OVERVIEW
FREEING JOY IN RELATIONSHIPS – Rev. Aimee Daniels
The imprints of the past influences all the relationships in our lives. As we consciously examine and release these imprints, we free our energy to cultivate joy in our relationships. Join us this Sunday as we explore how to release the past and find greater joy in All of our relationships.
TRANSCRIPTION
This transcription was auto-generated, please excuse typos, errors and omissions.
Rev. Aimee Daniels (00:00):
I am remodeling. So when they were practicing that song, I was thinking, I know I’m not what you need that song. And I kind of would love to turn that song around, maybe if this is not what that person needs. How about if it’s not what the person singing the song needs? It just struck me as a bit funny. Does it strike anyone else as funny? This is how we’re not really taught what healthy relationships are. And you think about it, we go to school for years. No one actually teaches us how to have good relationships. Whether we’re talking about in our family with a partner, with the people we work with, no one teaches us that. It’s kind of crazy, isn’t it? Our whole life is love. So can you advance my slide, Ben? Thanks. So they can see it. So one of my favorite movies is love actually.
(01:03):
And if you’ve ever watched this movie at the end of the movie, there’s a scene and people are getting off the plane and they’re coming to see their loved ones for the holiday. And if you’ve never just Google YouTube and Google this clip, but in the song, in the background is God only knows, is playing by the Beach Boys. And it’s just all these faces of people meeting each other and meeting their loved ones. And it gives you such a warm feeling because our whole life is really about love and a relationship. We don’t think about it that way, but everything we create in life is relationship and it’s all love underneath it, right? Because spirit is love. That love expresses through us. That is what we’re offering to the world, and that’s also what we’re receiving. So it’s really all love, but we bring with us our baggage.
(02:08):
I don’t know about anyone else when I travel. We were in Mexico City last weekend and I brought way too much stuff. It was ridiculous. I was trying to take a small bag. But that’s what we do in life. We bring our baggage and we all experience loss. We experience betrayal, we experience other wounds. But when we ignore what’s happening, when we don’t deal with it, which let me tell you, that was my family, we’re not going to talk about what’s going on. And then so when we don’t deal with it, we have unconscious emotional pain and someone might push our button or something reminds us of something from our family or our childhood, or maybe it’s something someone said to us once about ourselves. And if we don’t notice and unblock it, it really takes away our joy in life. And so we’re going to talk a little bit about bringing healing to ourselves, and then we’re going to talk about how we cultivate more joy.
(03:23):
So healing begins with our own awareness. We’re the only ones who can heal ourselves. I think we’ve all bought into this, especially in romantic relationship, like I’m going to meet that person and then everything’s going to be great. And early on it might seem like that, but then whatever needs to be healed comes up to get healed, doesn’t it? So you can’t run away from yourself, but when we start to notice our own baggage, we can begin to heal. And I like what Ernest Holmes says. He says, everything you’ve ever thought, said, done, seen, learned, or experienced, has left an impress in your subconscious mind. Our memories are always active, but there is more than this. Just as you are being acted upon by your memories, you’re also being act upon by the mind of God, which is within and around you. And I just want to offer that up as we talk about these things to be healed.
(04:24):
We can get tired of ourselves really. I’m still looking at this thing. I’ve been looking at this thing for years, but just to know that if something’s up, it’s up to be healed. And spirit’s your cooperative component in that. So you literally are not doing it by yourself. And I want to mention one thing that Don Miguel Ruiz Jr. Says here is when we recover from our past wounds and our domesticated ideas, domesticated ideas are like the roles we think we’re supposed to play in our life. So we were with some friends last weekend and she was the mom and she cared for the house. And she said, I don’t want that role anymore. Our kids are grown. I want to renegotiate my role. But she was living in a role that was just sort of given to her. So she was wanting more freedom.
(05:17):
And the thing about healing too is it starts with our own awareness and we can only heal ourselves. Have you ever been this person? Or maybe you knew this person who meets someone and then they want to change ’em, right? Does it ever work? And how do you feel about someone trying to change you? No thank you. This is what I came in with. This is who I’m meant to be. And so how do you start to heal? The first thing you want to do is you want to notice your reactions and you want to ask yourself these questions. If you notice you’re fearful, reactive, whatever, is there a past emotional wound that’s coming up in my current relationship? So maybe I’ll just give an example. Maybe I’ll give a personal example. I had a whole slew of people I dated who were not available bowl, and that came from my parents.
(06:18):
I know where it came from. My parents were really sick of raising children by the time that I was born. They didn’t really go to a lot of my events or anything like that. And so that became normal to me that someone didn’t really show up in that way. My parents were great. I’m not blaming them. I know they were doing their best, but when I started to look at my pattern, I said, wow, I’m not available to myself. I’m not taking care of what I know I need. I’m not doing anything about this. I’m just trying to bend over backwards. Be nice, please. The other person, I’m not available to myself. And the other thing I want to say is that doesn’t mean the people I was with were bad or wrong. They just were not the right person for me. And that’s the thing.
(07:09):
So when we take responsibility for ourselves, we can say, you know what? It’s okay if it’s not for me. This just isn’t a fit. Okay? So the second question is, is there some idea, belief or role I’m maintaining? That’s no longer true for me. And some examples he gives in the book that I thought were pretty good too is just talking about our conditioning. So one example he gave was about conditioning around money. Someone came from a family where you don’t talk about money, but every time this person got in a relationship, he refused to talk about money and it always ended up being a problem. He wouldn’t talk about it. And when it would come up, he would notice a lot of stress within himself. I can’t talk about this, we don’t talk about this. Another example I really liked that he used in the book is perfectionism.
(08:09):
Does anyone have parents who felt you were supposed to be perfect? I didn’t have that, but I know a lot of people who did. And what happens when someone tells you you need to be perfect or you can’t make a mistake or whatever, then you start holding yourself to such an unforgiving high standard. No one could live up to that. And that’s what I like about our teaching. I’m already whole perfect and complete. That might not mean I show up in the world perfectly all the time, but who I really am is that it’s not like someone else’s idea of how I’m supposed to show up.
(08:48):
So there’s two emotions that point to the need for healing. The first one is shame. And this is when we turn on ourselves directly. The other one that he talks about is blame. So when we use the actions or inactions of others to turn on ourselves indirectly. So if I was just smarter, that wouldn’t happen to me. You know how we negatively? That’s what I’m talking about here. I also think looking at your resentments can be a very good place to realize where you have wounding because it usually means you have an expectation of someone that they’re not fulfilling, but you have to give it to yourself first. And also on the resentment thing, I want to say it can also be the person who bugs you in your life. Like the person, if you see something they posted on Facebook, you’re like, oh, there they go again.
(09:51):
Or the person in your family who does whatever they do that you’re just kind of like, oh, really? I got to deal with them? That’s a good place to look for whether you need healing or not, because it doesn’t matter what other people do. It matters what you do with people do with what people do. And if you’re centered in yourself, then it’s going to bounce off of you, right? People do what they do and we take it so personally, but it’s rarely about us. I was thinking about that driving in so often we’re convinced that someone did something directly to us, but they just weren’t paying attention. They weren’t aware. And so just having a little bit of grace and not assuming it means something about you, especially not something about you, that means you’re lesser. So a couple more questions to ask yourself. What actions or choices in my past or current relationships do I continue to judge myself for? That’s a great question. Another one, where am I using other people’s behaviors in past relationships to keep myself down? Has anyone ever had somebody in their family say something to them that it got so imprinted on you that you believed it was true? What was it, Judy, do you mind if I ask?
(11:15):
Oh, that she was an angry kid. Okay, anyone else have a different one? I’m not good enough. I’ve heard I’m not smart enough a lot, right? If I took my mother’s words to me, mine would be Amy, don’t make a mountain out of a mole hill. I guess I was making mountains out of molls. But the point is really just simply becoming aware. And I know my trigger is when people don’t consider their impact on others. I’ve said this seven Jill times. I had it happen recently in my work and somebody who’s working with me said, why does this person bother you so much? They’re like, they are under your skin. And I had to go unpack it. I’m like, I think it’s he’s not considering the impact he’s having on other. He was going off on rants. This person was going off on rants. He wasn’t considering how that impacted other people. It was like the harmony was being challenged. And I tried to speak with him about it and he just wasn’t ready to hear it, so I had to let it go. But that’s what we’re talking about here. And the other thing I want to say before I move on is sometimes people told us we were different.
(12:32):
Different’s not good. Maybe you’re fundamentally different from your family. I know people who would say that about themselves that I am fundamentally different than my family. And so we can wear the different part as not, okay. Instead of saying for some reason I was wired this way for some reason, my whole family’s a bunch of lawyers and I’m an artist. Or I just love to do things that my family thinks are crazy, but to not run from what you love because of someone else’s idea about your life to really come into who am I? Who am I in this? The other thing that we often do, let me talk about psychological safety. I threw this in here. Does everyone know what that is? Psychological safety. You hear a lot of talk about this in DEI now, DEIB. And I like this word because it’s all about being safe to be yourself where you are.
(13:42):
And even though it’s often applied to the workplace, I think it’s true in our relationships, can I express myself? Is it safe for me to express myself? Especially if I have a different point of view than someone else? Is it safe? And do I know I’m not going to get humiliated, ignored, ostracized, all those things. And so I just invite you to think about that in your own life. Do I feel psychologically safe in my whatever relationship I’m in? Do I feel psychologically safe in my work? And am I around people who support me so that I can be my best self? I think that’s the thing I’ve learned through all my relationship trials. I think I’m getting it right now. But the right person for you, the right people for you in your life, even if it’s friends, are people who love you the way you are. And they support who you want to be. They don’t need you to be anybody other than you are. And that’s really what psychological safety points to.
(14:56):
So I want to pull in just a little bit of spiritual speak here. This is pretty psychological. This book, we really want to be clear in our intentions and everything we do in life. We talk about that a lot. What’s my intention? And the flip side of that is what am I giving my attention to? So I want to invite you to think and any relationship in your life, what’s my intention? What’s my intention in this relationship? And what am I giving my attention to? It’s really easy to see what someone’s not doing or to go in a situation and assume that we know what’s going on, but if we’re not curious and we’re not willing to be clear in our communication, then we’re not going to have the kind of relationships we want. And so that starts with you. And there’s a lot of tools and techniques I’m not going to go into.
(15:58):
I need time for us to do a little bit of work to together. But if you feel like, hey, you need some support in figuring out how to communicate better, I have a number of books I can recommend to you. So let’s talk about the healing process. We want to start by affirming I’m whole and I welcome your attention, encouragement, affection, and praise if and when you are in a place to provide it. Doesn’t that feel healthy? I don’t depend on it. I welcome it. I already know I’m okay. Should we say that together? Let’s say it together. I am whole and I welcome your attention, encouragement, affection, and praise if and when you are in a place to provide it. I really like that good thing to say to yourself. The next thing, and we’re going to do this together, the next two things we’re going to do to together.
(17:00):
The first thing is to examine your perceptions, which is really healing your thinking about the past. We’re going to do a couple of examples together, and then we’re going to talk about a forgiveness process. We’re going to use his, there’s zillions of them as when you speak about forgiveness. But I think the thing I want you to think about is you want to be emotionally clean. When we haven’t forgiven someone, when we resent them, we’re carrying around the past. It’s like we’re taking those bags and we’re dragging ’em along with us, and where’s our attention? Our attention is looking back, it’s not looking forward. So forgiveness is so important so that you don’t carry forward into the future, what happened in the past. So let’s dive in and do a couple together. You have a handout at your seat, and if you’re online, maybe grab a piece of paper.
(17:57):
So the first invitation he makes, can you click forward? Ben, the first invitation he makes is to examine your perceptions. So here’s just an example. This was in the book, but I stole it because it applied to me. My parents missed many of my events. It’s true. They missed many of my events. My brother and I were on the speech team. We won the state. They never came. My dad decided he didn’t feel like going to my college graduation. So yeah, my parents missed a lot of events. So what’s the result that might come from your parent missing a lot of events. This was what he said. But I relate to this. I often crave attention and recognition and I want people in my life to be there for important events. And you can also include a belief you created about yourself. I would say the belief that I created was I don’t matter. And so when I get triggered, my little I don’t matter comes up. So everybody has this at their seat. I want you to take a minute and I want you to write down something that you need some healing on and what’s your perception of what happened? And we don’t have any pens out. I blew that. So you’re going to have,
(19:30):
So let’s just take a minute and then I’m going to ask you to share with your neighbor. And if you’re online, I just invite you to type in the chat your perception of events and what was the result or the belief that came up for you. Hey, John, can you keep an eye on the chat? Thank you. And if you don’t have a pen, we can just do this out loud. So once you have one, I just invite you to share with your neighbor first, and then I’m going to take a couple shares. And if you’re online share online, John’s going to share in the room. But what’s your perception of the event and what’s the result in your life? Yeah, you’re supposed to share
Inaudible Speaker (20:43):
With you.
Rev. Aimee Daniels (21:56):
Okay, I know I’m cutting you short, but I’m going to draw your attention back here because in the interest of time, so is anyone willing to share? John, you got a couple of shares from, okay. Oh, okay. You don’t want to read them? I can read them. Okay. John’s going to read some shares from our online folks, and then we’re going to take a few in the room.
John Adams (22:16):
Hey, online friends, if you’ve put something in the chat you do not want shared, please type that in right now so we have a share. My perception, I am not important enough for people to show up for something is wrong with me. I need to too much, so I don’t need anyone. And another one is I’m not being appreciated at work. Thank you for sharing.
Rev. Aimee Daniels (22:50):
Thanks online, friends for sharing. Anybody in the room want to share? Just take a couple shares in the room just to make it real when you hear other people talk. You all, great, come on up. We got to speak in the mic here. Sorry. You got to speak in the mic just so they can hear you online. I know you’re brave though, Darren. I know you can do this. Okay,
Darren (23:13):
Well, hey, how you doing? Good morning. Happy Sunday. Just talked about the inability for me to keep friendships that I have the conversation with them every Saturday or something. It’s more
(23:29):
Every three months, maybe. Maybe. And it’s my best friends that I barely talked to and it made me feel like I wasn’t a good friend because I’m like, oh, when I catch up with them, they’re talking about all the other friends they talked with. Oh, I talked to Steve, he’s doing this. I’m like, oh, wow. I didn’t know any of this life was happening. And then when I catch up, it feels good when I catch up, but it’s like that. So it created this narrative. Maybe I’m not a great friend. And so I started See how you
Rev. Aimee Daniels (23:59):
Turned that on yourself?
Darren (24:00):
Yeah. Yes, I did.
Rev. Aimee Daniels (24:04):
Thank you. One more person. Want to share? Anyone else? Come on up. Peter. I almost called you Bobby. Pobby. We’ll put your name together.
Peter (24:16):
We’re like joined at the hip… My first marriage, my ex-wife used to always tell me, you have a warp way of thinking. We would fight. You have a warp way of thinking. So I started to actually believe that I had a warp way of thinking and I was abnormal. So after a while, we started going to therapist and the therapist says, no, you don’t have a warp way of thinking. It’s just when she doesn’t agree with you, she will say that just to get to you. So after a while, I learned that my thinking wasn’t that bad after all. It was pretty logical. So
Rev. Aimee Daniels (24:59):
That’s an awesome example of where someone else implants something in our brain and then we believe it’s true and we start to question ourselves. OK. So you can do more of these at home. If you want to do some homework, you can do more of these at home. So let’s talk a little bit about forgiveness. And we don’t have time to do a forgiveness ritual justice today because I want to move into joy. But here’s the idea. I want you to bring into your mind someone that you need to forgive. It can be yourself. I just want you to bring ’em into your mind right now. And I’m actually going to invite us to just say this together because part of the reason I printed it is you can do this at home. What I’ve learned about forgiveness is if I simply will say some sort of prayer like this, or I say Ho’opono pono, or one of the other things that people do for forgiveness, what starts to happen is there’s a loosening in my brain around it, and I start to see the person in a different perspective.
(26:11):
I start to have more empathy and compassion for them. So let’s just say this top part together, not the bottom part. Okay? I am making room to forgive all those who inflicted pain and suffering on me in the past. I choose to forgive them so that their actions of the past can no longer affect my present. My wish is to see them through the eyes of unconditional love. I also forgive myself for anything and everything related to these events. I was doing my best at the time. I pray that these people and myself can experience love and peace going forward.
(26:54):
If you simply said that to yourself all the time, look at all the little nuggets in there just to remind you. And then if someone’s really challenging, the suggestion is that you specifically pray for them. I pray that they receive everything they need. I bless them and honor them on their journey, whatever that looks like for you. But just to send some energy their way. It helps to loosen what’s inside of you.
(27:19):
So let’s talk a little bit about love. Love is actually active. We don’t think about it that way. We think, oh, hey, I fall in love then I’m going to be in love forever. But love is a verb. Stephen Covey said that love is a verb. We choose to act lovingly, and it’s really a decision. And I can consciously choose to act in a loving manner even when I don’t feel like it. And I can consciously choose to practice love even when I’m not feeling that like… high that you have early in a relationship. I can make it that decision, like what would love do right now? And I also think that that applies to speaking up about things. This is what I’ve learned in my studies and my mistakes.
(28:14):
If I don’t speak up about something, then I’ve allowed myself to be victimized by whatever’s happened. And coming from a family where people don’t say anything. I just watched, I was thinking about this this morning. I just watched the play of my parents resentment toward each other, play out, and they wouldn’t tell each other, but they’d get mad. And then my dad wouldn’t talk to my mom for a month. And that was a terrible example. Then it says, Hey, if something’s happening, you don’t say anything about it. That’s what I learned. And I’ve had to reteach myself that because freedom in any relationship, whether it’s a family, somebody in your family comes through communicating. It doesn’t mean they always hear you. Sometimes you don’t agree, but at least you’ve said what’s true for you. And then you can let it go. And then you can see what they choose to do.
(29:14):
They can either choose to take the feedback and adjust or they don’t. Or sometimes you find out you were wrong. I’ve told the story before during Covid, I was so mad at Rich. We had all these kids at our house, and I’m like, this is like a Covid hotbed. And I said, you’re not considering me. He goes, I’m trying to consider everybody. And I was like, Ooh, I was just really wrong there. I was just thinking about myself. I wasn’t thinking about the other person. So my point is, we all need to do our work. And the only way we find out what’s going on is we get curious and we ask questions. So move forward to the next slide, please, Ben. So let’s talk about cultivating joy. So think about when you’re in a new relationship, whether it’s with a partner or you got a new friend, what are you doing when you first start?
(30:09):
It feels so alive and energized and you’re creating something together. And then day-to-day, life happens and you can start to go to sleep. A lot of people who have children say, our whole life is logistics. We don’t have fun together anymore. And so part of the invitation of finding the joy in the relationship is to step into creativity. When we create, we feel alive and we feel connected. And so that can either be your personal creativity if you are an artist of some kind, but it can also be in your relationship. Do something together, do something new, or do something old, a new way. Don’t just get complacent. Let’s step into creativity. This reminds me of the artist’s way where you have to take yourself on a date and just discover something that stirs your creativity. That’s kind of the same idea here. The second thing is curiosity.
(31:13):
Just being curious about what’s going on with the other person. So often we’re not curious, especially not when we’re triggered, right? If we’re mad, we’re like, I’m not at all curious about you. I’m going to tell you how it is right now. But just being curious, what’s trying to happen here? One of my favorite spiritual questions is, what is spirit trying to do here? What is spirit trying to show me here through what is happening? What’s here for me in this? What do I need to learn? Where do I need to be more open so that I can have a different experience? And then the last thing is cultivating play in your life and relationships. How often are we just like nose down, working, managing life and not giving ourselves time to play and have fun? And then think about the opposite of that. Think about the best time you ever had with your family or the best time you ever had with your partner or some friends.
(32:10):
And it’s like what happens when you’re there? You’re in joy. And we need to consciously cultivate that, and we need to see what’s present and what’s going on, not what’s absent. We’re so surrounded by a negative dialogue right now that it’s easy to forget about all the good things that are happening. Just sit at the end of the day and say, here’s the good things that happened today. I was grateful for this person. I was grateful for that person. Just to reframe our brain, find the joy again, whatever that is for you. So I’m going to actually ask you all to pause for a second and think about these three things. What could you do this week to step into more creativity, either with yourself or in your relationship? Be more curious or play. Just think about what could you do this week? What’s one or two things you could do that would really help you feel joyful? And actually, if you’re online, and I’m going to have you type it in the chat again because I’m going to take a couple shout outs in the room as well. What could you do this week? Who’s got an idea of something you could do this week?
(33:21):
Mena, come on up. You got to come up. We need you on the microphone up here. Come on, I’ll put my arm around you. You’ll be fine. Okay.
(33:31):
I was thinking about roller skating.
Inaudible Speaker (33:34):
Yeah,
Rev. Aimee Daniels (33:35):
I like it. That’s cool. Who has another idea? Who’s going roller skating with Mena? Anything online? John,
John Adams (33:45):
I heard do. I’m doing improv.
Rev. Aimee Daniels (33:49):
Oh, John does improv. Okay, anything in our chat? You want to come on up again, speaking in the thing.
(33:58):
Nothing in chat. Nothing in chat. Okay. My online friends, you have to find something that’s going to be creative. Stretch your curiosity or cultivate play because it’s really about joy. Who wants life to be feel heavy? We don’t want that. We want light to feel light. And it doesn’t mean we don’t have those heavy moments, but we really want to embrace that spirit, which is in us that wants to be expressed. And so I’m going to bring you back to this idea of your intention and your attention. So as we get ready to turn within, I just want to invite you, why don’t you close your eyes now just to think about what’s your intention for yourself in relationship, whether it’s with yourself or someone else? What’s your intention? And is there a place that you’re wanting to heal right now? Something you don’t want to carry forward any further? Is there a relationship you want to work on? One that’s not quite where you want it to be or one that you just want to make better. It’s already good, but you just want to make it better. Is there any place you want to bring some new energy in for more aliveness and joy? What would make you feel alive and joyful?
(35:35):
So bring to mind your intention. And with your eyes closed, just bring your attention to your intention. And when we are meditating, it can be helpful to bring our energy to the middle of our forehead to the third eye, just to stay focused and say to yourself, your intention. Just speak your intention in your mind’s eye. And now say to yourself, I choose to put my attention on my intention. And as you go through the week, if you notice that you’re drifting or you’re falling into a conversation about what you don’t want, just bring your attention inward. Focus on your intention and give your attention to that.
(36:42):
And so in this moment, I am knowing the presence and power of spirit, this presence and power of love and goodness and grace and possibility. This possibility of shift, this aliveness, this goodness of spirit, this field which contains all things and is all things this life itself. And I know that I’m one with this divine possibility, this divine love, this divine connection, this divine right relationship. 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 loving goodness, this love that is expressing in as in through us, this grace, this goodness, this perfect divine wellbeing. And so from this place of oneness, I just speak a word of transformation. I know that whatever your past experience was, I know that principle is not bound by precedent. So whatever happened in the past does not dictate the future.
(37:53):
So I just declare now that whatever is up for healing for you, I just declare that it’s healed. And I declare that you are having a new experience of relationship now with yourself and with others, and that spirit is bringing you everything you need for that to be the possibility, the truth, the manifestation, that spirit has this, that the love that you’re seeking is seeking you, and that all is well. I just bless the love that’s infused in each and every one of you, knowing that you carry it out into the world, that you are giving this love to others, and that it is coming back to you. This is what I claim for each and every one of us. I know that healing is complete, and I’m so grateful for this. I’m so grateful to know that this divine spirit already has each one of you and is moving your life perfectly. I’m grateful for the love that is surrounding and supporting each and every one of you. And I’m grateful to know that God is healing anything that needs to be healed by the power of this word. And with so much gratitude, I simply say, and so it is. Amen.