Moving my blog to Word Press

Hi followers!

Please continue to enjoy my sermons at https://reverendjoanmkistler.blog/

16 - H4H News: Tuning Into Essence with Emotional Awareness

Synopsis: Hope for Humanity News is a series of three to five-minute weekly podcasts designed to educate, inspire, and comfort listeners during these challenging, but hopeful times. 

Hi everyone! Welcome to Hope for Humanity News! I’m Reverend Joan Kistler.

We’ve been talking about how to tune out the loud, demanding voice of the ego and tune into the still, small voice of Essence. We learned a couple practices to help us with this: mindfulness and meditation.

We ended our last broadcast suggesting that the ego not only uses thoughts to distract us from the present moment where Essence dwells but also often also adds a splash of emotion. This makes its thoughts “sticky” and therefore more difficult to ignore. So emotional awareness is another practice we can use to release those “sticky” feelings.

Many people have an unhealthy relationship with their emotions: We either hate them or love them.

When we hate them, we resist them too much, and they can’t be resolved. So, if we’re angry about something, and we refuse to accept it, the anger and the story behind it gets pushed down into our subconscious where it festers and eventually causes mayhem in our lives.

When we love them, we honor them so much that we identify with them. We say, “I am angry,” and then that anger and the story behind it becomes who we are, and then we end up going through life an angry person, which isn’t pleasant for us or the people around us.

So, when we hate or love our feelings, we get “stuck” with them.

A healthier way to deal with our emotions is to accept them, which doesn’t necessarily mean that we agree with them or the story behind them but that we accept the fact that we are experiencing them – because we are. We can simply say, “I am feeling angry.”

You see, we can’t deal with emotions that we refuse to admit we are experiencing or that we have our identity wrapped around so much that we can’t step outside of them and objectively look at them.

Once we admit that we are experiencing something, then we can simply say, “I wonder what thoughts I am believing that are generating these feelings?” Then we can explore the “story” behind the feelings, whether there is any validity to the story, and whether there is any wise action that can be taken.

We might discover there is something reasonable we can do to resolve the feelings, or we might discover that the only thing to do is to learn to accept a situation we can’t do anything about. We can be angry about being stuck in traffic, but unless our car can fly, we really have no sane choice but to accept the situation – and our feelings about it.

We hope you enjoyed these Hope for Humanity broadcasts and found them enlightening, inspiring, and full of hope! Stay tuned to Interfaith Community Fellowship for continued daily inspirational posts about humanity’s awakening consciousness, and never give up hope!

15 - H4H News: Tune Into Essence with Meditation

Synopsis: Hope for Humanity News is a series of three to five-minute weekly podcasts designed to educate, inspire, and comfort listeners during these challenging, but hopeful times. 

Hi everyone! Welcome to Hope for Humanity News! I’m Reverend Joan Kistler.

We’ve been talking about the difference between listening to Essence and listening to the ego, and most of us would probably prefer to tune into the still, small, gentle voice of Essence than to the incessant, loud, demanding voice of the ego.

We learned that practicing mindfulness is one way that we can learn to tune out the ego and tune into Essence. Another way is by practicing meditation. What is meditation?

Mindfulness is actually a form of meditation. I consider mindfulness a more informal mode of meditation. We practice mindfulness in our daily lives when we pause to be aware of the present moment and the bodily sensations, thoughts, and emotions that we are experiencing within it.

The practice of meditation is more deliberate and structured, and it can help us to be more mindful in our daily lives. When we meditate, we usually stop all motion – except for what necessary to sustain life, like breathing. Then for an extended period of time – perhaps 10 minutes, 15 minutes, or longer, we anchor our awareness in something.

Beginners are usually encouraged to anchor their awareness in their breath. So, for the amount of time that you choose, you focus your attention on your breath, following each inhalation and exhalation from start to finish. If your mind wanders, simply bring it back to focus on the breath without judgment or commentary. That’s the hard part because the ego will definitely judge our efforts and will have plenty to say about them.

That’s what the ego does, so part of meditation is accepting the thoughts and feelings that arise, letting them go, and returning the focus on the anchor – time and time again. That’s what the practice is all about – learning to not get “hooked” by the ego’s thoughts and the feelings they generate and to return our awareness to the present. In this way, we learn how to not let the ego run our lives.

There are many ways to practice meditation, so it’s important to experiment to find ways that work for you – and, of course – it is important to not give up and keep practicing!

As I’ve said before, the ego will generate thoughts to distract us from practicing mindfulness and meditation, and if it gets a chance to give those thoughts a splash of emotion, then the thoughts are particularly “sticky,” and difficult to let go.

So one more way to tune out the ego and tune into Essence is to practice emotional awareness.

How do we practice emotional awareness?

Tune in next week.

14 - H4H News: Tune into Essence with Mindfulness

Synopsis: Hope for Humanity News is a series of three to five-minute weekly podcasts designed to educate, inspire, and comfort listeners during these challenging, but hopeful times. 

Hi everyone! Welcome to Hope for Humanity News! I’m Reverend Joan Kistler.

We’ve been discussing the difference between the ego and Essence, particularly how the ego is threatened by the present moment and therefore uses all kinds of tactics to drive us away from it – like judgment, negative emotions, and time pressures.

Essence, however, longs to experience the present moment fully – just as it is – through our human consciousness. Essence rewards us with feelings of love, peace, and joy when we tune into it.

Most of us would much rather tune into the love, peace, and joy of Essence than the judgment, negativity, and stress of the ego. We suggested that one of the ways to tune out the ego and tune into Essence is the practice of mindfulness.

What is mindfulness?

Most of us are largely unaware of our thoughts because we are often totally absorbed in them. In fact, much of the time, when we are doing something, especially something routine like driving a car, our thoughts are often about something else. How often do we drive from one place to another and have no memory of how we got there? That’s because we spent the entire time lost in thought about some past or future event.

Mindfulness is simply the practice of keeping our thoughts focused on what’s going on now rather than allowing our minds to wander into the ego’s favorite storytelling realms of past and future. So, when we are driving, we monitor our thoughts to make sure they stay focused on the act of driving.

If our thoughts wander off the task at hand, we simply bring them back. We might have to do this every five seconds, but that’s OK. The important thing is to notice when we have lost the present and bring our focus back.

Of course, the ego will have something to say about this practice. It will say, “You see! You can’t do it. Don’t waste your time!” You might even feel feelings of frustration and despair creep up with these thoughts. Just notice these thoughts and feelings without identifying with them. Then let them go.

Mindfulness gives us the opportunity to experience life’s moments purely – without them getting distorted by the ego’s judgments and stories. It’s simple, but it’s not easy. That’s why it’s called a practice. You have to keep practicing to reap the rewards of more peace and less stress.

Another way to tune out the ego and tune into Essence is to practice meditation.

What is meditation?

Tune in next week!

13 - H4H News: How is the Ego a Time Tyrant?

Synopsis: Hope for Humanity News is a series of three to five-minute weekly podcasts designed to educate, inspire, and comfort listeners during these challenging, but hopeful times. 

Hi everyone! Welcome to Hope for Humanity News! I’m Reverend Joan Kistler.

We’ve been talking about how the ego uses a variety of methods to pull us away from the present moment – including judgment, anger, fear, and guilt. At the end of our last broadcast, we suggested that the ego also uses time.

How does the ego use time?

Actually, the ego creates the illusion of time.  It accomplishes this by reviewing the past and imagining the future. But both past and future do not exist in reality. The only time we ever really have is now.

To a certain extent, there’s a functional use for time in our human experience. Clocks are useful to coordinate our activities with others. Thinking about the past is useful for learning and thinking about the future is useful for planning to a certain extent.

But the ego is pathologically obsessed with time – and that makes sense since the present moment is such a threat. The present moment is such a treat because when we relax into the present, both the ego and time disappear. When we are present, all thoughts about “me” and “how my life is going” disappear, so thoughts about the past and future naturally disappear with them.

You see, unless the present moment contains something that makes the ego the center of attention, it doesn’t want anything to do with it. And much of ordinary life is – well – ordinary. The ego loves drama, and if there’s no drama, the ego creates it by telling us stories – “once upon a time….”

The ego is a time tyrant. It makes us feel like there’s never enough time to do what we need to do, and no matter what we are doing, there’s always something more important that we should be doing. As a result, we always feel like we need to rush through things to get to the next thing.

The ego’s time tune sounds something like this: (Play The William Tell Overture).

As far as Essence is concerned, there is no next thing. There’s only what is happening now, and what is happening now is always wonderful – so wonderful that Essence wants to savor everything about it – even what the ego might judge as “bad.” Essence even loves challenges for the spiritual growth it brings.

Essence’s time tune sounds something like this: (Play The William Tell Overture).

Now that we know some key differences between ego and Essence, how can we learn to tune out the ego and tune into Essence? Well, one way is by practicing mindfulness.

What is mindfulness?

Tune in next week.

12 - H4H News: How Does the Ego Use Guilt?

Synopsis: Hope for Humanity News is a series of three to five-minute weekly podcasts designed to educate, inspire, and comfort listeners during these challenging, but hopeful times. 

Hi everyone! Welcome to Hope for Humanity News! I’m Reverend Joan Kistler.

Last week, we talked about how the ego uses painful emotions, like anger and fear, to pull us away from the present moment. But then we suggested that anger and fear are not the only weapons in its arsenal. Another weapon is guilt.

How does the ego use guilt?

The ego is like an angry, scared child who doesn’t understand the way life is. So, it’s constantly stomping its feet and demanding things because it’s scared that it’s not going to get what it needs and wants. Life always provides us with what we need, but not always what we want. That’s the way life is.

The ego generates fear because of its lack of trust in life to provide what it needs, and it produces anger because it refuses to accept that life doesn’t always provide what it wants. The ego’s refusal to accept the way life is is its own fault. So, when the ego starts stomping its feet and projecting blame, we can take it as seriously as we would a child having a tempter tantrum.

Just to be clear – shame, or the feeling that we are not worthy of love, is never justified. No matter what we’ve done, we’re always worthy of love in the eyes of our Source. Guilt may be justified if we deliberately did something to harm ourselves or others. Once we take responsibility for our actions and do what we can to make amends, guilt is no longer justified.

As far as Essence is concerned, there is no one to blame because there is nothing wrong. Life is exactly as it should be. Life supports life, but it does not revolve around the ego’s preferences and desires – and that makes sense since there are currently over seven billion egos on the planet.

There’s no way Life can please them all.

Essence even accepts the ego as it is. It exists as the grist for the mill of our spiritual evolution, so we don’t have to feel guilty for having an ego. Our job is to be aware that it is a false self, and it is not a wise guide for our life. But we do have far better choice – our True Self, or Essence.

Of course, there are other ways the ego pulls us away from the present moment other than using judgment and negative emotions. It also uses time.

How does the ego use time to pull us away from the present moment?

Tune in next week.

11 - H4H News: How Does the Ego Use Anger & Fear?

Synopsis: Hope for Humanity News is a series of three to five-minute weekly podcasts designed to educate, inspire, and comfort listeners during these challenging, but hopeful times. 

Hi everyone! Welcome to Hope for Humanity News! I’m Reverend Joan Kistler.

Last week, we talked about how the ego uses one of its favorite tactics, judgement, to pull us away from the present moment. At the end of the broadcast, I mentioned that the ego also uses painful emotions, especially anger and fear.

How does the ego use anger and fear?

The egoic mind developed out of the primitive reptilian brain. This part of the brain contains the emotional center of the brain, which is responsible for our fight-or-flight response. When a threat is perceived, a signal is sent from one part of the brain to another part, which dumps adrenaline into the bloodstream, causing us to feel unpleasant “anger” or “fear” sensations, such as increased heartbeat and breathing, and tense muscles.

The problem is that this part of the brain can’t tell the difference between a real or imagined threat. To the ego, everything real is a threat because the ego doesn’t exist in reality. So, when the ego passes a negative judgment on reality, and we adopt its viewpoint, the brain naturally responds to the imagined threat, and we feel a certain degree of anger or fear. This benefits the ego because it makes its imagined threats “feel” real to us.

Let’s say that it is raining outside. Essence accepts the rain and even enjoys listening to the sound of the raindrops pitter-pattering on the roof. Ego says, “Oh no! It’s raining, and I just washed my car! Every time I wash my car, it rains the next day. There goes ten bucks down the drain.” You see, the ego took a natural part of life and turned into a personal problem.

That’s what the ego does – all the time.

Fortunately, our brains evolved to the point where we modern human beings now have intelligence, which we use to gain knowledge, solve problems, and create new things. We can also use our intelligence to separate fantasy from reality. So, when the egoic mind sends out a “red alert,” we can use our intelligence to decide whether it is a real problem to be handled now, or an imaginary one created by past regrets or future projections.

We can be certain that Essence never uses fear or anger to manipulate us because these emotions do not exist within Essence. Essence abides in a state that has often been described using three words: peace, love, and joy. So, when a message comes to us, and we feel peace, love, and joy, we can trust that it came from Essence.

Now, if anger or fear don’t work, the ego has another powerful emotional weapon in its arsenal: guilt.

How does the ego use guilt?

Tune in next week.