You’re the Peace You’ve Been Waiting For with Guest, Rev Aimee Daniels (PT2)

Part 2

It's is Part Two of Suzanne’s conversation with Rev. Aimee Daniels, Spiritual Director of Cityside Center for Spiritual Living and teacher of practical spirituality, consciousness, and emotional healing.

In this episode, Suzanne and Rev. Aimee talk about thoughts, triggers, prayer, grief, and the surprisingly difficult task of noticing what the mind is doing before it turns one uncomfortable moment into an entire internal documentary series.

Rev. Aimee shares practical tools for working with emotions and becoming more aware of the thoughts that shape our experience, especially during painful or reactive moments. She also opens up about a personal experience with grief and what spiritual practice can look like when life gets real.

To check out Cityside CSL and Rev. Aimee's work, go to: cityside.me

Thank you for listening! Learn more at suzannsole.com

Check out Suzanne's spiritual and sassy t-shirts at personallyspiritual.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

And like I'm like, okay, God, like, I just don't get what this is about. But, you know, I know you have a plan here. So, like, show me what it is.

unknown 0:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

You're listening to the Spiritual Shit Show Podcast with Suzanne Soul, episode 83. Hello, beautiful people, and welcome to the Spiritual Shit Show Podcast, where we get into the wild and crazy ride the healing and spiritual awakening journey can be. I'm your host, Suzanne Soul, comedian, lifelong spiritual student, and I am sharing some of the delightful stuff I've learned along my journey that has helped me and that I hope helps you too. This is part two of my convo with the amazing and wise Rev Amy Daniels, spiritual director of Cityside Center for Spiritual Living in Chicago, and longtime teacher of practical spirituality and consciousness-based living. What more could you ask for? Not much. I mean, that sounds like the whole kit and caboodle. Amazing. I mean, you know what I'm saying? Let's get in on that. Rev Amy's work centers on helping people deepen into their spiritual nature so they can live with more awareness, compassion, and connection. Along with decades of ministry and leadership experience, she also brings a grounded understanding of emotional growth, human behavior, and conscious leadership into her teaching. And as you'll hear in this convo, she gave me quite a teaching. In this conversation, we explore the relationship between thoughts, feelings, triggers, grief, and prayer. Rev Amy shares practical insight into how we can begin noticing our our mental patterns instead of immediately becoming consumed by them, like we like to do. We don't really like it, but sometimes we do it. But first, I'm sharing a clip of Rev Amy Daniels speaking at Cityside Center for Spiritual Living in Chicago. So you can soak in her spiritual wisdom. Why you're soaking in it.

SPEAKER_02 2:06

When life feels loud to us, that's when we want to embrace the stillness. And we embrace the presence instead of embracing reactivity, which I think that can be super challenging right now, right? Not to be reactive, but we remain rooted in our divine nature. And that's the peace that we're talking about here. So as Gordon read to us from James Allen, true peace is not found in the ever-changing world of conditions, it's discovered within the silent sanctuary of the heart. And what I love about this book, by the way, is the simplicity of this book. He talks a lot about practice, he talks a lot about discipline, that what we do every day is what we create, right? We know this. So we want to cultivate stillness, we want to be a calm presence in the world. And also just to recognize our outer world is a mirror. Whatever we see in the outer world, whatever we believe to be true, that's what true is true for us. So if we see peace in the world, then we experience peace in the world. Or if we believe there's peace, I think I said that backwards. If we believe there's peace in ourselves, we see peace in the world. Because it is just a reflection of what we believe. And the way of peace is love. That's a good checkpoint. Like, am I practicing love? The way of peace is love. Love for myself, too, by the way. Right? In that. So this idea, peace comes from within. This is on every spiritual path. I could have put 10 quotes up here, they wouldn't all fit. So I just picked two. First one comes from the Buddha. Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without. The second comes from Ernest Holmes. We must become the embodiment of peace if we desire to see peace manifested. And it's this idea that peace is an active consciousness, it's not passive, right? It's active. And the consciousness, that's the consciousness we're seeking to cultivate, is the consciousness of peace. Peace as an active consciousness. And the first step to doing that is stillness. Stillness is always the first act of peace. And remember these snow globes, there's a snow globe up there, if you don't remember what those are. What happens when you shake a snow globe? Everything gets cloudy, right? And that's kind of the trap of our outer life. We're sort of in the snow globe that got shaken up, right? It gets shaken up by other people's opinions about us, our opinions about ourselves, you know, what's going on in the world, whether people approve of us. But when we pause, the flakes settle. And then we can come to this place of um clarity and peace becomes visible again. Lao Tzu said, to the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders. In his book, Be Here Now, Ram Das taught that um presence is the doorway. So presence is the doorway that we walk through to find peace. And the Buddha also talked about presence. You know, the Buddha taught um a long time ago, but he and you know what's interesting about the Buddha? We were talking about this in the healing circle the other night. He found his enlightenment when he basically when he stopped trying, when he surrendered. He um he had been trying everything, walking around begging, being an ascetic. You know, he tried everything. And then he just kind of got tired and he took a break and he had a meal and rested, and then he went and sat under the Bodhi tree. And that's when he had his enlightenment. I know.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

Amazing, right? All right, so let's get into part two of my combo with the amazing Rev Amy Daniels. So, what about the you when you went to first went to Unity and then ended up at uh CSL slash Bodhi? Yeah, what were some of the new thought teachings that really lit you up, that really were like life-changing, or you know, even a group of them?

SPEAKER_02 6:27

Yeah, so um this whole idea that like our thoughts create our reality, I mean, that's a fundamental um teaching that we have, and that, you know, we can work on our thinking, right? And you know, I know some people think about that like, wow, well, I'm getting blamed for my thoughts, but I don't think about it that way. I think about it like I can notice my thought and then I have a choice. Do I follow the thought that's not helpful, right? Or do I go and get some prayer, give myself some prayer? Do I go and meditate and clear my head and not feed the unhelpful thoughts? So I think I really loved affirmative prayer. You know, you know what that is, but if anyone's watching this that does it's a five-step prayer that really reminds us, you know, you know, we would say God is all there is, but you could say spirit, the universe, source, whatever your word is for um whatever this thing is that created all of this, right? It Ernest Holmes called God it.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

And um reminding yourself that you're one with it and the and all the qualities and possibilities of it, and then you know, making an affirmative statement about what you're calling in for yourself or someone else, um, and then you know, having gratitude as if it already happened is the the um the next step, and then just releasing the prayer, letting it go. And you know, it's funny because I think back to the boyfriend who said you're not a Christian. Well, you know, Jesus actually taught affirmative prayer, it's called that, right? It is done as you as you believe, right? And it and praying as if it's already happening, yes, right? And I think just that idea that you know we can be generative in it our lives was really powerful. And um, so the way I went ended up going from Unity, because I I was at Unity in Chicago, as many other people were, when Reverend Ed Townley was there, and he was the most brilliant Bible scholar I've ever met. Um, I just you know, he was it was great, but I knew I needed to meditate. And here's a funny story, Suzanne, which you'll appreciate. So I'm having these terrible headaches. Okay. So my friend says to me, You need to go to a Chinese medicine doctor. I'm like, okay, I'll do anything. I mean, this is terrible. So I go to this China medicine, Chinese medicine doctor down in Chinatown. You know, he gives me some herbs, whatever, and he's like, I'm gonna give you acupuncture. So at that time we had blackberries at work, right? So I'm in the acupuncture room. I got all these needles all over the place, right? And I'm on my blackberry. And she goes, You need to meditate. She goes, You always like go, go, go, go, go. You need to meditate. And that's part of why I ended up going to Chicago Center for Spiritual Living, because I'm like, I need to meditate. And then also because Mark Anthony Lorde's face kept popping up everywhere for me. Like I saw a notice in Science of Mine, and then I'm like, well, there he is again. There he is again.

SPEAKER_01 9:54

And you were in corporate, is that correct?

SPEAKER_02 9:57

I was in banking for a long time until about um 14 years ago.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Yeah. Yeah. So what I would love to ask you about, you know, since I feel like you've really studied on uh working with the thoughts and really are living in the space of our thoughts create our reality. So what about when we get triggered? Or what about when life is really, really hard? And it's I also agree with what you're saying, but I do find that sometimes it feels so bad, you know, that when we have a really rough time. I mean, I'm definitely better than I was when I was younger, but you know, I mean, it would just be the rumination and all the stuff from the unhealed stuff.

SPEAKER_02 10:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

So, like, how would you work with that?

SPEAKER_02 10:53

Well, the first thing you gotta realize is when you get triggered, your brain is playing some old neurotransmitter, you know, from the past. It's just it's actually a physical reaction in a way. Right. And in what way is it? Well, because your brain has built a pattern, like like for me, I'm a I'm a pleaser and I'm an avoider, right? So, like somebody is unhappy. I must please them and I must avoid conflict. Right? Someone's not happy with me, right? So the first thing is just to do something to calm yourself down, right? Like, not to try to fix it immediately or anything like that. I mean, I think if you go, you know, try to go all affirmation, like, you know, I don't even know what I'd affirm. Let me think about something, you know, like like thinking I recently had an experience where I was working with a couple of people, they were not getting along, and it was stressing me out because I was gonna have to talk with them about it, right?

SPEAKER_03 11:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:57

And you know, so it gets me a little triggered and freaked out, right? And then I'm like stressed out, right? Yeah. The first thing I have to do is calm myself down, and you know, some I think going for a walk, yeah. Um, I think, you know, breathing, yeah, you know, um, you know, meditating maybe with some sound or something, or even singing a song, like just put on some more upbeat music, but like, you know, sometimes you're not ready to move into like a positive thought.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

Yeah, that's what I was gonna say, because like I um what I'm hearing is like I want to play kind of like the other side of that I I know you don't mean to avoid it. So I'm saying, how do you play that so how do you frame it like I'm gonna calm myself down and not I'm not negating my feelings? Right, right.

SPEAKER_02 12:51

And you wanna feel your feelings because if you don't feel your feelings, you're not getting in touch with what's going on with you. Like I shared, like I'm, you know, my one of my core things is like that I matter, right? So sometimes it does still get triggered. Do I know better than that? Yeah, but when I'm in the middle of it, you know, if I just negate it, then I'm not getting in touch with it. It's like it's a messenger, yeah. Right? Like that's great. I'm feeling like I don't matter right now.

SPEAKER_03 13:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:25

Um, you know, and you know, in the human world of form, what's causing me to feel that way? Right. And, you know, just to let yourself feel the feeling.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:38

And then, you know, sometimes I think um when we're really triggered or something really bad is happening, then it's better to have somebody else pray for us than to try to pay pray for ourselves. And it's the other thing that I don't like when I see in a spiritual community is when someone says, Well, what were you thinking, Suzanne?

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yes, I know. That's like the worst. Unhelpful.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

Yes, totally right now. Yeah, let me be where I am. Yes, you know, if I and but I think like in allowing yourself to feel it, then you move through it. If you let yourself feel the feeling, it's gonna pass. Like when I got divorced, I was living in Des Moines, I didn't have much of a social life. I I ran a marathon while I lived there because I'm like, I gotta have something to do.

SPEAKER_00 14:30

Okay, that's something.

SPEAKER_02 14:31

I'll go run marathons. I would have days, and this was really before I was really in New Thought, right? I would have days where like I would lay on the couch and do nothing. And anyone who knows me knows I am not a lay on the couch and do nothing.

SPEAKER_01 14:45

I was gonna say, you seem like a not a lay on the couch person.

SPEAKER_02 14:49

I am not, but you know, it's like on some level, my spirit knew that I just that was what I needed. Needed it, man. Yeah, and then the feeling would pass. Yeah, yeah. Right? But I want to talk about what you said about something terrible happening. So, one of the terrible things that happened in my life is um about nine years ago, nine and a half, actually, my oldest brother was 19 years older than I am, and he had um he had unexpected open heart surgery. And the hospital made an error. They um they operated before he had been off his medicine long enough. So he started to bleed out. Oh my gosh. They got him stable, but he had been a big drinker, and then he started to go in alcohol detox, so they couldn't they couldn't like wean him from the respirator. So eventually, anyway, this was like a big drama, and I was the power of attorney, it was terrible. And um, eventually, you know, they had to do a tracheotomy, and he wakes up and he looks at me and he says, I love you, I'm not mad at you, but I don't want this. Right. And he could have healed from it, right? Like he could have, he was good. They were putting him through a you know, like a physical rehab with it and stuff like that. And two days later, he um he died. Maybe it was three days, it was three days later. It was three days later he died. The day before he died, he like flatlined four times. They kept reviving him, and then I had to ride in the ambulance to the hospital with him. So I go into the hospital the next day. I'm telling you the story because this was so traumatic, right? I go into the hospital, and um the infectious disease doctor's in the room, and he's like, Your brother has 104 fever, oh my god, and we don't know what's causing. And then I found I called my friend Krista, who you probably know, and I said, you know, hospice nurse, and I said, like, this is what's and I asked him, I go, Are we keeping him alive, in your opinion? And he said, Yes, we are. Okay, and so you know, I called the whole family in, you know, get everyone on board, and then we want to, you know, we want to let him pass because he wanted to pass, and um, and um the doctors are fighting with us. So I'm telling the whole story because this is another one of these stories, but I'm gonna come back to the inheritance. Don't let me forget to do that. Okay, so you know, they say we're not gonna let you disconnect him. You know, we think he can make it, and I'm like, really? You know, it was clear as and the nurses and doctors who have been all there all day are like rolling their eyes. Yeah, like, no, he can't, yeah. But I the we had, you know, we're in a Catholic hospital, so the priest prayed for him, then I prayed for him, and the whole family's staying there, and like we could tell my brother was like crying, and my sister's like, he's crying. I'm like, that's because he knows everyone is here, even though he's not speaking anymore. He knows everyone's here. And then, like, I sensed him starting to leave. And I said, Stop touching him, you know. But then still, they're not gonna let us do anything, right? So everyone said, Well, we're gonna go home. I'm like, Well, you know what? I'm gonna stay. I'm not gonna leave. And my niece and I and my brother, other one of my other brothers went down the hall. Um, and they're like, We're just gonna clean him up. And um, and so while we were out of the room, he passed away even uh on his own, right? But I felt like a truck hit me. Um and it was like the only time in my life I've ever really been very good at receiving help. Like people would be like, We're gonna run this meeting for you. I'd be like, Great, that sounds great. We're gonna bring you food. That sounds great, thank you, you know. And I didn't know till late, maybe six months later, one of my clients said to me, Oh, it's nice to see your back. I'm like, What are you talking about? And he goes, You have not been yourself the last six months. And I'm like, Really? But I knew I was heartbroken, yeah, right? Because the thing about my brother was like, he wouldn't say much, but like he'd have these little one-liners, like, meme, you don't have in life. You need to get one. I'd be dating someone, and he'd be like, I like him, don't marry him. It's like these little one-liners that make you feel understood, right? And so it's really heartbreaking. I felt like I lost my cheerleader, right? Um, but like when you're in the middle of that, you can't negate the grief.

SPEAKER_03 19:33

Yes, of course, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:34

You can't negate negate the grief. And I think the same thing is when you're going through disappointment, you know, like I dated one guy who was pretty serious about he ghosts me, right? And like I'm like, okay, God, like I just don't get what this is about, but you know, I know you have a plan here, so like show me what it is. Yeah, right. And so we all have those things happen. And I think that that's when we need a spiritual community around us because you know, maybe we're not gonna be doing any deep work right then. We're just gonna be like letting ourselves be, letting ourselves be held by other people, letting ourselves, you know, just have a hot minute to have whatever the experiences that we have. Because I really feel like, you know, this is our lesson, right? On earth, and like our disappointments and you know, the people who disappoint us, the people we lose, whatever. It's just part of our curriculum, like really understanding love and interconnection, yes, and all of that. And you know, I think in new thought we can always think we need to know why something happened, right? Right, right, but we don't need to know why, right. I mean to acknowledge where we are and we need to, you know, slowly it can be like we might be inching sometimes, like I apparently was for six months. Yeah, we might be inching, but like we're getting ourselves to a better place.

SPEAKER_01 21:05

Yeah, yeah, because I mean I, you know, at the end of the day, we don't absolutely know. We don't. We're never gonna know what's why something happened. Right. We should never know that. Like right. And and and and maybe even when we like move on from the physical rem realm, wouldn't it be so funny if we still didn't know why? Well, doesn't that?

SPEAKER_02 21:28

I mean, some people believe we have a life review, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:31

No, I know, but wouldn't it be so funny?

SPEAKER_02 21:33

People, I'm like, oh my god, there's some things I just don't want to see, the impact of it.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

No, I know, but wouldn't it be so funny if you're like, oh my god, now I can find out why everything happened, and they're like, No, you don't get to know that.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

Well, it's really about the presence anyway. It's being connected to that something bigger, which is why I think prayer and meditation are so amazing because when you slow down that much, right, you just get into a different energy and you start. To perceive things differently. Like I know you pray. Yeah. You ever have the experience like you open your eyes and the room has changed?

SPEAKER_01 22:09

I definitely meditate more than pray. I probably pray like with people, but um, and on my own sometimes I do, but I definitely am more of a meditation person. And I was actually just gonna ask you about prayer for yourself. Like how do how what does prayer take you from I'm here and now I've uh this praying and this is the experience I have, and then I come out of it. And I would love for you to because it was so funny you just said that. I was just gonna ask you that.

SPEAKER_02 22:39

Well, you know, I would say sometimes it's hard to pray for yourself, yeah. Right. And sometimes, you know, like one of the things about prayer is it's about having the belief that it's possible. So let's say you're in a moment, like I shared, I had this situation with a couple of people and it was really stressing me out. My poor husband, like, you know, I'm like, I am sure you are really sick of me right now.

unknown 23:03

Right.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

And he's like, no, I know, like you're trying to work through this, whatever. But like for me to pray in that moment was was more challenging. So, you know, sometimes if I can't come up with like, well, what's the spiritual quality I'm praying for, whatever, I'll just say, like, help me, yeah, or show me, you know, or like just show me what's the highest good here? Show me what my next step is. And you know, I really believe when we're speaking that somehow we're plugged into the spirit chain.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Yeah, tell me, tell me about that. Like, how we what in what like you're communicating? It's like so in New Thought, we know that we are the expressions of the love and light of spirit, God, right universe. So to you, when we're when you're praying, what are you speaking to? To the higher part of yourself, to the whole thing?

SPEAKER_02 23:57

That's a great question. I love that question. You know, I think the the technical answer would be we're we're um praying to convince our own consciousness of this, even if I'm praying for you, Suzanne. It's like I'm praying to convince my own, let's say I'm praying for your health and wholeness of I am seeing you as whole and heal. I'm praying in my own whole consciousness, but we believe in oneness. We don't believe there's separation. So whatever I'm praying for in myself, I'm praying for collectively. But when we pray, you're right now, we always start with, you know, I'm gonna make it the simple version. God's spirit is all there is, God is whatever the quality is health, wholeness, well-being. And then we're reminding ourselves that we're one with that quality, right? Like I'm one with it, I'm not separate from it. You know, going back to the story about my mom, this intelligence was breathing her, right? Well, that same intelligence is breathing me. That same intelligence created all of this that we look at around us, you know. The intelligence knows how to take care of our body and it knows how to grow a tree. And, you know, like it creates all of this. Like, why are we limited in what we believe?

SPEAKER_01 25:13

I love that. Okay, that was part two of my convo with Rev Amy. Join me for part three when we expand into the bigger picture, looking at practical spiritual living, healing generational trauma, the mission behind Cityside Center for Spiritual Living, and bringing more love, compassion, and consciousness into the world. Because, girl, she needs it. And Rev Amy will say a beautiful prayer for the planet. Anyways, as always, this has been the Spiritual Shit Show Podcast. My name is Suzanne Sowell. Thank you so much for listening, and I will see you on the next one. Roll it, you ray of light, you