Born For This – Rev. Aimee Daniels
This video features the Sunday “talk” only. Watch the full service on our YouTube channel.
DESCRIPTION
You weren’t placed here by accident—you were born for this. Within you lives a divine blueprint, a soul-purpose waiting to be remembered and lived. Join us as we explore how spiritual practices can help you uncover the red threads of your calling and align you with your soul’s highest potential. Your purpose isn’t something you chase—it’s something you allow to emerge as you evolve.
SUMMARY
This transcript summarizes a talk given by Rev. Aimee Daniels on the topic of spiritual liberation, as described in the book “Spiritual Liberation” by Michael Beckwith. The key points covered include:
- Beckwith’s personal journey from atheism to a deeper spiritual awareness and connection with the “self-givingness of spirit” or divine love.
- The idea that we are already whole, perfect, and complete, and that spiritual growth is about revealing our true selves rather than “fixing” something.
- The importance of slowing down, meditation, and paying attention to the “divine discontent” or inner calling that can guide our growth.
- Practical spiritual practices like gratitude, generosity, forgiveness, and embodiment (living as if the desired outcome is already fulfilled).
- Identifying and honoring our “red threads” or sources of joy and purpose, and allowing them to emerge and guide our lives.
- A guided visualization and affirmation exercise to connect with one’s divine pattern and spiritual purpose.
TRANSCRIPTION
This transcription was auto-generated, please excuse typos, errors and omissions.
Rev. Aimee Daniels (00:02):
Okay, am I on you? This is my first time being wireless. It’s a new experience. You have to pay attention to what you’re doing when you’re walking around. That was beautiful. Thank you, Paige. Keep the Faye and I love the grow song. Can I just say, and it’s really perfect for my talk this morning, and you’ll understand why in a moment. So I just want to invite everyone to just take a centering breath with me. Let’s just come fully into this moment. We had a little bit of noise going on in the background, so let’s just breathe in and breathe out together. Just being in this moment and just knowing the presence of spirit in this moment.
(00:49):
Sounds like somebody’s phone. Is that my phone? Sounds like your phone. Is it my phone? Okay. Let’s see. It could be my phone. Hold on. That’s embarrassing. Okay. And if Rich is online watching, he’s laughing his head off right now. My phone. Okay, so back to the story. So this month we’re studying Spiritual liberation by Michael Beckwith. And this is a beautiful book. And I want to begin by telling you his story. When he was a young man going to school, he was actually an atheist. He didn’t believe in God. He was kind of into, at that time when he was growing up, there were a lot of drugs happening on campuses and things like that. And he became a marijuana distributor and that was when it was not legal. And he had a business in multiple states selling marijuana. But he started to have these dreams about, and in his dreams, men were chasing him and he would’ve these dreams recurringly for about a year.
(02:04):
And one night the men caught him and stabbed him in the heart and he died in his dream. And so that got his attention and he decided to get out of the marijuana business. And he planned he was going to do one last delivery and he never let anyone come to his home, but he let them come to his home and someone had formed on him and he got arrested. And so he’s in his court and he’s decided he needs to go on a spiritual journey even though he’s an atheist. And he starts reading people like Para Mahana, Yogananda Shri or Abdu, Howard Thurman. And he’s sitting in court and he’s reading. And the idea that there had been a technical error in his arrest came up and he got off. And so the judge calls him to the front and he says, young man, you got really lucky today and I do not ever want to see you again in this court.
(03:11):
And Michael Beckwith said, you never will, because he realized that something new was coming forward in him and he was becoming changed. He was becoming something fundamentally different. And he made the decision to deepen his relationship with what he calls love. Beauty. You could also call that God. You could also call that spirit. And that’s what happens when we awaken. When we begin to awaken spiritually, we take on a new name and nature. And those of us who grew up in the Christian Church, you put on the name and nature of God who remembers that growing up. And like Paul Saul took a new name, he became Paul because it’s a reminder that something is different now. Something has changed. Just a way to remind yourself that something new is coming into your experience. So could you go to the next slide, Ben? In new thought, we teach this idea of the self givingness of spirit and the self givingness of spirit really refers to love, which is understood as spirit’s desire to express itself through everything. And that includes you. You’re part of that, everything. And literally you were born for this expression of the givingness of spirit.
(04:47):
And we so often think of love as a human emotion, but really love is something that we express. We make a decision to express love. And when we do that, whether it’s an act of compassion or whether we’re just being kind or whether we’re doing service to other people, that self givingness of spirit is working through us. Because you go to the next slide, Ben. So in the reading that Jason did for you, and I want to say I love Michael Beckwith. I read this years ago. Everything in his book is written in blue because it’s a spiritual energy. So that’s why my slides are blue today in honor of the blue letters.
(05:34):
But he is a beautiful writer. And even if you’ve read this book before, I encourage you to read it again because you’re not reading it as the person who read it before you’re reading it as a new person. And so he says his central message is about aspiring towards spiritual liberation, which he defines as becoming free from the narrow confines of fear, doubt, worry and lack, and living instead from a consciousness of the awareness of the authentic self, our true nature of wholeness. So we teach you our already whole perfect and complete here. And this idea that this consciousness is already inside of us, it’s just waiting for us to reveal it. And so it’s really about becoming more of ourselves. It’s not about fixing something that’s broken, it’s about really allowing who you really are, which is your spirit. And this, does anyone else have this experience? When I have a moment where I feel like I haven’t been the kindest, I get this icky feeling inside of me, your spirit knows that’s not who you are.
(06:48):
And how do we give this room to unfold? We give this room to unfold through slowing down through slowing down. We do that in meditation and prayer because it’s hard to hear the voice of spirit when we’re moving too fast. So Michael teaches us that we’re not here to get anything. We are here to let something unfold from within us. And I love what he says about his own life. He says, A surge of life pulled me from the dead. I love this next sentence. I gave up mental contamination and started building a spiritual foundation. The world around me was falling down. And when it crumbled, I saw higher ground. Something happened inside of me and I stepped into my true identity. And we teach something called involution and evolution here. So involution is this idea that there’s a prototype in everything and everyone, so think the seed that becomes the tree, but you are the seed, you are the prototype.
(07:59):
Everything is within you already. And then evolution comes from evolution. So like a seed in a tree, it already has it and nothing needs to be added, nothing needs to be subtracted, nothing needs to be changed so that it becomes more of itself. And that’s also true of you. We get messages all the time about how we’re broken or there’s something missing or we don’t meet someone else’s idea of who we should be. Anyone relate to this? Am I alone here? But the truth is there’s nothing missing in us. That’s the truth. We have everything we need to evolve and flourish already. And another idea he talks about is that we’re not here to get anything. We’re here to let something unfold within us. Isn’t that really different than the message we get out in the world? We’re not here to get anything. We’re here to let something unfold from within us.
(09:08):
And I want to talk just a little bit about the things that go wrong in our life because I think sometimes in this teaching, we can think we’re off track when that happens. And Beckwith calls these things divine discontent. Anybody got any divine discontent? It’s the thing that you’re like, damn, that bugs me. Or Why is this happening? Or whatever. We all have it, but actually divine discontent is a call to grow. It’s no more than that. So when you notice you’re feeling anxiousness about something, it just means it’s time to grow. And if you don’t, our still small voice is a little bit more quiet than the big loud voice in our head. It usually whispers to us. But if you really pay attention, you’re going to know it’s working. And we’re also called to move from our egos goals to our soul’s purpose.
(10:07):
So when we’re ego driven, we have the attitude, what do I want to get from the world? But when we’re soul driven, we ask the question, what’s trying to emerge through me? And for some of us, this requires some programming who grew up thinking that it was important that you work hard and that you succeed, right? I mean, that’s the message we got. But instead of asking the question, want to ask a different question, what’s trying to emerge through me? And if this raises your inner sense of doubt, just ask your divine to help you. Ask your spirit to help you. When you’re in your quiet moments, just say, okay, we can all also have at least I do like those places where we feel insecure and we think, who am I to do this? I think Marianne Williamson said, who are you not to do it? Right? So let’s talk about clearing our inner obstacles. Let’s talk about where we’re placing our attention and our intention. Michael Beckwith actually teaches us as a way to meditate.
(11:15):
When we meditate, we place our attention within and our heart and on our third eye. And our intention is to know God more fully. But I want to talk about it in day to day life. Where’s your attention and where’s your intention? And I’ve been kind of humbled lately. I had a little accident a couple weeks ago, so it was right after service and I went home and we’re having Rich’s mom and dad over, and I feel a little choked up talking about, because I haven’t really said a lot about this. I didn’t even tell my family it happened for the most part. But I went upstairs to change and I had these slippery socks on because I was going to go make dinner and I’m going down the stairs. I have my phone and a glass of water in one hand, and I go to take the first step on the stairs, and I went sliding down the stairs and I landed on my back, and Rich heard me scream in the garage.
(12:14):
That’s how loud I screamed. And I got up and I was like, oh. And I was like, okay, I’m just going to go lay on the couch. And so I went and I laid on the couch and he got me some ice and I’m like, okay, I think I can get up now. And it was the weirdest thing. I had no bruising, none. But the next day I’m like, okay, I’m going to go over to my chiropractor in my neighborhood and she can just look like, did I mess myself up? What’s going on? She’s like, you don’t even have a bruise. I don’t think you have anything broken. And I’m like, okay. But a couple of days went by and I was having some other issues. So I go back to urgent care and they said, you have two broken ribs. I have two small fracture.
(12:59):
And so I’ve been having to pay a lot of attention to what I’m doing and what I noticed because then you’re more attentive, they can’t do anything. You just have to let it heal. But I’m more attentive. Everything I’m doing when I go to a stairwell now, I’m like, but it made me realize how often I am moving through my life and I am not paying attention to what is happening in the moment. And it’s pretty humbling. And I’ve gotten this message a lot of ways. Trust me, I keep getting this message so I wasn’t listening, right? And so this is the invitation for us in life. I also have a choice about my healing. I can put my attention on like, oh, poor me. I’m in pain. Although I got to tell you two weeks and I’m doing way better. I’m way better. First week was brutal.
(13:52):
I’m doing pretty well, but I could focus on my condition or I could focus on my healing. Because when we have something in our body, especially, it’s actually better to move when you have a broken rib, just in case hope never happens to you. But just so you know, and it’s actually good to stretch, but if I’m going to sit there and feel sorry for myself, I’m not going to do any of those things. And how often are the conditions of our life like that? We are paying attention to what is wrong. And so here’s what I want to invite you to do. As you go through the days, if you are going through the day and you are feeling anxious about anything at all, what I want you to do is just stop. I want you to breathe, and I just want you to notice where your attention is and then just consciously maybe breathe a little more until you’re ready.
(14:46):
Just refocus yourself. Affirm what you want, not what you don’t want. So often in our life, we are going, not this, not this, not this. Instead of saying, what am I trying to call in? And so that’s my invitation for something you can practice in the week. And I also want to talk a little bit about mental habits and patterns in our life. I’m taking it for granted that you’re already praying and meditating. If you’re not, I want you to consider it. But I want to talk to you about some of the common practices that are in the spiritual new thought realm. But I want to put a different frame on them. The first one is gratitude. We can think of gratitude like, Hey, I’m going to make my gratitude list. I’m going to give gratitude at the end of the day. But what we really want to do is walk through our entire day with gratitude.
(15:47):
Beckwith says, I no longer count my failures and obstacles. I count my blessings and I added the all day in it. I don’t know about you, but I don’t always do that. I don’t always go into the room and like, wow, look at these beautiful flowers that Connie and her daughter made for us. Or look at, how about that beautiful song that Paige and Greg wrote for us? Or how about the fact that I have a chair to sit in or a house to live in? It’s really easy to go unconscious on gratitude, but we believe in the self givingness of spirit, right? Spirit’s already giving to you. And so the invitation of gratitude is to notice what’s already there, what’s already there. That’s the invitation. The second thing is generosity, giving without an agenda. And this is not about money. It could be about money, but it’s really about being generous with your spirit.
(16:45):
If you are a portal, for lack of a better word, that spirit is operating through in the world, how can you have a generosity of spirit? Even little things make such a difference for the people that we’re around. We all encounter people that no one speaks too much. The people at the grocery store who are doing the checking, and it’s like we all have an opportunity all day to be generous with our spirit. It doesn’t cost us anything, right? It doesn’t cost us anything to be kind. I love what Michael Beckwith tells this cute story about his grandpa. So when he was a little boy, he would go to his grandpa’s house and every time he would go, his grandpa would give him some sort of a special gold coin that he had collected. And he would say to Michael, there’s two kinds of people, Michael. There’s givers and takers. And I have found this is kind of a Christian, but the big man upstairs always sides on the side of the givers. And that’s what we’re talking about is being a giver. So let’s talk about forgiveness.
(18:01):
It’s an interesting topic, isn’t it? He teaches forgiveness a slightly different way. I think we can think about forgiveness as like I’m letting go of something that I’m being super generous in my forgiveness here. But the idea of forgiveness is actually to unburden yourself. Because when you are in non forgiveness, that means you believe in scarcity and lack. I never used to understand that that was actually, what’s her name? Edwin Gaines. That’s one of the things that she teaches, like lack of forgiveness and debt go together. I never got that. But what I want to say about it is if you’re not forgiving anyone, including yourself, right? Then you’re carrying your energy in a place of scarcity. So my invitation is to even if you think someone has really done something terrible to you, just let it go. And he has a nice visualization practice that I really like because if you need to forgive someone else or yourself, you can visualize yourself sitting across from you too, not just a person, but visualize the person or yourself and just say, I forgive you and I set you free.
(19:22):
Your actions no longer have power over me. Think about that. When we don’t forgive, their actions are still having power over us. And I acknowledge that you’re doing the best you can. I really like that part. And I acknowledge that you’re in the process of unfoldment, and I honor that you’re free and I’m free. All is well between us. Peace is the order of the day. And you can do that with yourself. You can free yourself because we all have those things that we repeatedly say to ourselves, I know y’all do too. Right? So that’s forgiveness. Next idea, life as a celebration. He says, Michael says, problems are a human predicament, not a divine one. I really like that We can get so fixated in our problems. We all do. But this idea that life is a celebration, it’s not a problem to be solved. It’s a mystery to live, to see what’s going to happen. And that’s also true when things are not going your way. We all have unfortunate things happen. We lose people, we get sick, we someone else gets sick, we lose a job. We all have those things, but often there our invitation to grow. So we want to celebrate that life. This self givingness is always bringing to us what we need for our growth.
(20:59):
Embodiment. We don’t talk about this much, but Beckwith teaches us at the end of prayer, I want to talk about it the way Neville Goddard teaches it. Neville Goddard teaches something called the Law of assumption. And it is living from the end is a short version of what it is. So it’s like living in a visualization that it is already fulfilled. Goddard was very big on visualizing and really seeing yourself living the life that you want to be living or if you’re trying to call something in through prayer to begin to visualize it, to get the feeling tone of it. And that’s what Beckwith calls embodiment, right? So it’s going a step further. It’s like really activating the energy beyond gratitude, choosing happiness over drama. Anyone. That’s all I’m going to say. I don’t need to say that.
(21:58):
Understanding the value of downtime, I think this is something I see so much, especially with the people I work with who are in executive roles. People give themselves no downtime anymore. It is perfectly fine. I sat on the beach. I’m not a beach sitting person, but that’s what my family wanted to do, sit on the beach. So I sat on the beach and read a book. But downtime is really important. It’s actually another time you can hear your spirit speak to you in a passive way. You ever notice that when I was changing away from my corporate job, I was away with a friend and it was actually being away in a foreign country? I just got the drop in about what I was supposed to do. So downtime’s important. We’re going to do a little mini visioning in a second, but I want to take a second before we do that to talk about red threads.
(22:49):
Anybody familiar with Adam Grant? Okay. So Adam Grant has this idea of red threads and these are meaningful moments that reveal your inner calling. And when you think about them, I want you to think just for a second, like what lights you up? What gives you energy? What do you feel like you could do it for hours and hours and never stop. Does everybody have an idea in their head? Okay, I’m just going to create a little chaos. I want you to turn to the person next to you and share it. And if you’re online, we’re going to take two minutes to do it. If you’re online, I want you to type it in the chat. So share with the person next to you what lights you up and what gives you energy.
(23:37):
…Inaudible – group processing…
(24:58):
Yes. Okay, let’s come back together. I know you could talk all day. I like the energy in the room. Could you guys go to the next slide for me? We’re going to move into a practice of visioning in a minute, but I want to just wrap up my talk here and say hopefully you just got a glimpse or a reminder of what speaks to your spirit just in that little exercise. And I want you to be curious about what wants to emerge through you. I want you to go out into the week. I want you to look at those red threads, and I want you to start to weave ’em into your daily life and to really honor them and to make the time for them. So we’re going to go into a little bit of a kind of visioning and integration practice now, and they’re going to give us a little backup here. I just put this on the screen in case you want to take a picture of it and do it later. But I want to invite everyone to turn within now. And let’s just take a couple deep breaths together, just breathing in and breathing out, and just breathing in and breathing out. And in your mind’s eye, I want you to ask the question, what is seeking to emerge through me? Just listen to whatever comes up. What is seeking to emerge through me?
(27:15):
And just ask your spirit, what red threads have I been given? What red threads have I been given? What brings me joy and fulfillment? What must I release to make space for my soul to express? What must I release? And in your mind’s eye, just imagine what would it feel like to live from that expression, that higher expression, your red threads, your purpose? Just imagine in your mind’s eye what that would feel like. Feel the goodness of that, the freedom of that, the love that is expressed through that.
(29:49):
And we breathe this all into a prayer in this moment, just knowing the presence and power of spirit, this love, this givingness of spirit, this goodness, this grace, this divine whole being, wellbeing this divine wholeness itself. And I know that I am one with the self givingness of spirit. It is the truth of who I am. And I know that I’m one with this wholeness and this grace and this goodness and this divine wellbeing. And as I know this for myself, I know this for each person hearing my words and for all of the United States and all of the world, that we are all one with this grace, this self-giving lovingness of spirit, this wholeness, this health, this oneness, this perfect divine wellbeing. And so from this place of oneness, I just speak my word for all of us just knowing and affirming that these red threads of soul purpose, which are emerging for each of us, that we embrace them, that we practice every day, the disciplines and the habits that will free our spirit even more that more and more all the time, we are all recognizing that our divine source, our spirit, our true self, it’s the truth of our being.
(31:26):
And we were literally born to be an expression of this. So I say yes to this for all of us. I know that it’s the truth. I know that more fully all the time God is expressing in as and through all of us, and that we are divine channels of love in the world. This is what I say yes to on our behalf. And I just want to invite you to repeat this affirmation after me. I trust the divine pattern within me to guide my steps. Say it with me. I trust the divine pattern within me to guide my steps. One more time. I trust the divine pattern within me to guide my steps, and we allow this higher vision for our lives to embody itself in all of our affairs, holding the higher vision, the visualization of that which we are calling in. Just knowing it’s happening now, knowing more love, more grace, more peace, more truth, more goodness are the truth of our experience now, and with gratitude for this together, we say, and so it is.
Paige Kizer (32:59):
Thank you, Aimee.