Friday, February 13, 2009

What Attracts You To Other People?

Dr. Michael Ryce talks about how it is helpful to hear the same material stated in different ways and from different points of view and different disciplines, such as science, psychology, theology, etc., and that this helps us integrate new material.  This post is about how we give up on the true nature of ourselves sometime between the time we are born, and the time we become adults.  Dr. Ryce describes this process in some detail in his lecture titled "From Co-dependence to Inter-dependence", in which he discusses the role of the Power Person in each of our lives.  A Power Person is anyone for whom we "gave up" our conscious connection to our true nature as Love, in order to win the acceptance, and approval of the  Power Person.  Clearly each of us can have more than one Power Person in our lives.  

Identifying who those Power People are, and discovering the patterns we have developed in our behavior in order to try to please them, is a very useful part of the process of returning to the conscious awareness of our true nature as Love.  The more we can identify the things that trigger us to feel anything less than Love, the more we have the opportunity to "Forgive" or "Cancel" and dismantle that part of our stored memories and false realities.

Gregg Braden has written a book titled The Divine Matrix which is all about the invisible energy that connects all of creation.  It is called different things in different cultures, but it all boils down to the realization that we are all connected, and that nothing, and no one, is truly separate from the rest of creation and existence.  In the last quarter of the book, Gregg Braden describes a co-worker he knew who was frequently "falling in love" with people despite the fact that he was happily married.  This person used to "fall in love" with the waitress at lunch, or the bank teller, then come back to the office and obsess about the latest person he was attracted to, and wonder if this person was supposed to be his soul-mate.

In the book Mr. Braden offers the following explanation for why this happens, and why each of us find people to whom we are instantly and powerfully attracted.  He suggests that each of those people are exhibiting traits, characteristics, and skills which we have denied, repressed, or buried in ourselves.  He suggests that we deny, repress, and bury those traits in ourselves in order to fit in with, or be accepted by, different people and groups in our lives.  He suggests that most of the time this is a process we are not consciously aware of, but that some people make conscious choices to "give up", or hide parts of themselves in the pursuit of career, and other goals.

He suggests that those traits, qualities, and skills are not gone, they always remain part of who we are.  We cannot be otherwise.  What is needed is for us to recognize, and willingly accept the challenge of facing the fear of being who we really are.  So why not try this as a challenge?  Why not begin to notice the people you admire, and are attracted to, and let yourself question how that person is displaying a part of your personality, skills, and traits which you have buried, denied or repressed?  Make some mental or even paper and pencil notes about those qualities, and then examine;

 "How would  my life be different if I fully owned and lived from these qualities and traits?", 

 "How do I imagine this would challenge or change some of the key relationships in my life?", 

 "Who in my life, was I trying to please, or appease by hiding this part of myself?"  

The goal, IS THE PROCESS of learning to love and accept yourself as you truly are!

We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love.  Everything else is false.

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