Hello and welcome to Decide on Joy, our podcast coming to you from Harmony Spiritual Center in Fort Worth, Texas. My name is Jim Kovalt.
Pjae:And my name is Rev. Dr. P. J. Stanley. Welcome to Decide on Joy.
Jim:This podcast is about various concepts and new thought and how they work in in actual daily life. Yeah. Normally we have a little intro about new thought, so I guess we should go ahead and do that.
Pjae:Let's go ahead and do that. So, what we mean by new thought is that you individually get to have a different thought. So if your life is going in some direction and you're not, you know, You don't care for it, or maybe you do, but if you don't care for it, you can have a new thought, a different thought about it and bring something different into your life. We're, we're, we're all about the, that what you think about you, you become. And so it's really critical that you get a hold of what your thoughts are. And so if you don't like what you're thinking, you can change it. You can change your, you can decide to think something different. And that is powerful.
Jim:Yeah. And, and. This episode is titled Getting to Clarity. Yowza! And so what, as we usually say, what does that mean? What in the
Pjae:world does that mean? It's really interesting because it, it, it, getting to clarity, there's so many things that jumble up in our minds. Not only from what we're thinking, what's going on in our hearts, what stories we've heard, what our parents have told us, what the society tells us. What the, what the collective consciousness says, it's just a lot of noise going on. And so to, to understand what part of that conversation that's going on in your head is actually you, or is it just what someone else told you and you're just buying it without actually thinking about it. So getting to clarity is about your thoughts. It's about your actions because your actions come from your thoughts. So you think you do you set intentions and being as clear as you possibly can about what. What thoughts in your head are yours that you want to keep? And what are someone else's that you just want to let go? And not as simple as it's, as I'm saying it, it does take some work but we'll talk about that in a minute, but it's just getting to clarity about what is going on in your mind and heart so that we understand really clearly that what you, what you're bringing into this life, what's coming into your life, how your life is unfolding is in your control.
Jim:So, kind of like you were tuning to the right frequencies and, and getting rid of all the other chatter that was coming in. Very much so. Very
Pjae:much so. And there's a lot, there's a lot that we think that we think we should be thinking. You know what I mean? Sure. A good person would think this or a good person would do that and we have to begin to rethink what our definitions of a lot of things are.
Jim:Mm hmm. So we're talking about getting to clarity as though it were a destination. And
Pjae:it is. It is. It's a journey. It's not necessarily a destination, but it is an ongoing journey because again, like I said, you, you, from, from when you, the, all the different stages of your life from toddler to teen to adult to middle and grown, middle, old age, we have these different older age, let me get older age We have these different phases in our lives, and we have to be thinking about what was serving us at, say, 10 years old. Doesn't necessarily serve us at 17. Doesn't necessarily serve us at 27. And, but we just continue to, to pretty much put our lives on automatic pilot. Can you imagine that we have to think about everything that's going on in our heads all the time? It's too much work. So we have to decide. And generally we decide when our life isn't quite going the way we think it should be going. Or if we're intentional about doing it. Going in a different direction or going forward with something. Then we start saying, oh wait a minute, what am I, what do I think about that? Who do I know that can help me with that? We start asking those questions. But generally, we're pretty much on autopilot. Because we're happy with our lives, generally speaking. We're happy with our day to day, generally speaking. So no need to question it. It's only when we come up against something, and it doesn't have to be negative, that we start to thinking What, what, what do I, what do I want differently? And to be able to do that, we have to be clear about what we're thinking right now. Because what we think about is what's drawn into our lives. The law of attraction tells us that. We know this. So, yeah.
Jim:So, How do we go about achieving that? Okay, there's this Clarity concept. Correct. How do we get there?
Pjae:Yeah, and it's You know, I always come back to this because I think it's just so important that we Have a specific Spiritual I want to call it that and hopefully doesn't no one's running to the you're running and screaming in the night But you have to have a spiritual practice whatever you want to call that some people call it mindfulness Meditation a prayer which to me is just kind of talking to your higher self But to get to know the real truth about who you are You have to begin to and you don't have to I don't like using words like have to I'm sorry But if you want to get there You If you want to get someplace different, then the starting place is to hear your own voice. What is really you? What is the truth about you? And you know the truth. The truth is always available to you because your higher self is always talking. But to hear it, we have to calm down the other voices that are going in our heads. And we can actually ask the question. I ask that question all the time. Is this my thought? Or someone else's. I ask myself that all the time. Is this my thought about money, about relationships, about my friendships, about my family, whatever it may be. Or is this a plant, a thought that was planted that I bought and that I don't really believe. I believe something different. So you can just ask yourself. But it takes a decision. It takes a decision that you want this clarity so that you can start that journey.
Jim:Yeah, yeah, so This would probably only apply to like a specific thing that you were trying to get clarity about but something in In art or in theater my background in theater sometimes If you just look away for a while You know,
Pjae:yes,
Jim:or or if you're working on a painting and and it's you've reached or a book Yeah,
Pjae:i'm an author and so sometimes you do have to step away.
Jim:Yeah, you just say okay. We're putting that down It's like a reset right from the computer.
Pjae:It's like a reset like there's a whole bunch going on here. Let me just Breathe for a minute sit that down Yes,
Jim:and maybe that's letting the clarity in. Exactly. Letting your true self in. Yes. As opposed to whatever confusing thoughts you are having about that. I think
Pjae:that I like that. You're exactly right. That's a great example of one way, one way to a journey towards clarity is just stepping back from it. Yeah.
Jim:Yeah,
Pjae:absolutely.
Jim:Just don't look at it for a bit. Just
Pjae:let it go for a while. Just let it go. Let it go. Let the truth bubble up. Yeah. Correct.
Jim:So I guess, get there by being mindful and, and, Letting what's happening around you draw you in. That is correct. Easier said than done sometimes. Oh, absolutely.
Pjae:Absolutely. Absolutely. Particularly when it comes to friends, family people that, that you, that are close to you, that you want in your life. And, and we make a lot of, of adjustments. You know what I mean? We, we do a lot of acquiescing to, to get along.
Jim:Yeah.
Pjae:And it's not a bad thing. That's not a bad thing. Because we've made, because we have made a decision that we want this relationship, that we want whatever this is that we, that we're, that we're in, that's having us make some sort of concessions. Everyone does that, you know, in, in, in relationships or anything that you're trying to, even in a job, everything is in a hundred percent your way. You know, you're lucky if it's 80 percent your way or even 70 percent your way. And so that's, that's okay. If we make those concessions but what happens is, is when you find yourself involved with someone who is constantly bringing in, I always want to call it, I call it, I use the word, I think other people do too, but crazy making, it's just like crazy making things going on. Every time this person comes into my life, my life gets scattered. This crazy making going on and I can't I'm unable to convince them that there's a more calm way to do it. They're always up here at 10 You know when i'm trying to bring them back. Hey, can we get down to five where we can breathe just a little bit? No, they like they live at 10. Yeah, they live at 10.
Jim:Yeah,
Pjae:and those are decisions You're gonna have to start making like how important is it for them? Not necessarily i'm not necessarily saying let them go out of your life We're not saying that because sometimes they're you know your mom but It how often Do you need to be around them? Right. And when you are around them, go in with a plan. I mentioned my mother because she, she, she, she passed away and she had dementia. And she when we get into a conversation, I would say something like, Hey mom, how's your day going? And she goes, Oh, it's going great. But you know, the neighbor next door, or she just, and I'm using her voice, she had a very raspy voice. And then I would just always interject, Mom, tell me something good about my dad, or tell me something good about when you were, Oh, and then she would immediately go off to that. So I have a plan of when I'm around her and a limitation, I'm only going to be around her for X amount of time because I want to continue to love her. And I do love her. I did love her and I still do and I want a relationship with her. So I have to limit what's happening around her with me and Interject what I can to take the conversation in a place that's more palatable to me And then we can't do that. Okay, mom i'm gonna go and i'll be back I'll see you tomorrow at this evening or whatever, right? So you make a plan For being around these people that, or these things that take your life in a direction you don't want to be in. Right. We get to do that. That's the control we have. Not over other people. I can't get my mom to stop doing that. And she wouldn't be my mom if she did stop doing that. That's who she was. Right. And I want her to be that person and be free around me to be herself.
Jim:Right.
Pjae:I also want to be free to be me.
Jim:Yeah. So. Thank
Pjae:you. You're
Jim:welcome. And that can happen, not just, I mean, you mentioned like, a job, or, or, or even here at Harmony Spiritual Center, for example, I mean, you, you you become part of that group, and, and you, and you sort of accept, but, Occasionally, there's going to be things that you have to detach from. I'm going to
Pjae:detach from that. That's not going to be me. That's not going to be something I want to step into. And I have the right. So do you. Everyone has the right to say what they're going to allow into their lives. That's what clarity does for you. Because what happens if you don't think about it, you'll feel guilty about it. Like, Oh my gosh, I'm being mean to my mom. Or, you know, and it's not that it's actually, I'm trying to love my mother. I don't want to get upset with her. I don't want to have negative conversations with her. So how can we have the best conversation possible for the two of us? That's, so that's a, that's loving somebody. And you only know that because you thought about it more clearly instead of emotionally. And there's emotion to it as well, but you wanted to get, I wanted to get to clarity about that. And, and, and, and that it goes out in many, many ways, jobs, family, I mentioned relationships because relationships are fraught. If something can go wrong, it will go wrong. And depending on whether it's a relationship that you want to move forward, to continue to move forward, you have to think about those things and hope that the other person is thinking about things that way for you too.
Jim:Right. Yeah. And I, I know, we, we have a printout here that PJ did, and I notice here at the Getting to clarity in your own mind takes, and there's four things.
Pjae:I love things. I love numbers. There's three things, four things, seven things. So
Jim:let's have those four things here.
Pjae:So it begins with deciding, you know, as we talked about earlier. You have to decide. I decided that I wanted to continue the relationship with my mom. She's just one. There's other relationships that I've had that I've wanted to continue that didn't work as well. They, they were much more limited than I wanted them to be. But it's all that I could, it's all that I was willing to deal with. And I have to, you have to own your part. So it's not, you know what I mean? So in other words, it was all, so I could have done more with another, I had a relationship with my father that was more, that was difficult as well. I could have done more. I could have sat in silence. I could have let him speak and say things to me that I knew weren't true. I wasn't willing to do that. I was willing to say, Dad, we're down, we're in a direction now that I don't really want to sit and listen to. So I'm going to say goodbye for now and I'll be back. And so you can leave, you can leave a situation and let them know, Hey, I love you and I got to go. And that's it. You don't even tell them why you have to go. If that's not going to help them, it doesn't, you don't have to tell them that. It's okay. It's all right. I know. So that was number one.
Jim:Yeah,
Pjae:you have to courageously, courageously look inward and the courage comes from owning your own stuff. You know, I talked about different relationships and we talked about what's going on here. I have to, it begins with me saying, all right, what's my part? What is my role? What am I contributing to this behavior or to whatever is being, coming into my life? I can look and say If, if someone's in my life and they're disruptive, what am I doing or saying or not willing to say that's allowing them to continue to enter my life? Because sometimes you just have to be courageous enough to say, it's done. I simply do not want to have another, a further relationship with you. That is hard to do. But what's more loving to have them around you and be upset with them and, and be thinking terrible things about them. Or is it better to just say, this is not going to work. You're a good person. It's not about you. This is and completely own it. This is about me. I can't be here right now. Mm-Hmm. Own it. Mm-Hmm. And that takes courage. It just does. The third thing is trying a new thought. Just have a different thought about it. If, you know, I can find myself in conversations with someone and in the middle of it, nobody knows what's going on in your head, right? You can have all kinds of thoughts, nobody knows what's going on in my head. So, if I'm in the middle of something and I'm having a crazy thought about that person, like I'm saying something like, well, they're probably upset with me, that's why they're speaking to me like this way. What do I know what's going on in their head? I don't know that. I don't know. They could be sleepy. They could be tired. They could be reviewing something their boss said They could be blanking out and not paying attention to me at all Okay, so I can have, if I have a negative thought, this, this refers to negative thoughts about things. If I have a negative thought, I can change the thought, and right in the middle of it, just say, you don't really know what's going on, so stop that. And just be here now. Be here now is another spiritual practice, that's mindfulness. Be here now, instead of thinking about what's going on in the future, what could have gone on in the past, be here now and you don't know what's going on in somebody else's mind as you're talking to them, unless you ask them. I feel like Are you okay? Cause if you, it seems as if you might be angry with me. Really? I'm not thinking about you. Actually. I had, I was thinking about I left the food out and I hope it's not defrosting cause then the dog is going to get it. That's really what I was thinking. Right. And then, so the, the, the, the fourth one is actually tied to the third one. When you try a new thought about whatever the situation and then just see what happens. Just experiment with doing something different. Whatever you do different, right? differently, you're not stuck with it. I, you can try something and say, I'm going to see what happens if I, if I speak what's on my mind, will this person receive that? Well, or will they be angry with me? Oops, that's an experiment. That didn't work. Or yes, they, they, they came back to me with something they were thinking about. And it actually opened conversation, a deeper conversation. So we get to experiment this life, the whole life is an experiment. It's not an experiment.
Jim:And it doesn't have to have sort of like final consequences. It really doesn't. Okay, that didn't work. That
Pjae:didn't work. Let that go. We'll
Jim:try another experiment.
Pjae:Exactly. Yeah. Okay.
Jim:Well. That's, that's your four steps there. There it is. There it is. Those are the four steps. We can stop there for today. I think we're good. I think we're good. Thank you for being here and joining us. And we'll see you next time.
Pjae:Right. Thank you for coming.