Day 158 - R.E.A.L.I.T.Y
📖Daily Reading
Isaiah 45
🎥 Video
Join me on my morning walk as we rise and shine together by walking through the Bible daily and learn a practical applicable coaching nugget from the ultimate life coach - our creator (whatever that means to you). No judgement zone here, all are welcome, we are all on a spiritual journey because we are after all spiritual beings having a human experience.
📝 Reflection
Isaiah 45: 9
What sorrow awaits those who argue with their Creator. Does a clay pot argue with its maker? Does the clay dispute with the one who shapes it saying, ‘Stop, you’re doing it wrong!’
Does the pot exclaim, ‘How clumsy can you be?’
18-19:
For the Lord is God, and he created the heavens and the earth and put everything in place. He made the world to be lived in, not to be a place of empty chaos. “I am the Lord,” he says, “and there is no other. I publicly proclaim bold promises. I do not whisper obscurities in some dark corner. I would not have told the people of Israel to seek me if I could not be found. I, the Lord, speak only what is true and declare only what is right.”
I was introduced to the concept of being able to have a choice about my thoughts, my feelings and therefor my reality over a decade ago. It blew my mind at the time and has since changed my world and the way I experience and coexist with reality. It is a skill that can be developed over time with practice, patience, humbleness, willingness and curiosity. My first mentor and teacher in this was Byron Katie, author of Loving What Is. Loving What is and her method of inquiry that she calls ‘the work’ is a process that can help you get out of mental suffering and in love with reality. This by no means that I don’t experience lots of confusion, ‘negative’ emotions and thoughts, but I have tools now that help me get out of this reality and into a more positive reality more quickly and easily. With time, lots of practice on a daily basis and now being plugged into God’s grace, mercy and power on a more consistent basis, my life is an adventure that I am excited to wake up to and experience the richness of everyday.
I bring this up because I think this is what this chapter is trying to also trying to get us to understand and accept. We are created beings, which means there is a creator. This is our reality, and yet because our creator also gifted us with thinking brains, consciousness and free will we often try to create our own realities or ‘argue’ with reality. As Katie says - this leads to suffering but only 100% of the time.
Allow yourself to read verse 9 above and then close your eyes for a minute and let your imagination go into the story and really imagine yourself as the potter and the clay all of a sudden coming to life and talking back to you and arguing with you. Such a vivid, simple, and preposterous scenario, right? Yet, this is what you and I are being told we are like when we argue with reality. We say things like; ‘How could a benevolent God allow evil in the world?’ and use it as a reason to not believe in him. But if we get still and honest- how can love truly exist with out it? If we were able to get a utopia created of only love and peace - is that what it would really be? Would we lose free will if we could no longer ‘choose’ love and peace and conversely choose anger, evil or sadness?
The Matrix movies explore this and the machines create if for the humans plugged into the matrix and all it did was eventually create chaos and rebellion; something with in the human consciousness couldn’t trust a world like this. So even when we get what we think we want, we realize we don’t want it… trippy… We see this cycle play out over and over in the Bible, you don’t get it until you do, it doesn’t make sense until to stop trying to force it to make sense and you just surrender and choose to believe.
As I was meditating, praying and thinking about this, God graciously provided me with a download using the word Reality as an Acronym. As I am in this daily process I am trying to extract something practical and useful for myself and anyone reading that they can take and apply regardless of your spiritual beliefs and regardless of whether you are a bible believing Christian or not. I haven’t always been one either. Where I am now spiritually requires that I filter everything through the Bible, this is my guide. God is my north start and integrity my compass, so I must include it, but you don’t have to - but you are invited of course and I hope you feel the invitation and stay curious and open.
R.E.A.L.I.T.Y:
Relax- seriously relax, you can’t be reasonable in a jacked up state, let your nervous system relax - breathe deeply a few times, relax your shoulders etc..
Experience- be in the moment now - that is the only reality there ever is. the past and the future don’t exist - be here now, feel your senses, smell, run your tongue over your teeth, feel the breeze on your skin, wiggle your fingers and toes, hear any sounds etc..
Accept - accept whatever is happening right now, acknowledge the feelings and thoughts you are having without trying to get caught up in them, just notice
Love - Learn to live in and love the now. Ask yourself what ever you are not at peace with how could you be at peace with it, how can you learn to love and live with what has happened, what is happening or what you think might happen. Don’t give up until you have an answer, if can’t think of anything, keep asking yourself - ‘I know it isn’t good, but if you HAD to find something good in it what would it be’. Our brains are problem solvers -you will be able to find something
Internalize - Go within for truth, reality and get inline with it. Our world is created inside. Have you ever noticed that you and your siblings have completely different experiences and memories and interpretations of events even though you grew up in the same home with the same family and parents? If you are an only child, you still have experiences like this. This is why in a court of law we get multiple eye witness.
Trust - trust the creator - trust reality - trust life - trust what is. Life happens FOR us, not to us - believe it, they are your thoughts, and your thoughts create your reality. Choose to trust. Contrary to what it seems this is not passively accepting. We can accept and still choose to act.
Yield- when I argue with reality I lose - when I see a stop or yield sign and ignore it, I proceed knowing the risk of getting harmed, harming someone else, or in general causing trouble or chaos for myself and/or others.
I know this is long one today - so if you are still here - thank you! I think this acronym could be used to help you get started with a mindfulness, prayer or meditation practice as well if you are so inclined to use it that way. Let me know what you think. If this is the first time you are learning how much power you have over your own experience of reality and your own sense of peace or suffering and your mind is being blown like mine was - welcome to the next stage of your journey! Buckle up! If you get curious about it, embrace it and practice it your skills will grow too and your life will be transformed.
God is so good, if you seek Him you will find Him. Allow him to be the creator and your life to be the creation, the piece of clay, the canvas, the story that is transformed into the masterpiece that it can be; relax, experience, accept, love, internalize, trust, yield and your Reality will transform.
✍🏼Daily Journal Prompt
How, with whom, when, or where are you resisting reality and causing suffering in your own life?
📖Tomorrows Reading
Isaiah 46-49
Coaching Opportunity
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