Reflections

"The quality of all of our relationships is a direct function of our relationship with ourself."

The totality of human potentialities exist within each of us. Thankfully. Because as a matter of experience, we can only ever know our individual, subjective perspective.

Each of us is an universe unto ourself. The Archetypical "Other," all those other self-referencing universes, are mirrors. Everyone we meet is a mirror reflecting the light we emit. Each of these mirrors, being uniquely molded by physiology and environment, uniquely warp and refract our light. But it is still our light they reflect, and our light we receive.

And so the stage is set for the unconscious play most of us are wrapped in. We judge, condemn, mock, insult, shame, and pity the Other, not realizing it is our reflection we damage.

"One of the best known methods of getting over feelings of guilt is to stop condemning other people in your own mind -- stop judging them, stop blaming them, and stop hating them for their mistakes."

"To wound others is to wound myself. To heals other is to heal myself."

Exercises:

1) Review your social media over the past month. Do patterns emerge showing how you relate to others? Are you judging? Mocking? Praising? Loving?

2) Research the Fundamental Attribution Error. Take pride in schooling your friends when they lapse into the fallacy. Sit with the irony if you think you do not trip over this fallacy yourself.

3) For a week, pretend all other people are reincarnations of the same soul you possess, but which grew in a different body and within differing environments. Have compassion for the other yous.

I love you. Namaste.

Artwork by Michael Divine 

Becoming who I needed

I saw a quote last night that gave me goosebumps. I consider it a wink from Uni that it came to me the day before I write my weekly blog post. The quote was, “Be who you needed when you were younger.”

Fuck.

It sentences like those that fill me with passion to consider myself a writer. The power in those eight words did more for me then anything else that happened that day. Truth rings clear. She cuts through the bullshit of current culture.

I’m working on a book. This quote explains why. I’m creating a resource I wish I had had when I was younger. For reasons beyond my current comprehension, since childhood, I’ve thought deeply about God. Christianity was the symbol system introduced to me and it never meshed. It didn’t agree with something deep in me.

I prayed every night as a kid up until 14 or 15. I don’t think I’ve told many people this. I said the same prayer every night. “Thank you for today, thank you for life, thank you for my friend’s and family’s life.” I don’t know if that is verbatim but I remember the essence was that I never asked for anything. Even at 7 or 8, I thought that was offensive. I only said thank you.

Looking back on my life, I can see that I've always had an attraction to the spiritual, but I didn't have a symbol system, or mentors who could guide me toward what really mattered; an experiential relationship with the divine. 

It was around 14 or 15 that I discovered philosophy. The little semblance of spirituality in me died quickly and the prayers stopped. Logic was a scalpel and I amputated a part of myself. If you knew me then you knew I could argue. Anyone willing to debate with me made my day. I was an asshole, a bully. I didn’t realize it but I was wounded from my own numinous disillusionment that I wanted to squelch other’s light. Courtney from 2^nd period senior year, I’m sorry.

Psychedelics, psychology, and Jung reconnected me to my amputated spirituality. A couple of books and podcasts helped me too. Now, I feel more alive and luminous than I ever have. I believe this is because, well one, I’ve reconnected to the spiritual dimension of my Self. Another is that I am nurturing my creativity. I’ve always wanted to write a book. I feel, subjectively, I know, writing this book is healing that amputation scar. The book will be a guide my logically-inclined curious 14 year-old self could have followed to the divine.

We all have a unique creative function within us. I think that when we use our unique creative function to create something our younger selves would have wanted, would have needed, we are joining God in her dance.

Good parents do this. Some parent’s creative destiny is to be a great parent. Those kinds of parents, through stress and pressure that would crush me, become the parent their younger self needed. Both of my parents, flaws and all, did this for me.

My mother needed and did not get love from her parents. I surfed into adult life on a tidal wave of my mother’s love. My father needed and did not get security from his parents. He has always been a financial and pragmatic security system guarding my development. My gratefulness is beyond words to both of you. I repay this gratefulness by becoming the most actualized I can. I’m going to help others.

And this brings me to a passage from The Prophet that has continually resonated with me;

"Your children are not your children. 

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself. 

They come through you but not from you. 

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. 

You may give them your love but not your thoughts, 

For they have their own thoughts. 

You may house their bodies but not their souls, 

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

Which you can not visit, not even in your dreams. 

You may strive to be like them,

But seek not to make them like you. 

For life goes not backwards nor tarries with yesterday.  

You are the bows from which your children

as living arrows are sent forth. 

The archer sees the mark along the path of the infinite,

and He bends you with His might

that His arrow may go swift and far. 

Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; 

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves the bow that is stable."

Embrace your trials, failures, and wounds. Learn and grow from them. Thank you Mom and Dad for your stability under the archer's bending. 

Namaste. I love you.

Exercises:

1) Write a letter to your childhood self. Ask them what they like to do for fun. Brainstorm. We can find our unique creative function in the love our younger self naturally gravitated towards. 

Family Bonds

Lenses

There’s a few metaphors for life that I like. One is that life is like a dolphin breaching the ocean's surface. We’re these meat bodies that arise from the primordial. We’ve got enough time to do a few beautiful tricks before our meat suit dissolves back into the primordial.

Another is that we are shot out of the womb like a cannon over a cliff. Without choice or instructions, we’re falling. There are billions of us falling. We’ve got a handful of womb dwellers within your reach. These are the people we know and love. We’re all destined to meet the ground.

The last is that we are a 7 billion headed wave. We’re collectively going somewhere no individual can change. We have the chance to surf the wave until it crashes or we can drown. Like the falling womb dwellers, we’ve got a handful of souls around us that we get to mingle with for the duration of the ride. If we get our bearings, we can help them surf too. Or they can help us.  

And it’s this that brings me to my point. Choose your tribe.

Genetic Loyalty Program

Most of us have an unconscious loyalty program compelling us to keep around our genetic kin. Even if our kin are abusive, psychic vampires, or apathetic culture zombies. We wear these connections like golden shackles. We’re proud to forfeit our soul’s true calling for our kin. We’re proud to let the failings of a brother keep us from chasing our dream.

Jesus had something to say about this (I never thought I’d see the day where I’d be quoting scripture sincerely but I had very blatant synchronicity around this quote and it’s what spurred the entire post.)

“I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man’s foes will be those in his own household.”

First, peep the fucking lyrical fire of that last sentence. Poetry. Anyways, the passage here highlights the idea that, if you, the individual, are going to really understand life for yourself, you have to sever your shackles to your family. This doesn’t mean you abandon them. This means you need to withdraw to a high enough vantage point to see the very flawed humanness of your father, your mother, your brothers and sisters.

Are they good for you now? In this moment, energetically, are they giving you energy, taking energy from you, or are you two mutually feeding each other? Let this linger for now.

Nuclear Family

The idea that a family is composed of a mother and a father, and a couple of children is an evolutionarily new convention. It’s an economically driven convention. A capitalist country wants a deeply fragmented society because every family unit will need a fridge, a car, a home. The more fragmented, the more plastic and steel the country can sell. But this has fragmented our psychological development.

There are a lot of heavy psychological events happening in the child’s psyche that are beyond the scope of this post. One that can be focused on is that the child looks to the parents as guiding lights for behavior. The obvious fact is that no two humans can adequately embody the spectrum of possible human personality. Sadly, most of our parents were pretty mundane or less then. We need mentors.

This need for mentorship is corrupted by our genetic loyalty program. The more unconscious of us think that we inherit our mentors. They believe that mom and dad are the paragons, the saints, the sole mentors. These people tend to not make it far in the game. To be great, you need great mentors.

Honestly access your genetic loyalty program. Family is inherited, tribe is chosen.

Tribe

Our twenties are about getting away from the protective womb of childhood and exploring. Figure out what we are. We need to loosen our family ties just enough so we can know who we are. If, after coming to some self-knowledge, you feel that your family connections are good for you, cultivate those relationships for the rest of your life. Nurture and love them. If you however come to realize that some family ties are shackles, remove them. Go find the connections that are like the ropes of a hot air balloon, those people who lift you up and inspire you. You are not obligated to be chained to the earth. 

Exercises

Make a list of your family members. Write a paragraph for each exploring how they limit and expand you. Do you feel guilty or shameful doing this exercise? You’re detecting your genetic loyalty program.

If you knew you would succeed, and money did not matter, what would you do with your limited life here on earth? Who, dead or alive, has accomplished this goal or something close to it? Read everything you can find from and about this person.

Advance exercise

Once you have found a mentor, every morning read their work for at least an hour for a month. Get to know them so well that they become a software running in your consciousness. Imagine talking to them over lunch. Ask them questions. Ask for guidance. Resurrect them.