into manifestation. We get to do stuff with it. Life is juicy. Life is beautiful.

Are you in? Yes. So for one week, follow those four steps. Maybe at the end of each day, write a little paragraph of your story. Just a little paragraph. You can keep it to yourself. No one needs to see it. But if you wanna share, send it to me. I’d love to share in your story, in your love stories. Yeah. And if there aren’t, if they aren’t love stories, that’s why I’m here too. If there’s pain and suffering, that’s part of being, that’s part of our spiritual community, right? Is to support each other, holding each other in love listening, right? The problem with those stories is that we always want to fix ’em and everyone has a, has a way to fix someone else. But what about just listening? I, I was, this is a little sidebar. I was speaking to someone during spiritual counseling and you know, the person went for about 20 minutes telling me their story.

This happened and that happened, and I was over here and this happened to me and that happened to me. And I was just listening at the end of it, I just said, Wow, that’s quite a story. I didn’t know what else to say, but that was the authentic truth. That’s quite a story. That person sat up right and said, you know, you’re right. It is a story. Thank you. That’s all she, that’s all that person needed. That’s all they needed was to be heard and to be acknowledged. Oh, that’s a story. And then they went on their business of rewriting it.