Managing Your Thoughts ~ And Life

9. February 2009

If you’ve been studying consciousness, belief systems and the power of thoughts to create your reality, for a while, then you’ve probably found that it has not been all ease and plain sailing. Initial successes may have moved through to reveal fresh challenges and apparent setbacks. Periods of great hope, joy and expectation, where you thought all was well and sorted have somehow shifted inexplicably to renewed difficulties with fresh feelings of fear and anxiety. Why? What is the solution? I suggest that the answer to this is primarily previously hidden, subconscious, aspects of the self calling themselves into your consciousness awareness and secondly it is simply the rhythm of life. There is nothing actually wrong, you haven’t goofed, its just life moving on through you in a manner that differs from your prior conscious expectation.

The Community Of The Self

Do you find your mind and thoughts filled with contradictions? One part of you wants more money but another thinks wanting that is immoral? Part of you loves risks but another craves security? Part of you feels insecure and needy whilst another feels noble, resolute, certain and secure? Part of you wants to be busy and work whilst another wants to be idle? Yep, everybody feels that way to some degree some of the time and it can be highly debilitating if you become overly caught in internal squabbling dialogues resulting in the sense that all choices are wrong.

Well there is an easier way. Work more consciously to unify these disparate aspects of your mind AND seek to meet, greet and integrate previously hidden voices of the mind self. Its an exercise I call “Harnessing The Community Of The Self” and I’ve found it to be most powerful and effective. Its useful as a daily meditative and or journalling practice and most particularly when things seem to be going “wrong” or out of whack.

Our spiritual, energetic or higher self knows only abundance and fulfilment, at that level all is always very well in its world. But our limited separated ego self, or selves, experiences a world of conflict, struggle and separation much of the time. To the limited ego self there is always a feeling of separation from the outer world of things and other people. Its a case of I am me, you are you, this is this, that is that, and if you behave in ways that threaten my sense of me or anything else, then I feel weakened and start wanting revenge and to threaten you so I can feel strong again. Its this sense of fear, limits, and separation that lies behind all wars and violent disputes.

Now, these disparate “voices” in your mind can be likened to a collection of micro egos or selves. We can give them handy names like “inner child” or “past life residues” some may even be “spirit guides” and “ancestors” but overly dwelling on or feeding energy to formally identify these fragments of self only serves to strengthen their identity and make them appear stronger, more “real” and less integrated into the greater “you”, which often may not be very useful at all.

The thought to really ponder is, that if you are conscious enough to actually notice these “voices” and their differing demands, rather than blindly reacting erratically to all and everything, then who is it that is doing the witnessing? Its your dominant or “adult ego” the aspect of you that is really much clearer about who you are and much less concerned by threats to it’s identity. This is the you that genuinely has no care or concern as to whether someone calls you a liar or accuses you of something you did not do because it knows itself securely enough to no longer feel threatened by the behaviour or accusations of others. This is a useful state of self but care must be exercised to ensure that this “adult self” does not get too rigid and attached to its limited identity either.

Here we have it then, your adult ego witnessing the “lesser egos” squabbling, its a bit like managing a football or any other type of team. If you can recognise, nurture and harmonise the strengths of your players into a cohesive, unified and mutually supportive team then you will be an extremely successful team. On a personal level though we are looking towards integrating our “selves” into a more unified “self”, we want to assimilate our “team” into our greater being because then, rather dealing with protracted inner dialogues, we will find a quiet inherent wisdom that makes clear choices with ever greater ease and confidence.

Here We Go

My version is set around a tribal campfire, perhaps in the Australian bush, meditatively I am experiencing / visualising the following:

  • The adult ego me is the watcher or witness viewing the event and directing proceedings telepathically. My “higher” spirit self is with this adult me in the form of a still quiet confident feeling or energy that holds the space for the exercise, offering insight and confidence as needed (my higher self is acting as my therapist so to speak). We know we are one yet we also sense our individuality when such a contrast of perception feels useful.
  • Circled around this campfire sit the many aspects of me that I have yet to integrate fully into my greater being and many times I am aware of further less distinct circles of figures behind. These are vague visual forms rather than defined identities from past lives or some such. (Be careful, trawling around for specifics really can be highly distracting and unproductive from the task at hand, which is Integration)
  • As a daily practice you could just call “your” circle together and see what is present and needs to be addressed but if you are wrestling with a specific problem or decision then you simply call your circle together and invite the “self” with the strongest or most urgent need to “speak” to you and the rest of the group first.
  • Once this gets started you’ll find things really begin to flow and that as the first “self” speaks then other “self’s” become eager to have their say also. Once a “self” has had its voice fully heard you’ll feel a remarkable, profound, sense of relief because its not that these “selfves” are so much right or wrong but more that they simply want to be heard. In many instances they’ve been denied, quashed and shut away from our consciousness for so long that it feels deeply isolating and painful. Its this that contributes to that empty unfulfilled feeling you may feel now and again.
  • When a “self” has had it’s say invite it to join and merge into you, your unified being. This will happen auto-magically when what needs to be expressed has been expressed. Allow this process to be ongoing until you sense the time is right to stop.

I guarantee you will be amazed by the results of this exercise. The hard part is summoning the determination to actually practice it because a strong part of you wants to keep things exactly as they are, nice and familiar…

A Brief Example

A recurrent issue I have is that of being paid late by my business customers. I hope for the situation to change but my experience so far has been that it never does for very long. I’m aware that I am now not fully clear in my belief or expectation that it actually can change without a change of business or planetary consciousness and ethics etc. Every business owner I’ve spoken to experiences the same issue, time and again, we all get paid late and therefore end up paying late ourselves. My current reality includes a world of delayed payments. What happens if I invite my community of self to explore the issue?

So, firstly I notice my resistance to actually doing this which takes me nicely to the voice of that resistance and my campfire.
I am also aware of resistance to sharing this issue in public, part of me sees it as weakness; “its a failure for someone extolling the abundance of life to experience or admit to cash flow issues.” But how better to demonstrate than by example?
Back at the resistance to exploring my payments issue. “Why should I be any different? Why should I be paid on time when others aren’t? Why bother with any of it anyway, why not get out of it all and live a simpler life? Its just the price you pay for mixing with such low vibrational people.” Say some of the errant voices of my mind.
Ok now settle down everyone, now lets see what lies deeper here in my community, who truly wishes to speak now? “Well, you only really call a gathering when there is a problem and I think you wear problems as badges of noble suffering. You’re proud of your problems as if they give you more worth, and you like to feel the victim as if it makes you more special in some way.”….. “Maybe you’re correct, what else do you have to contribute?”….. “I think that pattern sucks, its no help, no solution, and only holds the issue in place. There’s nothing special about having big problems, wouldn’t it be better to create and offer big solutions?”…..“Well, don’t I need a big problem in order to have a big solution? Aren’t the two always connected?”…..“Yes, I suppose they are, but couldn’t you generate more flow by releasing your attachment to these problems or challenges?”…..“Yes, I suppose so, but how do I do that?”…..“I’d suggest that by now being conscious of this tendency to embolden your sense of self through the size of your challenges you are free to release or transform that habit”…..“Your right, I feel a shift already! I’m glad I made time to listen to you, I wasn’t so aware of that but how does it relate to not being paid?”
“Could it be that because of your discomfort regarding the ethics of wealth that you are happier to feel “righteously important” about being owed a lot of money than to actually having a lot of money. Basically part of you likes the problem so you keep attracting it”….“Right, who here likes this problem?”…..“I do”…“Go ahead.”….“As long as I or we are short of money because of others then things stay nice, slow and familiar and we get to be the good guy. I like that, I really do.”….“What? So you wouldn’t rather have the freedom that having the money would bring?”….“Nope!” ….“Isn’t that a little self destructive?”…“Who cares, its just how I feel”…“Fine, but picture this. Imagine being paid fully, regularly, on time, imagine having all the money you need, paying everyone else well and when due, being the “good” business and person that always pays promptly.”…“Never happen, the worlds not like that”…“Well how can it be if we don’t believe it can first?”…“How can I believe it without any evidence, people like to use the power of money over others, always have always will?”…“Maybe, but your way is leaving us stuck, can’t we try something new?”…“Ok, I’ll give something a try”…“So lets now settle into deeply feeling how it would be, to be fully paid on time.”………

…and so the dialogue continues whilst issues and insights are identified, integrated and reconciled.

Do you see the idea? It is just a way to bring greater order to the random mental chaos and gain new useful insights that directly relate to you along the way. All you need is the clear intention to commit to such an exercise and a little practice.

Sometimes when practising this you’ll meet some hateful, angry, vindictive aspects of the self that you may find quite disturbing but by letting them have their voice, without acting out or harming anything or anyone, you can release that powerful energy into your field of being for positive use.

We all have a great deal of insight and innate wisdom available to us if we’ll just make the effort to access it but we also have to own our darker side and that should not be disowned either.

The resistance you may feel to actually practising this exercise is simply the ego’s innate fear of change but change is coming regardless so isn’t it better to get with the program and embrace change consciously, proactively?

It simply requires a little extra act of willpower to get you started.

Enjoy,

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