This recording features the Sunday Talk portion of the service. For the full service watch here.
Gratitude & Release – Rev. Aimee Daniels
DESCRIPTION
We close September the way every affirmative prayer closes: in thanksgiving for what has already been realized, and in release — trusting the Law to receive our word and act on it. This week, we bring the month’s whole practice full circle.
The summary and transcription were auto-generated, please excuse typos, errors and omissions.
SUMMARY
This sermon, delivered by Rev. Aimee Daniels, explores the final two steps of affirmative prayer: gratitude and release. The talk is part of a month-long series on affirmative prayer, following earlier teachings on recognition, unification, and realization.
Gratitude is presented not merely as a polite closing to prayer, but as an active spiritual energy — the energy of the prayer already answered. Drawing on the writings of Joseph Murphy, Waddles, Michael Beckwith, and Brother David Steindl-Rast, Rev. Daniels explains that gratitude shifts attention away from lack and toward what is already present, rewiring the mind through the law of substitution and the principle that what we rehearse grows stronger. Gratitude is described as generative — it does not wait for good to arrive, but actively draws good forward, and faith is said to grow from it. Physically, the practice of gratitude relaxes the body, softens the breath, and creates a state of confidence from which effective prayer flows.
The sermon also addresses release, the final step of affirmative prayer, cautioning against undermining prayer by anxiously checking whether it is working. Using the biblical parable of the sower, Rev. Daniels encourages trust that the prayer has been planted in fertile soil and does not require interference to grow. The practice of release means surrendering the outcome with openness, trusting an invisible partner already working on one’s behalf.
TRANSCRIPTION
Rev. Aimee Daniels:
It’s such a treat to have Chelsea with us. Did she not kill it on that Dolly Parton song? So good morning everybody. That song, doesn’t that song get you? Yeah. Greg always asks, “What do I want for the feature?” And I’m like, “I know this is a classic, but what do you think?” Because it’s like a prayer, isn’t it, in a way? He’s holding everything he sees around him with reverence. And I don’t even know if Louis Armstrong wrote the song. Somebody smarter than me probably knows that. I didn’t actually Google it. But he’s noticing friends shaking hands. He’s noticing the roses, and I was listening to it on the way here, that are blooming for me and for you. It’s almost the energy of the whole song is the energy of gratitude. And it gives me a warm feeling, right? Because gratitude is all about creating a different energy.
And that’s what I want to talk about today. We’re going to talk about gratitude in general, because I don’t think we can just talk about it in the prayer. And we’re also going to talk about release, which I agree with Dawn. These last two steps can be treated like throwaways in the affirmative prayer, but they are really, really important. And we’ve been opening the channel all month through affirmative prayer one step at a time. And Linda started us off with recognition, God is all there is. When I spoke a few weeks ago, I did unification, so I’m one with it. Gina gave us realization last week, speaking the truth of what we’re calling forth as if it’s already so. And today we’re going to talk about the two steps that complete the prayer, gratitude and release. And gratitude is not just a nice way to end the prayer.
I want to say that. It’s not like you’re writing a letter that you say thank you at the end of. It’s really an energy. It’s the energy of the prayer answer. That’s the energy we’re trying to get into when we speak our gratitudes in prayer. And release is what lets the energy go to work.
So when we practice gratitude, we’re seeing what’s already present, which is what Louis Armstrong was doing in that song. And we’re not seeing what’s absent. I don’t know about anybody else. I can have a habit of seeing what’s absent. Anybody else resemble that? I remember, and I didn’t know it. I was thinking as I was preparing this talk about something that happened in my life a long time ago, when I got divorced, I actually, he locked me out of my house. I don’t want to go into that whole story, but I negotiated to get my clothes. So I left my house with my clothes. That’s all I took with me. And I called my mom. I go, “Mom, I got to come stay with you.” And one of my friends gave me furniture.
I stayed with my mom for a bit, but then I got a little tiny apartment and she gave me furniture and she gave me plates and things like that, just that you needed to live everyday life. And I was so grateful. It actually told me I was going to be okay. I’m like, “Oh look, some good came to me. I’m going to be okay here.” And I think that’s the benefit of gratitude. We’re seeing what’s present. And as Krista read to us, gratitude keeps us connected with power. What power are we talking about? We’re talking about the power and presence of spirit. That’s the power we’re talking about. And think about the energy we pray from.
There’s probably more than two energies you can bring to a prayer, but just go with me on this. So one energy is an energy of wanting, right? I don’t have it. I need it. Please give it to me. It’s kind of like a begging. And even if our words are beautiful, the energy that we have underneath it, it’s reaching and it’s something outside of us. It keeps our good outside of us and out there over there where we’re not. But the other energy is the energy of gratitude or thanks. And thanks doesn’t reach, gratitude doesn’t reach because it knows it’s already present, which is what we’ve been talking about all month, right? Knowing that this all good is always present and that we’re one with it. And have you noticed what happens in your body when you’re grateful? How that song made you feel? Give me some shout outs.
What came up for you in that song? Some words, just throw out some words. Christmas. Christmas. Warm. Peace. Peace. Beauty. Beauty. All those things. But notice what happens in your body. Your body kind of softens, maybe your shoulders drop a little bit, maybe your breath goes a little bit deeper. But when we’re grateful, we’re not bracing, right? We’re relaxed. And that’s what we want to pray from. We want to pray from a place really of confidence. That’s what gratitude’s about. So gratitude matters in your life in general, not just in prayer. So we’re going to talk about that a little bit. And lots of people have talked about gratitude in books and things like that, but I want to talk metaphysically about gratitude for a moment. Joseph Murphy, who wrote The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, said, “You will always move in the direction of the desire which dominates your mind.” And so whatever our attention is going to, whether it’s to gratitude or lack, it’s opposite, literally the direction of our life is already moving wherever our attention is, wherever we’re putting our energy.
And that’s how our mind works. Our mind is wired that way. Have you ever noticed that in your mind, you’re focused on the thing you’re not happy about and then you’re like, “Ugh, you got right? Yuck.” We don’t want to do that because what we rehearse gets stronger. So when we’re rehearsing positive thought, not ending, I think it’s him that says, “Don’t finish a negative sentence. If you notice you’re about to make one, stop. It’s a little humbling. Try it this week. Try to stop yourself.” But what we rehearse gets stronger and what we starve gets weaker. And what are we doing when we’re practicing being more positive or having gratitude? We’re rewiring our brain based on what we’re dwelling on. We’re dwelling on the positive. Joseph Murphy says a second thing about it. He talks about the law of substitution. He said, “The way to get rid of darkness is with light.
The way we get over cold is heat. And the way we overcome negative thought is to substitute it with good thought.” So we want to affirm the good and the bad will go away. And it’s not being in denial. I’m not talking about being in denial, especially in life. We want to be honest with what is so, and we want to consciously do the work to shift it. And that’s why prayer and prayer partners are so important because sometimes we’ve gotten ourselves in a place and we need someone else to help us like, “Okay, bring me back. Bring me back.” So that’s what gratitude is doing when we practice it. It’s not arguing with the negative thought. It’s giving the mind something better to hold onto, and that’s what we’re going for. So every minute you spend in gratitude or thanking is a minute your mind is not rehearsing what is wrong.
Just think about that. You’re not suppressing anything, but you’re not feeding it. So over time, it will move away from your experience. So in realization, we state the truth in the present tense. Gratitude does something a little different. It accepts it. Sometimes when we’re realizing or affirming, we can be creating an argument in our own head. Gratitude is like, it’s already happening. It’s already done. And it helps you to feel the energy of the prayer fulfilled. It’s actually a lot of fun, especially when you’re praying for someone else. I think it’s fun because then you’re like, “And I know that you’re getting excited for the person you’re praying for, for the different possibility.” Waddles said earlier, “The mental attitude of gratitude draws the mind into closer touch with the source from which the blessings come.” So gratitude isn’t something we do once things arrive. Gratitude is what draws things to us.
And he goes further on and says, “The grateful mind tends to become the best. It takes the form or character of the best and will receive the best.” And what he’s really talking about is spiritual truth. That’s what he’s speaking about, what we hold our attention on and thank, we grow to resemble. And he also talks about faith. Waddles also talks about faith. He said, “Faith is a very important part of gratitude and release. Faith is born of gratitude. Every outgoing wave of grateful Thanksgiving increases faith.” And I think it builds on itself. If I think about my own life, if I’m grateful, I notice more of what is there and then it builds upon itself. And we can think of faith as the thing that makes gratitude possible, like believe first, then be thankful, or we can say it’s the other way around. Waddles would say it’s the other way around.
Give thanks and your faith will grow. So try it at home.
And we can also think of gratitude as being thankful for what’s coming. Thank you, this job is mine. Thank you, the healing’s done. And that’s true. We’re going to get to that, but it’s really what Louis Armstrong is saying about also gratitude for what’s already present. You’re already connected to the source of the good that you’re seeking and in your oneness with spirit, it’s already present. And that’s why we practice gratitude. It’s already there. Michael Beckwith said, “Evolved people give thanks for life, for the intelligence within the body temple, within nature, for what most people don’t even notice as they navigate through their day.” Gratitude is an expression of humility. I found that word curious. We’ll go back to it. A recognition that even before we ask, good has been given to us. So humility, not like humility, like smallness humility, but really realizing that even our body, we didn’t create it, right?
We were given our body. Our body just works. We don’t have to do anything. Our body just knows what to do. So this idea is that there’s an intelligence that created us and is already living us. And in our humility, we begin to notice, right? And we begin to notice what’s already present for me?
Brother David Steindelrast, who is a Benedictine monk, and some of you may be aware of him. I think he was in the Louis Schwarzberg movie that was shown here. I can’t remember when. Louis Schwartzberg actually took part of his talk and put it to his pictures, Louis Schwartzberg’s pictures from around the world. You can Google it. It’s beautiful. But David Steindl-Rost wrote a book called Gratefulness: The Heart of Prayer. And what he teaches is very simple. Gratefulness, he says, is our response to a gift. And the gift is the moment itself. The moment, this moment that we’ve been given, you got to listen to his voice. It’s unbelievable. And whatever it holds and whatever is given in the moment, you’re never going to have that moment again, right? You just have this moment.
And what makes it a gift is that it’s an opportunity to see, to love, to respond. And it really points to where we started, recognition. God is all there is. So what are we thanking or what are we being grateful to? We’re thanking what we recognized in the first step. So the gratitude step kind of closes the circle that we create in prayer and we begin by recognizing the presence and we end with being grateful for the presence, however the presence is showing up, creating our life or creating our experience in that moment for whatever we’re praying for. Sometimes when we give gratitude and prayer, I’m going to give an example in a few minutes, we’re just praying that the way moved forward, right? It doesn’t mean that we get instant gratification in our prayer request. Sometimes we do, but often what it is, is we feel a shift happen.
We feel a shift happen in the prayer, and that is the beginning of the prayer being answered. That’s why we say gratitude’s generative. It doesn’t just respond to the good held with attention. It grows more of what it’s thinking. So it’s what we’ve been teaching all month, thoughts creative. It’s what we talk about all the time, pointed now in a direction on purpose with gratitude, not running a list of what’s missing. And I think about gratitude in my own life. I’ve talked about this before. I had someone that I’ve been working with for about two and a half years and I was disappointed in what was happening. And if I’m honest, I was probably judging. I’m just going to be honest. I was probably judging how the person was showing up and I had no idea how to change it. I was just so stuck because I didn’t want to, I think I’ve talked about it.
I didn’t want to do any harm to anybody else. And I decided to just be grateful for what I did notice that the person was bringing to me and what I learned from them and where they were good at things that I wasn’t good at at all. And it didn’t necessarily change anything about how things were showing up, but it changed how I was looking at what was showing up instead of me just looking at him going whatever. Whatever I was saying was probably not so nice in my head, okay? But I decided to see the good, not with him, just with him, but the group we worked with because we worked with a group together and recently he decided to take another job and this is the best thing for him. It really is. It gave him everything he wanted. He gets benefits, whatever.
And I think it’s an answered prayer for me, right? But it’s like I needed to shift inside of myself. But anyway, it was an answered prayer and I realized I just get to decide what kind of attitude I show up with too, right? And that’s what gratitude really teaches us, right? I can be like, oh, I have to go do this or whatever, or I can be like, I get to go do this and I’m just going to be curious about what’s here for me. So let’s talk about giving thanks before we have evidence. Jesus did this. You think about the story of the loaves and the fishes. Do people know this story? So like thousands of people followed him out into the wilderness, probably because it was the only place they were safe because they were considered heretical and they were in danger because they were rocking the boat.
And so they’re out in the middle of nowhere, thousands of people and there’s very little food. There’s all they could summon up and the disciples are freaking out saying, “We should send everybody home. Let’s send them home.” But Jesus said, “Bring what we have.” So there were five loaves of bread and two fishes, not enough food for thousands of people. And he told everyone to sit down. He took the five loaves and the two fishes and he looks up to heaven, that’s kind of traditional Christian language, looks up to heaven. He blessed it. He broke the bread and he gave the loaves to the disciples to pass around. And I’m not going to guess how it got multiplied, but they had 12 baskets of bread left over. I mean, this is a metaphysical teaching, so maybe that’s what this is about. But the idea, the interpretation of the story is this.
This comes from Charles Fillmore, one of the founders of Unity, that the loaves represent substance. So the loaves represent what is today and the fishes represent possibility. And I love that interpretation. So the bread is what we already actually have in our hands, even if it’s little, even if it’s small, and the fish is what we think is possible.
And the thanks didn’t manufacture the five loaves, right? They were already there. And so we pray from where we are and then we give thanks and we want to make sure we’re praying from the prayer fulfilled in the same way that that was modeled. So let’s talk about what that looks like in affirmative prayer. Let’s say we’re praying for, we need a new job. Let’s say we need a new job. So let’s say that we’ve affirmed that I know my right livelihood is mine now. And remember, we always pray in the present tense. We don’t pray in the future tense. Then you’re placing your good in the future. So I pray now, so I know that the right livelihood is mine now. And if we were going to practice gratitude, we might say something like, “I’m grateful for my wonderful job. I’m grateful for the people I get to work with.
I’m grateful that I’m abundantly paid.” Or you got to kind of feel into what works for you when you do it honestly. Or you might just say, “I’m grateful for spirit bringing my perfect job to me.” It doesn’t have to be elaborate. It’s whatever works for you. And it’s not about the language being perfect or eloquent or anything like that. It’s about feeling the prayers fulfilled. So if you’re praying with someone else, you might notice some people do a lot of gratitude. Some people just say, “I’m grateful this prayer is fulfilled,” and they move on to the release state. So we’re going to practice for a second, not the gratitude step, but we’re going to just do a simple little gratefulness practice from David Steinbel-Rost just to help you think about how you pause in the moment to generate some gratitude. Okay? So here’s what we’re going to do.
I’m going to ask you to close your eyes. Just close your eyes for a moment and just stop and take a breath and let it be a full breath.
There’s no place else to be in this moment. Just take some breaths in and just allow your attention to come into this moment. And next we look. We look at what’s already here. Your breath is moving in your body. The chair is holding you. You’re surrounded by people in this room and online. And I just invite you to think for a second, what’s one thing in your life right now that’s working? I just want you to bring it into your mind’s eye. What is something that is working for you in your life right now? And the last step he calls go. So silently in your mind’s eye, just say thank you. Not something, thank you for something you want, but thank you for what’s already here.
And just notice how you begin to feel in your body. You feel any warmth in your chest? You feel your body softening at all? Feel your breath deepening. And just let this gratitude grow. Just let it grow by paying attention to it. That warmth that you feel, that loosening, that’s the energy of gratitude. You just generated it yourself. Nobody handed it to you and it didn’t depend on anything changing. It was already there. So just say thank you again and when you’re ready, bring your attention back to the room. Now that everyone wants to take a nap and it’s very chill, y’all look very chill. Let’s talk about release. Release and so it is. When we do the release step, we can just say, and so it is, amen, ashay, whatever you like to say. Or some people like to say, “I release my word into the law, which always says yes.
That’s a good reminder of how this prayer process works.” Play with it. You don’t always have to do it the same. I think people worry too much about how good their prayers are, especially if they’re less experienced with affirmative prayer. I remember the first time I prayed out loud, I was terrified. I’m like, “Oh my God, I’m going to forget something.” And you know what? Sometimes I get my steps mixed up when I’m praying and it doesn’t matter. It’s really all about the energy that you’re getting into. But I want to say something else about release. We can kind of blow off this step and we can also really mess with our prayer when we go and try to check on whether it’s working.
So US Anderson, I’ll explain what I mean in a minute. US Anderson in three magic words says, “We’re a civilization of people who suffer from, and I have to do it complex.” He writes, “We say in God we trust, but most of us, if we’re honest, don’t actually believe it, not down where it counts, which is exactly why we keep checking instead of trusting.” And I’ve told this story before. I used to work with someone as a practitioner and we’d finish praying and he’d start going into his problem right afterwards and I’d be like, “You’re not allowed to speak. Go home and don’t say a word for two hours. Do not say anything out loud. Do not negate the prayer.” Henry David Thoreau teaches us whatever we leave to God, God does and blesses us. We’ve heard the words let go and let God so many times.
We already have an invisible partner working on our behalf.
And so it’s not our part to make the prayer happen. That’s not our job. There’s a story also in the Bible about the sower who planted the seed and a man cast a seed in the ground. And when you do that, Jesus said, “You should sleep, you should let it be, and the seed will spring up and grow forth.” And we don’t know how that happens. We don’t know how the seed’s going to grow forth. Sometimes our prayer gets answered a completely different way than what we ever expect. And a lot of times it’s better than what we expect. But the sower casts the seed, then he sleeps. He doesn’t go in and dig it up or check and see if it’s growing. He trusts that it’s been planted in fertile soil. And that’s what we do when we pray. The law is fertile soil and it takes what’s planted and it returns it in kind.
Our part is to plant with clarity and with gratitude and then let it be. And I used to find this confusing too because I remember when I was first in this teaching, we doing for time, people said, “Don’t pray about the same thing more than once.” And I was like, “That’s so confusing to me. I don’t actually believe that’s true anymore. I think it is okay to pray about the same thing more than once. This is just my opinion. Others may argue with me. I’m sure somebody will come up after service.” But the idea is when you finish the prayer, the prayer’s complete. That’s the idea behind that. It doesn’t mean that literally you cannot pray about the same thing again. And you that’s praying the next time you pray or get prayer is not the you that got the prayer because you shifted, right?
So Meister Eckhart said, “We ought to have everything as if it were loaned to us without any possessiveness.” Not, “It isn’t mine, I don’t care,” but holding things in an open way. And to me, I like that because it reminds me, I get the prayer, but then I stay open to how the prayer might be answered, which could be different than my idea of the prayer.
And we have to surrender all the time, don’t we? We have to notice when we’ve gotten a prayer, it’s been released, and then we go back just like, “Nope, point myself back in the right direction.” So releasing with gratitude, “Thank you. It’s done. I trust it. I’m open. Show me where you’re taking me.” So I’m going to move forward here. I want to close and then I’m going to go into prayer and then you’re going to have an opportunity to get prayer. This beautiful little book, Prayer by Ernest Holmes, he has all these prayers in the back. Could we go to the last slide, the Ernest Holmes Drawing the Good? So actually, as we move into prayer, I’m going to say a line and I want you to repeat it back with me. You have it on the screen, but this is called Drawing the Good.
“I draw my good to me as I travel along the way of life. And nothing can keep it from me. Say it with me. I draw my good to me as I travel along the way of life and nothing can keep it from me. Love this one. My good always follows me. Say it with me enthusiastically. My good always follows me. I accept the good and rejoice that it is with me. Say it together. I accept the good and rejoice that it is with me. Lastly, I accept the good. Let’s say it. I accept the good. Let’s say it a couple more times enthusiastically together. I accept the good. One more time. I accept the good. Okay, let’s turn within and do some prayer. Greg’s going to give me a little underscore.
How truly grateful I am to turn within in this moment, to know the presence and power of God, this loving presence and power, which always and everywhere is operating on our behalf. This infinite good of life itself, this divine intelligence. And I know that I am one with this good, this divine intelligence, this grace, this peace, this wholeness of God. And as I know this for myself, I know this for each person hearing my words. I know that we are all one with this love, this grace, this peace, this wholeness, this divine goodness of God.
So from this place of oneness, I speak my word of transformation for each of us in this moment. May we move from gratitude this week. May we keep our mind on our gratitude, on the good that we are seeking and let go of anything that doesn’t serve us. I affirm and know that as you seek spirit, spirit is seeking you. So I just know that there is a perfect divine flow that always and everywhere is happening. And I just know that all the prayers that we are lifting up are always fulfilled. So I just lift each person in this room up right now, just knowing that whatever is in your mind and in your heart that you are calling forth to shift. I know that this prayer is heard. I know this prayer is fulfilled and I know that good and more good and more happiness and joy and wholeness is yours now.
And I’m so grateful for this. I’m so grateful for prayer. I’m so grateful to know that as we speak these words, spirit is listening. I’m so grateful to know that this prayer is fulfilled. I’m so grateful to know that spirit always says yes. I release my word into the law, which always says yes. And together we say, and so it is. And if you’d like to get a little personal prayer I invite our practitioners to line up around the room to do minute miracles, these are brief prayers. If you feel called to get some prayer, just walk up to a practitioner and they will pray with you. And if you’re online, the host is going to include some instructions.