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Unveiling the Creative Genius Within – Rev. Aimee Daniels
OVERVIEW
Each of us is inherently connected to the boundless creative genius that shapes existence. Join us as we explore how understanding and embracing this unity can offer us personal empowerment, unlock our own creative potential, allow us to tap into limitless possibilities, and transform our lives.
TRANSCRIPTION
This transcription was auto-generated, please excuse typos, errors and omissions.
Rev. Aimee Daniels (00:20):
Good morning, all you hearty people. Good morning. I’m so happy to see people in the room. I was thinking this morning driving in… during Covid, one of the things we did was we would broadcast online a lot, and there was one time I was giving a talk from home and my computer, I accidentally started to reboot my computer right before I was supposed to start speaking. It was a little stressful. I think I got on my phone and gave my talk on the phone. But one of the things that we experience when we are remote like that is we don’t get the interaction in the room. So thank you everyone for being here. I know I have my long underwear on this morning. Okay, so we’re going to dive in and I want to start with a story.
(01:09):
And it’s a story about awakening. And the story is actually about Eckhart Toll. I don’t know if you know his story, but he was severely depressed for actually a couple of years. And he would go and he would sit on a park bench and he would literally just sit there. And one night he was in such a place of desperation that he actually thought about taking his life. But then something amazing happened. He had a shift, just a sudden shift in his consciousness where he felt like he transcended the situation that he was in and all his trouble and thoughts started to disappear. And he just entered what he would call a state of presence. And that’s where all his teachings about the power of now came from just this experience that he himself had about transcending his thoughts. And we hear about this from other spiritual teachers.
(02:15):
Byron Katie talks a lot about that, that she was really in a bad place and one day she just sort of had an awakening to the fact that she wasn’t the thoughts that were in her head. And I know I was thinking about what experiences have I had. There’s two that stand out the most. I’m going to share one of them. I had e coli. I had been out of the country and I came home with e coli and I got misdiagnosed. So I was in bed with 104 fever for a week, and the night they finally got me on the right medicine, I couldn’t sleep at all. And my boyfriend’s cats were laying on top of me keeping vigil and they were super jumpy. And I’m like, they must see something here that I don’t see. They’re seeing reality, I don’t see. But in that moment, everything was so magnified for me that some of the things that had happened in my life, like getting divorced and still carrying resentment for my former husband, all those things just sort of came up and I just sort of let ’em go.
(03:22):
And we can have these magnified states in our life when we meditate or pray, sometimes we go into a different state, which is really what we’re cultivating. And so we’re talking this month about the first four steps of the science of mind, which are the thing itself, which Reverend Darrell talked about last Sunday, which is God’s spirit, whatever your name is, the thing itself, this field of creative intelligence that we operate within. And then the second chapter is the way it works. And the way it works is through us. And I have this mapped against the five steps of affirmative prayer simply because if we only got those first two steps, like this is all there is it God, spirit, universe, energy, life force, whatever your word is, source is all there is. And I’m one with it, right? I’m not separate from it. It’s actually literally in this field of life, energy, this field of spirit, and it is you.
(04:37):
And from a scientific standpoint, we know everything is energy. We know that quantum physics teaches us that. And if you question your connection to the divine, because it’s really easy to when we’re in the middle of this world where there’s content everywhere and we can feel really disconnected from ourselves or triggered by some of the content that we’re seeing, but just think about your breath and let’s think about this scientifically for a minute. When we breathe in, we breathe in oxygen and that oxygen feeds our body and that oxygen is created by the plants. And then when we breathe out, we breathe out carbon dioxide, which the plants take and they transform to oxygen and they create food from that. So literally there is this amazing thing that is happening between us and our surroundings that we never even give any thought to. So nature actually demonstrates this interconnectedness of all things. And what is it that’s breathing you? Spirit is breathing you. I was there when my mom passed. I was there when she stopped breathing. And of course I was super sad, but she really was ready. She was 88. And I remember thinking, wow, one minute Spirit was breathing her and the next minute it wasn’t.
(06:12):
But the way the whole day unfolded just made me realize that spirit was totally present. She knew she was leaving that day, even some of the things she was saying. And clearly she was starting to sense something of I knew spirit was present. So I just knew her body moved someplace else, not her body, her energy, her life force, her beingness, her body was still there. Just to be clear, it didn’t disappear. So awareness, right? We want to cultivate awareness. If we’re trying to cultivate our awareness of the presence of the spirit, it actually does start with our breath. And breath is a very powerful agent of spiritual transformation. It’s talked about in all the great paths. Sufi say, the foundation of our work is on our breath. The more one is able to be conscious of one’s breathing. The stronger is one’s inner life. In Zen Buddhist, they have the Buddhism, they have the practice of centering,
(07:17):
And they say the experience of reality may dawn between two breaths. So the cycle of breathing acts, the journey, our journey back to our source and then our reconnection to the world. So when we breathe in, we breathe back into our source and the teaching, the Hindus teach that at the top of that, in breath, we can actually experience a bliss. That is our connection to the source. And then when we breathe out, we reconnect with the world. But in the moment when we’re reconnecting with the source, we’re free from time. That’s why breathing is so powerful. If you’re feeling stressed, it brings you right back into this present moment. And so I’m just going to invite you to do it for me with a second. So we’re going to breathe in. We’re going to hold our breath at the top for a second, and then we’re going to breathe out together. So you can close your eyes, open your eyes, whatever you want to do. So I breathe in, I’m breathing in spirit, I’m reconnecting, and I breathe out and I reconnect with what’s around me. Let’s do it one more time. I breathe in. I reconnect with my spirit, my source.
(08:44):
I breathe out, I reconnect with what is around me.
(08:50):
And when we practice our breathing, that’s part of cultivating our true nature. And so we can do that. Anytime. I was thinking this morning when I was preparing, I was like, I could do that in a meeting. No one would know I was doing it right? No one needs to know you’re doing it. I’m breathing in, I’m reconnecting, I’m breathing out. And so this book, if you’ve never read it, practicing the Presence, this is a must read for anyone on the spiritual path. This is written by Joel Goldsmith. I think he was a unity minister. He was definitely a teacher of new thought. And of all the books that I have read in my 20 plus years in New Thought, this book, I think if you really want to shift your life, you should read this book. And you could read this book over and over again.
(09:46):
I don’t even know how many times I’ve read it, but just to tell you a little bit about Joel Goldsmith. He had a revelation of healing through prayer, and then all of a sudden people started to come to him and just ask him to prayer and pray. And literally he would be at work. He had a regular job then, and people would call him and say, Hey, Joel, can you pray for me? And it got so out of hand that he quit his job and got an office and became a professional prayer with no, but his consciousness had shifted and people could feel that with him and they reached out to him to pray. So his whole thing is that we practice this presence, this I am presence, and he taught. If we’re conscious of the activity of spirit, then so is it unto us.
(10:39):
So as we look to spirit, spirit looks to us, God is love. God is life. God is all. And there’s no exceptions to it. It doesn’t matter what your spiritual path is. It doesn’t matter what your religion is because they used to say a lot in new thought, and Joel says this, God is no respecter of people. This idea of better, worse, whatever, it just doesn’t exist in God and spirit. It’s not even a thing, right? Because what we are is spirit. That’s the truth of who you are. And literally he taught the kingdom of God through spirit and there just because his language is a little old fashioned, it’s a little Christian, but the kingdom is within us, and this intelligence is within us. It is the creativity that we tap into. It’s the very truth of who you are. And so when we practice it, when we know this truth, then we can demonstrate it in our life.
(11:48):
And sometimes that’s easier said than done. We all have areas of our life. It’s our stretch assignment being a human being on the planet. The thing that’s harder for us could be relationship, could be money, could be, I don’t know what career. But when we practice this presence, we begin to become available to a different opportunity. And I’m not going to read the quote to you. You can read it. You might want to take a picture of it. If you simply read this quote to yourself every day, you would begin to cultivate this consciousness of spirit. But the thing I really want to point out in this is he says, I think he said, God, I changed it to it. It performs the thing that is appointed for me. So if we are really practicing the presence, if we really know that we are connected to this intelligence, then it goes before us and it performs the thing.
(12:47):
We can really think we’re the doer of everything in our life in a world, especially in our country where it’s like, Nope, I’m going to do this, whatever. But really as we surrender and walk on the path, the deeper teaching is it performance. The thing for me, if I am in the right consciousness, the door opens. So our job is to cultivate our consciousness. And what Joel said is truth realized is spiritual consciousness. And every issue of our life is determined not by external circumstances, but by our consciousness. And so if we can prove in one kingdom of our life, as he would call it, that there is spirit within us and it’s showing up, then that teaches us that it can happen anywhere. So just to use a real example, if I’m doing really well in my career, but I’m struggling in my relationship, well, I’ve learned to work with that power, that creative energy in my career life, that means I can do it. I can demonstrate this principle, and now I need to demonstrate it in my relationship life because that’s what’s calling to me.
(14:04):
So how do we cultivate this presence? He’s really big on feeding. He calls it the word of truth. And he says, we abide in the word of truth. So that’s kind of an old fashioned word, abide, but we stay with the word of truth. We choose to fill our mind with spiritual things We read, we get up in the morning, we maybe do a little reading before we meditate and pray if that’s our practice. But the more truth we plant in our mind, then the more we see it demonstrated in our life because our mind knows then our mind is not obsessed with the details of how we’re not good enough and all the things our mind can like to tell us, right? Somebody else’s opinion of us that isn’t positive, but then our mind is fixed in truth. When that thought comes up, it’s like, no, that’s not the truth about me.
(15:02):
And that’s what I want to say to all of you. The truth about you is not what anybody else says it is. That might be your human. Yeah, sometimes we’re all jerks, whatever. But the truth about you is spiritually, it’s like there’s nothing missing from you. You partake of the name and nature of spirit. There is nothing missing from you and all this stuff in the world about how we’re supposed to be. It’s just noise. But when we cultivate that truth within us, how do we know it’s working? Well, then we notice that we’re not hating as many people. We’re not envying as many people. We’re being kinder. We’re less self-seeking. We’re doing all the things that show that we believe that spirit lives in us and that spirit is our source and supply, that it’s not some external thing. It’s not like I win.
(15:55):
John loses, right? Well, we can both win, right? Spirit’s got enough for everybody and it’s not even about winning. I was thinking about that driving and I’m like, consciousness is not a contest. Sometimes you run into people in spiritual community who are in their ego and they’re like, my consciousness is greater than yours. How do you know what someone else’s consciousness is? It’s impossible. You’re not in them. And the other thing I want to say is many of us were taught if you grew up in a Christian upbringing that God is everywhere. But Joe Goldsmith does teach something a little bit different, which might seem a bit confusing, but he said, spirit is present only when it’s realized. So if we’re a cooperative component with spirit, if we’re the place that it expresses through, it only expresses through us if we realize it, if we make it real in our life and where it’s realized, it’s realized as us and through us.
(17:06):
And so that’s the first step is spiritual study and practice. But we need to be receptive. Then we need to cultivate a receptive space for the truth, for the truth to express for us. We do that through meditation. We do that through prayer, and we do that through practicing the presence, whatever that looks like for you. And have you ever noticed when you get little pops of intuition, that to me, is your spirit speaking to them? I wish I could say I always listened. Sometimes I haven’t listened, and that has been my greatest life lesson. Like, wow, I should have listened to that. I had that intuition. I didn’t listen to that. That’s your spirit. And the other way your spirit talks about you, talks to you is let’s say you’re not having your best moment. You’re not being as kind as you like to be.
(18:01):
Don’t when you’re not having your best moment, if you’re not being your best kindest self to don’t, I think that’s your spirit telling you, Hey, you’re a little bit off base there and you don’t have to make yourself bad or wrong. Just do better. Just do better. I noticed in the fall, I was really being deeply impacted by some of the people I was around, and I had to really look at how I was managing my energy and what conversations I was taking myself into. And I noticed, I’m like, wow, I am not being as nice as I usually am. And even Rich’s daughter’s like, Amy, you just said something that’s not like you. And I’m like, yeah, I don’t want to be that way.
(18:44):
And so I had to look at myself and say, you know what? There’s a possibility for me to shift here. And that’s what I’m interested in is how do I shift so that I’m expressing that? So let’s talk about love and law. Let’s go back to earnest. I cheated a little bit by bringing Joel Goldsmith in, but so I want to talk about Ernest Holmes. Ernest Holmes talked about love and law, but he talked about law way more than he talked about love. So law of attraction, manifestation prayer. At the end of his life, he said he regretted that he didn’t spend as much time on the love. So when we’re talking about this presence, that is you, that’s what we’re talking about. We’re talking about love. Love is the divine expressing in the world, and love is the truth of our nature. And it’s not just an emotion, it’s a presence.
(19:38):
And the other thing I want to say is God didn’t make any of us and leave us out from its creation. Spirit didn’t make any of us and leave it out of its creation. Why would it do that? You’re inherently good because you come from this, right? And I think a lot of religion has been used as a bat to try to get people in line for how other people wanted them to live. But if you’re really living this love, then you love and accept the people in your life, and that starts with you, right? Sometimes the meanest voice in our life is the voice in our head. So as Don read to us from this thing called you, you belong to the universe in which you live. You are one with the genius back of this vast array of ceaseless motion, this original flow of life. You are as much a part of it as the sun, the earth, and the air. And there’s something in you that’s telling you this.
(20:46):
There’s a voice within you that is telling you this, and this is the creative intelligence of the universe seeking fulfillment through you. Emerson said, every person is a doorway through which the infinite passes into the finite through which God spirit becomes man, through which the universal becomes individual. So literally, I once heard Danny and Brinkley say this, God couldn’t be here today. So he sent you. So what are you supposed to do? Right? We all thought of God as growing up. I did like the guy on the throne somewhere far away. Instead of saying, it is this creative presence and power that I am part of. And no one knows this better than our musicians because they tap into this creative intelligence when they’re writing their music, when they’re performing, they’re drawing from something outside of themselves. Is that true? Yeah. They’re shaking their heads in the back of the room.
(21:48):
So literally it’s available to all of us. So what is spirit seeking to express through you? Isn’t this the question many of us spend a heck of a lot time with in our life? And there’s a teacher I like a lot, well, actually an author. Has anyone ever heard of Marcus Buckingham? He was one of the inventors of Strength Finders, which is a test that they use in a lot of workplaces. And Marcus has a new book called Love and Work, and he says, everybody has a weird, except it’s spelled WYRD. And that was a nors term. It was actually considered a spiritual thing, but it was an acknowledgement of the fact that we are all different. We like some things, we dislike other things. We have little quirks that probably drive our family crazy, that seem inconsistent with other things we do. We all have our own jam going here.
(22:49):
And if you think about it scientifically, we all have different DNA. There’s no one else in the world that has exactly the same DNA you have, not even your siblings if you have ’em. We’re all literally unique. And then your brain forms neurotransmitters based on what you do in your life, and that also creates who you are, like the patterns we use a lot. That becomes our life experience. And that’s why changing your thinking is so powerful because you can create a new set of thoughts. But the reason I wanted to share this is there isn’t anyone like you. So whatever’s calling to you, that’s your gift to express in the world. And there’s no big and small in this. My cousin used to be an HR professional. She decided sometime in the last five years that what she wanted to do was she wanted to bake cakes and cupcakes for the occasions of people’s lives.
(23:48):
And on Facebook, I’m like, I sure wish you were my next door neighbor, but I’d weigh 300 pounds post these beautiful things. But that was what was seeking to express through her. And we live in a culture where people sometimes want to tell us who we should be. I remember when I quit my corporate job, one of my best friends said to me, you’re going to ruin your career. And I’m like, sorry, don’t agree. I don’t know why I’m doing this. I just feel called to do something different. So I’m just going to trust that what got me here is going to get me into the future. No one exactly you. What do you love? What do you love? Terry and I were talking about that. What do you love that’s seeking to express through you or that just expresses naturally through you, even to the point that you might not even know it’s something that you’re offering so natural to you, you just do it, right?
(24:50):
I was at, I don’t know if I told you guys this story or not, I probably didn’t. I haven’t really spoken since this happened, but I was at this, I’m in program called Strategic Coach, and there was a guy who’s a comedian, and his name is Michael Jr. If you ever heard of him. He’s very funny. I had heard him speak years ago at the Willow Creek conference, and he came up to me and he goes, you know what your genius is? And I’m like, no, please tell me. He goes, you’re the table setter. He goes, I watched you walk around the room. You went to everyone at your table. Hi, I’m Amy. He goes, you’re the table setter. I’m like, is that a gift? But he wasn’t wrong. He wasn’t wrong because in my corporate life, people had said that to me. One of my employees said that to me. Once that you bring the people together, that’s what you do. And most of us don’t even notice what the gift is that we bring because it’s so natural for us. So if you’re not sure, if you’re doubting yourself, go ask someone in your life like, Hey, what’s present when I’m here?
(25:55):
I mean, maybe they tell you if you’re like me, you don’t receive the compliment. Anyway, I’m working on that, right? But my point is, what would you do forever? And never give it a thought. I could sit and read this stuff and teach classes and whatever and never give it another thought. I love it so much I get lost in it. And maybe music is like that for our music team. Maybe it’s something different for those of you. But what would you do? What do you just do that you love? And if you’re not letting yourself give voice to what you love, why not? What’s stopping you? That creative genius, that intelligence is in you. Literally anything is possible. One of my mantras for this year is I dwell in possibility, which I think Jesus said, I dwell in possibility. I don’t dwell in impossibility.
(26:49):
I dwell in possibility. What else is possible and what would you love? Just give yourself permission. So often we don’t do that. And how do you start to move yourself forward from wherever you are? And you might encounter judgment from people in your life about what you love. You might be shifting in a direction that’s inconvenient for other people, but if you really know that in your spirit, this is what you’re called to, then don’t listen to the voice that tells you something different than the truth about you. The truth is you’re already whole, perfect and complete. And what I know about Spirit is that even if you don’t know how to do something yourself, that spirit’s going to send you whatever resource you need if you are in the spirit, if you are practicing the presence, and if you are really allowing yourself to trust, right? God is my source. Spirit is my source, not my job, not my partner, not whoever we might claim as our source, but no, I’m one with this expresses through me. How do I learn to trust that more? How do I stretch that muscle of trust?
(28:14):
And it starts with noticing where you are. We teach the four kingdoms of consciousness here now. They call it stages of consciousness. And so what I want to say too is we’re all in all of these stages all the time. So it’s really tempting to want to skip the part that’s unpleasant, which requires us to do work, but sometimes we are in a victim state. Something’s happening to me or the world is occurring for me as if I’m a victim. And what do I do when I’m there? What do I do when I’m there? Well, our work when we’re there is to start to try to move into by me. How do we do that? We do that through prayer. We do that through affirmation. We do that through study. We begin to remind ourselves that I’m not a victim here. I’m only really a victim if I choose to stay in that energy.
(29:14):
If I stay in that energy, then I’m putting that out to the universe and then that’s what the universe thinks I want. So how do we begin to shift ourselves? Esther Hicks says, pick a better feeling thought, right? If what would be a better feeling thought You maybe not go from sadness all the way to, I’m doing the dance of joy, but what’s the better feeling thought that will help you raise up from where you are so that you can begin to feel your personal power again. That’s kind of what happens in by me and for us to continue to move along. Then we need to, there comes a point where sometimes we’re trying so hard to manifest, which is something people do a lot, but that we’re finding it’s not working for us the way we want it to. And that’s really a call to us to start practicing this presence more.
(30:15):
It’s happening through me. It’s happening as me. How do I anchor my awareness and the knowledge that this spirit is going forward from me in front of me to make my way? And that as I align with it, it moves things for me. And the other thing I want to say is sometimes we can’t know the truth for ourself because we’re just not in that place. I’ve experienced that in my own life. When I had a cancer scare, I’m like, I just couldn’t know the truth for myself. I was just too scared. But I had a friend, dusty Ripple Meyer for those who know her, the world’s greatest name, dusty Meyer. And she would pray for me. And that helped me shift. And so you need to be honest about where you are and not try to avoid the things. Or sometimes there’s some personal work we need to do in the midst of this, right?
(31:15):
There’s a belief we need to shift. There’s something that we need to do to move from by me to through me. And then as me is really where you are a hundred percent. Letting things flow through your life all the time. It’s like moving in the field of good, and you are the field of good. So what is our work here? Our work is to stay in our practice, right? Put this word of truth in our mind. The more we hear and read, the more we raise our consciousness. And we got a lot of classes and stuff coming on along right now, but just pay attention to what speaks to you, what is going to support you in making progress. One of them we have coming up is change your thinking, change your life, which is like the basics of our teaching. And if you’re newer to the community, your first class is complimentary, so please sign up.
(32:16):
But there’s a lot of other things going on right now. So just do some things for yourself. Do some things for yourself, whether it’s, it’s the beginning of the year Insight Meditation Timer has a lot of breathing stuff right now I noticed this morning. So do something for yourself to cultivate that course in Miracles is another great thing. Rob leads a group for our community. So do something for yourself to move yourself forward. And then just listen. Just be receptive. When you get an intuition or a little drop in of a voice, don’t ignore it. Like, huh, that’s interesting. Sometimes it happens when we’re praying, someone else will be praying for you, and they say the word for you that you’re like, that’s the word. That’s exactly the quality of spirit I’m trying to bring forth. So we want to be receptive.
(33:11):
It takes courage to be creative. Henry Matisse said that, and I love this little quote from Awaken the creative genius within, I’m running out of time here, so I’m just going to point out one thing. We are our most creative when we’re aligned with our higher self, which is aligned with and open to the light and love of the universe. So really it’s about just taking a breath and pausing and thinking about what does your spirit need? What inside of yourself do you need? And how do you honor that? And this is your invitation to life. Coming back to Earnest Holmes, your mind is an outlet through which the creative intelligence of the universe seeks fulfillment. Every person is a doorway, and that means you. So we’re going to move into prayer now, and Greg’s going to come back up here with me and give me a little bit of musical inspiration. But as we move into prayer, I just want to invite you to breathe with me again. So close your eyes and just breathe in. We are breathing in reconnecting with our source. Hold your breath at the top and breathing out. You’re connecting to everything around you to the universe.
(34:41):
Breathing in, we reconnect with our source. Breathing out, we are reconnecting with our oneness. And as you just let your breath come back to normal, I just invite you to bring to your mind’s eye just one word or a few words that just reflect how you want to express this creativity. You’re wyrd in the world this year. Just bring to your mind that what you want to call forth more of. And as you turn to spirit, I know that spirit turns to you. So I know that whatever the intention is that you are holding, that spirit says yes to it. So in this moment, I just know the presence of the spirit. This presence which is never an absence, this presence, which is the infinite source of life. Love, joy, grace, peace, harmony. This inner life, which is greater than anything on the outside. And I know that I am one with this creative power and presence just as each person hearing my word is one, with this creative presence and power of spirit. I know that you and spirit are a majority,
(36:11):
So that I know that anything that is to be done for you and by you, that spirit leads the way. And I just know and claim for each person hearing my words, that you say yes to yourself. You say yes to this creative genius, this power, this presence, this infinite life expressing more fully in As and through you. I just know there is great joy in this. I know that there is an uplift of energy that is happening in each and every one of us as we say yes to this greater creative expression of life. And I know that this prayer is answered, and I’m just so grateful for this. I’m so grateful to know that the spirit of life, the spirit of love, the spirit of grace, the spirit of goodness, this allness that we are one with just receives this prayer and makes it so and so it is.