99 steps to reclaiming your individuality Step #33

Authorship and Acceptance:

We have reached a pivotal point on our journey.  Over the course so far there has been much repetition, this was not intended to distract or provide filler, but to imitate the same rote patterns that we used as children to improve retention. We will now summarize what we should know by now, or at least agree to consider.

We agree, or are open to consideration that we are many selves or states in one consciousness. We generally agree that we have a physical self that is mostly regulated autonomously to which we supply nourishment, exercise and stimulation. We have an intellectual state (inquisitive state) that varies in intensity and activity within each individual. The prime stimulus for this state is our sensory perception. Within this state we have a matrix of mechanisms that span, intersect, stimulate and interact with our other states of the physical and emotional. And finally we have the emotional states. The bulk of this state resides in what we agreed to call the "Hesitant state" with the remnants residing in the other two ( Inquisitive and Neutral states). We agreed to order the states through an introspective exercise, and list them in the categories we agreed to call the three primary groupings (eg):  | Inquisitive states | Hesitant states | Neutral States |  Once this was completed, we agreed to honour a protocol, that we should adopt a sense of authorship over these states, and further, that if we felt a lapse in that authorship, we would agree to halt the activity and reflect on the circumstance. And this we agreed to refer to as "An entering into the neutral state for reflection".

We then moved on to the relationship of the emotions (nature states) to one-another. We acknowledged that although they interact in a manner that makes them appear to be interconnected, the are in reality distinct entities that operate independently on their own individual axis's. Finally we set up examples that would encourage us to experiment with this approach to the self, and tried to apply this reasoning in our daily routines.

Now in order to move forward, we have to accept the above simple framework as a reasonable base from which we will operate. This should not be difficult, seeing that it is in no wise constrictive. We are not being asked to surrender anything, we are not being asked to adopt any foreign article or belief structure. We are simply being asked to author consciously our thoughts and actions. Could anything be more simple?

From this point forward, we set past constraints behind us. Knowing that our lives have not changed. Our environment has not changed. The interactions between individuals we interact with, has not changed. We have simply agreed to work to change the way we respond and the way we interpret. And make no mistake, this is no small challenge, as you will find out. If you are honest in your approach to this, you are going to experience just how much you lacked control in your lives. But also, you are going to see how easily correction can occur, almost magically, when resistance is transformed into acceptance, and acceptance is understood as a principle and not as an act of capitulation.

Acceptance is indeed met with the same trepidations sometimes, as is a visit to the dentist. What we are being asked to do, is accept something, or place our integral signature on something  that will intrinsically connect us to it. Now when this is a thing of pleasure, there is little resistance, but when it is a thing that will bind us to a commitment or obligation, it is most times met with hesitance. Does this sound familiar? In reflecting back on previous steps, are these not the same motivations and actions that we have unconsciously used to frame our emotional make-up, or at least part of it? And if this be true, How do you gauge the health of your emotional make-up as it stands now? And if it is not what you would like it to be, this would then lead to the question, what have you been accepting? Now if you are willing to accept that you may have been accepting things that weren't in your best interest, what would you consider to be the best course of action? Stop accepting? Or would it be, accepting the responsibility to author all decisions on what you accept. This you can do, when you are the author of your life.

This is why it is critical to accept all facets of your individual nature, because you have created the autonomous netherworld that you have conveniently assigned non-culpable exceptions to. When hypothetically, you reacted violently in anger, or deceptively in greed, or with emotional frailty in what would appear inconsolable sadness, you through experiential cataloguing  laid this framework, and when it was given validity through the social sequences of: [Outburst - Apology or Remorse - Resolve], it was then easier to reason this as an act outside yourself, than actually being an act of yourself. And this you accomplished by assigning of for example, "Anger"  it own authored role. What you didn't realize, is, this act of convenience would eventually go on to lay the framework for most of your emotional responses. And thus the division occurred.

This is the both the inherent reason for and the crucial reason why authorship and acceptance will be, or should be the pillars of everyone's individual nature, and it certainly is, the foundation of this course.               

      

99 steps to reclaiming your individuality Step #32

The linear highway:

When we think of emotional responses, if we had to use an analogy, how would we best describe the event? I will attempt to do that using the example of a highway. On the average multi-lane highway, there are usually several lanes of traffic going in one direction, and several in the opposite direction. There are many different types of vehicles, traveling at different rates of speed, and for different types of utility. There are lanes that are intended for entering and exiting the highway, and lanes that are express lanes and also lanes designed for passing or giving priority to faster moving traffic. In each vehicle there is a driver , and also in some vehicles there are passengers, and further some vehicles are filled with passengers that have agreed to travel as a group or collectively in the same vehicle. I think that is enough for now. Now if I were to put forward to you that the emotions interacted very much in the same way in the non-tangible realm of our consciousness; what imaginings would you derive from that?  What kind of vehicle would anger be driving? What would happy drive? If you answered VW beetle for happy, then I think you've got this. But seriously our emotions do travel in such ways. And each of our emotions interacts in our consciousness in very much the same way as is played out on your average highway. Also, when you are not the driver, then the commotion that can occur, and the same inconsideration's, wrecklessness, and confusion that we can experience on a highway in rush-hour, or in bad weather, can occur in our emotional lives.

As previously asserted  nature states (emotions) have no conscious awareness of each other. Anger does not spoil Happy's fun deliberately, empathy does not try to cheer up sadness, and lust is not flaunting itself in front of modesty trying to embarrass it. As silly a notion as these assertions bring to the imagination, they are, in fact true with respect to the collective interaction of the emotions. We over the course of our lives have created vehicles for our emotions. We did this in many ways both consciously and unconsciously. But in some cases and again consciously and unconsciously, we created drivers (justifications) for them, and for some of us, this spread to the full spectrum of our emotions. At this point, to some, it felt like we became a pedestrian trying to cross the busy highway of our emotions, ending up exhausted just by the effort not to be hit by one.

I would like to reiterate at this time we are not trying in any way, shape or form, to criticize,assign blame, or demand correction here. If we have indeed, fallen into a state of lapse authorship, we are here at this point just to identify it. And in many cases the correction will occur independent of our resolve to change, often just by the mere willingness to do so. This is, unless of course we deliberately choose not to, and to that we would only ask, why?

As was pointed out in the previous step, it is a very difficult exercise to try to layout a meaningful example of how concisely, emotions interact with us, when each individual has woven the matrix of actions, interactions, intertwined alliances and levels of extremes through personal life events and circumstances. What we can do is layout a map to the doorstep, give the general dynamics of the vehicle and offer the assurance that there is a commonality to them, and a common approach to attaining authorship over them.

Let us for a moment recap the three primary groupings in this course. The first "the inquisitive states"  is seldom problematic, even by the nature of its name we can see that it implies a willing curiosity. Nature states (emotions) in this grouping are usually always acknowledged and authored by ourselves effortlessly, so in the schedule of the course they will seldom be scrutinized,.not that they are not important to embrace, but simply, as stated they are seldom problematic.

The most problematic are those that are assigned to the "Hesitant states". Again by their name, they neither are accepted easily, released easily, or embraced easily. but are essential to our growth, survival and integration.

The last grouping is the "neutral states". This is our refuge, this is our vantage point, this is our quiet place of contemplation. These guardian states (emotions) will bring us into new elevated heights as individuals. Here we will rejoice and celebrate our times through the inquisitive states. Here we will console, nurture, and council and encourage our hesitant states. In here we will reflect, find rest, and acknowledgment as infinite individuals, and we will transcend the boundaries of the material realms.

We must learn to experience each nature state (emotion) grounded in its causal state first, then experientially. We will begin to acknowledge this consciously, which will feel abnormal, silly, or at times agitated or frustrated. The latter occurring when old habits will try to assert their authority. What we must do at these times is return to a neutral position, assert the absolutes we agreed to adopt, identify the singularity of the state (emotion), give it audience, and then determine the resolve. When we do this often enough, soon the conscious activity will become an autonomous response, and our individuality will be returned, or realized and you will begin to see the world through newly awakened eyes.          

  

99 steps to reclaiming your individuality Step #31

The primal / personal divide:

Continuing on from the previous step, let us revisit the relationship of the primal nature (base state), to the conscious, nurtured conditioning that occurred over the course of our early life in regards to the nature states. We tried to cover, however simplistically, the forming of the substance of our emotional make-ups, and how they are manifested in our lives. Now comes the complex challenge of trying to universally convey as a model, the intertwined workings of the primal and personal machinations that make us singularly specific, but yet commonly the same.

Many scholars and individuals have done exhaustive work in these areas. But as a recap, it was a mandate of this course not to include any materials of particular individuals or ideologies as reference here, not because they do not deserve their just due, but because as was stated very early, nothing you will read here is new, revolutionary or exclusive. It was felt that omitting reference to outside sources would encourage the individual to do his or her own research, and further that it would not colour this material with any personal belief or ideological bias. And finally, and which has been reiterated several times (apologies) It is incumbent on the individual to do their own investigation into the complexities of the human nature, for you must be committed to deeply understanding your own nature, before you can even assume to gain mastery over it. That said we will now continue...

If we take our emotional makeup down to its lowest common denominator, we would have two basic states. That which feels good, and that which does not. Included in that basic primacy would be all the absences of pain, discomfort, fear, remorse, and all the desired states of pleasure, comfort, security and self worth. We all desire the latter and are repelled by the thought of the former. (This without out digressing is in respect to the average balanced individual, as we have touched on briefly before, this does not take into considerations the unfortunate state of social or mental malaise.) This basic state we would assert to be the primal state, all share these basic ideals, all would cherish the fullness of the one and the absence of the other.

This primal state was the condition we referred to in the previous step as the un-programmed circuit board. Our own personal life experiences have programmed that board into the set of emotional natures (nature states) we have today. We are all different, we are all the same. A simple summation to a very complex paradigm, and it will be our own personal responsibility to understand that complexity in ourselves, but also, to be reassured, that we are not the incomprehensible maze of complexity that we thought we once were. If we will embrace this reality, the ordering of our nature states will take on a whole new comprehensibility, and the authorship of their structuring and regimenting will become a plausibly achievable goal.

This would be a very advantageous time to return to step #12 review the lists we made under the three main hierarchies of  "Inquisitive state", " Hesitant state" , "Neutral state" Is there anything you would like to add reorder, or clarify? Having a better understanding of the motive now, may help you to clarify this step more concisely. If not it would be good to review this step anyway, for it ties in succinctly here.          

      

99 steps to reclaiming your individuality Step #30

Setting the boundaries: 

Understanding the individual nature of our emotions is key to this course. This is why it was decided to refer to them as our nature states. Each one is separate and unique, though we seldom view them that way. We more often view our emotional framework as a force acting on us, as opposed to a force working in us, a parallel- multi-lane'd  hi-way of states acting on stimulus provided by our environment, and expressed through our consciousness in a variety of ways both physically and psychologically. That's it in the proverbial nutshell.

Once we can finally drive this point home, we will no longer be at the mercy of our emotions, but instead, be the recipients of their interactive stimulus through our conscious awareness. We should accept this now. There is no motive or reason for this not to be true, therefore we can affirm it to be so. What can confuse us is the varied ways in which we will learn to interact with our emotional states, without analytically taking away from the richness of their interdependent workings in our daily lives. This will take time and practice, but at each crossroad our lives will improve, it can only be this way, because awareness and recognition are self fulfilling actions they succeed by the mere advent of their presence,  not by the momentum or force by which they are applied.

So without the repetition of defining each emotional state (nature state), let us set up an example to better understand the universal principles of these states. For this example we will refer to the example "nature" (emotion) as the causal state.

The causal state is best thought of as an elastic vehicle. Its dimensions or impact will be measured by the direct proportional action that is applied to it. It knows only its own state, and has a succinct linear path between two points. The nature, intensity, impact and triggers for the expression of this state are specific to the individual. It can operate independent of the control of the individual, and this is common. This state was formed in our consciousness by sensory interaction first in the primal family and then progressively in the societal interaction of our environment. To go into the forensic psychological structure and framework of the  evolution of our inherent nature states is beyond the scope of this course, but this should not detract us from grasping the structure of the states effectively enough to fully satisfy our resolve to comprehend them.

There is a primal framework for each of our nature states, this can be best expressed as a circuit board that has yet to be programmed. It is capable of a specific set of sequences, contingent on its own inherent  structure and polar extremes. We, as previously asserted, will program this state consciously and unconsciously during our life experience. It is also common for life events, and certain physical impairments to short circuit these states (allegorically speaking),  when this occurs the states tend to work only in their extremes, this is unfortunate, but again beyond the scope of this course. It must also be asserted that it is also very common for individuals to be falsely or indiscriminately misdiagnosed in cases of the latter also. 

Finally, when approaching the matured and healthy causal state, one must view it as a subordinate entity. Like a manager would approach an employee, or a instructor would approach his student. When through lapse authority the opposite occurs, the causal state can be thought of as a rudderless vessel, it is at the whim of the sea that propels it and not the captain., The course and destination will be entirely up to the environment or circumstances that surround the individual, and the individual will not be in control. The latter being also an all too common occurrence.   

This brief overview is not meant to be a definitive dissection of the nature states (emotions) of the individual. It is intended like all previous examples in this course to spur personal investigation, discovery and introspection. It is there that the truisms and reflections in this course will homogeneously form the momentum needed for the individual to reclaim absolute authorship in their lives, and this is our only intention.   

   

99 steps to reclaiming your individuality Step #29

Learning to focus our perspective:

During the course of any-one day, we are barraged with sensory input. Unannounced to us consciously is the categorizing, the storing and the enabling of this input.. To our nature states, this is just the daily routine, they (the natures) do not have bad days or good days, do not shift from one state to the other, they simply record and signal responses to sensory input that has been conditioned to impress on them. And wouldn't our lives be so much simpler, if we could just trigger our emotional responses the way we select items from a vending machine. Unfortunately this is not the case. Then why do most self-help ideologies assert that this is the simple solution? Simply choose the emotions you would like to emulate, and control the ones you wish not to express, simple right! Sadly we just weren't built that way, and no amount of practice, conditioning or regiment will make it so, well, at least not for very long.

It is when we start to view our personal makeup along the lines of the many selves in one, that we can see the folly of a lot of the propositions put forth in various self-help regimes. Albeit most-likely well intentioned, they always propose change by constraint or omission, but seldom by acceptance and reflection. If we use anger as an example; restraining anger is a process we all have done, but it does not resolve it. to use the analogy of slowly filling a balloon with water, and depending on the size of the balloon (tolerance), we may be able to place an enormous amount of water in the balloon, but it will eventually reach its breaking point. Now the resultant explosion that occurs (which is inevitable) is not the point here, but that restraining something is not resolving it. And it is when we have these unresolved states accumulated that we experience both emotional duress and societal uncomfortableness.

If on the other hand when any of our emotional states are triggered, and in reality this is all that is happening when we are happy, sad, angry, afraid, worried etc, etc... If we will acknowledge the state, that simplistic act has just rested power from it. And in that action you have unconsciously set-up an invisible release valve, so that this state now has a method by which it can now dissipate. Why you may ask would I want to do this for a state of happiness?  Consistency!  Having healthy emotions does not imply that they are in a fixed state, rather that they are in a fluid state of expansion and contraction, think of it like an accordion, motion is exerted sound is released. And the more we practice the more harmonious the sound.

When we focus on ourselves experientially, we are not, as some would imagine, taking the joy out of life,and replacing it with a mechanical expression of it, we are simply returning the authorship of life back to ourselves as it was intended to be. We are not being asked to abandon the experiential bounty of the emotional states, but simply acknowledging their boundaries, and establishing for ourselves the limits of those boundaries. When we focus on this, we will see life through an integrated new perspective, and we will further experience the harmony of the one in many, the many in one.       

99 steps to reclaiming your individuality Step #28

The principle behind the one in many:

Every-time the subject of surrender is approached, there is an immediate hesitance on our part to accept it. We have been indoctrinated by our exposure to external societal influences that dictates that, surrender is a signal of defeat. Tangibly, sometimes, but not always is this  the case. But when dealing with the self the paradigm changes. Surrender to the properly ordered self is an essential hierarchical positioning, that assures authorship is not only followed, but it is respected. When we began this journey, we were asked to be open and receptive to new ideas, this will by far be the most difficult to approach, intangible assertions always are. But if you agree to be opened minded, and undertake to frame this in a way that you can comprehend,  it will assuredly return positive change.

Again as in previous steps, willingness is the crucial key. After affirming this we will approach the method by which we are going to author the self. With this you will be met with much internal resistance. Over your lifetime you have set up in your self a marauder, so deceptive and  yet so supportive, yet again destructive, yet again defenseless. The inherent illusion you have constructed claiming to be the self, is nothing more than a clearing house of the erratic ebb and flow of emotion. We should first give an explanation, as to how, what some refer to as the self or ego was formed, and keeping in mind we are trying to be as brief and concise as possible, so one should not expect a complex in-depth explanation, but one you can expand on in your own reflections, which is also a crucial key step in the evolution of the self.

We have with unintended brevity, (unintended in that we have no intention to deceive or force you into a radical shift of thinking), touched on the topic of self and its creation. In previous steps we gave examples of the methods by which we (the imagined self) integrated these experiences into habits, traits, and emotional responses. We showed how these were carried through into our Societally integrated behaviors. Now we would like to continue the process of unpacking the self a little further.

The bastion of the perceived self resides in the realm of what we refer to as the "Hesitant states" It is there we are often prompted to return to when our pursuits in life become to intrinsically technical, or our analytic capacities absorb an excessive amount of our time. We are reminded to: " take time to smell the roses" , "enjoy life's simple pleasures", "Be thankful for what we have, based on what others have not". All noble sentiments right? Absolutely! But have you ever questioned their authorship? Now if you respond with a statement like "I have always been taught to be thankful for what I have" or " I take time every day to reflect on my actions" or "Charity for me, always grounds me to the reality of how fortunate I am" Then the author is the proper self. But if you have to be forced through guilt, fear or response to willful neglect on your part, then these are not the actions of the self, but the un-authored actions of the emotions. And how prolific is the latter in today's society? Could you begin to see now, why a society ruled by greed would "not" be critical of such a shift in mass dissolution of moral fabric. Why a society that can be so easily manipulated would approve of the abuses of the principles of home, family and charity! They would for one reason and one reason alone, to surrender you to the volatile sea of emotion, while they author your life!

Why the shift of focus, in the latter part of the last paragraph? To demonstrate how easily we can surrender. Why? We lack the objective authorship that steers us away from making decisions based on emotion. How do we condition ourselves to respond to situations differently? When we surrender those decisions to an authored self, not to an emotional self. We have just demonstrated that surrender is not the issue, we do that easily. It is what we surrender to, that causes the conflict. The "One" that we would choose to replace the transient authorship of emotions, poses no threat, asks nothing more than that you agree to surrender the immediacy of the moment, to return to a neutral state from which you can evaluate the situation. And as previously mentioned when we do this often, even when we are carried away by emotion, and later agree to return to a neutral state, we will over time find, the draw of emotional extremism will weaken the more we exercise these principles.