A New Beginning ... Sermon

A sermon I presented at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

A New Beginning

 

Today marks the end of a calendar year with the idea that tomorrow starts a fresh new year, with no mistakes.  It is a popular time for most of us to make “New Years Resolutions”, setting goals to become a better self than the last year, striving for a new and better me!  However, I find that if you are like most people, your new year’s resolutions are focused on attaining a specific tangible physical goal, such as – lose 10 pounds, exercise more, eat healthier etc.  Not that there’s anything wrong with those resolutions.  It’s just that it places a lot of stress on us to make sure that this year, we get it right!  We promise our self that this coming year we’ll work harder and better to make it all happen.  We buy the latest gadget, new workout clothes, anything that we think will help us succeed … and what if we don’t make it happen?  Aren’t we usually hard on ourselves?  Is it possible that perhaps we are focusing on the wrong thing?

I don’t know about you, but when I make a tangible resolution, I’m only setting myself up to fail.  What I mean by failure is that I am not looking for the underlying cause that leads me to, for example, gain those extra pounds or to not exercise.  If I want to be successful with any resolutions I set, I must work on my character, the core of who I am.

Stephen Covey, the author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, mentions that there are two types of individual, those who rely on, Personality Ethic and those that rely on Character Ethic.

Personality ethic deals with superficial traits; it allows us to use techniques to get others to like us, presenting a self that is more appealing to the other.  It is not who we are, but a false self that we think would help us get what we want.  It is not authentic and can be perceived as manipulative.  Sadly, today many individuals resort to Personality tactics, pretending to be someone they are not in order to please another and/or get what they want.  It lacks integrity, and in most cases selfish.  It is also the cause of numerous problems in your life.  No one likes to deal with an individual who is not genuine. 

Character ethic deals with virtues that are integrated into who you are.  It is a genuine presentation of your true self, regardless of what others may want. When you focus on your character, you are being true to yourself and in turn, to others.  You have integrity and others will perceive you as genuine. 

I have come to the understanding that any resolutions I make must not only be good for me, but must be achievable and maintainable.  That means that it must be something that is integrated into my being, my character.  So instead of working on acquiring something tangible, what if we decided to work on virtues this year?

It is said that if you want to succeed at a particular task, learn from those that you admire, those that are successful in what you want to achieve.  Allow me to use Benjamin Franklin (1706 – 1790) as an example of working on one’s character.

Franklin developed a list of 13 morale virtues that he felt were important to becoming the best he could be. He worked on these virtues on a daily basis. With each virtue, he had a precept that would serve as a reminder of what he was striving for.  Although Franklin worked on all 13 virtues every day, for seven days, he would concentrate on one main virtue from his list, rotating to the next one the following week. 

He kept a record of his performance, a chart he had designed, and at the end of the day he would place a mark on the virtues he had not practiced according to his standard.  Noticing that some virtues had more marks than others, he would resolve to work harder the next day.  It was his attempt at bettering his character and in turn his life.  

Given that Franklin was quite a productive individual who had many accomplishments in his life, perhaps if would be good to look at his list of virtues:

13 Virtues

1)        TEMPERANCE – “Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.”

 

2)        SILENCE – “Speak not but what may benefit others or your self; avoid trifling conversation”

 

3)        ORDER – “Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time”

 

4)        RESOLUTION – ‘Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve”

 

5)        FRUGALITY – “Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing”

 

6)        INDUSTRY – “Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions”

 

7)        SINCERITY – “Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly”

 

8)        JUSTICE – “Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty”

 

9)        MODERATION – “Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve”

 

10)      CLEANLINESS – “Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation”

                                                                                          

11)      TRANQUILLITY – “Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable”

 

12)      CHASTITY - Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.”

 

And the last one:

 

13)      HUMILITY – “Imitate Jesus and Socrates”[1]

 

            What if, this New Year, we were to focus only on a few virtues, allowing us to work on our character?  Franklin’s virtues could certainly be applicable today, perhaps with a more modern twist.  Here are four that I have chosen for myself:

TEMPERANCE – Everything in moderation

 Many of us can certainly relate to temperance.  If you’re like me, you’re looking to lose a variety of stuff, weight, friends, bad habits, a spouse etc.  This year though, I advise you to change the word “lose” to “release”.  Let’s face it, when you lose something, you want to find it.  It’s the law of losing; it will somehow come back to you, you’ve lost it therefore it needs to be found!  (Gallagher)  When you release something, you let it go!  Therefore, this year, I am releasing lots of stuff and not just weight!  With the practice of temperance, I will become an individual that enjoys the pleasure of life, in moderation.  Moderation will cover many aspects of my life, thus leading to quite a few releases.  No denial of pleasure, just the practice of moderation!  Let’s face it, when you deny yourself something, you want it even more badly!  So, moderation it is for me.

SILENCE - Dr. Phil’s McCraw’s father said “Never pass up a good opportunity to shut up!”

 

I love that quote and use it as a mantra!  Silence, creates a pause, offering us an opportunity to be mindful, observing, reflecting, listening.  With silence, comes time to think before we respond.  How often do we put our foot in our mouth?  If only we had practiced silence.  For me, silence is a huge one, for it allows me the opportunity to practice other virtues, sincerity, kindness etc … all because of a pause.  Pauses in life are a good thing … 

ORDER – “The first step in crafting the life you want is to get rid of everything you don’t” – Joshua Becker

 

A chaotic mind, leads to a chaotic life.  If you want order in your life, start by cleaning, uncluttering, your home, your office, and/or your garage.  You might even add your car!  Donate unwanted items to your favourite charity.  You’ll be amazed how this simple act of cleaning leads to an uncluttered mind and in turn a less chaotic life.  It’s a win win situation.  When we have a lot of stuff, we worry about that stuff.  Less stuff means less worry!  So, when you get rid of the clutter you may find new opportunities/inspirations beginning to emerge!

 

FRUGALITY – You must gain control over your money or the lack of it will forever control you – Dave Ramsey

 

How often do we spend money on useless things?  Has anyone ever considered the impact it has on our environment?  Never mind the effect it has on our savings!  Many retailers have what is considered in the industry “impulse” buys, those items that, upon arriving at your home, you wished you hadn’t bought.  So, you place them in a drawer, in a closet, out of sight, out of mind.  With frugality, comes the establishment of savings.  You know that little stash of money that can be used for a special occasion.  And if you absolutely feel the need to spend money, you could treat a friend.  Or, why not send it to your favourite charity, your spiritual fellowship.  Not only will it keep the landfill free of your trash, you are helping a good cause.  Oh, and the consequence of reframing from buying useless stuff will be time not spent de-cluttering your life!  There is a difference between a need and a want.  Most of us purchase wants and wonder where our money went!  Now, I’m not suggesting that you buy nothing, I’m merely saying think before you make a purchase.  Pause … Frugality is not the same as being cheap.  Frugality mean, you think and/or plan before you buy.  

 

INDUSTRY –“Time is relative” – Albert Einstein

 

As relative as time is, as far as I know, everyone gets 24 hours a day to do as they please.  It is the one commodity that we can never get back; therefore, it might be beneficial for us to use our time wisely.  Franklin structured his day so that no time would be wasted.  He concentrated on the work that needed to get done.  Focus and productivity were key to getting things accomplished!  How do you structure your time?  Are there areas in your life that you could use the time more constructively?  One thing I have done is removed the phrase, “I didn’t have the time”.  Seriously, how true is that for most of us?  For me, if I honestly look at myself, the time was there, I just wasted a lot of it.  You might want to take inventory of how you spent your time throughout the day.  You might be surprised at how much time you waste.  It was certainly a shocker for me.  What I do know is that by structuring my time efficiently, it allows me to accomplish more in my life.  I am able to devote more time to areas of my life that will lead to greater personal success.  

Conclusion

 

When we use personality ethic to acquire favours, and/or individual in our life, we are setting ourselves up for failure and the possibility of hurting others.  People will like/fall for the false self that you presented and not who you are.  And when you can no longer maintain the charade, it’s the real you they will no longer want to deal with.  Ouch!  It is a self-centered tactic that will lead only to problems.  Playing a false self is exhausting, so why not present the authentic you?

If you want to make small improvements in your life, it would serve you to work on your character traits and not your personality traits.  By working on character traits, you set yourself up for long-term success.  To quote Covey, “People can only experience true success and enduring happiness as they learn and integrate virtues into their basic character”[2] (Covey, p. 26)  

In the service pamphlet is a replica of Benjamin Franklin’s Virtue Chart and on the back you will see his schedule.  I like that he had a morning and evening routine.  He began his day with a question “What good shall I do this day?” thus setting his intension for the day.  In the evening, he reflected on his day.  Key habits to take on if one wants to improve.  Notice that he slept for 6 hours? He lived to the age of 84!!![3]  I think it is fair to say that Benjamin Franklin is a good role model for those of us who want to work on our character.

I shall close with a quote from Rumi – “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world.  Today I am wise, so I’m changing myself”

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[1] This 13^th virtue was added after Ben spoke with a Quaker friend, who looked at his list and said that, “Humility needed to be added as he had none.”

 

[2] The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, 25^th anniversary edition

[3] In the 1700 the average age expectancy was 35 years old.

Life Happens!

A Sermon I gave at the Plattsburgh Unitarian Universalist Fellowship 

Life Happens!

I would like to share one of my favourite quote from Marianne Williamson: “The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off”

Early last December, I attended a workshop in Boca Raton Florida with Tony Robbins called Date with Destiny.  Now, before you think this was a leisurely personal growth vacation in the sun, allow me to clarify.  The retreat lasted five days.  Our days began at 10:00 a.m., and ended the following morning between 2 - 3 a.m.  On a couple of mornings, we even had homework!

It was actually the first time in my life that I paid such a huge fee for a resort and was not able to enjoy any of the many amenities. Oh wait; on the day of my arrival, I did enjoy one of their many daily free perks, afternoon champagne! There I was on a sunny Monday afternoon, sitting by the pool with the understanding that “this was the life!”  By early Wednesday morning, as I walked back to my hotel room at 2:30 a.m., I understood that this would not be a vacation.

Although there is so much I learned from this five-day retreat, one concept I would like to share with you is how one can choose to view one’s life happenings, experiences. 

According to Tony, when it come to “life happenings” there are two ways that we can view our experiences.  Whichever one you choose, will determine the type of life you are presently experiencing.  Those two are:

·      Life is happening to me; or

·      Life is happening for me

            Let us look at the first concept - Life happening to me:

When we look at life happening to me, rarely do we take the time to look at ourselves as a possible cause of our situation.  It is so easy to fall into the category of being a victim of life circumstances.  We are surrounded by events that appear to be totally out of our control.  And if by chance we have a bit of control, we are certain someone else messed it up.

When we have a tendency to focus on the outside world, we feel totally out of control.  Our locus of control is placed on the exterior, as opposed to the interior.  In other words, we have very little influence on our behaviour.  Everything appears to be out of our control providing us with a wonderful excuse for the way our life is.  “It’s really not my fault things are the way they are … it’s their fault” … “if only he or she wasn’t like that!”

Of course, I could conveniently blame my parents for the way my life is.  I am a child of the 60’s and back then my parents did the best they could with the knowledge that was given to them.  Today, we do have many options … but are we conscious of them?

Most of us tend to go through life with our “personal awareness” nicely filed in the back of our mind, coasting along until the moment we are jolted, usually from a painful experience.  We then pull out our awareness and evaluate the situation.  We quickly process the experience via some form of anger, caused by someone or something else, and file the experience in the category “they messed up” or “they caused me to act this way.”  Sometimes, we will even go as far as admitting that “I messed up”, file it away and hope to never do that again.  Oh, and let us not forget the name calling that usually follows the “I messed up!” - “Gosh, I’m so stupid, what the heck was I thinking?”

The jolt back to reality is most always because of someone else and once we have worked through the anger, we file our awareness, yet again, in the back of our mind, until the next jolt.  And of course, in no time are we jolted back.

In the category of life happening to me, when we are presented with a painful event in our life, a problem/drama, we have a variety of choices that will allow us to cope with the situation.

We can - Blame others and/or our self for what went wrong, and/or we can choose to ignore it.  When we blame or ignore the issue, it places us in the reaction category.  We are reacting to the situation.  Because we are programmed/hardwired for survival, we will first look for the worse in a situation.  Survival is dependent on quickly noticing irregularities, danger, so that you can either fight or flee.  Unless we become conscious of our behaviour, we will be in reactive mode.  When you blame someone or an event you take the responsible for what’s going on in your life and place it on something else (Robbins).  When you ignore the situation, it only gets worse.  Problems do not go away because you refuse to look at them.

Another way some of us cope is by Numbing.  We numb by shopping, the use of alcohol, drugs and food.  A more modern numbing is spending endless hours on the Internet, Facebooking.  The problem with numbing is that you cannot selectively numb, when you numb pain you also numb joy (Brown).  Another form of coping is to isolate, remove our self from the world, the situation.  We go into hiding until everything settles, hoping no one will remember.

When you are in the life is happening to me category you are offering resistance and it is important to remember that resistance keeps us in our own little world, reality, separate and alone.  This category tricks us into believing that we are protecting ourselves from pain, allowing us to avoid the truth about our self (Ford 49).  Blaming, ignoring, isolating and numbing will never bring you peace.  It only creates a resistance to what is, keeping you from growing and moving forward in your life in a healthy way.  Unless you are willing to look at your self and your life, you will repeat the same scenario over and over - same box just a different packaging.  So how do we get out of this vicious circle and actually stop the pattern?  One way we can do that is by looking at what occurs in our life from a different perspective.

What if we chose to view life as happening for me?  To look at life as happening for me, is to look for opportunities to change aspects of our self, to grow.  It places the responsibility on us, thus providing us with control.

One method to take back control is by asking empowering questions, questions that will allow us to see what happened from a different perspective.  Questions such as:

·      How can I cope with this situation in a way that will be best for myself and/or my family or others around me?

·      What is this situation trying to tell me?

·      What can I learn from this situation?

·      What responsibility do I have in this situation?  Now there’s a loaded question!

The questions we ask ourselves help shape our perception of who we are, what we are capable and willing to do. (Robbins, p191)  Our life reflects the type of questions we ask.  Ask dis-empowering questions, get disempowering answers and in turn become disempowered.

When I left the retreat that morning, my head was buzzing.  I was certain that I was one of those “enlightened” people who lived by the “life is happening for me” concept.  Seriously, I am a seeker of knowledge who considers her self somewhat well read.  I have hours of therapy and spiritual retreats under my belt!  Ha, yea right!  It didn’t take long for me to see how I approached life happenings!  As Tony would say “challenges are but a worthy opponent!”

As a matter of fact, this sermon became a recent reminder to change my perspective and see how I could improve!  All of a sudden, insecurities began to rear its ugly head.  Disempowering questions began to surface, “Am I good enough for this task?” - “Will I be able to meet other people’s standards/expectations?” – “What if I make a total fool of myself?” seriously “Do I even have enough knowledge, experience to even talk about this subject? I haven’t even perfected it yet!” and the biggest disempowering question - “Who do I think you are to even think you could do this?”

The insecurities that were surfacing really had nothing to do with anyone, although I was happy at first to place the blame on someone else.  With a change in perspective, the challenges became a gift for me to work on my insecurities and I am thankful for the gift.

Conclusion

When we choose to view life as happening to me, we place ourselves in the “victim” perspective.  There is a sense of powerlessness that comes from something happening to you.  Everything outside of us has the power to change our mood, change our plans not to mention frustrate us to no end.

As a victim of our circumstance, we have the opportunity to blame what is happening on outside forces, “I can’t believe this is happening! - It’s not my fault” and on and on we can justify our life challenges as happening due to outside circumstances.  There is also this undertone that if life is happening to us, perhaps life is also against us.  To blame an event, and or a person allows us to preserve an identity that shields us from our true self, shields us from the truth of what is. (Robbins)

When we choose to look at life from the perspective of “happening for me”, all of a sudden, we have control over how we will choose to view the situation and in turn, how we will respond.  We are not reacting but choosing a response and are no longer a victim of circumstances.  We become willing to honestly look at our self and our preconceived ideas about the situation, and in turn, make the necessary adjustments and or changes in our self.

Our brain is not designed to make us happy; it is designed for survival and will always look for what’s wrong.  However, we have the ability to reframe a situation and not allow the fight or flight mode to kick in.

For me, life is about personal development, striving to be the best I can be.  Our biggest problem about our beliefs … is that we believe them.  Therefore, be flexible and willing to change and or adjust to a better you.  The quality of your life is correlated to the quality of your beliefs.

When an obstacle presents itself and we choose to approach it from “life happens for me,” the obstacle becomes merely a nudge to look at various ways to deal with the situation.  It is providing us with an opportunity to take a detour that could be more beneficial to us.  In other words, that which stands in our way is but a challenge to take a different route, acquire a new learning.

Transformation occurs when you start looking at the stories you tell your self.  Those stories are also how you decide to view “life happenings”.  Until you seek to find and embrace the gift of any situation or problem, it continues to re-occur presenting itself in a different package (Ford 8)

Beliefs have the power to create and the power to destroy.  The only difference between a “problem” and a “gift” is the meaning you give it.  Therefore, take control of the meaning, of the way you look at the situation, and out of your deepest pain will come your greatest gift.

And please, be gentle with yourself and remember what Marianne said, “the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off!”