I Am Free. I Am Unlimited.

I was asked to speak at Unity of Melbourne this past Sunday, 2/24. (You can actually go to FaceBook and search for Unity of Melbourne, FL and click on videos for Sunday’s talk and listen, if you’d like). I was made aware that the topic for the month was “I AM”. I happened to be reading my Daily Word and the topic that day was I am free, I am unlimited. So I saw that as some kind of divine sign. I thought to myself, well that was easy and the title sounds like it will be a snap to create around. So I pushed it to the back of the pack and only began seriously thinking about it a week ago. 

         At first I thought I might talk about the people who suffered really horrendous experiences but came out on the other side with great insight – proof that being free and unlimited is not a strictly physical experience and one can impact the world even though we may be physically contained or restrained involuntarily.

         Think of Nelson Mandela, held in prison for 27 years. Or Louie Zamperini, his story of being a POW is told in the book and movie, Unbroken.  Then there is John McCain, held at the Hanoi Hilton for 5 ½ yrs during the Vietnam War and brutally tortured. Stephen Hawking, brilliant and stricken with ALS, trapped in a body that would no longer do his bidding. Or even, Helen Keller, imprisoned in her own private silent world until Anne Sullivan helped her escape.

These are names, and stories, of which most of us are familiar. Each of us, if asked, could add another name to that list but would we be willing to add ourselves? Many of us have found ourselves buried in unspeakable pain, prisons without bars but prisons just the same. We may have been unable or perhaps just not ready to escape our self-imposed incarceration, yet the keys are always within our reach.

The imprisonment of which I speak happens up here. The bars that trap us are constructed from our own negative thinking, negative self-talk, our “less-than” mentality. Over time, we find our own wings have been clipped by our own clippers. We are unaware that we have done it to our own selves. Usually we spend years blaming others or the circumstances of our lives. But as we shrink smaller and smaller, we erect taller and taller barriers until accessing freedom and knowing we are unlimited becomes very difficult. Yet it takes no longer than a single breath to remember we are free, we are unlimited.

Those world renown people of whom I spoke figured out a way to burst through those barriers while in more dire circumstances than most of us will endure. We can do the same.

Let’s go back and visit the guy in the Bible who really got hit with it – Job. Now as metaphysicians and Truth students we don’t really know for sure if Job was a real person, and it doesn’t really matter, because he is a teaching tool for us today.

His story is one of horrific loss. As a refresher, here’s his story and since Moses supposedly told it we know it happened a very long time ago when wealth was measured by land and livestock, children and servants.

Moses tells us that Job was blameless and upright, one who revered God. Job had seven sons and three daughters. He owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, five hundred donkeys; and he had many servants, so that he was the richest man among all the peoples of the Middle East.

         So then you know the story of how the fallen angel that we have come to call Satan supposedly approached God and  makes a proposition to God asking to bring some crazy down on Job to see if Job can hold up under the pressure. God say sure…go for it. 

         Job loses all his livestock, most of his servants, all ten of his children then he gets all manner of ickies on his body in the form of leprosy. Job is sitting outside his house amongst ashes and his haggy naggy wife comes outside and supports him lovingly by saying, “Dude, just curse God and die.”  But he said to her, "You speak like a senseless woman. We accept prosperity from God, shall we not also accept misfortune?" 

         Misfortune is a teacher. Misfortune presents us with an opportunity to move closer to God; to seek a higher way of being; to align our mind with God-mind. Our higher self wants us to be free to choose our life; to do the thing or things that we are here to do. It wants us to manifest all that we want completely without self-imposed tethers on us. That is what it means to be unlimited. Completely and totally inlimited. We have that ability! We are able to actually embody that freedom and unlimitedness.

          Almost the entire book of Job is chapter after chapter of Job complaining until finally God steps in and reminds Job of a few things and then Job quickly recognizes God’s power and presence and remembers his blessed connection to God as his Source. He remembershe is free to free his restrictions on himself and to rest in Divine Presence. This freedom releases his unlimited abilities and he brings back into his life all that he lost and more. 

Let me tell you another story where I personally lost a lot. You may remember that I told you some time back about the time a few years ago when I attempted to walk across the US. And I didn’t get too far…that part is a separate story. When I returned home, I had no job, no vehicle and no income. I rented out the main part of my house to a friend who allowed me to live in the separate apartment in the back. All my belongings were in storage so I kept my limited clothes in cardboard boxes and slept on a blow up mattress in my sleeping bag. I cooked on a hotplate and washed my dishes in the tub. I felt humiliated and embarrassed. I felt I had lost a good portion of me, my identity of who I thought I was. Of course I hadn’t really but it certainly felt that way. At that point I didn’t have a good grasp on who I was, who I am. But having lost myself was actually a really good thing as I was in a perfect position to surrender and find my way through those self-constructed bars of self-hatred, self-pity, blame and limitation. Then I was free to remember all that I had forgotten. I had the freedom to release my limited thinking. 

Unity minister and author Eric Butterworth shared the following thought: “Things may happen around you, and things may happen to you, but the only things that matter are the things that happen in you.”

         We have endured.

         We have been broken.

         We have known hardship.

         We have lost ourselves.

         Yet…here we stand

         We are still moving forward

         And growing stronger everyday.

We have all suffered loss. We are spiritual beings BUT we are living the human experience. We have a choice. We can remember who we, our spiritual roots or not.

         Let’s look at the word “remember”. “Re” is a prefix meaning do it again. Like re-read or re-enlist. 

And “member” means to “bring to mind again” or “be mindful of”. That’s very helpful because although we forget, ALL THE TIME, we can re-be-mindful-of-again. 

         

Forgetting is so much easier than remembering, isn’t it? I literally sometimes set the timer on my phone for every 30 min or an hour to remind me to remember. Particularly if I’m in a place of discomfort  - in the valley of the shadow of death. Then I can take a breath and focus for a second or two on my freedom, on my unlimited unlimitedness. It makes sense when I can access that. And I can only access it when I remember. We all get so caught up in the distractions of life that we completely forget the Giver of that life.

It is vital to remember who we are. We may have to employ little hacks to keep this front and center like post-itson mirrors, or doors or in the car. You can set the timeron your phone…like I do. Or put a small stonein your pocket so everytime you reach into your pocket and touch that stone you are reminded to breathe “I am Free, I am unlimited, I am a child of God, made in the very image and likeness of God.” And a piece of that Divine energizes me. 

As long as we take time to remember, then the human experience can be experienced with less…well…humanness and more spiritualness. Do what YOU need to do to remember that you are inherently free – free to release all those limiting beliefs. Free to dream again and go for those dreams, regardless of what appears to be opposing circumstances like age or lack of resources. Release those limiting beliefs that confine us or restrain us. You and I have placed them there and therefore you and I have the power to let them go. In fact, we are the only ones that have that power. No one can do it for us!!!