In certain environments we may be around people who say, why can't you just be happy? Cheer up. You're okay. Everything's fine. In other words, how we're feeling is not okay. Our authentic response to the environment we're in is somehow wrong, or inconvenient to others. In that moment, if we don't sense the environment changing anytime soon, we yearn for a way to feel better about it. At some point the solution is given. Someone comes along and says, guess what, you can change the way you think and feel about the environment you're in! All you need to do is think different thoughts and then you will have a different feeling response. So basically, nothing needs to authentically change, you just get to think and feel different about it all and thus feel better no matter what! We hear that, and think, yes, what a great idea! I get to take control of how I think and feel and as a result I will get better feedback from the people around me who want me to feel happy and good and satisfied. So, we employ the strategy. Perhaps repeating thoughts like, "I'm exactly where I'm meant to be." And lo and behold, we feel better. That is a "good feeling" thought. And on we go, getting better and better at using thoughts to manipulate our feeling body and we feel good about ourselves because we're really making progress.
At some point as we're moving along feeling better no matter what, we get or are given by someone else the brilliant idea of extending this "practice" outwards. Rather than just employing it to manipulate and control how we think and feel, perhaps we can influence the people around us and make them think and feel better too. How ingenious! How clever we've become. So, we get to work, starting to offer other people these thoughts to implant into their "subconscious" mind so that they can feel different too. And oh, even better, once we do that enough we start to change and modify our behaviors so that we get different results in life. Now we've really gotten somewhere! Not only have we learned how to change how we think and feel regardless of what the environment is like, we now can influence our own and now others behaviors so that we are all making progress, taking control and making things better. On it goes, up the ladder, feeling good about our hard work, becoming more effective, getting the right thoughts in there and feeling good and proud, and then seeing some results. The control and manipulation is working, so we keep going. Employing the strategies more, and more and more. At some point however, it may show up as a person in our life, or just from within our self, there is this anger, or backlash. Someone doesn't like being manipulated and controlled. It's stifling, un-kind, and even abusive. Even if it's so "positive" and "good" and "making things better." There's something inside us, or someone who shows up in front of us that goes: "go fuck yourself with all your bright ideas." And we're surprised. What is this anger? They, or something within me just doesn't get it! They are being negative, so lets find a way to get rid of them! If it's a person in your life it may be easier. If it's arising within you, then what? The response may be to double down, get stronger thoughts, to negate or be rid of this in-compliant response pattern. The anger may subside, but then you may notice difficulty sleeping. Your mind just can't stop. Or you notice your body and there is all this tension. Or you notice that you're incapable of appreciating your environment or allowing yourself to feel sad when something occurs that is truly heartbreaking. Eventually there may be a pause. Something that wakes up in your body, a frequency, an intuition, the presence of a different energy that is essentially saying, take a breath, notice your body, pay attention to your breathing and observe the state of your mind. You hear the question: Is this where you want to be? And we allow the grief and sadness to well as the "no" emerges. Then perhaps there is a fear of not wanting to go back to what it was like before the positive manipulation strategy was introduced. You've gained so much by being able to control things and not be powerless over how you feel, you don't want to lose it all now. This voice of love that's beginning to wake up inside of you says "you won't". It's not like that. And so perhaps you begin to listen, and breathe, and get curious about how you authentically feel and whether this new frequency of love can help you change your life circumstances naturally and organically so that you're response to where you are is one of peace and calm, appreciation and acknowledgment of beauty. As you breathe, and notice what's here, and what's arising, that perhaps wasn't available when you employed the strategy, you can ask for help from this loving field to surrender the strategies and go on a new adventure where you are loved, supported, honored and cared for every step of the way. For a different blog on this subject you're welcome to read Beyond Coping.
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The fear-based learning classroom is the land of self-modification. It’s all about what you’re allowed to express and must reject to hopefully earn, deserve or be worthy of the rewards, and what you’re allowed to express and must reject to avoid the punishments. It gets even more complex than this! In addition to having to reject or hold back aspects of yourself and only expressing the aspects of yourself that are approved of, liked, desired or appreciated by those around you, there is also this concept of being “not good enough” or “too much.” Which means, what you inherently contain, even with this initial modification of partial expression and partial rejection, will not do! You have to become someone or something else entirely, someone or something different than that which you are. You must adopt traits, characteristics, or even entire belief systems from the people around you and then present those as “who you are,” and even then it may not be enough to guarantee rewards and prevent punishments! Some of us even went to the extent of rejecting the totality of our Self and becoming whatever the people in the environment needed or wanted us to be. In other words, we learned not to express our Self at all and only present to others what was internalized from them.
Living in this land of self-modification, under the conditions of partial or no self-expression, and partial or full self-rejection, at some point we can’t take it anymore! It’s like our very Being is screaming inside! It’s absolute torture to live this way. That which contains love, which is our very Being is so stifled or almost absent, that we feel starved, destitute, diminished and unfulfilled. We often oscillate between a deep longing to be who we are and express ourselves in the world and a deep hatred of the world or a hatred of other people for doing this to us, or an deep seated anger or rage at “that” which made us this way, whether “that” is internalized or externalized. Either I did this to myself (shame) or someone else did this to me or gave me no other choice then to do this (blame). Either way, we are trapped…Until we’re not. **And just as a side note, what is spoken here may or may not apply to you, so as you read I invite you to ponder the question of how you uniquely handled the “land of self-modification.” How did you cope? What was your strategy? As I’ve been discussing in recent blogs, many of us have graduated or are graduating from fear-based learning and entering the love-based learning classroom. In this new space, love is. It’s a frequency that’s activated through your heart and body-mind via the presence of your Being. That which you are is here. And your Being, or that which is, ignites your heart and permeates your body-mind with this frequency of love and progressively transmutes carry-overs from fear-based learning. **And again, this is just an attempt to use language to describe what occurs that is beyond nameable, so use your own discernment to determine what resonates or is relevant for you. Either way, what I wanted to explore here is how given where we’ve been, there can be this tendency to enter the love based classroom and go “I am loved just as I am…I don’t have to change anything about me.” If you tune into this statement you may notice that it has the air of reaction to it. It’s actually an attempt to enact the opposite of self-modification, which would be no self-modification. That’s not actually what occurs in the love-based classroom. Instead, one way to put it is that we become reacquainted with this dance of Being and Becoming. In other words, we can fully acknowledge the presence of Being and receive fulfillment and nourishment in that field of love and then we can participate in life from that space or presence. That which we are becoming or showing up as in the world is always changing given the fluctuations in our body-minds and the nature of what’s on our hearts and the conditions of the world and the people in our lives. We are consistently making adjustments in this play of becoming, or in this action of living, and what we be and do in the world. However, we are beyond self-modification in that the totality of Being is present, full, whole and radiant and unchanging, yet what we are becoming is every changing and thus inclusive of all sorts of modification and adaptation. The difference is that there is no self-rejection, just a participation in the play of expression from this ground of Being, or love-based foundation. In a sense, we have only just begun. This possibility is new to many, if not all of us. Thus the initiation of this new adventure and exploration, where our innocence and curiosity can be revived, and we have the energy to play and navigate life and living in a new way. What is truly possible now? A poem I wrote in 2011 is coming to mind, so I’ll include it here. I’ll also include a meditation I lead with a group of people online called Illuminating Brilliance, which can assist to unify your heart, body and mind through this presence of love. Enjoy! And, if you would like one-on-one support visit my session page. And, on Facebook you can visit my page Classes with Christine, and click on the events tab to see what I have coming up. Here is the poem and the meditation I mentioned... New Life Celebrating life Refreshed and renewed Centered in love Letting the light shine Remembering what it means to truly connect Breathing in to the space created Settling, drawing the mind into the present moment It is here that beauty can be seen, felt and known It is here that the depth of our being can be accessed From this inner place of stillness inspired thought arises Curiosity is sparked, innocence revived Action flows effortlessly, in tune with what the moment is calling for One step at a time, evolving towards a fuller expression of Self Spontaneous waves of joy replace those of doubt Peace calms the storms of fear Thank you, thank you, thank you May the blessings be As I've been speaking to recently, we're coming into a time where it's truly possible to activate the frequency of love in and through the heart-body-mind and establish the unified functioning of the totality of Being. From this new base of love we can explore being with each other in the context of relationships. As we are more and more acclimated to this new inner environment, we can more clearly see and acknowledge where we've been and some of the physical, mental and emotional conditions that previously prevented the presence of this love and this capacity to act from this unified state. I wanted to name some of the fear-based conditions that we may have participated in and how it left us feeling.
The first is where love became an object or a thing and thus we or someone else became an object from which to extract love. We were then introduced to this concept of deserving love. As we look at this condition from the love-based perspective it's easy to see how damaging it would be to attempt to function in that set-up. Confusion, low-self esteem and oscillating between hurt, grief, sadness and anger and rage is a natural by-product of living in an objectified-love environment where we adopted strategies of manipulation and control over ourselves or others in a desperate attempt to attain, deserve, or somewhat sporadically or randomly be magically granted this love. The second was where love became commodified, and we were now looking at making ourselves useful or valuable in order to be worthy of love. This is where the language of economics seeped into human relating and we started to think in terms of whether we were worthy of a relationship and what we could do to earn it. Or whether we provided adequate value to someone for them to want to be with us. Or whether a relationship was worth the investment. Or hoping that our investment in someone or in a relationship would pay off in the short term or the long run. Looking at this from the presence of Being, it's easy to see how damaging it was to constantly assess or decide upon our worth, value or use to someone else and theirs to us. The commodified-love condition resulted in us feeling worthless, useless, and like we had no value and potentially had no purpose or reason to exist at all! Or still scrambling to invest more into ourselves so that we could at least demonstrate that we were trying and really wanted to be better and one day would get there and finally be worthy of another's investment of their time and energy into us. So, now is the time for us to acknowledge objectified-love and commodified-love and graduate from our participation in it. We can claim the frequency of love as our base. We don't live to earn, deserve or become worthy of it. Instead, we live from love, progressively recovering from these fear-based conditions through the unification of our hearts, bodies and minds. We can invite this presence of love to heal all the effects of trying to live without it or desperately seek it through any means available. Through the naming and acknowledgment of what has been and what is different now, we can envision and establish relationships that are love-based and begin to truly relate Being to Being, heart to heart, and become present to what can be generated through the relationship. We'll no longer be performing or trying to impress and prove things to each other or give to get, or offer just to satisfy rather than because we are truly moved to. We can become natural, authentic, ease-filled and available to show up and give and receive that which benefits everyone involved, in tune with what we truly desire to give and truly desire to receive. If there are differences in needs, desires and preferences those can be acknowledged and we can work together to find a way to navigate through that and find solutions. And in all of this, we will each find our own way, and yet also can gain awareness from each other about what's possible to ignite and activate qualities within our Being, or elements within our Self that can now come to life and enhance the nature of living. Here we are, we are here and now is the time. A few years ago I wrote a blog called Transforming Patterns in Relationships where I explored some similar themes. You can also check out my recent blogs regarding Graduating from Fear-Based Learning for a more broad overview of the subject matter. May we all be completely resourced and be invited into love-based relationships now and in the future. As we transition or graduate from fear based learning, we may feel a loss or lack of motivation. What was once driving our actions was the promise of rewards or the fear of punishment. Or we may have been motivated to get love, approval or acceptance but got weary when we realized how much we had to give up or hide to do so. We may have been motivated towards what we thought would give us pleasure and away from anything associated with pain, or towards what we or someone else defined as success and away from whatever was defined as failure. At some point many of us got very confused and couldn’t distinguish true pleasure from pain, or reward from punishment, or success from failure.
Now is the time to clear up the confusion, and acknowledge, as I mentioned in a recent blog, that you were never meant to succeed in the fear based classroom. You’re here to learn, and grow and live in a different way, with a different source of motivation. There may be some who can thrive in that other classroom, and be satisfied with the rewards they are given, or just like that kind of challenge. But chances are that if you’re reading this blog you’ve been seeking for a new way, better suited to you. So, I invite you to take a deep breath and fully acknowledge that this new way is here. I’m offering simply one style of presenting it. We can embody the frequency of love, and from the base of this, activate motivation that stems from this new source. We can regain or build the capacity to accurately assess where we’re at and what we need, and ask for it and receive the mentoring, teaching or guidance to meet the need. We can regain the capacity for self-honesty and the ability to direct our requests in a way that invites and insures support. We can free up our bodies from the cellular memory of being pressured or forced to do things. We can free up our hearts from the weight of living with unmet needs and being surrounded by people that would offer empty suggestions with no true guidance or direction such as “just let it go,” “forgive”, “trust that it will all work out,” “just have faith.” We do require help, support, guidance and direction and as the frequency of love activates, it’s much easier to acknowledge it and reach for that help in an empowered way. Lately through my sessions, classes, online meditations and blogs I've been exploring how many of us are ready to graduate from fear based learning and step fully into a new classroom, a love based learning classroom. In this blog I want to explore a few indicators that you're ready to graduate from the fear based learning classroom.
First off, one of the hallmarks of readiness is the acknowledgment that we're not learning. The whole point of being in a classroom is to learn and grow and develop. If we are not learning, it's an indicator that we require something different. The teaching style of fear based learning can be very hard on us. Our nervous systems can collapse over time. The level of fear or threat of negative emotional consequence and the pressure, force, and aggression to get on with things, "learn" and drive yourself to the rewards can be super taxing mentally, emotionally, physically, psychically, spiritually and financially. At some point we may end up drained, confused, frustrated and shut down. We just can't do it and can feel like such a failure, like we've let our teachers down. And they will be disappointed in us. We're not meeting the expectations. We're not making them proud. We're not making things happen and swimming in the rewards that would reflect well on the teacher's amazing abilities to help, guide and mentor that they believe themselves to have. The mental, emotional and physical effects of perceived failure and ineptitude can erode our self-esteem, crush our confidence and fill us with self-hate and deep shame. And, in this condition we can't even remember what the lessons were that we are meant to learn! And if we do have a vague sense of them we're too exhausted to muster up the energy to care and often just give up on our ability to learn anything. Fortunately, there is something deep within us that knows that it doesn't have to be this way. And, if you're reading this, it means that you know that and have been asking for something different. It can be such a relief and a big step when we realize that WE WERE NEVER MEANT TO SUCCEED IN THE FEAR BASED CLASSROOM. And that our failure to "make it" or to control and manipulate ourselves into being what the teachers wanted us to be, was BY DESIGN. The pain and hurt wasn't by design or meant to be, however, our progression into knowing that there is something beyond the fear based classroom was. And now is the time, for anyone reading this to know that graduation is available and the love based learning classroom is ready for you to step into. In this love based classroom the frequency of love is. Love is NOT a reward. It's a frequency required for our heart, body and mind to function properly. In this classroom learning, growth and getting to know yourself and what you're here to be and do in the world is in the curriculum, so to speak. And your teachers, tutors, guides and mentors are here to support you in that, in whatever ways you uniquely require it. Just know, it make take some time to transition from the fear based classroom, in terms of fully letting go of agreements with your teachers there, or in healing any wounding or anger you carry from that experience. Those can be addressed by these teachers, tutors, guides and mentors. With your permission and request they can help you to heal from that and rebuild your strength, self-value, and self-love. May we all be loved and supported in and through the totality of our process of healing. The way I see it, there are two dominate modes of learning on the planet, which I'll name as fear based learning and love based learning. In fear based learning love is a reward. If you're good, right and do enough you will be rewarded with love. The source of motivation that drives actions is the feeling or "truth" of being not enough, or not worthy until you do enough and prove yourself worthy or deserving. If you actually got the reward of love you'd stop learning. There would be no motivation, nothing to go for, no point to do anything. You could just put your feet up and rest. However, "there's no rest for the wicked," because according to the fear based system you are inherently bad and wrong and so you must continuously overcome this with acts of service, goodwill to others, and being an important part of society. The drive is to measure up, be better, improve, and meet expectations, while avoiding punishments such as feeling shame, totally worthless, pathetic, weak, a failure and so on.
There are some people who can succeed in the fear based learning model. They can control themselves in a way that keeps them doing the right thing, according to those around them, and apologizing anytime they don't measure up and immediately promising that they will try harder and do better next time. They are rewarded for their efforts and are given praise, acknowledgment and a sense of being accepted by or belonging with those around them. Other people fail to "learn" in this model. Instead they end up in this sea of disappointment and continual confusion, feeling totally wrong and oscillating between feeling sadness or deep grief and anger or rage. It's either, I'm totally wrong and pathetic and can't do this (beliefs leading to being overcome with sadness and grief) or the system or other people are the problem and I'm so angry that they aren't doing something to make this better or possible for me (feeling stifled, shut down, unable to express, lacking support, feeling like no one cares or no one is there to help regardless of how desperate you are). Eventually we will seek for a new way, or cry out to God for help, or collapse from total exhaustion, or have a breakdown, or just know deep down that it doesn't have to be this way and demand to change the conditions. The way I see it, in these moments, or dark nights, we are working our way towards the graduation from fear based learning and the initiation into love based learning. This is a model where love is neither given nor taken away, it just is. You are loved, and progressively realize yourself as love. From this base of love, learning and growth is generated from a sense of exploration and curiosity. You desire to know yourself and others more deeply and discover what you most enjoy to be and do in the world. There will be certain things that you observe and witness in the world and within yourself that you know can be different. There is another way, or a different way, that is improvement or evolution from what currently is. You will not be "loved more," based on your actions, because you are already fully and completely loved. Instead, you follow your impulses or inspirations and experience your full range of sensations, feelings and ways of being and witness where that leads you. There may be times when you desire to go within and explore your inner world, or that of others (the depth, the richness, the vast expanse of what it is to be an incarnate being, to be here in this life at this time), or you may desire to do something in this world that can be seen and witnessed by others, a physical actualization of the possibilities that you are aware of. So, have you graduated or are you close to graduating from the fear based learning model? Are you ready to explore learning from love? What would be like? This is potentially foreign to many of us here, as the punishment reward system has been in place for so long which is based on fundamental assumptions that either have never been true, or once were true and are not now....that we are inherently bad and would do harm if we weren't manipulated, dominated and controlled in "positive" ways with the promise of rewards if we stay in line and do good things (preventing our "true nature" from taking over). To build on the title, you will never deserve love because love is not a reward, and you are love and can learn and grow from love as your base (when you realize yourself as such, and initiate yourself on this path of learning and growth). It can be a big task to make this shift. It can feel monuments, impossible or too much to ask, to consider the possibility of clearing and releasing all shame, blame, regret, guilt, anger, rage, fury and hate, but it is possible. The initial wound of being separated from love "in the beginning" is what spurred all these other effects. We are here and now is the time, to initiate ourselves into love based learning. If you would like to read some of my other blogs on the subject you can check out Love is Not a Reward, Beyond Worthy and Deserving, It's Time to Take the Pressure Off, Being Completely Resourced and Learning Lessons from Love. Would you like to claim, know and act on your true authentic desires? This is an invitation to become aware of anywhere you're desires have been clouded or tainted by the influence of the punishment and reward system. Instead of having your true desires born from within, that which benefits your learning, growth and evolution to knowing and being more of who you are, you may have adopted desires from the environment you grew up in that other's judged as good or led you towards social conditioned rewards, and suppressed or rejected any desires you intrinsically held that we're deemed bad or negative or led to you being punished.
What if right now you could re-claim, own, acknowledge and allow your true desires to re-emerge and be known to you. If there were no rewards and no punishments, what would you desire? What exploration or journey is authentically yours and what would it be like to deeply know and trust what arises as you ponder that question? Take a deep breath, and acknowledge any negative associations you have with positive desires, or any positive associations you have with negative desires. That's where we can lose sight of what's true for us, when we form these associations. Such as when I love myself I am rejected by others (positive desire with negative association) or when I hide what's most important to me I am accepted by others (negative desire with positive association). For a description of a technique to change your associations you can read my blog, What is True Caring? So, in this moment of now, ask from within for your true authentic desires to be revealed to you, and as you come to know them, ask what it would take for them to be fulfilled! What would it be like to have your desires fulfilled? As the effects of the punishment/reward systems are cleared, as well as positive and negative associations, you can welcome in more clarity of knowing what is true for you, ultimately allowing for a greater flow and ease of life and living. How much more can we powerfully, easily and joyfully step into what's true for us and take action that bring true fulfillment? Is now the time? The punishment reward system was designed to maintain order in a social group. If you're good according to the rules, regulations and ways of doing things you deserve rewards. If you're bad according to the group mores and moralities etc. you deserve to be punished. Rewards are often about what you're given that is desired, such as resources, love, attention, praise, support, belonging, affection and so on. Punishments are often about what is taken away or withheld from you when you're bad or do something wrong. These include things like lack of love, condemnation, shame, guilt, isolation, abandonment, rejection, being shut out of the group, not belonging, or not getting what you want or need. Although this system can be "effective" at maintaining order, it is super painful and harsh and unkind and really leaves the majority of us feeling not good enough, unworthy, full of shame, and in fear, terror or unending grief.
One of the greatest challenges of this particular system is that we don't live in an environment where the collective agreements are consistent. In other words, we are not given the same rule book. Every family is different. In one family you could be punished and condemned for something that in another family you could be rewarded and loved for. So, we end up super confused thinking things like "what's wrong with me?" "Why can't I figure this out?" "What am I missing?" If this is you, my sense is that you've outgrown the punishment rewards system. In other words, if it's not working for you to motivate right action, or inspire you to be great and contribute your gifts to the social group then it's time to be or do something different. So, a potential starting place is to acknowledge: I am here. I exist. I am living. What do I require and desire to have in my life? What do I desire to give? What would I like to receive? What do I value? What do I appreciate? If I could choose anything what would it be? Essentially you begin an exploration of who you are, what you value or what's true for you, and what it would be like to generate and create your life from this starting point. You don't have to have all the answers, instead you just begin. If you feel like you don't know you could ask things of the broader universe that you are a part of like: universe, show me something beautiful today. Universe, what can I be and do that I've never been and done that would contribute to the joy of living? Start with curiosity and expand from there. If you're interested in more you can check out my blogs: Love is not a Reward, Learning Lessons from Love, It's Time to Take the Pressure Off and Beyond Worthy and Deserving. We've often been taught to fight for change, or push through fear, or make things happen. We often were not taught to ask for, receive, embrace, allow and invite in the beauty, the peace and the change we'd like to see in the world. What if now we can know what it would be like to ask, receive, embrace and allow? What if now we can access energies that may not have been valued, wanted, needed or desired by others?...We can choose to be the gentleness, the kindness, the peace, the calm, the innocence, the gifts and the space of possibility. We don't have to fight to maintain the identities we built to keep us safe when we lived in a world of fear. What is different now? What if it was different for you now? If it was, what would you choose to ask for and receive?
This week I did an in person and online version of a class I entitled “Trusting You to Create Your Life.” A few themes came forward both nights that I wanted to share in this format too. One is that of committing to building trust from where you are. Often we get caught believing that we “should” trust, or it’s right to trust ourselves and other people or we keep looping back to an earlier time in our life to figure out what went wrong, or where we lost this trust that we should supposedly have developed.
One of the things that prevents us from building trust in ourselves is not knowing ourselves, or where we learned to cope with life by emphasizing the aspects of our being that others liked or accepted and denying, suppressing, rejecting or disowning aspects of ourselves that other people didn’t like. Those aspects that we “hid” from ourselves are now unknown to us, and it is harder to trust what is unknown to us. People have attempted to get us there by saying things like “just trust” or “have faith”, however that is often not enough to truly address what’s going on. If we knew all that we are, would it be easier to trust all that we are? Yes! As we know all that we are we can receive the awareness of what the needs and desires are and update our means or methods of getting those needs met and desires fulfilled by tuning in to the field of possibilities now, rather than relying on associations made about ourselves, life, the world and other people at other times in our lives (what they could or couldn’t give us, whether they could meet the needs or fulfill the desires that are relationship based etc.). So, one of the ways to build trust from within is to look for anywhere we’ve separated out aspects of ourselves based on value judgments imposed by other people. I lead a meditation earlier this year called “Strengthening Trust in Life” which I’ll include at the bottom of the blog. In that I speak to some of the separations between the mind, heart, body and spirit and what it would be like to unify them again, or have all that we are working together to benefit the totality of the embodiment. If every aspect of us chose what honored the totality of our embodiment, how much more could we trust ourselves to create our life? Ponder that, and get curious about what is possible now. |
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