The whole concept of unconditional love is difficult for most people to grasp. It is difficult for some people to define love and harder yet to understand unconditional love. Unconditional love is not a difficult concept, really. It is pure acceptance and the willingness to accept someone for all of their fears, faults, and resultant ego. And love them anyway.
In short it is a choice you make. Just like that choice you made to dislike your neighbor, your co-worker, your boss. You were unwilling to accept someone elses's flaws and judged them. Your ego was in control. It told you that judging someone else was acceptable.
On several occasions, I have brought the concept of unconditional love up with other people. They squirm, make some half-hearted attempt to explain it, and none believe it is possible. The closest thing most will say is that unconditional love is perhaps only possible between a mother and a child. Or that of a dog. Now I haven't seen any mother actually practice unconditional love in the purest form of acceptance. But I understand those that think that the love of a mother for her child might be close.
But this dog thing, that is intriguing.
In my neck of the woods, people absolutely love their dogs. Dogs are simple creatures. You feed them and take care of them and in return they shower us with unconditional love. Dogs don't care whether you had a bad day or not, whether your checking account is overdrawn, or that you just got fired. They shower us with affection when we get home, wagging their tails and licking us. Genuinely happy that their best friend is home.
Indeed, I've heard more than one dog owner say that they would like to become the person their dog thinks they are.
You see dogs don't care about your bad day. They care about you. They practice unconditional love. Why? Why can an animal with an allegedly smaller I.Q. practice something that humans can't? How can a dog practice unconditional love yet human beings think they can't?
The dog has an incredibly huge advantage. Dogs don't possess fear and thus they have no ego.
Oh, don't get me wrong-dogs possess fear to the extent that they sometimes are outmatched and flee but that is simply survival extinct. What they don't do is sit around judging us, fearing us, arguing with us, or giving us the silent treatment in some juvenile way of reconciling differences.
They don't have egos. They are simply dogs. Devoid of ego, they have the capacity to love us even when we have been pretty crappy friends or when we ignore them. They remain loyal and available to us.
This capacity to love unconditionally is found in a creature that can't build cars, or sell real estate, and they don't covet anything other than a treat or a bone. They don't care whether your truck is a 1969 or 2009 model. In fact, they could probably care less that we have a vehicle at all. They simply love us despite our flawed beliefs and faults. Unconditional acceptance and trust. Love.
Devoid of ego, dogs practice unconditional love. Think about that. Your dog may be trying to tell you something.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Essay 10. Uncommunicated Expectations
Of all the irrational and insane conduct on this planet, nothing makes me laugh more than this subject.
Really. As you were growing up and acquiring all of your belief systems-good and bad-how in the world would you expect that the people that you interact with would inherently know what your beliefs and expectations are? Is that remotely possible? Of course not.
One of the greatest sources of conflict on this planet occurs in the workplace. Most of us have worked for people that we liked and people that we didn't like. Managers, because they are human, come with all sorts of beliefs, fears, and resultant controlling behaviors. They have an internal set of instructions that results in ego. Most, if not all, of those fears and needs go uncommunicated as they go about working and living their lives. Your success and happiness in the workplace will to a large degree, depend on your ability to learn what those belief systems are and your willingness to agree to those terms. Some folks, completely absorbed by ego, cannot work for anyone. Often they become business owners and tyrants, holding employees hostage to their non negotiable belief systems. Thus, their uncommunicated expectations.
You won't find those expectations in a job description or a policy manual. Co-workers may tell you more than a boss ever will. You can make some logical assumptions about what may be expected of you. Thus employees acquire a collective belief system of their managers and bosses. Millions of workers understand this and for many, this becomes key to their survival and whether or not they get promoted.
Uncommunicated expectations are simply future resentments. They occur everywhere. We believe that people should behave the way we want or expect. When they don't, we get angry, hostile, frustrated. When a driver rolls through a stop sign, we get angry. When your wife buys her 115th pair of shoes, you are miffed. When a co-worker screws off on the cellphone, your workload increases. When you leave wet towels on the bed, or perhaps even the toilet seat up, your wife gets angry.
As we fail to uncover uncommunicated expectations we suffer the consequences and frustrations of others. We get further mired in the tar pit as we discuss those problems with third parties.
We all have uncommunicated expectations. Expectations in and of themselves are not necessarily bad. They become bad when we don't talk about them with those involved and some negative energy ensues.
We are terrible communicators. Human beings absolutely suck at this. Forgive me, there is simply no better way of putting this. That is my belief which you do not have to agree with.
Years ago, in college, I had a roommate who ate my groceries all the time. He never offered money or replacements. I tried to communicate my expectations and each time I did, he agreed to buy his own and quit eating mine. He never did this. I got tired of talking to him. Eventually, I simply jettisoned the situation by leaving. I did not pay the last month's rent, figuring very nearly that he had consumed an amount of groceries that equaled my half of the rent that month. He was livid. We almost came to blows over the situation. He was entrenched in his belief that the rent was an entirely separate situation than his filching my groceries. I was entrenched in my belief that I was justified in stiffing him. We both handled the situation poorly because we both had belief systems that said the other person was wrong. In examining my role in that situation I understand where I went wrong and it probably began in my selection of roommates. I could have locked my groceries up. I could have paid the rent or communicated that I was prepared not to pay in advance. My ego told me that I was right and I wanted revenge. My roommate, well he'll have to take responsibility for his actions.
This insane idea that our beliefs are the only valid beliefs is key. Our inability to communicate effectively causes this insanity to occur and fester as we get hostile and bitter over the failings of our co-workers, friends, families, and loved ones.
The only way to work through this insanity is by establishing communication and ratcheting down our expectations. We must be willing to communicate about everything with close loved ones. And we cannot ever diminish their expectations. Their beliefs and expectations are very real to them.
It is ok to make goals, just refuse to attach an outcome to them. It works.
Uncommunicated expectations contain a slice of everything we have talked about thus far. Ego, beliefs, acceptance and negative judgments, fear and control, victimology and self pity. Sometimes, this conflict results in actual hatred and revenge. Depression, crimes of passion, suicide.
The cure for all of this? Unconditional love and acceptance. You are not required to engage in any of this insanity. It is always a choice and we want to make better choices, to be happy. Perhaps you enjoy life in that emotional tar pit, if so- by all means you are free to continue living your life and getting angry when uncommunicated expectations of yours go unmet or you ignore those of the people around you.
Really. As you were growing up and acquiring all of your belief systems-good and bad-how in the world would you expect that the people that you interact with would inherently know what your beliefs and expectations are? Is that remotely possible? Of course not.
One of the greatest sources of conflict on this planet occurs in the workplace. Most of us have worked for people that we liked and people that we didn't like. Managers, because they are human, come with all sorts of beliefs, fears, and resultant controlling behaviors. They have an internal set of instructions that results in ego. Most, if not all, of those fears and needs go uncommunicated as they go about working and living their lives. Your success and happiness in the workplace will to a large degree, depend on your ability to learn what those belief systems are and your willingness to agree to those terms. Some folks, completely absorbed by ego, cannot work for anyone. Often they become business owners and tyrants, holding employees hostage to their non negotiable belief systems. Thus, their uncommunicated expectations.
You won't find those expectations in a job description or a policy manual. Co-workers may tell you more than a boss ever will. You can make some logical assumptions about what may be expected of you. Thus employees acquire a collective belief system of their managers and bosses. Millions of workers understand this and for many, this becomes key to their survival and whether or not they get promoted.
Uncommunicated expectations are simply future resentments. They occur everywhere. We believe that people should behave the way we want or expect. When they don't, we get angry, hostile, frustrated. When a driver rolls through a stop sign, we get angry. When your wife buys her 115th pair of shoes, you are miffed. When a co-worker screws off on the cellphone, your workload increases. When you leave wet towels on the bed, or perhaps even the toilet seat up, your wife gets angry.
As we fail to uncover uncommunicated expectations we suffer the consequences and frustrations of others. We get further mired in the tar pit as we discuss those problems with third parties.
We all have uncommunicated expectations. Expectations in and of themselves are not necessarily bad. They become bad when we don't talk about them with those involved and some negative energy ensues.
We are terrible communicators. Human beings absolutely suck at this. Forgive me, there is simply no better way of putting this. That is my belief which you do not have to agree with.
Years ago, in college, I had a roommate who ate my groceries all the time. He never offered money or replacements. I tried to communicate my expectations and each time I did, he agreed to buy his own and quit eating mine. He never did this. I got tired of talking to him. Eventually, I simply jettisoned the situation by leaving. I did not pay the last month's rent, figuring very nearly that he had consumed an amount of groceries that equaled my half of the rent that month. He was livid. We almost came to blows over the situation. He was entrenched in his belief that the rent was an entirely separate situation than his filching my groceries. I was entrenched in my belief that I was justified in stiffing him. We both handled the situation poorly because we both had belief systems that said the other person was wrong. In examining my role in that situation I understand where I went wrong and it probably began in my selection of roommates. I could have locked my groceries up. I could have paid the rent or communicated that I was prepared not to pay in advance. My ego told me that I was right and I wanted revenge. My roommate, well he'll have to take responsibility for his actions.
This insane idea that our beliefs are the only valid beliefs is key. Our inability to communicate effectively causes this insanity to occur and fester as we get hostile and bitter over the failings of our co-workers, friends, families, and loved ones.
The only way to work through this insanity is by establishing communication and ratcheting down our expectations. We must be willing to communicate about everything with close loved ones. And we cannot ever diminish their expectations. Their beliefs and expectations are very real to them.
It is ok to make goals, just refuse to attach an outcome to them. It works.
Uncommunicated expectations contain a slice of everything we have talked about thus far. Ego, beliefs, acceptance and negative judgments, fear and control, victimology and self pity. Sometimes, this conflict results in actual hatred and revenge. Depression, crimes of passion, suicide.
The cure for all of this? Unconditional love and acceptance. You are not required to engage in any of this insanity. It is always a choice and we want to make better choices, to be happy. Perhaps you enjoy life in that emotional tar pit, if so- by all means you are free to continue living your life and getting angry when uncommunicated expectations of yours go unmet or you ignore those of the people around you.
Monday, May 11, 2009
Essay 9. Victimology and Self Pity
Let's take a candid look at victimology and self pity. Victimology and self pity represent major obstacles in our quest for emotional freedom. First we will see where we acquire those beliefs, how to examine them, and how to free ourselves from their grasp.
Adversity is guaranteed to strike. It is how we handle adversity that truly matters.
Clearly, we can become victims. We are victims of bad belief systems instilled in us by our parents. Many of those beliefs are well intentioned. Some are not. Sometimes, those beliefs prevent us from obtaining the proper emotional tools to deal with our problems. Sometimes we acquire bad beliefs through relatives, friends, and experiences. We may be victimized by criminal behavior or in some instances, just bad luck.
If you believe you are a victim, then in essence you are and it is true. It becomes a belief system. You can indulge in all of the self pity you want and you can certainly enlist your sympathetic friends, families, and even attorneys to commiserate with you. They will enable you to do this.
The problem is, is that accepting that you are a victim or indulging in self pity will prevent you from ever getting well or emotionally free. It is a self fulfilling and damning emotional tar pit that quite honestly-I have seen many people get mired in and die without ever recognizing the escape route.
You will fall in that tar pit. We know this. We want you to recognize it and escape when it happens.
Our first step is resolution. We apply rigorous honesty to our failings and shortcomings. To our existing thoughts that we are victims. To each and every resentment. We examine our role in every situation in which we "think" we were victimized. We accept our role and responsibility with unflinching honesty. And we take ACTION to not repeat our mistakes. This is key.
Perhaps you discover that your wife or girlfriend is sleeping with another man. You feel angry, betrayed, hostile. You see yourself as a victim. You tell your friends and relatives. They shower you with sympathy and they further entrench you in the belief that you are right, you are a victim. Your ego entrenches, it is hurt. Your ego demands apologies, vindication, and unconditional surrender from your unfaithful partner which of course it doesn't get. You fail to examine your role. You fail to see your selection of a mate, or you fail to see your own selfish actions prior to the affair, and all the while that ego of yours exerts fear and control. It says you were right. That false sense of self and those enabling and sympathetic friends have helped you lie to yourself. You are stuck in the tar pit and if you want, you can wallow there for years. Build hostilities, resentments, see counselors. Stay angry, hostile, depressed. Or get well.
Acceptance. Your cheating partner was simply living her life. The relationship was over long before the symptom showed up. She was just trying to live her life and made a bad choice in how to do that. Really. It had nothing to do with you. In fact, it never does. We'll take about this later on. So the quicker we accept this, the less emotional damage we cause ourselves.
That is how emotionally free people let go and let go fast. Believing that you are a victim and a hostage prolongs all those negative emotions, anger, animosity, fear, loss of control, self esteem, depression.
So we accept that our partner is free to live her life. We refuse to be a victim or beat ourselves to death emotionally worrying about what we did wrong. We apply the rigorous honesty rule and we accept where we screwed up. We resolve our failings and forgive ourselves. We are thus arming ourselves to recover quickly. We realize suddenly, that by CHOOSING to be victims, we victimize ourselves and prolong our time in the tar pit.
Self pity works much the same way. By whining, justifying, and rationalizing our actions we simply struggle in the tar pit. Talk shows are absolutely filled with unconscious, ego driven, and the faulty belief systems of the host, guest, and audience. The other day in a restaurant, I heard the waitresses whining about the cooks, an attractive gal whining about her roommates to a couple of male friends, and my own guest talking about her problems. To say that we are a nation of victims and people fully engaged in self pity may be an understatement.
Emotionally free and conscious people understand the ill effects of enmeshing our friends or ourselves in faulty belief systems and lying to ourselves. We don't like the tar pit much and to stay out of it, we don't allow our false sense of self to run us. We REFUSE to be victims even when we are. We reject self pity.
We do our best, we accept adversity, we identify and resolve ill feelings and commit to improvements to modify our behavior. We apply rigorous honesty. We refuse to be victims or engage in self pity. Why? When we fail to examine our role, we really engage in dishonest behavior with ourselves, don't we? And in the end, we only hurt ourselves. Emotionally free people understand this. It is actually quite simple.
Adversity is guaranteed to strike. It is how we handle adversity that truly matters.
Clearly, we can become victims. We are victims of bad belief systems instilled in us by our parents. Many of those beliefs are well intentioned. Some are not. Sometimes, those beliefs prevent us from obtaining the proper emotional tools to deal with our problems. Sometimes we acquire bad beliefs through relatives, friends, and experiences. We may be victimized by criminal behavior or in some instances, just bad luck.
If you believe you are a victim, then in essence you are and it is true. It becomes a belief system. You can indulge in all of the self pity you want and you can certainly enlist your sympathetic friends, families, and even attorneys to commiserate with you. They will enable you to do this.
The problem is, is that accepting that you are a victim or indulging in self pity will prevent you from ever getting well or emotionally free. It is a self fulfilling and damning emotional tar pit that quite honestly-I have seen many people get mired in and die without ever recognizing the escape route.
You will fall in that tar pit. We know this. We want you to recognize it and escape when it happens.
Our first step is resolution. We apply rigorous honesty to our failings and shortcomings. To our existing thoughts that we are victims. To each and every resentment. We examine our role in every situation in which we "think" we were victimized. We accept our role and responsibility with unflinching honesty. And we take ACTION to not repeat our mistakes. This is key.
Perhaps you discover that your wife or girlfriend is sleeping with another man. You feel angry, betrayed, hostile. You see yourself as a victim. You tell your friends and relatives. They shower you with sympathy and they further entrench you in the belief that you are right, you are a victim. Your ego entrenches, it is hurt. Your ego demands apologies, vindication, and unconditional surrender from your unfaithful partner which of course it doesn't get. You fail to examine your role. You fail to see your selection of a mate, or you fail to see your own selfish actions prior to the affair, and all the while that ego of yours exerts fear and control. It says you were right. That false sense of self and those enabling and sympathetic friends have helped you lie to yourself. You are stuck in the tar pit and if you want, you can wallow there for years. Build hostilities, resentments, see counselors. Stay angry, hostile, depressed. Or get well.
Acceptance. Your cheating partner was simply living her life. The relationship was over long before the symptom showed up. She was just trying to live her life and made a bad choice in how to do that. Really. It had nothing to do with you. In fact, it never does. We'll take about this later on. So the quicker we accept this, the less emotional damage we cause ourselves.
That is how emotionally free people let go and let go fast. Believing that you are a victim and a hostage prolongs all those negative emotions, anger, animosity, fear, loss of control, self esteem, depression.
So we accept that our partner is free to live her life. We refuse to be a victim or beat ourselves to death emotionally worrying about what we did wrong. We apply the rigorous honesty rule and we accept where we screwed up. We resolve our failings and forgive ourselves. We are thus arming ourselves to recover quickly. We realize suddenly, that by CHOOSING to be victims, we victimize ourselves and prolong our time in the tar pit.
Self pity works much the same way. By whining, justifying, and rationalizing our actions we simply struggle in the tar pit. Talk shows are absolutely filled with unconscious, ego driven, and the faulty belief systems of the host, guest, and audience. The other day in a restaurant, I heard the waitresses whining about the cooks, an attractive gal whining about her roommates to a couple of male friends, and my own guest talking about her problems. To say that we are a nation of victims and people fully engaged in self pity may be an understatement.
Emotionally free and conscious people understand the ill effects of enmeshing our friends or ourselves in faulty belief systems and lying to ourselves. We don't like the tar pit much and to stay out of it, we don't allow our false sense of self to run us. We REFUSE to be victims even when we are. We reject self pity.
We do our best, we accept adversity, we identify and resolve ill feelings and commit to improvements to modify our behavior. We apply rigorous honesty. We refuse to be victims or engage in self pity. Why? When we fail to examine our role, we really engage in dishonest behavior with ourselves, don't we? And in the end, we only hurt ourselves. Emotionally free people understand this. It is actually quite simple.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Was Jesus Real?
This is not a religious piece. Please don't misinterpret it. This is a historical piece. You will not read this anywhere else. At least I haven't. This is my belief. You are free to accept it or reject it. I offer it only as a belief system that I have recently acquired based on new information and how that came to be.
For years, I have struggled with religion. As a kid it bored me and the subjectivity of religion is confusing. As a young adult, I began to question the existence of God. I simply couldn't escape the concept that God was conveniently fear based and most likely invented by man in some desperate need to come to terms with our greatest fear and try to control it, death.
So as I wandered through the evidence for evolution, I became agnostic. I accepted the belief that we had just made it all up. Try as I might, I read many books available on the subject-both for and against-the existence of God. My beliefs were unresolved. I then turned my attention to tangible evidence to try to prove the existence of God. Why didn't that evidence exist? Where was this Arc of the Covenant, the Ten Commandments, the Holy Grail, the Shroud of Turin? I talked to Catholic Priests and Christian ministers. Devoutly religious people. They didn't help. I was always amazed at the intuitive belief systems of devoutly religious people. How had they acquired their beliefs and why had I been left behind?
So all of my life I have spent searching for the answer to the greatest mystery of all. A few days ago, I found it.
It had always been there. That tangible piece of evidence I could never find, I found. It came as the result of a rational concept or belief I had been exploring.
I have never spoken to anyone that believed unconditional love was possible. This is where it all began. I realized that unconditional love conquers everything. I also realized that whether you believe in unconditional love or not, is simply an opinion. Opinions and thus beliefs are fallible. That is what we have been discussing on this blog. Unconditional love conquers fear and control, it conquers anger, hate, and war. Unconditional love, a respect for all human life, is possible because I can conceive it and dream it. Can I achieve it? I don't know but a few humans have come mighty close.
We practice unconditional hate. That is certainly possible. Think about those planes on 09/11/2001 flying into buildings. So if unconditional hate is possible, why then is unconditional love not possible?
In Eckhart Tolle's book, "A New Earth", Tolle makes an astounding statement. He stated that Jesus, as he was dying on the cross uttered, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do." I had heard and been taught this as a child. But as Tolle described it, he said that only a man who was completely aware of the false beliefs and the false sense of self that humans possess could have uttered such a thing.
Tolle does not elaborate on Jesus' statement other than to say that from his perspective, Jesus' statement was entirely correct. It was uttered by a man that was completely aware-who understood that human beings were held hostage to fear and control, a false sense of self and ego, and that they simply did not recognize this. Indeed the Jews themselves did not believe in Christ. Completely held captive to their opinions that Jesus would come and rid the earth of their enemies. Their collective and false belief system.
I remember a statement that the great Albert Einstein made once. He believed that one day science and religion would converge and one day tend to prove each other rather than be at odds with each other.
Was Tolle's science, the science of the human mind and ego, that false sense of self driven by fear and thus control, the science Einstein spoke of?
Here then is the undeniable evidence. If Jesus' was conscious and aware of this, he understood his presence on earth made men fearful particularly the rulers of the day; he understood that they would exercise control to rid themselves of that of which they feared. A Christ that had no title, was no annointed King, who threatened to disrupt their well established power, control, and credibility. He was thus sentenced to death.
And as he lay dying on that cross, he uttered a statement that Tolle accepted as true. A statement of unconditional love and understanding, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do."
No human being could have uttered such a thing. A statement of unconditional love for the men that had put him to death. A statement from a man who had committed no crime. A statement from a man that was completely aware of the false sense of self and ego, of fear, that rules the inevitable failings of men. Thus he understood that he could not control the outcome and he accepted his fate. Most importantly, he did not fear that fate like men.
That single statement was completely rational and truthful according to Tolle. For me it was inescapable and undeniable. In a world ruled by fear and ego, here was a statement uttered 2000 years ago by a man, the Son of God, that no mortal could have recognized or uttered. It had to be uttered by the only thing that could have uttered it. God in the form of Jesus.
What proliferated thereafter, in the form of writing and books and religion is irrelevant. It is all conceived and manipulated by fearful and unconscious, mistake prone, human beings. Translated incorrectly and manipulated by man to promote his brand of fear and control.
I made this discovery a few days ago. It was without question for me-proof positive-that Jesus was real and clearly the son of God. God understands unconditional love while no man, although a few have come close, does understand this. I don't need a tangible piece of evidence in the form of the Arc of the Covenant, a Holy Grail, or divine intervention although that may have been what happened here.
I always had the evidence, I learned it years ago. Tolle revealed a statement and then interpreted it for me. Einstein may have corroborated it. A completely truthful and tangible statement of unconditional love uttered by the only being capable of doing so. A man that understood this at a time when nobody else understood it.
Perhaps the real point that day was unconditional love for all of mankind. That was the word of God.
For years, I have struggled with religion. As a kid it bored me and the subjectivity of religion is confusing. As a young adult, I began to question the existence of God. I simply couldn't escape the concept that God was conveniently fear based and most likely invented by man in some desperate need to come to terms with our greatest fear and try to control it, death.
So as I wandered through the evidence for evolution, I became agnostic. I accepted the belief that we had just made it all up. Try as I might, I read many books available on the subject-both for and against-the existence of God. My beliefs were unresolved. I then turned my attention to tangible evidence to try to prove the existence of God. Why didn't that evidence exist? Where was this Arc of the Covenant, the Ten Commandments, the Holy Grail, the Shroud of Turin? I talked to Catholic Priests and Christian ministers. Devoutly religious people. They didn't help. I was always amazed at the intuitive belief systems of devoutly religious people. How had they acquired their beliefs and why had I been left behind?
So all of my life I have spent searching for the answer to the greatest mystery of all. A few days ago, I found it.
It had always been there. That tangible piece of evidence I could never find, I found. It came as the result of a rational concept or belief I had been exploring.
I have never spoken to anyone that believed unconditional love was possible. This is where it all began. I realized that unconditional love conquers everything. I also realized that whether you believe in unconditional love or not, is simply an opinion. Opinions and thus beliefs are fallible. That is what we have been discussing on this blog. Unconditional love conquers fear and control, it conquers anger, hate, and war. Unconditional love, a respect for all human life, is possible because I can conceive it and dream it. Can I achieve it? I don't know but a few humans have come mighty close.
We practice unconditional hate. That is certainly possible. Think about those planes on 09/11/2001 flying into buildings. So if unconditional hate is possible, why then is unconditional love not possible?
In Eckhart Tolle's book, "A New Earth", Tolle makes an astounding statement. He stated that Jesus, as he was dying on the cross uttered, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do." I had heard and been taught this as a child. But as Tolle described it, he said that only a man who was completely aware of the false beliefs and the false sense of self that humans possess could have uttered such a thing.
Tolle does not elaborate on Jesus' statement other than to say that from his perspective, Jesus' statement was entirely correct. It was uttered by a man that was completely aware-who understood that human beings were held hostage to fear and control, a false sense of self and ego, and that they simply did not recognize this. Indeed the Jews themselves did not believe in Christ. Completely held captive to their opinions that Jesus would come and rid the earth of their enemies. Their collective and false belief system.
I remember a statement that the great Albert Einstein made once. He believed that one day science and religion would converge and one day tend to prove each other rather than be at odds with each other.
Was Tolle's science, the science of the human mind and ego, that false sense of self driven by fear and thus control, the science Einstein spoke of?
Here then is the undeniable evidence. If Jesus' was conscious and aware of this, he understood his presence on earth made men fearful particularly the rulers of the day; he understood that they would exercise control to rid themselves of that of which they feared. A Christ that had no title, was no annointed King, who threatened to disrupt their well established power, control, and credibility. He was thus sentenced to death.
And as he lay dying on that cross, he uttered a statement that Tolle accepted as true. A statement of unconditional love and understanding, "Forgive them Father, for they know not what they do."
No human being could have uttered such a thing. A statement of unconditional love for the men that had put him to death. A statement from a man who had committed no crime. A statement from a man that was completely aware of the false sense of self and ego, of fear, that rules the inevitable failings of men. Thus he understood that he could not control the outcome and he accepted his fate. Most importantly, he did not fear that fate like men.
That single statement was completely rational and truthful according to Tolle. For me it was inescapable and undeniable. In a world ruled by fear and ego, here was a statement uttered 2000 years ago by a man, the Son of God, that no mortal could have recognized or uttered. It had to be uttered by the only thing that could have uttered it. God in the form of Jesus.
What proliferated thereafter, in the form of writing and books and religion is irrelevant. It is all conceived and manipulated by fearful and unconscious, mistake prone, human beings. Translated incorrectly and manipulated by man to promote his brand of fear and control.
I made this discovery a few days ago. It was without question for me-proof positive-that Jesus was real and clearly the son of God. God understands unconditional love while no man, although a few have come close, does understand this. I don't need a tangible piece of evidence in the form of the Arc of the Covenant, a Holy Grail, or divine intervention although that may have been what happened here.
I always had the evidence, I learned it years ago. Tolle revealed a statement and then interpreted it for me. Einstein may have corroborated it. A completely truthful and tangible statement of unconditional love uttered by the only being capable of doing so. A man that understood this at a time when nobody else understood it.
Perhaps the real point that day was unconditional love for all of mankind. That was the word of God.
Essay 8. Fear and Control
We cannot understate the role of fear and control. It is at the heart of virtually everything done on this planet. It is so prevalent that individuals will be subjected to it several times each day directly and many more times indirectly. Fear strikes at the very heart of everything we do. It is unrelenting and stifling. It becomes part of each individuals ego and they form collective egos or beliefs. They impose them on each other.
There is good news. There is a cure.
Let's return to Plato's cave for a moment. We accept that individuals are "domesticated" and taught differing beliefs by their instructors. It simply stands to reason that people would acquire differing fears which are planted and firmly rooted in them. Individuals do not make a habit of disclosing fear because they actually fear that their fears are unfounded and they will be criticized! People do not wander about proclaiming from the rooftops that "Here I am-a fearful human being!" Nor do they go out on dates and say, "sweet heart, I am absolutely afraid of abandonment and if we fall in love and then break up, I am going to stalk you and torture you for years."
Often, I gave this piece of advice. If a daughter dislikes or hates her father, "run for the hills." Why? Because I had a belief system, very often true but not infallible, that if a daughter disliked her father she would be fearful of men. Because she fears men, very often that daughter would be controlling and when you did not meet her expectations, all hell would break loose.
How often was that correct? More than I care to mention. However, that blanket rule was not infallible and sometimes wrong. The blanket application of the belief was illusory.
The point is, is that in Plato's cave, as prisoners we all learned and acquired beliefs and thus fears. They are uniquely individual and manifest themselves as things we vow to ourselves we will never repeat or disclose. We then impose them on others.
We simply cannot identify the vast array of the fears in someone else. The vast majority of people aren't even conscious enough to recognize them nor do they communicate them. They just run around trying to impose their fears and thus control on everybody around them. Refusing to submit to demands for control lands you with the consequences. Whether that's getting your ass chewed, getting fired, or landing in jail.
This occurs daily. At work, their is always someone who is fearful. Of not being smart enough. Of failing to do the right thing. Some fear an inability to scale a ladder of success. Some fear that if they do not separate themselves, distinguish themselves, they will not be promotable or they will be denied the earnings to buy that new house or BMW. Completely hostage to these fears, they make others look bad, diminish them, "hurt" them, engage in gossip, tattling, or any number of insane manifestations.
Every law and every commandment is rooted in fear and control. Think about it. I don't care whether you are talking about the death penalty, arson, drug laws, or the speed limit. The ten commandments are also rooted in fear. Whether it is lying or coveting your neighbors wife. If we fear it, we will try to control it. Our brand of control.
On a personal level, fear and control are at the heart of all of your relationships. If you or a loved one fear something, you will try to control it.
We should pause and reflect on this. Many laws and perhaps the ten commandments may be designed to protect us and provide a frame work for living good lives. Some fears have enabled us to survive. Fear has a very real and positive role in our lives. In some instances, fear is very useful.
As we recognize fears, we begin to separate useful fears from completely irrational fear. Irrational fear and thus control has lead to lynch mobs, workplace violence, and war. Some fears like walking through a bad neighborhood with warring gangs, may be well founded and useful.
The goal of this essay is simply to make you aware of all of the fear around you. Once you recognize that you are fearful and controlling-and that others are too-you can begin to analyze what is rational and what is not.
There is simply no way of understanding every human being well enough to get their list of fears. The good news is-is that we don't have to.
We recognize that people are ruled by fear. We accept some of their fears and we reject some. But we always understand them as true for those that believe them to be. Our loved ones have acquired belief systems which we respect for no other reason than we simply love them unconditionally. We agree to those terms.
Unconditional love is the cure I spoke of. In my introduction, I speak of this.
If you can dream it, you can do it. If fear kills us, unconditional love saves us. You are about to read the most profound discovery that I have ever made. It occurred only a few days ago.
It set all of my irrational fear on it's ear and the story you are about to read encapsulates fear and control, unconditional love, and it inherently proves (for me) the existence of a higher power. By all my measures, it is the greatest truth ever told.
There is good news. There is a cure.
Let's return to Plato's cave for a moment. We accept that individuals are "domesticated" and taught differing beliefs by their instructors. It simply stands to reason that people would acquire differing fears which are planted and firmly rooted in them. Individuals do not make a habit of disclosing fear because they actually fear that their fears are unfounded and they will be criticized! People do not wander about proclaiming from the rooftops that "Here I am-a fearful human being!" Nor do they go out on dates and say, "sweet heart, I am absolutely afraid of abandonment and if we fall in love and then break up, I am going to stalk you and torture you for years."
Often, I gave this piece of advice. If a daughter dislikes or hates her father, "run for the hills." Why? Because I had a belief system, very often true but not infallible, that if a daughter disliked her father she would be fearful of men. Because she fears men, very often that daughter would be controlling and when you did not meet her expectations, all hell would break loose.
How often was that correct? More than I care to mention. However, that blanket rule was not infallible and sometimes wrong. The blanket application of the belief was illusory.
The point is, is that in Plato's cave, as prisoners we all learned and acquired beliefs and thus fears. They are uniquely individual and manifest themselves as things we vow to ourselves we will never repeat or disclose. We then impose them on others.
We simply cannot identify the vast array of the fears in someone else. The vast majority of people aren't even conscious enough to recognize them nor do they communicate them. They just run around trying to impose their fears and thus control on everybody around them. Refusing to submit to demands for control lands you with the consequences. Whether that's getting your ass chewed, getting fired, or landing in jail.
This occurs daily. At work, their is always someone who is fearful. Of not being smart enough. Of failing to do the right thing. Some fear an inability to scale a ladder of success. Some fear that if they do not separate themselves, distinguish themselves, they will not be promotable or they will be denied the earnings to buy that new house or BMW. Completely hostage to these fears, they make others look bad, diminish them, "hurt" them, engage in gossip, tattling, or any number of insane manifestations.
Every law and every commandment is rooted in fear and control. Think about it. I don't care whether you are talking about the death penalty, arson, drug laws, or the speed limit. The ten commandments are also rooted in fear. Whether it is lying or coveting your neighbors wife. If we fear it, we will try to control it. Our brand of control.
On a personal level, fear and control are at the heart of all of your relationships. If you or a loved one fear something, you will try to control it.
We should pause and reflect on this. Many laws and perhaps the ten commandments may be designed to protect us and provide a frame work for living good lives. Some fears have enabled us to survive. Fear has a very real and positive role in our lives. In some instances, fear is very useful.
As we recognize fears, we begin to separate useful fears from completely irrational fear. Irrational fear and thus control has lead to lynch mobs, workplace violence, and war. Some fears like walking through a bad neighborhood with warring gangs, may be well founded and useful.
The goal of this essay is simply to make you aware of all of the fear around you. Once you recognize that you are fearful and controlling-and that others are too-you can begin to analyze what is rational and what is not.
There is simply no way of understanding every human being well enough to get their list of fears. The good news is-is that we don't have to.
We recognize that people are ruled by fear. We accept some of their fears and we reject some. But we always understand them as true for those that believe them to be. Our loved ones have acquired belief systems which we respect for no other reason than we simply love them unconditionally. We agree to those terms.
Unconditional love is the cure I spoke of. In my introduction, I speak of this.
If you can dream it, you can do it. If fear kills us, unconditional love saves us. You are about to read the most profound discovery that I have ever made. It occurred only a few days ago.
It set all of my irrational fear on it's ear and the story you are about to read encapsulates fear and control, unconditional love, and it inherently proves (for me) the existence of a higher power. By all my measures, it is the greatest truth ever told.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
A Father's Pain
The story I'm about to tell you is true. It took 20 years to live and about ten or fifteen minutes to retell. It was one of the most gut wrenching and agonizing things I have ever listened to. I am going to try to explain it here and tell you in advance that it has a happy ending. For me, it was like God himself whacked me over the head with a two by four. If that in fact happened, my thanks go out to him or her, whatever the case might be.
In late 2007, I was undergoing a vast paradigm shift and just beginning to question my own flawed belief systems. I was sober, rational, and aware. Present and available in every possible sense of those two words. I had been a police officer all of my life. I had met a man that had been a "criminal" all of his life. I remember him well, his identity is not important but his story is too important to be forgotten. Our paths crossed in New Orleans.
Allen had grown up in a terribly dysfunctional and alcoholic home. He had watched his parents drink, drug, cheat on each other, argue, and fight. As a child he was hostage to this madness and powerless to intervene or stop it. He acquired belief systems that allowed him to survive. Merely survive. By his late teens he was fully engaged in all of the madness that he had watched his parents engage in. That was his reality. He accepted that as true. As he grew into a young man like most drug addicts, he began to sell dope and sleep with women who also used alcohol and dope to escape their realities. He was an alcoholic. To that end one of those women Allen saw became pregnant. It does not take much to bring a life into the world and so it was.
Allen continued to drink and drug with the mother of his child, to sleep with other women, and she in turn slept with other men. They argued and fought verbally and physically. They dealt and used dope in front of their son-enmeshing him in all of the dysfunction that was their lives. They abandoned that son emotionally, physically, and spiritually while engaged in the beliefs that this was simply how you lived. Justifying their existence as normal, plagued with issues of self esteem, this then was their belief systems. They were never able to recognize that collective ego nor did they have the tools or capacity to stop.
Allen's son became a drug addict and alcoholic as well. That is what he learned. Allen at some point, had enough and he found a bottom or he picked one. He got sober and aware. He became conscious and rational. He began sifting through the wreckage of his life. He began to accept the bad beliefs he received as a child and he forgave his parents as ill equipped. He began to accept responsibility for his own life and what he had done to his son. He had been sober a few years when his son landed in jail.
Allen's son, in a drug and alcohol crazed robbery, had entered the business he had just been fired from. Armed with a gun he had attempted to rob his previous employer, shooting up the place but thankfully not injuring or killing anyone. Clearly it was the only small victory for a staff of people traumatized by the whole episode. Allen's son was arrested the following day and had been sitting in jail for nearly a year. His sentencing in that neighboring state would occur in a couple of weeks. The prosecution had recommended 25 years.
As Allen told this story he began to cry. Sober now, he fully realized what he had done to his son during all of those years of drinking and drugging and I cannot fully capture the agony and despair in his voice. It was absolutely gut wrenching.
There was one old cop listening that night. A cop that had rigorously enforced the law and sought to put every "criminal" behind bars. A cop that aligned his belief system only for the sake of victims. A cop that believed criminals should be shown no mercy, a cop that didn't really understand why people behaved the way they did. Nor did he ever bother thinking about it. It would have been a tremendous loss had that cop never heard that story. Because in that instant, I realized that Allen's son was also a victim. An alcoholic and drug addict completely self absorbed by a belief system and ego laced with booze and drugs that said that this is acceptable behavior and he robbed that store. I realized in that moment there was no such thing as a "criminal." These were real people rather than some nameless and faceless booking number. There were simply millions of people that we label and judge as such. As I pondered all of this, I acquired a belief that virtually nobody is born with a bad heart. That these people are all created as a result of fear, bad belief systems, and a warped ego that really didn't know right from wrong.
In the days that followed I couldn't get Allen or his son out of my mind. I couldn't escape the truth that I had never really bothered to understand people like Allen's son. Perhaps it was a defense mechanism that allowed me to perform my job without involving me emotionally. Perhaps that allowed me to be more effective. I couldn't help but replay all of the "criminals" I had arrested and think about them. The more I did this, the more the truth became inescapable. It was as though I had been robbed of my innocence and I suddenly realized that I would never see people the same way again. I am grateful for that.
Perhaps we don't really understand people like Allen's son and we don't really want to. All we have seen is shadows. All we see is some drug crazed kid shooting up a joint and we focus all of our attention on that brief act. But inside that kid was a 20 year old piece of videotape we would never have wanted to see. To see it might cause empathy or distraction. We would become fully exposed, lose our innocence, perhaps our sense of justice. See a little boy, by himself, watching his parents fight. Scared and alone. People would call us weak or liberal-label us. We fear for ourselves. It is simpler not to know any of that and there is always someone to tell us it's not relevant to the criminal act and so we hide from it rather than get judged as sympathetic or insensitive to the victims we represent.
About a week later, I saw Allen. He was going to his son's sentencing. I asked him what he was going to do. He said that he was going to get on that witness stand and tell the world what a horrible drug dealing and miserable father he had been. How he had imprinted his child with the belief systems he had employed and what he had done to his son. That he had poorly equipped his son. He did that. He told his whole story.
The truth set Allen free. After 20 years, he finally stood up for his son. And you know what, that Judge set his son free. Gave him probation and released him to the custody of his father. I don't know if there were any angry robbery victims in the court room that day. Instead of taking 25 years of his life, that judge gave a wounded kid back his life. The judge gave a wounded father back his life also. Man, what a happy beginning. I hope they write a happy ending.
In late 2007, I was undergoing a vast paradigm shift and just beginning to question my own flawed belief systems. I was sober, rational, and aware. Present and available in every possible sense of those two words. I had been a police officer all of my life. I had met a man that had been a "criminal" all of his life. I remember him well, his identity is not important but his story is too important to be forgotten. Our paths crossed in New Orleans.
Allen had grown up in a terribly dysfunctional and alcoholic home. He had watched his parents drink, drug, cheat on each other, argue, and fight. As a child he was hostage to this madness and powerless to intervene or stop it. He acquired belief systems that allowed him to survive. Merely survive. By his late teens he was fully engaged in all of the madness that he had watched his parents engage in. That was his reality. He accepted that as true. As he grew into a young man like most drug addicts, he began to sell dope and sleep with women who also used alcohol and dope to escape their realities. He was an alcoholic. To that end one of those women Allen saw became pregnant. It does not take much to bring a life into the world and so it was.
Allen continued to drink and drug with the mother of his child, to sleep with other women, and she in turn slept with other men. They argued and fought verbally and physically. They dealt and used dope in front of their son-enmeshing him in all of the dysfunction that was their lives. They abandoned that son emotionally, physically, and spiritually while engaged in the beliefs that this was simply how you lived. Justifying their existence as normal, plagued with issues of self esteem, this then was their belief systems. They were never able to recognize that collective ego nor did they have the tools or capacity to stop.
Allen's son became a drug addict and alcoholic as well. That is what he learned. Allen at some point, had enough and he found a bottom or he picked one. He got sober and aware. He became conscious and rational. He began sifting through the wreckage of his life. He began to accept the bad beliefs he received as a child and he forgave his parents as ill equipped. He began to accept responsibility for his own life and what he had done to his son. He had been sober a few years when his son landed in jail.
Allen's son, in a drug and alcohol crazed robbery, had entered the business he had just been fired from. Armed with a gun he had attempted to rob his previous employer, shooting up the place but thankfully not injuring or killing anyone. Clearly it was the only small victory for a staff of people traumatized by the whole episode. Allen's son was arrested the following day and had been sitting in jail for nearly a year. His sentencing in that neighboring state would occur in a couple of weeks. The prosecution had recommended 25 years.
As Allen told this story he began to cry. Sober now, he fully realized what he had done to his son during all of those years of drinking and drugging and I cannot fully capture the agony and despair in his voice. It was absolutely gut wrenching.
There was one old cop listening that night. A cop that had rigorously enforced the law and sought to put every "criminal" behind bars. A cop that aligned his belief system only for the sake of victims. A cop that believed criminals should be shown no mercy, a cop that didn't really understand why people behaved the way they did. Nor did he ever bother thinking about it. It would have been a tremendous loss had that cop never heard that story. Because in that instant, I realized that Allen's son was also a victim. An alcoholic and drug addict completely self absorbed by a belief system and ego laced with booze and drugs that said that this is acceptable behavior and he robbed that store. I realized in that moment there was no such thing as a "criminal." These were real people rather than some nameless and faceless booking number. There were simply millions of people that we label and judge as such. As I pondered all of this, I acquired a belief that virtually nobody is born with a bad heart. That these people are all created as a result of fear, bad belief systems, and a warped ego that really didn't know right from wrong.
In the days that followed I couldn't get Allen or his son out of my mind. I couldn't escape the truth that I had never really bothered to understand people like Allen's son. Perhaps it was a defense mechanism that allowed me to perform my job without involving me emotionally. Perhaps that allowed me to be more effective. I couldn't help but replay all of the "criminals" I had arrested and think about them. The more I did this, the more the truth became inescapable. It was as though I had been robbed of my innocence and I suddenly realized that I would never see people the same way again. I am grateful for that.
Perhaps we don't really understand people like Allen's son and we don't really want to. All we have seen is shadows. All we see is some drug crazed kid shooting up a joint and we focus all of our attention on that brief act. But inside that kid was a 20 year old piece of videotape we would never have wanted to see. To see it might cause empathy or distraction. We would become fully exposed, lose our innocence, perhaps our sense of justice. See a little boy, by himself, watching his parents fight. Scared and alone. People would call us weak or liberal-label us. We fear for ourselves. It is simpler not to know any of that and there is always someone to tell us it's not relevant to the criminal act and so we hide from it rather than get judged as sympathetic or insensitive to the victims we represent.
About a week later, I saw Allen. He was going to his son's sentencing. I asked him what he was going to do. He said that he was going to get on that witness stand and tell the world what a horrible drug dealing and miserable father he had been. How he had imprinted his child with the belief systems he had employed and what he had done to his son. That he had poorly equipped his son. He did that. He told his whole story.
The truth set Allen free. After 20 years, he finally stood up for his son. And you know what, that Judge set his son free. Gave him probation and released him to the custody of his father. I don't know if there were any angry robbery victims in the court room that day. Instead of taking 25 years of his life, that judge gave a wounded kid back his life. The judge gave a wounded father back his life also. Man, what a happy beginning. I hope they write a happy ending.
Essay 7. Rendering Negative Judgments
I absolutely love this topic. Of the thousands of people I have met and of the thousands of books and articles, opinions, editorials, and blogs I have consumed, I came to believe that this is an absolute epidemic. Of all those thousands of people and authored writings, I have only seen a handful-perhaps, five or six, who absolutely refused to judge others. Many others, nearly all authors, did not render enough information to assess. Those shadows again.
And as I listened to people and read those things what was I doing? Correct! Judging them.
We can have fun with this topic. In my essay, "Confessions of a Recovering Ego Maniac" I identified groups of people, clinging to their beliefs and egos, in such a way that it was humorous. It is only humorous because we have a collective belief that those stereotypes exist and we accept that. That essay was generated and placed on a competitive writing site wherein people are asked to judge it's value. It has remained at the top of it's category since I first penciled it out.
People are constantly judging and evaluating everything they collect through their five senses and rendering judgments. Good judgment is the litmus test for survival, common sense, and growth. Because good judgment is very valuable we accept it as rational although it is clearly subjective and belief system driven. Good judgment does not fit our criteria of a bad belief system and in fact we are here trying to improve our own.
Let me give you an example of a belief system or perhaps just an insight into a belief system. I once knew a man who habitually carried large amounts of cash in excess of five thousand dollars. He was an older gentleman and we became good friends. One day, I asked him why it was that he carried all that money, all the time. His explanation made perfect sense to me but only because he offered it to me. He said that he had grown up in the great depression. He had lost money as a result of bank failures. The economy thereafter rendered him poor and at the mercy of strangers. He said that he vowed if he ever were to obtain money again, that he would not trust all of his wealth to the safekeeping of banks. In fact he carried large amounts of cash and had some stowed away in safekeeping in the event that a similar situation ever occurred. Thus he developed a belief system as a result of real loss and insecurity. Clearly it was fear driven but that fear was very real to him and in fact he had lived through it. I had not.
His carrying all that dough was a shadow to me, I did not understand it until I did.
What we should focus on here is the very real and negative consequences of uttering negative judgments. Remember that "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me" cliche'? That old saw is both absolutely correct and absolutely incorrect simultaneously.
It is correct in that the judgments and opinions of others is none of our business. It is incorrect in that words do in fact, hurt us. Sometimes we accept the harsh judgments of our parents and siblings as true. Sometimes we build entire and inaccurate belief systems including lack of self esteem and self worth because of them. Perhaps teachers say things that corroborate those fearful feelings that we have. Sometimes words anger us or cause us to lash out in a never ending game of "one ups man ship" that leaves both parties diminished and hurt.
Characterizing people as arrogant, self absorbed, jaded, cynical, or any of the thousands of ways that we have invented to negatively characterize someone else instantly becomes part of our bad belief system. If we say that Joe is a pussy or a coward, we have instantly uttered an opinion and a belief that we most likely will adhere to. We may have acquired a bad belief which is very often limited to an isolated incident or very incomplete information. We simply do not know whether Joe is a coward or not, because we don't know the history of Joe. The person uttering that statement by implication, believes that by identifying Joe as a coward based on a singular incident, he somehow feels better about himself-perhaps even courageous. In fact that person may even be a coward himself, fearful, and making accusations to bolster his own fragile ego. He is simply living his life directed by that fearful ego that must utter such judgments.
Judging others negatively is insane. We do so ever so freely and with incredibly limited information. By and large rendering harsh judgments gets us nowhere close to emotional freedom. Most people do not respond well to judgment or criticism and they will visit us with their own brand of judgment.
There is one noteworthy exception. If you have established a position of love and understanding, trust, with your target audience it is possible to render a negative judgment that they may see as true, helpful, and well intended. Some people really do have a capacity to listen and change. My belief system says that they are the minority and that I must exercise great caution and timing when passing a negative judgment and I generally have a viable solution when I do. I choose my words ever so carefully. Words are in fact everything-this cannot be overstated.
To attain emotional freedom, I am simply going to refuse to negatively judge people. This is the safest course. If you choose this same path and make a commitment to stop judging people negatively, you should be aware of one other thing. Your past judgments do not clear up over night. People will hold deep seated animosity and resentments if you have left them scarred and they are not going to suddenly see a halo over your head. It takes time and commitment and you will undoubtedly fall back into rendering negative judgments from time to time as situations arise. But at least you will be aware of the impacts and you can always make immediate amends.
You now have recognition and awareness. Once that occurs, it becomes your responsibility to take action if your goal is emotional freedom.
Will we as individuals or as a culture ever recognize just how damaging this is? Can we escape Plato's cave by understanding that negative judgments are simply shadows that we don't fully understand and that we may never have the capacity to understand? I'm not sure. I am desperately trying to escape that shadow filled cave and it's simply too early to render a judgment. So to speak.
Refusing to negatively judge others becomes part of our new operating system. If that system requires new beliefs, the dissolving of our old ego, acceptance, courageous responsibility, and refusing to negatively judge others, we cannot ignore the role of fear and control. Fear and control as we are about to see, represent a big virus that is bogging down our new computer. Recognizing and eliminating that virus is going to bring us operating efficiencies that we never dreamed possible.
And as I listened to people and read those things what was I doing? Correct! Judging them.
We can have fun with this topic. In my essay, "Confessions of a Recovering Ego Maniac" I identified groups of people, clinging to their beliefs and egos, in such a way that it was humorous. It is only humorous because we have a collective belief that those stereotypes exist and we accept that. That essay was generated and placed on a competitive writing site wherein people are asked to judge it's value. It has remained at the top of it's category since I first penciled it out.
People are constantly judging and evaluating everything they collect through their five senses and rendering judgments. Good judgment is the litmus test for survival, common sense, and growth. Because good judgment is very valuable we accept it as rational although it is clearly subjective and belief system driven. Good judgment does not fit our criteria of a bad belief system and in fact we are here trying to improve our own.
Let me give you an example of a belief system or perhaps just an insight into a belief system. I once knew a man who habitually carried large amounts of cash in excess of five thousand dollars. He was an older gentleman and we became good friends. One day, I asked him why it was that he carried all that money, all the time. His explanation made perfect sense to me but only because he offered it to me. He said that he had grown up in the great depression. He had lost money as a result of bank failures. The economy thereafter rendered him poor and at the mercy of strangers. He said that he vowed if he ever were to obtain money again, that he would not trust all of his wealth to the safekeeping of banks. In fact he carried large amounts of cash and had some stowed away in safekeeping in the event that a similar situation ever occurred. Thus he developed a belief system as a result of real loss and insecurity. Clearly it was fear driven but that fear was very real to him and in fact he had lived through it. I had not.
His carrying all that dough was a shadow to me, I did not understand it until I did.
What we should focus on here is the very real and negative consequences of uttering negative judgments. Remember that "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me" cliche'? That old saw is both absolutely correct and absolutely incorrect simultaneously.
It is correct in that the judgments and opinions of others is none of our business. It is incorrect in that words do in fact, hurt us. Sometimes we accept the harsh judgments of our parents and siblings as true. Sometimes we build entire and inaccurate belief systems including lack of self esteem and self worth because of them. Perhaps teachers say things that corroborate those fearful feelings that we have. Sometimes words anger us or cause us to lash out in a never ending game of "one ups man ship" that leaves both parties diminished and hurt.
Characterizing people as arrogant, self absorbed, jaded, cynical, or any of the thousands of ways that we have invented to negatively characterize someone else instantly becomes part of our bad belief system. If we say that Joe is a pussy or a coward, we have instantly uttered an opinion and a belief that we most likely will adhere to. We may have acquired a bad belief which is very often limited to an isolated incident or very incomplete information. We simply do not know whether Joe is a coward or not, because we don't know the history of Joe. The person uttering that statement by implication, believes that by identifying Joe as a coward based on a singular incident, he somehow feels better about himself-perhaps even courageous. In fact that person may even be a coward himself, fearful, and making accusations to bolster his own fragile ego. He is simply living his life directed by that fearful ego that must utter such judgments.
Judging others negatively is insane. We do so ever so freely and with incredibly limited information. By and large rendering harsh judgments gets us nowhere close to emotional freedom. Most people do not respond well to judgment or criticism and they will visit us with their own brand of judgment.
There is one noteworthy exception. If you have established a position of love and understanding, trust, with your target audience it is possible to render a negative judgment that they may see as true, helpful, and well intended. Some people really do have a capacity to listen and change. My belief system says that they are the minority and that I must exercise great caution and timing when passing a negative judgment and I generally have a viable solution when I do. I choose my words ever so carefully. Words are in fact everything-this cannot be overstated.
To attain emotional freedom, I am simply going to refuse to negatively judge people. This is the safest course. If you choose this same path and make a commitment to stop judging people negatively, you should be aware of one other thing. Your past judgments do not clear up over night. People will hold deep seated animosity and resentments if you have left them scarred and they are not going to suddenly see a halo over your head. It takes time and commitment and you will undoubtedly fall back into rendering negative judgments from time to time as situations arise. But at least you will be aware of the impacts and you can always make immediate amends.
You now have recognition and awareness. Once that occurs, it becomes your responsibility to take action if your goal is emotional freedom.
Will we as individuals or as a culture ever recognize just how damaging this is? Can we escape Plato's cave by understanding that negative judgments are simply shadows that we don't fully understand and that we may never have the capacity to understand? I'm not sure. I am desperately trying to escape that shadow filled cave and it's simply too early to render a judgment. So to speak.
Refusing to negatively judge others becomes part of our new operating system. If that system requires new beliefs, the dissolving of our old ego, acceptance, courageous responsibility, and refusing to negatively judge others, we cannot ignore the role of fear and control. Fear and control as we are about to see, represent a big virus that is bogging down our new computer. Recognizing and eliminating that virus is going to bring us operating efficiencies that we never dreamed possible.
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