Decide On Joy
Conversation about New Thought spirituality, and how to use its principles to help create your best life
Decide On Joy
Strength to Decide 2
Hello, and welcome to this episode of Decide on Joy, a podcast coming to you from Harmony Spiritual Center in Fort Worth, Texas. My name is Jim Kova,
Speaker 2:and my name is Reverend Dr. PJ Stanley. Welcome. Thank you so much for being here,
Speaker:and today's episode is the second part of an episode called. Strength to decide. Strength to decide. Is that right? I think that's what we called it. Yes. That is the strength to decide. There we go.
Speaker 2:That's what's on here. I don't know if we said that. No, I think we did. Did we said that? Okay. I think so. There you go.
Speaker:So anyway, this is the second part of it. Yes. Whatever it was called. And may, maybe just a brief recap of what Yeah. So we're talking
Speaker 2:about Yeah. I guess. Okay. We're just talking about the. You know, we have decisions to make and, and we know where to go, but then we don't necessarily want to do what it is that we know we need to do. And so the strength to decide is really about the strength to move forward as well. And sometimes, and, you know, it's not always about something difficult, it's just that we have to make a decision. And just as you know, as human beings, we kind of wanna, you know, not step into it and, and be definitive about it. But this is about living your life on purpose. You know, deciding for joy is what we're, what we're about. And so part all of that is about making decisions about your life. And so how do you then have the strength, the inner compass, the core beliefs for who you are to make decisions confidently about what you want to do and who you want to be. So that's what we're talking about, and we're talking about doing it in a spiritual way because your spiritual guidance knows more. Things that you shouldn't possibly know about, but you do know. And so we're asking you, we're telling you, we're talking about how do you trust that inner knowing to make decisions and to move and, and decide about your life. So that's what we're talking about here and we're just gonna continue that, right? Part of it.
Speaker:And we had, we had started talking about practical spiritual steps for decision making. Mm-hmm. And we had step one, which was creating a sacred space for reflection. And step two was aligning with your core values. Yes. We're now moving on to step three, which is about seeking inner guidance and intuition.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And I wanna go back actually to step two'cause we did talk about aligning with our core goals, but we talked about also. Some examples on, I don't know if I did this or not, but we wanted to ask questions of ourselves as we're aligning with our core values, and we asked ourselves, does this decision honor our values? You could just ask yourself, that is the decision I'm making, honoring who I say I am. So I have a, one of the values that I have is to see. The divine in everyone to know that everyone is a child of God, even though they may or may not be exhibiting that behavior. That still is the truth of all of us, is that we are children of God, we are the divine, and so, so for me, it's about always seeing that no matter how someone is showing up. So sometimes it gets to be more difficult than others to see that. And so I have to ask myself this question, is this the divine showing up? Or your ego's showing up. What is this? And how do you, in the middle of something, you could ask yourself that quick question and ask spirit for that. For the, for the strength to decide on you, on your values and show up as you. So that's kind of a quick way about how it works and why you want to do this, why you want to take the time to know who you are and who you say you are, who, what matters to you. And then show up as that as often as possible. That's what this is about. So. I just wanted to go back just a little bit to step to it, align it, why it's so important to align with your core values, right? Mm-hmm. That's right. Right? And then, then we wanna move on to the step three, seeking inner guidance. I kind of did step into that a little bit as well.
Speaker:Yeah. So how, yeah. How, how do, how do you do that? Yeah. How do you do that? Yeah. How do you do that? Do that. That's a direct question. It is.
Speaker 2:How does that happen? How does this work? So, and I, I tell this story'cause it's such a, it's such a cute little story. And I've told it several times. You, you've heard it, but I'm going to tell it again because it's just so easy to see that. I said just a minute ago that I want to see love. I want to know that everybody's the divine. But sometimes when you're really tired, it's been a long day, harder for you to do it. And so I had a long day. I was very tired. I even told myself I was gonna go, just stop in Walmart really quickly, pick up some milk so I could drink it when I went home and I said, don't do it. Don't, don't stop in. You're too tired. I said, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm just gonna, and that was probably the divine telling me that. But I'm arguing. No, no, no, no. I'm just going right to the back. I know where the milk is. I'm just gonna grab the milk. I was gonna pay for it. I'm going home. Okay. That's how I should have worked. It didn't, because I went back, grabbed the milk, came out to pay for it. Didn't have my wallet, didn't have my purse. I'd left it in the car. Okay. So I was telling this young man who, who was working at Walmart, I said, Hey, I'm just gonna leave my stuff here.'cause I didn't wanna come back in, have to walk all the way back to the back to pick up the milk again. I was gonna leave my stuff here and go out to my car and he was paying no attention to me whatsoever. He didn't look at me when I was talking and I just thought, well, this is so rude and my stuff is probably not gonna be here when I get back. So I had a whole conversation with myself out to the car and said. All kinds of crazy stuff. I'm just gonna tell the boss what a terrible person this guy is, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But as I got in my purse and I walked back, I was walking back in, I came to myself and thought, stop this. Stop. You don't know this kid. You have no idea what's going on. This is not you talking like this even to yourself. Stop it, cut it out. That was the divine talking to me. And I said, all right. But when I walked back in and I was walking behind the young man that I'd asked him to watch my stuff, he. He said, he said on the side of his mouth out, out of the side of his face, he said, stop following me. So he knew who I was. He was just joking. Mm-hmm. And I just thought, so he did hear me at the beginning. He was watching my stuff. My stuff was exactly that. Your stuff is over there. So all of the things that I was saying and doing was because I was tired, it was all in my head. And when I asked Spirit, when I said to myself, or Spirit said to me, stop it. Stop behaving like that because that's not who you say you are. That's how it works. In the moment. That's how it works. That's why it's so important for you to know what matters to you so that you, when you're not acting in that way, you can catch it and go, that's not you. That's not who you say you are, or who you say you want to be, and you ask the Divine for help. Help me. Or even if I didn't actually ask, I was just going off. Yeah. But because I do have this relationship with Spirit, I recognize the voice of spirit. Or whatever you call that, divine whatever, that, that's higher than yourself. Voice of intuition. I knew it told me you're acting crazy. This is not, you. Stop it. So I was able to do it.
Speaker:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And in the notes here, there's an interesting technique, and this is specifically regarded to, to making decisions again, but it says you should pay attention to the feeling that a decision Yes. Evokes this is. Physically, it has a
Speaker 2:physical feeling to it. When you, when you make a decision, like, like again, back to the story I just told, I I'm, I, I actually hadn't made a decision. I was acting out of tiredness. But when the voice said, stop it, and I said that, I, I heard it. And I knew that was correct. I knew the other thing wasn't correct. I could, there was, it wasn't feeling right, it wasn't feeling like me. It was making me, in fact, it was making me feel bad about who I am. And the moment I said I heard it say, stop it. Stop doing that. There was a, a relaxation. Okay, I can get back to who I actually am if I stop doing this. And so there was actually a a physical sensation in my stomach. Okay. That I dropped to the pit of my stomach when I was acting crazy. And when I came back to myself and thought, stop that and just have fun, just know who this person is. I was back into my, the chest area, but I thought with the heart center, I, I could feel it. I could feel the, just feel it. It was a different feeling. And you know, and again, I think you, you have to experience, experiment with it to know what that feeling is like for you. But for me, it was a drop in my stomach. Yeah, and I think we've all experienced fear where you're, where something drops to the pit of your stomach. People talk about that. I feel it in the pit of my stomach. Mm-hmm. That always to me, always for me, seems to be a negative feeling when I feel it more in my chest area. It is. It's almost like a's, I don't know what joy I think would feel. It's in the, it's more in the heart space area, so. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's not only is it a feeling, it's in a particular area as well.
Speaker:Yeah. Yeah. And, and it might not be those specific feelings that PJ was mentioning Exactly. Might not. They have your own set of feelings. You
Speaker 2:do. You get to, you get to, and so again, back to what we talk about all the time, is for you to be experimenting with the things we're talking about because we're talking about it in general. And, and, and certainly specifically for how we do it. It doesn't have to be that way. What we want you to know is that it's available to you and, you know, you begin to know what it looks like for you when you experiment with it,
Speaker:right? Yeah. Here we are listing all these steps and everything. You, you should be out there taking notes, I suppose, but or just re-listen to the podcast. Well, you could do that. Yeah. But if you don't wanna do that, if you're listening on the website anyway. I don't, I presume it's true on other platforms as well, but I don't know this for sure. There is a transcript there.
Speaker 2:Oh, I did not know that myself. Yeah.
Speaker:Now the transcript, I mean, I see them when they're created and, and there's some oddness in them always, you know, but, but you could certainly follow it. That's great. That's another good tool. Yeah. Because some
Speaker 2:people some people. Learn better by looking at the words, right? Some people learn better by listening and hearing, and a combination of the two would be fantastic. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. So if you were doing both at the same time, you look at the transcript and you could say, well, that's not exactly what, that's not exactly
Speaker 2:what she said or he said no. Okay.
Speaker:And it's not always good at identifying which of us is talking.
Speaker 2:It isn't
Speaker:sometimes. Most of the time. Yes. Although sometimes the software just refuses to do that at all. It says it's doing it, but, but it's not doing, it doesn't, it doesn't do it. Anyway, side issue. No, no, that's good. That's good. Moving on to step four. Yeah. Which is about taking inspired action.
Speaker 2:Aha. So.
Speaker:Oh, there, it's PJ's got lost in her notes here.
Speaker 2:Oh no. I'm just trying to figure what is going on here. There it is. Yeah. Okay. So what does that even mean to take inspired action? I think that anytime from that, we hear from that intuitive side of us, the actions that it's asking us to take, the things that are, it's telling us. Showing us, having us feel it's inspired. It's, it's, it's inspiring. It's an inspired thought or idea, inspired meaning it's coming from a higher self. It's not coming from your logic mind. And so to me, when you take an inspired step, you take a step from an inspired idea or inspired action, it's gonna have, it's going to have results that you wouldn't necessarily even think was going to happen. That it wasn't gonna go in that direction. But when you see it, you think, oh, that, that's a good idea. Like me stopping talking about that kid and he started playing with me. Mm-hmm. I didn't, that's not what I, I was just telling myself, stop acting crazy. I wasn't thinking about what would hap what, that it would actually ha it didn't change who he was. He was already gonna do that, but it changed how I viewed it. Right. Which was, which was higher than, than I had anticipated. So so we take inspired action. Even if they're small steps. So I'll give you an example of one. I wanted to take a class, and the class was much more cost, much more than I thought it would, but the voice said to me, just give them what you have. Just give them what you have. And I just thought, okay. All right. And I mean, I actually said that. All right. And so I gave them what? And I said that this is all I have. And they said, okay, well we'll start there. They didn't say that was gonna be the full thing, but then we'll start there. And I said, okay. So I gave that to them and then I said to my higher self, all right, well what's next? What's gonna happen here? And an idea popped into my head, so just lemme go back, just back up just a little bit. The first how do you say it? The, the first things that come, the first prosperity movements that come from that are inspired, usually comes with an i from an idea. So you, you wanna listen to ideas that come to you. So an idea came to me or a thought, and it told me about a group that I belong to that help you pay for going to school. They don't pay for the whole thing. But that was a, the idea that popped in my head and I just, oh, okay. Yes I did. I could ask them. And so I'm not gonna go down the whole path of all the inspired things. But once you, I took that first action, all the other actions started showing up as well. They won't show up. I don't believe they would've showed up if I didn't take the first action. Right.'cause the rest of'em wouldn't have come.
Speaker:Well, right. You wouldn't have. Like open that door mean I would open the door. Yeah.
Speaker 2:So I think the first inspired actions, open the door, open your heart, open your intuition and say, okay, she's receptive. We can go ahead and give more. So that's what's, that's what's, that's what's incredible about it, is to take inspired action, even if it's a small step. Even if it's not the whole thing. It's, it's the beginning. So there's nothing more to say about that. It's just take. The inspired step that's being given to you, even if you can't see where it's going or you can't see the rea the reason for it does it? So anyway, that's the, that's the reason for the idea of taking an inspired action. Even if it's a small step, take it, right.'cause it leads elsewhere. Yeah.
Speaker:And, and you need to put some trust in that process. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I'm afraid so,
Speaker:because it, it seems like if you don't trust it, then
Speaker 2:it won't show up. Yeah. It, it, it really won't show up. And it might show up, but you won't see it. You won't see it. It might, it might be there, but you don't see it because you're not looking to see it. When you trust something, you're looking to see that it works out. You're, you're saying, I believe you, I believe it's going to happen. If you don't trust it, it's'cause you don't believe it's going to happen. And so even if it is, you won't see it. Right. That's just the way mind and heart works. Yeah. So yeah. Trusting the process, that's So we've taken these steps and, and, and as we do, more things are being revealed more and more things. Here's the thing, it's like when you exercise, you're trying to learn how to run the whatever the marathon well. Huh? The first mile's a killer. It's like, are you kidding? I can take 26 of these. I can't hardly get around this one. But then you do, and you keep on getting stronger, and you keep on taking the small steps until you can finally do the whole thing. But if you, if you won't take the first step, you can't take the rest,
Speaker:right? Yeah, I don't think that's actually based on experience and I don't think either of us is a marathon runner, but no,
Speaker 2:I'm not a marathon runner, but I am a, I am a walker. Yeah. No, no, no. I wasn't
Speaker:discounting it. I was just saying
Speaker 2:yes. I'm definitely not, I'm not gonna be a marathon runner. I don't see the two, six miles coming for me. Well, but you know, I can't see five. Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. Okay. And we're moving on to the fourth step. Yes. Whoa. This is the, the last step actually. Which is about overcoming obstacles and cultivating courage.
Speaker 2:Courage, yes.
Speaker:And of course fear is an immediate obstacle
Speaker 2:and it's so insidious fear because it doesn't always show up as fear. It shows up as, oh, I'm just too tired for this today. It shows up as resistance. It shows up as logic. You, how you gonna do that? That doesn't make, I don't think you could. So it just, it shows up in many ways, but it actually is fear there. Yeah. It actually, I'm not gonna get into this other thing, but it actually is fear. So it's, it's just, it's a powerful emotion and it really is involved with the tough decisions that you, that you're going to have to make. And sometimes, because the decision could possibly lead to where you want to go, you have to do it anyway. You have to do it in spite of the fear. Just walk through it, just no. And I actually say this to myself, you're not gonna stop. I'm not gonna allow you to stop me from living a great life. I know I deserve. I'm not gonna let you do that. So I'm gonna take this step. Usually the step in front of you that you're resisting taking.
Speaker:It, it might also be different sort of fear. Maybe fear that if you do this it's not. It's not aligned with the way people think you should be. The way there is that, you know, that it's, it's not, it's not you, you know?
Speaker 2:Exactly. And, and it, it's a fear of the unknown. Where's this taking me? Where am I gonna, where's this taking me? But I want to go where this might possibly take me. Sure. Yeah. So there's always this fear of the unknown. What other steps are gonna be there? Can I manage all of them? Like, I could take this first step, but is it gonna get harder? That first tricking me, who knows what the fear shows up, but I can tell you that it is fear and we have to walk through it anyway. And so we have, that's why we have walking through the fear overcoming the obstacles, which is the fear and cultivating courage. One of the, when I look at the, the values that I have, courage is number two is the second thing, because I know nothing else will happen without it. It. I, I won't do anything. So courage is it, we have to get through whatever the thing is stopping us. And, and it's, it's just the courage to, to move forward, to do what you want to do. Sometimes it's, as I just said, it's the fear of the unknown. So we just hold onto what we know. Because I don't know what this other thing's gonna bring, but I know this. Sure. Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah. Every, everybody's inclined to hold onto the, the, well, not this is the, is the most, not every last person. Well, the many, but yes. The many, many people. Most,
Speaker 2:yes. It's what I know. Yeah. I don't know what this is about to bring, but I know how I know how to do this. Yeah. I know how to do this. I know how to do five miles. I'm not right. 26. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker:And, and we also. We want to hang onto the illusion of control, you know? Yes. That, that we, yes. That we're in control of what's happening.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love the illusion of control, but, but it is so true. It is an illusion and we think we're control stuff. We control Jack. We're really, I mean, we can, we can control our decisions. We can can say, I'm going to do this, or I'm not gonna do that. That's, we can say, I'm not gonna let the fear guide me. That is a, that is a thing that we can control, but we don't control the outcome. So we have to be able to say, this is a step that needs to be taken so that I'll know whether it's the right step or not. If without taking the step, how do you know? How do you know if it's a step you should have taken or that it'll show something else? Oh. This was close, but I see now having taken this step, it's actually the side step over here. Mm-hmm. But you'll know, you won't know that if you don't have the courage to at least take one of them. Take this, take every step. You won't have it. You won't have it. So IJI just what I want everyone to know, what we want everyone to know to, to, to believe. We'll believe it for you till you can believe for yourself that you're inherently resilient. You're inherently resilient. We can do. Whatever this thing is you wanna do, it's, unless you're, unless you're standing in front of a train or something, it's not going to kill you. It's gonna, it's gonna wake you up, it's gonna show you some things. It's gonna tell you some things about you, and you get to make a decision about it. And you can, you can't go back. It's, you can't go exactly back, but you don't have to continue forward. If you find something you don't, you, you stepped into, oh, I don't care for this. I've done that, but at least I did it and realized. Oh, this isn't what I thought it was gonna be. I don't want this. Yeah, I want something else. And then you can make a different decision. So we don't have to stay with the decision. We have to make one so that you'll know, is this where I want to be or not? Without, without taking a step. You, you're stuck. You're just stuck. And that's not what we're here to do. I don't believe we're here to be stuck. I believe we're here to be great and we're not gonna be able to do the, the great things we're here to do if we don't step out. Encourage and take the step that's in front of us.
Speaker:Right. I see that there's an affirmation suggestion here in the notes.
Speaker 2:Oh. I, I wanted to put, I, I, I put that there because I wanted to talk about the power of I am, and we say I am a lot, I am this, I am that. I am the other thing, do you know that when you say I am, you're actually calling it in? You're actually calling whatever you say after I am. You're calling it in. I'm great. I'm ugly, I'm fat, I'm thin, I'm whatever you're saying, you're actually calling it in. So I would encourage you to watch what you say after I am, what are you calling in? What are you saying? So that's the power. So you can say something that's affirmative. I am guided. I, it's, it's, I'm guided by my intuition. I'm listening to my intuition. I'm strong enough, I'm courageous enough to get this done. I trust. Myself and my inner guidance. How about we say those kinds of things? That's a, that's a positive affirmation. That's easy to say. I am, I am. I am.
Speaker 3:So,
Speaker:okay. And so maybe we could come to a conclusion. We can wrap this all up. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So
Speaker 2:just, you know, talking about making decisions as a spiritual practice. It's a spiritual practice because you're having to trust your intuition. You're having to ask questions, and I ask these very simple questions. What's is this? I, I ask all the time because my ego is talking and I don't always know. So I, is this, I'm sorry. Is this spirit, is this you or is this me? Who's talking? Who's, so I just ask, you could just ask that question really easily. So we, so the spiritual practice is about you. Developing a relationship with your higher self so that you know when your higher self is talking or when your ego self is talking, and the ego self will get us into trouble. The higher self won't. The higher self will always be expansive. It will always tell us things that not only help us, but help others around us and draw others to us. Other things, other people, other issues that will help us move forward. That's, and so that's why we're, we are. Always talking about, and I wanna say always being spiritually guided, practicing your spirituality, having regular conversations with your intuitive self. I, when I say regularly, I, I, I, I do it on a daily basis. Daily and on a moment to moment basis. When I'm, when I see myself acting crazy mm-hmm. Going outside of my values, I call it in, okay, what's this about? Why am I here and talk to it all the time. So that's what I would encourage. Just take baby steps. Just take baby steps. But a prayer doesn't have to be a long thing. It could just be what's in, what's for me? What is this for me? Now, that's a quick prayer right in the middle of something. What's this about? That's a, that's a prayer. That's a quick prayer for me. I'm asking my inner self, what is this about? What do I need to know? What are you telling me? It's easy. Don't have to be a long situation. And that's how you, can get involved and have a relationship with Spirit on a regular, ongoing basis to help your life be as great as it can be. And it, it, you're here to do it, to do great things. You're here to be great, and this is how you do it.
Speaker:Okay, then
Speaker 2:yeah,
Speaker:we can, we can stop there for this episode. Thanks for being here with us and we'll see you next time.