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OVERVIEW
KNOW THYSELF – Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Triche Atkins
Who thought that mean thought about you that was floating around in your mind? Why did the words you heard make you so very sad? And does anything cause you to be joy-filled? Do you know who is controlling you? In other words, what don’t you know about you? How is your lack of knowledge affecting you? And how does it affect your goal to have “healthy, happy relationships”? Join us this Sunday as we lean into these questions, continuing to draw on the wisdom from “The Seven Secrets to Healthy, Happy Relationships” by Don MIguel Ruiz Jr. and Heatherash Amara.
TRANSCRIPTION
This transcription was auto-generated, please excuse typos, errors and omissions.
Rev. Dr. Jacqueline Triche Atkins (00:00):
I want to thank, get all the names right? Yeah, I need a speaker.
(00:09):
My voice. Okay. This is better. This is why they didn’t say good morning back. Is that it? Good morning. Good morning. Yeah, I was saying Paige and Greg and Nora, thank you so much. Her voice, Greg’s voice is, Paige’s voice is so magnificent. I just truly appreciate that. And we say at my church, I’m a staff minister at Christ Universal Temple. I love coming here. This is my other family house, but there we say the music paves the path so the people can hear the words. And so that’s what we do. Now you know what I’m going to ask? Can I get Greg to help me for one second? Connie, stop the clock. Can I use a stool right here so I can put a book on it? Thank you, Greg. I appreciate that.
(01:24):
There you go. I’m all set. No thyself know. Thyself know thyself. That means you can look in the mirror and have this wonderful conversation because you know who you are talking to, right? The only challenge with that is that we keep changing. We keep changing you. Not even who you were yesterday, let alone 12 months ago, but you still, that message is know thyself. The book we’ve been working with, and I loved how I’m drawing a blank. Who spoke last week? Daryl? You know I know Darl. All right. Don’t tell Daryl. Daryl don’t. I didn’t forget his message. That commitment and freedom. And you have to have a commitment to freedom to be free. And that commitment, it was really a good message. But the seven secrets of healthy, happy relationships, I will tell you has caused me some issues and I’ll talk to you about those. But know thyself. Knowing oneself refers to a deep understanding of one’s personality, values, emotions, beliefs, and motivations. It involves self-reflection and lot of words. Lot of words. Knowing oneself can lead to some good stuff. If you know yourself, you can be guiding yourself to some good decision making, some improved relationships, what this book is all about and a stronger sense of purpose and direction in your life.
(03:24):
This know thyself is obviously as most of you know, not new. It really came from ancient Egypt, but it was picked up a little bit by that fellow named Socrates. Okay? And what Socrates meant by this is that people must know themselves before they can claim to know anything else. If you don’t know yourself, if you were in Athens when Socrates was walking around and he came and asked you a question about the football game, I don’t know what they played then, and you tried to tell him and you messed up. He would say, you messed up because you didn’t know yourself. You didn’t know yourself. If you didn’t know what you were talking about, Socrates immediately say it was your ignorance of self-knowledge.
(04:18):
The maximum know thyself, it wasn’t invented by Socrates, as I mentioned, is just a perfect expression of his whole philosophical approach to life. All knowledge must start with you. Now, according to this legend of know thyself, which was carved in the stone at the entrance of Apollo’s temple at Delphi, in Greece, the Greek philosopher Socrates is quoted to know thyself is the beginning of wisdom. To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom. Think about that. Think about your knowing or lack of knowledge about you and how that ties to wisdom in your life. To know thyself is the beginning of wisdom. And in the course of miracles, you all are familiar with the course of miracles, right? Let me hear you. Yes. It says, the goal of the curriculum, regardless of the teacher you choose, is to know thyself. So there’s something, there must be something to this. Know thyself. What does it mean to know thyself? Someone else wrote from a psychological standpoint, know thyself means to get to know and understand and appreciate, appreciate, appreciate who you are. It means to become more self-aware and to live more consciously, not haphazardly.
(06:07):
It means identifying your tendencies and your strength and your weaknesses, intentions and your flaws, your likes, dislikes, your emotional reactions, and your behavioral patterns. What do you do when you are called something you don’t want to be called? Do you start screaming and shouting or do you go into prayer? Ideally, in order to know thyself, you do not want to have any blind spots or unknown knowledge. I’m going to come back if we have time to a brief little thing that I picked up as I was preparing and share some thoughts on perhaps an easy way to tackle knowing yourself. I’m going to put it aside because we’re going to get into the book right now. And the book is about happy, healthy relationships. Okay? Happy, healthy relationships, whether it be a lover or your mother or your father or your brother or a friend, whatever, happy, healthy relationships.
(07:26):
And when I started, I told you I was struggling a little bit with the book because as a new thought, Christian, my thoughts are allegedly perhaps more real than any facts in the external. Are you with me with that? Do you understand what I’m saying? The indwelling Christ provides me with my direction. And so I had to set that aside for a minute as I went into this book to understand what Don McGuill, who love is writing was teaching us. Yeah, what was he saying to us? And one thing I came up with, love my neighbor as myself. We know that passage, right? What book did that come from?
(08:26):
Love my neighbor as myself. Gospels. That’s right, the gospels thing. I’m going to talk to this side of the room. Love my neighbor as myself, which says, I must love me and to love me. Guess what? I must know me. I must know me. If I do not know me, I promise you, you cannot love you. I cannot love me. I’m not going to talk about you. If I don’t know me, I can’t love me. I can pretend. I can act like, but I got to know me to love me. So that kind of brought me back in. Okay, okay. Maybe there’s something here going on here to know myself. As I said, reaches back to the ancient Egypt Egyptians and mentioned by Socrates throughout history. And the meaning though has shifted to at one point it was to know your limits. That was know thyself at another point. And think about this, know your soul. And then it went into know your physical self. And at one point then it was self knowledge.
(09:58):
It was assumed to be knowledge of God. So what did I go? Know your limits. Know your soul. Know yourself, your physical self and self knowledge, which was knowledge of God. I somewhat agree with Plato. Plato is the one that brought us through those various, what it meant. Who ascribed the following to know thyself as, oh yeah, Plato said, no, your soul. Know your soul. Know your soul. Now again, drawing back on my theology, a new thought, Christian, a new thought person. The soul. I think that the soul has a real focus on the subconscious, huh? The soul has a think about it and I look at it or you perhaps under this community of spiritual livings, subjectivity, that part of your mind. Subconscious. Come on, come on. Subconscious part of the soul. And what’s scary about that is you really do have to take some time to know, because there’s everything in there, everything you’ve ever thought, everything that has ever happened to you, how your body functions.
(11:38):
It’s all there. Know your soul. So I kind of said, okay, that’s probably where I need to go to understand who I am. That’s spending time as was led in meditation, that spending time in working with me and my soul so I can understand what did I drop down there when I was 16 and didn’t know better? Understand knowing your soul for me is pretty much what’s being talked about. Those thoughts and feelings that are coming up that you don’t even know about you are reacting to, that’s causing you to do some things that are not for your highest good.
(12:37):
In this book, it says, awareness is knowing our thoughts. And this is the book that Don McWell wrote, the Seven Secrets to Healthy, happy Relationships, awareness. That’s the secret. We’re working with the secret of awareness this morning, which is why I came with the title, blame It on God If it’s Not Good. Know thyself Awareness is knowing our thoughts as thoughts rather than letting them be our reality. Again, that’s, I’m working with this because my thoughts if they come or wherever they come from will create my what I know. So what are they talking about? I had to put it aside because he had some good information, but I just had to tweak it to make sure I could get it.
(13:39):
Pulling some wisdom from Don McWell. And this book, practicing the Secret of Awareness is necessary for practicing any other secret. His commitment, his freedom. If you haven’t practiced the awareness, awareness is knowing thyself. Awareness is knowing thyself. The secret of awareness is knowing thyself. If you haven’t practiced that, if you haven’t conquered that, you can’t according to this, get to your freedom. You can’t get to a real commitment to anything because you don’t know what you like and what you don’t like. Awareness is the art of being fully present. And I’m moving into the book now. I’m moving into the book. So for those of you who may be thinking, well, awareness is consciousness, and consciousness has to do with my subconscious and consciousness has to do with subjectivity. Kind of put it aside a little bit and let’s see what Don McWell is going to share with us in this particular chapter as he talks about the secret of awareness.
(14:49):
Awareness is the art of being fully present, cognizant of what’s happening in this moment, inward and outward. Inward and outward. Are you so mindful that you can know what’s going on inward and outward in within you. And as you look around, it’s really critically important that we do that. But too often we don’t do that. It’s a practice as they describe it, of simultaneously observing what is happening in the exterior world and witnessing your own inner reaction to it. You can find yourself well in hell on earth if you don’t be mindful. You can look at something and start hating within. You can hear something particularly on TVs these days. But anyway, you can hear stuff. And if you’re not mindful of how you are managing your within, you have the power over managing what’s going on within. You have the power to take care of the thoughts, to take care of the feelings you.
(16:09):
That’s why I had to give you two passages to read because it was so well put. You go back and look at those passages. We have that power and to be aware of what’s happening outside and to make sure at the same time I’m aware of what’s going on inside so that I manage that. And I don’t allow, as he talks about stories to be made up in me that become my truth. If I’m watching something outside, if I’m observing something. And he gave a story about a relationship and two people had been close together, wonderful. I forget the names, but anyway, they were wonderful. They were being in love and new relationship and one of them called Mark called him and said, I’m going to be late. I have to work. And I think Tom was the other guy. Tom said, okay, or no, Don was the other guy.
(17:18):
Anyway, this person he called said okay. But then as he was sitting there, he started allowing inside stories to be created saying he’s not at work, he’s out with somebody else. And that story started making him angry, making him have attitude, all of which is impacting your physical body, not to mention everything else. And so when the guys called back said, I’m on the way, now I’m finished with work, he came over. And of course, person he was coming to visit was cool because he had created a story. He had allowed his N word thinking and feeling to create hell within. And when he told the guy what he was thinking and feeling, fortunately the guy said, oh, stop. I was at work. The person you think I was with is somebody else’s boyfriend. And they were out. What are you talking about? How often is it that we are not aware of what’s going on inside, that we make ourselves miserable because of something outside?
(18:43):
It is so important right now, and I will mention in this political season that we look, we be informed in my mind, but we turn within and determine what to do with what we see. We do not take on stuff and let things outside create a story that not even is on point but is also hurtful. Everybody with me, you understand what I’m saying? Okay. Awareness is the art of being fully present, cognizant of what’s happening in this moment, inward and outward. If you can do that, you can absolutely have a happier life. And we have the wherewithal to do that. Who created you, what they create you with, and you got some intrinsic greatness that you can call upon at any time to create a real story and not something that’s perhaps hurtful. Let me say another thing about awareness. Awareness opens up an understanding of our relative weaknesses and strengths in relationships because what does that mean in the situation I was just describing when the gentleman was asked, well, why did you start, come up with that story?
(20:17):
Why would you start the story about I’m out with somebody else? And it had been his experience in the past, in another relationship that that had happened, that the person had you call it ghosted him or something. They had walked out on him. And without recognizing, without understanding, without being aware of that pain that he felt of that emotion, he allowed to blend right on in to the new relationship, awareness, understanding of our relative weaknesses and strengths. I have this weakness of carrying with me some stuff that happened back there and bringing it into here. And when it’s here, it’s messing up and it has no reason even to be there. Awareness definitely starts with watching your own mind. Watching your own mind.
(21:27):
Don McWell talks about what I just described as dreaming, as dreaming the to tech, Indians, and I forget the city that they’re located, but it’s rather he says it like this, rather than perceiving actual reality. That is the guy is really at work. The mind was making assumptions and prescribing meaning, therefore often living in their story rather than experiencing reality as it is. Well, that’s where I have a kind of a conflict because if I go within and I pull out a little bit of the truth, that is the God within me, that’s my reality. And it won’t be what he made up. It won’t be a negative. Picture a story, it will be the truth. But when you don’t do that, when you forget what you have, when you forget your options, when you forget your power, you absolutely go perhaps in your subconscious and pick up stuff that you dropped in there, didn’t even know it was there and haven’t cleaned it out. And that’s what you create. Everybody got it? You with me on that one? Okay. Awareness, Don McWell has written is being able to recognize what is happening in the world and what is happening in our mind, what is happening in the world, and what is happening in our mind. And it says that many people learn that problems in their relationships, it’s not in the action of their partner, but where in the story,
(23:21):
Flip this apart,
(23:27):
It’s a, it is in the story that they’re creating. As I said, what are you using to create the inward story? What are you using? What emotions? What are you drawing on? Be aware of the negative emotions that are sitting within you. Check ’em out, clear ’em out, recognize them. All of that is knowing thyself. Awareness allows us to separate facts from our storytelling. I know if Tom says he is gone to work, he’s gone to work, and if I want to start a story about him going out with somebody else, that’s because, not because of what he’s done, but because of what happened to me and I didn’t clear it out. Know thyself know where you are coming from. Know what the source is of what’s going on within you.
(24:33):
One of the biggest aspects of knowing yourself is looking at your fears. Looking at your fears and fear. According to Don mcg, Miguel is usually in our stories, fear causes difficulty in our relationships, fear of being hurt, fear of not being enough. He writes, we’re vulnerable to innumerable fears when we enter into the act of loving of another. But awareness, awareness is a phenomenal tool when working with your fear, okay? Because the greatest fear and the most damage that fears can do is when the fear is unspoken. The fear is hidden. Deep down, the fear is every time you go to find it, it is moving around and it is damaging you each and every time. You refuse to confront the fear, the simple act of unearthing your fears. And in a relationship, I’ve been married for a hundred years. Oh no, just 51. Just 51, not a hundred. But even at that in our relationship, and we are good buddies, we like to hang out. You can ask my sister here, we have a good time, me and my husband. But I can tell you if there’s a fear that comes up, it still takes a strong stance.
(26:28):
Sorry. It still takes a strong stance to have us unearth it. Did you just give me five signs? Oh my goodness, we haven’t gotten any. Just know that. Whether, make sure that fear, whatever, it’s however it’s coming in or how you have it in your life, or don’t pretend like it’s not there. Some of the fears that we are addressing and if we had had time, so we don’t, but I’m going to tell you, I’m going to give you some samples of fears that are in relationships that mess things up because they’re not made aware of intentionally. I’m afraid my partner will leave me. I’m afraid my partner won’t understand. I’m afraid my partner will fall out of love with me. I’m afraid I’ll fall out of love with my partner.
(27:28):
If we’re in a honesty machine right now, and somebody asks you, what is one fear you have as it relates to relationship? Think right now, what would that fear be? You got one. Everybody’s got one. And work with that fear. Work with that fear to unearth it and dismantle it. Because if you don’t work with it, it’s going to work with you. Okay? Okay. That’s the honesty. You can come on out of the honesty corner. I’m going to just close off because I have a love three minute love meditation. I want to finish up with one of the great things about awareness, about knowing yourself, about figuring out what’s in your subconscious, about figuring out why you’re reacting, all of these various things. And there’s a whole host of activities you can do to make sure you are learning about you. But one of the wonderful things about it is as you become aware of you, it helps you to be more aware of your partner.
(29:03):
I just want to end on that. It helps you to be more aware of your partner. So now I can say when David is moving somewhere, you don’t want to get up in anybody’s mind, but you can be aware that, oh, they’re uncomfortable or they may be getting angry, or, oh, maybe this isn’t anything that’s pleasant for them, the conversation, it is not right. This is not the right time. As you become aware of you, as you know thyself, it opens you up to know your partner better, increasing the awareness of your partner. So that is indeed, if nothing else, a benefit of knowing thyself, of knowing thyself.
(29:58):
So much more into knowing thyself. We got to read the book. Okay. I think you’re doing classes right. Rev, you doing classes with this book? No. Okay, so you just got to read the book because it is really important that you even understand. And last week it was discussed what you truly like and what you’ve been domesticated to. If you truly have been domesticated to think that I’m supposed to do X, y, Z. And the one very good instance in the book was a woman, a professional woman, was domesticated to think that she had a child, so she was supposed to stay at home, and yet her true desire was to be a good mother, but also to be a professional woman and to go to work. And there was a struggle in the relationship until she confronted herself with the help of her partner.
(31:01):
To understand to be a good mother does not mean I’m staying home all day long with my child, as a matter of fact, for this particular woman to be a good mother meant girl. And I will tell you, I stayed home a year when my son was born a whole year, and finally I said no. And he was so happy. I’m sure that he said, bye, ma. See you when you get home. And so it’s really important in knowing yourself to be able to separate what culturally has been put on you and what you really desire. Know that, know that there’s so much more, but Connie put up my five minutes. So I’m going to go into a meditation of letting love lead. And before I did, you all get a little bit of something about knowing yourself. Know thyself. Did you, I want to hear. Yay. Okay, you going to read a little bit more? Okay. Absolutely. Good. That is so good. Take a deep breath right now, and if you will, empty your hands. And this is the month of love, and it’s all about letting love lead as we’re here, recognizing the presence of God is all about us. Take a deep breath,
(32:37):
Release it. Loving God. I am your creation. You knew me before I was in my mother’s womb. You have plans for me that I know not of. You know the number of hairs on my head, God Almighty God, I am your creation. I’m created by you. I’m created out of you. I’m created in your image and you are love. I’m created by love. I’m created out of love. I am the image of love. My very essence is love. So awaken, Lord Jesus, awaken me, awaken me, awaken my essence. Awaken the love that I am and let it lead the way. Let it lead the way to my circumference. Let love be the origin of my every thought. Whatever my thoughts, gracious God, let love be the foundation. Let love be the explanation for them in the midst of order. God let love thoughts flow in the midst of confusion.
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Let love thoughts flow in the midst of hardship and strain. Almighty God, let love thoughts, flow and God in our world of emotions, let love fill all the space. Let love light the way through our sad and sorrowful emotions. Let love make our warm emotions even warmer and more loving. Let love be the light that shines through so our compassion is running over for ourselves and others who are moving through challenges. God, oh God, oh God, let love be heard whenever I speak, whether the words are spoken in friendship or whether what is spoken is in anger. Whether what is spoken is in the midst of pain and disappointment. Dear God, let only love be spoken. Let only love be heard. Let love be that which underlies my every action whenever I act, whether the action is in the name of friendship, whether the action is in the midst of strife and contention, whether the action is in the midst of pain and disappointment. Almighty God, let only love be the foundation of my actions. God, I am love. I recognize my truth, gracious God, and with a heartful of gratitude, I thank you for me. I thank you for each and every person in the world, for we are
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Your creations of love. Amen and amen.