Psychic Clutter and our Connection with God and Humanity As Martin Luther King Jr. so eloquently said, “In a real sense, all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” [Letter from the Burmingham Jail, April 16, 1963] When we are free from psychic clutter, we can see that there is no essential difference between us and our fellow human beings. We know that are all irrefutably a part of God, and that love flows between us and other human beings as freely as blood flows in our veins. We then discover our “true” selves, the selves without body or consciousness, the selves that exist as beingness, the selves we seldom pause long enough to notice. If our psyches are clutter-free as the result of looking inside and releasing previously hidden or unexamined material, and we take a moment to be still with nothing going on, we do come to realize our connection with all humanity on an ongoing basis rather than as a momentary insight. We can see that there is no essential difference between us and our fellow human beings. We are irrefutably a part of God. The Origin of our Clutter Who Creates our Feelings? But aren't your feelings different in a traffic jam if you are late for an appointment than if you are just out enjoying the sights? And very different from how you would feel if you were dreading getting to your destination, for instance, going home to an empty house after recently losing your spouse? It isn't events that cause our feelings. It is our thoughts about events that cause our feelings--whether these thoughts are positive or negative. Generally those thoughts that create unpleasant feelings about an event are of the type –THIS SHOULDN'T BE. "I'm in a traffic jam and shouldn't' be," or "My husband didn't notice my new hairdo, and he should have," or even "My wife was too young to die." We ourselves cause our feelings. And our beliefs, which are generally unconscious, lead to these feelings. We are totally responsible for what we feel. You may find this idea liberating or burdensome, based upon your beliefs. It is difficult in our shared culture with existing structure of languages to break these self-defeating habits of thought and speech and talk in an honest and responsible way about our feelings--even though we often own our emotions when we are asked directly about them. Please practice taking ownership of your feelings. Notice particularly when you have thoughts that things are not the way they are supposed to be. You can even write them down. How We Became Who We Are If I were to say that you are what you think and that you have made yourself who you are, you might feel uncomfortable and want to quit reading or, if I were there with you, challenge me. I ask you to just hold the information being presented here as if it were simply a possibility until you complete the lesson, such as, "Oh, that might possibly be true." It is okay to disagree with some but not all of this information. Please just hang in here. Beliefs, Attitudes, and Values I maintain that, other than my body that acts as a container and sensation register, I am my beliefs, attitudes, and values. In fact, I present myself to you, right here and right now, as a combination of my beliefs, attitudes, and values. That's who I am. But then how do we get our beliefs, attitudes and values? As you may know, 80% of who we are now, we became at an early age. The estimate I've heard in the last few years is by about age three. So 80% of our personality is formed by around the age of three. After that, we simply develop strategies for living. Children are like sponges. They simply absorb information that then forms who they become. A casual remark by a parent becomes an absolute truth. Decisions made at this time are long lasting. And, unfortunately, we live in an unconscious society where off-hand but cruel comments made to our children are seldom taken back with an apology. Instead we try to justify them with thoughts such as, "They'll never remember what I said." or even worse, "Well, they deserved it." And in doing so, a travesty is committed. The four major influences from which we get out beliefs, attitudes, and values are:
We have to ask, Are we conditioned by these four major influences, or do we have something to say about what we absorb? I maintain that it is through interacting with our family, our peers, our culture, the environment and the media that forms the basis of our personalities, which leads to who we become. We form our beliefs, they aren’t attached to us by others. While having influence, they do not have the power. We do. And this happens by three to five years old! With our limited fields of experience! And from these areas we develop both positive and negative beliefs, attitudes, and values, which from here on I will refer to as beliefs. And rather than referring to them as positive or negative, I will call them life-affirming or self-defeating beliefs – the ones that support life and the ones that damage or defeat life and our selves. And how have we gone about putting our beliefs into life-affirming or self-defeating categories? It is our perception--how we see the world. Our perception is the mechanism that determines the outcome of those experiences. Our perception shapes the messages we get from life. And don't we trust our perception? Don't we generally believe that dial on our gas tank when it says half-full? That is, until it is stuck and then we run out of gas. There are many incidents in life where we find that our eyes fool us. Five witnesses to a crime may come up with five different and contradictory descriptions of the event and the suspects. So I present myself to you as a combination of both my life-affirming and my self-defeating beliefs, and I base all of these beliefs on my perception, which may or may not be accurate. Perception has nothing to do with the truth; it is just a particular way of seeing things--a point of view. This means that someone can be raised in the very best of circumstances with excellent parents and--based upon how they perceived the world, themselves, and others as a child--they still develop self-defeating beliefs. I overheard two elementary teachers talking about me. One of them used the word, “chubby”. I forever afterward was embarrassed by my physical presentation. Perception leads to thoughts, and our thoughts create our reality. Our mind and our thoughts are very powerful. Our Thoughts Create our Reality I say it is young children who are most honest--very young children, who call it the way they see it. The ones who are spontaneous. Naive. Without political correctness. Who haven't been taught that lying works, and haven't been punished for what they say. Who haven't yet adopted our agenda in life. They don't have those voices in their heads that tell them what they can and cannot be or do. That they are ugly. Or stupid. I believe we all came into this world with certain characteristics such as the following: Honest, Loving and Lovable, Accepting, often to our detriment, taking what went on around us as normal. Equal, at the level of being and our human rights, Valuable, "Save the Women and Children," With Purpose, for example, to learn and to grow. We learn by trial and error with no embarrassment for making mistakes. Deserving, In the Now [Present], Feeling, Innocent, Spontaneous So, if this is how we started out, what happened? We began to develop self-defeating beliefs that we then held as real and true. And even worse, held these beliefs as valid representations of who we were. Let me demonstrate this concept to you. You've heard before that if a child hears that they are stupid enough times, whether it's actually said or they merely perceive it being said, eventually they'll believe it. And our thoughts create our future. If I believe I'm stupid, then how do I act? Stupidly. And how does the universe treat me? As if I'm stupid. Because people and the universe just show up to us based on our beliefs. That's how it works. Have you seen the art-house docu-drama What the Bleep Do We Know? or its sequel, Down the Rabbit Hole? The movie drives home what we are now accepting as truth. It says that science and spirituality are not different modes of thought, but are in fact describing the same thing. And it brings the power back to the individual as it demonstrates creation, or co-creation as I call it, as the god-like capacity of every human being. Please look into your own life for examples of self-defeating beliefs. Look at the following sentence, think about it, and then fill in the blank--with as many words as you can. I'm not ________ enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not handsome enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not tall enough. I'm not pretty enough. I'm not loving enough. I’m not spiritual enough. I'm not short enough. I'm not skinny enough. I'm not fat enough. Ad infinitum. Each one of these self-defeating beliefs is held as true for us, and we begin to operate with not only fixed beliefs but also fixed behaviors and fixed emotions. And each of the beliefs separates us from that honest child within, so we end up with layers upon layers of self-defeating beliefs that hide those glorious qualities that we brought with us into the world. You can look at the self-defeating beliefs you formed around your looks, your fears, your "shoulds" and "can'ts," your better than and less than. And frequently we turn injunctionssuch as Be good, Be strong, and Work hard (and the perceived Be Perfect--an impossibility) into negative beliefs about ourselves. We have issues about authority, guilt and shame, what success means, winning or losing, good vs. bad, ourselves or others as undeserving, hatred, racism, the roles of women, the roles of men, scarcity, criticism, and resentment. Do you believe that love has to be earned? Or do your actions indicate that you believe that love is earned? The list of beliefs goes on and on. And who we were created to be gets further and further lost in the morass of beliefs. So if these beliefs have become one of my layers, then that is how I present myself. And that is exactly what the universe validates. The job of the universe is just to show up to me based on my belief system. It doesn't know the difference between positive and negative. If I do not feel good enough, how does my life look so far? If I have a belief that I'm bad, how has my life looked so far? So if a relationship isn't working for me, who is that about? I maintain that it is always about me. Always. We may repeat the same errors in relationships over and over again until we get this point. It is always about us. From a dispassionate point of view, events are just events--until we attach meaning to them. Events are just events until we make them mean something. And remember that innocent children take everything personally. They hurt deeply and may try to protect themselves from hurting. We develop a huge number of layers of beliefs that do not work for us and cause an enormous amount of pain. Often they can result even in physical illness. For reference, see Louise Hay's book You Can Heal your Lifefor possible self-defeating beliefs that can underlie our physical symptoms. Negative self-defeating beliefs contradict our true nature, and our bodies react to them with illness. It is time for us to separate our behavior from who we are. As a result of our self-defeating belief systems, many of us live unhappy, depressed, and unsatisfied lives, always sabotaging anything good in our lives, because we don't feel like we 'deserve' full, happy, and satisfying lives. We seldom find out what is really going on with us and that there is a solution. There Is a Solution Remember the universe shows up to me based on my beliefs. So we need to start telling ourselves the truth about who we are. Go back and look at the list of our initial heritage of gifts: honest, loving and lovable, with purpose, feeling and willing to communicate feelings, etc. If I want a positive life, I need to start telling myself the truth about who I am, or what I want in life as if it already existed. We grow into our beliefs. I repeat, we grow into our beliefs. If we want to change the results we are having in our lives, we need to change our thoughts. The thoughts we are having right now are creating our future. Not only do we have to be careful of how we speak to children but also how we speak to ourselves. We need to give ourselves loving and accepting messages. Before this can happen, however, we need to get rid of those self-defeating layers. Rarely are we aware of the nature and power of these negative beliefs. We have difficulty even identifying them. Yet, if we want to get back to living as we were created to be, we need to cut through those layers. So, how do we do this? There are a number of paths back home. Many include education–lectures, courses, books, tele-courses, etc. They all include getting honest with ourselves and with others. With forgiving ourselves and others. Others paths include talking and writing, spiritual direction, therapy, counseling, or 12-step groups. Or having patience and celebrating the small growth-steps along the way. And, last but not least, meditation and connection. Another path includes reading, Confession is Good for More than the Soul and answering the workbook questions. Using them, you will have an opportunity, in the quiet of your own home and at your own pace, to uncover and examine those old, outmoded beliefs that run our lives and sapnot only our alivenessbut also oureffectiveness in the world. You hear the word recovery, often. Recovery is simply discovering who we really are. When you are willing to do this work, you will discover who you are, and in the end, you will like what you find. You will experience clarity, intuition, and integrity. When I am living out of who I am, I am living in integrity. This means I am honest with you out of respect for me. If I lie or cheat or treat you inappropriately, I am actually hurting myself--whether or not you realize that I am harming you--because I am violating my own integrity. If you are willing to do this work, you will find meditation much easier and more fulfilling and you will indeed know who you at your core. You will find that life is truly a gift and that you are a gift to this world. You will realize that you are an integral part of this world and you will know where you can make a difference. You can finally rid yourself of the past and get on with your life. You will become part of the solution for this world. You will experience deeply your ultimate connectedness with God and all humanity. Your love will flow freely. Knowing that “whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly” we become more conscious of our actions. More conscious of our thoughts. More conscious of our God. And you will become committed to having a world that works for everyone – each and every one of us. Bibliography: References:
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Even after meditating or attending a religious service, as we then go about our day, many of us are no longer aware of an ultimate unity, a connection with God and other human beings. Instead, we quickly become preoccupied with our own plans and designs mingled with our hopes and fears. But if we free ourselves of psychic clutter by ferreting out and releasing unexamined or unconscious material in our psyche, whenever we pause and take a moment to get still, we do realize our connection with all humanity. Some find they can carry conscious awareness of that relationship for much of the day.