“It works... when both you and the people you hang out with are aware of the unconscious programmings that show their ugly head every now and then, because, if both partners are aware that this is programming and not you, that changes it. If both people are aware of this, then guess what? Rather than precipitating an argument, it precipitates an opportunity to change the programming... when its done with a compassionate consciousness.
The honeymoon ends for a very simple reason. The honeymoon is created on two conscious minds engaging with each other & being self reflective of themselves. So they were monitoring their life and their relationship & doing it according to their wishes and desires.
The honeymoon ends when the subconscious mind shows up.... but the subconscious mind isn't really even you... it's your parents or something.
It ends when there are four minds involved... the two conscious minds... plus the two uninvited guests called the subconscious minds. And all of a sudden, it's like who is this person?! I've never seen this behavior and now it shows up, and all of sudden now... the adjustment of the honeymoon.
Now you have to learn to accommodate the person's subconscious beliefs, because they are are going to be more prominent in the relationship, and they were never there. So what started out as this honeymoon now is compromised, because the uninvited guests, obviously, bring in behaviors that were not intended by either of the partners in the relationship.”
-Bruce Lipton
Of course some variation of the above quote can apply to a variety of relationships... person to self, person to person, group to group, culture to culture, country to country, world to world, etc.
What tools exist, in simple terms, to become the conscious individual rather than the programmed individual? Simple self awareness can interrupt simple reactivity... that is to say that if we register that we are reacting, that very act can interrupt the chemical process.
In other words, as Candice Pert (author of Molecules of Emotions) might put it, when a situation arises, we often react as we always have. The brain releases a neuropeptide associated with whatever emotion has been triggered. The cells receive that neuropeptide and a number of changes are triggered and 'cascade' through the body.
Imagine a person in a rage, their face transformed, their general body language erratic. An important distinction to make is that this isn't so much about containing a particular emotion... but rather observing the emotional state that we are experiencing. Thus, the experiencer is brought into the picture.
If you've ever seen the movie What The Bleep Do We Know, a number of clips narrated by Candice Pert & Joe Dispenza make this exact connection.
They describe a situation where, at a cellular level, a person is bombarded over and over with the same neuropeptides, released (by the brain) in accordance with a particular emotional reaction. The cell doesn't have enough receptor sites to accommodate the incoming neuropeptides, so when it goes to multiply, as a result, the new cell has more of these receptor sites.
The point is... a person can become addicted, habituated to, an emotional state. As Lipton was saying above, the two uninvited guests show up when that conscious individual slips away. If the behavior isn't patterned enough to be subconscious, one has to be aware.
That awareness causes a certain interruption, which may reduce, to a point, the intensity of the emotion experienced, which means less of that neuropeptide reaching the cell, which means less sites for that neuropeptide when the cell divides... which means, potentially, less craving of those cells for something to fill the void.
The awareness has to be consistent enough for the body to gradually come down off the addiction.
As a musician, I may come up with a pattern of notes, but unless the pattern becomes muscle memory, it is easily forgotten. For this reason, it is typically easier to remember complex patterns rather than simple ones, because more time was spend cultivating the memory of them.
These were the parts of pieces that were played over and eventually they became alive unto themselves... no real conscious thought is needed to bring them out... all that is needed is a trigger.
The more distracted our culture is, the less likely it is to give time to the type of awareness needed to dismantle a habit and to sculpt out a new one. How might we thrive as a people if we practice these skills? What traits, passed down for thousands of years, might we let go the way of the dinosaurs?
With this in mind, how might the following reduce reactivity in a population... a person's general stability in terms of shelter and food, the length of a given work day, knowledge of optimal diet and optimal posture, knowledge of preventative approaches to disease... as dis-ease can be a distraction.
Although, that said, dis-ease can also cause one to turn inward and become an observer all the same. In general though, it is interesting to contemplate a society that is free again to do nothing, to slow it down, to not have to look busy, to observe the self... to move, to work, to be without looking over one's shoulder or without feeling owned or dominated. In other words, to create conditions which make it practical to observe the self in the first place.
One thing is certain... a population that is purely involved with baseline survival and baseline reactive emotions (that we've passed down through the generations,) is not going to be our best companion as we meet our complicated, collective future.
It is certain to be complicated, as we've stepped so very far out of our baseline framework (one with all the appropriate built-ins... built in proper posture, built in appropriate foods (automatically present in any animal's proper environment...) built in fertility rates to match the land's carrying capacity (preventing overpopulation), built-in harmony / relationship with the surrounding ecology, etc.)
Stepping out of indigenous living and into the large scale agriculture and industrialization, we now have many new choices, many new options, some detrimental. We live in a world of concentrates... concentrated sugar, extreme amounts of time in the same posture or physical position, etc.
We have extreme circumstances to be reactive in. And we have many life-altering, world altering options. A mindful population is needed to negotiate this power. We are going to want an aware public showing up to this relationship.
Applied awareness may allow the relationship to move through its phases without hidden tangles... and essentially the weight of the past.
Imagine what we might become as conscious people interacting within a conscious society.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1kW0bHtY38
No comments:
Post a Comment