Fear or Love of Ourselves

I wonder how many people realize they are afraid of themselves, they are afraid of how they will react to what people say to them or what life offers them.  I see this as one of the biggest problem we human have; fear of themselves.  The solution to this problem, of course, is to practice loving yourself, particularly when you are being most abusive to yourself.  And we are being abusive to ourselves when we take offense at someone or are being angry or pessimistic.  It takes consciousness and practice to change a behavior that is not really serving us, like the behavior of abusing ourselves.  However, the effort is worth it...YOU are worth it.

Loving ourselves is not easy, particularly if we have been taught to hate and abuse ourselves.  Most people have been taught that there is something wrong with them, that they are lacking something or that they are sinners or some other nonsense.  People tell us that because THEY want us to be something other than we are or THEY want to use us in some way.

As children we are gullible and believe what we are told, we believe we are flawed or lacking or sinners.  However, as adults, we can question the ideas, and if we do, we will find that they are nonsense, assuming of course that we truly question them.

So let us say that we have questioned those judgments of us and found that the criteria for them were faulty, based upon faulty assumptions.  So what do we do now to stop abusing ourselves and start loving ourselves?

How Do We Start Loving Ourselves?

Conceptually this is easy but the practice of this takes concentration, awareness and dedication, for all your life you have develop certain habits and those habits are deeply engrained, it will take some work to retrain yourself to healthier, more loving habits.

I like to use an arithmetic like scale to visualize the process.  On the left side of the scale are the negative numbers, in this case the negative experiences.  In the middle is zero or neutral experiences and on the right side are the positive numbers or positive experiences.  The further from center one goes the larger the absolute value of the number and the greater the intensity of the experience.

We all want positive life experiences and at least we are open to neutral experiences like peace and contentment.  So we naturally have a desire to move to the right on this scale, from the negative to the positive or from the more negative to the less negative or from neutral to the positive or from the less positive to the more positive.

So how do we go from the negative to the positive?  First off, we look at WHY something is experienced as negative and this will tell us a lot about how to go from negative to positive.

If we watch ourselves closely when we are experience some intensely negative experience, say fear, we will notice that we are uptight and/or contracted.  Our mind is very narrow-minded focused and contracted too.

And if we were to observe ourselves when we are feeling great we would notice that our body is relaxed and feels expanded; and our mind is expanded, embracing the big picture of life.

Therefore, from this we realize that to move from the negative/contracted state to the positive/expanded state is to change the focus of our mind and to make an effort to relax the body.

I will talk more about how to do this later, but here I want to say that in essence it take consciousness of when we are tense, uptight and narrow-mindedly focused usually on ourselves or our interests and see how this behavior is not pleasant but is actually abusive to ourselves.  The more we do this the more we will fear ourselves.

We can start making a choice now; start to move away from this habit and towards a more loving behavior toward ourselves.

The choice is ours and the power to choose comes with practice.

I am Closed-Mindedness

I recognize that, at times, I am closed-minded and I recognize that we all are closed-minded at times. It is natural for a person to resist change or new ideas or new ways of thinking.

Recognizing this but not wanting to close myself off to something new that might improve the quality of my life experience, I decided to look at closed mindedness and how to overcome that handicap.

So how do I ensure that I do not be closed-minded? I cannot.

What I can do it to make myself comfortable with listening to what others have to say, and I can develop a habit of not reacting while they are telling me what they think will benefit me. I can also encourage people to recognize that we all are closed-minded and I can ask them to keep trying even if I do not seem to be receptive at first.

One thing I never want to do is to take offense at anything anyone offers me, for that is a sure sign I am closed-minded.

How can I help others I see who are being themselves and closing themselves off to anything the universe is offering them? I am not sure that I can, except to do what I have just done and write about, hoping that others will recognize this trait within themselves. I also will make every effort to break through someone’s closed mindedness that I feel I can. My friends will recognize this as a loving effort to serve them. Those who are not part of my ‘tribe’ will probably take offense at this effort and there is a very good chance they will ‘un-friend’ me in one form or another.

When does being persistent become pestering someone? That is relative and only each one of us can define that for ourselves. I find that the more closed-minded a person is the more they will perceive ANY intrusion as pestering. Yet, I also find that the more open minded a person is they will be willing to at least listen fully to what you are offering and you will feel complete in your offering even if they do not find what you are offering as valuable to them at this time.

Why are some people more closed-minded than others are? I find that if a person has developed a habit of abusing themselves emotionally and blaming others for that abuse. So they will naturally be afraid of THEMSELVES and their own reactions to what others share with them, so they will not want to hear what others have to say, at least not if those others think outside of the narrow boxes in their mind.

Not all allowing others to share with us is about us. Sometimes people just need to share or even vent, so allowing them to do that with you is an act of compassion or love. In addition, of course, compassion and love are good for you.

Thank You for Your Feedback

I want to thank those who have been so generous with their feedback, criticism, judgment and even persecutions of me.  These greatest of all possible gifts are been very good for me.  I recognize that no feedback, criticism, judgment or persecution can harm me, only my reactions to them can do me harm.  But they can point out to me how my reaction to them might be doing myself harm.

To be honest I have not always enjoyed and love these challenges.  I am now.  This morning I woke up and realized again the gift that this feedback, criticism, judgment or persecution is to me.  So I am grateful for all those who questioned my integrality, honesty, sincerity, empathy or compassion. 

I recognize that what I want is a beautiful life filled with appreciation, joy and love.  And I recognize that the measure I give is the measure I receive, so if I am appreciating, enjoying and loving what life is offering me then my life will be filled with the light of that appreciation, joy and love. 

It is easy to love those who love me; even the dualists can do that.  But there is so much greater spiritual benefit or profit to be able to love those who criticize, judge and persecute me.  And to me there can be no greater gift than this feedback. 

I do hope that all will continue to give me their light, insight, wisdoms, criticism, judgment and even persecutions.  For I recognize that I am forever falling asleep and this feedback is what can help awaken me from that sleep.  Should I take offense, resist or defend my “self” then I know that I have again fallen asleep. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

 

The Declining Value of Human Life

It has often been pointed out that we seem to appreciate human life less today than we did in the past.  I recently heard an interview of a WWII veteran who seemed appalled at how today in combat people take lives without as much concern as they apparently did during WWII.  [I find that particularly humorous since there were MILLIONS of people killed during the four years of WWII yet there were only hundreds of thousands of people killed in the ten plus years of the Viet Nam War or the Afghanistan war.]

Still, the point I want to make here is that given the law of supply and demand, the more supply you have of something the less value that something has, it is only natural that with the ever increasing population of humanity our appreciation and valuation of human beings will naturally decline. 

We value water excessively in a drought but in a flood water is very cheap. This planet is being flooded with human beings so it is only natural that we will value those human less than we did before the flood.

Of course, we may not like this fact because it confronts our own survival instinct, yet it still is a fact and sooner or later we will have to face it. 

I was interested to note that in many countries of the world, particularly Middle Eastern countries, over seventy percent of the population is less than thirty years old.  That means that in the last thirty years their populations have increased approximately three fold.  So is it any wonder that the young people of those countries are so willing to commit suicide?  And since there is no movement in those countries to counter the population explosion there we can only expect much more of the same from people.

I remember once listening to what is called ‘gangster rap’ whose main audience seems to be poorer people of color.  It was pointed out that a lot of the themes of this type of music seem to be hostility toward women and other people of color.  It seemed only natural that this would be so since from a global perspective it is poor people of color who are doing most of the baby making in the world.  And, although we really don’t like this idea, women are the controlling factor in baby making.  The poor people of color are the first ones in society who are experiencing the effects of the explosion of population, and they feel it at an instinctive level, even if they are not fully conscious of it. 

Why are women the ‘controlling factor’ in baby making?  Well, imagine we have two islands some place some place in the world.  On one island you put one hundred women and one man while on the other island you put one hundred men and one woman.  Now come back in a year and see what you get.  On the first island you will have one very happy man and probably one hundred and sixty or more other people.  On the other island you will have probably less than fifty men who will have survived and no women.  Obviously the quantity of women is the controlling factor in our population growth.

I would say this plays out in both India and China today where people generally value female babies less than they do male babies.  Since both of these countries are heavily over populated and are feeling the crunch of that overpopulation, the people will naturally value women less.  Unfortunately women are blamed for something that in most cases they have little control over, yet their very existence is a controlling factor. 

I would also like to point out that various subcultures, particularly religions, still promote the idea that baby making is very important.  These cultures cling to outdated ideologies from a time when survival was dependent on increasing populations.  That time has surely passed but these subcultures still cling to these now unhealthy (unholy) beliefs.  So naturally the people of these religions are getting the brunt of people’s animosity.  We see this in the increased conflicts between religious peoples and the more civilized world. 

Another primitive ideology that contributes to this ever increasing problem is our over emphasis on keeping people alive.  We hear stories about nature taking its course in various parts of the world where people are starving to death because there are too many people in that area because the land cannot produce enough food to feed them.  So the compassionate but narrow minded people rush in foods to support these people, which only add to their problem.  For these people then become dependent on those food contributions and they go about making more babies, compounding the problem further. 

We all see this ideology at work in our hospitals and medical industry that is making every effort to keep old or sick people alive long beyond the time when the quality of their life was worth living. 

These stupid ideologies are in direct confrontation with the gut feelings of most people particularly those who are experiencing the negative consequences of our population explosion.  Hence, poorer cultures and subcultures are becoming more violent toward one another.  And in the so called developed world we SAY we value human life but we are increasingly voting either with our money or our votes to make less effort to save lives and we are even making conscious and unconscious choices that are leading to the destruction of human lives. 

Naturally an intelligent solution would be to make a conscious effort to decrease our rate of population growth.  In both China and India they have done just that but in the rest of the world we are not doing it.  In fact, in many places like the US they are still making a conscious effort to INCREASE population growth.  In the US that is mostly a product of reactionary influences of the conservative (religious) cultures.  The more educated (and therefore less religious) people tend to have less children but they still support the unconscious ideology of saving lives at every cost, a product of their immature attachment to their own bodies or lives.

As it is in China, education seems to be of the greatest value in confronting the problem.  But also, as it is in China, that education will have to be ‘forced’ upon those who are the least interested in listen to a rational solution, those baby making subcultures of poor people of color and religious people.  This education process can start by raising the level of debate and discussion in our societies.  Part of this process will come from starting to judge people who are having more than one child per couple and publicly ostracizing them.   This may seem harsh, but as my step-father always used to say, “Sometimes you have to hit a jackass over the head with a two-by-four to get its attention.”

Yet, most people resist the idea of judging one another since they themselves are afraid of judgment, or afraid of themselves and their reactions to judgment. 

 

Why Be Realistic

Here is an article that demonstrates that delusional people are not only happier but usually more successful. I was thinking as I was reading this that Jesus was a delusional person, for he imagined he was God, the Creator of the Universe, and that he could, if he choose, call down legends of angles to protect him. Yet, he was lighter and happier than most the other people around him, and he was successful in drawing attention to himself, which was a hard thing to do in those days.

Another way of looking at this is that Jesus was just be optimistic. Yes, one can say that being optimistic is delusional just as being a pessimistic is being delusional, but at least if you are gong to delude yourself why not do it in a positive way instead of a negative way.

So why be realistic when being delusional with an optimistic bent is healthier in every possible way?

Conservatives

Conservatives stand for free market, except when it leads to real competition or less profit for their company. 
 
Conservatives stand for "In God We Trust" on the money but then worship that money.
 
Conservatives stand for "We the People" however the people they hold as sacred are not human beings but the Corporations which now hold full power to buy and sell elections.
 
Conservatives stand for Christian values. Except not the values Christ taught and the early Christians  lived.
 
Conservatives stand for the bill of rights Just not any parts of it other then the second amendment.
 
Conservatives stand for freedom, equality and social justice except for Blacks, Indians, Chicanos, orientals and foreigners.
 
Conservatives stand for the Constitution except for the amendments which somehow have made it unAmerican.
 
Conservatives like the words in the Sermon on the Mount but prefer the obey or die of Judaism.
 
Conservatives are people like you and I with no soul, no spirit of giving,  no concept of we and no real religion.
 
Conservatives kill off all the rest of us and would destroy the earth in the name of greed.
 
Robert N. Smith USN RET & Peacemaker

The Shooting in Tucson

I am currently sitting in my motor home which is sitting in the parking lot of the Safeway where the shooting occurred last Saturday.  There are no police  here but the yellow tape is still up and there are several TV crews still here.  The Safeway is closed.

Last night I went to the memorial for those killed or wounded at the shooting, me and 26,000 other people.  Many of us spent 5 or more hours sitting in the hot sun waiting just to get in. 

There is pain in the heart as I write this.  Today was the funeral for most of those killed.

Last night I could not sleep.  I was only thinking of what was missing, what DIDN'T Obama say that could have been said that very well might have totally changed the picture.

NOBODY talked about forgiveness, particularly forgiveness of Jared Lee Loughner, the shooter.  Many people are still holding anger, confusion, animosity and fear in their hearts when they think of Jared.  This is pain that we are causing ourselves, Jared is not causing it.  Forgiveness is the way to let go of that habitual self abusive behavior. 

And forgiveness is only the first step in the real healing that comes with love...

I wish I had been here last Saturday.  I wish I had been wounded too, just so I could demonstrate forgiveness.   I wish I had been on that podium last night. If I was up there last night I would have challenged Tucson and America to forgive Jared.  I would have pointed out that Jared was looking for someone to show him how to love.  For if Jared had learned about love he never would have had any interest in killing anyone.

We failed Jared.  I failed Jared.  I will do better.