The Weight of the World with Josh Reeves

[00:00:01] This is Josh Reeves and you're listening to the Mile Hi Church Podcast. Labor Day weekend, Zamira, Jackie, and myself are facilitating a meditation and prayer retreat. It's about meditation and solitude, but it's just as much about connection and community. We'll be creating a space of healing, introspection, and inner joy and fun. So consider joining us, learn more about this and all sorts of stuff at milehighchurch.org. A term you don't hear tossed around,

[00:00:30] Mile High Church very often is blasphemy. Any blasphemers here in the room today? Yeah, we all got here for a reason. The reason why is we don't believe in a God that gets offended. Say the Lord's name in vain? Just try to not be mean to people and remember that God loves you just the

[00:00:55] way you are. Worship false idols? Well, for us, everyone and everything is an expression of the divine. It becomes false when the idol thinks that it's the only God that there is. That's when you need to turn and run away. Go to the wrong church? You can't go to the wrong church. God is in

[00:01:19] every church, and yet the church doesn't belong to God in the sense that God belongs to everyone. God doesn't belong to a church. God belongs to everyone. God loves you just the way you are. The divine expresses through everything. God belongs to everyone. God loves you just the way you are.

[00:01:48] God expresses through all things. God doesn't belong to anyone. So we can't, according to religious science, offend God. But I do think there's such thing as blasphemy of our own spirit. We can blaspheme

[00:02:08] our own inner light. Blasphemy one, not receiving love. You are a precious, awesome, beautiful expression of the divine in a universe where love is the magic that brings us to song and to silence. Within and around

[00:02:34] you is all the love there is, if you can receive it, if you can let it in. Social science is teaching us today that the key to happiness is feeling loved. Sonia Leobomarski, a social scientist, shares, to feel that the people in your life truly get you, value you, and love you is what makes life worth living.

[00:03:04] This is what makes people happy. And social science is teaching us that for a lot of us, the problem isn't that we're not loved. It's receiving that love. It's taking it in. Maybe some of you are a little like me and have had in your past a commitment to loving people who were lovable but maybe not

[00:03:28] love able. A parent, an ex-partner, a friend or co-worker. We get so caught up in wanting love from these people that we don't realize we're unconsciously shutting it out from everywhere else. I've learned from time to time in my life when I'm not receiving love to stop and to say,

[00:03:50] I am not who I love. I'm who loves me. Think for a moment upon who loves you. All of those people in your life who are so proud of you for just being you. Take it in. There's an inner joy that cultivates in me every time I get to speak because I know that there are so many people who have loved me and who

[00:04:17] have passed on in particular who are still with me right here and right now every time I give a talk. You know, there's those people you don't see and you wonder what happened to them. Then there are those people that you don't see but you know are always with you in everything you share and everything that you do. To receive that love is to honor your spirit. But to reject that love, to put a wall

[00:04:45] between you and that love is to blaspheme the truth of your human spirit and your human light. Blasphemy too? Putting others up on pedestals. In lifting someone else up, you unconsciously push

[00:05:06] yourself down and lose touch with your value, your power, your wisdom, your grace. And trust me, the majority of these people do not want to be put up there anyhow. It hurts them more when their humanity is revealed. We can sometimes unconsciously exalt people who are perfectly worth exalting but in so diminish

[00:05:30] ourselves. The great philosopher Alan Watts said of Jesus, not that Jesus doesn't deserve to be exalted, but one of the mistakes we human beings make is making him the only boss's son. We so exalt this person who deserves also exaltation, but there's an unconscious thing there. What says is that by making him up on the top of that penthouse, we unconsciously make an agreement

[00:05:56] that we never have to be like him. Jesus says in the gospel of John, very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing and they will do even greater things than these. What a powerful spiritual message in teaching that this person who has the consciousness of Christ, a consciousness of unconditional love and forgiveness, a consciousness of faith that can

[00:06:24] heal and transform lives that their message is you have that power too. Even when we allow ourselves to be seen and put on a pedestal, we only put something superficial forward and we're sure to fall down

[00:06:41] as well. Honor your own light. Blasphemy three and the topic of the message today is carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. Anyone like me, your shoulders a little sore? It's that pressure. I have to do this.

[00:07:08] I have to take responsibility for this loved one's life because they're not capable of doing it themselves. If I let go, if I'm not constantly on working, if not physically, then mentally nonstop, everything will fall apart. It's all on me. There perhaps is no greater blasphemy to the spirit than to

[00:07:33] think that life is all ours on our own to do and control and take care of. When the truth is that we co-create with the divine power and that in letting go, we allow this divine in to help make the crooked straight, to help us rediscover and reclaim our wholeness whenever we've lost it. Because the truth is,

[00:07:57] it's been there all along. All along. In ancient Greek thought, there's a concept of a being called the demurge. And the demurge represents a false creator God. Someone or a being who thinks they're God.

[00:08:22] And they have kind of power, but they're the kind of God that rules through fear and jealousy. Some early Christians actually saw some characteristics of the demurge and the God of the Old Testament that would create floods and tear down buildings or would pester that poor Job. You know, before this Christ presence brings us this true God that's always there of infinite life,

[00:08:51] limitless love, endless wholeness showing up for us in all regards. I bring this up to ask you to ask yourself, is your life being run by a demurge, by a perceived God of judgment, a perceived God who doesn't think you're enough, a perceived God that you have to somehow prove

[00:09:14] yourself worthy of? Or is there that sense of true light, true life, true love that ignites you with your very self and sets you out to live your life abundantly, completely, not perfectly, but in wholeness, in the wholeness of who you are? Who put the weight of the world on your shoulders?

[00:09:40] It wasn't the divine. It wasn't the divine. It was that part of ourselves that thought to be worthy, to get love, to be enough, we have to demonstrate control. We have to take care of everyone all the time. We have to put things on our shoulders because if not, the world would fall apart. Moving through the loss of my father, followed quickly by the experience of divorce. Norman

[00:10:09] Lear wrote a great book called Even This I Get to Experience. I knew it was time for me to go into therapy and I had many therapeutic relationships in my life, but I've never had that experience where, Josh, what do you want to talk about today? You know, that whole hour that's just about you. And initially I thought it was going to be all about uncovering neuroses and idiosyncrasies,

[00:10:36] you know, all the layers of Josh. But in my experience, there wasn't a whole lot there to uncover, although this weekend it feels like all the neuroses in my head have gotten together to throw a party. Anybody else? They must be big world cup fans. But the thing, the greatest gift therapy brought me was in regards to being a good father. It was in regards to being a good father because

[00:11:03] what I brought into that therapy room was an unconscious, okay, I admit it, it was quite conscious story. I am a broken father of a broken family, a broken father of a broken family. And my therapist helped me by sharing with me, Josh, there are only three things a child really deep down needs to be

[00:11:26] seen, held and heard. Seen, beheld in their magnificence, seen in their dignity, uplifted in their possibilities, loved, witnessed, heard, to validate their feelings, to listen to their stories, their struggles and their great achievements, to listen to them and to hold them. Not all the time, but whenever

[00:11:56] they need you to offer that embrace of love and wisdom and grace. My therapist is right. These are three things that all children need, but I think it's true of us adults as well. That's deep down what we need just to be seen, just to be heard, just to be held. And this experience helped me to release control because you notice that thing about seen and heard and held. None of those take control. That part of me

[00:12:24] that thinks I need to get all up in my kids' business, that I need to perhaps find something that might be wrong with them to get on the path of fixing, that I need them to hear my story or take on things. No, no. And this therapy helped me to realize that I'm not a broken father of a broken family. I'm a whole father of whole children. That's the truth of who each of us is. But there are always these narrative

[00:12:48] paths that we can go. That one that says that we have to carry the weight of everyone's burden on our shoulders, or the one that says we can let it all go, live fully in the glory of life, and set the example that allows our loved ones to do the same. Three points today about this concept of carrying the

[00:13:14] weight of the world on your shoulders. The first is to entertain the possibility that when you let the weight of the world go, things don't fall apart but come together. That if you were actually to release the weight on your shoulders, things wouldn't fall apart but come together. Mark Nepo said of Atlas, you remember Atlas who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders? He says Atlas wasn't forced

[00:13:42] to hold up the world. He was convinced that if he didn't, the world would fall. Again, when we hold the weight of the world on our shoulders, it's a sign of a lack of faith or a lack of belief that there is this silent partner, this divine presence that's always working for us and not against us. And if we can learn

[00:14:06] not to control but to trust, not to get caught up in story but to embody solution, not to get imprisoned in fear and worry but to embrace love in this now moment that this power begins to take over and bring things together. The Tao Te Ching tells us, do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear?

[00:14:33] Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself? Can you? What an amazing thing to consider that our problems aren't ours to solve but to become conscious of in light of the truth of who we are. And when we're able to do that, the problems begin to take care of themselves. That thing that we think needs fixing doesn't need

[00:14:59] fixing at all. It just needs the expression of wholeness and our own well-being. If you release the weight of the world on your shoulders, things don't fall apart. They come together. It's not about getting rid of anything or throwing anything away. It's trusting that what will belong in your life will come

[00:15:19] exactly into place. Second, when you are carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders, you are not allowing yourself to be held. When you carry the weight of the world on your shoulders, you're not allowing yourself to be held. And it's painful because for many of us, the reason we're

[00:15:47] carrying the weight of the world on our shoulders is because we think that's how we get held. That's how we get love. That's how we get approval. That's how we earn our worthiness. But we don't realize in the very caring is the inability to open our arms and embrace and be embraced. It's only when we let that weight down

[00:16:08] that we can let that weight go that we can really help the people that we love and care about. Because when we're holding that weight of the world up, we can't embrace them either. It's in letting go, not in holding on, that we truly embrace and allow ourselves to be embraced with that love that we truly are.

[00:16:37] Again, becoming open to letting that love in our lives, it fills us not only with affection, but with strength, with trust, a sense of divine intelligence, and often the solutions that we've been keeping out because we think it's all up to us to accomplish. Lastly, when we're carrying the weight of the world and

[00:17:02] we let it go, it allows us to take true responsibility for our lives. Taking responsibility for other people's lives not only takes that responsibility away from them and our trust in them, but it keeps us from truly taking responsibility for our own. Not trusting things to work out,

[00:17:24] spending so much time in worry or regret dismisses and doesn't allow the true story of God's good for you to take place in your life. Wrestling in your mind with the way things aren't, thinking they need to be a certain way, keeps us from becoming the ourselves we are called to be so that our life can come into

[00:17:49] divine alignment. When we release the weight of the world, we become clear and we take accountability for who we are being right here in this now moment, sometimes not realizing that becoming that is the very key to getting where in our heart we know we are meant to go. Holding the weight of the world isn't serving

[00:18:15] any of us. When we let it go, things can begin to come together. As we straighten out our own lives, it sets an example for others to do their own. As we allow ourselves to be seen, held, and heard, it gives us everything we need to see and hear and hold the ones we love, no matter what may be taking

[00:18:41] place. Moving into prayer this morning, I invite any of our beautiful prayer practitioners who want to stand and join me. So grateful for these bright lights, our practitioner body, who know the truth for themselves and hold it for each and every one of us who asks, knowing the highest and best even for those of us who don't.

[00:19:04] So simply affirming and knowing right here and right now, and releasing any perceived stress or worry, and releasing anything that we may be holding, we release ourselves into the embrace of God. We are not holding the world up anymore and are therefore allowing ourselves to be held up by a holy presence that knows the truth of who we are,

[00:19:32] that knows that even the purpose of fear or anger, jealousy or grief is to bring us back into a greater love, a greater way of being who we are in this world. Knowing that we are whole people, living whole lives, even in the experience sometimes of seemingly broken situations, the complete wholeness of the soul is always there, bringing us forward into greater fruition.

[00:20:01] I am not what I hang on to, I am what I become when I let all of that go, realizing that the best of life does not need clinging to, just the pure enjoyment of our heart and soul. Speaking a word for healing, for abundance, for peace of mind, for forgiveness. Let us never underestimate what our hearts are capable of

[00:20:28] when we unite and remember this divine power. We allow this divine power to reveal itself as divine presence wherever we are, whispering to us of its grace, its love, its creativity, and our fundamental unity. We let it be, we let it become, and so it is. Thanks for listening to the Mile Hi Church Podcast.

[00:20:59] This podcast is made possible by the generous contributions from listeners like you. To make a donation, please visit milehighchurch.org.