Health Emotional

Dealing with Rejection

Published on by Jim

Most people experience reject all the time in their lives.  The more we stick our neck out and reach out to others the more rejection we will experience.

People reject me all the time, and as always, it hurts, for I can feel the fear that motivates any rejection.  We only reject others because we are afraid of OURSELVES and how we might react around those others.

It is not as if I go around punching people in the nose or anything that would cause people to run and hide when I come around.  No, at best I only speak to them and they react to that in a way that causes them some discomfort, injury or harm, which they then blame on me.  Lots of people have problems with me, but today I recognize that THEY the one with the problem, not me.

I no longer blame myself for people who are hurting and blaming me for that hurt.  When someone rejects me in any way I recognize they are doing that because they are hurting and have been taught to lie to themselves about that hurt, which traps them in that hurt.  I also recognize that they are not mature enough yet to be a close friend of mine.

I still hurt for them, and that hurt motivates me all the more to work against the sickness that teaches them to hurt themselves and to lie to themselves about that cause of that hurt.

I find that compassion for those who are hurting (the one doing the rejecting in this case) relieves the pain of the rejection.  We are taught to take responsibility for other people’s behaviors or choices, like when they reject us.  Therefore, when we take that responsibility we think to ourselves that there must be something wrong with me if this person is rejecting me.

This, of course, is not true; it is just what we have been taught.

Practicing compassion for those who are hurting relieves our hurt.  It takes the attention off us and puts it where it really should be, on the one who has the problem. When I feel the pain that rejection causes and comes from I am reminded that I do not want to create that pain for others or myself so I do not reject anyone.

This does not mean that I accept every invitation or friendship; it just means that I do not find fault in the other that makes me not want to be around them.

What is Love?

Published on by Jim

“Love stretches your heart and makes you big inside.” – Margaret Walker

My take on love comes from watching what is actually happening inside the body when we are experiencing the sensation known as love.  This is something that anyone can observe or directly experience if they just take the time to watch.  I come at this topic first from a detached, precise perspective, and second from an attached perspective as a human who wants to expand love.  To embrace the whole reality of love one embraces both the detached and attached perspective, giving both their due.

Love is a feeling we have inside of our body and is a reaction to thoughts.

Generally, we learn how to love from our parents or whoever nurtures or takes care of us when we are infants.  As this person comforts us, say by feeding us relieving our discomfort of hunger, we learn to associate the image or thought of this person with that comforting, and we develop a habit of relaxing around the thoughts of this person.  Relaxing is not just a physical thing, or just something we do with the muscles of the body, it is also something that we do with the nerves.

Therefore, love is a two-part process; the first is the thoughts and the second is the reaction of relaxing the nerves and the muscles around that thought.

In the beginning, our thoughts are associated with some material things like the person who nurtures or takes care of us, as we mature, our thoughts can be associated with anything, even a concept. As children our experience of love comes from thoughts of people or things that produce the good feelings

This practice or habit of relaxing is healthy in that it removes the ‘dis-ease’ we may be experiencing when we hold onto some thought or habitual tension in our body.  This is why spiritual teachings encourage us to love this or that so that we can develop a habit or skill of relaxing around our thoughts of various things that traditionally would have produces tension or ‘dis-ease’ within us.

We call these traditions ‘spiritual’ because they address what we are inspired or motivated to do; the word ‘spirit’ has the same root as the word ‘inspire’.  We are naturally motivated to seek the release of tension the same way that water is naturally motivated to flow downhill.

Therefore, when any tradition encourages us to practice love or any positive emotion, they are encouraging us to practice relaxing around our thoughts.

Some thoughts we have we have developed a habit of contracting around, and we call this fear.  A spiritual tradition might say that “love drives out fear,” for if we practice love (relaxing/expanding) around a fear producing thought we will eventually re-train ourselves to react by relaxing to that thought and thus relieve the tension, dis-ease or negativity we had experienced.

Learning to love is like learning to control our bowels and bladder; it takes practice at first but later becomes natural.

As I said above, the first part of learning to love is the thought, which is why there is no much emphasis on thinking about this process.  This can come in the form of a spiritual or religious tradition, which tries to get us to think in ways that allow us to relax around thoughts that traditionally produce contraction or fear.  Such a way of thinking might be to “love your enemies” since the idea of an enemy is of one who seeks to do us harm, we would naturally develop a habit of contraction or fear associated with ‘enemy.’  Since mostly the reality is we are just thinking about our enemies and not actually being injured by them, then we are being taught to love the thought of our enemies or to relax around the thought of those who have or might hurt us.

Once we get that love is healthy and what we want to experience it more, then we recognize that ANY thought we have we want to develop a habit of relaxing around.  We then will no longer need to discern between this or that type of thought, we just relax around all thoughts.  Hence, we will no longer need the philosophies or theologies and we can go back to being innocent “like the children to enter the kingdom of heaven.”  This enables what we call “unconditional love”, for we choose to love without conditions or criteria since we recognize that love is what we want to experience.

This is the objected behind the teachings to “love God,” where God is a concept that implies the creator of all that is.  We are practicing to love ALL that is, since it was created by this creator.  At an even higher level, we are encouraged to love the process of love, where “God is love” and we are taught to love God/love.  This moves us away from any mental activity that may be a limitation to our practice of relaxing and we practice loving the process itself.

Much of the ‘how to love’ teachings are about the science AND art of love.  The science deals with the understanding of how the human instrument works; how to relax both the nerves and muscles of the body.  The art deals with developing the sensitivity and the skill or habit of actually operating the human instrument.

I am currently writing a book that will detail my observation on both the science and the art of loving, particularly loving ourselves.  To keep informed on this book please subscribe to this blog.

 

Understanding

Published on by Jim

I have had a long-standing interest in understanding how this human instrument works.  This interest is not limited to the physical or medical functions but also the neurological, psychological, mental and emotional aspects of the human instrument.  My interest leads me to watch my body, my mind, my emotions, and myself as I go through life.  I particularly watch when I practice various spiritual disciplines or think various ways, to see the effect on the quality of life that these disciplines and ways of thinking have and WHY they produce those effects.

In my practice of watching myself and of watching others I have seen some very interesting aspects of human consciousness that when I try to share that with others I usually only get resistance.  Of course, this in itself interested me, for I wanted to know why there would be resistance to understanding ourselves.

I have seen that this resistance comes from the ego, a mechanism within the human instrument dedicated to survival of the human instrument.  It is imagined that if we understand ourselves then we will no longer treasure the human instrument as mysteriousness or ‘special’.  However, this is not true, for understanding only enhances the appreciation.  It is superstition that creates the fear of understanding.

Dangerous Pixels

Published on by Jim

Are people so stupid as to think that pixels on their computer screen can hurt them?  Really?  Do people really want to give their power and peace away to anyone who comes along and says something to them?  Really?

Pixels are defined as “A minute area of illumination on a display screen, one of many from which an image is composed.”

I am constantly getting people who seem so unconscious as to think that the arrangement of pixels on their computer screen is hurting them, and the one who arranged those pixels are their screen is the evil one who is abusing them.

Can people really be THAT stupid or unconscious?  Cannot people see that pixels do not hurt them, it is their reactions to those pixels can cause them harm?

I know many college educated people who actually think that pixels can harm them.  That is about as silly as thinking that their shadow can attack them and hurt them.

I am well aware that these people have just been programmed to brutalize themselves emotionally when stimulated by words.  This was to the advantage of the ruling classes, the parents, teachers, clergy, government, etc.  I was programmed the same way, but I noticed that I was my own worst enemy, I was the only one abusing me and I took responsibility for that behavior and worked to stop it.  Today, I feel free from that self-abusive behavior.

Part of that process of getting free from this programming is to be brutally honest with our self and admit the truth, that pixels (or words) cannot hurt us, it is our reactions that cause us harm.

All the spiritual traditions out there that I have studied are about teaching people how to relax around the thoughts that come into their mind.  Even psychotherapy is about this in its primitive way.  Meditation is the practice of just watching those thoughts and learning to let go of the reaction and relax around them.

Smart people seek out this training or discipline and they seek opportunities to practice.  Stupid people just blame the computer or the person who arranged pixels on their screen that they took offense at, or they end relationships blaming the other for pushing their buttons.

I am here to serve people, people who want to wake up, be empowered over their inner world and their inner peace.

I like the example of both the one called Buddha and the one called Christ who said and practiced that we should focus our attention on those who have ears to hear and let the dead bury the dead.  That means to serve those who actively want what I am offering and to let the others just go.

If someone wants to learn how to relax or meditate then I will teach them that, IF they ask.  I am here only to serve those who want to find that inner peace, peace WITH the world.  But, if they are seeking peace IN the world then it is best to get away from me, for I will only piss them off and expose the hell they create for themselves.

I admit that it is hard for me to stop caring about people who are obviously hurting, and that is what is required of me.  So at times, I will reach out to the hurting one, the one who in their confusion thinks that I am the one hurting them, and I will make an effort to awaken them from the nightmare they are imposing upon themselves by their beliefs.  However, if they just run away then that is OK by me, for I would rather spend my time on the living than on the dead (those dead unto themselves).

Dynamic Compassion

Published on by Jim

Dynamic Compassion is a compassion that goes beyond just respect, service and care. Compassion is the willingness to suffer with others. Dynamic compassion is the underlying cause of change or growth that comes from that willingness to suffer with others.

Dynamic compassion is a willingness to engage the world or a situation that is unhealthy, possibly making that situation temporarily more dynamic (dis-eased) so as to bring about a change towards a healthier situation.

I remember a situation from my childhood where my mother demonstrated Dynamic Compassion with my older sister that probably saved her life and gave me a great example of love, which was a deep and profound experience in my life. I was about five or six at the time and all three of us, my older sister, myself and my younger sister, had the measles. My younger sister and I got over the measles in the normal amount of time but my older sister did not. My mother was worried about this because she had heard that measles, if they last too long, can do permanent damage or even kill. So my mother called the doctor who told her to induce the spots on the skin to eruption. To do this he said she should draw a hot bath that was just less than scalding and put my sister in it. He said this would be very uncomfortable for my sister but that my mother would have to hold her in the water until the spots erupted. can still remember how my sister screamed and cursed my mother for doing this. My mother had tears in her eyes but also knew that if she did not do this then my sister could die. My sister, still a child, could not understand this.

The spots erupted and my sister got better. But I can see that my sister always seem to hold that experience against my mother and still does not have much of a relationship with her.

But, I can see that this act was an example of Dynamic Compassion, loving when those you are serving cannot understand how you are loving them. This is unconditional love for it was not conditional upon a return of appreciation or love.

Dynamic Compassion is much more than Ahimsa, the Buddhist and Hindu doctrine expressing belief in the sacredness of all living creatures and urging the avoidance of harm and violence. Dynamic Compassion goes beyond the equanimity of non-aggression and injury of others to the active involvement in the lives of others. Ahimsa implies an avoidance of involvement in another’s life while Dynamic Compassion implies confronting and embracing involvement in another’s life. Ahimsa is a good start but it does not go far enough. In the spectrum of consciousness Ahimsa only goes half way to equanimity while Dynamic Compassion pushes us toward the extreme positive of love.

Dynamic Compassion means confronting the ills of our society. Non injury is non involvement while confronting is engaging the causes of injury BEFORE they happen or at the root of their source. Compassion by itself may mean being a “Mother Theresa” type person who comforts the wounds of those who have been injured. Dynamic Compassion means confronting the cause of injury so as to protect against future injuries.

Often those who are being harmed are also the ones doing the harm. Many injuries people experience are self-inflicted yet they blame others for their own behavior. For instance, “verbal or emotional abuse” is harm that we have learned to cause ourselves. Dynamic Compassion confronts the source of the injury by confronting the person who is abusing themselves emotionally.

Dynamic Compassion would also motivate one to confront the BELIEF that words are the source of our suffering. For it is this belief that keeps people trapped in the cycle of abuse and violence. Confronting deeply held beliefs in society is not popular but it is loving and deeply compassionate.

Stopping the Spin

Published on by Jim

When emotional drama becomes too much and you feel you are traumatizing yourself (injuring yourself), stop the spin of the drama by getting back to a place of stillness and the clarity that it brings. When you are uptight or tense it is difficult to find clarity and peace of mind. The following steps or perspectives will enable you to relax and regain the clarity, peace and wholeness you are seeking:

SIMPLIFY

  • Get back into the PRESENT MOMENT. Get back into the Here and Now. Recognize that you are experiencing life in the present; the past is but memory and cannot hurt you, the future is just imagination and is not real. “What is the situation right now and here?”
  • Recognize that when you are upset or experiencing an emotional drama you cannot possibly help or benefit another. FIRST CONCERN YOURSELF WITH YOURSELF. “What am I doing that is upsetting myself?” You cannot love another until you can love yourself.

SOFTEN Yourself:

  • Become aware of your body and be aware of your BREATH. Feel where the tension is located in your body and breathe into it to relax and let go of the tension.
  • Recognize that outside of this moment and this place you really DON’T KNOW anything. “Only don’t know.” “Dwell in a cloud of unknowing.” Be innocent like a child.
  • Get a bigger perspective. Expand your consciousness and recognize that whatever your problems are, they are NOT REALLY THAT IMPORTANT in the big picture of life. “Nothing that ever has happened or could happen on this puny speck of dust in the universe, that we call Earth, could ever really be important.”

Remember to SMILE:

  • Look at whatever your situation is and feel an acceptance or YESness toward it. It is the attitude of No-ness (disagree, dislike, etc.) that is our resistance or fear of the Perfect Reality that we have manifested.
  • Practice APPRECIATION of what you are experiencing. The attitude of appreciation leads to Joy and Love. What all people want is the lightness of enjoying and loving life.

Allow for STILLNESS:

  • It is in the Stillness, Rest and Peace that we gain the clarity that enables us to perceive the truth that will set us free to fully enjoy and love what life is offering.
  • With CLARITY we are better able to perceive and assess what is really happening, enabling us to choose the path of least resistance to a more full or WHOLE LIFE EXPERIENCE.

Your quality of life is up to you.
The choice is yours, the power to choose comes with practice.