Entries Tagged 'Addiction In The 21st Century' ↓

I’ve been studying the System of Life for some time now. With any study one thing that has to be done is a lot of data collecting. I suppose there are three main areas we can get this data. The first would be watching the world around us.

Watching The World

The World of People – Watching everything that happens. Listening to everything people say. Reading what people have written. Read some of the Poets, look at the Art, listen to the Music, read what the world shapers say and everything in between. Watch what people do, how they act and react and listen to everything they say.

The Natural World – Watching nature, plants, animals, the weather, the seasons, the heavens. Then read and look at everything that people have said about the natural world.

The Inner World – This is the study of life through introspection. Meditation, paying attention to thoughts and feeling. Finding out what’s in there and what “it” is.

The System of Life

Everyone and anyone is completely qualified to remark on the system of life. Everybody knows or has observed something. What I want to look at today is how the Natural World does things. Then I want to ask if we can do things in the same way. If we can – wouldn’t this be the best way – since we’re a part of this natural world?

One thing you’ll notice if you watch nature is it does a lot of stuff without any noise. The rain forest was made in silence. I was looking at the tree off the balcony the other day. It’s been there all winter apparently idle. Completely silent. Then all of a sudden (overnight) I see a little action on the ends of the branches. The days are getting longer. It knows this and knows that this is the time for a little action on the ends of the branches.

I think this type of work, or accomplishing, or whatever you want to call it is available to us. When I look around at the world of people I don’t see much of this silent vibrant accomplishment. What I see are Ants. The industrious Ant has become the model for humans. I have nothing against Ants – but – I don’t want to be one. What I learned from Ants is, if I keep putting one thing on top of another it will get taller.

There are a lot of people who behave like Tigers. They have adopted the style of a ferocious, gemme that, predator. I really like Tigers too – but – are they good role models? Are they all I need to know? Is this how I want society to work? The Tigers rule and the Ants toil? What I’ve learned from Tigers is – there are some obstacles you can’t meet head on with a club. Sometimes a geographic relocation is the best solution.

How can I best, “Get Things Done”?

I don’t want to be an Ant, and being a Tiger plays as long as you’re the toughest Tiger (also a lot of work). How about learning from the tree? Could I do things like that? In total silence? Without all that noise and movement and effort?

I’ve come to see that this is the best way to get things done. It’s the best “Earth System” I’ve seen. Is it possible for we humans to do things in this way? Let’s take the chore of finding solutions to our problems. Remember, problems are problems because we say they are. All problems are personal problems.

Over the past few years most of my problems have been resolved while I was asleep. Or, they just popped into my head while I was doing something else – like reading. What I’ve attempted to do is: simply concentrate on identifying the problem. My current personal problem is: I keep – habitually – addressing problems as if I were an Ant, or a Tiger. Neither of which I am, or wish to be.

Here is the experiment, the test, to see if this is possible.

• What’s the problem?

Identify as well as possible what the problem is. Write it down. Leave it alone – don’t mess with it,  just leave it.

We can’t act like Ants or Tigers and do the test.

Being what we are.

• What is my state of consciousness?

Or level of consciousness. Ever notice how no one says make, create or build a higher state of consciousness? It’s always something like – attain, gain (as in gain on or catch up to), strive towards. What I’ve come to understand (so far) is that consciousness “Is”. It’s there. It’s always been there. We can go toward it – possibly – in understanding. Can we go into it. Can we tap in to it, flow with it, be in it – or not.

Here’s something to look at – Let’s raise the level of consciousness in ourselves. What does that mean. Some hear this and think raise as, work to increase, lift, raise like a barn, build and so on. Is this what it says?

The way I’ve come to understand this is that raising this level is much like raising the level of a lake. Any analogy will work as long as we see consciousness like water. How do we raise the level of water, say, in a barrel? I picked this because in this case we control the water, or the consciousness. We just pour in the water. The level was what it was – and now it’s this. The similarity in any analogy we choose – Lake, barrel and so on is – there has to be a place for the water.

If we keep putting water in a barrel and it will flow over the top and fill any spaces that are available on the ground. Keep pouring and a lake will form. Keep pouring and the lake will rise until it flows over the hills and starts to fill the places available on the other side.

Like water, consciousness will fill any place available. We only need to make the place. Consciousness is always being poured. It “Is”, and it is abundant. It will fill, automatically and without effort on our part, any place available to it. In fact – effort fills the place that consciousness would naturally fill if we got rid of effort. This is my opinion – after much watching and testing.

Effortless Solutions

Which leads us again to our test – our experiment.

• Putting our Problems to Bed

Now that we have clarified our problem as well as possible we will sleep on it. Remember that Rain Forest which was made in silence? That’s what we’re going to test. Can the solutions come out of us, or through us, effortlessly? So effortlessly that we can do it in our sleep? Everyone has woken to an answer at one time or another. What I do is try and make this the rule. Instead of the occasional boon I’ll make it my natural everyday process for accomplishing things.

Every night will be a little Winter. Every morning will be the  Spring and the life I created will burst forth on the scene.

Consciousness will do this for me. All throughout the history of mankind we’ve heard the wise directing us to the light. There are countless stories using light, and water, to represent consciousness when delivering messages and spiritual instruction. This is not mistake or happenstance. There are properties in light and water that hold the key to life itself.

Here is a really good video to watch. I’ve put a segment on this page (below) with a link to the full video:

• The Primacy Of Consciousness

By Caroline Myss

All of us are born into a “tribal mentality” of various forms. These include our family unit, religious background, country of origin, ethnicity, etc. The tribal mentality effectively indoctrinates an individual into the tribe’s beliefs, ensuring that all believe the same. The structure of reality – what is and is not possible for the members of the group – is thus agreed upon and maintained by the tribe.

While the tribal mentality has definite benefits in terms of establishing common ground and ensuring group survival, it is not a conscious agreement. We are born into it. Yet at a certain stage, both personally and collectively, the tribal mentality must be challenged. People can then begin to recognize the need for a personal honor code independent of the tribe. If humanity is to progress, we need to learn how to treat everyone – regardless of tribal affiliation – with honor and respect.

Every one of us is plugged into the tribal mind. We support tribal belief patterns by directing a percentage of our life force into maintaining our affiliation with the tribe. This involves an implicit agreement to think like the tribe thinks, to evaluate situations and people the way the tribe does, and to believe in right and wrong according to tribal values and ambitions. As long as the tribal mentality within us remains unexamined, we unwittingly subject others to our tribal laws.

When we are plugged into tribal thought forms, we can easily believe in nonsensical prejudices held by the tribe. Tribal mentality allows us to hold harsh, judgmental positions or attitudes about an entire group of people: “All fat people are lazy,” or “all Irish are drunks,” or “all Muslims are terrorists” for example.

A rigid tribal thought form may have little truth to it, but individuals hold to such beliefs because that perspective is what the tribe has agreed to believe. Innocent children, born into the hatred and prejudice of their parents and ancestors, grow up inside a tribal mentality that sponsors an endless march toward war against the tribe’s perceived enemies. People grow up hating other people – people they have never seen – based on group affiliation. This is the shadow side of the tribe.

Inevitably, some among us come to a point where we want to break out of the inflexible tribal mentality. At some point, these individuals want to explore, develop, and manage their own consciousness without the judgments and limitations of the tribal mind.

It is easy to spot these mavericks when they start to question and unplug from tribal mentality – they hang out on the periphery looking bored and restless, or whimsical and dreamy. Others may act out the agitated hot-head as they challenge tribal ways.

The unspoken assumption of the tribal mind is that everybody loves being part of the tribe. And in many ways, we do. Knowing where and to whom we “belong” is crucial to our self-concept and sense of safety in the world. Yet when we begin the real deep journey of questioning, “What do I believe?” and start to individuate from the tribe, we often enter a dark night of the soul. It is, by necessity, a passage we take alone.

It’s one thing to reject what we don’t want to believe anymore. It’s quite another to begin to explore what we do believe. All we know as we enter the dark night is that we can’t go back – even when the tribe is the only world we’ve ever known.

At this critical point in our development, the tribe doesn’t feel right anymore. It no longer offers us comfort. Previous feelings of security and familiarity begin to feel like a trap constraining our individuality and hampering our efforts to discover deeper levels of who we really are.

This dark night passage pushes us to look at our false gods – the tribal belief patterns in which we’ve become invested and to which we’ve given our allegiance.

The Language of Wounds

For a large segment of the population, the language of wounds has become the new tribal language of intimacy. Prior to the current age of personal therapy – which only really took off in the 1960s and 70s – the tribal language of intimacy largely involved the sharing of only superficial personal and family data. Deeper matters such as family secrets like sexual abuse or a mad aunt or uncle were shared with exceedingly few, if any.

Divorce and financial information were also considered very intimate. People would almost never talk about such matters, or about their inner life and emotions. They talked only about the details of what was going on in their external lives. The tribal mentality at the time kept people from revealing intimate matters or deep wounds or traumas even with their family and close friends.

The current age of personal therapy has brought about a very different situation. Now, the tribal mentality has shifted such that we not only share our intimate feelings more openly and willingly, many have even begun to define themselves by their wounds. Let me give an example of how this phenomenon plays itself out.

I was in an Indian restaurant in Scotland talking with two men friends when the woman friend I was to meet for dinner walked up and greeted the three of us. After I had introduced her, another man walked over and asked if she was free on June 8th, as he thought she might like to attend a lecture on that date. The question required little more than a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ answer.

Instead of a simple answer, she began an elaborate discussion about June 8th. “Did you say June 8th? No, no. Any other day would be fine, but not June 8th. That’s the day my incest survivor group meets and I have to be there because we never let each other down.” She went on and on for at least a full minute with this.

Later, I asked her, “Do you realize that in that brief introduction, you told two men whom you have never met before that 1) you had experienced incest, 2) you were still in therapy about it, 3) you were angry about it, 4) you were angry at men, and 5) you needed to determine the course of the conversation – all in one minute?”

She replied, “Well, I am a victim of incest.”

To which I replied, “I know that. Why did you have to let them know that?”

She was operating from a tribal mentality. The group mind within the incest survivor community has a belief about how this particular wound should be healed. The tribe says, “You need a group.” The tribe says, “You have a right to be angry.”

People now get together in support group tribes that function within many of the same rigid frameworks of ethnic, national, or family tribes. Some feel that the comfort and security of belonging to a group or tribe is more important than venturing alone in the direction of real healing.

Tribalism in Relationships

The tendency toward tribalism can keep us stuck in repeating negative cycles in our intimate relationships, and can wreak havoc when a relationship is ripe for transition. Tribal mentality often teaches a righteous stance in relationships: an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth. When we feel violated, the first thought is vengeance, rather than forgiveness.

Tribal mentality even has gender-specific undercurrents – women do vengeance differently than men. Yet for both genders, what rules the day is the tribal mentality that holds “breaking up is painful” or “betrayal warrants retaliation.”

Healing revolves around this crucial question: “Do you want to make different choices?” Are we willing to let go of old, constricting tribal patterns? Sadly, the answer quite often is “No.” Being healthy isn’t always the most appealing option. Quite frankly, in many cases, it’s not appealing at all. What is most appealing is being out of pain. Old patterns are difficult to relinquish because they do serve to relieve pain, even if it is only in the short run.

Change is terrifying for many precisely because short-term pain relief must be given up. Deep healing requires learning to tolerate the pain that comes with change. Fortunately, the growing pains that come with new behavior – with making the choices that will change your life – are often short-lived.

Thought alone doesn’t heal. Nor does action without thought. For deep healing to occur, we need the chemistry of conscious thought and direct action combined. Every thought or attitude we have – whether consciously chosen or unconsciously adopted through the tribal mind – invests a part of our life-force into that thought or attitude. This is true whether the thought is one of betrayal and vengeance, or of understanding and forgiveness.

What matters is that a whole system of consciousness – the old tribal mentality – no longer holds us enthralled. We no longer have faith in those limiting patterns of thought. Through this transformation we learn a whole new level of trust. We break the habit of telling tribal lies which bring short-term comfort but long-term pain. We develop a new sense of self-worth and of trust and honor.

In spite of all the heavy tribal conditioning, we now have hope because tribal mentality the world over is going through a vast transformation. And each one of us can play a vital role in this transformation.

With increasing numbers of individuals changing and transcending limiting tribal beliefs, the codes of the tribe are being affected. As we collectively change and evolve, the tribes around us gradually change and evolve with us. Yet ultimately, the journey upon which we are embarking is an incredible solo flight of transcending the tribe to find our own trust, honor, and new sense of self-worth and meaning in life.

Note: Caroline Myss (http://www.myss.com/) is a medical intuitive, and author of numerous books and audio tapes, including three New York Times best sellers. The above is an edited excerpt of her essay titled “Leaving the Wounded Relationship Tribe,” taken from a compilation of essays by various authors in the enlightening book, The Marriage of Sex & Spirit, edited by Geralyn Gendreau.

So you want to control your own destiny? Me Too. As far as overcoming an addiction goes, this is probably the number one issue. There are a few basics I had to use and apply to every aspect of my self when I was first getting straight. Not the least of which was learning how to practice some universal principles.

What I’m going to write about today has a little more overall wide ranging theme. Although it can be applied to early recovery it’s meant to address the whole idea of control.

So you want to control your life? You want to be in charge of yourself. You want autonomy in every regard. No? Yes? I am absolutely clear about this in my own life here. I want to have control. I doubt anyone doesn’t feel that way. They might feel it’s not the way to feel but I bet they still feel it.

If you’ve read any of my posts you know I like to get these big topics pared down to a workable size. So today I’m going to start with the first step in gaining control and talk briefly about some realistic expectations.

First off we’ve talked about what we are and so we know that when we talk about control here we’re talking about controlling this tangible aspect of self that we experience here on earth. So being realistic how much control can we expect to have? We are one self among billions. If we take control over ten acres of land we just denied another self control of that land. Do we want control at the another’s expense?

That was just a simplistic example of not living in a vacuum. Everything we do effects everyone else. This is something we’ll each have to think about and decide for ourselves. But lets say we looked at this and decided we wanted to have as much autonomy as possible without denying that same autonomy to someone else. That sounds fair doesn’t it?

Okay, so now we’ve looked at an aspect of realistic expectations and narrowed our vision of control slightly. Now we will want to find those things that we can never control. Those things that effect our lives and we can do nothing to control them. What are they?

There are things like the weather. If lightening strikes – oh well. We can do things like – not go outside and hug the flagpole in the thunderstorm – but we can’t stop the storm. At least not as most of us are today. So all that natural disaster stuff is out of our control. About all we can do there is move to the safest geographical location. Don’t build houses on fault lines, don’t live where the hurricanes strike annually and so on.

What else can we not control? There has been a war waged for control of the planet and that war gave us the monetary system as we know it today. It’s pretty much universal. This isn’t a natural disaster but it is a far worse disaster. Natural events always offer periods of reprieve and an opportunity to relocate.

I’ve had a lot of people showing up here searching for “Freedom from financial insecurity”. In fact looking at this trend is what led me to write this today. Financial Insecurity, like insecurity in general, is fear. Fear is not control. It could be said it’s the opposite of control. I don’t know anyone with control of there lives that would choose fear as the feeling for the day.

For today there are two things that are out of the realm of our personal control. Naturally occurring weather (and those other things the earth does. Like shift and shake.) and the unnatural disasters caused by men – namely the monetary system and it’s accompanying laws and regulations.

So what are we left with? I can tell you the first thing we’ll need to control if we want all the control available to us – Our Thoughts. It doesn’t seem fair that the first thing we have to do is the hardest. But “seeming fair” is part of the thought process so fair might not even be real. We can’t say one way or another until we have control of our own minds.

No control, real control over our lives, can be had until we take control of ourselves. The tangible aspects of self are the physical and the mental. When physical things, like desires, control our lives – we’re out of control. As long as we don’t have this basic control we won’t be able to really take the reins of our existence. Even when we think we do.

An example of this would be the person who had the physical desire to gain power over others and saw this as control of his own life. Without thinking, or even thinking about thinking, he pursued this desire to it’s end. Now he is on top of the monetary heap. He has a castle and walls and no one comes at him with out a summons. He effects regulations through the legislature and in turn effects the lives and fortunes of millions of others. Does he have control of his life?

What happens if a grassroots organization is effective in tearing down the power structure of the monetary system? What if, due to the overall misery of the populace, a different system was established? Our man would have nothing. You see that everything he has is dependent on a man made system. He is totally reliant on money. It’s a form of subservience and has nothing in common with real personal autonomy and control. Dependency is never – never – control.

First we must come to grips with our thoughts. We must control our thinking so that desire doesn’t. Desire can take us through life without us ever examining ourselves and knowing ourselves. So we have to pay attention to our thoughts. Are they the thoughts we want? Are they coming from us? Where do thoughts come from? All this is part and parcel in control and in gaining some self control.

Want to just jump to the controlling everything around you part? Yeah, me too. Oh Well – Get back to me when you’ve mastered this first, controlling the thoughts, step and we’ll see how we feel then.