SUNDAY SERMON: Let It Go Bro
Sometimes, you just got to LET IT GO
I know, cheesy ‘Frozen’ reference here
but deep, deep truth inside.
Lets establish ONE Fact here:
- WE ALL HAVE EXPERIENCED PAIN
- WE ALL HAVE OUR OWN STORIES OF HEARTACHE FROM THE PAST
Many of you watching this have been:
-Lied to, Cheated on, Beaten, Abused, Neglected, and on and on…..
I GET IT
Pain is inevitable
BUT Suffering is Optional
You either CHOOSE to Suffer or to Learn from your experience
*Reference/Credit to Jesse Elder for teaching me that lesson.
The same is true for FORGIVENESS:
- Pain/Hurt is inevitable
- But your CHOICE to offer Forgiveness is Optional.
I WOULD ASK YOU TO CONSIDER That:
Your PAIN cannot be converted to true Power, until you LET IT GO
Does this mean you will ever forget the offense? Possibly Not
Does it mean to let continual aband free yourself from the bondage WHILE
forgiving others AND avoiding those huruse happen? HELL NO
BUT, there are ways to OPERATE ts in the future.
Watch the video to learn WHY if you just, ‘LET IT GO BRO’ you can
experience deeper spiritual, emotional AND physical power in your life.
Those whom you don’t forgive are really holding YOU as a hostage.
Not the
other way around. Get it?
Good….
So, while humming the soundtrack from FROZEN playing in the background, sing it!!! “LET IT GO BRO!”
*Thanks to my wife, Tara Ciarrocchi Phillips for helping prepare this message. I love you with all of my heart & soul.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Hey, my name is Brant Phillips. Thank you for joining my Sunday sermon. For those of you who don’t know me, I am a full-time real estate investor and a coach. I teach other people how to invest in real estate, and not only that just how to improve all areas of their life. I created these Sunday sermons a while back because in our modern day life and age, I realized a lot of people don’t take time out of their life to pursue spiritual matters, pursue matters of the heart. I wanted to share via format some lessons that I’ve learned in my life and some things that I utilize to gain power and connection in my spiritual connection with God. Things that I use to create power in my life and in my business.
I want you to view these Sunday sermons as a discussion that can have impacts on your life if you apply the lessons, not only spiritually but physically in your health and in your relationships as well. That being said, this is a message for all phase, whether you’re at, or whether you even believe in God. I just want you to listen to the message and consider the things that I’m saying. Listen to the things that I’m saying and weigh them in your mind and see if these things were to work in your life and produce power, produce results and increase the effectiveness in which the way that you’re living.
All right. Without further ado, let’s jump right into this. All right. Today’s message is Let It Go Bro, just let it go. All right. I know that’s a spin off the Frozen thing but hell, I’ve got four kids, four young kids including a daughter so I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched the movie Frozen especially coming here at the end of the holiday season, I heard that song go a few times. It just stuck in my mind recently. It’s like Let It Go Bro, what are you doing holding on to all this stuff?
All right, there was a lady a couple of years ago. It was a news story. She had a teenage daughter, I think she was around 13 or 14. A kid from school took his father’s gun out of the home to show off to his buddies. On the school bus, the gun went off, bow, killed her daughter, killed her I believe 13-year-old daughter. As you can imagine, that’s a devastating, devastating loss. I am certain there is incredible, incredible pain, probably one of the worst emotional pains that you could experience in this world by losing a child.
Converse to much of our thinking and what you may believe her response was, Artie was her name. Artie chose not only to push for harsh sentencing on the young boy who was also at that same age but publicly in court forgave him. She hugged him as she wept and asked for the judge to go light on his sentence, which the judge did. The judge also commented that he had not seen that display of forgiveness and just kind heartedness in all his years of being in the court.
The mother, she basically just said that she believed that it was an accident. There was no intent there. She just wanted to forgive him. She felt like that’s what her daughter would want to do and that justice would be served in that way. It’s an incredible story. Why would Artie who lost her daughter do that? Was it really for the boy that shot her child or was it possibly for her own heart’s condition?
Let’s establish one thing here real quick. Let’s just cut to something that we already know. Let’s cut through the BS. Look, we’ve all got pain. We’ve all got stories. We’ve all got experience of ways that we’ve been hurt. Some of us have been beaten, some of us have been abused physically, sexually. Some of us have been neglected by parents, by loved ones. Some of you guys have been just beaten down and tormented your whole life, your whole life. Everyone’s got their own pain like I said. Everyone has their own stories.
The one thing I know is that we all have these stories and all of our stories are different but all of our pain is very similar. All of our pain is very similar. I would have you consider something that one of my mentors taught me, is that pain in our life, troubles, setbacks, obstacles, pain and suffering are two different things, because pain is inevitable. It’s going to come, physical, mental, emotional. Things are going to happen. We are going to lose loved ones. We’re going to have relationships that don’t work out. Some of you guys like I said have been abused physically, mentally, emotionally, sexually, those pains are going to come but the suffering is optional. The suffering that you choose is optional.
What does that mean? Pain comes, whatever type of pain that is, we choose what we’re going to do with that input that we’ve just received because I would have you consider that the suffering, the way that we utilize our emotions, what just happened is really just feedback. It’s really just feedback because in any situation, we can choose to sit and wallow, harbor bitterness and anger or we can also choose to view what happened as a learning lesson. How to prevent what happened to us, how to avoid what happened to us, how to show others how to avoid what happened to us and how to help others who’ve experienced similar things that we’ve been through. The pain is inevitable, the suffering is what we choose to make of it. How are we going to create the story in our mind about the feedback that our body is giving us? How are we going to use that in our minds?
I would have you consider that the pain that you’ve experienced can become power. It can be transformed into power. Your pain can be transformed into power. I’m also going to have you consider that that pain cannot be transformed into power until you let it go. You got to let it go bro. You got to let go of that pain in your heart that the wrong doings of others, the things that you’ve failed to do yourself and some of the times letting it go means letting yourself go of your past failures. The times where you have not done the things or achieved the things that you wanted to do because I’ll tell you that some of you guys out there will hold as much bitterness and unforgiveness in your heart about yourself as you do as with other people.
The more that we hold against ourselves, it holds us back in all of our relationships because if we can’t truly forgive ourselves and if we carry unforgiveness, and if we can’t love ourselves and unconditionally love ourselves, we can’t truly love others unconditionally or even forgive others because we can only love and forgive others at the level which we can love ourselves and the level of which we can forgive ourselves. Just consider that you can’t convert your pain and your experiences into power and freedom until you let it go.
What I want to talk about too is facing the facts. I want to face the facts here of why whatever happened to you happened. I know there’s going to be some exceptions to this rule, especially for things that happened during your childhood, things that happened when you were younger, things that happened to me physically when I was younger and not really in a position to defend myself, physically or mentally having that capacity. Now, in my adult age, I do have the ability to affect and control my thoughts about what happened to me. I’ve already reframed it in totally different viewpoint. I’ve learned and grown from that and helped some others from what has happened from my abuse as a child. I understand that. We’re going to put some rare instances off to the side.
Here’s the facts with your pain. For the most part, you need to take ultimate responsibility for most if not all of the things that have happened in your life and how you have processed them because with this mindset of that you were hurt, someone hurt you, you’ve got this pain because someone did this to you, it’s a victim mindset. It’s a victim mindset. You’re continually telling your mind over and over and over, “I’m not in power. I’m not operating in power. I’m not in control of my life, my circumstances. I can’t influence what happens to me. These things are happening to me as a victim.” You’re living in that victim state like, “This happened to me. They did this to me. Why would they do this to me?” Meaning you’re the victim, they’re the villain. That’s it. That’s it.
I know for some of you this is harsh. This is a little bit hard. Like I said at the beginning, I’m just asking you to consider these things because in my life I’ve found absolutely truth. Anytime I hear myself saying things like, “Oh my gosh, why? They hurt me or this happened to me,” I’ll catch myself. I’m like, “No, they actually didn’t hurt me. I allowed something into my heart or I allowed something to happen because I didn’t take control. I didn’t utilize power that I have to influence the situation.” It’s as simple as that.
Let’s actually talk about forgiveness for just a second, really, really, really let’s get down to it. When you forgive someone because it’s like an ego thing, I totally understand this. When I was first trying to learn this lesson, so extremely difficult. It’s an ego thing. You think in your mind a lot of times as I used to think in my mind that by forgiving someone or letting something go, that I was essentially being weak. I was being weak in giving them the upper hand. Totally wrong, totally backwards thinking.
The truth is, the truth really is and this is why God in the Bible reinforces it, so many times it’s reinforced, how important it is to forgive other people. It’s because that whenever we don’t forgive someone, they are essentially holding us hostage without even trying. Without even trying, they’re holding us hostage. It’s like we’re stuck in this little jail cell and we’re confined emotionally and mentally by not letting go. When you don’t forgive or let go of something, it’s really, it’s holding you back. It’s not holding them back. It’s not holding them back.
Another way to look at this, it’s like I want you to imagine I’ve got a syringe right here, I’ve got a syringe right here and it’s pain. It’s something bad that happened into your life by someone else. It’s some hurt, some offense. You’ve got the syringe. The offense has happened. It’s right here. This is the pain that happened. You have two choices with the syringe. You can throw it away, let it go bro. You can throw it away or you can take that syringe and jab it in your heart. Just jab it in. Inject the pain, inject the poison, inject the hurt into your heart and it will run through your veins, all over through your mind, all throughout your extremities, the pain is going to circulate, the unforgiveness is going to continue to circulate through your body until you let it go, until you let it go.
I want to talk about some of the effects. All right. I know some of you dudes out there, I know how logically minded that you are, all right, logically. Here are some things. I’m going to read a few things. Here’s what holding on to it can do for you. If you want to hold on to it and you want to be the badass and just hold on to this stuff, cool man.
Here are some things that I believe that doing that will bring to your life. If you’re good with that, then good, you keep doing that. Generally, when you hold unforgiveness, most likely you will bring that anger and bitterness into other relationships, not only friends, not only lovers but your children and loved ones. It’s running through your veins bro, including your brains. You will be wrapped up maybe not all the times but sometimes you will be wrapped up and consumed by that unforgiveness that you won’t be able to enjoy and experience fully some of the moments that you’re in right now because you got it going through. You may become depressed or anxious. You’re just going really to be honest man, you’re just going to lose some connection spiritually in other relationships. You’re not going to be able to connect fully because you got that stuff going through man.
I’m going to read a scripture here Matthew 6:14-15, “For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your father will not forgive you of your sins.” Here’s the thing with scripture. I used to interpret a lot of scripture as being when I die or well, that’s for my soul when I die. Like a big enlightenment for me came when I started really finding that the seeds of scripture were things that I could use right now and received and gain freedom and power from right now.
I would have you guys consider, this is one of the really cool things is that I used to view this relationship with me and God as very conditional like, “Then I will forgive you. Then I will do this, then, you know, if you do this, if you do this,” as being very conditional. I would have you consider and I would challenge you to transform your thoughts as a way that I’ve done and to see that the way that the scripture is coming now to me is that if you will do this then you can receive this.
It’s more of the way like, sometimes when I talk to my children, I talk to my children not always in the most loving voice. Sometimes it’s a little bit stern but it’s because I want them to get the lesson. I want them to understand and experience freedom and power and love and connection in their life. Sometimes when I talk to them about things, it may come across more stern than I intended but the message and the intent is there. I would have you consider that the reason that God’s saying if you do this then you will be forgiven because he wants us to forgive ourselves and he wants us to experience right now because he knows if we don’t release others of this pain and this unforgiveness and this hurt, that it’s going to affect us right here and right now, right here and right now physically, mentally, emotionally. It’s almost like saying if you choose not to let it go then you are choosing to experience pain and suffering and not live your fullest life.
What does that look like? What does that look like? To forgive someone? One of the main things, I want to get clear here. This is not like you let someone walk over you. This is not like you let someone disrespect you. This is not that at all. This is basically a decision to let go of some resentments, this hurt and this pain but also a lot of times it’s going to require you having a conversation with somebody. It’s going to require you having a conversation with somebody.
My oldest son had a little bully issue with this other kid who was being a little bit mean to him, being a little bit disrespectful. My son didn’t like it. He actually wanted to be friends with the kid but he came to a point where he was like, “Dad, this kid’s being really mean to me.” He was like, “I don’t like it. Like I don’t like it. He’s being mean to me. He’s saying things. He’s got at my face a couple of times and I don’t like it.” Then the kid did some mean things.
I was like, “All right. What are some options?” First option, he was talking about resorting to violence, which I get it. That’s how I used to resort to things too. I got in a lot of fights when I was a kid. I was like, “So, let’s think about that son.” We start talking about it. What he really ultimately wanted which is what most of us if not all of us really, really want is we want peace and connection in our relationships. I was like, “All right.” Ultimately, I think he’d like to be friends with the dude if they can work it out.
Basically what we came to was like he was going to have a conversation with the kid which he did, was basically was like, “Look dude, I want to be your friend. We can play ball. We can do this stuff but I’m not going to tolerate these actions or these words. If you continue to do those things, first I’m not going to be your friend. If you get up in my face again and you push me, you do things, I’m going to defend myself, just so you know. It’s not cool for you to get up in my face. It’s not cool for you to say those things. If you want to continue to do those things, first, we can’t be friends. Two, I will defend myself, so it’s your call.”
It requires us having those conversations. It requires us having conversations. Then the theme of the conversation was like, “Dude, I want to be your friend. I do want to be your friend, let’s just establish some ground rules. If we can do that, cool. We’ll be friends.” They’re friends, got it all worked out.
Another situation with when someone hurts you, there’s a difference in saying, like I’ve heard my kids say it. I’ve said it. I hear people say it, something happens to you, someone forgives you and you say, “It’s okay. I forgive you. It’s okay. I forgive you.” In essence it is okay but yesterday this happened again. This happened again, it was really good timing. It brought it back to my memory because my son says this quite a bit. He just turned five. We’re in the car. He’s sitting in the seat, in the middle seat. My son is in the back seat. My son, I think he was starting to fall asleep, my five year old so his head’s leaning to the left in his car seat and so my 10-year-old is like bam, kicking him upside the head.
The first time my son got upset and then the second time he got pissed. He just got pissed and started yelling, all that kind of stuff. Driving on the road, worked it all out and made, we didn’t make them but my 10-year-old apologized to my five-year-old. What my five-year-old said and this is what he usually says whenever we make big brother apologize to little brother. He said, this is very profound, “It’s not okay but I forgive you. It’s not okay but I forgive you.”
Rather than being a doormat in your relationships for those that have hurt you, for those who’ve done you wrong, I would have you to try that out. Try that out, meaning if there’s a conversation that needs to be heard, a conversation needs to be heard. The ground rules need to be set, the ground rules need to be set. You’re not a doormat. If you can go on with that attitude that, “Look, what you did it’s not okay. It’s not okay. I won’t allow that in the future but I forgive you and I love you because I want to free myself really. It has nothing to do with you, it has everything to do with me. I just don’t want that stuff running through my veins. That’s it. That is it.
A couple of things I’m going to share with you guys, for you analytical dudes and for you health nerds out there. The other thing, the other thing which ties, I believe ties into the scripture I believe then ties in with this whole message of why are we going to let things go, because we like to see and experience results in our life. It’s plain as that. We want to walk in peace. We want to walk in freedom. We want to walk in love. Joy, happiness, peace, prosperity, all that kind of stuff is what we really, really want. You can deny that all you want but that’s for you tough hard dudes out there you can deny that but it is what we want.
Whenever we let things go, whenever we forgive, guaranteed, you will experience less anxiety. I didn’t say you’ll be free of anxiety, that’s a whole different level of choice and process that you need to go through, but you will experience less anxiety, less stress in general, less hostility, physically you will experience lower blood pressure, less depression if not eliminate some depression. You actually increase the strength of your immune system and of your heart health by doing it. Those are just little deeper insights into why I feel it’s so important and why I feel that it’s stressed spiritually in Biblical text and other spiritual text that it’s so important because not only mentally or spiritually but physically. It physically affects us.
Then so whenever we’re experiencing, when we’re experiencing those improvements, guess what? We’re going to see results and where? In our relationships, in our health, in our business, all areas. Let it go bro. Stop being a victim, stop being a victim, start looking at how some of your past hurts, whether for me these things go back to being a child. Whether you could have controlled or affected them or not, what you can control and affect now is your heart. You control your mind and your heart and that’s what you have the power to affect now.
Continue to look inside your heart, the condition of your heart and find where areas of that, you’ve got unforgiveness and just begin letting it go. That sounds scary for some of you guys, I get it. The whole ego thing, like, “Oh my God. I can’t forgive this person for what they did.” Here’s what I tell a lot of my real estate investing students who have fear going into a certain arena, a certain avenue of real estate investing whatever it could be, an area where this comes up a lot is talking to potential private lenders about borrowing money or them investing with them on one of their deals. There’s a lot of fear associated with that. Going into that conversation. Here’s what I tell them to do, “It’s just practice bro. It’s just practice. You’re just going to practice.”
What that does is mentally, it lowers the pressure. That’s what I would have you too try in your own life, just practice, just look, I’m going to practice letting some of the stuff go and see what happens with that. You know what, I don’t like being a victim, I’m going to practice living my life in power and owning responsibility for everything that happens in my life. That’s it man. That’s it.
I’m going to share one last scripture. Pretty familiar scripture for most people actually, Matthew 6:9 and Jesus says, “This is how you should pray. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts as we also forgive our debtors. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one. For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your father will not forgive your sins.”
Guys, if you can’t let other people go, you can’t go. You’ll stay trapped in that jail cell. It’s a syringe my friends. Don’t put it in if you put it in, let it go bro. Let it go. That’s it. That’s all I got. Love you guys. Thank you for watching my Sunday sermon. Boom, I’m out.