Listen Now

This is where I came up with  the term unblockyourself, and I started unblocking myself.

As I’m getting ready to leave for the day, I keep being reminded of this: I have everything I need. I’m taken care of. Also, I pretty much have access to everything I want. Like a game, it needs to be unlocked. God unlocks. I have to #UnBlockYourself (myself) to get to it.   So today's episode is about connecting.  Connect to God to unlock. Connect to yourself to unblock and get out of the way of what He is doing in your life! (And Mine!)

Roadmap to unblock yourself   Over the past 5 years we’ve pretty much developed a pattern to really getting close to the inner you. This will basically be the next 48 Episodes for the rest of 2023!   Unblocking yourself: Getting out of our own way Mind Body Spirit Finances Social Interactions Summary: a closed fist   Unblocking your potential: Aspirations Roles Expectations Showing Appreciation Summary: AREA at work   Unblocking your balance: Harmony Respect Purity Tranquility Summary: Chowa   Unblocking your clarity: Wabikigai Wabi Sabi Kanso Fukinsei Shibumi Yugen Shizen Datsuzoku Seijaku Ichigo ichie Past Present Future Ikigai Life worth Living Summary - Wabikigai Adventure   Unblocking your actions: Purpose Vision Mission Summary: Drive to accomplish great things   Unblocking Your Connections: Self to God Kinstugi Self to Others Where you fit in Emotional Bank Accounts Self to Self Idioms & Proverbs Inputs and Outcomes Summary: what you put in is related to what you’re getting out   Unblocking your flow Flow How you see things Summary: the beaver: Bottlenecking the flow little by little Roadmap to unblock yourself   Over the past 5 years we’ve pretty much developed a pattern to really getting close to the inner you. This will basically be the next 48 Episodes for the rest of 2023!   Unblocking yourself: Getting out of our own way Mind Body Spirit Finances Social Interactions Summary: a closed fist   Unblocking your potential: Aspirations Roles Expectations Showing Appreciation Summary: AREA at work   Unblocking your balance: Harmony Respect Purity Tranquility Summary: Chowa   Unblocking your clarity: Wabikigai Wabi Sabi Kanso Fukinsei Shibumi Yugen Shizen Datsuzoku Seijaku Ichigo ichie Past Present Future Ikigai Life worth Living Summary - Wabikigai Adventure   Unblocking your actions: Purpose Vision Mission Summary: Drive to accomplish great things   Unblocking Your Connections: Self to God Kinstugi Self to Others Where you fit in Emotional Bank Accounts Self to Self Idioms & Proverbs Inputs and Outcomes Summary: what you put in is related to what you’re getting out   Unblocking your flow Flow How you see things Summary: the beaver: Bottlenecking the flow little by little

#UnBlockYourself 2023 Thought 3:   You can’t physically treat non-physical issues. We’ve been conditioned to treat things like depression, heartbreak, or negative forms of stress with pills, shots, and alcohol.   We tend to get hooked on treating the results, not address the root of the issue. For example, we may be sluggish and low on energy. But instead of eating healthier, or foods that may give us a boost, we may drink energy drinks.   When we do this, it only treats the symptoms and the problems keeps coming. I have that problem too, but doing this will not bring it to an end. Treating things this way makes us responsive, not proactive. We only will handle things when it gets bad enough to where we can’t take it. We have to get to the root of the problems. We have to sometimes go 7 degrees of “why?” to get to the bottom.   For our adventure to continue, when we come up against a wall, we know we have to get to the why of it so we know how to become victorious over it. A tea time, or meditation, time alone with God can help reveal things on a deeper, spiritual level, instead of just the resulting symptoms.   Stay looking ahead and moving forward, you will always move towards the direction you are looking!

#UnBlockYourself 2023 Thought 2:   Your Wabikigai Adventure   “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11   There is an adventure that has been created just for you. Wabikigai is a mash up of three of my favorite words, and it is at the core of our theme for this year.   The “Wabi” in wabikigai is for Wabi Sabi. This is how this adventure is unique to you. Unique, timeless, and beautiful are the experiences that have been created for your journey.   Speaking of timeless, Ichigo Ichie is next. It boils down to “once in a lifetime moment” happening during each of your experiences.   Last is Ikigai, one of my favorites. It is living a full life by functioning in your purpose. We have many hats, some wanted and unwanted, but there are a few that impacts not only us, but goes on to shine a light in a dark world. This light and life we have changes the world around us. Never take that lightly!   This year we are set to do great and wonderful things. Be ready for trials because it has to be tested, but on the other side is the greatest testimony to the greatest experiences you’ll ever have if you seek them and hold to them tight!   Let’s Go!

#UnBlockYourself 2023 Thought 1: Your intent will be tested. Have you ever made a New Year’s resolution and failed miserably? Things large or small I notice whenever I declare, “This is what I want to do!” It gets tried immediately. From, “All I want to do is to make up the bed”, to, “I want to buy a new car”, will al be tested. If I try to make the bed, I get up late, or the bed feels so good I don’t get up on time, or an employee calls in which means I have to rush to get things in place… anything. I want to buy this, all of the sudden a great opportunity comes up to buy something else, car breaks down, your best friend really needs to borrow some money and they know you have it… anything.   But WHY??? I asked myself this over and over. Finally the answer came. It is to test the strength and the very essence of what you believe. If you fail, one of two things happen. You either give up, or you press through and learn from it. You will either turn and find something better, or you will become stronger with even greater momentum because you have improved from your mistakes.   It all works for your good. Your greater good. God’s got you. (Romans 8:28)   I liked this acronym for FAIL: First Attempt In Learning   Keep moving forward!

#UnBlockYourself 429 - Benefits and Balance   Last episode we talked about how All roads (your thoughts and actions) lead back to your core of your being, the core values you have established within you. Your homework was to start to define your core values, so you’ll see where you will end up going with you your actions, and they also serve as a beacon of light to help in decision making too. Ultimately what you do will usually be leaning towards your success.    Brings us to today.  Prayerfully develop a working definition of what your success is, what it looks like, and write it down.    What will be the benefit of your success?    If you have things the way you want it (your success and vision fulfilled) what benefit is it to God?    What benefit is it to the world?   Why should God help you get there?    The questions help us to see where are motives are, if inspired by God or man, if self centered or not, if it has the potential to get you in trouble if you go all out for it.    We can find ourselves wandering off in the wrong direction when things are too self centered, and at the end, we find it amounts to nothing or taken away. Build our legacies that will last for generations, for our children and our children’s children. 

#UnBlockYourself 428   All roads (your thoughts and actions) lead back to your core of your being, the core values you have established within you.   “To put it simply, vision is what the world would be like if we succeeded. Mission, on the other hand, is what we must do for the world to reflect the vision.” The "Core Values" you have in you are the principals, rules, and boundaries that dictate your behaviors.   We need to define our values. Establish core values that:  Guide and ground your actions that will help you accomplish your vision and mission represent who you are (or want to be) at your best, set you apart, and incorporate Wabi Sabi, Ichigo Ichie, and Ikigai as it pertains to you.   All actions lead back to the core of your being because they instinctively dictate your behaviors.   Living out your ikigai is an extension of your core values.

#UnBlockYourself 427 Wabikigai in your influence   One of my favorite mentors John C. Maxwell says, “Leadership is influence, nothing more, nothing less.”    One of our many purposes in being in this life at this moment in time is to impact our circle of influence, blessing those who God has put in our path.   Wabikigai is a made up word consisting of 3 philosophies: Wabi Sabi: Discovering perfection in the imperfect Ichigo Ichie: Being in the moment Ikigai: Living a full life through fulfilling your purposes   Influence has its place within all of these.   Wabi Sabi: When you break down the concept of wabi sabi you get: Wabi - Simplistic, minimalistic design to provide what you need.  Sabi - The beauty in aging, and uniqueness of something.   This is the internal influence, the things we see, do, and hear that influences us. The things that have influenced and are influencing us shapes what we will be doing to and for others.   Ichigo Ichie: Once in a life time moments. The time we spend within our hearts and in intimate company with others. This is were we build the energy to influence ourselves and others. This is were we build strength in relationships eternally, internally, and externally.   Ikigai: Living a full life through purpose. This is our external influence at work. This is how we impact our circle of influence and the world by just being ourselves, doing what we were called to do. For some it may be preaching the gospel, for others, it could be teaching your kids how to fish. Both relate to your influence, and both could have a lasting impression that could impact the receiver’s generations long after them. What we do here and now, carries weight. If you are intentional, you are intentionally making a difference to change the future of the world!

#UnBlockYourself 426: Abide and Abound Nurture and Nourish

#UnBlockYourself 425: The choice is yours   Over the years, at the end of our prayer time with the kids and staff at the center, Ms. B. has graced us with wisdom and gave us this charge as we would start our day: “Make it a great day or not, the choice is yours.”    There is so much packed into this one statement.    First off, there has to be a decision made. Not only that, but the power to make this day a great day or not has been given to us.    And I’ll tell you this, every decision to act or not act affects the rest of your life. The decision to have just one more cookie can lead to high blood sugar on down the road because “just one more” lead to another and another and another. On the flip side, saving that money from not going out can cause you to like your own cooking, which leads to you cooking for yourself, and then others, and then a restaurant, and multiple locations and now you’re a retired multi millionaire because of those decisions.    The choice you make also comes from how you view things. I think of your mind having its own positive and negative filtration system. So many situations are neutral, but the you see will be determined by how it’s filtered.    I had one of my tropical plants really just shrivel up and die on me. I saw it as dead, it was sad and I never got around to throwing it away. But to my plant lady, (Ms Nancy) she sees that all the time, “it just needs a plant vacation” (sit it outside for some sun, water, and air). Not dead at all.    We may see hopeless fixer upper, but some with an eye for it may see a gold mine.    So the decision is ours. We choose greatness or not.  It is an ongoing thing.  We make the choices by the filters we use in our mind.  Lastly, we influence the filters by what we allow to influence them.  Another choice causing greatness or not.    The old cliché is that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, and get this if you fill your eyes with trash, trash will be the only thing you are able to see. 

#UnBlockYourself 424: abiding in the vine of your vision   ““I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.” John 15:5-8 MSG   Applying this to our vision, it has to be a living breathing thing we set out to embrace and have dwell within us. When it is living within us, and it also is something that we are living by, we bear fruit. We start to see results. If there is a gap in the results from all of our efforts or non-efforts we’re putting into it, we may have to check if we have strayed or completely separated from the vision given.   Side Note - If this is a God-given vision for our life, we have to also make sure we do not stray or separate from God AND the Vision alike. We may see results, and they may seem good, but ultimately can lead us down a path where we end up worshipping the created, rather than the creator. The problem God was having with people was that they would start to prosper, and then forget the mission, vision, where it came from, and what it was for. Be careful!   Along these same lines, if there are somethings that are being used to create your vision, or fulfill your mission, and they are not producing fruit for you, you may have to evaluate them to see if they have become dead wood that needs to be pruned. Pruning cuts off less than useful things and allows for the energy from it to be diverted to the more useful areas, causing growth. Consider these things as you work out your ikigai!

#UnBlockYourself 423: if not me, then who?   Vision is a picture given as a picture of us fulfilling our calling.  “To put it simply, vision is what the world would be like if we succeeded. Mission, on the other hand, is what we must do for the world to reflect the vision.”   With this in mind, ikigai is what we say, do, and feel in our everyday lives that supplies the mission and vision. The more aware of your ikigai working itself out through you, the greater the impact you will have on your circle of influence.    Take your time. Your purpose is big, and multifaceted. There are many moving parts to this life, and It can only be handled by you, and you are not small. In fact, you plus God is a majority. When those world changing ideas pop up in your head, you’re going to have to say, “if not me, then who?”

#UnBlockYourself 422: Unblock to Unlock   Unblocking your potential, and living a full life is the focus for this season. There are few core concepts that I’m learning about, and we’ll discover some hidden truths and some misconceived theories that and I’m uncovering almost on a daily basis.    I’m excited! New season, New discoveries, New ways to move forward into a new life.   Two Core Philosophies I’m developing myself in: A.R.E.A - Aspirations, Roles, Expectations, Appreciation - This unblocks potential in relations. (God, Self, Others)    The next is what drives me, Wabikigai (a word I made up)  Wabi Sabi - enjoying the beauty and perfection in the imperfections Ichigo Ichie - being in the moment, once in a lifetime happenings Ikigai - reasons and driving forces behind your vision and purpose   My belief is that when start to “unblock” ourselves we start to “unlock” ourselves. We can live life to the fullest, even if it is physically cut short. Not only that, but the things we do and the people we touch live on even when we are no longer here.   My brother loved music, it was one of his many passions. Truly a part of his ikigai. some of the things he loved and touch others with lives on today, even though he has been gone for almost 2 years. Often in the background you can hear tracks he made for this podcast and see a painting he painted in this room.   What are some of the things you are living for? What are some of the visions you have for your life? Are you stepping towards them? Your vision and purposes mixed with the fire of your passion to accomplish them, makes you unstoppable. Will the things you are doing now extend further than your life? Like Dr. King, do you have a dream? His continues this day, so should yours!

Like I've been saying this week, I've been struggling with trying to be everything I'm supposed to be (the I see me in my head). But God was showing me where I decided to make a change, and where I decided to surrender and allow Him to develop me. The areas are vastly different. Like this, I decided on my own that I will not be broke any more. I said I would maintain X amount in my account, and adjust accordingly to maintain that. It worked for only so long, because life made adjustments at the same time that would keep me at the level I was in my finances. If I got and increase, car maintenance or a new program or an unexpected increase in expenses would appear.    To be honest, the exact same thing would happen when I decided to surrender my financial mindset to function in a kingdom way (to be developed). Although setbacks come, I’ve been satisfied in not needing more, which means I spend less, which I can take hits when life shows up.    A changed mind under pressure will fall back on what it knows, because it thinks the change is not working. A developed mind will build itself little by little, and it won’t fall back  far if trouble comes because in the development process, training is building a strong foundation for things to come.   Here’s the bottom line, to free yourself to become changed, you have to set yourself free to what you have been doing. The circumstances that test you will always try the actual mindset of where you are, if it really has been changed, or will it stay the same.

#UnBlockYourself Episode 420 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6 NIV   Struggling in the now is not as bad as it sounds. The fight is within me trying to control everything instead of trusting in the process. I think of it as me stepping onto an invisible bridge, going from where I am, to where I am supposed to be. In my mind I can see a lot of where I’m going, but the path to get there is on this invisible bridge. Like me, this frightens many people, because it requires a lot of faith to be guided.    3 things on this: You cannot just sit and do nothing. Staying stuck on the bridge is no good for you or anyone. It is never a good feeling being stuck.   You have to believe that the doors that close on you sets you up for a better position on this bridge. Some of the doors we choose for ourselves can leave us stuck in a place for years. Sitting at an old door that closed because that was where we wanted to go.   You have to go through the doors that are opened for you. The doors of opportunity that God opens for you moves you across this bridge and the interesting thing about this is, the more you trust and move, the longer and greater this bridge becomes. Greater payoffs await behind each new door you step through, bringing you closer and closer to who you have been called to be!

"We realize we have built our lives around who we were, and we must make adjustments to be who we are, on the way to who we are becoming." I read this in a daily devotional and it really spoke to me. Ichigo Ichie (about being present in the moment) has been something I firmly believe in, but I have a hard time staying there with God. Reading this I finally have an understanding why.   God is always in the now. In my past, it's His now. In my future, it's still His now. My present, He is there, in the now. But as for us, we only can be in the now, and who are today is built on all of our past experiences (In The Past). All I know is my past, my future is not clear, and I can only blindly walk by faith in the now. That's Hard.  I'm building my now off of what I've experienced in the past. But God is ever changing and evolving us for our future, so the struggle really just boils down to trusting the process. Because He functions in the now, we can't really rely on just our past to fulfill our future. We have to trust and depend on Him. I can't stress this enough, being present with Him in the now is where change comes. If we can keep focused on the now, our future is bright paved with the blessings of our lights shining in the darkness!   Have a great day!     

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” - Isaiah 41:10   Have you ever noticed that God gives you a giant vision that is waaaaaaaay bigger than you can handle? Then in your spirit you can hear, “Don’t be scared…” For me, it helps in knowing that I’m not alone, and that I’m where I am supposed to be, but, it doesn’t help because the task in front of me is bigger than me. I feel like I’m being swallowed up by this great big monster of an undertaking and usually the bigger things win.   I think it is set up this way on purpose. It says “fear not”, meaning that it is going to naturally be scary. I think that the scripture is telling you that it’s okay, to go ahead and not be afraid to do what you’ve set out to do, scared. If you could do it in your own strength, well you wouldn’t need God at all right? I’ve spoken to small groups and in front of congregations, all in which when I think about it, when it was important, no matter the size, I’d be nervous as all get out. But the adrenaline gets going and I’m determined to have a good time, even though I’m afraid, God makes it okay. I’ve lived even when I’ve bombed, or forgotten lines, or watched deacons at church fall asleep right in front of me giving a sermon. The scripture is saying, “I called you, now go take the risk.”    Behind the risks, there are rewards! From lesson being learned to monetary compensation, with the right mindset, the more risks you take the greater rewards and closer you come to your success!

“The fastest way to success is to double your failure rate.” - Thomas Watson, Sr.   When I came home from active duty, I had a little time on my hands. One of the things I wanted to do was to learn about Atlanta. All the little hole-in-the-wall places. So, the first thing I would do in the morning jump in the car, and head toward downtown. A lot of the streets that I lived near would either end up downtown or intersect a street that would lead downtown. When I went from one end to the other, I would turn around and find my way back. Worst case scenario is that I would hit 285 and go back from there. (That was my protective ring around the city.)   Because I had the desire to get lost, and find my way, and I had the mindset that I would not go further than my boundaries, I had no fear of really getting into too much trouble. I learned a lot of unique shops and became really familiar with streets all over the city.   To learn the city I took a few risks, but the desire to learn outweighed the fear of being lost, ending up in the wrong neighborhood, and thinking I would run into trouble too great for me to deal with.   Success came quick when I was willing to take the risks, let go of my fears, and stay mindful of the boundaries I set for myself.

Learning from failures can be tough sometimes, but if you are learning the lessons, it will catapult you towards your success.  Everything works together for your good! “The fastest way to success is to double your failure rate.” - Thomas Watson, Sr.