One of the most horrific lies ever forced upon us as human beings is the idea that other people cause our thoughts and feelings. This one simple lie changes our view of ourselves from creator to victim. This one simple lie is the source of all unnecessary psychological and emotional pain.
The fact is that our thoughts create our emotions and that our emotions simply shadow our thoughts. Since we are each endowed with the infinite capacity to choose the focus of our conscious awareness at any given moment, we have the free will to choose our thoughts.
This means that we create our emotions by choosing the thoughts which produce those emotions. Now, I realize that for almost everyone reading these words, their cultural and family conditioning goes directly contrary to what I am offering here. That does not make it right or wrong. This is simply something for each of us to observe in our own lives, as it is happening. If one observes that thinking happy thoughts leads to happy feelings/emotions, and that thinking sad thoughts leads to sad feelings/emotions, and that thinking angry thoughts leads to angry feelings/emotions, then one has demonstrated the truth to one's self.
Most of us have been conditioned to think that other people offend us, and that other people hurt our feelings, and that other people make us angry. What has happened here is that we have been trained to mistake "the trigger" for the cause. The cause of one's emotions, as we can easily observe, is the choice of one's thoughts. When we choose to believe that what happens outside of us, or what someone else does, is the cause of our emotions we simply mistake the "triggering event" as the cause. When this happens we see ourselves as having been "made" to feel a certain way. Without realizing it we have defined ourselves as victims. We then quickly try to avoid the uncomfortable feeling of being the helpless victim by blaming, or attacking the person, or thing, we think has caused our internal discomfort or emotional pain.
I would offer that blaming someone or something outside of me for causing my psychological or emotional pain is mistaking the trigger for the cause. I remember when I was younger how we used to get a large glass of cold milk and pour Hershey's chocolate syrup into the glass. The chocolate syrup would pool at the bottom of the glass, leaving 95% of the glass filled with cold, white milk. If I took a drink from that glass, I would taste nothing but the cold, white milk. Now let's imagine that I have two nice tall glasses of white milk and I pour chocolate syrup into one glass and leave the other as just plain white milk. When I taste these two glasses of milk they will both taste like cold white milk. Now imagine a spoon coming into my posession and I vigorously stir the milk with the chocolate syrup pooled at the bottom. The glass will soon be full of dark, rich chocolate milk. However, if I use that same spoon and vigorously stir the glass of white milk, without any chocolate syrup in it, it stays a nice cold glass of white milk.
The spoon is just a stimulus, a trigger, for the chocolate to be disturbed from its resting place at the bottom of the glass. The spoon did not cause the milk to be chocolate. The spoon can only stir up what is already in the glass. I could stir the glass with the white milk in it for hours, and it will not turn chocolate. So we can plainly see that the spoon is simply a stimulus, it is not the cause for the milk to turn brown and chocolatey.
Blaming someone else for the anger I feel is like blaming the spoon for making the milk chocolatey. Blaming someone else for my choice to think sad or bitter thoughts is like deciding to spend days and days stirring the glass of white milk, hoping that if I stir it enough it will turn to chocolate milk. The spoon only stimulates and stirs up what is already in the glass.
To continue this analogy, let us imagine that I had the willpower to refrain from drinking the chocolate milk once the syrup had been stirred up and spread evenly throughout the glass. Let's imagine that I am able to put it back into the refrigerator, (where no one else drinks it either), and I let it rest, without any exposure to the spoon for several long hours. When I finally take the milk out of the refrigerator I will see that 90% of the glass is filled with cold white milk, and the syrup has once again settled to the bottom. If I take a drink from the glass, I will taste only cold, white milk. Does this offer me proof that the spoon caused the milk to be chocolately, because when the milk was away from the spoon for several hours, it returned to its state of being mostly cold, white milk? Do I prove that the spoon caused the milk to be chocolatey by re-introducing the spoon to the milk and stirring it up once again until it becomes chocolate milk once more.
In much the same way, we have been trained to think that other people, who by the way only introduce us to parts of ourselves which are hidden from our awareness, are causing our anger, sadness, hurt, insult, offense, confusion, etc. Then when that person goes away, and we are alone or with other people, we feel much better, more calm, happy, focused, loving, etc. This seems to prove to us that the other person was responsible for our negative emotions, because we only feel those things when we are with them. REMEMBER THE SPOON!
Other people, places, situations and events can only stir up within us what is already there.
Please don't believe me about this. Observe for yourself the way your thoughts and emotions interact and what is happening in your thought process when you are feeling happy, sad, angry, confused, or fearful. Once you are armed with accurate observations about how your thoughts and feelings interact, and your ability to choose the focus of your conscious awareness, you will be better able to make the choice to Teach Only Love.
We come from Love, we are made of Love, we are Love. Everything else is false.
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