Safe Love

“If you don’t come right now with me, I will leave you here, alone!” – said a parent to their child, when the child didn’t want to leave the playground for a few more minutes

“I am teaching you a lesson right now, by punishing you, so that when you are older you end up in a better place!” – said a teacher, to a student, when failing them at an exam, although the real score would have been a passing one

“I criticize you and push you harder, because I know you can do and achieve more!”– said the singing coach to the student, while rejecting them from performing with the choir, on a school show

“I yell at you and ask more from you, because I want to toughen you up!”– said a person to another person

And all this, in the name of love and good intentions.

I believe the majority of us heard these phrases, or similar ones, while growing up, going to school, learning a new skill, and even while being in a romantic relationship. We learned that the ones who want what is best for us, also treat us in a way that is not so pleasant. sometimes. They can even treat us badly, according to any standard, just because “they love us and try to makes us better, help us improve ourselves”.

During the years when I used to go to church on a regular basis, I also heard this stated out loud in the house of The Lord, our Creator: He made us and gave us this amazing gift of life, but He is also severe and punishes us if we make mistakes. When I was a child, the only thing that these statements made me feel was that whatever I do, at some point I will mess up, because it’s impossible to be perfect all the time, and I will get my behind kicked. There was no other way! As an adult, the same statements turned into the fear of trying out different things, for not failing, and getting punished. But the feeling that came along with them, was always a funny one, like something was wrong, fundamentally wrong! Why were the people or gods that loved us, entitled to bring us suffering?

Beginning with religion, I couldn’t get over the following, constant question in my head: how come that a God that loves you, punishes you? Why can’t He just explain and let you try again? Why can’t He just forgive and let you be? Why did He ever give you such a “present”, as He claims life is, if you are not allowed to enjoy it? Why should you always be afraid of your next step, next decision, and God in general? Why should you be afraid of someone you love? What does love have to do with fear?

Across the years, since around 9 years ago, I started a quest to find out what was with all these statements and believes, that so many people repeated over and over again, and the discrepancy with the inner feeling that they gave me. I never believed in criticism, it never helped me, it never motivated me, so why was I expected to improve based on it? And why were the people that stated that cared about me, criticizing me, when obviously criticism didn’t help? Why were the “rough and tough” lessons so much respected and put on a pedestal? Why was everyone OK, at least on a surface level, with the fact that you learn best through hardships?

Since I became a parent myself, the feeling that love and criticism/fear/tough lessons can’t go hand in hand became even stronger. Something was very flawed with this, because as long as you love someone, you want to make them feel OK, safe, protected, supported, nurtured and looked after. So how could someone feel like that, feel all that support and care, while being criticized and punished? And what does that say about the relationship between I love you and I am punishing you? Because the reason for the punishment, which is in the most scenarios of the mind, a noble one For your own good, because I want the best for you is rarely heard by the one taking the blame. That reason doesn’t matter at all, in most of the cases. Of course, there are exceptions, like when you have to remove a screw or a splinter from another person’s hand: yes, in that case you might hurt them more before they get better, but that is another story, and has to do with our material world, not with the soul.

But coming back to the idea that we punish others because we want what is best for them, the only thing that this creates is low feelings in the one that takes the blame. It connects love and care with negative behaviors. It creates the expectation that the one we love will eventually punish us for something, thus creating a weird connection between love and suffering. And even worse, the suffering is created by the person that we love, precisely because they love us and we love them! And they want what is best for us! So, they hurt us! In this way, we get to the “match made in Heaven” of love and suffering. This match logically explains how Love can’t exist without Suffering, how they go hand in hand and how you can’t have one without the other. But it can also make us afraid of love and experiencing it, because as long as it brings suffering in the end, who would still like to have it? We start avoiding love and even being afraid of it, because we connect it with the suffering that it eventually brings. We end up feeling out of love, craving for it, but at the same time being afraid to experience it, so, we end up empty and miserable. Our minds managed to corrupt what Love really means, and connect it to misery, therefor safely guarding their position of power and control: the hypocrite authority.

It is a very weird and abnormal connection, and also an awful misinterpretation of what love is. Love doesn’t punish, nor it blames. Love has patience, gives safety, helps when and where it can, but doesn’t destroy when things don’t go its way. It is not love that invented this love-punishment behavior, but it is the Ego. It is the mind trying to control it’s environment, hiding this need for control under noble purposes and statements. It is the mind that wants to show it can set up someone else’s direction, as it “knows best”. Because the mind always tries to take the lead, while understanding what is going on around it. And it is a good idea to take control of the ones around us, just in case, so that we know for sure what and how it will happen, with them and with us. It is the fear of the mind of the unknown that made these connections, between Love, which just is, and control. Love doesn’t want control, and it roots for freedom. Love knows that everything will unfold in the best way in the end, because it walks hand in hand with Faith and Surrender. The mind doesn’t know what Faith or Surrender are, and is not even interested in them, because you can’t put tasks and metrics on them, you can’t measure and you can’t assure them. There is nothing YOU CAN DO with Love, Faith and Surrender, there is no action to be taken with them, so the mind is not interested in their nonsense. But it uses their names, especially Love’s name, to make up reasons and excuses for its decisions.

Love is safe! Love is kind and patient. It knows that a lesson is best learned in its own time, at its own speed and rhythm. Love allows us to try and make mistakes, it gives us free will and all it wants from us is Happiness. Love encourages and compliments, it points out the good in the other one and forgives whatever mistakes they made. Love is warm and doesn’t threaten to leave you alone, but sits there in silence, by your side, until you are ready to move on once again. Love doesn’t hurt, and it heals the suffering. Love won’t ever bring suffering, and will never trigger shame or guilt in the other one. Love doesn’t take revenge, nor does it want to “teach the other one a lesson!”.

Love is safe! Love is the opposite of fear, because we can’t fear that which we love. And also, we can’t love that which we fear. So, as long as we would like someone to love us, the last thing that we should try to enable in them, is fear.

April 6, 2023 0

Back to Yourself – Queen of the Kingdom

There are days when it rains, and fog covers everything. There are days when everything is grey, and you start wondering if there is still a Sun in the sky. Days in which you ask yourself how and when will it all pass, if there is anything else beside this greyed out – faded out existence. There are days in which you feel everything is lost, and even if you look for your soul, it seems it shall never be found again. You walk, taking one more step, one more breath, you look around again hoping that it will all go away, shattered by the warm Sun rays. But the more you look around, the more fog you see, the more you feel lost and vulnerable to despair. There is nobody around, and the silence makes you hear your heartbeat in your ears, the blood flowing through your veins, the thoughts pounding in your head. It is easy for confusion to take over and throw you into a battle with everything, including yourself, so you can escape that which is… only in your mind.

Because the fog we see, the coldness we feel, the hope we think is dead, these things exist just in our mind. In the middle of the greyness, take a moment and stop. Sit down on the ground, and just be there. Don’t take any action, don’t analyze your senses, don’t question your thoughts. Don’t label, don’t judge, don’t try to figure out what’s next. Just be.

You can close your eyes if you wish, but above all, surrender. Surrender to the present moment, and dive inside yourself, dive inside your soul’s kingdom. The reason why you feel lost and without escape is that you lost your kingdom, and your Queen is not at home. The kingdom you carry within you is all you really have, and yet it is infinite and more than anyone could wish for. There are people, places, memories, decisions, and consequences in it, and they all belong to you. You rule them all, with every choice, with every word and thought you express in the world. And your kingdom needs its Queen.

Most of us carry within ourselves banished Queens. They have been deemed as outcasts by those who could not or would not see and respect them for what they are. Those are the Queens without a throne because others usurped their roles and took their seats. They are the Queens wondering in the wild, befriending the wild beasts and living in isolation, because the people didn’t want to respect their rulership, and turned against them. They are the Queens that have forgotten what it feels like to have a tribe and companionship, to trust and to lean on real support, and they went feral. They sometimes come out of the woods, but they have been there for far too long, and have forgotten how it feels and how it is, to rule their kingdom with honor. But still, they can remember!

I found my Queen, dressed in an ivory dress, in the middle of a sunny forest, on an amazing Spring Day. It took a song, a friendship, a moment of peace, quiet and trust for my Queen to come back home. She was reminded that her role is to create a space of safety and comfort for all those who accept her in their lives, and she is needed. All I had to do was to stop my thoughts for a moment, look around and feel the peace. The music of the song went along with the sounds of the birds, and the cracks of wood sticks under my feet. I felt the rhythm of the nature, emerging on that Spring Day, and embraced by support, trust, and friendship, I asked my Queen to come back home. It gently came from within, in the beginning with some shyness and doubts. But I stayed there, welcoming her, and reminding her that she is safe, we are safe. As long as we are together, and my Queen rules my kingdom, we are all safe. All Queens are good, kind, gentle and wise, for as long as they are accepted and seen for whom they truly are. The Queens will always protect their kingdoms, which are the very depths of our souls.

From now on, I shall let my Queen rule, because she knows what grace and honor are. She makes decisions from the heart, caring for the soul and life. I put my Queen on her throne and let her take the lead. Her rulership is kind and gentle, and she shall take care of everyone who wishes to sit beside her, and of herself. She asks for respect and support, and in return she will create a safe space for all the souls that wish to rest in her companionship. I know that with her ruling my kingdom, I am safe and stable.

We need to find our Queens and give them back their righteous place: on the thrones of our decisions, choices, and lives. We need to get us back to ourselves and remember all the power that lies in us when we re center, when we get back to ourselves. We get back to ourselves by taking back the lead in our lives, through surrendering to the power of Life, and assuming our roles in the reality that we created.

March 26, 2023 0

Chaos is best served with…

^{Din haos, Doamne,-am apărut și m-aș întoarce-n haos… Și din repaos m-am născut. Mi-e sete de repaos.}
^{Mihai Eminescu – Luceafărul}

I was walking on the hills near my home, while looking down at the village in the valley. The sky was clear, with no clouds on it, the atmosphere was peaceful, and I could almost touch the air. It was serene. I felt peace, clarity, and control.

I kept walking on the path, leaving the village behind. My legs were firm, my steps left no sound, everything around me was just peace and quiet. As I kept on walking, the hills turned into a mountain, into an almost vertical rocky slope, and my path turned into a mountain one, on the side of the slope. It still seemed wide enough for me to carry on, so I kept on going. At one point, there was a dent in the path, like a wider space in which you could stop and enjoy the view, and a thought came to my mind, to go and sit there for a while, take a break, and rest. As I approached that spot, I realized the path became very narrow, to be more precise a foot-wide narrow, and I realized I was very far from the valley, high on the rocky mountain. I lost all my serene feelings on the spot, I stuck my back against the rock wall, and looked down. I could feel a sensation of spikes in my knees, my heart was rushing, and I was thinking that the road in the valley was way too far away for someone to hear me. I looked left and right, but I was stuck there, there was no way I could proceed on the same path, and no possibility of going back. I was stranded on a rocky mountain wall, too up to be able to climb down, and too low to be able to cross the mountain’s top. It was frightening, and all sorts of thoughts went through my mind, from calculating for how long I could make it there, to what would happen if I jumped? Could I land in the valley below somehow?

The phone rings, it is 7:00 AM. I wake up with the same spikey feeling in my knees, with my heart pounding out of my chest, but I am relieved: it was just a dream! Still, one that felt so real! I was stuck in one of the most frightening situations that I could ever imagine for myself, and my mind was spinning thoughts, like broken records, as in how to proceed. It’s too little to say it took me the whole day to get over that feeling and the physical sensations from the dream. My mind was looking for solutions, even though it realized by now that it was a hypothetical situation, no action needed to be taken. But the mind didn’t mind, it kept on spinning, solving, controlling that which was just a dream.

This is the power of the mind, the only power it has: to spin thoughts, to spin ideas, and it is very good at getting caught up in them. But the world around us is based on Chaos. We came from Chaos, and we shall go back to it, and so on and so forth, until the end of time. And then, repeat!

I met Chaos so many times, that I almost consider it a close friend. It taught me a lot, much more than clarity and precision, more than any plan or preparation. If I tried to manage Chaos with my mind, it all went down the drain. Chaos doesn’t like logic, and logic is the only thing a mind can bring to the table. Chaos feeds on fear, and grows even stronger, so I had to make sure I don’t feed it some more. Both fear and logic belong to the mind, the mind doesn’t know much else besides these too. Or, maybe just a little bit of faith. But mental faith is not something that can stand the power of Chaos.

I took Chaos by the hand, and I said to myself: let’s flow! Let’s see where this takes us and where we could go. After lots of attempts of dealing with it from my mind, I closed my eyes and surrendered: let it be! I got tired of fighting with it, I realized there is no way to conquer it or win against it. After all, Chaos is our source, is where we come from, of course we have no power over it. But we have the power within ourselves. As I closed my eyes and took a deep breathe, I felt my body relax, and my heart beat in peace. I surrendered to Chaos.

And then, miracles happened! Everything is possible in chaos, and miracles are to be found in the midst of it. A different kind of faith and hope arises when I flow on Chaos’s waves, a deep faith in life and everything around me. It is something that one must feel, not argue or explain. I looked Chaos in the eyes, and for the first time I felt peace. The peace of knowing that out of it, everything arises, everything is possible, and the only thing I have to do is give into it. So, I did. Chaos can take each of us on a journey never seen before, will restructure and reform us from the core, but only if we don’t let the mind get in the way. We can have wonderful experiences and literally feel like flying, as long as we don’t try to control or understand with our Earthly minds, the one that is the source and ending of it all, life itself together with all our world.

Just like in my dream, I tried to find solutions many times to whatever situations came to me. I changed jobs, friends, towns and countries, to find a better place and life, to take over control and change my exterior to fit my interior. I got to the point where I would have changed the Solar System, the Universe, if possible, to fit my requests. But this can’t be done, because the Universe and life are not something we change, but something that changes us. The only way there is to go, is within, change whatever we think, believe or hold as a limit, so that we can fully live.

Chaos is best served with faith. But not the logical faith that we all know about, but with the one that comes from deep within, knowing that we are a part of it, together with it, and it will never turn against us, never attack, never do harm, but take us further and further in our becoming. Chaos is like a gentle friend, that wants to show us amazing things, doesn’t want any fight or opposition, just comes in, sits for a while, shows us its gems, and then lets us be, while we go back to our logically ordered lives.

P.S. It’s better handled with our eyes closed 😉

October 15, 2022 1

Shine your darkness!

Put a light on it!

It was a dark night, perfect for watching the stars. All I needed was my telescope, and a nice, deep, darkness. The campfire near me was still flickering, and in the beginning, I thought it wouldn’t bother me. I didn’t feel like taking my time and putting out the fire.

With my eye in the telescope’s ocular, I was trying to focus the image, and take a look at Orion’s belt. I noticed something annoying, in the corner of my eye, something that was disturbing my entire focus: the fire. There was no other way for me to continue, it really messed up my focus, unless I put out the fire. So, I took a bottle of water and put it out.

My eyes instantly felt satisfied with the complete, pitch-black darkness. I didn’t even need the telescope anymore, as the Milky Way was showing itself nicely in the sky. My mind was in awe and my eyes refused to blink, not to lose the beautiful scene in front of me. It was silent, and dark, and still. I was amazed and felt grace and gratitude. The thing is, it takes quite some effort to find a good spot, with perfect darkness, to wonder through the sky.

A perfect darkness! We need a perfect darkness, to contemplate and be amazed by the quiet and discrete world surrounding us, by the greatness and the beauty of the Universe.

Jumping a bit to a different subject, the last two years were… let’s say interesting. I don’t know what everyone has been through, but based on my personal experience, I can only imagine. And in these times of trouble and confusion, I saw a lot of motivational stuff praising light, happiness, joy and, what I call, Pink Unicorns!

I felt a paradox, between what I saw posted on the internet, all the motivational and joyous messages, and how I actually felt inside, what was on the news, and the words I was hearing from the people around me. The discrepancy was huge, my mind was in pain, my body started to get tired by all this conflicting information, but my soul was calm and present. I started asking myself: how come, despite it all, my soul is at peace, my fundamental mood is of calmness and serenity. Just like the paradox from the media, there was one in my mind too. After sitting a long time with myself (lockdowns helped a lot with that), I finally understood it: there was no paradox, there is no paradox, it is OK just as is.

We are everything, at the same time. We are both light and darkness, but more than that, we need both light and darkness. I have noticed a trend to promote only light, happiness, positivity and a perfect mood. And on the other side, too little posts, research, documents on how to deal with the bad stuff, how to make it through losing someone, how to breathe another time, another day, how to survive fear, how to deal, in the end, with the negative, bad, ugly, undesirable part of us. I can get why we want to look the other way, and search only the beauty and the silver lining, I definitely understand it, with growing up in a fear based system, where all reasoning was done based on the worst outcome. We got here after hundreds of years of misery, pain and suffering, culminating with the Dark Ages. And after that darkness, and the horror of those centuries, the illuminated era came. Light came into place, and it seems humankind wants to forever forget, dismiss, not talk about those times, and especially the misery that came along. Humankind behaves like a traumatized person, that has been through hard times, and found that the only way to cope with the PTSD is to deny it ever happened! Humanity put the negative thoughts, the negative part of human experience, under the mat, it didn’t clean it, it didn’t get over it, but it left it to rot until the smell of it will force us to act.

But until then, all we see is light and unicorns! We want to dismiss all the “darkness” in us, we define it as not good, as something that has to be eliminated and replaced with positive vibes. We are complete beings, with all the range of feelings, thoughts, experiences that we can have. We shut out half of ourselves, we dismiss half of our personalities, who we are and what we do, by not even wanting to take a look at our dark side. Of course, we get to feel incomplete and insecure! We consider half of our person should not even exist, is shameful, it’s embarrassing, should be cut out completely.

Try driving a 4 wheels car, with only 2 wheels! Try looking at the stars, with the Sun in your eyes (or a camp fire flickering)! It’s exactly the same outcome: nothing proper will happen!

The dark side, the shadow, our negative part, is not there to annoy us, put us in bad situations, destroy us or others. The dark side is there to protect us, keep us surviving, in a world that constantly blames half of our personality. The shadow comes into action, takes over and dismisses anything else when we perceive ourselves to be in danger. It kicks in the survival mechanism, no matter the consequences, it’s following the “do or die” principle. And the shadow kicks in the most, when is blamed or banished. How many times did we feel anger for being ashamed by someone? The anger, the dark thoughts about the other one, shaming us, were there only to keep us from dying of shame. They were there to show us we can still be strong and worthy. Negative feelings and thoughts come from fear, from the fear that our person could be neutralized. So, we can see, as a logical conclusion, that negative feelings are not the enemy, they are there to protect us from a perceived danger. What needs effort and focus is precisely that perceived danger. We shouldn’t shun away the dark thoughts, but we should acknowledge them, observe them and sit with them, so that we can determine their cause, the source of our fear, and work on that.

Thoughts are just thoughts, until they come into action and get materialized. Why are we so afraid of thoughts? Probably because we know only fear and fear related reactions. Most certainly, because we don’t KNOW how to deal with such thoughts. We think we have no saying to them, so we are afraid (again, fear!) that those thoughts will turn into regrettable actions. But if we eliminate fear, the “bad” thoughts also go away. Fighting our thoughts will only cause a fight back from their side, according to one of Newton’s laws, and will only cause a reaction of the same intensity as the feeling. That reaction will either turn the body sick or will make one lose their control and… snap! In which case, the people around will see just the snap, as a bad, shameful consequence of bad thoughts. Yes, that is true, but we should dig deeper and see the cause of those bad thoughts, and eliminate and treat that, which is FEAR.

In the end, our “negative” side, is just a part of us, that can become our friend, our ally or our foe. We can allow it at the negotiation table, while observing in detail it’s reasons and logic. The more we are going to push it away from having a say, the more it will fight back. We can listen to it and get valuable information about why we have certain thoughts and feelings, and it can be one of the best tools to understand and manage ourselves. We can take, as an example, the anger I mentioned above, when someone tries to diminish our efforts. That anger shouldn’t be translated in punching the other one, to make them shut up, but it should be directed inwards, as to finding the reason of it. Maybe the shamed person feels worthless, powerless, ridiculed, overall has a low self esteem. In this case, that anger can show the low level of self esteem, and the person can start working on that, looking for support, improving themselves, seeing their worth and the things they have already achieved. That shame can be then turned into a moment of realizing ones worth, strength and courage, so it can be switched into an asset and a win.

In any case, if we just let our “dark side” speak, state it’s ideas, we might even notice that it doesn’t want to take the lead anymore. I am not saying that we should put our darkness in charge of our lives! But I believe we would be calmer and happier, if we stopped judging, cutting down, and banishing half of who we are and what we feel and experiment.

In certain moments, darkness can show you wonders, can highlight subtle details and bring a whole new perspective on what is in front of our eyes. Just like I needed darkness to see the Universe’s greatness, the darkness inside us speaks about all the possibilities that we have, in order to achieve our own greatness. If we listen to it, it can take us to deep places, where, if we have the courage to take a look, we might find gems and become better, stronger, wiser.

October 6, 2021 0

Dacă nu de frică, atunci de ce?

S-au luat Primul, Al Doilea și Al Treilea, și s-au pornit în prima lor aventură. Aveau să caute alte Consilii, să învețe, să încerce, să se bucure de Drum și să profite de toate ocaziile de a face ceva.

Drumul era plăcut, printr-o pădure deasă și răcoroasă. Primul se uita uimit de încântare la peisaj, Al Doilea respira aerul curat și se simțea revigorat, și Al Treilea calcula, analiza, studia. Primul știa exact ce și cum, Al Doilea simțea, dar Al Treilea nu înțelegea. Se uita la primii doi cu stupoare, șocat de ușurința cu care mergeau pe drum. Al Treilea nu considera că Drumul era ușor și nici că primii doi aveau motive să fie atât de împăcați cu ei. Începu să se agite și să le atragă atenția primilor doi, cum că nu știau foarte bine unde se află, încotro se îndreptau și cum aveau să ajungă la Capăt.

Primii doi pășeau cu ușurință și grație, nu aveau nevoie de motive să se simtă bine și să fie fericiți. Al Treilea nu îi înțelegea și se puse pe făcut un plan care să îi aducă pe primii doi de partea lui. O luă puțin înainte pe drum și dădu o privire. După ce se termina pădurea, apărea o vale cu o cetate. În cetate erau multe consilii, multe posibilități și Al Treilea se gândi la un plan: trebuia să îi convingă pe primii doi că doar cu ajutorul lui puteau să aibă succes în cetate. Și pentru asta, trebuia să îi convingă că există un pericol, pe care doar el, Al Treilea, putea să îl îndepărteze. Așa că se duse la primii doi, care încă se minunau de pădure, și începu să le vorbească. Le povestise tot ce văzuse, zidurile mari și greu de trecut, poarta grea și greu de împins, pericolele până acolo, la zidurile cetății, și cele de dincolo de ele. Începu să facă planul, cum să evite obstacolele și cum să se păzească de neprevăzut.

Primii doi nu erau foarte convinși, dar având în vedere că scopul celui de-Al Treilea era să îi ducă în siguranță pe Drum, acceptară și începură să îl asculte. La fiecare pas, la fiecare mișcare, Al Treilea descoperea doar pericole, grozăvii de evitat, capcane de observat și își petrecea toată ziua elaborând planuri și punând la punct strategii. Primul încerca să îl înțeleagă și să îl urmeze, dar nu reușea să îl cuprindă cu mintea sau să aplice exact indicațiile lui. Totul era atât de nenatural pentru Primul. El vedea lumina printre copaci, se bucura de Drum așa cum era, doar și-l dorise de când se știa! Și Al Treilea îi întuneca plăcerea cu fiecare ocazie, scoțând la iveală toate pericolele și nenoricirile de care el, Al Treilea, avea să îi salveze. Primul nu simțea nici o nevoie și nici un motiv să fie salvat și nu înțelegea de unde atâta panică și frică pe capul celui de-Al Treilea.

Al Doilea mergea incet, alături de Primul și Al Treilea, fiind fericit când era doar în compania Primului, și simțindu-se încolțit și epuizat când Al Treilea îi dădea indicații. Orice și oricâte ar fi făcut Al Doilea, nu era niciodată destul pentru Al Treilea. Al Doilea se simțea nerespectat și batjocorit, neapreciat și, în anumite momente, chiar urât de Al Treilea. Era clar, oricâte ar fi făcut, că nu ar fi fost niciodată destul pentru Al Treilea. Al Treilea se uita mereu la alte consilii și se compara cu alții, în același timp comparându-l și pe Al Doilea cu alții din alte consilii. Alții erau mai puternici, puteau să îndure mai multe zile fără apă, mâncare, somn, cereau mai puține și tăceau mai mult. Dar ce nu vedea Al Treilea, era că cei cu care îl compara pe Al Doilea erau mai epuizați, nu mai aveau mult până cedau și erau tratați în ultimul hal. Nu conta pentru Al Treilea! Singurul lucru care conta era să supraviețuiscă, el și doar el, chiar dacă singur, dar îi era frică să nu moară, să nu se piardă, să nu fie mai prejos ca alții, să nu, să nu, să nu!

Văzând Primul că Al Doilea suferă, îl luă pe Al Treilea deoparte:

Explică-mi, te rog, ce e cu tine! Sunt aici pentru tine, să te ajut și să mergem mai departe.
Tu nu înțelegi, răspunse Al Treilea. Tot ce vreau e să vă țin în siguranță, nu vezi că sunt pericole la tot pasul? Ce o să facem, ce o să faceți, în cetate? O să ne mănânce de vii! O să murim de foame! O să ajungem victimele celorlalți! Vor profita de noi, o să ne fraierească, o să ne folosească! Dar EU, doar EU, o sa am grijă de voi, o să vă învăț ce să faceți să nu muriți de foame, o să vă zic mereu ce să ziceți ca lumea să nu se supere pe voi și să nu se întoarcă împotriva voastră, o să vă arăt cum să învărtiți lumea pe degete, ca să nu vă învărtă ea pe voi.
Bine, dar asta nu inseamnă că vom deveni și noi la fel, și că o să ne purtăm și noi cu ceilalți la fel? Întrebă Primul.
Ba da, dar ce să facem, trebuie cumva să îmi înving frica, și cel mai bun mod este să îmi fac un plan de bătaie. Nu vezi căte pericole sunt în jur? Tot Drumul e plin de pericole, nu mă pot liniști o secundă! Fără mine nu ați fi ajuns nici până aici! se repezi Al Treilea la Primul.
Al Doilea nu se simte bine, uită-te bine la el. Așa nu mai poate continua, și fără el, nu putem face nimic, nu putem merge nicăieri. Lui nu-i place frica, îi face rău. Poți te rog să găsești alte motive și perspective de acum încolo? Nu îl mai putem ține în frică mult timp, nu mai e mult până nu voi mai putea să îl ajut.
Și dacă nu mă bazez pe frică, în alegerile pe care le fac pentru noi, atunci pe ce să mă bazez??? Întrebă uimit și debusolat Al Treilea.

August 5, 2021 0

Consiliul Celor Trei

Și s-a luat Primul, și a început să-l caute pe Al Doilea. Odată decis că avea să încerce Viața, nu putea să treacă prin ea fără să aibă un aliat fidel, care nu vorbește multe dar face pe măsură, care să îl tragă de mânecă când greșește și are grijă de el când este pierdut. Primul nu putea oricum să se deplaseze, să vadă, să simtă, să încerce, fără Al Doilea.

Așa că s-a pus Primul pe căutat, în lung și-n lat, să-și găsească aliat.

Și într-o zi, l-a găsit: rezistent, durabil, ușor regenerabil, cooperant și maleabil. Al Doilea a fost bucuros de alegere, a acceptat regulile Primului, și-a luat angajamentul să îi fie alături până la sfârșitul drumului, și mereu, dar mereu, să i se supună. Mai puțin atunci când Al Treilea avea să aibă cerințe exagerate. Primul a fost de acord, și au pornit împreună să îl găsească pe Al Treilea.

Drumul prin Viață depindea într-o măsură covârșitoare de Al Treilea. Fără el, primii doi puteau să încerce un drum, dar nu s-ar fi ales cu mare lucru, ca experiențe, și nici nu ar fi înțeles multe. Aveau nevoie de cineva care știa drumul, putea să aleagă direcții, să ia decizii în cel mai scurt timp, și, cel mai important, să vadă clar, mereu, Drumul. Și dacă primii s-au găsit ușor, nu la fel stătea treaba cu Al Treilea. Al Treilea putea să facă sau să desfacă tot, să oprească drumul oricând, să îi dezbine pe primii doi, sau să îi facă mai apropiați, să îi ducă în locuri bogate in posibilități, să le asigure un Drum confortabil.

Pentru început, toți cei care puteau fi Al Treilea, arătau la fel. Doar la o privire mai atentă, se puteau vedea zgărieturi fine, trăsături mai adânci sau mai superficiale, comportamente mai exuberante sau mai retrase, cu posibilități de expansiune mai mari sau mici, mai ușor sau mai greu de manevrat, cu inerție mai mare sau care se lăsau impresionate mai ușor.

Primii doi au avut nevoie de timp să aleagă, pentru că era o decizie crucială. De Al Treilea depindea, până la urmă, toată experiența numită Drum.

Și, la un moment dat, Al Treilea a fost ales: avea o capacitate mare de procesare, dar necesita energie multă și era destul de volatil. Emitea păreri constante și se răzgândea des. Îi plăcea să se audă vorbind, să creadă că e Singurul, o lua înainte pe diverse căi fără să îi pese de părerile primilor doi și avea, în general, o stare constantă de agitație.

Văzând că Drumul devine mai stâncos, primii doi se retraseră și îl lăsară pe Al Treilea puțin singur. Primul și Al Doilea își dădură seama că Al Treilea avea să le cauzeze situații neplăcute, chiar putea să îi întoarcă unul împotriva celuilalt, putea să încerce să preia controlul și să le termine Drumul, într-un mare accident și dezamăgire. Primii doi își doreau mult să aibă un Drum lin și să îl parcurgă liniștiți, învățând, încercând, simțind. Își dădură repede seama că trebuiau să facă ceva, să discute cu Al Treilea.

Al Treilea era atât de impresionat de cei din jurul lui, alte echipe, alte drumuri, că cu greu reuși să își audă partenerii. Primii ajunseră la o concluzie, văzând că nu reușesc să comunice cu Al Treilea: Al Doilea urma să ia o pauză, să aibă grijă de el puțin, în timp ce Primul avea să stea de vorbă, în liniște, cu Al Treilea.

Deși, la început, Al Treilea nu dorea să audă nimic, nici nu își imagina să stea de vorbă cu Primul, în final a cedat, învăluit de cunoașterea și autoritatea Primului. El, Al Treilea, era acolo să servească, să aducă înțelegere și colaborare, să fie legătura lor cu lumea, să îi ghideze și să aibă grijă de primii doi. Nu era acolo să se impună, să schimbe regulile jocului sau să intre în competiție cu alții. Era acolo să își ajute echipa.

Al Treilea a înțeles și a renunțat la dorința de a deveni Primul, iar astfel, a devenit Conducătorul.

Și așa s-a născut Consiliul Celor Trei: Primul, Al Doilea și Al Treilea, pe Drum.

August 2, 2021 0

Are you sure? Are you sure you are sure?

Universe: So… you say you want to get healed, hmmmm? Do you want to live a life of happiness and prosperity? Feel free and light, powerful and worthy, engaged and self confident?

Human: Aham! Yes, please, please, please! I will do ANYTHING!

U: Anything??? Sure???

H: Yes, yes, please, I really WANT it!

U: Don’t you mean You need it?

H: Whatever, just gimme!!! Now! Please! As soon as possible!

U: OK! Let’s play!

And so it begins! The journey to a lighter, nicer, more powerful and self confident YOU. Each time we declare something, just like when writing a code for software programming, the Universe (exactly like the program) will take our desires as absolute truth and start playing it’s role. If we say „Let’s dance”, the Universe takes us for a dance.

There is no right and wrong in the view of the Universe, all is equal and equally important. Our desire is a spontaneous trigger in the world around us. There is no coincindence, no mistake, no flaw. But just like a software program, the Universe returns us only calculations based on the input we give it. A good friend of mine used to tell me that a program, just like a book or anything else created by a person, is only as good as that person was at the time they created their stuff. Of course you write a book or some lines of code in one way when you are 20 years old, and in a totally different way when you 40 or 80 years old. What changes in between? All the choices we made, everything we triggered in the Universe and around ourselves, during all those years.

When we make a declaration as in „ I wish I had that…” or „ I wish I were in that place/position/situation/etc”, or even worse „ I will never do/want/say that again”, strongly connected to „ I wish I hadn’t done/said/took that decision”, the Universe starts working accordingly. Everything we think, feel and especially express, is released in the surrounding space and starts making waves, as in a lake, and wrinkles throughout space.

One of the „in trend” ideas is to get healed. Somehow, through a weird and very off set thinking process, we got to some conslusions:

If we heal, we get everything we ever wanted (cars, looks, posessions, MONEY, relationships, etc)
Once we heal, our job is DONE, therefor there is ONLY happiness and pink clouds from there on.
If we heal, we can TAKE OVER the people around ourselves, show them who’s the boss and make them pay for everything they have done to us
Once we heal, we get to retreat to a sunny island, live there laying on our backs for the rest of our lives while everything else will fall, by default, in it’s place.

With all due respect, none of the hypothesis mentioned above is true. Or, at least, not for our true self, even if it might sound right for the Ego.

Healing means breaking loose from the Ego, as the Ego is the shield we put up to endure the world and the lens we use to judge it. Healing comes with uncovering all those hidden corners, cleaning up all the basements of our minds, throwing away all that we valued as treasure, but is, in fact, trash!

Healing means we put up our sleeves and we start working on ourselves. The stronger the Ego, the harder the work, but we mustn’t, by all means, look into fighting it. The Ego is made out of struggle and fight, and will always thrive and enjoy a good fight. And we might even lose the fight, because we should know better, we built it to be strong and withold all that life threw at us.

Healing is like a process in which you perform surgery on yourself (sometimes with help, sometimes on your own): it hurts in the begining, and, depending on the Ego’s strength, it hurts more or less, for a shorter or a longer period. Some people are not ready for that or they get scared, and that’s OK. If we all healed at the same time, this place called Earth would probably be left without a meaning for humans, as this is our playground. We come here to learn, experiment, play in the mud. But just like with kids, from time to time we have to wash ourselves and take a little bit of care of ourselves. Or…just grow the layer of mud on our skin, until it becomes the Wholy Grail of our Ego.

Healing is a process that needs to be done on the soul’s pace, on a convenient rhythm for all three: soul, mind and body. It triggers memories, makes us reevaluate stories, especially OUR OWN story, it makes us doubt past choices, future choices, the meaning of life itself. And that’s OK too. This is how it’s suppose to happen: it’s suppose to shake you to wake you up. Sometimes we even have to demolish completely, do some repairs at the very foundation of our being, so it also takes a quite impressive amount of energy. But it’s also not hard! Once we get ourselves into inertia, it gets easier and easier every time to heal a bad memory, a trauma, a missconception about oneself. Another annoying thing that could happen would be for us to see our dark side, the shadows that we never recognized as belonging to us, because of various reasons. Now this one really hurts! Realising we also did stupid mistakes, bad things to other people, that we are not the victim saints we visualized ourselves to be in our minds. No, we are not perfect either, let’s not turn our every day Ego into a spiritual one: I am cleaning more than you, I am healing more than you, I am better than you! No no, we all have light and shadows, we all use both of them, we are all humans in the end. Healing time is a not a time to be bragging about, but one in which we must finally focus on ourselves. Healing is like defragmenting your computer and making it work better. It’s not about removing the „bad” and becoming all „good” and „saint”, it’s about looking ourselves in the eyes, sorting and properly placing onto drawers all the elements that define us, and using them properly.

And this… doesn’t end until we die. It doesn’t bring instant money, but brings, in time, prosperity and abundance. It doesn’t solve all our future conflicts, but helps us manage them better. It doesn’t punish people around us for „what they have done to us”, neither give us the Lottery jackpot and the possibility to live a life of total waste and expenditure.

But it helps our body function properly and physically heal. It helps us have good and meaningful relationships, good memories, a joy to go through life learning, excitements, energy and drive. Healing makes our souls feel better, and as the line says „On Earth as it is in Heaven, on the outside as it is on the inside”, our life on this planet would be improved.

Universe: Are you sure you are sure you are ready?

December 1, 2020 1

On Holiday / În vacanță

bilingual – scroll down for Romanian

What if there is no struggle? No battle, no effort?

What if we are here just to enjoy the time we spend in this lifetime, as if we were on a vacation? What if this entire life is actually a vacation?

What would you do on a vacation? Do you remember the feeling you had during your last good vacation? Well, that feeling wasn’t because you actually had the chance to take on a vacation, but it was a feeling internally generated. Your soul and mind felt good, so you know how that feels like. There is no need for an external reason for feeling in a certain way, we just like the illusion of considering what is outside of us being an important, and the only, generator of our mood. But our mood is, in fact, generated inside of us, regardless of external factors. So, let’s just untie this need of having something external generating our good feeling, and let’s go back to the previous question:

What if you would feel every day like being on vacation?

What if this a time to rest and enjoy? What if, in this way, the statement made by the majority of religions, that life is a gift, is true?

Imagine in the beginning we got here to enjoy and explore, and simply feel good and have a nice time on this wonderful planet. But fear kicked in, we maybe got scared by the unknown of this 3D world, by its physical rules (ancient people thought lightning strikes are punishment from the gods) and we felt fear for the first time. We felt that our curiosity for exploring this place brought us fear and punishment, thus the myth of falling out of grace and that an eternal, peaceful, easy life became impossible. In the end, who would want to live in fear forever? We tested to see how the fire feels like, we got burnt, we deemed it dangerous. But we didn’t do that just with fire, we did it with everything around us. We got scared, every day a little more. Then, we realized the main way of communication here is by speaking, therefor words had to be used, words that could be easily forged. We also got to learn deceive and the fact that by deceiving others we can get more of this planet. We got more of this planet, we wanted more of it. Because we can’t read minds, touch or see souls, here and now, we realized we can trick, lie, hustle, and all the rest. Over thousands of years, things got more and more twisted, corrupted, and all that feeling good from the beginning just vanished. We forgot about it, and we focused on fear and loss. We created rules, laws, procedures to deal with anything we considered negative, leaving the positive things hanging in the air. We turned our backs to the positive exploration of our world and focused only on the negative ones. The interesting thing comes only now: that which we focus on, grows, and that which we dismiss, dies. We focused on solving the negative stuff, thus generating more and more negative things, we watered it like a weed growing and suffocating any other plant around it.

What about the positive things? Some people tend to have a shock when they hear about positive things in life, because it’s hard for them to identify even one. We are not used to seeing positive things, we are not used to wait and see how things unfold, we are far away from our good feeling kind of life. We have trainings and lessons about how to protect, fight, estimate risks, take care, protect and build walls and while it’s good to have in mind we live in a dual world, why do we forget about the good parts? Why don’t we have courses on how to enjoy life more? On how to relax and let go? On how to look at life and how to understand it? Not to mention that in some cultures, nowadays, relaxing and enjoying things, being easygoing and detached, means you are lazy, not serious and not committed!

How far do we still have to go with this fear and struggle until we realize this is not why we are here? What would it take to rewrite the last couple of thousands of years, and go back to enjoying living now and here, in good peace and harmony amongst other people?

How would you feel on a vacation? Exploring new sites? Not minding about other people, who are also there to relax and enjoy new places? Not taking too many things personally, because, hey, you are on holiday! Not stressing yourself about mandatory tasks, what should and must and has to be done? You already know that feeling, so why not have it every single day, all year round? Why not live your life as if it were a long holiday?

Feeling good and enjoying your life doesn’t make you weak, uninterested or lazy. If anything, it makes you more involved! Just remember how you would look for activities to do, how you would not want to lose one day without doing something that you have dreamed about when you are on holiday.

What if we considered our planet a vacation resort? Where things got off the tracks, indeed, but where things can still be fixed, as long as we remember exactly why we got here, in the first place.

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Română

Cum ar fi dacă nu ar exista ideea de chin? De luptă? De efort?

Dacă suntem, de fapt, aici ca să ne bucurăm de timpul petrecut, ca și cum am fi într-o vacanță?

Ce ți-ar plăcea să faci, dacă ai fi în vacanță? Mai ți minte cum te-ai simțit în ultima ta vacanță? Ei bine, nu ai avut acel sentiment pentru simplul fapt că erai în vacanță, nici nu a fost generat de ceva exterior, ci a venit din tine însuți. Senzația de bine este deci, deja cunoscută, de către sufletul și mintea ta. Nu avem nevoie de nici un motiv extern pentru a fi fericiți și a ne bucura de viață, dar ne place să credem că ceea ce există în afara noatră este mai important și mai palpabil, și deci, singura sursă de fericire pe care o acceptăm. Dar starea noastră de spirit își are, de fapt, originea în noi, în mintea noastră, indiferent de factorii externi, așa că, hai să ne întoarcem la prima întrebare:

Cum ar fi dacă ai avea mereu starea de spirit pe care o ai când ești în vacanță? Dacă acum, singurul lucru pe care îl avem de făcut, este să ne simțim și să ne petrecem timpul ca și când am fi în vacanță?

Dacă viața asta este, de fapt, menită pentru a ne simți bine, a ne odihni și a ne trage sufletul? Dacă, în acest fel, majoritatea sistemelor filosofice si majoritatea religiilor au dreptate când susțin că viața este un cadou?

Să ne imaginăm că la începutul timpurilor, am ajuns prin părțile acestea de Univers ca să explorăm și să ne bucurăm de rezultatul explorărilor. Dar curând ne-a cuprins teama, frica, ne-am speriat de lumea asta materială, de regulile ei simple dar de necontestat (legile fizicii). Să ne aducem aminte doar cum oamenii din antichitate considerau fulgerele sau cutremurele ca și pedepse divine. Am ajuns la concluzii dintre cele mai depărtate de adevăr, cum că setea de explorare sau de cunoaștere aduce durere și pedeapsă, de unde și mitul “căderii din Rai” și al faptului că o viață eternă, pașnică și ușoară este ceva imposibil. Până la urmă, cine și-ar dori o viață întreagă trăită în frică? Mai ales, eternă? Am vrut să testăm cum se simte focul, ne-am ars, l-am catalogat drept periculos, deci trebuie tratat cu frică. Dar nu ne-am oprit la foc, am continuat cu tot ce am găsit în jurul nostru, în aceeași manieră: am încercat, nu ne-a plăcut foarte tare rezultatul (de fapt nu a fos rezultatul la care ne-am fi așteptat, de cele mai multe ori), l-am catalogat drept periculos, și l-am împachetat frumos cu frică. Ne-am speriat în fiecare zi puțin mai mult ca în ziua precedentă, și ne-am scufundat în și mai multă frică. Apoi, am realizat că singura metodă de comunicare aici, între doi oameni, este bazată pe cuvinte (sau cel puțin așa credem). Dar cuvintele pot fi false, putem minți și înșela foarte ușor cu ele. Și ne-am dat seama de lucrul acesta, deci am început să mințim și să înșelăm, mărind și agravând astfel frica deja instalată. Am învățat să vrem tot mai mult, pentru beneficuil personal, încât am ajuns să ne fie frică de faptul că planeta aceasta nu va ajunge pentru toată lumea! Cu cât reușim să avem mai mult, cu atât vrem mai mult, de parcă Pământul s-ar termina mâine și ne luptăm să fim noi cei ce iau cel mai mult, până atunci. Pentru că nu putem citi sau atinge mintea și sufletul, aici și acum, am realizat că putem minți și înșela oricât, pentru propriul beneficiu. De-a lungul miilor de ani, lucrurile s-au complicat tot mai mult, ne-am corupt tot mai mult, până când am ajuns să uităm cu totul de ce am venit, în primul rând, aici. Am uitat scopul primar, și am devenit din ce în ce mai orbiți de frică și de ideea de pierdere. Am creat legi și regulamente ca să avem grijă de toate lucrurile negative și dăunătoare la care ne-am putea gândi, lăsând deoparte lucrurile pozitive și frumoase care ne înconjoară. Ne-am întors spatele explorării pozitive a lumii din jurul nostru, și ne-am concentrat să facem din fiecare descoperire o armă. Dar partea interesantă, abia acum parte: dacă ne e frică de ceva, și ne concentrăm toată atenția pe acel ceva, acel ceva va crește! Și ceea ce nu beneficiază de atenția noastră, moare. Ne-am concentrat atât de mult pe buruieni, că ne-au năpădit, sufocând și planeta, și bunădispoziția celor care încă o mai aveau.

Dar ce zicem despre lucrurile pozitive? Am întâlnit oameni care au fost șocați la auzul cuvintelor “lucruri pozitive în viață„ pentru ca pur și simplu nu își puteau imagina nimic pozitiv sau frumos, relativ la ideea de viață. Nu suntem obișnuiți să vedem lucruri bune în jurul nostru, și nici nu se învață la școală. Nu suntem obișnuiți să observăm, să contemplăm, să analizăm, și să mai vedem și lucruri pozitive. Avem cursuri și instructaje despre cum să ne apărăm, cum să ne luptăm, să estimăm riscuri, să avem grijă, să (ne) protejăm și să construim ziduri! Și, deși e bine să avem în vedere că trăim într-o lume duală, cum rămâne cu lucrurile bune? De ce nu avem (destule) cursuri de cum să trăim bine, frumos, fericiți? Su despre cum să ne relaxăm și să nu lăam lucrurile personal? Despre cum să ne uităm și cum să înțelegem viața? Ca să nu mai zic că în unele culturi, să te relaxezi și să te bucuri de viață, este o dovadă de lene, superficialitate și lipsă de implicare!

Cât de departe vrem să mergem cu ideea de frică și chin, până când vom realiza, în sfârșit, că nu acesta este motivul pentru care suntem aici? De ce anume am avea nevoie pentru a rescrie ultimile câteva mii de ani, umplându-le de gânduri și stări pozitive? De ce am avea nevoie ca să putem trăi liniștiți și în armonie unii cu ceilalți, pe planeta aceasta?

Cum te-ai simți dacă ai fi în vacanță? Cum ar fi să explorezi locuri noi, să nu te intereseze ce fac alți oameni, să nu iei nimic personal, pentru că, nu-i așa?, ești în vacanță! Cum ar să nu te stresezi de termene limită și activități obligatorii? Sentimentul respectiv deja îți este cunoscut, deci de ce să nu îl folosești și să nu îl simți zilnic? De ce să nu îți trăiești viața ca și când ai fi în concediu?

Nu ești slab sau leneș dacă te simți bine și ai o atitudine relaxată. Ba chiar te face mai implicat și îți oferă șanse mai mari de reușită, în orice îți propui să faci. Gândește-te doar cât de implicat ești în găsirea de activități și locuri de explorat, atunci când îți planifici vacanța, la cât entuziasm și nerăbdare simți, și gândește-te cum ar fi să te simți așa în fiecare zi, făcând lucruri de zi cu zi.

Dacă planeta noastră este doar o mare destinație de vacanță? Un loc unde, bineînțeles, lucrurile nu merg întotdeauna cum am vrea, dar le putem repara, schimba, aranja, în așa fel încât să ne aducem aminte că până la urmă suntem aici ca să ne simțim bine.

September 29, 2020 0

Would we still talk to each other?

I look at you and I hear you. I understand your words and I perceive your body language. All the sounds that come from you, the tone, the gestures and… the feelings. I can get agitated or nervous or calm, just by watching you.

But it is not you the one that says what I hear. Your words, you expressing yourself, has to go through my „landing modules”: I receive the information and I unpack it and use it according to my dictionary. What you say has a meaning to me only based on my dictionary. I will never be able to translate your message outside my definitions, just because for now, my imagination is unaware of those possibilities.

But the same happens with you. All the things you tell me are coming already prepacked by your own dictionary. The words you use, your gestures and tone, everything comes fully packed based on your needs, wishes, desires, loss. You also cannot express something that is not familiar to yourself. You will always speak your words, knowing exactly what you meant, while I will be listening to you, considering I fully understand what you wanted to say, but following my own decripting code.

In the case stated above it’s almost as if you tried sendig a boat (because that is the only transportation mean you know) to an airport (as that is the only receiving method I have). Although both boats and airports have to do with sending and receiving packages, I need a lot of immagination to make these work in the same registers.

So, we have the following situation: a boat can’t dock in an airport, but there has to be a way to make this work. Of course, if you don’t care too much about the other person or anybody else, per se, there is no need to look more in deep. But it is stil a good exercise if you want to learn more or just to be able to communicate (not speak!) with as many people as possible.

Taking these from an engineering point of view, the first necessary step is to realise the issue with the boat, airport, garage, car, etc. What I mean is that you have to realise there are a lot of things that can be transmitted using exactly the same words. First you have to become aware that your way of communicating, or other people’s, is not the only way. And is not wrong! Whatever communication method you have, is OK, as long as you are aware of it.

The second step would be to realise other people’s communication method and to try to decode it. That usually goes with asking a lot of questions, with no feelings involved, stating from the begining your clear objective that you would like to better understand the other one. Try decoding as much as possible, but be aware that the other person might not know exactly how he reacts, when, why, and might not be able to explain you their dictionnary. Or they might do it, considering they did an awsome job, and fail miserably. I will explain why, a little bit lower.

The third and final step would be to constantly do maintenance on the your boat-airport kind of relationship. That means that you have to fine tune it, keep up to date and invest time in all this communication stuff.

That’s how it goes in logical, everyday, real life. But that is, most of the times, based on Ego. So that means that everything you or I say, everything you or I understand, will have the first mission to save our own Egos. The rest, is the actual truth, but the main communication is triggered, maintained and insisted upon, in order to protect and make flourish our Ego. Again, this is not a bad thing, as the Ego is just a tool in our hands. The fact that we use it, despite and against others, is a totally different thing. The Ego is simply our survival interface in this world. But it’s perception affects our lives in full mode. Wether it was hurt or just considered it was, it will always assume its own survival depends on thriving inspite anything else, sometimes even inspite of other human beings. It’s main purpose is to keep us alive, just that sometimes it makes us even lose control and do awful things in the name of survival. It is just a tool, but one of which we should be aware and learn to use.

The thing is that unless you are aware of this, you have no idea what triggers and what sets you up. As I said above, some people think they have explained everything perfectly and deem the other one to be an idiot by not undersresting their message (words, intentions, gifts, etc). They don’t understand that what they send as a message, is totally triggered by their hurt Ego, emotions, past experiences, things hidden in the deepest corners of their mind. And that the same happens to the receiver, that understands everything based on his personal experiences and conclusion. Maybe the first one may raise their tone, because of how their boss/parents/tutors did in order to make them pay attention, and the second one might understand he did something wrong, because he was yelled at only when he got in trouble. The words heard by both of them are the same, the messages… far away. Without understanding that the ones speaking and understanding are not their true selves, and without trying to adjust the communication code so that they fall the closest, there is no way in the world for these two people to get along. And their relationship, in case it has to exist due to outside demands, will fail, bringing them to failure too. They will increase their frustration, lower their self esteem, get tired explaining and understanding, and so on.

We are human beings for now, in a material world. Words and feelings and different ways of expressing ourselves are the only tools we have for now. We can choose to refine them, or go by our survival instinct.

But what if we could see each other’s souls? Would we still talk to each other?

April 21, 2020 0

Set the mindset

Remember the feeling before an exam? Being relaxed (or not 😀 ), waking up, getting ready for the day, walking down to school/high school/university and… getting all stressed up and worried once you make it into the crowd waiting before the doors of the examination room.

You know what you know, or what you don’t know, you were relaxed, but now the blood is pumping, heart pounding in your ears, breath is rapid and superficial, your adrenaline levels are sky rocketing!

Or maybe the idea of getting a surgery or any other kind of medical intervention (who hasn’t been at least once at the dentist’s?) sounds more familiar? You know you have to make it, you know you won’t get by without it, you know it would do you good. And you are maybe even relaxed, at peace and comfortable with the idea! But then, you get to the hospital and… it all goes down! You see all the people suffering, hurting, maybe even whining and you start having second thoughts, cold feet, doubts, you would do anything to escape that area.

It goes the same with almost all the aspects of our life: we get influenced by the ones surrounding us. We embrace their feelings, we kind of get contaminated with their feelings and impressions, and based on our endurance, we give in to their influence sooner or later. This is no secret, we influence each other without even realizing it, there have been numerous studies about presenting the same gestures as other people in the room, after spending a certain period in the companionship of those people, gestures taken unconsciously from our parents, care takers, friends, or even from people who we dislike. Although this is not wrong if we do it willingly, in order to “borrow” healthy habits or gestures, this can be very dangerous when done unconsciously. And it gets worse when, being presented with the facts, we dismiss them for not being true. This is the way we can be influenced up to manipulation, with our consent, without even knowing about it.

The more you spend time with a group of people, the more you get influenced by them in a lot of conscious and unconscious manners. Which is OK, it helps us evolve, learn and borrow skills from each other. But what happens when it holds us back? What if it gives us a view on life that is more restrictive than expansive? Do we go on with it? Do we fight it? Do we even realize it?

The fact is, it’s hard to realize that we “borrowed” indeed the thoughts or the reactions, because all this works at a subtle level, affecting directly our subconscious. We are set up from birth with the ideas, rules and impressions of the ones around us. We learn their words and their values, from the names and the differences between colors, to the meaning of good and evil in life. We are thought about “impossible” things and desirable outcomes. We are told stories and we make expectations. Depending on the stories we are told and the outcomes of the actions of the people around us, we draw our own conclusion: life is easy, life is hard, I will never make it, I will make it just like my ancestors, etc.

And we embrace this mentality, this mindset, passed through generations. It becomes our only reality and shapes our surroundings, defining who we are. We embrace it just like a fish, that spends its entire life under water, and if told that there are birds that can fly and breathe air, it categorizes as absurd and nonsense, because no fish has ever flown, therefor nobody can.

The only way to detach from this mindset that occupies every single millimeter of our lives, is to detach from it. No matter how much we are pressured to conform, no matter how much we are told to stop asking questions and to obey, we must detach from it and leave. From a good distance, all the aspects in a person’s life start making sense. From a healthy distance, we can even find reasons to laugh at our concerns, see the irrelevance in some of our wishes, and most importantly, see clearly what is benefic and healthy for us! Because nobody can tell us what is actually good for us, at least not as an absolute rule. We all have our unique way of being happy, satisfied with our lives, we know our own needs and possibilities.

Even if it’s hard to resist all the voices that suggest or demand you to obey and do things like everyone else, if you feel it’s not right, just leave! Go somewhere where you can be out of any influence, somewhere where you can feel and hear only yourself. Give yourself time to silence all the outside noise from your mind, breathe without hurry, spend some time in silence. Without external echo in your ears, you can make lifelong decisions, you discover your own possibilities and talents and you start living your own life.

And when you know for sure who you are, what you need and want, what is your approach on life, return and help change the odds. But remember to always go back to yourself, detach again, each time you feel your own will suffocated, because the way the mindset of the others affects us is an insidious process and it seems that the most contagious “disease” is fear.

March 4, 2020 1