Within each of us exists a primitive nature. This nature contains basic drives and desires and instincts. It is the source of our sexual drive, our emotions, our desire to connect, our needs. It is the source of our negative feeling that give us so many problems - selfishness, anger, the desire for revenge, the instinct to hurt someone we perceive as an enemy, the instinct to hide, lie, cover up, pretend.
We come by this nature honestly - it is the product of millions of years of evolution. In the jungle, the instinct to attack and kill something you perceived as a threat was a useful instinct, and humans probably owe their very existence to it. The ability to run and hide kept us from dangers we could not outrun. The fight to feed ourselves first helped weed out the weakest, and made our race strong.
However, those same genes are now finding themselves in the 21st century, where many of these instincts are not only of little use, but can be destructive to ourselves and those we love. So we find ourselves in a conflict - our intellect does a fairly good job at figuring out what is useful to us, but the power of our primitive nature often overrides our intellect and causes us to do things we regret.
The primitive nature cannot be denied. We know all too well the effects of repressing anger, or sexuality, or our own needs. It can be just as destructive as acting out on them. The primitive is a real part of us, and ultimately cannot be suppressed, denied, or willed out of existence.
However, there is a way out of this conflict. The primitive nature, while very powerful, is not intelligent. We may want to kill someone, but writing an angry letter will satisfy us, and the desire to kill will recede. We may have strong sexual urges, and no way to satisfy them, but we can use a lot of physical exercise to compensate. We may want to eat that cake when we are on a diet, but find that eating a small amount after a healthy meal may do the trick.
The fact that our primitive energy can be fooled also explains some of the puzzling destructive acts that people do. Someone was abused by his father, and he winds up abusing his wife. It is clear he is taking revenge, but his primitive nature does not realize it is on the wrong person. A few characteristics that remind him of his father is all it takes to set in motion that desire for revenge, for eliminating the danger that hurt him so much before.
Our primal energy cannot be bottled up without destruction to ourselves; however, it can be channelled into other directions that are not so harmful. Our intelligence can be used to look at the various acts that would satisfy a primitive energy, and pick one that would not be harmful. One kind of therapy does anger work, where the client takes a large foam rubber bat, or a tennis racket, and beats on pillows. Amazingly, all the trapped anger and desire for revenge can pour forth in this setting, because the client will not hurt anyone or anything. The results is a release and a relief from anger that has been buried, and less of a desire to act that anger out in the world.
What stops us the most is shame. Our society looks down on primitive energies - on sexuality, violence, selfishness - and for good reasons. But the result is to cause us to be ashamed of our primitive self, and attempt to deny it is there, or prevent it from having any voice. This denial is what creates the shadow - the part of us we don't want to know, and reliably turn our eyes from, so that we can live up to an artificial standard of having no primitive side. But these powers grow in the shadow, since they are not being satisfied or channeled in a useful direction.
Primitive energies are ultimately good - they derive from life itself. But it takes awareness of them to capture that potent energy in them and use them for good. Sexuality can be used to build a deep relationship. Anger can be used to energize us to take action against some wrong in the world. Selfishness can be harnessed into helping us love ourselves so that we can be more present in the world. The desire to hide can be channelled into a time of meditation that can renew us rather than separate us.
All that is within us is good. The more we are aware, the more we can actualize our goodness.
Tuesday, June 3, 2003
Projection and self-acceptance
Coming to accept ourselves just as we are is a difficult battle for many people. Realizing they don't accept themselves as they are often becomes one more stick to beat themselves with. We are too often blind to our own attitudes, and trying to change alone is very difficult.
A very simple method for discovering the places where you do not accept yourself is by looking at people who bother you. We are only bothered by characteristics that we have judgment about. If I have no judgment about baldness, then I will have little reaction to someone who is bald, or to noticing that my own hair is thinning. However, if I have judgment about talking too much, I will be annoyed by those who do so.
Think of people you know, and pick the person who bothers you the most. Then pick the attitude that they have that annoys you the most. This is a judgment against that attitude - a decision that having that attitude is not okay, and anyone who has that attitude is not okay. Any judgment that we carry against others, we also carry against ourselves. We do not accept something in others, because we do not accept it in ourselves. Ask yourself what it would be like if you had that same attitude yourself. You will probably find a sudden self-hatred welling up. Then ask yourself if you have ever had that attitude, or ever struggled with it. Since it has an emotional charge to you, it is likely that you have had, or currently struggle with that attitude yourself.
You have now pin-pointed something in yourself that you vehemently reject - a part of you that you are not okay with. This is a restriction you have placed on yourself that keeps you from true acceptance. Every judgment of others comes from a lack of acceptance of yourself. We cannot hate another unless we hate ourselves first, just as we cannot truly love another unless we learn to love ourselves.
Does that mean I should go out and do the things I despise and think are evil? No, not at all. But it does mean that we need to recognize that on some level, we are all human, and have primitive desires, and that we need compassion in dealing with those desires. When we pretend we are above all that, that is when we reject those who are not, and we create a division between us and them, creating the illusion that we are different, better than, other.
Unity comes through recognizing our common nature in all of its forms.
A very simple method for discovering the places where you do not accept yourself is by looking at people who bother you. We are only bothered by characteristics that we have judgment about. If I have no judgment about baldness, then I will have little reaction to someone who is bald, or to noticing that my own hair is thinning. However, if I have judgment about talking too much, I will be annoyed by those who do so.
Think of people you know, and pick the person who bothers you the most. Then pick the attitude that they have that annoys you the most. This is a judgment against that attitude - a decision that having that attitude is not okay, and anyone who has that attitude is not okay. Any judgment that we carry against others, we also carry against ourselves. We do not accept something in others, because we do not accept it in ourselves. Ask yourself what it would be like if you had that same attitude yourself. You will probably find a sudden self-hatred welling up. Then ask yourself if you have ever had that attitude, or ever struggled with it. Since it has an emotional charge to you, it is likely that you have had, or currently struggle with that attitude yourself.
You have now pin-pointed something in yourself that you vehemently reject - a part of you that you are not okay with. This is a restriction you have placed on yourself that keeps you from true acceptance. Every judgment of others comes from a lack of acceptance of yourself. We cannot hate another unless we hate ourselves first, just as we cannot truly love another unless we learn to love ourselves.
Does that mean I should go out and do the things I despise and think are evil? No, not at all. But it does mean that we need to recognize that on some level, we are all human, and have primitive desires, and that we need compassion in dealing with those desires. When we pretend we are above all that, that is when we reject those who are not, and we create a division between us and them, creating the illusion that we are different, better than, other.
Unity comes through recognizing our common nature in all of its forms.
Judgment
Judgment consists of two things - opinion, and rejection. When someone does something that we disapprove of, and we feel angry, we have an opinion about what they did, and what should have been done instead. However, the harm is not in the opinion - the harm is in the rejection. On some level, we, the ones who judge, create an imaginary separation between us and them. They should have done differently, we believe, and since we know that, we feel somehow superior to them.
Often we shun someone in obvious or subtle ways - we talk to them less, we decide we don't want them as a friend, we avoid them, we smile politely rather than being real, we talk about them behind their backs. All these acts are ways of causing separation, of denying the underlying commonality we all have as human beings.
Acceptance can be a difficult thing - it means the willingness not to push someone away, or to remove ourselves from them, simply because we don't like a characteristic. But the separation we create causes us to live in an increasingly narrow world, where only certain people meet our standards. The danger in narrowing our world down to only those people who are good enough, is that we might find we ourselves don't qualify. The horrible fear of everyone who lives in judgment is that they will ultimately be the ones who are judged and rejected, and their fear spurs them on to even greater efforts to be right, to be righteous, and to shun those who might taint them in some way.
It is when we let go of our fear, and accept who we are, that we discover we are in a world full of brothers.
Often we shun someone in obvious or subtle ways - we talk to them less, we decide we don't want them as a friend, we avoid them, we smile politely rather than being real, we talk about them behind their backs. All these acts are ways of causing separation, of denying the underlying commonality we all have as human beings.
Acceptance can be a difficult thing - it means the willingness not to push someone away, or to remove ourselves from them, simply because we don't like a characteristic. But the separation we create causes us to live in an increasingly narrow world, where only certain people meet our standards. The danger in narrowing our world down to only those people who are good enough, is that we might find we ourselves don't qualify. The horrible fear of everyone who lives in judgment is that they will ultimately be the ones who are judged and rejected, and their fear spurs them on to even greater efforts to be right, to be righteous, and to shun those who might taint them in some way.
It is when we let go of our fear, and accept who we are, that we discover we are in a world full of brothers.
Thursday, May 29, 2003
So Obvious
From the outside looking in, it is so obvious to me what you should do to change your life. I can see it clearly. It doesn't look hard. I get annoyed because you seem to be resisting.
Yet, I come home, and ignore once again the pile of unanswered mail, unpaid bills, undone laundry. So simple. Just open the envelopes, write a check, put soap in the washer. Yet, for some reason, for me, the thought of these simple acts fills me with terror, and night after night, I choose instead to snuggle up to my computer and the comfort of killing aliens.
Faced with my own helplessness over something so simple and so absurd, I feel ashamed. I feel ashamed to the same degree that I feel superior judging you when you can't get past a block. The shame stops me from reaching out, from admitting to you that I have a weakness. The shame stops me from discovering my commonality with you, and keeps me believing that I am somehow different, separate, not really a part of the universe, not really part of the grand scheme of things.
If I tell you I am weak, you might tell me you aren't, and I would feel lost. The unity of life fades, and the illusion of separation grows, each hiding our own precious shame, fearful lest someone discover we too are human.
It is sometimes difficult to love ourselves. That's why there are other people.
Yet, I come home, and ignore once again the pile of unanswered mail, unpaid bills, undone laundry. So simple. Just open the envelopes, write a check, put soap in the washer. Yet, for some reason, for me, the thought of these simple acts fills me with terror, and night after night, I choose instead to snuggle up to my computer and the comfort of killing aliens.
Faced with my own helplessness over something so simple and so absurd, I feel ashamed. I feel ashamed to the same degree that I feel superior judging you when you can't get past a block. The shame stops me from reaching out, from admitting to you that I have a weakness. The shame stops me from discovering my commonality with you, and keeps me believing that I am somehow different, separate, not really a part of the universe, not really part of the grand scheme of things.
If I tell you I am weak, you might tell me you aren't, and I would feel lost. The unity of life fades, and the illusion of separation grows, each hiding our own precious shame, fearful lest someone discover we too are human.
It is sometimes difficult to love ourselves. That's why there are other people.
Five Degrees of Awareness
Awareness brings us freedom. The victim is the person not aware of the part he plays in his own drama, and thus not aware of the other choices he has. As we increase our awareness of how we live our lives, we find we are more responsible, yet, paradoxically, more free.
First Degree - the Watcher When drama happens in our life, we experience only the people and things around us, but not ourselves. Consider animals, which to the best of our knowledge have no self-awareness. A dog sits alone in a house, lonely, hungry. He is not aware of himself as a lonely, hungry dog, sitting in a room - he is aware of a room with no one in it and uncomfortable sensations hovering around. The owner comes home, and the dog is happy. He sees the owner, and the world seems good again. The dog is not aware of himself being present as part of the drama.
So our initial experience of any drama in our lives is the environment around us, which catches our attention and invades our senses. We do not notice ourselves, because we are the ones watching. We do not notice our judgments of others, because we don't experience our judgments - rather, we experience those around us as being a certain way.
Second Degree - the Feeler At this degree, we notice that we exist, and that we react to the world around us. We are aware we have feelings, opinions, intentions, and desires, and we are aware of ourselves as a being in the world, reacting to things around us. When we are with someone, we conceptualize two people together, interacting. We are aware of ourselves. This is the first step to consciousness.
If a co-worker walks past me without saying a word, I may say to myself, "How rude!" This is first degree awareness - I am not aware of myself or my feelings - I am only aware of the co-worker and his rudeness, real or not. My experience is that he is rude. Second degree awareness causes me to say, "I'm insulted." I am now aware of myself in relationship to the co-worker, and my reactions to his actions. This is the first step to objectivity, and allows us to see our judgments as reactions of our feelings rather than reality.
Third Degree - the Actor We discover we are an actor in the drama occurring before our eyes. Not only do we have reactions to others, we interact with them. My feelings of insult may be because of expectations I have that may not be valid, or because of failure to be aware that my co-worker has a meeting and has no time to chat, or because I happen to feel grumpy already. My reactions are in part caused by my own actions, and not entirely by my environment. This is the beginning of responsibility.
In the drama before our eyes, the watcher and the feeler were in the audience, watching the play; the actor is actually on stage, creating part of the drama that is happening. We are now an active part of the story being created.
Fourth Degree - the Director We become aware that in this drama, we are not only acting our own part, but in our minds, we are creating the characters and situations we see around us. People become who we want them to become, and situations take shape the way we want them to take shape. If we want to see someone as cruel, we will notice every nuance that could be interpreted that way, and write off every bit of counter-evidence. The person afraid of abandonment keeps seeing abandonment in the actions of everyone he gets close to. The world conforms entirely to the drama we are caught in, and the other actors appear to take on the roles we want them to have. We recreate our story, using others to fulfill the necessary parts of the drama.
Fifth Degree - the Playwright Finally, we discover that we are the authors of the entire drama, from beginning to end. It doesn't just happen to us as victims of a tragic story - on some level, we have written the story, enlisted the players, given everyone their lines, delved deeply into the drama to recreate the feelings, and then watched from a distance as the story of our life goes by.
What next? Surprisingly, when we become aware, we do not feel despair, but rather a lightening of the load. It is the truth that sets us free. We no longer have to act out our drama. When we are fully aware of the reality, we stop acting, because reality is much more satisfying than the endless repetition of unconscious urges. Realizing that it was just a dream, we wake up, get up, stretch our limbs, and look out on a new day.
First Degree - the Watcher When drama happens in our life, we experience only the people and things around us, but not ourselves. Consider animals, which to the best of our knowledge have no self-awareness. A dog sits alone in a house, lonely, hungry. He is not aware of himself as a lonely, hungry dog, sitting in a room - he is aware of a room with no one in it and uncomfortable sensations hovering around. The owner comes home, and the dog is happy. He sees the owner, and the world seems good again. The dog is not aware of himself being present as part of the drama.
So our initial experience of any drama in our lives is the environment around us, which catches our attention and invades our senses. We do not notice ourselves, because we are the ones watching. We do not notice our judgments of others, because we don't experience our judgments - rather, we experience those around us as being a certain way.
Second Degree - the Feeler At this degree, we notice that we exist, and that we react to the world around us. We are aware we have feelings, opinions, intentions, and desires, and we are aware of ourselves as a being in the world, reacting to things around us. When we are with someone, we conceptualize two people together, interacting. We are aware of ourselves. This is the first step to consciousness.
If a co-worker walks past me without saying a word, I may say to myself, "How rude!" This is first degree awareness - I am not aware of myself or my feelings - I am only aware of the co-worker and his rudeness, real or not. My experience is that he is rude. Second degree awareness causes me to say, "I'm insulted." I am now aware of myself in relationship to the co-worker, and my reactions to his actions. This is the first step to objectivity, and allows us to see our judgments as reactions of our feelings rather than reality.
Third Degree - the Actor We discover we are an actor in the drama occurring before our eyes. Not only do we have reactions to others, we interact with them. My feelings of insult may be because of expectations I have that may not be valid, or because of failure to be aware that my co-worker has a meeting and has no time to chat, or because I happen to feel grumpy already. My reactions are in part caused by my own actions, and not entirely by my environment. This is the beginning of responsibility.
In the drama before our eyes, the watcher and the feeler were in the audience, watching the play; the actor is actually on stage, creating part of the drama that is happening. We are now an active part of the story being created.
Fourth Degree - the Director We become aware that in this drama, we are not only acting our own part, but in our minds, we are creating the characters and situations we see around us. People become who we want them to become, and situations take shape the way we want them to take shape. If we want to see someone as cruel, we will notice every nuance that could be interpreted that way, and write off every bit of counter-evidence. The person afraid of abandonment keeps seeing abandonment in the actions of everyone he gets close to. The world conforms entirely to the drama we are caught in, and the other actors appear to take on the roles we want them to have. We recreate our story, using others to fulfill the necessary parts of the drama.
Fifth Degree - the Playwright Finally, we discover that we are the authors of the entire drama, from beginning to end. It doesn't just happen to us as victims of a tragic story - on some level, we have written the story, enlisted the players, given everyone their lines, delved deeply into the drama to recreate the feelings, and then watched from a distance as the story of our life goes by.
What next? Surprisingly, when we become aware, we do not feel despair, but rather a lightening of the load. It is the truth that sets us free. We no longer have to act out our drama. When we are fully aware of the reality, we stop acting, because reality is much more satisfying than the endless repetition of unconscious urges. Realizing that it was just a dream, we wake up, get up, stretch our limbs, and look out on a new day.
Wednesday, May 21, 2003
The Dance of Life
At any given moment in our lives, there are things we can do, and things we can't do - there are open doors and closed doors. At every moment, that configuration changes slightly - something new becomes possible, a new opportunity arises, a new person comes into our life. And some doors close - the weather turns and we can't do the picnic, we get sick and can't work, the traffic light turns red.
Dancing with life involves being aware of what is available and what is not, and moving with it. It means seizing the opportunity before us, and letting go of opportunities past. It means going through the open doors and stop pushing on the closed ones.
Dancing with life involves a lot of letting go. There are many things we demand of the universe that we simply can't have - perfection of ourselves and others, staying young, people behaving as we think they should. When we have no control over something or someone, dancing means letting go and finding a way of accepting what is and flowing with it.
Dancing also means being aware of when our energy can merge with the universe and produce new life. It means realizing when the power to change the world truly lies in our hands, and then freely choosing how to respond.
Dancing with grace means flowing smoothly, without strain, responding quickly to the lead, willing to change in the moment if it is right to do. When opportunities change, we move instantly to the next one, rather than wasting energy resenting the change to our plans. Dancing with life is living in the moment, and letting go of our investment in past directions.
Dancing with life involves being aware of what is available and what is not, and moving with it. It means seizing the opportunity before us, and letting go of opportunities past. It means going through the open doors and stop pushing on the closed ones.
Dancing with life involves a lot of letting go. There are many things we demand of the universe that we simply can't have - perfection of ourselves and others, staying young, people behaving as we think they should. When we have no control over something or someone, dancing means letting go and finding a way of accepting what is and flowing with it.
Dancing also means being aware of when our energy can merge with the universe and produce new life. It means realizing when the power to change the world truly lies in our hands, and then freely choosing how to respond.
Dancing with grace means flowing smoothly, without strain, responding quickly to the lead, willing to change in the moment if it is right to do. When opportunities change, we move instantly to the next one, rather than wasting energy resenting the change to our plans. Dancing with life is living in the moment, and letting go of our investment in past directions.
Thursday, May 15, 2003
Unlimited
It's not until you fully embrace where you are that you can be somewhere else.
It's not until you fully embrace who you are that you can love someone else.
It's not until you fully embrace your limitations that you can become unlimited.
It's not until you fully embrace who you are that you can love someone else.
It's not until you fully embrace your limitations that you can become unlimited.
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