Appreciate It 1: Recognize It All

Affirmative Incantation:
Today I am full of Appreciation
Looking out in the morning rain, feeling the warmth of the sun, watching the colorful leaves fall, or seeing the glow of the moon radiate in the night sky, I am full of gratitude for the infinite opportunities that are open for me to experience.
I am inspired today to seek out and embrace all the opportunities that enhance my greatness.
Thank you Life, thank you!

Transcript

Three,

Two,

One.

So,

This month is called Appreciate It.

It's Appreciation Month.

Now,

I understand that usually November is kind of like an Appreciation Month,

A Gratitude Month,

You know,

Because it goes with Thanksgiving and all that kind of stuff.

But I don't think we should be exclusive in November with thankfulness,

Of course,

And gratitude.

And I'm sure you've all read,

And we've spoken about it here,

About having,

You know,

The whole attitude of gratitude thing,

And that when we live a life of gratitude,

We live a life of expecting our good,

Meaning the positive good,

Or anything that might show up that kind of gives us a lesson that we might need in case we didn't heed two red flags we might have noticed in our lives.

But appreciation,

I want to play with that word a little bit this morning.

Appreciation has to do with recognizing worth or value,

And I think that's really important.

Understanding the full implications of a situation or a condition or a meeting and grasping the significance of something or someone,

Right?

So we might appreciate our mates,

Or we appreciate our job,

Or we appreciate the great way a phone works,

A certain type of phone works for us.

Appreciation is just as important as gratitude,

And you may have noticed that I have started to use the word appreciate in not only my affirmative incantations,

But my spiritual mind treatments,

My affirmative prayers.

And that's because somebody pointed that word out to me and explained that to me,

And I realized I wanted to not just be grateful,

Although that's wonderful,

Obvious,

And very powerful,

But appreciative,

That I know the worth,

That I know the worth of my word,

That I know the worth of my power,

And to put that out there when I am using my word in a specific and affirmative way.

I want to read a quote from Neal Donald Walsh,

Who wrote the book where he interviewed God.

He said,

Creation is the highest form of divinity and your birthright,

Which I say very often,

It's your birthright.

Truth is,

He says,

You are creating all the time.

The central question in your life is whether you are doing this consciously or unconsciously,

And that's a big deal,

Consciously or unconsciously.

We do so much creating unconsciously.

Any ideas about that in your life?

Mostly the unconscious ones aren't that fun.

Sometimes they are,

It just depends on what your beliefs are about life.

But the great thing that we have learned in this philosophy is that conscious thought is more powerful than unconscious thought.

We have to do a little work.

We have to be mindful and be conscious in order to use this conscious thought,

But that's what changes in our subconscious.

The unconscious thought is the use of conscious thought.

So I have a few questions that I want to ask.

The first one is,

Can you recognize when you have success?

Now you might think,

Of course I do.

I see numbers grow in some account,

That's success.

I receive an award or a pat on the back or something,

Or somebody gives me a corner office for those who work in a building still.

You may watch a new bud or a leaf or a tree burgeon in your garden.

All those things equal and show you and you react to it as something that is successful.

It's sort of like the aha moments when you have an aha moment or a eureka moment.

I have success.

You see success.

And when that happens in your brain,

These chemicals start flowing,

Dopamine,

Oxytocin,

Serotonin,

And that gives you that motivation to keep going and doing whatever it is you were doing that created this success,

Whatever behavior or task.

But how do you repeat that?

How do you repeat that in your life without the task,

Without the,

Well,

It is always with behavior,

But without a behavior that equates a task,

Without a behavior that brings that pat on the back.

Can you recognize,

This is the big question,

Can you recognize when you have a half consciousness?

Can you recognize when you have or when you're having a half consciousness?

So,

Okay,

What's a half consciousness?

So a half consciousness is the consciousness of knowing that whatever I come up with,

Whatever I decide,

Even if it's a wild idea,

I'm going to India,

I'm going to India,

I certainly don't have the $5,

000 or whatever it's going to cost me to get there and stay there and tour a little bit.

It's a huge,

It's a huge country.

And even if you just stayed in a couple of the well-known cities,

It would be an extensive time and cost a few bucks and take time away from whatever you're doing here at home.

So you have to decide,

You have to have the consciousness of doing that.

I mean,

There are a few people in the world that it wouldn't matter and they'll go,

I'm going,

And they hop on a plane,

Just like they hop on a plane to Paris for dinner.

Most people don't.

Most people need to work on that consciousness.

Some people don't even care to have that kind of consciousness where they can just hop on a plane and go to dinner in Paris.

But the point is to have consciousness is the consciousness that you have when you have faith in the way the universe works and your power to use that universe to bring forth into your life what you really want.

I'm not talking about things,

Wouldn't it be nice if stuff,

You know?

Wouldn't it be nice if I was 25 still with all this knowledge and experience?

Yeah,

Technically not impossible to happen,

But most probably won't.

So that's not something you're going to have a half-consciousness of.

You may still have the energy that you had when you were 25.

You can have the half-consciousness of that because we can do our own self-healing.

So that's what half-consciousness is.

So now we need to learn how to recognize that half-consciousness because we all have it.

We've all manifested something that wasn't there before.

Most probably you weren't even sure how it was going to show up.

Of course,

We're not involved in the how so much,

But whether it was because of where you lived,

Your money,

Your standing in this,

That,

Or the other,

You weren't quite sure at first.

It wasn't necessarily a natural thing that happened.

You had to work on that,

Work on your consciousness,

Have the half-consciousness to bring that into your life.

So can you recognize the words that go through your head when that happens so that you can repeat it?

Or do you know?

Here's one.

Do you know what a great day feels like?

What does a great day,

Rhetorical question,

What does a great day feel like in your body,

In your mind?

And did you know and have you ever tried to have a great day without having a great day?

By just sitting down,

It doesn't have to be even this whole 10-minute thing we do.

It can happen in a minute or even less,

Depending on your practice.

Changing your whole perspective on your day,

Especially if it's not going so well,

Into what a great day feels like.

You can change everything.

Now,

You may not change what's going on over there,

But you change your response to it.

I almost said reaction,

But we don't want to react to things.

We want to respond to things.

Reacting usually has to do,

And I spoke about this a few weeks ago,

Has to do with some emotion we have tied to that,

Which too many times is negative,

But not always.

So what does a great day feel like?

Or what goes on in your body when you've had a great day?

Now,

These may be words,

Actual words,

Actual terms,

Or they may be some sort of wordless imaginings going on in your head,

Colors,

A shape,

The face of your puppy.

It could be anything that does that reminding.

It doesn't have to be a word.

It doesn't even have to be attached to any sort of prayer-type situation.

So I want to do an exercise.

I want you to just,

And you don't have to close your eyes.

It may help.

It doesn't matter.

I want you to imagine a success story or an aha moment in your life or a good day in your life.

Just imagine it.

Just see that.

Whatever that is,

Whatever it looks like,

You may replay it like a movie.

I teach that in neuro-linguistic programming.

You play it like a movie.

Because when you see that or when you see the representation of that,

That aha moment,

That success,

That great day,

Your body responds.

Your brain doesn't know the difference between it actually happening in the 3D world or happening in your mind.

Watch the response of your body and even your demeanor,

Your attitude may change a little bit as you remember or you recognize that state.

Call it a state.

It's not just a state of mind.

It's a state of being.

In this state that you're feeling now,

That is the state that you want to place yourself when you're ready to work on bringing the next wonderful journey in your life.

You can go ahead and open your eyes if you'd like.

Whatever it is you've been wanting or working on,

That's where you start.

You might say,

Well,

I'm going to start with the idea.

Well,

You already have the idea because you're already ready.

The way you want to start is bringing the state of being.

Bring yourself in the state of being by remembering whatever that looks like,

Feels like,

Smells like,

Tastes like.

You can remember that aha moment,

That success story,

That great day and what that feels like.

Start there.

Then start working on your idea,

Your next journey because it's in this state that results happen.

It's in this state that we experience the manifestation before it hits the 3D world.

It's going to be out in the ether,

So to speak,

Before it's rock solid.

That may be one second or maybe one day or one week.

But that's where it starts.

It starts in your mind.

I always kind of point to this area because we connect it to the brain,

But it's not the brain necessarily.

It's above and beyond the brain.

It's there that we accurately and clearly tell the universe what we want to declare,

What we want to reveal.

It's there that we meet our newest heaven because as we remember,

Heaven is not a place.

Heaven is a state of being.

In fact,

Step one and two of spiritual mind treatment is putting yourself into that state of being.

You recognize as the formula goes,

You recognize that there's this one mind,

This one power,

And you can call it whatever you want.

Then you unify that in the second step with who you are.

You are unified with that power.

You are part of that power.

That power is in you right here,

Right now.

Those first steps are putting you in a state of being.

Once you're in a state of being,

As I say all the time,

You almost don't need the third,

Fourth,

And fifth or whatever parts of spiritual mind treatment because once you're in that state of being,

Once you're in this same aha moment,

This what a great day feels like moment,

You are open to the infinite possibility.

You're open and ready to bring that version of heaven into your life.

I heard it posed this week.

There was somebody who was questioning,

How far is heaven?

So since we don't think of heaven as a place where you go,

But a place that is within you,

It's not far at all,

Is it?

In this teaching we remember that it's a state of being and as far as each of us individually,

It's as close as the millisecond it takes for you to engage what we just did in that exercise.

Using this divine matrix that I always talk about.

The enteric system,

The cardiac system,

And of course the brain system that they all talk together and work together holistically.

That this idea of heaven is closer than even air.

Can you get closer than air?

You can.

You can when you put yourself and allow yourself to start in this aha moment,

When you recognize who and what you are,

The power that you are,

And the feeling of that success.

Now as far as this community goes,

The question of heaven is as close as two hearts,

As close as the hugs that we all had 45 minutes ago,

The supportive glances or smiles that we may give to each other across the room.

That's as close as heaven gets.

As a community,

We recognize that we are the beloveds and that our love and appreciation of this teaching and of the New Thought Spiritual Center is what brings us together,

Is what is our heaven.

We unfold a divine tapestry of truth,

Light,

Compassion,

And love,

And they're all woven in the threads of insight,

Faith,

And wisdom for each one of us in our lives to have the best thoughts and feelings,

To use the tools that we bring up,

To be inspired and motivated to take the next action that you want to take.

So I want to close with an action step for all of us,

Our call to action.

Our call to action is recognizing not only who and what you are,

And we pretty much talk about that every week in one way or another,

Either in the Statement of Principles,

Or I may highlight it in a talk,

Or one of our sacred readers may.

So you can watch that if you don't quite know who or what you are yet.

And by acknowledging and appreciating what that means every day,

Revisiting that every day,

Not only in your body,

In your mind,

Consciousness,

But in the words that you say.

So too,

This recognition and appreciation extends past all of us individually,

Even past this community as a whole,

To the outside.

I like to leave the windows open here,

Or the drapes open,

Because our energy flows not only within us,

But out there,

To whoever might need that.

And they won't even know.

They won't even know.

Who cares?

That's okay.

Our support in time,

Talent,

And treasure for our purpose,

Mission,

And vision statement,

As well as that of you as an individual,

And that as you as an individual to the outer world,

To the greater world,

As they may say,

Is what's important,

Is a piece of heaven,

A piece of heaven that we extend to each other.

So this week,

I want you to recognize it all.

Recognize that which is in you,

That which is of you,

That which is for you,

And that which is with you all the time.

That's your home.

Always start at home,

Which is heaven,

Which is the same feeling as your aha moment,

Or your great day moment,

And then from there,

Step into more,

To your next journey,

Your next adventure,

Whatever you want to call it,

Of your greatest life experiences.

So welcome home.