Unity Spiritual Life Center Blog

No is one of the most difficult words to deal with, especially when we desperately desire something, or feel it is critical for our success and happiness. In sales, NO is the leading cause of ‘fear of rejection complex’ that causes so many people to get out of business!

‘No’ was a difficult word for Bil and me to hear when we created amazing proposals, only to discover someone else was selected to do the job. But here’s how we began to hear the YES in NO. We started saying “Thanks for saying no!”

For example, when we received news that we weren’t chosen to give a keynote presentation we immediately followed up with a note, thanking the prospective client for giving us the opportunity to be chosen ~ and included positive affirmations for them to have a terrific conference.

Then we offered our services for up-coming events. We also indicated that, should something happen at the last minute where they found they needed a speaker, to feel free to call us. We usually

Incredibly, we found that we were often contacted immediately to discuss next year’s conference! We had learned how to find the YES in NO by looking at a more long-term response.

How often do you run into obstacles which seem to wave a big red ” NO” in front of you? It seems so easy to just cave in, and say, “Forget it!” But in Mark 10:27, Jesus makes a remarkable statement: “With God, all things are possible.” What exactly does that mean? It creates all kinds of debates, like “Yeah, possible, but how probable?” Or “This sounds good, but it won’t work in the real world!”

Suppose someone asked you to cut a hole in a 5×7 card big enough for a person to step through it. Because you’re a good Truth practitioner, you’d want to act like a believer. So you’d say, “All things are possible” and you might even take action - but in the end you might throw up your hands and say, “This stuff doesn’t work!”

As we make that connection with the Christ of us, our God center, we are open to the Divine Flow of everything we ever need. However, until we make that connection, our human self sees the appearance of obstacles, of “NOs.” So, how do we move through that process, so we can always find the YES in No?

THE ‘YES in NO’ PROCESS:

1) Expect the Yes in No

This relates completely to an attitude of expectancy. So often, we get exactly what we expect. Not necessarily what we want, or what we hope for - but what we expect! Shakespeare said it long ago: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

Sometimes we create huge NO’s simply due to our expectations, which translate into our behaviors. For example, from a survey of top personnel executives of 100 major American businesses, here are some of the accounts of bizarre behavior by job applicants:

• “… said she was so perfect that if he didn’t get the job, it would prove that the company’s management was incompetent.”
• “… announced he hadn’t eaten lunch and proceeded to eat a hamburger and french fries in the interviewer’s office.”
• “Balding candidate suddenly excused himself. Returned to office a few minutes later, wearing a hairpiece.”
• “…she vomited on my desk, and immediately began asking questions about the job, like nothing had happened.”
• “When asked the reason for leaving last job: They insisted all employees arrive at work by 8:45 am every morning. I couldn’t work under those conditions.”

We do it to ourselves! So what do we expect?

Lowell Fillmore shares how Adam named the animals in the creation story, and says that in like manner, we can name our conditions as either bad or good, yes or no. Since we have this creative power, why not name things good?

Look at how fickle the concept of Good versus Bad is. Just one example: Is coffee good or bad for you? Depends on what research you find. A recent Harvard research article outlined in WebMD that coffee lowers your risk of diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, and colon cancer-lifts your mood and treats headaches-improves athleticism, and can even lower your risk of cavities!

So begin now to Expect the Yes in No!

2) Embrace the YES in NO.

This means creating an attitude of joy, knowing that at the level of spirit, it already is. It is important to realize that what you think of or experience is more important than the thing or experience itself. Whenever you become aware of a blockage that seems to be saying “NO!” immediately affirm YES!

We create what we call the “Apostrophe Effect” ~ which we’ve shared before, but believe it is so important we want to share it again. When you face the NO’s of life, remember this. Imagine the word IMPOSSIBLE. Put an apostrophe between the ‘I’ and the ‘M.’ what does it spell now? I’M POSSIBLE! Practice creating the ‘Intention of Embracing the YES in NO.’

3) Expand the Yes in No.

Here we’re indicating the need to it on  projecting the attitude of hope and encouragement to others. You can begin educating others so that instead of asking “Why did this happen to me?” they learn how to ask the question, “How can I use this for good?” Here’s a little tip for you: It’s all in how it’s spelled!

You run smack into a difficult situation, and immediately you see N-O, NO! But suppose you changed the spelling to K-N-O-W, KNOW? This becomes a trigger to remind you that you KNOW there is a YES in that No, and you KNOW that you are one with Divine Substance, where all things work together for good - where all things are possible!

And just in case you run into a really tough situation that challenges your belief to the fullest, contact us to show you how you can step through a 5×7 index card.

We K-N-O-W, KNOW, that all things are possible when we we connect with our Christ Center! And as you practice the art of ‘Expecting the Yes in NO,’ ‘Embracing the Yes in No,’ and ‘Expanding the Yes in No,’ you will reap the benefits in terms of walking the spiritual path on practical feet!

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Do you ever feel as if your life is a big jigsaw puzzle, but someone forgot to provide the box with the picture on it? Or maybe your life is a 1,000-piece puzzle, but they gave you 2,000 pieces? Or worst of all, it’s a 1,000 piece puzzle, and you only have 999 pieces! That frustrating missing piece!

When you concentrate on any of these scenarios, it takes the fun out of doing a puzzle - and it can lead to a lot of “cross words!”

So, how can we transform our spiritual consciousness and deal with the puzzles life brings us by paying attention to crossword and jigsaw puzzles as metaphors? Believe it or not, there are at least three important lessons we can learn!

1. Keep Your Focus on Your Purpose!

We remember how a good friend of ours misunderstood Bil’s love for jigsaws and gave him this really hard puzzle. It was nothing but shades of red that made a solid mass of blended colors. Initially, we tried working it and it lay out on our puzzle table for several days, frustrating us. Suddenly, one of us got an incredible brainstorm: “Why are we struggling with this stupid puzzle anyway? Just because she gave it to us doesn’t mean we have to work on it!”

We had gotten off purpose! We were focusing on the frustrating puzzle rather than remembering our purpose was enjoyment, relaxation, and fun!

You may not imagine the joy and fun we had as we pulled apart the few pieces we’d managed to piece together and threw them back into the box!

So, what does this have to do with our spiritual growth? Well, the same thing happens in life all the time. Generally, ‘cross words’ signal us that we have misplaced our focus and attention. We allow little issues, other people’s words to get to us, get us, and cause us to get off focus.

We find ourselves complaining about things, holding grudges against people, or spinning our wheels and getting mired down in trivial matters. We fail to ‘let our light shine,’ to be the BEST Christ we can be! Committing our focus on our purpose in life helps us handle the puzzles life tosses at us!

2. Strengthen Your Spirit Connection by “putting in the time”

With jigsaw puzzles, we call it putting in “Puzzle Time.” We actually made up that term. It means that the way you get better and better at doing puzzles is by spending time doing them! We apply a variation of the term to other areas in life,

For example, in dancing, we refer to it as “floor time.” During practice, you learn how to navigate through missed steps or crowded floors, so when the competition comes, you can call on that instinctive ability and use it in the moment! Every sport or profession has a name for it: ice time; hoop time; pulpit time. It’s the time invested in honing your craft.

In the training discipline, it provides the confidence to stand in front of a group, knowing you will be able to handle anything. For example, we were recently booked to do a keynote and a breakout session. The size of the breakout was going to be limited so that a small group could roll up their sleeves and really get into the keynote topic. So, we planned an extremely hands-on session, with activities for around 25 people.

The moderator for the session got confused, and forgot to limit the group size, and we ended up with nearly 80 people! On the spot, we had to redesign our entire action plan, so we could accommodate the new group size.

We were able to do it, because we had “facilitator time” under our belts. We knew a lot of techniques, and could call upon them at the drop of a hat - but only because we had put in the time to learn and develop those skills. It’s not magic - it’s properly-laid groundwork.

With life experiences, it’s the same thing. If you only resort to prayer and meditation when you are in the midst of a dire need, you may be unhappy with the results you get.

When we put time in the Silence (spend time at headquarters), on a regular basis, we are building spirit equity! We are strengthening the skills we need, and when a situation calls for it, we are able to call upon them at a moment’s notice, when life experiences put us in a situation where we need them!

For example, when we are faced with the appearance of lack, we can immediately refuse to give power to lack (use denials) so that lack has no power over us. We can instantly connect with Divine Substance, knowing we have no fear of lack at all, because all we ever need is already available for us to call on. But we can’t use this technique unless we have done the ‘Heart Time’ and the ‘Silence Time by ‘developing and strengthening our connection with Divine Substance.

Take a deep breath!

3. Now for the most important lesson we can learn from the world of puzzles!

Imagine that you wanted to play a serious practical joke on your puzzle-loving friend. As you work with her or him on a difficult jigsaw puzzle, you very quietly, very secretly take away one of the pieces, and hide it. Then you continue to work on the puzzle. Most likely, at some point, your friend is going to say; “I know this piece should be easy to spot. I just can’t find it.” You help them out, but you are not worried, because you know where the missing piece is!

That’s the difference in how people choose to deal with life’s situations, be they health challenges, appearances of lack or limitation, supposedly unfair circumstances, relationship issues that are less than joyful, or any of the other things that hit our path on our life journey.

When we stand in Truth and live our principles, we can face anything with total confidence and step out on faith, because we know where the missing “peace” is. It’s spelled P-E-A-C-E, and it comes from that oneness with Spirit. And that comes in only one way: putting God first in everything we do.

Jesus taught us this when He said, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” What this means is to spend time in the Silence (prayer). Ideally, we can LIVE connected, always knowing we have the PEACE that seems to be missing for other people.

When you know how to handle the puzzles of daily life with confidence and joy, you are able to:

• Keep your attention on your purpose;
• Strengthen your Spirit Connection by putting in the time; and,
• Above all else, you can live with the confidence of knowing that you always have the missing PEACE!

That’s how you walk the spiritual path on practical feet!

WE absolutely love the TV show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition ~ because it personifies the human spirit, and the deep inner desire we have to reach out and help others. A hallmark emotion of this show is “Delight”

• the incredible delight of the family, when they view their new home;
• the obvious delight of Ty and the design team, in sharing the home;
• the heart-warming delight of the builders and volunteers, who always claim they receive so much more than they give!

Delight is an intense emotion, and one that truly opens the Consciousness to allow a free-flow of abundance and prosperity to come to you, in ways you would never begin to imagine!

As part of our Sunday service, we share a Prosperity Blessing during our offering time, in which we repeat together, “Divine Love, through me, blesses and multiplies all the I have, all that I give, and all that I receive.”

These words are actually a perfect outline for understanding an Extreme Level of Delight. Most people tend to think about money when they hear this blessing, but let’s “amp it up” into a description of our consciousness, and see a deeper message!

Delight in all you have:

Of course, this tells us to be grateful for the things we have  without begrudging what others have, or always longing for what you wish you had.

But there’s a deeper level to consider: don’t we all have things we don’t particularly feel grateful for? For example, things like illness, money problems, work issues, etc.? The real secret here is to live from a state of delight, even in the midst of these kinds of issues. Regardless of what we “have,” we are grateful! Not for  but from! Living from that sense of delight in knowing we are one with God and all is well, we can recognize that every experience is simply “curriculum,” from which we can learn and grow.

Delight in all that you give:

This section of the blessing reminds us to delight in the things we give to others, but it goes so much farther than that. Become aware of other ways you give  and pay attention to whether you are giving gratefully. We give by way of words; expressions; help; comfort; time. For example, we recently hosted some out of state friends. Ten of us met to share time together for a dinner, ranging from age 17 months to 89 years old! It was an incredible evening, because everyone gave their time, joyfully, to come together as family and friends. What a joyful gathering we all had!

Give joyfully! We write “Gladly” on all our checks (right above the words “Pay to the order of”), and it helps us experience a sense of joy as we send our money out into the world. By allowing a sense of delight to flow through us, we can send that joy out to others through our words and actions. Giving with delight enriches your prosperity, and the prosperity of all those whose lives you touch!

Delight in all that you receive:

Think about a gift you gave to someone recently. Recall your excitement in choosing it (or making it), and how you felt as you wrapped it up and delivered it. Now, imagine that you get no acknowledgment at all. Nothing is more disappointing than giving something, and not feeling a sense of appreciation on the part of the one you gave it to. It breaks the flow of the giving and receiving cycle.

Consider a compliment you received, that you negated and threw back at the giver! Think about offers for help, that you have glibly refused. When you do not receive with delight, you cut off the cycle of giving and receiving, and you put a kink in the prosperity flow into your life.

Experience shows that receiving with delight is the toughest challenge of all - particularly when we find ourselves in a place of need, where we must take help from others. But if we can just remember that in receiving with delight, we are actually helping those who are giving - and we are maintaining that Giving/Receiving Cycle, keeping it flowing in our lives!

Charles Fillmore is quoted as saying, “It has been found by experience that a person increases his blessings by being grateful for what he has. Gratitude even on the mental plane is a great magnet. When gratitude is expressed from the spiritual standpoint, it is powerfully augmented.”

When we live life from a Spiritual Consciousness of Delight - delighting in all that we have, all that we give, and all that we receive - we will discover that everything we ever need flows to us as we align ourselves  with Divine Abundance.

Drs. Bil & Cher Holton are Spiritual Leaders at Unity Spiritual Life Center in Durham, NC, where they practice positive, practical, progressive Christianity. Visit their website at Unity Spiritual Life Center and sign up to receive a complimentary 4-week e-course.