Rant starting out as a question on "awakenings"

[KC Elbows]

Bear with me if my terminology or understanding is limited.

In a few posts here, I have seen mention of "awakenings", which seems to be a term applied to sudden insights that show changes in the spirit of the person experiencing them.

So, I would imagine that these awakenings can occur during all manner of activities. As an example of a simple case, after long work at meditation and connecting the microcosmic orbit, under a somewhat amateurish understanding of said orbit and a lengthy period of isolation from outside distractions(two months), I experienced said orbit naturally, without need for effort. It was a very calming influence, and I remember feeling very centered afterwards.

Later(months later), the calm had become commonplace for me, and then I realized that, even with this one detail in place, I had really just removed one complication, and a very external one, from myself. Basically, tension had prevented me from allowing myself from connecting the microcosmic orbit at a basic level, and by no longer allowing that tension to manifest in that way, I was able to connect.

Yet, the tension still persisted, merely manifested in other ways.

To me, the realization that I was trying to remove complications in an infinite field of complications was the awakening, and the sudden connection of the microcosmic orbit was merely an illusion of change that fostered no change at all, whereas, as far as how it felt, it seemed more the stereotype of an awakening.

The reason that I decided that was the nature of it was that the feeling that I so enjoyed in connecting the microcosmic orbit was the same feeling I always got whenever I embarked on something that gave me meaning throughout my life, and I started to see a somewhat destructive path in the constant search for meaning. Not saying that connecting the orbit was destructive, but the reason I searched to do so was.

So the question becomes: How does one deal with the source of all the complications? One by one, I've stamped out the complications, but I cannot say that the underlying cause has really been touched.

It's like a long cycle. When I was young, I felt inadequate. To cover my supposed innadequacies, I ran from close relationships, and kept most friendships on a very shallow level. Which required a lot of lying. Which made me feel apart, so I would do things like smoke and drink to belong. Which set me apart from other people. Which made me feel like I had nothing, which led me to want everything, which frustrated me and made me rush away from everything.

And then I got older. The people I lied to who were still around had gotten to know me on such an instinctive level, because all our interactions actually happened beneath the surface, and I knew this, I knew we had gotten close. So there was nothing to lie about to them. And since they were the people who I wanted to respect me, and they knew my worst shortcomings, the shortcomings I created in order to hide the supposed shortcomings I saw in myself, I had nothing to hide from anyone anymore. So I had no reason to lie, and could be close to whomsoever I chose. Since I belonged, I no longer needed to smoke and drink to do so. All this made me feel like I had gained the whole world, and I rushed to it.

And then I realized that I was sublimating everything that was integral to me to be a part of everything, a good person and husband and friend and so forth. And no one else seemed to really expect such of me, so I realized that the same thing that caused me to lie to be a part of things was what caused me to be a lie to do the same.

Which is basically where I am at now. My life has its ups and downs, I feel no need to belong, nor to isolate myself, yet I know that the underlying causes for my past destructive behaviors still exist, and are merely rechannelled into other things, which is not ideal.

So, past knowing the underlying causes, what is the means by which they can be made less negative? Meditate on them? Meditate on nothing? Something else?

That's my rant for the day. Thanks for any responses.

[KC Elbows]

Well, without getting too personal, self doubt is even just something brought on by the underlying cause.

It may be that I'm empowering the underlying cause too much, that I let past events shape who I am to an excessive degree.

I don't know. One of those days, I guess.

[Scott R. Brown]

KC Elbows,

You ask a very good question. That is, how do we over come mental bad habits that cause disharmony in our lives?

Below is a rather long essay I wrote a number of years ago in answer to a question by one of the students in my martial system. She had suffered a series of traumas in her life and asked how one goes about overcoming the negative effects. I hope it will be of benefit to you and answers your questions.


Your dilemma is one that all of us must confront if we want to live lives free from the burdens of painful memories. There are a number of methods that are effective in alleviating one’s emotional baggage. All take effort and commitment. Facing our issues can be both painful and embarrassing. When the going gets tough, it is easy to want to just give up. One aphorism that can be used to guide and encourage a person through the difficult times, when you just want to give up is, “The only way out is through.” Success only comes by plowing through the difficulties, the pain and the discouragement.

I was once taught, “You are what you are in the darkest corner of the darkest room.” You cannot hide from yourself. Our issues will not disappear because we pretend they are not there. I believe that the major purpose of life is to resolve our “issues.” All other accomplishments in life are secondary. The only thing you will take with you when you die is who you are. Therefore, the most precious possession you have is who you are. Taking one’s personal development seriously is the path to peace of mind and a successful future.

Many people prefer to avoid or pretend to forget the painful emotional traumas they have experienced throughout their lives. This is generally because it “APPEARS” to be the easiest method of coping; however, the negative effects of traumatic experiences will continue to follow you. At some point, an event will occur that will “key-in” the traumatic event and the consequent feelings. Sometimes the original event has been forgotten and the person has difficulty identifying why they have such negative feelings and wonder where these feelings and accompanying unhealthy behaviors came from. It is always best to resolve negative feelings as soon following the negative event as possible. This will free you of the burden of the trauma. Of course, some events are so traumatic that it can take years before the person is able to confront the negative feelings. I have a friend whose mother was brutally murdered by a burglar over ten years ago. The perpetrator was never found. This event was so traumatic I am not sure my friend has resolved her feelings yet. This does not mean that she cannot do it; it is a matter of choosing to confront her trauma. As I said previously, some people would rather avoid confronting their feelings than relive the trauma. The reliving of the emotions is too overwhelming for some people.

Successful growth requires the resolution of issues. You will have to resolve your issues eventually, either in this life or the next. No one knows for sure what happens after we die, however I think it is reasonable to assume that whatever issues you have while alive will follow you in death. I believe that our level of growth while alive will affect the quality of our afterlife. Some people view life as a classroom designed to provide us with learning experiences. If you do not learn from your trials and tribulations in this life you will have re-experience them later in order to learn the intended lessons. I for one would rather learn my lessons the first time and I encourage others to learn their lessons the first time as well.

There are medicines for the injured spirit, but hey are not pills you take they are methods you follow. Trials and tribulations can be effectively navigated through when a person has the proper tools. The difficultly most people have is with their lack of knowledge of what tools are available and how to use them. Following is a description of some of the available tools:

INTROSPECTION

The most important tool is introspection. Introspection is the ability to look inwardly with your mind. Inside our minds are the answers to how we got to where we are in our lives. All behaviors follow the law of cause and effect. Behaviors are reactions to experiences. Through introspection, we can track the path of behaviors back to their original causes. Once we determine the original cause of a behavior, the resolution of the cause will assist us in overcoming the negative or undesirable behavior. Negative and undesirable behaviors are symptoms of unhealthy coping mechanisms. Many people attempt to address the symptom, the behavior, but if the cause remains, other unhealthy coping mechanisms will arise. It is best to treat the cause, not the symptom. When you treat the cause, the symptom will normally resolve itself. Treating the symptom becomes necessary in extreme cases when the person is unable to function adequately in their daily lives because of the severity of the trauma.

When introspecting one merely reviews the event in question then reflects on and explores the connections that become apparent. For example, say an event occurs that causes you to react by yelling at someone. Something occurred during that event that “caused” you to react by yelling. Review the event in your mind and all actions that occurred leading up to the event. Follow the actions step by step. As you progress through the actions, ask yourself questions about them. Ask yourself why you yelled. Were you angry or scared? Were you overwhelmed? Were the feelings that caused you to yell cultivated over time because you did not confront a stressor in the past? For example, maybe you yelled at someone who has been subtly aggravating you over time and you either did not recognize the stress this person was causing or you chose not to confront the situation. By reflecting on the event, the related actions and your emotional feelings concerning the events and actions you, you should be able to determine what occurred that led up to the yelling. By asking yourself questions about the event, related actions and your feelings concerning the event, you should be able to discover connections to other events, actions or attitudes that contributed to your reaction of yelling. Follow the connections into the past as far as seems necessary to discover other connections. Negative or undesirable behaviors generally occur as reactions to more than one causative agent. In other words, it is seldom only one thing that causes you to yell, but a number of things that come together in a particular order at a particular time. By understanding the pattern that occurred, you can learn to anticipate the same reaction in the future when similar circumstances are developing and then intervene with planned and practiced responses. (We will discuss planned and practiced responses later.)

How does introspection help with traumatic events? Let us use another example. Take a person who suffered abuse as a child. That person would develop coping mechanisms in order to be able to continue to function. The coping mechanisms allow the child to deal with circumstances that are beyond their ability to control or understand. Coping mechanisms that provided a benefit as a child can become detrimental as an adult. Many adults do not remember the abuse they experienced as children because one of the coping mechanisms used to deal with abuse is simply blanking out the memory of the abuse. (Of course the memory of the events are still present they are just hidden behind mental walls.) Since coping mechanisms are expressed as attitudes and behaviors, we can follow them back to their cause through introspection. In this case the abuse. Let us say that the person in question is displaying a behavior that keeps them from being able to maintain a relationship. Introspection would lead the person to discover what it is that they are doing to undermine their relationships. By comparing the undermining behavior with the feelings that go along with the behavior, the person can discover that intimacy scares them. This leads to the question, “Why does intimacy scare me?” By investigating this question, by looking into connections between past events, behaviors and feelings the person can track the history and patterns of their behavior and eventually discover the cause. By resolving the cause, (Their feelings concerning their childhood abuse.) the symptom, (The fear of intimacy.) should resolve itself. I know it is easier to talk about than to do. It takes practice and persistence to get good at it. But like all skills, the more you practice the easier and more efficient it gets.

Introspection allows the person to discover what the real problem is. You cannot fix something until you can diagnose the cause of the problem. The cause is where the effort should be focused. Introspection allows you to follow the trail of symptoms back to the original cause.

Once we discover the cause of a problem we must work towards the resolution. We will address this shortly.

[Scott R. Brown]

Now that we are aware of the cause of our distress, what do we do with the information? This is difficult to explain comprehensively in writing, but I will try. First, we must digress to another topic to lay a foundation.

When the Buddha attained enlightenment, he listed the 4 Noble Truths to describe the problem of human existence. There are a number of ways to express these truths. In general, they are as follows:

1) Life is suffering (or miserable, painful etc.).
2) The cause of suffering is desire.
3) Suffering can be overcome.
4) Suffering can be overcome by following the eight-fold path.

We will concern ourselves primarily with the first two truths.

1) Life is suffering (or miserable, painful etc.).

This is easily understood. It is why you have asked for assistance in understanding how to cope with life’s unpleasant circumstances. It simply states that life contains suffering or misery. The Buddha taught that suffering is born of ignorance, ignorance of how to properly live life. There are rules or principles that one can apply to their lives that will assist in reducing the misery they experience. What these principles are is what we want to discover. But, as we learned in our discussion about introspection, we must first learn the cause of our misery.

2) The cause of suffering (misery) is desire.

What does this mean? We can restate this phrase as: The cause of suffering is wanting things. But how does wanting something cause my suffering? It is not just wanting something; it is wanting something you do not have. Anxieties, anger, fear are all born out of the desire to have something we do not or cannot possess. How does this apply to our discussion? Let us take our example of yelling at someone. If I yell at someone, it is because they have made me angry. I am angry because they have done something I did not like. There is the desire. I want something I did not get, which is to be treated properly. I have an idea or concept of how I believe I should be treated. If I am not treated in the manner I believe is appropriate then it will cause me to become angry. Anger is really just a type of temper tantrum. I did not get what I wanted and so I got angry. If someone cuts me off in traffic, it makes me angry because I do not want people to cut me off. I take it as a personal slight, a sign of disrespect. I wanted my personal space to be respected and it was not, so I became angry.

We tend to put conditions on our happiness by saying to ourselves, “I would be happy if only I had…”fill in the blank.” If I do not get my “fill in the blank,” I will not be happy. The desire creates the unhappiness not the lack of fulfillment of the desire. Why is this? Because if I did not desire something I would not experience the disappointment of not having my desire, therefore I would not experience suffering or misery. The question of how to stop desiring has been a topic of discussion for a couple of thousand years. We will approach this problem from a unique angle.

PERSPECTIVE

We experience life through the filter of perspective. Perspective is the way we choose to view our experiences. One of my favorite illustrations of this is, “The rainy day.” I personally love rainy days. I enjoy walking in the rain and listening to its patter on the ground. I enjoy the demonstration of the power of nature as expressed through rainstorms. So, if it rains I am happy. Now take somebody who has waited for weeks to get a certain day off so that they could go on a picnic. It rains on the one day that they have been patiently waiting for. They would be disappointed, perhaps angry that their picnic day was ruined, while just down the street I am outside enjoying the rain. Here we have the same event, interpreted, and therefore experienced, in two different ways. It is the perspective that each of us has brought to the event that has given us our differing experiences. What we learn from this example is that each of us is in control of how we experience life though the perspective that we choose to use.

These two concepts:

1) I am unhappy when I do not get what I want, and
2) The perspective I use to view my experiences determines the quality of my experiences,

are the tools we will use to resolve our sufferings. In simple circumstances I can accomplish this through:

1) Identifying specifically what I want, and
2) Changing my perspective about it.

In cases of extreme emotional trauma brought on by, rape, assault, and long term physical and emotional abuse the process is similar, but more complicated because it involves how we view our identity.

1) Identifying specifically what we want.

We identify what we want through introspection. First, I identify the undesirable emotion: anger, fear, anxiety etc., and the context in which I experience it. For example:

A) I am angry. Once the emotion is identified, I follow the emotion back to the cause through introspection.

B) My anger is caused by that idiot that cut me off on the road. Or is it? Is not my anger caused by my perspective about how I believe other motorists should treat me? Yes it is. Is it reasonable to expect others to treat me in the manner I expect? It is neither reasonable nor practical. I must change my perspective if I want to avoid getting angry again in the future.

Before we discuss changing our perspective, why is it unreasonable and impractical to expect to be treated a certain way?

[Scott R. Brown]

Certainly from a societal perspective, we all have the right to be treated with a certain amount of inherent respect. However, experience demonstrates to us that this is expectation not reasonable. The world is made up of many, many people each with their own experiences and levels of maturity. We cannot expect each one to possess the mental state that we believe they should. Others are not put on earth to serve our expectations and we have no right to force others to be as developed as we decide they should be. Even if others were put on earth to service our desires, it would be impossible to enforce such behaviors. If it were possible to enforce behavior codes, we would have no need for self-defense classes or prisons. Therefore, it is in our best interest to accept the proposition that it is unreasonable and impractical to expect others to live up to our expectations, because they will not do it anyway.

2) Changing my perspective.

To change your perspective you must acquire insight into the some of the realities of life. These insights are gained through introspection and contemplation. Another person can tell you what the realities of life are, but the realization of their truth is an individual accomplishment. I can explain to you that 2+2=4, but for the knowledge to be yours you must understand it for yourself. In other words, you must think about life for yourself not just read or listen to what others have to say about it. Ask yourself questions about your expectations of how you believe life should be, as compared to how life really is. Frequently we hold unrealistic expectations of what we expect out of life. These unrealistic expectations or perspectives cause much of our unhappiness. Understanding the futility of the perspectives we possess is the first step in changing them. If I am convinced my perspective is the best and the one that life should conform to, I am living in ignorance of reality and I am in for a very unhappy life. I must understand, come to the conclusion, that life is not my image or view of it. Life follows its own process not ours. Unhappiness comes from humans attempting to force life into preconceived notions of what we want it to be. What we need to understand is that it is in our best interest to accommodate ourselves to the process of life, because life will not accommodate itself to us. If I fall into a river, the fastest way to drown is to fight the current. I must accommodate myself to the current, flow with it and move at a gentle angle towards the shore. This conserves my energy and ensures my survival. In the river it seems obvious to not fight the current; however in life we fight the current all the time. It is the fighting of the current, the process of life, which causes discouragement and sorrow. It is like repeatedly running into a wall in an attempt to get around it; eventually you must find an easier way around or you will injure yourself. We must realize that we cannot always change our circumstances, but we can change our attitudes about our circumstances. This is going with the flow, or process, of life. We are in charge of our own perspectives.

We change our perspective through choosing to do so. It is an act of realization and will. I realize the futility of attempting to create the world according my image and I decide to change my attitude (perspective). If I cannot change my perspective, my realization is deficient in some way. I do not fully understand or accept the futility of clinging to unreasonable views. I am attached to my view of how I want the world to be and I cannot let it go. I am in essence a prisoner to my worldview. No one can realize this for me. It is something I either understand or I do not.

These are the concepts we utilize to assist us in coping with everyday stressors and disappointments. But, how do we apply these same tools to serious traumas? That is the next discussion.

Serious traumas affect us at the core of our being, our identity. The effects on our identity have lasting consequences and affect us for years. Injury to the core of our being causes the greatest pain. To address how to heal this injury we must first understand what an identity is, how it is formed, and how it is damaged.

Before I continue let me make it clear that I have no formal training in psychology or therapeutic methods. What I do have is the experience of almost 30 years of introspection and investigation into the workings of my own mind. I agree with the statement of Socrates, “To know oneself is to know the world.” Put another way one could say that all minds function in similar ways, if one understands the functioning of their own mind they can understand the functioning of everyone’s mind. Just as all elbows, eyes and other processes of the body function similarly from individual to individual, so does the mind function similarly from individual to individual. Similar is not the same as identical. Each individual will have variations in the manner in which their mind’s function. Each person also possesses different capacities to utilize the abilities of their minds. However, at the core all minds do function according to the same principles.

Having qualified my credentials let us begin with; “What is an identity?”

Our identity can also be called our self-concept; how we view or define who we are to ourselves. We frequently make statements about ourselves that define who we believe ourselves to be. “I am smart.”
“I am dumb.” “I am giving.” “I am unlucky.” “I am a good listener.” All of these are self-definitions. We can base our self-definitions on what appear to be objective facts about ourselves, but we can also base them on how others define us. When we are children our parents, teachers, coaches, and other significant adults helped us to define who we are. Because children are not fully developed intellectually, they rely on their significant adults to tell them how they fit into the world around them. Children have the tendency to blindly believe what their significant adults have to say about them. If the adults are generally encouraging and supportive then the child tends to grow up with a healthy self-concept. They believe themselves to be of inherent value, a good person so to speak. If the adults are hostile and abusive, the child tends to grow up feeling like they are not good enough and consequently of no inherent value. We say this type of person has low self-esteem. If we view our personality as a container holding our views of ourselves, the person with a healthy self-concept would have a full or nearly full container. The person with a poor self-concept would have a container with various stages of emptiness depending on the severity of the low self-esteem. When we feel like we have no inherent value we attempt to balance those feelings with various forms of compensating behavior. A person with extremely low self-esteem could have a container with a hole in the bottom; no matter what form of compensating behavior they engage in, they gain no sense of inner balance. This type of person is usually in severe crisis

[Scott R. Brown]

Compensating behaviors take the form of behavior extremes, excessive use of alcohol or drugs, over cleaning, over talking, over explaining or justification etc.. People with low self-esteem feel out of balance. The compensating behavior is an attempt to regain their inner balance.

We will digress here to discuss how the treatment of our significant adults becomes our self-concept.

To begin with, we must understand how our mind receives and processes information about ourselves and the world. To function in our society we separate everything into smaller sections. We do this because western science tends to believe that to get to the essence of a thing we must divide it down into smaller and smaller pieces until we find its core. We believe that this core is the true essence of a thing. This division applies to mental concepts as well as physical objects. The problem with endless division is that we lose the understanding of how things work together, how they fit into the larger picture. We divide and classify everything to make things more manageable to understand and manipulate. In reality, there are no divisions. This dividing applies to our discussion because one of the divisions we have made in western thinking is the division of the mind. We divide our mind into conscious and unconscious. Remember, there are no inherent divisions in the mind; we have only created artificial ones in an attempt to understand the mind better.

The conscious mind is the portion we use in day-to-day activities; it is the portion we reflect on when we introspect. The unconscious is the portion of our mind that we do not have direct access to through thought, but can infer its contents by observing its effects on our conscious mind. The conscious mind can be considered the gatekeeper to the unconscious mind, whatever gains entrance to the unconscious mind must first be filtered through the conscious mind. The unconscious mind holds all our memories and beliefs about ourselves and our life. This is the source of our identity. All the beliefs that we accept as true are filed away here for expression by the conscious personality. When we are children, the views about ourselves communicated to us by our significant adults are stored here. As children, when an adult tell us something about ourselves we believe them without questioning the truth of their view. Because they are the authority figure, we accept most of what we are told about ourselves without question and these beliefs are placed in the unconscious mind. This is the key to understanding our self-concept. Accepting unquestioned definitions about ourselves is like accepting any kind of food that is given to you without considering its nutritional content. Unhealthy food equals poor health, unhealthy thoughts equal poor self-esteem. Children do not have the ability to sort out unhealthy definitions. It becomes the burden of the adult to introspect and question the truth or falsity of the self-definitions we possess. These self-definitions are called core beliefs.

Core beliefs form the foundation of all we believe about ourselves and life. As mentioned previously, we must identify the feeling first and then through introspection, follow the feeling back to its source, which is the core belief. Changing a core belief is not as easy as changing a perspective. A core belief is an ingrained belief, one that we have accepted as truth about ourselves. Because we already accept it as truth, it is difficult to recognize it as an unhealthy or false belief. In general, an unhealthy or false belief will be one that makes you feel bad about yourself. It is a belief that will appear to be validated by your behavior because you will be compensating for the belief through behavior. Change the belief and the compensating behavior resolves itself.

There are a number of ways to change a core belief, but first we must recognize which beliefs are false or unhealthy. It is best to train yourself to questions all the beliefs that you have. Years ago I saw a bumper sticker that said, “Question Authority.” There are people that disagree with that view. I agree with it. Except that I believe, we should question everything. Truth can stand the test of questioning. Truths are the foundational principles of life. If a supposed truth cannot maintain its truth in the face of questioning then it is not a truth. So question every belief that you discover you hold. Ask yourself why you think a belief about yourself to be true. Is it because you were told it was true, did you arrive at its truth through reason, did you discover its truth through observation? Just because a self-concept seems true based on observation does mean it is true. Ask yourself what would happen to your self-concept if you changed that view.

Observational evidence for accepting a point of view is strongly influenced by perspective. My favorite example of this is an exercise that anyone can use to prove the point for themselves. When I was much younger, I rode motorcycles a lot. When I started riding, I noticed that motorcycle riders have a type of camaraderie. They frequently wave at each other when they pass on the rode. Before I rode motorcycles, I never paid much attention to how many motorcycles were on the road. When I started riding, I saw motorcycles everywhere. I could not believe how many motorcycles I saw that I had never noticed before. There were not more motorcycles just because I had started riding. I just noticed them more because I had programmed myself to be alert for them. My perspective had changed and thus my experience had changed. When we are questioning our beliefs we need to be alert for what appears to be evidence or support for our views. It may be that our perspective has programmed us to be aware of only the evidence that supports our view. Thorough questioning helps to counteract the tendency towards selective evidence.

As a review, core beliefs are the foundational beliefs that we accept as true about life and ourselves. The significant adults in our lives give our core beliefs to us when we are children. As children, we tend to accept these core beliefs without question. These core beliefs are accepted by the conscious mind and stored in the unconscious mind. The unconscious mind accepts as true any belief the conscious mind sends to it whether it is actually true or not. We tend to support our beliefs through observational evidence, which is colored by our perspective, which is created by the belief in the first place. The conscious mind then expresses these beliefs as behaviors. We use these behaviors to guide us back to the core belief. As adults we must identify and question the core beliefs that we hold in order to determine which are beneficial to our lives and which are harmful. Once we identify which core beliefs we want to change, we must replace the unwanted belief with a more positive one. This is accomplished through mental exercises.

Mental exercises are used to focus intention into the unconscious mind. Think of the unconscious mind as a computer that has been programmed. As children, our programming comes from the significant adults in our lives. As adults, we reinforce our programming, often sub-consciously, using the core beliefs we were given as children. What we want to accomplish now is the re-programming of our computer. Unfortunately, it is much easier re-programming a computer than your unconscious mind. When we accept beliefs into our unconscious mind, they carry with them a tendency to remain. This is why we view life from the perspective created by a belief. The belief creates the perspective and the perspective supports the belief with selective evidence of its truth. The perspective gives support to the belief and the belief takes root. The strength of the roots of a belief is determined by the intensity with which a belief is held and the amount of observational evidence there is to support it. I call this momentum. Momentum is the tendency of an object to remain in its current state of motion. If an object is at rest, it has the tendency to remain at rest. If it is moving, it has the tendency to remain in motion. Changing a belief is like changing the directional momentum of a car you have been pushing. To change the direction of the car you must first overcome the momentum in the direction it is going by moving in front of it and slowing it down to a stop. This takes enormous effort. Once this is accomplished, you must then overcome the stationary momentum and get the car moving in the other direction, again taking quite an effort. Once the car is moving in the correct direction, it takes less and less effort to keep it going in that direction. To do this with beliefs, we replace the unwanted belief with a new more preferable one and focus on it mentally.

[Scott R. Brown]

We begin with affirmations. An affirmation is a statement affirming, stating the truth, of a new belief. It is best to be specific with an affirmation. In other words, it is not as effective to use the affirmation, “I am a good person,” than to use a more specific affirmation like, “I am a thoughtful and considerate person.” The reason for this is that you feel like you are not a good person for a specific reason, for example, because you were raised being told you were selfish and self-centered. The affirmation should address the specific belief that makes you believe you are not a good person. Again, you must use introspective questioning to discover what it is. You may feel that you truly are a bad person and the evidence supports it. Here you must realize that feeling a certain way is not the same as being that way. Most of the time, we believe we are bad because we feel that we are bad and again, we sub-consciously use perspective to prove it to ourselves. What we are doing is taking a feeling and turning it into a fact. We need to acknowledge the feeling as a feeling and not as a fact. Say to yourself, “I feel like I am a bad person, but that does not mean I am a bad person.” Saying an affirmation once or twice will not change it into an accepted belief in your unconscious. It must be focused on in regular intervals of concentration for 5-15 minutes 1-3 times a day. Written down and read aloud has proven in scientific tests to be more effective than just mental repetition. All new beliefs can be reprogrammed using affirmations. There are other methods and I prefer to use more than one at a time. Two other methods are mock-ups and feeling tones. These methods can all be used at the same time or at different times. Consistency is the key to success.

Mock-ups are simply mental imagery or purposeful daydreams designed to provide you with practice using your new belief. If you can daydream you can mock-up. Pick a circumstance that you have had difficulty overcoming and practice it in your mind. While doing so practice, feeling the new emotions associated with the new belief. Or you can take a specific time out of your day when you are alone and practice feeling the emotion only. Sometimes it is easier to practice each of these methods separately, until you have developed the mental skill to use them all together. You may find that you take to one method more easily than another; in that case, you may want to focus more effort into that method. The final exercise to use, and this one should be used in conjunction with at least one of the above methods, but not necessarily at the same time, is “acting as if”. “Acting as if,” is pretending you already possess the new belief, the concomitant feelings and associated behaviors in everyday life. You actually perform in your daily interactions as if you already believe your new belief. You do this regardless of whether you feel that it is so. Practice “acting as if “in small increments in as controlled circumstances as possible to start with. Plan ahead of time what you want to accomplish and be sure to evaluate the results later. Modify you’re your “acting as if” plan as needed based of your evaluation.

Each of these exercises will assist you in forging new belief systems that will benefit your life in positive and constructive ways. As I previously stated it will be in your best interest to learn to use all of them in various combinations. The affirmations work on the intellectual level, the mock-ups work on the imaginative level, feeling tones work on the emotional level, and acting as if works on the physical level. Each level is a portion of your entire being and it should be self-evident that to work on all levels is preferable to working on only one or two levels.

I hope this information is beneficial to you. I know it is a lot to digest. Print it out and read it as needed. Knowledge does not become yours until you understand it for yourself and understanding takes time and effort. Be patient with yourself; be consistent in your practice. Frequent short intervals of practice are preferable to fewer, but longer intervals of practice.


I hope I got all of this posted in the right order, LOL!!!


Good luck!!

[Nexus]

KC,

I will not go into such detail as Scott has and he has alrady covered a great deal!

I will say this: By showing compassion and openness with others, you will be fulfilled through your own actions. By loving openly and without expectation, you will experience the love you show to others, and will not suffer when they are not receptive or not returning of that love. This is because you love without expectation, sometimes called unconditional love, other times called compassion.

Someone like Scott R. Brown is an excellent example of such a person, who I have seen many times selflessly spend time aiding individuals, regardless of their responses and receptivity to his comments.

I believe you will come to understanding these things on your own, it is always well to find insight from others who have treaded similar paths, which all are actually the same "path."

If you have any other questions, please ask.

[KC Elbows]

Scott, Nexus, Guohen,
Thanks for the responses, very helpful stuff, some of it I'm familiar with and work to implement into my life, some new to me.

I'll let you know how it goes.

BTW, yesterday I had one of those experiences that made my viewpoint change. Part of the reason that I was so stressed when I wrote the first post was that I am at a nexus in my life, and everything is very risky in this particular nexus, and it seemed like the only option open to me was the worst one.

Then, talking to someone, I discovered that not only were all the options equally open to me, but that I was imminently qualified to take any of them because of my own skills/experience. So I went from working from a position of personal insecurity, to working from a position of confidence and curiosity.

I'm gonna try the exercize where I take a situation that I normally respond poorly to, and make mock situations where I try changing the emotional content to. I'll fill everyone in on how it goes.

Again, thanks a lot.

I would have put a calm serene buddha smiley above, but I couldn't find one.

[Scott R. Brown]

KC Elbows,

Congratulations!!!!

It is amazing how changing your perspective can open up a whole new world of options and improve your emotional state for you isn’t it?

Good Luck!!!

[guohuen]

Sounds great KC. Remember to wear the world like a loose garment. Nothing is constant but change.