I used to have a real fireplace. The kind where you put real logs in and had toasty fires on cold nights. One of the things I remember about that was cleaning out the ashes before I could start another fire. It was my least favorite part of having a fireplace, but a necessary task if I wanted to make a new fire the next night. You can’t start a fire out of a pile of ashes.

The same is true with my life. I can’t have a new start, a fresh start and the powerful fire of a new life, if I am not willing to clean up the ashes of old beliefs, ideas that bind my consciousness in the past. However, I also cannot merely sweep away the old and get rid of it without checking it out. There is a difference between looking at our past for wisdom or dragging it with us from experience to experience.

I don’t mind getting dirty in the ashes of my life, learning from my mistakes and then rising into the new. I can do this and have on numerous occasions. I’ve had disappointments, left relationships with hurt, and had experiences that were trying and difficult. However, then there came the day when I said enough is enough. I’ve wallowed long enough. It’s time to pick up my cot and walk. Actually, how about throwing the cot out all together and walking free.

Some of us say it is difficult to do this. Why does the past just keep coming back to haunt us and tie us down. I believe it is because we haven’t truly forgiven ourselves, others and also that we want things to have been different. We wanted a different outcome than the one perhaps we experienced. The only place to change the past is in the present. We can do this by changing our perspective of it. Dr. Ernest Holmes, Founder of the Science of Mind and Spirit Philosophy once wrote, “For every person is the cause of their own experience, whether they know it or not. We are all carrying the negative experiences of our past into the future merely because we have not disconnected them from our minds. If we are creating a negative future it is because we have not changed our thought about it. Dr. Holmes

In the world of Quantum Physics, they would say that we are on automatic – programmed to just keep thinking about our past, feeling it and then thinking again from those feelings. But, we can change, we can release our past. I know because I have done it. I have a tool called Spiritual Mind Treatment and I use it. I know when I speak my Word about anything in my life, with belief and conviction and faith in the Power that executes it, that I create freedom in my life.

Notice I said belief and conviction and faith in the Power that executes it. There is a Power greater than I am that I can use. When I say it is greater than I am, I am saying it is greater than my finite mind. It is Infinite and has ways and means of executing my Word that I cannot fathom. My Word is the Power unto it. This is probably the most fantastic and amazing thing I have ever learned in my life. But, I also have to use it. Quantum Science calls it “the Field,” and it is awaiting the impress of our thought.

Many people say they cannot let go of the past, the mistakes the regrets, but I say that is because it has become so much our identity that we do not know ourselves without it. Well, you know the saying that we cannot create new wine out of old wine skins. So be it! Either leave the past behind and begin creating a new experience or stay trapped there. We are at choice.

I love the new Science I am learning from Dr. Joe Dispenza and other neuroscientists that tells me that my emotions are alive and well in my body and working me unconsciously daily. I love knowing this because I know know why sometimes it seems difficult to make the changes. But, I also know that I can. It just takes practice – spiritual practice with lots of conviction that I want to change.

My life is forever new. There is always more and I am always expanding. I am constantly rising from the ashes of another fire of experience and, yes, sometimes it feels great and sometimes it is painful. However, the choice of not to rise or to rise is mine. No one else controls me and no experience is too great for the Power that I can use. I rise when I am ready and not before. I know when I’ve had enough and when I am ready to move on. I know it is done unto me as I believe and that I am in charge of what I believe. I know that Love always backs me and when things are difficult, I go to Love.

In every pile of ashes that we might call an experience that has consumed us, there is an ember that is waiting to rise itself into the new.  Our inner light can never go out. It is our choice to ignite it with our thought and change the course of our lives. The Power of the Infinite Law always says yes and always makes it so. It is as guaranteed as the Law of Gravity.

Love and Aloha,

Rev. Rita