Opening the Floodgates of Potential – Rev. Darrell Jones
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DESCRIPTION
We are here to be in the flow of nature’s intelligence. Nature is always in the dance of giving and receiving. The sun comes up and gives us energy, the sun goes down and life receives rest. Giving and receiving as a principle ideally is respected in every area and relationship of our life. But where might we be disrespecting this principle and life’s nature? Awareness of a blockage of flow, whether in our arteries, our finances, our trust or love, is the key to unblocking the flow. Come together with us this week as we become aware of our individual and collective blockages to free the flow of greater good for all.
SUMMARY
TRANSCRIPTION
This transcription was auto-generated, please excuse typos, errors and omissions.
Rev Darrell Jones (00:00):
Give it up one more time. Good morning everyone. My name is Reverend Darell Jones. My pronouns are he, him, and I am grateful to be here today. Although I will have to say I’ve already put on my calendar as a reminder to Rev Aimee in 2028 to maybe not speak the Sunday after the election. No, I’m actually really grateful for the challenge of being here today, and I would imagine that there’s some people in the room that are having a hard time having an attitude of gratitude today. Hopefully there’ll be some inspiration that you’ll move into that space by the end of today’s talk.
(00:46):
The talk title, I got to start the timer. This is one of those talks. I’ve got five pages and if you could see all the notes that I’ve been writing since I arrived here today, just listening to conversations and the way that spirit has been guiding, I’m going to try to be concise in 25 minutes. The talk title is Opening the Floodgates of Potential. Anyone ready for that? Okay, so I can’t not acknowledge what’s happening in our country in particular right now in the world, but in our country. First off, I just got to say this was one of the downloads I got in meditation. When you mix red and blue, what color do you get? You belong here. Everybody belongs in the purple. Okay, and there were two. Another T-shirt inspired me this morning, Don with his. Whenever Mr. Rogers presents himself in my life, like he’s a guru to me, Mr. Rogers is an avatar.
(01:57):
Mr. Rogers embodied something that I can only aspire to get maybe a 10th of that consciousness of. And so he’s wearing a T-shirt. It says, believe there is good in the world. And it just made me pause for a moment. I had to do a little bit of research and look online. So he did about 33 years of television programming. Is everyone familiar with Mr. Rogers, by the way, people online? What’s up? Party people, be present. Let’s not multitask. Be here now, he was on television for 33 years and his message never wavered. He did the same thing regardless of who was in office. And let me just remind you of who was in office while he did his thing. LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George HW, Bush and Clinton. He was on TV from 1968 to 2001 doing live broadcast and it was syndicated beyond that. But so this is what I’m hoping to inspire you with today a little bit, is that regardless of who’s at the helm of this country, that you continue to do the work that you know is good and right for your community? Yes. Okay.
(03:17):
Now maybe I can actually get to some of my notes today. The other thing I want to also say, and another little tidbit that came in today, don’t make your disappointment greater than the potential of God. A lot of people are sitting in disappointment and frustration right now, and my biggest concern is that we are making that disappointment greater than the belief in potential. Now, lick your wounds. Be upset, be happy. I truly live in the world of purple. I got people that are red and blue in my life. So I’m experiencing people in the full spectrum of emotions. And I’m not saying don’t experience those emotions, but if you’re experiencing disappointment right now, let me challenge you and I’m going to talk a little bit more about why I’m challenging you and why I am so fervent when I get up here to speak.
(04:11):
Don’t make disappointment greater than your potential. So the last time I spoke in October, hunter was hosting and he was like, I love it when Reverend Daryl speaks kind of because it’s always good, but he kind of hits you in the gut. It’s like this spiritual. And I was contemplating that and I was like, why is it that I feel a different energy when I get up here than when I sit down and talk to someone? One-on-one, what happens, and this is a little bit of a commercial for self-awareness practices called the Enneagram Enneagram workshop started last week. One of the biggest gifts that I received from studying the Enneagram was understanding when I felt discouragement, disappointment, frustration, and a sense of attack. I’m a two on the Enneagram. I’m a giver, so I like to give. I like to care for people. And when I am totally in a space of love and feeling good and safe and secure, I turn into a romantic.
(05:20):
I go to the four and I just want to love up everything and everything’s good. But if I’m feeling stressed, I go to an eight and I turn a little bit into a bull in a China shop, I get into this protective space and what I have found, and this is something that I’m not apologizing for, but just so that when I give these proverbial spiritual punches in the gut, where I’m coming from is when I find myself in a teaching space, in a speaking space, in a coaching space. I am so wanting. My intention on the planet is for people to love and be loved. And what I am more and more aware of is that we are all walking around with contempt in our hearts. Even the most spiritual of us, we don’t trust and we’ve got contempt for the other. There’s lots of fear on the planet.
(06:13):
And when that comes up, when I feel that I go to the eight and I get a little intense. So if I’m a little intense today, it’s been an intense week, can you all agree but in my intensity, please let your heart, not just your head, let your heart open to hear and receive what we are here to talk about today. And I’m finally going to get to that. Now five minutes into our talk, there’s a circle of practitioners that I have been praying with for God 15 years. We now live in different areas of the country, so we don’t get together. We don’t have live prayer calls, but we’ve got a text chain that is constantly checking in. I stub my toe, we pray. I don’t know what’s going on in the country. We pray this happened to my mom. We pray we are constantly praying for one another no matter what the condition is, and we always come back to giving one another, some sort of inspiration to remember some truth. And I want to share with you a reading, a poem that one of my fellow practitioners shared with me from a woman who is considered a spiritual and cultural midwife. Her name is Venice Williams. Take a deep breath in and as you exhale, if it feels good, close your eyes for a moment and just let these words land.
(07:43):
You are awakening to the same country. You fell asleep to the very same country. Pull yourself together and when you see me, do not ask what do we do now? How do we get through the next four years? Some of my ancestors dealt with at least 400 years of this under worse conditions. Continue to do the good work, continue to build bridges not walls, continue to lead with compassion. Continue the demanding work of liberation for all. Continue to dismantle broken systems, large and small. Continue to set the best example for the children. Continue to be a vessel of nourishing joy. Continue right where you are. Write where you live into your days. Do so in the name of the Creator who expects nothing less from each of us. And if you are not continuing all the above that I’ve read in community, in partnership and in collaboration, what is it that you have been doing?
(09:03):
What is it you are waiting for? Deep breath in. As you exhale, open your eyes opening the floodgates of potential. The blurb that I wrote to kind of explain the general idea of the talk today was we are here to be in the flow of nature’s intelligence. Yeah, all right. Nature is always in the dance of giving and receiving. The sun comes up and gives us energy and the sun goes down and life receives rest. Giving and receiving as a principle ideally is respected in every area and relationship of our life in every area, giving and receiving in every area. But where might we be disrespecting this principle in life’s nature? Awareness of a blockage of flow, whether it’s in our arteries, our finances, our trust and love. Awareness is the key to unblocking the flow. Today we come together to expand our individual and collective awareness of our blockages to free the flow of greater good for all the reading, again from Deepak Chopra’s, the seven spiritual laws of success.
(10:39):
Because your body and your mind and the universe are in constant and dynamic change. Stopping the circulation of energy is like stopping the flow of blood. Whenever blood stops flowing, it begins to clot, to coagulate, to stagnate. This is why you must give and receive in order to keep wealth and affluence or anything that you want in your life circulating in your life. Always. Every relationship is one of give and take. Giving engenders, receiving and receiving engenders giving, what comes up must come down. What goes out must come back. In reality, receiving is the same thing as giving, because giving and receiving are different aspects of the flow of energy in the universe, and if you stop the flow of either you interfere with nature’s intelligence. Now, I was going to say this later, but I feel compelled to say it now. Some I think may say, oh, sweet.
(11:38):
Okay, so this whole week, this book, this chapter that I’m focusing on is the law of giving. But it’s saying here that the law of giving is the same thing as receiving, and some of us may be going, sweet, okay, I’ll just receive and I’ll be in the flow. Uhuh, it doesn’t work that way. Receiving is passive. Some of us have to actively receive. I’m one of those people I have a hard time receiving, and for the most part, all you have to do is open your hands. So when it comes to this law of giving or actually the practice of giving, that’s where we actually activate the edge of the divine in our life. So if there’s part of you that’s maybe in the back going, yeah, sweet, okay, I’ll be in the flow. I’ll just receive, I’ll be on the receiving end. I’ll keep that alive, noble idea, but realize it’s the yin and the young.
(12:26):
There’s two sides to this coin. We must do both in order for this to work, because your body and your mind and the universe are in constant dynamic change, stopping the circulation of energies like stopping the flow of blood, whenever blood stops flowing, it begins to clot, to coagulate, to stagnate. A healthy physical body requires good blood flow. Yes. Okay. When we have poor blood flow, all sorts of symptoms can arise. Swelling, pain, numbness or tingling, changes in skin color, even a weakened immune system, hair loss, maybe I need to do something about that. Fatigue, exhaustion, and more. When good blood flow is restored, the symptoms they almost seemingly magically begin to dissipate. Think of sitting cross-legged. If you’ve ever been in meditation before in a more traditional posture, I’ve spent so many hours, thousands of hours, cross-legged on the floor or with a cushion under my bum, and whenever I teach, people always go, oh, why is my leg falling asleep? It’s like, well, because kind of constricting the flow. Maybe you’re dehydrated, maybe you’re not sitting in the right position. There’s so many different things that could impact it, but if you’re experiencing pain and tingling because there’s been this blockage of flow, all you have to do is uncross your legs and in a matter of minutes, all of a sudden you’re like, oh, okay, life is good. Things are flowing. My legs are happy.
(14:01):
Whether it’s your physical body or some other area or affairs in your life, where are you experiencing the feeling of pins and needles? Where in your life are you feeling a symptom of life giving flow or blood being cut off or blocked up? Is there a way that you could increase, that you could relax, that you could uncross yourself, if you will, to restore the flow of energy in this area of your life without knowing any of the details of your particular situation? From the space of approaching this from spiritual principle, the answer is undoubtedly yes, there is a way you could open yourself to restore the flow in this area where it feels blocked up. Now, if you are human like me, chances are that voice inside your head is saying, okay, or maybe it’s screaming, yeah, Darrell, but how do I do it?
(15:11):
I agree. I want to know how to, but here is what we are really exploring today, and I believe this is what we are exploring on the spiritual journey. We’re opening the floodgates of potential. The title was not What’s the answer to my problem? We’re opening up the floodgates of potential. Last week, we embraced the first law of success, the law of pure potentiality, and John so wonderfully invited us to step into the law of pure potentiality by embracing that we don’t know everything. Thank God we don’t know everything because if we did, what else is there to know? This is as good as it gets. No, he invited us into that space that we may not know everything, and because we don’t, there’s potential beyond our knowing.
(16:06):
We can’t know everything about God. We can’t know everything about life. We can’t know everything about the universe. It’s not finite, it’s infinite. It’s ever expanding. It actually has no final edge or frontier. For those of you who are Star Trek fans, there’s no final frontier, y’all. It keeps going. Star Trek is going to live forever, and so you and so is potential to recognize how much potential or possibility there is. I always like to evoke the symbol of a circle. If any of you have worked with me one-on-one or been in teaching classes with me, I bring this in all the time to recognize that as you stand in the middle of a circle, when you look straight ahead, so just pretend that you’re in a circle right now, which you always are. You’re in the circle of this community. You’re in the circle of your life.
(17:01):
You’re in the circle of love. But as you look forward, you can only see about 30 degrees of what’s actually in front of you. Now you be, well, I got peripheral vision. I can see 180. But here’s the thing, you are in a circle which is 360 degrees. So even if you can make sense of 180 degrees, there is still 180 that you cannot see. So let’s bring in the word potential as opposed to seeing if you’re seeing and your potential are a little bit intertwined, you can only see about 30 degrees of potential at a time. Maybe you can make sense of 180, but there’s still 180 beyond that that you don’t even know.
(17:52):
That’s a little bit of what I think John was getting to last week. We can’t know everything. Pure potentiality is actually found in what we don’t know, but we want to find potentiality in what we know. It doesn’t quite work that way. Do you get that? So as we sit in this week of uncertainty, realize that we are discovering some new potential that we’ve never known before as a country, even though it doesn’t feel good, that’s what is happening. One could say that any and all spiritual practices are in service of expanding awareness and sight of pure potentiality in our life.
(18:34):
My spiritual journey so far has not been about, let me just find the ease and comfort, which I have found. But most of the big growth areas in my spiritual journey have been found in the discomfort, in the uncertainty, but then remembering a certainty in the midst of it that God is good when all the time when we meditate. So in terms of spiritual practices being something that help us step into that space of pure potentiality, when we meditate, we soften and we loosen the tight grip of what we think we know. When we pray or when we treat or when we affirm we are stretching our imagination and our neurological capabilities to speak and declare a possibility that we can’t see the law of giving. It stretches our default tendency to hoard from the belief that there isn’t enough into the space of flow and sufficiency that not only is there enough but more than enough for ourselves and all.
(19:51):
So this is a spiritual practice of giving. If spiritual practices are in services of us having a greater understanding of the potential of life, then when we give it is stretching us to know that there is a greater good. It is stretching us out of that default tendency to think there isn’t enough to knowing that there is enough and more, but it isn’t the law. The title of this chapter is the Law of Giving. It is not the law of giving that stretches us. The law of giving is just an idea, it’s a philosophy, it’s a principle and we lean into it. It is the practice of giving that opens up the blood flow of potential in our lives.
(20:45):
The law of giving and the practice of giving, it isn’t really about manifestation as it is often oversimplified to. Now, we all want to manifest things in our lives, but manifestation is just a symptom of something. When we have this experience of a symptom of stagnation, it’s just a symptom of something. When we don’t have enough in our life, we say we’d have a belief or a stronger leaning towards an idea of insufficiency. The law and the practice of giving is really about shifting mindset and belief from one of insufficiency to sufficiency, from lack to enoughness, from scarcity to abundance, whether in money, love, health, time, anything if through the act of giving. So this is from the same chapter in the law of giving and the seven spiritual principles of success. Deepak Chopra goes on to say, if through the act of giving you feel you have lost something, then the gift is not truly given and it will not cause increase.
(22:12):
If you give grudgingly, there is no energy behind that giving. It is the intention behind your giving and receiving that is the most important thing. The intention should always be to create happiness for the giver and the receiver, because happiness is life supporting and life sustaining and therefore generates increase. When we give grudgingly, we are giving from obligation and shoulding. Anyone ever given from that space, yeah, it doesn’t feel good. We’re doing what we’re supposed to do, but is it engendering happiness for yourself? And oftentimes I have found when I give out of obligation, the person or thing or entity or organization receiving it usually isn’t that grateful.
(22:59):
This is as the quote alludes, if we want to actually open the floodgates of potential, it only promotes continued stagnation if we give from that place of obligation. But this is where we get to practice heightened levels of discernment. If we are truly desiring to open the floodgates of potential in our mind, our body, and our spirit, it doesn’t make sense then that we would be stretching ourselves into some discomfort or uncertainty. If we are really trying to open up the floodgates of pure potentiality, potential is beyond what we know. So we are willfully saying, let me be uncomfortable here.
(23:51):
Oftentimes we make that wrong. We say that this is a symptom or an indicator, and we start to question in our mind, am I doing the right thing? I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing. Am I doing the right thing? I don’t know if I’m doing the right thing. I don’t like the way this feels. Oh my God, this is icky. Now I’m again, this is about discernment. We don’t give to hurt ourselves. Have you ever heard that before? Give until it hurts. Ugh, that just makes me sick in my stomach. However, if we are attempting to open ourselves beyond our current level of experience, knowing and comfort, more than likely we will need to experience discomfort and unknowing.
(24:30):
That’s just kind of the way it works. However, to walk in this practice with that knowing to know and declare, I am giving to the greater to know the all sufficiency of life. We can bless our unknowing, we can bless our discomfort and affirm that they are symptoms of us stretching into the potential. When we give in this space, we are unblocking whatever has been in the way of our flow. When we unblock the flow, things don’t only move in one direction, things move in all directions. Thus, as he says in the book, receiving is naturally a part of this flow that we have opened. It’s not just that we’re going to keep giving until we’re depleted. No, we’re just opening up the floodgates so that things can flow back and forth. Who desires to open the floodgates of potential in their lives? Then let’s get ready to experiment in the laboratory of our lives.
(25:40):
As Ernest Holmes says, for yourself right now, name one area you want to experiment in. You know what it is? You don’t have to tell anybody, but just get really honest with yourself. What is the area? Let’s just say for the next week that you want to experiment opening up the floodgates. Maybe it’s finances, maybe it’s love, maybe it’s health, bodily strength or flexibility, friendship, work, life. No area is excluded from this. So get honest with yourself and name what is the current symptom or experience you are having that is contrary to what you want in that area. So maybe instead of you’re experiencing decrease, you want to experience increase, maybe it’s in vitality and health, and you’re like, man, I wake up every day and I’m just like, this is an area of my life that I want to experiment. Opening up the floodgates of pure potentiality.
(26:50):
Maybe there’s a sense of stagnation. Maybe you’re a creative or you’re just trying to be creative with your life and you’re not quite getting into the flow. Maybe there’s a sense of depletions instead of supply. And what I want you to do is just use that as a data point. Okay? This is an area of your life that you are going to reflect upon over the week and in particular come back next Sunday and check in with yourself and go, let’s see what happened. But I want you to let go of focusing on how chances are many of you are like, okay, what am I going to do this week to make it happen? Yeah, anyone there?
(27:38):
I want you to realize that there’s something in this practice that is if we are experiencing flow in some area of our life, it starts to increase and expand flow in all areas of our life. We can get trapped in thinking, I’ve got to prove it here, and that’s when we get locked into the how am I going to make this happen? But if in terms of the mindset shift, right? It’s not about making something happen in a particular area of our lives. The law of giving and the practice of giving is all about shifting our overall mindset and belief from the space of lack to that of abundance sufficiency. So we want to practice in all areas and maybe especially in the areas where we go, yeah, I totally am down with this belief and this philosophy and this idea. We strengthen ourselves where we know this law to be absolutely true.
(28:39):
If we try to push too hard in the area of our life, that’s too hard to maybe really, we’re like, yeah, I believe that. But when it comes to love, ain’t nobody good out there for me when it comes to money. Yeah, no one will ever pay me what I’m worth. That’s one. I’ve been walking around with anyone. It’s bull. All of it is bull. It’s just a belief. But be careful about pushing too hard in that area. The law of giving is something that is across the board. It is about your consciousness, it is about your mindset. So in the book, here are the suggestions that Deepak suggests.
(29:31):
I will put the law of giving into effect by making a commitment to make the following steps. We got three steps, whether you’ve read the book or not, do you trust me? Okay. Step number one, wherever I go and whoever I encounter, I will bring them a gift. The gift may be a compliment. Everyone’s like, am I going to walk around with a bunch of $1 bills this week? No people, come on now. The gift may be a compliment, a flower or a prayer. Today, I will give something to everyone I come into contact with, and so I will begin the process of circulating joy, wealth, and affluence in my life and in the lives of others. Bring a gift no matter where you go for the rest of this week, number two, today. Now some of y’all going to be like, okay, I’m down with this one today. I will gratefully receive.
(30:34):
It’s the same flow, y’all, right? So you’re not only about giving this week you will receive Today I will gratefully receive all the gifts that life has to offer me. I will receive the gifts of nature, sunlight, and the sound of birds singing or spring showers or the first snow of winter. I will also be open to receiving from others, whether it be in the form of material, gift, money, a compliment, or a prayer. And then lastly, I will make a commitment to keep wealth circulating in my life by giving and receiving life’s most precious gifts, the gift of caring, the gift of affection, appreciation, and love. Each time I meet someone, I will silently wish them happiness, joy, and laughter. Don’t let your disappointment be greater than the giving that you can bring into the world. The last little thing that influenced me in this past week before the election, I went to hear Stevie Wonder. It was an amazing concert at the United Center a week ago, and it was only a 10 city tour, and the title of the tour was Healing the Broken Heart of the Country. He like Mr. Rogers, if you listen to his lyrics and his songs, he’s had one thing on his mind, and that’s love, love.
(32:06):
Here’s a little acronym. If you hear nothing else, if you hear nothing else from today’s talk with all of the stuff that’s been going on, Maah, not just Maah beads make America love again. He wrote a song in the seventies called Love is in Need of Love today. Listen to it because it is still true today. We need more love. We need to give. Don’t wait for someone to give it to you. Bring that gift into the world and watch how that law of giving starts to circulate not only love in your life, but anything in everything that you desire. Yes. Alright, let’s take this into prayer, folks. Whatever that is in your life that you are going to play with this week, that area of life that you are looking to experience, the divine flow of love, bring your hand to your heart. Bring that area of your life into your consciousness and bring the word love into your awareness.
(33:17):
And what I recognize in this moment is that love is all that there is. Love is all that there is. There are circumstances, there are outcomes, there’s data, and there’s information that may try to prove us in a different direction. Lord knows that there is a huge media seen that wants us to look at anything that is not love. This is the gift that we all get to bring this week is love. We get to remember our inherent truth, that we are the power and the presence of love. We are the power and the presence of the divine. We are in the power and the presence of wholeness, and it is not exceptional. It is the norm. And so let us normalize love and wholeness in any and all areas of our life today. Let us be in the act of giving so that we can open up the floodgates of potential, not only in our individual lives, but the floodgates of potential in this country and on this planet, in this universe.
(34:15):
For what I know is that there is no ceiling, that there is no final frontier. We continue to step into the potential of life and let us activate the potentiality through our giving this week, whether it be in our money, whether it be in our time, whether it be in our efforts, we are here to be givers and receivers, but let us activate the giving. That is what I’m grateful to bless us all with this week and to know is in front of us, behind us, and in back of us. And as we do it more and more and more, it becomes normalized. So may there be a normalization of giving as well as receiving as the result of our practice. And so it is. Amen. Thank you, Reverend Darrell.