Representative democracy is a trick used to herd people in to obedience under the illusion that it’s “in their best interests” from their own “collective free will”. Let me explain it to you quickly and simply why this is bullshit:

Obviously for any democracy to truly work in society’s best interests, it’s people must be well educated, healthy, and free from the shackles of coercion before they can make truly free and clear decisions. However, society has been continuously hindered by government in achieving these basic standards. Government has consistently and increasingly sacrificed social and ecological well-being for the benefit of private interests: central banks, corporate media, the military-industrial complex, etc. Due to this self-defeating dynamic, any democratic government simply cannot be the catalyst for society to fundamentally and significantly evolve. How could it be when it’s population is largely comprised of poorly educated, unhealthy, and encumbered people driven by fear and ignorance?

Contrarily if society comprised of healthy, well-informed people free from institutionalized coercion, the foundation of government is completely unnecessary since people would then be able to responsibly regulate their ‘own lives’ and relationships in harmony with their environment. In this circumstance, the only type of democracy that could potentially be necessary is direct democracy with others in their direct community.

See the illogical impasse? Representative democracy fundamentally makes no sense. It’s an illusion and every vote counts toward perpetuating that illusion.

(let that sink in)…

And that’s just scratching the surface of the nonsense!

There are also the endless hurdles and loopholes used to manipulate the political system directly and indirectly: bloated bureaucracy, mainstream media brainwashing, fluoride in the water to create a mentally-handicapped society, super-delegates that also lobby and work for major corporations, revolving door politics, independents being unable to vote, voting machines being dysfunctional and easily rigged with virtually no oversight, voting centers being closed early, and so much more. We needn’t even discuss the fact that this year’s presidential election between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton is the perhaps the most blatantly ridiculous farce of representative politics, so obviously manufactured by corporate interests. And, as many people who learned from Obama predicted, Bernie was just a shill used to herd people in to supporting the political illusion. Now he is supporting Hillary Clinton, despite pretending to be anti-establishment, anti-Hillary, and saying the entire political system is irredeemably corrupt! In the words of George Carlin, “They don’t give a f*ck about you!”

And yet despite everyone deeply knowing that it’s all corrupt, people say, “Well it’s the best we can do.” This is what Stockholm Syndrome sounds like. Voters would rather be ruled by criminally dysfunctional megalomaniacs instead of taking responsibility for their own lives by responsibly and proactively educating themselves beyond compulsory education, getting involved in their local community, and having a tangible relationship to their land-base so they don’t have to rely on unsustainable industrial civilization while bitching about it at the same time.

Do you realize how many TRILLIONS are drained from society every year by the parasites on top of the authoritarian pyramid? We have the money, the resources, the technology, the knowledge, and the love in order to feed, clothe, shelter, and educate everyone to create a sustainable paradise on Earth. Yet people settle for less because they’re oppressed and believe the lies they’re brainwashed with, which is why history repeats itself.

Just let it go, walk away, and help wake others up. It’s that simple.

What might it look like without the current system and how can we begin building these alternative models of society? Read more here.

RELATED

Hillary Slipped Up Again Accidentally Calls Donald Trump Her Husband Instead Of Cousin

‘RIGGED’ Trump slams DNC for plans to CHEAT Bernie exposed in WikiLeaks emails

Trump To Revive Glass-Steagall Provisions, Cut Banks Down to Size

Follow WE ARE CHANGE on SOCIAL MEDIA

 Sign up become a patron and Show your support for alternative news

We use Bitcoin Too !  

The post Democracy Is a Trick to Herd Society appeared first on We Are Change.

 “And now let me tell you something that no other candidate for president will tell you. And that is, no matter who is elected to be president, that person will not be able to address the enormous problems facing the working families of our country.

The post Bernie’s Warning: The System is Completely Corrupt appeared first on We Are Change.

Admit it, sometimes even you behave in emotionally childish, inconsiderate, even narcissistic ways, right? No shame in it. It happens to the best of us.

Deep down, underneath the many layers of shallowness, entitled narcissism, and emotional armor, most of us are really just wounded, frightened little children mirroring the behavior of the unhealthy, pathological culture we’ve been indoctrinated in to. It helps to keep in mind that most people are traumatized, psychologically dis-eased, and need healing, even if they don’t realize it because their unhealthy culture has “normalized” it.

Many adults put on a great big show to seem “tough”, “productive”, and “in control.” Since they’ve never been taught how to maturely process their feelings, they’ve become calloused and insensitive as a way to avoid their own pain, fear, and sadness. This, in turn, often causes them to be emotionally disengaged and inconsiderate towards the feelings of others who hold no importance to their aspirations.

They often distract themselves and disassociate using superficial entertainment, alcohol, or being a workaholic on a hamster wheel that never brings them closer to true inner peace, wholeness, and self-love. Lost within themselves, they compulsively cling to mainstream culture for validation and personal orientation. They demonize those who are different because they’ve demonized the aspects of themselves that are different than what their conditioning has told them to be.

They are terrified of their illusions crumbling in the vulnerable uncertainty of honest self-reflection. They avoid confronting anything that exposes the truth that their entire life (their identity, friendships, job, affiliations, hopes, interests) is based on comfortable lies and illusions. They are completely unaware of how their poor behavior is a direct reflection of their poor relationship with themselves.

We must meet this condition with the light of healing, compassion, and self-love instead of succumbing to bitterness and resentment. After all, even the best of us have found ourselves in to this condition to varying degrees. Only when we lovingly immerse ourselves in the process of psychological healing and holistic self-work can we be more self-aware, responsible, and truly evolve through our distressing, infantile behavior.

As adults, we must learn how to nurture and heal ourselves in ways our parents couldn’t. Through our own healing process, we find a compassionate understanding and distanced empathy for others who are still struggling. This allows us to witness others, navigate our interactions with them, impart guidance when needed, yet not be entangled in the manipulations upon which they thrive. In becoming the living embodiment of a healed, whole, conscious person, we not only transcend petty tyrants, but we uplift those who are ready to heal as well.

For more on beginning the healing process, see my essay on Self-Work.

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

The post Next Time You Get Angry At Someone, Remember This appeared first on We Are Change.

First off, just to clarify- I have nothing against Vegans or the Vegan Diet. This is simply about the condemnation that is often used to convey Veganism as somehow “morally and ethically superior”. I’ve been a vegan, I have vegan friends, and this has nothing to do with Veganism, per se.

We clear? Great.

Now, for those who DO moralize and condemn others on the basis of their diet, I know you mean well, but if you’re reading this right now, regardless of your particular dietary choice, you have blood on your hands just the same as meat eaters. Why? You are on the computer which means you are willfully participating in an unsustainable industrial civilization that fundamentally depends on the constant brutal invasion, destabilization, usurpation, and destruction of entire ecosystems to maintain your privileged standard of living. The amount of destruction, suffering, and death this constantly causes to ALL forms of life which is required to maintain your comfortable lifestyle is far more horrific than any meat-eating diet is responsible for.

I’m not saying the Veganism is “bad“, especially if you do it for physiological reasons. If your body just functions better without meat- great. More power to you. I’m specifically just talking about vegans who generalize ALL meat eating as “bad”, regardless of the context (humanely pasture raised vs. industrial slaughterhouse), and only eating plants as “good”, regardless of context (permaculture vs. industrial agriculture), and then go on to demonize meat eaters while still participating in a horrible unsustainable industrial civilization as if they’re somehow morally superior. They’re not.

If you’re like the vast majority of people, you rely on industrial agriculture because you’re not growing your own food in a sustainable permaculture garden, right? Well, industrial agriculture kills MILLIONS of mice, rats, rabbits, gophers, squirrels, birds, as well as fish, frogs, and all the inhabitants of entire ecosystems that are turned in to “dead zones” when the runoff of pesticides and fertilizer meet the water supply. Knowing this, how can any reasonable person only demonize meat-eaters for being “inhumane”?

This is just one aspect of industrial civilization. Think of all the horrible byproducts of industrial civilization: oil spills, fracking, deforestation, pollution, Paris Hilton, strip mining, radioactive disasters, systemic poverty, and the endless wars fought over resources and lies to fuel your privileged, often superfluous, indulgent lifestyle (to name a few). You’re going to contribute to all that, yet criticize meat eaters?

Most “moral vegans” conveniently ignore this fact about their society because living consistently with their “righteous” beliefs means letting go of several things: their brainwashed identification towards government, almost every modern convenience in their lives, their hopes and dreams which depend on the continuation of this all-consuming paradigm, and starting their lives all over in a way that’s truly conscientious of mitigating the suffering of any form of life on the planet.

But they’re just not willing to do that. It’s easier to just shop in a different supermarket aisle and hypocritically shame others on Facebook. When rubber hits the road for moral vegans (bad industrial puns, anyone?), morality is selectively ignored, trading convictions for convenience while cherry-picking an over-generalized non-issue which allows them to feel some semblance of moral righteousness.

It makes no sense.

Just to reiterate- Veganism, per se, works well for a lot of people and is a valid dietary choice. The problem addressed here is the moralizing condemnation double standard based on dietary over-generalizations without deeper context which is unnecessarily dividing people, wasting energy on myopic non-arguments, and distracting people from discussing more important issues. Hopefully this has helped put things in perspective so we can move beyond that boundary. Let’s please stop the dietary demonization and focus on what really matters in the bigger picture. There are way more important issues that need to take priority in the focus of our concern!

Ultimately, the only consistent “moral righteousness” to be found when it comes to your dietary choices is, A.) if your food is produced locally, humanely, and sustainably, and B.) if you’re dedicating your life to constantly healing, self-educating, and contributing back to the world with the energy you consume in order to improve the world by helping to educate and uplift others in evolving beyond the current obsolete destructive paradigm.

That’s basically what it all comes down to.

However, there’s more to the topic which is explored in the video below. Please watch it, as this article is simply an introduction.

Just some food for thought…?

(For further information and a more in-depth analysis, watch the following video I made to illustrate the point. Please thoroughly check the numerous resources listed below the video before trying to critique based on this overview.)

“The Vegetarian Myth” by Lierre Keith

“Lierre Keith on Food, Justice, and Sustainability”

“Endgame: The Problem With Civilization” by Derrick Jensen

“Environmentalism & Eco-Friendly Solutions”

“The Illegitimacy of Government”

“The Lost Language of Plants” by Stephen Harrod Buhner

“Plants can ‘hear’ themselves being eaten – and become defensive when attacked”

“Plants Have Feelings”

“Burying the Vegetarian Hypothesis”

“Vegan diet increases the risk of birth defects, scientists warn”

“Why Grassfed Is Best”

“Why You Should Think Twice About Vegetarian and Vegan Diets”

“The Myth of the ‘Ethical Vegan’”

“The Paleo Diet Explained”

“Nora Gedgaudas — The ‘Holy Grail’ of Primal Health: Benefits of a Fat-Based Caloric Intake for Body and Brain”

The post “Moral” Veganism Makes No Sense appeared first on We Are Change.

But what if I told you that voting (and the entire notion of “authority” and “government”) is a type of cultural brainwashing based on nothing but lies to keep you distracted, enslaved, and consenting?

What if I told you that voting is pointless, political campaigns are a charade, politicians are all megalomaniacal authoritarians, government is completely controlled by international banking and corporate oligarchies, and a better way is possible.

And I’m going to prove it to you.

Voting has been repeatedly shown to be unreliable and easily manipulatable without any public knowledge.

Going beyond the unreliability of large-scale voting, and underneath the fundamental futility of democratic government in an unhealthy and uneducated society, a deeper issue is that the entire fundamental premise of society being a “democratic government” or even a “republic” nowadays is a complete fallacy.

The fact is that government will never allow its core power structure to be challenged by fundamental change; it will only allow concessions like gay marriage or the decriminalization of marijuana. All candidates are pre-ordained and supported through mainstream media largely controlling public opinion.  Sure, they allow puppets to be changed every few years and make concessions like gay marriage or decriminalizing marijuana. But what about the Central Banking system and the Federal Reserve that’s systematically devaluing the American currency? Why . I’m amazed that there are people who- after all the OBVIOUS corruption and perpetual global atrocities created and perpetuated by those in power- still can’t see the absolute illegitimacy of government.

I used to be a flag-loving Statist. I get it. The brainwashed authoritarian indoctrination to the religious faith of government runs deep.

But compared to pre-9/11, the corruption has become SO much more blatantly obvious, and information is far more readily available online that you literally have to CHOOSE to not be well informed. You have to CHOOSE to not give a shit. I’m astonished people remain silent about, much less continue to vote with the “hope” that it will fundamentally “change” anything substantial. How many times do billboards have to fall on your head before you start to see the signs?

“

“Once the election is over, and once the winner is declared, everybody forgets about it. […] Most attempts are caught by the system. But there are cases that do slip through. [Voter fraud] undermines public confidence in democracy.”

~ Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted

To assume that voting is a reliable method for determining public consensus in large-scale votes given everything we’ve covered is to not fully grasp the magnitude of corruption inherent in the current global political system. Furthermore,

History shows that the longer society continues to legitimize corrupt politics by voting and glorifying politicians, the more destructive it becomes. Through voting, it’s granted social permission to spread its “authority” through increasingly pervasive means. Government, being rooted in the principles of continually expanding domination, cannot fundamentally change to bring about true peace, and voting cannot change this inevitability. The myriad of contradictory laws are purposefully obfuscated with endless loopholes and speculative interpretations between elites with converging interests. The “Blue Wall of Silence” throughout many branches of government and big business act as fail-safes which maintain the power structure. The mainstream media which largely dictates public perception is controlled by the same corporate interests directing government, which manipulates the allowable spectrum of discussion and candidates in the political process. The old adage rings true- “You cannot disassemble the Master’s house using the Master’s tools”.

“Average American: “The system is horribly messed up! The politicians are all corrupt liars and crooks, and they’re ruining the country! Things are getting desperate! We need real change, right now!”

Me: “Maybe you need to reconsider your underlying assumptions.”

Average American: “Nonsense! That’s crazy! No, the way out of this despicable mess is for me to keep believing what I always have, and keep doing what I’ve always done, voting for the same crooks, playing along with the same game, cooperating with my own subjugation and ridiculing anyone who suggests anything fundamentally different!”

Me: “And you think THAT will change things?”

Average American: “Hey, our system ain’t perfect, but it’s the best one possible! And it’s better than all the others! If you don’t like it, get out! U.S.A.! Number one!”

^^^ THAT is what “Battered Citizen Syndrome” looks like. Most people would rather be stomped on by a familiar tyrant, than actually THINK about things. “If not for this jackboot on my throat, there would be chaos!”

Good grief.” 

~Larken Rose

Despite the evidence of this overwhelming corruption, the last vestige of hope for most statists is the belief in effecting change through local city government. Assuming that the aforementioned issues are not a influencing factor (which they usually are), in theory, local voting may have a greater chance of creating accommodations for the issues which are the byproduct of dysfunctional government, but do little if anything to fix the greater causal issues still remain heavily entrenched deep within the power structure. There are many overseeing agencies of government which can overturn local decisions for any number of reasons. Therefore, state legislators often complain about an overpowering federal government usurping the rights of the states, while themselves working to increase the power of state government at the expense of city and county governments. The issues of property rights and government regulation, even when legalized on the State level, are frequently subjected to persecution when not legalized by the Federal Government, as has been shown with the issues of marijuana, gay marriage, and immigration, to name a few.

To place one’s hope in local government as a reliable bastion for justice and effective social transformation is to try to save a house consumed by flames by throwing cups of water in to the fire; while well meaning and perhaps marginally helpful for a moment, it is ultimately ineffectual against the greater governmental momentum corrupted beyond the wishful thinking of “hope” for “change”. Even those who think “limited government is the best option to strive for” need only take a brief walk through history. America, widely known as the best attempt to create a country with “limited government” which recognizes and respects unalienable individual rights, wound up becoming the most militarized, coercive, imperialist authoritarian empire the world has ever known. The founders of America knew that government was a beast that easily grew out of hand, which is why emphasized the necessity of a system of checks and balances. However, as the times change, those checks and balances become archaic, inefficient, convoluted, obfuscated, obsolete, and thereby no longer work to keep government efficient, virtuous, and honest on all levels. This is the inevitability for all governments.

“Never, in the history of the world, anywhere on the planet, has “government” only PROTECTED individual rights. Instead, it has been the primary VIOLATOR of individual rights. Nonetheless, there are still many [minimal government supporters] who insist that we cannot give up the institution of “government.” Why not? Because, they say, we NEED it to do something that it has NEVER DONE, in order to protect us from injustices that it has ALWAYS itself inflicted on the people. Then they complain when I say that statism is immoral, irrational and faith-based.”

~ Larken Rose

“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

~ Albert Einstein

Ultimately, when all things are considered, political parties have long been nothing more than an “illusion of choice” owned by the same converging interests, subject to a myriad of manipulation, and more interested in profit and prestige instead of true social uplift. Any governmentally sanctioned form of “change” will not, and cannot, by all evidence, bring anything more than marginal social accommodations, since anything more would undermine and illegitimate that very power structure.

“The biggest misconception Americans have is that Power will allow itself to be voted out of office.”

~ Emma Goldman

 “Once a government resorts to terror against its own population to get what it wants, it must keep using terror against its own population to get what it wants. A government that terrorizes its own people can never stop. If such a government ever lets the fear subside and rational thought return to the populace, that government is finished.”
–Michael Rivero

Unable to grasp the situation, many nationalists will dismissively say, “If you don’t like it, then you can just get out!” If only it were so easy and just about one country…

Yet I, like many people living in a sick society, have thought to myself, “Maybe I should move to a different country to escape all this madness“, but let’s be realistic. Given the global control by the international cabal of corporate, banking, and political psychopaths, there really isn’t a place to go where people can be free without the inevitable encroachment and imposition by megalomaniacal institutions. However, some places may be more conducive to support, networking, and co-creating with likeminded individuals, which can be a great strategy! But if simple “avoidance” is the underlying purpose, consider that avoiding this increasingly destructive global situation is like hiding in a closet while your home burns down. You can try to shut it out, but it’s not going away. In most cases, you’ve just temporarily secluded yourself and stopped being able to positively contribute on a larger scale. Furthermore, getting caught up in “3D Survivalist” thinking instead of a more holistic, integral perspective is also a dead-end (as history has repeatedly shown).

But despite the non-stop bombardment of political drama on nearly every media outlet, when looking at the numbers of votes comparative to the total population of able-bodied voters, you’ll find an interesting trend: nearly half of the population DOES NOT VOTE.  Of course, this isn’t discussed in the mainstream since it exposes the crumbling foothold of government. Analyze the data and you’ll see an overall trend indicating less voters, less care, and, despite the mainstream media’s propaganda, less and less confidence in government’s violence and lies. Conversely, it indicates a greater interest toward personal empowerment outside the regulations of “the system” and an awakening desire for individual liberty beyond the hollow, short-sighted rhetoric of authoritarianism.

^ California Voter Turnout (source)

Pretty indicative of government’s illegitimacy, and its disastrous relationship with society, right?

So, since willful ignorance or running away is selfishly futile, and trying to work within the system is completely useless and delusional, ultimately, we come to the question: What can we do instead of voting?

Since culture is a consensus reflection of many individuals, if we wish to have a more conscious, compassionate, educated, responsible, and healthy society, then we who are awake enough to see, and privileged enough to act, must fundamentally strive- with all our being, in every moment we can muster- to become the change we wish to see in the world.

So, how do we begin to do this?

Get ready for the fun parts: Self-Work: The Path of Conscious Evolution
Eco-Friendly Living & DIY Solutions
Voluntaryism & Alternative Societies

The post Voting is Useless: The Illusion of Choice appeared first on We Are Change.

Forget focusing on the rollercoaster of economic problems. We all know it’s rigged and completely fake anyway. Let’s talk about eco-Friendly, sustainable solutions to empower sovereign individuals. Within the past century we have developed the necessary technological innovations and ecological understanding to efficiently provide healthy food, clean water, and reliable shelter for all people while sustainably operating within the natural dynamics upon which the entire world depends. Even so, the emphasis on militarism and profiteering has overshadowed this potential by distracting humanity from actualizing its sovereignty.

The fact is, this eco-friendly change in living isn’t just a fad; it’s an inevitable necessity if we want to have any kind of healthy future at all. The real social struggle for humanity won’t be fought with stockpiles of weapons. Tangibly speaking, it will be fought with acres of land, alternative energy, rain collection, homesteading wisdom, and off-grid solutions. Of course, a shift in consciousness is needed through psychological healing and education, and consistent Self-Work.

Ultimately, the goal in making a better world is to stop participating in the obsolete authoritarian system and create our own. We can’t wait for Monsanto to build a nicer planet for us. We have to turn every inch we have into a productive landscape, and use our resources wisely to change the world in front of us and within us. If you want a more peaceful world, if you dream of a better way, if you want to become more empowered, then it’s time to embrace domestic change and reoccupy your house. Free yourself step by step from shackles to their world and become truly sovereign. Teach each other ways to evolve. Learn from each other. Help each other. Build a different possibility.

Granted, every environment has varying parameters for resources it can provide, so the following examples are meant to be taken as concepts for inspiration, not necessarily as solid solutions. Some modification may be required. There are endless possibilities available to us, and more are created every day! Please feel free to add your thoughts and links in the comments section below to help other be the change!

FOOD

Year-Round Underground Gardening

Pool garden

Bee Hive: Collecting Honey Without Disturbing the Hive

How to Build a Vertical Garden from Soda Bottles

Aquaponics

Grow an Acre of Food in a Shipping Container

DIY $50 Greenhouse w/ Plans

6 Vegetables That Can Grow from Scraps

Solar Cooking

Permaculture

WATER

Open Air Well

Advertisements turn air in to water

Makeshift Condensation Well

Air Wells, Dew Ponds, Fog Fences

Solar Seawater Distiller Turns Salt Water into Drinking Water Using Only Sunlight

Portable solar powered desalinization device

Thermosiphoning: Distribute Hot Water Without Electricity

Water Conserving Faucet Designs

Electrodialysis: Solar Powered Desalinization

Rainwater Harvesting

RESTORING ECOSYSTEMS

TED Talk: Reversing Desertification

How to Restore Rainforests

Restoring Natural Balance – “How Wolves Change Rivers”

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

Solar Power

Magnet Driven Energy System

Hydroelectric Power from Turbines in Pipes

Portable Photocatalytic Electricity Generator & Water Purifier

Transparent Solar Cells

DIY Solar Power Generator

Improved Efficiency Interlocking Windmills

Electricity-Generating Tidal Lagoons

Urban Algae Canopy Produces Oxygen And Fuel

Plant-Generated Energy

Glass Sphere Solar Energy Enhancement

Steam Engine

ALTERNATIVE BUILDING

Phoenix Towers: purify air and water, collect solar, wind, and hydrogen power, vertical gardening, rainwater harvesting, and harness biomass

Singapore’s Greenest Energy Efficient Hotel

Urban Community Vertical Farm Housing

Environmentally Friendly Houses Using Efficient 3D Printing

How To Build Your Own Inexpensive “A-Frame” Home

NexusHaus: Solar Powered, Water Conserving, Eco-Efficient House

Solar Powered Ecocapsule

DIY Modern Off Grid Tiny House

Unbelievable House Truck Transforms in to Eco-friendly Fantasy Castle

Gardening in Los Angeles’s 26 Square Miles of Vacant Lots (the equivalent of 20 New York Central Parks)

Precision 3D Printing

Sustainable Architecture

Multiple Uses for Hemp 

Glass Roof Tiles

Light With No Energy

Self-Sustaining Floating Grid Island

Airless Tire Technology

Solar Powered Bicycle

WASTE MANAGEMENT

Humanure Composting Toilet

General Composting

Large Scale Natural Waste Management Methods

Energy Efficient Ocean Cleanup Systems

Eco-Friendly, Reusable Feminine Hygiene Products

ALTERNATIVE LIVING

Tangible Survival Skills

Living off the Grid

6,000 lbs of Food on Just 1/10 an Acre in the City (self-sustaining and profitable)

The Importance of Naturally Raising Animals

The post Eco-Friendly Sustainable Solutions for Better Living appeared first on We Are Change.

Conscious Self-Work is not just a necessity at this point in history, it’s a fulfillment of our destiny. Ultimately, it is the purpose of life. Looking at the entire scope of known history, it’s clear that the fundamental theme throughout all creation, the underlying evolutionary trend, the universal constant is… *drum roll please*… the evolution of consciousness! It automatically happens unconsciously and slowly as a universal constant, but we can accelerate the process through Self-Work.

So, for the purposes of accelerated Self-Work, this article is an introductory overview on ways to:

•  Go to the core of our personal and social problems
•  Identify and heal the conditioning which creates and perpetuates these problems
  
•  Break through the illusory beliefs and practices that keep society stuck in a self-consuming cycle
•  Learn how true, lasting change is created, both personally and socially
•  Be empowered with easy, practical steps to actualize your fullest potential
•  Refine your social approach to be more effective at spreading knowledge and raising awareness
•  Realize what can practically be done individually and on a larger social scale

As you may have guessed, Self-Work requires shifting the orientation of your awareness inwardly to yourself instead of society’s typical external focus. After all, have you noticed that despite a great deal of technical external progress, inwardly, humanity fundamentally remains much as it has always been: ego-centric, violent, greedy, and fragmented? While technological progress has served its purpose, it’s mostly come at the expense of marginalizing our own inner awareness, healing, and self-love. It’s time we turned our attention inwardly in order to truly “be the change”. Therefore, our fundamental priority must be to de-program ourselves by committing to constant, sustained Self-Work. Without consistent Self-Work and education, we not only limit our access to clear, creative, objective reality, both within and without, but we also limit our effectiveness in reaching and relating to others, which then allows us to connect and create a better world. And isn’t that why we research, spread knowledge, and raise awareness? If we are sincere and committed to creating a better world are reaching our greatest potential, we must go as deeply as we can.

“The nature of our immortal lives is in the consequences of our words and deeds that go on apportioning themselves throughout all time. Our lives are not our own; from womb to tomb, we are bound to others, past and present, and by each crime and every kindness we birth our future, and by each crime and every kindness we birth our future.”

~ Cloud Atlas

“Whether we use psychological or esoteric terminology, the basic fact remains the same: human beings do not earn free will except through self-discovery, and they do not attempt self-discovery until things become so painful that they have no other choice. If the individual makes no effort to expand his consciousness so that he can understand the nature of his total unfoldment and can begin to cooperate with it, then it will seem that he his the pawn of fate and has no control over his life. He can only earn his freedom by learning about himself so that he can understand what value a particular experience has for the development of his whole self.”

~ Liz Green

“When a man starts to learn, he is never clear about his objectives. His purpose is faulty; his intent is vague. He hopes for rewards that will never materialize for he knows nothing of the hardships of learning. He slowly begins to learn – bit by bit at first, then in big chunks. And his thoughts soon clash. What he learns is never what he pictured, or imagined, and so he begins to be afraid. Learning is never what one expects. Every step of learning is a new task, and the fear the man is experiencing begins to mount mercilessly, unyieldingly. His purpose becomes a battlefield. And thus he has stumbled upon the first of his natural enemies: Fear! A terrible enemy – treacherous, and difficult to overcome. It remains concealed at every turn of the way, prowling, waiting. And if the man, terrified in its presence, runs away, his enemy will have put an end to his quest.”

“What will happen to the man if he runs away in fear?”

“Nothing happens to him except that he will never learn. He will never become a man of knowledge. He will perhaps be a bully, or a harmless, scared man; at any rate, he will be a defeated man. His first enemy will have put an end to his cravings.”

“And what can he do to overcome fear?”

“The answer is very simple. He must not run away. He must defy his fear, and in spite of it he must take the next step in learning, and the next, and the next. He must be fully afraid, and yet he must not stop. That is the rule! And a moment will come when his first enemy retreats. The man begins to feel sure of himself. His intent becomes stronger. Learning is no longer a terrifying task. When this joyful moment comes, the man can say without hesitation that he has defeated his first natural enemy.”

“Does it happen at once, don Juan, or little by little?”

“It happens little by little, and yet the fear is vanquished suddenly and fast.”

“But won’t the man be afraid again if something new happens to him?”

“No. Once a man has vanquished fear, he is free from it for the rest of his life because, instead of fear, he has acquired clarity – a clarity of mind which erases fear. By then a man knows his desires; he knows how to satisfy those desires. He can anticipate the new steps of learning and a sharp clarity surrounds everything. The man feels that nothing is concealed. Every time a man sets himself to learn, he has to labor as hard as anyone can, and the limits of his learning are determined by his own nature. Therefore, there is no point in talking about knowledge. Fear of knowledge is natural; all of us experience it, and there is nothing we can do about it. But no matter how frightening learning is, it’s more terrible to think of a man without knowledge.” 

~ Carlos Casteneda, “The Teachings of Don Juan”

“If you always put limits on what you can do, physical or anything else, it’ll spread over into the rest of your life. It’ll spread into your work, into your morality, into your entire being. There are no limits. There are plateaus, but you must not stay there, you must go beyond them. If it kills you, it kills you. A person must constantly exceed their level.”

~ Bruce Lee

Beginning Self-Work requires complete honesty, letting go of our limited, familiar comfort zone, and going in to the realm of unknown vulnerability. At first, this can be terrifying, confusing, and agitating, which is why most people prefer to distract themselves with TV, drugs, social media, and superficial relationships. However, for those who have heard the call to awaken, ignoring this call- this archetypal “hero’s journey”- will never bring happiness through self-ignorance. As time goes on, cowardice leads to complacency. Complacency leads to stagnancy. Stagnancy leads to resentment. Resentment leads to animosity and pain, and thereby one has fallen in to the very same discomfort they had initially tried to avoid. The simple fact of life is this: the only way out is THROUGH. Self-Work is that way.

Even while we engage in Self-Work, it’s important that we not demonize those around us who do not share the same propensity to awaken. We all have our own lessons to learn at our own pace. We too were once unaware or uninterested in gaining deeper knowledge and undertaking the process of awakening. We must find patience, external consideration, compassion, and understanding for those who don’t yet strive to embrace objective reality, for all its beauty and its burdens. By simply “being the change” in your own life, you will inspire those who have the seed to awaken. Projecting our frustrations on to others and trying to force others to grow only creates animosity which drives others further away from awakening and in to defensiveness, away from the openness, inspiration, empathy, and compassion which the world so desperately needs.

For those who have the courage, fortitude, and love to embark on the path of accelerated conscious evolution via self-work, here’s a general overview of the various aspects to be mindful of in the process. Self-work (like maintaining one’s health) is holistic, having many facets which can vary depending on each individual’s needs, but there are common aspects for everyone which must be attended to if we are to address the entirety of our being. After all, what right do we have to ask others to become more conscious if we, ourselves, are not actively engaging in, and dedicated to, conscious, holistic self-work?

BODY

“There is a wisdom in the body, a wisdom in feeling, that when accessed and allowed to operate in conjunction with our cognitive capacities, leads to a deeper, wiser, more integrated life. So we need to get back to the body, which involves much more than just dropping it off at yoga classes or fitness facilities or medical offices. We can get our body more flexible, more fit, and more powerful, and we can load it up with the finest supplements and organic fare, and still be out of touch with it.

The body and mind live in a deeply connected psychosomatic relationship, as is evidenced with both A.) the body’s physical responses to emotional stress, and B.) the mind’s capabilities being largely dictated by the condition of our bodies. The degree to which we can optimally connect with and care for our bodies is the degree to which our consciousness is supported in its growth. As your physical vessel through the phenomenal world, it is essential to care for your body and be “in touch” with it. Even though people HAVE a body, most are not actually “embodied”. Nowadays, most people are SO disconnected from their bodies, adrift in cyberspace, fixated on their phones, surfing the web, playing video games, watching TV, sitting for hours on end, day after day, driving instead of walking, taking the elevator or escalator instead of the stairs, doing manual labor, and rarely, if ever, exercising regularly. While it is possible to engage in sincere self-work without a fully functional body (as in the case of amputation, disease, disability, etc.), the greater the degree to which we have a connection to our bodies, whatever condition they may be in, the better.

“We cannot begin to reign in our madness until we recover what the body knows and learn to accord with it.  To root ourselves in that accord is to flood the emptiness of our lives with the experience of the present – the only true way to begin to harmonize with reality. This embodiment revolution begins with the honest recognition of the extent to which we have internalized the hierarchical message – the extent to which its top-down power structure currently lives in us and rules us…

Think about it: you cannot reason your way into the present; you cannot reason your way into love; you cannot reason your way into a harmony of being.  More than that, though, as long as the head rules, it keeps you from truly feeling and answering to the currents of your own being; it fragments you on the most personal level, so that even as you obsess over refining your ideas about how best to supervise your progress, you sabotage any possibility that you might respond to your circumstances with your full and unified being – because this inner tyranny obliterates being and silences the body’s wakeful attunement…

The challenge we face is great, because we are starting from a disadvantage: we are divided within ourselves and have been relentlessly habituated to that state by the story that surrounds us – a story communicated by the language, the architecture, the hierarchies, the customs and even the icons of our culture.

Facing the challenge before us is made easier, though, by its sheer necessity – and by the keenness with which each of us feels that necessity in our own lives. We feel estranged from the unity of our own wholeness, and that ignites within us a smoldering anxiety. Such anxiety is the foothold by which those who wish to wield power keep others off balance.  That is why they stoke anxiety so deliberately: the more anxiety we feel, the more control we feel we need…”

~ Philip Shepherd,“The Embodiment Manifesto” 

In the body, as with the mind (as I mentioned in an earlier article), we have a tendency to “normalize” physical pathologies that are prolonged. For example: Observe your body right now. Feel what muscles are unconsciously constricted. Perhaps your back, jaw, neck, legs, or stomach muscles causing you to take shallow breaths? All of these are physical responses to psychological stress. But are you in any immediate danger now? Probably not (unless you’ve been glued to reading for hours, letting your butt slowly pancake to your seat, causing your legs to atrophy. In which case, take a walk and come back…) Now, feel your body and sit silently with yourself for a moment. Are you carrying any unresolved stress inside you? Probably. Even sitting in front of the computer for long periods of time causes stress on the body. Now relax your body, take a few slow, deep breaths from your belly, and feel the difference as your body realigns itself to be more comfortable. Feel the difference? Chances are that when you started you weren’t even consciously aware of how tight and uncomfortable your body WAS until you were encouraged to stop, observe, and let it unwind to come to a more harmonious place of balance with gravity, structural alignment, and breathing.

Proper body awareness, posture, alignment, and function has numerous remarkable benefits, all of which are imperative for our physical and emotional well-being. In the bodymind relationship, our body’s muscular holding contributes to our locked-in mental and emotional processes, whether it be chronic tension, unconscious motor patterning, obesity, or poor posture. These are all reflections of unhealthy aspects in ourselves that require dedicated attention to understand, process, correct, and heal. After all, emotion is related to motion. When our bodies are constrained and tight, it’s a reflection of our emotional and psychological tightness and constriction. We are hindered from our full natural range of motion, vitality, and expression. 

“An individual experiencing temporary fear, grief, or anger, all too often carries his body in an attitude, which the world recognizes as the outward manifestation of that particular emotion. If he persists in this dramatization, or consistently re-establishes it, thus forming what is ordinarily referred to as a ‘habit pattern’. The muscular arrangement becomes set. Materially speaking, some muscles shorten and thicken, others are invaded by connective tissue, and still others become immobilized. Once this has happened, the physical attitude is invariable; it is involuntary; it can no longer be changed by thought or mental suggestion. Such setting of a physical response also establishes an emotional pattern. Since it is not possible to establish a free flow through the physical flesh, the subjective emotional tone becomes progressively more limited and tends to remain in a restricted, closely defined area. Now what the individual feels is no longer an emotion, a response to an immediate situation, henceforth he lives, moves and has his being in an attitude.”

~ Ida Rolf, creator of “Rolfing“

 

“The character of the individual as it is manifested in his typical pattern of behavior is also portrayed on the somatic level by the form and movement of the body. The sum total of the muscular tensions seen as a gestalt, that is, as a unity, the manner of moving and acting constitutes the ‘Body Expression’ of the organism. The body expression is the somatic view of the typical emotional expression is seen on the psychic level as ‘Character’”

~ Alexander Lowen, M.D.

This same “normalizing of pathologies” principle applies not just to the body, but also our beliefs in society. Collectively, we have been both consciously and unconsciously influenced to assimilate to unhealthy ideologies and behaviors since childhood, from our infancy of suppressing public breast-feeding, to being told not to touch our genitals in public, and not to cry or “make a scene” in public. We are taught to shame open expressions to these pathologies. People shut down the natural desire to dance, cry, or even let their bellies go loose in order to maintain the appearance of “looking cool”. By tightening our bellies, we restrict our breathing sending an unconscious stress-indication to our bodies, which creates cortisol (a stress hormone), which impacts us in many negative ways. And this is not only “normal”, it’s rewarded in society!

Our bodies are amazing biological creations constantly communicating with us, giving us immediate feedback regarding our thoughts, behaviors, and environment. Yet we live in a violent society that emphasizes superficial appearances, rational intellect, and subjugates our body, its “gut-instincts”, and the importance of being “in touch”. Because we are frequently disconnected with our bodies and all the feelings therein, we often act in disconnected ways toward others. Is it any wonder people resort to recreational drugs and anti-depressant prescriptions are at an epidemic high? Embodiment, human touch, and physical care is as vital to our health and happiness as food and water, yet we are desperately deprived of it. 

There are a few essential ways in which to correct and heal these harmful somatic cycles. Regular massage and bodywork (Deep Tissue, Rolfing, Craniosacral, Sensory Repatterning, to name a few) are very powerful, immediate modalities through which a trusted practitioner can help the body release stress, increase flexibility and circulation, and restore balance on all levels. These therapies can deeply rejuvenate the body’s neuromuscular system and its orientation to itself and the world. Having gone to massage school and seen many certified massage therapists, I speak from experience in saying that the journey in connecting through healing touch is so amazing, it’s beyond words.

Other ways to get in touch with our bodies which don’t require another person include Yoga, Dance, Qi Gong, Tai Chi, Pranayama, Embodiment Work, etc. Combining these practices in our lives, even for just a few minutes each day, with other aspects of self-work serves to exponentially accelerate their effects. The scientific research and explanations describing the numerous amazing benefits these practices provide is far too extensive for the purposes of this article, but is readily available online. For the benefit of ourselves, our friends, society, and the world, the holistic care of our bodies is one of the essential pillars of self-work.

“Looking at the entirety of existence, everything is made manifest through the ‘latticework’ of universal energy. Our muscles, tissue, organs and bones are carriers of energy and memory, all of which are interrelated and connected to one another. The body is a holistic organism, where nothing is isolated – everything affects us, both physically and energetically, on some level. Any experience we have ever had – even things that happened to us in the past but were forgotten about or we weren’t even aware of – is still held in the body, be it grief, a broken relationship, emotional pain, everyday stress, childhood wounds, injuries and accidents, trauma, etc.. The body stores the experience and does not “forget” about it until the pattern is released through holistic treatment.”

~Bernhard Guenther, “Individuality, Embodiment, and the Anchoring of a Higher Frequency”

Another often marginalized aspect of physical well-being is regularly being in nature. Being in nature, connected to the raw foundation of all life, provides holistic benefits which work on ALL levels of our being. In the densely-packed, aggressively linear, high-stress atmosphere of urban areas, our entire being is disconnected and compartmentalized, internally and externally. We are bombarded with non-stop cell phone and WiFi radiation which is known to have negative health effects. We are over-run by unhealthy, processed, factory farm foods. For those of us who are more sensitive and empathic, we easily take on the “feelings” of others which may drown out our ability to remain centered, relaxed, and embodied if we are not yet anchored in our being. So when we allow ourselves to be in the open, expansive, quiet serenity of wilderness, we allow ourselves the natural conditions to decompress, reconnect, and allow the fullness of our being, unburdened by the pressures of cultural conventions, expectations, and obligations.

“The most effective paths to soul are nature-based. Nature – the outer nature we call ‘the wild’- has always been the essential element and the primary setting of the journey to the soul. The soul after-all, is our inner wilderness, the intrapsychic terrain we know th least and that holds our individual mysteries. When we truly enter the outer wild – fully opened to its enigmatic and feral powers – the soul responds with its own cries and cravings. These passions might frighten us at first because they threaten to upset the carefully assembled applecart of our conventional lives. Perhaps this is why many people regard their souls in much the same way they view deserts, jungles, oceans, wild mountains, and dark forests – as dangerous and forbidding places.

Our society is forever erecting barriers between its citizens and the inner/outer wilderness. On the outer side, we have air-conditioned houses and automobiles, gated communities and indoor malls, fences and animal control officers, dams and virtual realities. On the inner side, we’re offered prescribed “mood enhancers”, alcohol, and street drugs; consumerism and dozens of other soul-numbing addictions; fundamentalisms, transcendentalisms, and other escapisms; rigid belief systems as to what is “good” and what is “bad”; and teachings that God or some other paternal figure will watch over us and protect our delicate lives.

But when we escape beyond these artificial barriers, we discover something astonishing: nature and soul not only depend on each other but long for ear other and are, in the end, of the same substance, like twins or trees sharing the same roots. The individual soul is the core of our human nature, the reason for which we were born, the essence of our specific life purpose, and ours alone. Yet our true nature is at first a mystery to our everyday mind. To recover our inmost secrets, we must venture into the inner/outer wilderness, where we shall find our essential nature waiting for us.” 

~ Bill Plotkin 

EMOTIONS

“We don’t see things as they are. We see things as we are.”

~ Anais Nin

“If you can try to live with your own nature, as a preliminary step, in order to find out what that nature really is, it might be more rewarding than trying to control it or fight it at this stage. It is necessary to know what you are trying to control before trying to do anything about it.”

~ Fritz Peters

“To the degree that we’re willing to see our indulging and our repressing clearly, they begin to wear themselves out.  Wearing out is not exactly the same as going away.  Instead, a wider, more generous, more enlightened perspective arises.”

~ Pema Chödrön

To live is to feel, and to feel is to experience emotions. Whether strong or subtle, light or heavy, upsetting or uplifting, emotions act as the barometer to our well-being. The more connected we are to our emotions, the meaningful and rich our lives become. Emotions are central to our communication, relationships, intimacy, and motivation. They are largely an untapped and unfathomable source of strength, freedom, and connection. Yet, much like our bodies, they are so much a part of us that we often take them for granted. All too often they are ignored, distorted, and suppressed in our society. Yet despite the common conception the “we have emotions”, when our emotions are suppressed, it is our “emotions that have us” in unconscious and often damaging ways. Developing a healthy and mature relationship to our emotions through cultivated psychological knowledge and emotional processing is essential aspect of self-work and truly connecting with others.

“Because feeling emotional pain or discomfort, by it’s very nature, does not feel good, so many of us automatically resist what we are feeling. In doing so we send the message to this feeling, “bad, wrong, no, I don’t want you, go away”. We shoot the messenger. That’s what negative emotions are, they are reflective feedback, a message, a temple bell, alerting us to something within us that is out of alignment. Instead of allowing the message, we shut it up, and never get to the deeper understanding of what it was trying to show us. Until we make friends with our negative emotions, see them as assets instead of burdens, we will constantly be running from ourselves, we will never find true peace, and we will never be whole people.”

~ Jen Thomson

Neglecting our emotions comes in many forms, whether it be over-working, constantly exercising, being lazy, overeating, addictions, disassociating by watching TV or constantly being on the cell phone, trying to always “be positive”, acting tough, nitpicking, fixating on external events, or hiding ourselves away from interacting with others. These continued behaviors, while perfectly natural in occasional contexts, often lead to our deeper, unaddressed emotions acting out in other ways when they are prolonged, such as habitual drug indulgence, violent behavior, irresponsible promiscuity, depression, O.C.D., and other neurotic behavior. By ignoring our own suffering through distractions, we not only limit our ability to be present with ourselves, but to also fully connect with others.

“Most people think of love as a feeling, but love is not so much a feeling as a way of being present.”

~ David Richo

For all our intellect, self-aggrandizement, and spiritual rhetoric, knowing how to express and integrate our basic emotions in healthy, responsible ways remains a challenge for most people. It’s amazing how something so intrinsic as our uncomfortable emotions are chronically repressed, such as anxiety, anger, and sadness, even when we’re alone. By doing this to ourselves, we are essentially telling ourselves that part of who we are is somehow bad, unlovable, and we “shoot the messenger” as if emotions are our enemy. Uncomfortable emotions are an invitation to examine and explore what is needed to heal and grow. Instead of allowing the message, we shut it down and ignore it, thereby neglecting ourselves.

We’ve inherited the unhealthy behavior of our sick society, yet we think it’s “just who we are”. It’s not. We suppress ourselves and seek the acceptance of others because we’ve been trained not to love ourselves. From childhood our screams were smothered, our naked, big-bellied bodies were hidden in shame, and our playfulness was persecuted as “irresponsible”, “impractical”, and “foolish”. Therefore as “adults”, we drink to ease our resistance toward authentic expression, we become workaholics, and disassociate on cell phones to “take a break”. All the while we remain emotionally fractured and fall further from fully loving ourselves and others.

Until we make friends with our uncomfortable emotions, and see them as blessings instead of burdens, we will constantly be running from ourselves, we will never find true peace, and we will never find wholeness, in ourselves or in the world.

In being present and loving with ourselves and others, psychotherapist David Richo Ph.D., M.F.T., illustrates in his book “How to Be an Adult in Relationships” a simple yet powerful method known as “The 5 A’s” which help us to acknowledge and care for the emotional well-being of ourselves and others:

1. Attention to the present moment; observing, listening, and noticing all the feelings at play in our relationships.
2. Acceptance of ourselves and others just as we are.
3. Appreciation of all our gifts, our limits, our longings, and our poignant human predicament.
4. Affection shown through holding and touching in respectful ways.
5. Allowing life and love to be just as they are, with all their ecstasy and ache.

“To go truly deep in an intimate relationship, we need to feel safe with our partner. We need to know — and know with our whole being — that we can trust them, and not just when we are physically with them. This trust is based not on thinking that we should trust them, but rather on consistently sensing in our core their trustworthiness—their integrity, their reliability, their commitment to being present under all conditions, their passion for accessing love, depth, and freedom with and through us.

If we cannot count on our partner to consistently take good care of the container of our relationship — as when energy is leaked through cracks created by erotically wandering attention — then we will find that we can go only so deep with them.

If one partner is chronically calling the whole relationship into question every time there’s a fight or conflict, then the other is probably going to become wary of opening fully. Less safety means more shallows. Making the ground of a relationship unnecessarily unstable — as when certain boundaries are overridden or trivialized in the name of “freedom” — keeps our relationship from being as deep and fulfilling as it could be. The point isn’t to create a fortress of security, but to literally be a safe place for our partner to let go of playing it safe. Feeling safe is much more than just feeling secure!

Real safety creates an atmosphere in which we can give our all without giving ourselves away. Real safety makes room for a radically deep sharing of all that we are. Without it, we may seem to be free to go where we could not otherwise go, but such freedom — in its relative superficiality — is actually far more limiting than is the freedom that arises in the presence of genuine safety between intimates.

The safer I feel with you, the deeper I can go with you. The safer I feel with you, the deeper the risks I can take with you. The safer I feel with you, the deeper and more fulfilling the passions are between us. Real safety gives us room to show up in all our colors.

Such safety gives us permission to be in as much pain as we actually are, thereby making possible the healing we need in order to come fully alive, the healing through which we are, to whatever degree, awakened by all things, including our pain. What joy, what benediction, what grace, to share this in the dynamic safety possible in an intimate relationship!”

~ Robert Augustus Masters

Most people have a lot of “armoring” (muscular and emotional) from past, unhealed wounds, and we don’t drop our “armor” until we feel safe. Emotions need to be validated with our loving non-critical presence as they are in order to process and transmute. This is the essence of “unconditional love” in our subjective experience (since subjectivity is inherently conditional). Allowing presence does not imply passivity or that “anything goes”, but simply being as lovingly present with the total experience as possible. Notice any judgements that come up around your feelings, whether they be shame, guilt, criticism, or avoidance. Through our continued ability to mindfully embrace these difficult, often fragmented aspects of ourselves, our suppressed emotions are met with a safe openness, becoming able to express, fully actualize, and thereby transform themselves in to a healed wholeness of awareness. There is an astonishing amount of beauty, richness, and empowerment to be found by exploring the depth of our being.

“We cannot change anything unless we accept it. Condemnation does not liberate, it oppresses.”

~ Carl Jung

The longer we avoid and deny these aspects of ourselves, the longer we perpetuate, in our minds and our actions, our own suffering and the suffering of others. For example: have you ever seen a person repeatedly getting in to abusive or otherwise unhealthy relationships? Perhaps even in yourself? Underneath the unhealthy relationship we often find an imbalanced dynamic caused by unacknowledged, unhealed, unactualized aspects of ourselves. This imbalance acts itself out as as insecurity, co-dependence, fear, recklessness, violence, jealousy, guilt, paranoia, infidelity, addiction, and depression, to name a few. Until denied feelings are felt, and emotions are allowed to fully express, we will continue to unconsciously attract experiences to us which re-trigger the same conditions we avoid. But with self-awareness and the guide of methods like “the 5 A’s” (to name one of many), we can begin to confront them and work through them.

“When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.”

~ Carl Jung

Given this perspective, it’s clear to see that the suppression of our emotions is at a pandemic level throughout the world, as indicated by skyrocketing anti-depressant prescriptions and overall drug use, obesity epidemics, and even aspects of culture that have been normalized, such as violent pornography, brutal sports, and war. These behaviors often act as indicators of deeper unacknowledged and unconscious emotional wounds which have not yet been healed and integrated in to the fullness of our being. This largely unconscious aspect of our psyche, composed of repressed ideas, feelings, weaknesses, desires, instincts, and shortcomings, has been termed “the Shadow” by Dr Carl Jung. The shadow is an archetype that consists of aspects of oneself that exist, but which one does not acknowledge or with which one does not identify. This archetype is often described as the darker side of the psyche, representing wildness, chaos, and the unknown. These latent dispositions are present in all of us in our own unique way.

“Of course, there’s always a “hook” that invites our projection. Some imperfect quality in other people activates some aspect of ourselves that wants our attention. So whatever we don’t own about ourselves we project onto other people. We instinctively draw back from our own negative projections. It’s easier to examine what we are attracted to than what repels us. If I am offended by your arrogance it is because I’m not embracing my own arrogance. This is either arrogance that I am now demonstrating in my life and not seeing, or arrogance that I deny I am capable of demonstrating in the future. If I am offended by arrogance I need to look closely at all areas of my life and ask myself these questions: When have I been arrogant in the past? Am I being arrogant now? Could I be arrogant in the future? It would certainly be arrogant of me to answer no to these questions without really looking at myself, or without asking others if they have ever experienced my being arrogant. The act of judging someone else is arrogant, so obviously all of us have the capacity to be arrogant. If I embrace my own arrogance, I won’t be upset by someone else’s [because I have developed understanding and compassion]. I might notice it, but it won’t affect me. It is only when you’re lying to yourself or hating some aspect of yourself that you’ll get an emotional charge from someone else’s behavior.”

~ Debbie Ford, “The Dark Side of the Light Chasers”

This defensive mechanism also collective applies to small social groups and, ultimately, the entire collective of humanity. We often tend to think relatively well of ourselves, considering ourselves to be generally honest, loving, tolerant, strong, hard working, responsible, and overall pretty good. On the other hand, we consider those we dislike as dishonest, tyrannical, hateful, weak, lazy, irresponsible, and evil. Throughout history, this psychological tendency has been exploited and exacerbated to stir up societies, often with nationalistic, patriotic fervor for war. Seeing the large-scale “butterfly effect” implications allows us to understand how conducting dedicated Self-Work on our emotions is crucial not only for our health but for our relationships and, therefore, the world. It is only when we integrate these shadow elements within ourselves through conscious psychological self-work that we can begin to see ourselves, others, and life more clearly as it is. The degree to which we are able to find understanding which embraces the totality of our being is the degree to which we can hold others with empathy, fairness, compassion, and love.

“Generally speaking, we regard discomfort in any form as bad news. But for practitioners or spiritual warriors—people who have a certain hunger to know what is true—feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away. They’re like messengers that show us, with terrifying clarity, exactly where we’re stuck. This very moment is the perfect teacher, and lucky for us, it’s with us wherever we are.

[…]

Most of us do not take these situations as teachings. We automatically hate them. We run like crazy. We use all kinds of ways to escape; all addictions stem from this moment when we meet our edge and we just can’t stand it.  We become addicted to whatever it is that seems to ease the pain. In fact, the rampant materialism that we see in the world stems from this moment. There are so many ways that have been dreamt up to entertain us away from the moment, soften its hard edge, deaden it so we don’t have to feel the full impact of the pain that arises when we cannot manipulate the situation to make us come out looking fine.” 

~ Pema Chödrön

“Not until we are lost do we begin to find ourselves.”

~ Henry David Thoreau

This recalibration & integration process, where the ever-righteous ego is forced to admit its own hypocrisy, and let go of the lies it has identified with, may feel like one is “breaking down” but this is really “breaking through”. It is a psychological necessity for conscious human development as illustrated in Dabrovsky’s “Theory of Positive Disintegration” (TPD) which views psychological tension and anxiety as necessary for growth. These “disintegrative” processes are therefore seen as “positive” for bringing about new aspects of conscious awareness, whereas people who fail to go through Positive Disintegration may remain for their entire lives in a state of “primary integration”, or, in other words, less self-actualized.

Integrating, and thereby healing, our uncomfortable emotions can feel scary and awkward as we delve in to the dark, neglected, and vulnerable aspects of our inner world. Thankfully, there are a myriad of amazing methods which allow us the ability to explore, navigate, and integrate these aspects of ourselves that are wounded and in need of integration. Some modalities for emotional processing I can personally recommend are: Gestalt Therapy, neurofeedback, cognitive therapy, EMDR (eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing) therapy, massage/ bodywork (discussed above in the section about “The Body”), creative outlets (music, art, dance, singing, etc.), journaling, “stream of consciousness” writing, shamanic healing, weight training and exercise, as well as emotional analysis (such as “The Work” of Byron Katie), among many others. Even simply just loving yourself by being mindful and sitting with our emotions without distractions or disassociating, seeing how we constantly try to run away, makes a HUGE difference. For deeper insight, I strongly recommended reading my other article “The Necessity of Psychological Healing and Education” which covers how to find the right therapist, awareness of the corrupted aspects of psychology, and a more personal, yet big picture perspective on the topic of psychology. Another excellent, highly recommended resource is the article “Spiritual Bypassing, Relationships, and the Shadow” by Bernhard Guenther. Keep in mind that a little reading now could spare you a LOT of hassle in the future.

As we go through the process of emotional exploration and healing through these modalities, be loving and allowing of yourself. Give yourself the time, space, and quiet to really tune in and listen to yourself the way you’d want someone to care for you. Love yourself. Don’t push yourself to “do” anything. Set aside the business of society and all that baggage for the time being. Just allow yourself to BE, and be consciously aware of it, even if it means turning off your phone and sitting alone by yourself for hours. Observe your feelings and allow them to guide your experience. Notice how tempting it may be to distract yourself with your cell phone or some other form of externalized disassociation. Don’t be too hard on yourself if things “don’t make sense” or the process is “weird”. Release judgement and simply allow it in to your awareness. Nobody is born with an instruction manual specifically for them; it’s a process of exploration through lessons learned as we g(r)o(w). Don’t compare yourself to others, because the nuances of your process are uniquely yours. Honor that. Set aside impossibly unrealistic ideals of “self-perfection”, because there is no such thing as “perfect”. The more we let go of those ideals, the more clear and sensitive we become in loving our perfect imperfections. Everybody has “stuff” to work on, so don’t be too hard on yourself. Give yourself a break. Often. Gently. Patiently. Appreciatively. A little self-love goes a long way.

“Correction does much, but encouragement does more.”

~ Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

By allowing ourselves the grace and compassion to heal our emotional wounds, we also enable the full richness of our relationship potential. In connecting more deeply with ourselves, we are thereby able to connect more deeply with others, able to detect and access the hidden layers beneath the surface appearances. Since we are beings driven primarily by feelings and emotion (psychopaths aside), emotional/ psychological well-being is the key to understanding the core of all problems in the world and healing them.

“The healing of our present woundedness may lie in recognizing and reclaiming the capacity we have to heal each other, the enormous power in the simplest of human relationships: the strength of a touch, the blessing of forgiveness, the grace of someone else taking you just as you are and finding in you an unsuspected goodness. Everyone alive has suffered. It is the wisdom gained from our wounds and from our own experiences of suffering that makes us able to heal. Becoming expert has turned out to be less important than remembering and trusting the wholeness in myself and everyone else. Expertise cures, but wounded people can best be healed by other wounded people. Only other wounded people can understand what is needed, for the healing of suffering is compassion, not expertise.” 

~ Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.

INTELLECT

“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”

~ Nelson Mandela

“What you can imagine depends on what you know.”

~ Daniel C. Dennett

Of all the aspects of ourselves, the intellect is often the most emphasized. It’s been the conceptual toolbox by which humanity has crafted some of the greatest innovations which allowed us to protect ourselves from the elements, scientifically explore our world, and manifest our inspirations in to a tangible reality. However, as remarkable as the legacy of the intellect has been, a deeper look at the hyper-intellectualized industrial civilizations will illustrate that the notion of the “supreme intellect” has fallen short of being a saving grace for humanity for 3 primary reasons: 1.) Intellect over-emphasized at the expense of everything else (emotions, body, environment, etc.)creates an unavoidable imbalance and, on a long enough time line, cannot sustain healthy relationships and holistic well-being, 2.) There are several other types of intelligences which are often subjugated for the mainstream “linear & empirical” method of reasoning, and 3.) In the formation of the intellect, most people are taught WHAT to think, but never HOW to think critically. They are mostly taught and judged on how well they are able to retain and recite information, as illustrated in the following video:

Obviously the title of the video is an artistic statement not to be taken as an all-encompassing admonition. Many schools are progressive and very helpful in several ways. However, in examining the subject of the intellect, we must examine education. It’s well known that mainstream public education subjugates the creativity and idiosyncrasies of students by forcing them to conform to a standardized method of compulsory subjects which frequently have little to no impact or importance on life in “the real world”. It often leaves kids under-educated and unmotivated, unquestioning of their reality and either seeking to appease authority or withdraw from anything involving “education” at all. It’s no surprise that most people never consider becoming self-educating autodidacts, and instead relegate themselves to a life of wage slavery and escapism through superficial pleasures. This is indicative of an induced somnambulistic slavery of the mind.

In understanding what intelligence is and how it works, Howard Gardner, Ph.D., Professor of Education at Harvard University, offers a compelling insight. Gardner’s early work in psychology and later in human cognition and human potential led to the development of what is now 9 different types of intelligences, with the possibility of others which may eventually expand the list. These intelligences (or competencies)relate to a person’s unique aptitude set of capabilities and ways they might prefer to demonstrate intellectual abilities.

This theory has emerged from recent cognitive research and “documents the extent to which students possess different kinds of minds and therefore learn, remember, perform, and understand in different ways,” according to Gardner. “Where individuals differ is in the strength of these intelligences – the so-called profile of intelligences -and in the ways in which such intelligences are invoked and combined to carry out different tasks, solve diverse problems, and progress in various domains.” Gardner claimed that the eight intelligences rarely operate independently. They are used at the same time and tend to complement each other as people develop skills or solve problems.

“[The varying intelligences] challenge an educational system that assumes that everyone can learn the same materials in the same way and that a uniform, universal measure suffices to test student learning. Indeed, as currently constituted, our educational system is heavily biased toward linguistic modes of instruction and assessment and, to a somewhat lesser degree, toward logical-quantitative modes as well. […] Students learn in ways that are identifiably distinctive. The broad spectrum of students – and perhaps the society as a whole – would be better served if disciplines could be presented in a numbers of ways and learning could be assessed through a variety of means.”

~ Gardner, 1991

The learning styles are as follows:

• Visual-Spatial – think in terms of physical space, as do architects and navigators. Very aware of their environments. They like to draw, do jigsaw puzzles, read maps, daydream. They can be taught through drawings, verbal and physical imagery. Tools include models, graphics, charts, photographs, drawings, 3-D modeling, video, videoconferencing, television, multimedia, texts with pictures/charts/graphs.
• Bodily-kinesthetic – use the body effectively, like a dancer or a surgeon. Keen sense of body awareness. They like movement, making things, touching. They communicate well through body language and be taught through physical activity, hands-on learning, acting out, role playing. Tools include equipment and real objects.
• Auditory-Musical – show sensitivity to rhythm and sound. They love music, but they are also sensitive to sounds in their environments. They may study better with music in the background. They can be taught by turning lessons into lyrics, speaking rhythmically, tapping out time. Tools include musical instruments, music, radio, stereo, CD-ROM, multimedia.
• Interpersonal – understanding, interacting with others. These students learn through interaction. They have many friends, empathy for others, street smarts. They can be taught through group activities, seminars, dialogues. Tools include the telephone, audio conferencing, time and attention from the instructor, video conferencing, writing, computer conferencing, E-mail.
• Intrapersonal – understanding one’s own interests, goals. These learners tend to shy away from others. They’re in tune with their inner feelings; they have wisdom, intuition and motivation, as well as a strong will, confidence and opinions. They can be taught through independent study and introspection. Tools include books, creative materials, diaries, privacy and time. They are the most independent of the learners.
• Linguistic – using words effectively. These learners have highly developed auditory skills and often think in words. They like reading, playing word games, making up poetry or stories. They can be taught by encouraging them to say and see words, read books together. Tools include computers, games, multimedia, books, tape recorders, and lecture.
• Logical -Mathematical – reasoning, calculating. Think conceptually, abstractly and are able to see and explore patterns and relationships. They like to experiment, solve puzzles, ask cosmic questions. They can be taught through logic games, investigations, mysteries. They need to learn and form concepts before they can deal with details.
• Naturalist intelligence – Ability to recognize and categorize plants, animals and other objects in nature. Naturalistic intelligence allows people to distinguish among, classify, and use features of the environment. Farmers, gardeners, botanists, geologists, florists, and archaeologists all exhibit this intelligence. This area has to do with nurturing and relating information to one’s natural surroundings. Examples include classifying natural forms such as animal and plant species and rocks and mountain types; and the applied knowledge of nature in farming, mining, etc.
• Existential intelligence – Ability to use collective values and intuition to understand others and the world around them. Individuals who excel in this intelligence typically are able to see the big picture. Philosophers, theologians, and life coaches are among those that Howard Gardner sees as having high existential intelligence. Sees the big picture. Interested in questions about life, death, and beyond. Able to look beyond the senses to explain phenomena. Likes to be outside. Strong interest in society and those around them. Sensitivity and capacity to tackle deep questions about human existence such as: What is the meaning of life? Why do we die? How did we get here?

At first, it may seem impossible to appeal or even teach to all learning styles. However, as we move into using a mix of media and learning dynamics, knowledge becomes more easily accessible to all involved. As we begin to understand learning styles, it becomes apparent why multimedia is typically most effective, appealing to a broad spectrum of learners. It satisfies the many types of learning preferences that a class embodies, keeping the information engaging and applicable for optimal absorption. 

In tandem with mainstream education’s inability to appeal to the variety of learning styles, students of the public educational system also typically miss out on the most classically renown, fundamentally essential, and important method of critical thinking:The Trivium. It has been suggested that the Trivium has been purposefully removed from public education since students who have the capacity to truly think critically will quickly question and see through the propaganda and shortcomings of the educational system (and authoritarian institutions on the whole). Indeed, the Trivium provides a way to systematically cut through lies, remove contradictions, and navigate through logical fallacies (such as strawman arguments, red herrings, ad hominem attacks, appeals to emotion, appeals to authority, etc), thereby helping the intellect to operate clearly and effectively with discernment.

The history of the Trivium, and its corresponding aspects of the sensory perception, Quadrivium, and the 7 Liberal Arts, is extensive and worth researching on its own, but for the sake of brevity as an overview, we’ll present a synopsis to get a basic understanding. The Trivium, in its most commonly known form, was primarily developed by Aristotle but originates in antiquity, and is comprised of 3 aspects: Grammar, Logic, and Rhetoric- specifically in that order.

   1.) Grammar (Knowledge of that which exists) answers the question of the Who, What, Where, and the When of a subject, discovering, researching, and ordering facts of reality to acquire Knowledge.

   2.) Logic (Understanding of the interrelationships of that which exists) answers the Why of a subject, finding the conclusions based on Grammar/research leading to Understanding.

   3.) Rhetoric (Communication of Grammar and Logic) provides the How of a subject, applying Knowledge (grammar) and Understanding (logic) leading to the transference of Wisdom.

As an analogy, if we think of knowledge like building a house, Grammar acts as the building blocks of Knowledge, Logic is the house completely built with all contradictions removed to create Understanding, and Rhetoric is the architect explaining how the house was built so that others can also understand and build their own house through Wisdom. By learning and applying the Trivium, we begin to stop wasting time and energy in unproductive actions and discussions which often hold us back, personally and collectively.

However, no one system is a perfect panacea unto itself. The Trivium has its limitations which must be understood and taken in to consideration, such as constraining “reality” to only that which can be observed through the 5 major senses (ignoring several other senses of introception and forms of ESP), marginalizing emotion and the body, or using incorrect definitions to define the terms of one’s Grammar, thereby falsifying any subsequent “Logic”. Regardless, the Trivium, applied correctly with mindful consideration for its limitations, is an extremely powerful tool which helps us sharpen our minds and navigate through life.

Due to the lack of these techniques for critical thinking to detect logical fallacies, lies, and distortions, the general public has been repeatedly led into disastrous circumstances through manipulations of the mind. For example, we see the “Hegelian Dialectic” (as I wrote about in a previous artice on “Psychology, Authoritarianism, and Statism”) to often rationalize authoritarianism and abuse, as we constantly see in the political “justification” for the “War on Terror”.

EXAMPLE:

   Step 1.) Demonize, polarize, and exaggerate “the evil, foreign terrorists” to scare society.

   Step 2.) Manipulate the fear in to a frenzy with lies, rhetoric, and appeals to emotion and authority with little to no basis in factual reality.

   Step 3.) Propose a pre-packaged solution (usually violence) which preys on society’s suggestibility to further a predatory, subversive agenda while deeming themselves the “good guys” looking out for you.

The same goes with religion and its “Judgement Day/ Karma/ Original Sin”, whereby people are coerced through guilt and social pressure to subjugate themselves for “salvation” through a convoluted, predatory system which condemns anyone who doesn’t conform and obey. Another example lies within the fundamental premise of government, whereby people are told the world is a dangerous place full of criminals, so in order to be protected, they must subjugate themselves, under force of punishment for the “common good”, to government which lies, steals (taxation), extorts, enslaves (wage slavery, serfdom, or otherwise), assaults, and murders, which ultimately creates the violence it purports to protect from. Quite the hypocrisy, isn’t it?

Systematic methods of critical thinking quickly see through these sorts of manufactured problems, exacerbated reactions, and narrow, self-defeating solutions.

The history of the Trivium and its application is extensive and well worth investigating. For a deeper explanation, watch the following video:

Let’s address some of these Accelerated Learning Techniques:

• Self-esteem & Willpower play a crucial role in one’s motivation and abilities in learning. This may seem obvious, but it’s so simple that it’s often overlooked. Getting prepared by setting the proper preconditions for learning is like providing nutrients to the soil of your mind’s garden. The more optimal the conditions for growth, the better we can flourish. This doesn’t mean one should inflate their ego and be self-absorbed, but, rather, it’s best to simply have a healthy self-esteem (which ties in to the “Body” and “Emotion” aspects of this section).Compared to people with low self-esteem, people that are more self-confident are often more open, enthusiastic, determined, focused, and willing to take risks, all of which are imperative for accelerated learning. Even in childhood, those whose self-esteem is validated and encouraged through exploration of games and cooperative projects tend to develop much faster, be more well-adjusted, and are generally more capable than those who aren’t. Having a healthy psychological self-image is conducive to having a positive, optimistic, and enthusiastic outlook on one’s abilities.However, if you’re shy and going through a difficult period, lacking confidence and a healthy self-image, fear not. When a person has the willpower and determination to improve one’s circumstances, it can ignite a fire that propels them toward learning in order to make sense of things and overcome their challenges. The steps taken toward knowledge and the marked improvement gained along the way will build a person’s self-worth, especially when they share their experience and knowledge with others, helping those in similar circumstances thereby gaining external validation. The personal connections made through personal sharing and gratitude, especially in times of hardship, are some of the most powerful sources of motivation and support.
• Identify what your preferred learning styles are by taking a look at the list of multiple intelligence above. Do you prefer music or silence when learning? Do you prefer learning in a group experience or being alone to focus? Perhaps the styles could vary depending on the context. Perhaps engaging multiple methods of learning can help increase your ability to retain and apply information. Examples of this are:- Reading, visualizing, taking notes by putting the thoughts in to your own words, and then highlighting the major points.- Creating questions and answering them aloud, while gesturing to physically emphasize the points.Becoming familiar with your natural strengths, and applying them to learn more skills, is the first step to accelerated learning. You may find that new learning styles may develop over time, but don’t force it. The point is to utilize your strengths, your natural inclinations, your talents as a springboard for processing information more rapidly. There’s no point in trying to teach a fish to climb a tree when a fish is meant to swim. So don’t fight against your inherent nature; use it to your advantage. Stick with your natural strengths(but feel free to explore other learning modalities on occasion as well).

• Getting prepared to learn can be just as valuable as what one does during the learning itself. Have you noticed that many of your earliest memories, whether positive or negative, are directly connected to a strong emotion you were experiencing at the time? This amazing feat of recollection illustrates the direct correlation between emotional triggering and the retention of memory in the hippocampus and the amygdala. Since people are naturally inclined toward positive feedback mechanisms (things that bring pleasure), we’ll incline toward more positive emotional triggering as well. Get excited about learning a particular subject by thinking about WHO you will become by learning it, WHAT you’ll be able to gain and give, WHERE you will go by applying the knowledge, WHY it’s important, and HOW it can transform your life and the lives of those around you. Education shouldn’t be a chore; it is an opportunity that opens us up to infinite possibilities! Like athletes before a game, it helps to get yourself “psyched up” (while remaining focused and clear), feeling empowered and making strong emotional associations to the material you’re about to learn.
• If you learn better in a calm, relaxed state, regular meditative practices (meditation, qi gong, tai chi, yoga, etc.) have also been proven to provide a remarkable array of mind & body strengthening benefits which literally increase brain size and create new connections.

• Find your optimal time to learn. Some people learn better in the mornings when they’re freshly awake. Others learn best before bed, finding that they retain information better since the mind is reviewing and organizing itself during sleep. Some people need to specifically set aside time to concentrate on what they’re learning. Explore and discover what strategy works best for you.
  
  
• Time Management is an essential organizational tool to effectively handle our busy lives by organizing a broad array of objectives in an efficient manner. While some people have the luck, privilege, or natural proclivity to sail through life doing “whatever they feel like, whenever they feel like”, others recognize that great accomplishment takes great effort, and not everything in life that needs doing will be fun and enticing. Our ability to DO what NEEDS DOING, regardless of whether we want to or not, is a key component to achieving long-term goals, whether it be setting aside the time to practice a musical instrument, read a book, or work out for a half hour every other day instead of mindlessly scrolling through social media websites.Some people quickly get bored with repetitive menial tasks, prefer to fixate on the “fun stuff”, or are so obsessed about detail that they lose the ability to effectively prioritize their time. The habit of procrastination hinders our lives and our abilities to achieve, but thankfully, there are ways to overcome procrastination. Taking 5 minutes at the beginning of your day to organize your priorities in a daily planner (paper or digital) can potentially save you HOURS of deliberation, travel, distraction, and self-doubt. The following video illustrates the power of prioritization in time management, focusing on the bigger issues first, and then taking care of the smaller ones afterward.

• Multitasking is another great way to accomplish more than you thought was ever possible. No time for reading? Listen to audiobooks while cleaning the house or commuting. No time for yoga class? Stretch your body while at the computer or taking a shower. A little mindfulness and creativity transforms our obligations into fun opportunities to maximize our potential.
• Take regular breaks. If you’ve ever rapidly poured water on the ground, you’ll notice it eventually pools and then some of it trickles away. Your mind, much like the soil, has a threshold for what it can efficiently process in a given period of time, and therefore needs a period of absorption to allow new information to soak in. There is a good deal of evidence to show how taking breaks actually increases your productivity. Honoring our mind’s threshold for processing new information by taking regular breaks not only keeps the experience highly productive, but enjoyable, which ensures a bright educational future.
• Stay active. Regularly caring for your body by getting up to walk around, stretch, and go outside is important. Getting in to the body and relaxing allows us to be more physically and mentally free-flowing. When we relax, we take deeper breaths which oxygenizes the blood, which nourishes the brain, which, in turn, creates a supercharged state of awareness and enhanced well-being.
• Learn to read faster and more efficiently. The reasons for doing this are obvious and apply throughout all our lives. Think of how often we read during the day (from the computer to the supermarket) and how much time learning how to read faster would save us. There are numerous proven methods for accomplishing this available online, so we don’t need to list it all here.
• Take creative notes. Putting information in to your own words/ symbols through note-taking/ making pictures combines many aspects of learning in to one practice. Not only will it make review more fun and efficient, but you will learn more quickly since information tends to be retained more easily when it holds a greater personal significance and appeal for you. There are several methods of note-taking which can appeal to the varying styles of learning and help with review later on, such as:- Creating “Mind Maps” to synthesize, distill, combine, and connect core ideas in a holistic, fast, and easily understood diagram.- Making notes in the margins of books, doodling, underlining, using colorful highlighting, or verbally recording your thoughts and passages.- Making funny or memorable mnemonic devices, rhymes, and creative visualization to remember lists or specific details. The human mind is designed to notice things that stand out, that are “unusual”, things that break up the pattern. Adding funny, strange, colorful, or otherwise exciting elements to your learning process will help reinforce your ability to quickly and clearly recall information later on.
• Review often. If it’s worth learning in the first place, it’s worth reviewing it to retain it. To really anchor information in our minds, briefly review your notes after an hour of reading it, then before you go to bed, then after one day, after one week, one month, then after 6 months. Just take a minute or two, grasping the key points. Overall, the total review time will probably take less than 30 minutes in the 6 month period of time, getting progressively easier. To further help, read the words aloud dramatically, even getting in character and using a fake accent to make it more memorable.
• Consistency & Variety keeps us engaged. The more diversely you use your brain, the more connections are made, allowing us to learn more rapidly. Gradual, consistent increase with new exercises, like weight lifting, keeps our minds in shape. Studies have shown that challenging your mind like this can keep it fresh, sharp, and flexible at virtually any age. So keep in mind that dedication to these accelerated learning techniques is the only way to make them work. If you’re easily distracted or procrastinate, keep reminding yourself why this is so important.  As the old adage says, “Use it or lose it”. In a very real sense, you are the architect of your own brain.
• Get a learning partner. Engage in question & answer, review, and planning with each other. To communicate, we must put our concepts in clear, concise terms, which helps us reiterate and remember. As one finds in study groups and book clubs, the more perspectives that are engaged, the more windows are opened to flood our minds with the light of new facts and the breeze of fresh concepts. By creating relationships which support this mutual interest in self-work and education, we find support and motivation which can fuel us on all levels. Furthermore, by learning and applying it with others, we more quickly turn knowledge in to understanding, which is deeper, wiser, and embodied.
  

  “Knowledge is one thing, understanding is another thing. People often confuse these concepts and do not clearly grasp what is the difference between them. Knowledge by itself does not give understanding. Nor is understanding increased by an increase of knowledge alone. Understanding depends upon the relation of knowledge to Being. Understanding is the resultant of knowledge and being. And knowledge and being must not diverge too far, otherwise understanding will prove to be far removed from either. At the same time the relation of knowledge to being does not change with a mere growth of knowledge. It changes only when being grows simultaneously with knowledge.

  In other words, understanding grows only with the growth of being. In ordinary thinking, people do not distinguish understanding from knowledge. They think that greater understanding depends on greater knowledge. Therefore they accumulate knowledge, or that which they call knowledge, but they do not know how to accumulate understanding and do not bother about it.” 

  ~ Gurdjieff, “In Search of the Miraculous“

Never underestimate the power of the mind. Your intelligence is one thing that can’t be taken from you, except by severe injury, illness, or sometimes being with someone who you find extremely attractive (you know it’s true!). You could lose all your possessions, all your money, and go through some of the most devastating circumstances, yet your most valuable asset to rebuild in society will always be your mental faculties of knowledge, understanding, and skill. Knowledge is a primary factor that allows you to do almost anything you want to do in life, and it is practically limitless.

It took humanity thousands of years to pass from the Agricultural Age to the Industrial Age. The industrial Age passed more quickly than any other age before in history, starting in 1815 and ending just a few years ago as we moved in to the Information Age. Humanity is moving with exponential expediency from emphasis of physical muscle to mental muscle. Now, due to the consequences of globalized industrialization, we are living in the most opulent yet turbulent time in all of human history with change happening more frequently, more rapidly, and more unpredictably than ever before. If we can say one thing for certain about the future, it’s that it will change even more rapidly and unpredictably than the present. The demand for skills will change with the times, but the ability to rapidly learn is timeless. Therefore, to thrive in the future, we too must change and learn more quickly in order to adapt. We must learn how to learn more quickly and strive to continue learning (along with greater being and embodiment) throughout life for greater awareness, communication, creative potential, expression, self-confidence, income, security, and the ability to overcome obstacles in our path toward wholeness.

METAPHYSICS

“Our science is but a drop, our ignorance a sea. Whatever else be certain, this at least is certain: that the world of our present natural knowledge is enveloped in a larger world of some sort, of whose residual properties we at present can frame no positive idea.”

~ William James

An extensive history of recorded paranormal and mysterious observations such as UFOs and crop circles, reincarnation with accurate recollection of previous lives, premonitory dreams, channeling, divination, psychic phenomenon, thousands of ancient monoliths around the world with unexplained origin, and other anomalies which are yet beyond the capabilities of science to conclusively determine, have repeatedly suggested to us that:

• humanity’s anthropocentric notions of being “nature’s ultimate creation at the peak on the evolutionary ladder” is dubious at best.
• our materialistic world view and concept of the “evolutionary ladder” is not an accurate representation of developmental sophistication.
• our world and its history, of which we have an extremely limited understanding, is embedded within a complex system of unseen dimensions and densities, with methods of manifestation, channels of communication, and avenues of awareness not yet understood by science.

While the scientific method is an extremely helpful process, it has its limitations. One such limitation is the often-overlooked control variable called “the restoration of initial conditions”. Since we exist in a multidimensional sea of constantly fluctuating fields that we don’t fully understand (even something as fundamental as GRAVITY, as Rupert Sheldrake’s talk on “The Science Delusion” above explains), the implications of unknown causal and correlated interactions are far-reaching. As fundamental as gravity, our consciousness is also not understood, nor the totality of its effects, such as the “Observer Effect“, whereby the outcome is altered by perception . When studying anomalous, unpredictable phenomenon, or even social circumstances in the social sciences- psychology, sociology, anthropology (which are considered “softer sciences” by more hard-nosed scientists), the potential for ascertaining absolutes is not yet possible due to several reasons including an inability to completely establish these “restoration of initial conditions”. This is one basic, yet far-reaching example, but there are many more limitations of science. To explore beyond the boundaries of scientific establishment, especially in to ourselves, we must instead look for alternative methods to uncover truth otherwise veiled to ordinary experience.

Therefore, in order to more comprehensively ascertain the fullness of our being, it is incumbent that we be willing to delve in to alternative/ metaphysical systems of knowledge, such as Astrology, Human Design, clairvoyance and other forms of ESP, dream work, the I Ching, tarot, palmistry, numerology, graphology, and other esoteric systems and studies which have been utilized for thousands of years, all offering us inspiration and insight to our developmental relationship correlating to the greater macrocosm. I’m a highly skeptical person that demands rigorous testing via the scientific method (to the greatest extent possible), so in order to decide the validity of these systems, I personally studied many of these systems for years among professionals which has proven the legitimacy of these methods to me. Given the proper expertise and understanding, these systems all act as various facets of knowledge through which we can piece together a more holistic understanding of ourselves, such as our inherent strengths, challenges, transpersonal strategies, inclinations, and proclivities towards the fulfillment of our purpose. Of course, as with all aspects of self-work, knowledge and discernment is required since there may be distorted interpretations, and a person’s own prejudices and biases often cloud one’s ability to clearly receive and interpret otherwise reliable information. However, when utilized properly, the process of continuous and sincere in-depth self-work through these various methodologies increasingly clears the obfuscations clouding our perceptions, and, in turn, the accuracy of our inner knowing and intuition tends to grow in direct proportion. It is important to not take any one teaching as “the truth” but as information to create a more well-informed method by which to access otherwise occluded paths toward objectivity. After all, in our subjectivity, our perception is limited, our knowledge ever-growing, and the conclusions we draw often have misunderstandings or gaps, no matter how well-meaning they may be.

Keep in mind that before opening ourselves to this domain and the experiences therein, it’s important to have sufficiently done the prerequisite self-work of embodiment, psychological healing, and research before delving in to unknown realms. If a person cannot effectively deal with the challenges of everyday life, how can they possibly trust themselves to successfully navigate the long, difficult labyrinth of paranormal/ esoteric study with even fewer points of reference to guide them? As one gets in to these studies, this warning is repeated throughout, from Gurdjieff’s “self-remembering”, Mouravieff’s “introspection”, and Castaneda’s “recapitulation”, to name a few. Before embarking on this journey, the importance of first “Knowing Thyself”, being embodied in your “vessel”, cleaning it, and adjusting it so that it works properly (a.k.a. Self-Work) cannot be understated.

Going deeper, since the metaphysical realm taps in to the “spiritual” realm, it opens up doors to the “Hyperdimensional Matrix Control System”. This is known as “The Topic of All Topics” and must not be taken lightly. It is best that all prior aspects of Self-Work be well established in a stable, supported, and healthy framework in order to rapidly adjust to the challenges that will arise, similarly to when Neo broke out of the Matrix. The movie “The Matrix” is rich with esoteric symbolism for those who can See. Various esoteric teachings also refer to this phenomenon in their own way. Don Juan in Carlos Castaneda’s work warned of “the Flyer” and “the Predator” which uses humanity for energetic “food”. Gurdjieff refers to it as “The Evil Magician” using humanity as “Food for the Moon”. The Gnostics warned of “The Archons”. It’s referred to as “The Shaitans” of the Sufis, and “the Jinn” in Arabian mythology. All are ways of describing the same phenomenon of supernatural beings who inhabit unseen dimensions beyond the visible universe and interfere with humanity, keeping mankind in a “Hyperdimensional Matrix Control System”. Sri Aurobindo refers to it as the “Hidden Forces of Life”. Boris Mouravieff writes about “The General Law” in his trilogy “Gnosis” which is derived from Gnostic, esoteric Christianity. And the ancient Chinese have over 60 credible collective eye-witness descriptions of it in their ancient literature confirmed by college professors and research professionals.

All these teachings describe forces which manipulate humanity and keeps it in its place as a source of “food”, mostly energetic, much as humanity farms and genetically manipulates plants and herds animals for food. These teachings offer us ancient yet advanced insight for how to “break out of the herd” in a spiritual sense. They espouse that it takes tremendous super-efforts, awareness, a network of support, and prolonged, sincere Self-Work to “escape” these influences. These influences come in many forms, often as distractions, temptations, drama, senseless preoccupations, sudden erratic changes in people’s behavior, as well as intense relationship traps with unhealthy people. All this is done to dissuade the seeker from striving to awaken, distracted often by those around us who are not interested in awakening, which is the basis for the admonition “A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.” In her amazing research presented in the books “The Alien Love Bite” and “The Dark Side of Cupid”, Eve Lorgen discusses the many possible relationships dynamics through which these forces attack and feed off seekers of truth piercing beyond the veil. These dynamics include erratic, suddenly changing “psychic vampires” and other “set up” parasitic relationship traps, and much more.

“There are a thousand things which prevent a man from awakening, which keep him in the power of his dreams. In order to act consciously with the intention of awakening, it is necessary to know the nature of the forces which keep man in a state of sleep. First of all it must be realized that the sleep in which man exists is not normal but hypnotic sleep. Man is hypnotized and this hypnotic state is continually maintained and strengthened in him. One would think that there are forces for whom it is useful and profitable to keep man in a hypnotic state and prevent him from seeing the truth and understanding his position.”

~ G. I. Gurdjieff

In modern times, the UFO abduction phenomenon seems to be a manifestation of the very same Hyperdimensional Matrix Control System. The majority of evidence points to the fact that this phenomenon goes well beyond the ordinary physical aspects of “metal flying saucers and grey aliens” like we’ve been conditioned to think from Hollywood’s depictions. This goes in to paranormal and metaphysical realms beyond ordinary human understanding. This phenomenon has been studied extensively by the government, with many attempts to cover it up, all suggesting that the government has known about this for a long time, lied about it, and does not have control over it.

“If we look at the world from an informational point of view, and if we consider the many complex ways in which time and space my be structured, the old idea of space travel and interplanetary craft to which most technologists are still clinging appears not only obsolete, but ludicrous. Indeed, modern physics has already bypassed it, offering a very different interpretation of what an “extraterrestrial” system might look like. I believe there is a system around us that transcends time as it transcends space. The system may well be able to locate itself in outer space, but its manifestations are not spacecraft in the ordinary ‘nuts and bolts’ sense. The UFOs are physical manifestations that cannot be understood apart from their psychic and symbolic reality. What we see in effect here is a control system which acts on humans and uses humans.“

~ Dr. Jacques Vallee

“The scope, frequency, and distribution of the sightings make the popular extraterrestrial (interplanetary) hypothesis completely untenable… Many flying saucers seem to be nothing more than a disguise for some hidden phenomenon. They are like Trojan horses descending into our forests and farm fields, promising salvation and offering us the splendor of some great super-civilization in the sky. Do the ultraterrestrials really care about us? There is much disturbing evidence that they don’t. They care only to the extent that we can fulfill our enigmatic use to them.

The real UFO story must encompass all of the many manifestations being observed. It is a story of ghosts and phantoms and strange mental aberrations; of an invisible world which surrounds us and occasionally engulfs us; of prophets and prophecies, and gods and demons. It is a world of illusion and hallucination where the unreal seems very real, and where reality itself is distorted by strange forces which can seemingly manipulate space, time, and physical matter—forces which are almost entirely beyond our powers of comprehension.”

~ John Keel

It’s also very indicative that investigation in to these phenomenon- including but not limited to sightings, crop circles, and abductions- are often ignored, ridiculed, and even attacked. Could it perhaps be due to the fact that the Hyperdimensional Matrix Control System that works through humanity does not want to be revealed, thereby losing its “food”? After all, if cattle knew what was to be done to them, they would stop at nothing to break out of their cages and refuse to be under control within the rancher’s herd.

For further insight in to the Hyperdimensional Matrix Control system, watch this video, produced by Bernhard Guenther and I, which explores the secrecy surrounding the greatest cover-up of all time, presenting an overview of the UFO phenomenon, aliens, abductions, disclosure, hyperdimensional realities, and what can be done to help protect oneself:

“In the case of the idea of man being “food” for hyperdimensional beings, there is an enormous amount of both vertical and lateral corroboration of all kinds. So much so that, in fact, it is almost impossible to understand why it is not generally known. Clearly, there have been deliberate efforts to “hide this fact”. And, the fact that it is hidden may itself tell us something.

The point is, when Don Juan and Gurdjieff and the Cassiopaeans (and others) tell us that our religions, our social structure, our values, our beliefs about our spiritual nature and condition have been deliberately created to perpetuate the illusion that we are free; that we are (or can be) “special and adored children of a loving God”; that we are or can be “co-creators” with God, that we can do anything at all of a positive and powerful nature, we need to carefully examine this issue!

But it is work to examine it objectively. It is hard work because it consists of long and difficult self-examination in order to be able to overcome the emotions that prevent us from discovering what illusions we are hanging onto, what illusions are preventing us from seeing and acting in such a way as to become free.
[…]
As we continue to think in these terms, it becomes more and more apparent that this Great Work of the alchemists was essentially the process of becoming “free of the Matrix”, described in alchemical and allegorical terms.
[…]
This hyperdimensional world is all around us, yet we are unable to see it because it is beyond the range of our senses. All the objects of our world are very likely just our limited perceptions of what is happening in this total reality.

Since those forces that create and maintain the Matrix have so much to lose, they exert a great deal of energy to keep the Matrix of lies and false beliefs in place. And doing it from a state of hyperdimensional reality enables them to work from a state of timelessness, so as to be able to produce all the perceived effects that support their agenda; the Evil Magician of Gurdjieff; the “Flyer“ of Castaneda; the Shaitans of the Sufis. And the reality has been manipulated for so long that it seems natural. It has become a comfortable prison in which Stockholm Syndrome reigns supreme, and the inmates love their captors.
[…]
Thus it is that we may find that our religious myths and rites are remnants of narratives – a message in a bottle – designed to explain these phenomena, and that the monotheistic versions, declaring a Final End, or a Judgment Day of a final end, are merely distortions of the myth designed to establish a Control System on our planet. These distortions are beneficial to those who seek power and wealth, who are under the control of archetypal forces of another realm of which our own reality is but a shadow or a reflection. Let me reiterate: I do not mean, here, to suggest that this other realm is “astral” or ephemeral or non-material. I am suggesting that it is an intermediate realm of para-physical, hyper-dimensional beings whose existence and nature has been carefully concealed from us for millennia – for a reason that is not to our benefit.
[…]
And as we have learned from Jesus, Gurdjieff and the Gnostic Sufis, Castaneda, and the Cassiopaeans, the rules of this World in which we live were set up and are controlled by this STS (Service to Self) hierarchy and have been for a very long time. Each and every time the revelation of this Control System is attempted, the Matrix goes into overdrive to destroy it. And it is clear that this is the present situation….It is in “seeing the unseen” that we become aware of higher levels of being; it is in ordinary human interactions that we experience the “battles” between the forces of STS (Service to Self) and STO (Service to Others)! And it is most definitely this factor that the Matrix Control System vigorously attempts to conceal!… In other words, we are not just talking about a “petty dispute,” we are talking about a battle of forces at other levels, manifesting – as ALWAYS – in human dynamics.”

~ Laura Knight-Jadczyk

When people first see how deep and dark this phenomenon is, people often ask “Jeez. Where are the ‘GOOD’ aliens?”

New Age types will say, “What about the ‘Galactic Federation of Light’, or the ‘Ascended Masters’ who are going to come back to Earth one day to fight the evil cabal and bring back the Golden Age, providing us with free energy, love n’ light, and peace on Earth?” This belief in “saviors” is part of the negative agenda as well, aimed to disempower the individual through expecting someone else to do the work, infusing the classic false beliefs, wishful-thinking, and spiritual bypassing of modern pop spirituality. Just as we see in government, religion, and psychopaths, many negative entities appear as positive ones, which is quintessential COINTELPRO.

“Positive” hyperdimensional forces do exist, helping in subtle ways, but they’re not going to do the work for us. True love respects free will. It understands that “negative” entities are a necessary part of what is. Our distinctions about what’s “good” and “bad” are entirely subjective. Do you consider yourself “bad” because you eat plants and animals? No. This dynamic is a necessary part of this multidimensional school which evolves consciousness. It’s all a manifestation of what is and has a right to be for the purposes of the soul evolution. “Positive” forces work through synchronicities, like the right books coming your way, the right people, the right opportunities, etc. in order to help you on your path when you put forth sincere sustained efforts toward Self-Work. It will help move you faster along the path, but it’s not like a “Big Daddy” that’s going to take your hand, and give you what you want, as much as you want, whenever you want it.

Ultimately it comes down to Self-Work. There’s no way to avoid it. But as you grow and become more aware/ healed/ conscious, you will no longer be a “frequency match” for these energetic parasites to get at. Parasites need a certain environment to sustain themselves, and that environment is your level of Being. You don’t need to invite “guardian angels” or “spirits”. This can invite other entities in as well, especially when you open yourself up without discernment.

Perspective is also important. It’s also good to realize that these aren’t just “attacks”, but initiations from a higher perspective to get clear, heal, get grounded, embodied. We are being called to learn and evolve. Called to integrate the light and the dark, the male and female, all in to our being. We must stand in our sovereignty and “raise our frequency”, so to speak, through an embodied understanding, within and without. This is how we become conduits for the creative, evolutionary forces of the universe which exude the highest forms of love. This is how we transcend the Matrix. This is what all the archetypal myths mean: the alchemical process of transmutation turning lead in to gold, attaining the Philosopher’s Stone, and finding the Holy Grail which connects us to the divine granting eternal life through the creation and strengthening of the Soul which has gone through the fire, died, resurrected, and can now transcend “death” in its many forms.

DISILLUSIONMENT

Having covered these various aspects of Self-Work, reflecting upon our own lives throughout reading, one may feel a bit overwhelmed with some resistance, especially if they are new to these concepts. This is entirely normal; it’s a lot to take in. Even along the path of of uncovering and integrating these previously unknown aspects of reality, there will probably be discomfort, sadness, and anger as the old ideas upon which we based our understanding and our lives begins to crumble around us. This is known as the natural and necessary process of “Disillusionment”.

“When a person has lied for a long time, the time comes when he can no longer distinguish between what is false and what is true. People convince themselves of their own lies, becoming victims of their own inventions as they begin to direct their lives by standards of behavior, ideas, feelings, or instincts which do not correspond to their inner reality. What is truly serious in this matter is that the individual loses all points of reference regarding what comprises truth, and what comprises lies. He becomes used to considering as true only that which is convenient for his personal interests; everything that is in opposition to his self-esteem or in conflict with already established prejudices, he considers false.

A person lies in order to avoid difficult problems, to evade responsibility, or to avoid damage to his self-esteem. So the individual constantly lies to himself and to others, and becomes entangled in an illusory world born out of his personal fantasy. He forms concepts, ideas, judgments, aversions, and attachments that have no relation to actual events, but are only the reflection of a life full of lies and listening to lies.

One of the most powerful reasons for lying is to create a good image of oneself, and to prevent others from seeing us as we really are beneath the mask of appearances. Each mask is a lie, and there are thousands in each individual’s collection of disguises. It is necessary to be conscious of this phenomenon of lying, and to realize its magnitude and frequency, as well as the enormous damage it causes.

People are always infused with all kinds of fantastic ideas about themselves, the world, people, love, idealism, society, etc. Led by his eagerness to evade a disagreeable reality, man gives free rein to his imagination and is inclined to believe the first agreeable lie he encounters along the way. The individual projects his personal illusions onto a cold and immutable reality, and thus deceiving himself, he endeavors to contemplate reality through rose-colored glasses.

“Disillusion” is a painful process and can be prolonged, depending on how much time the individual takes to realize he is living artificially and that this condition is a product of his internal dreams. Great courage is required to face reality and to destroy the mirage of a pleasant dream.”

~ John Baines, “The Stellar Man”

As we begin down the path of self work, the old life we once knew begins to fall away in a process known as “disillusionment”. As lies crumble, the connections and circumstances which we once considered home begin to lose their comfort and become constraining, like a nest that becomes too small for a bird learning to fly. Conversely, those foreign aspects of life we once saw as strange and unappealing may begin to compel our curiosity as we see the world through an ever-wider, more worldly, and loving lens. At first, it can be very painful and intense as certain realizations shatter our preconceived ideologies and self-identity. As time goes on, however, and we become more familiar with disillusionment, it becomes easier to recover and reorient oneself with the drive toward Objective Truth as an unwavering compass point on our lifelong journey.

“The way (esoteric, spiritual self-work) is a one-way street. Meaning that whoever begins to walk it is forbidden to turn back. This is not because of some kind of external imperative, but due to the fact that each step forward on the Way irrevocably modifies the content of whoever has started walking it. It follows that he will become more and more of a stranger to his surroundings; that he will lose more and more interest in exterior life, in which only yesterday he participated fully. The appearance of things, and especially of beings, undergoes a deep change in his eyes. He will one day be surprised to constate that certain faces which only yesterday he found very beautiful now reveal to him marks of bestiality behind their features: not all, but many of them!

The more man progresses on the Way, the more his feeling of being a stranger is intensified. Soon he will become boring: later still he will become unbearable, and finally, odious. That is why ‘the prophet is despised in his country, among his close relations and in his own house.’ That indication is precise and leaves no room for doubt. He who wants to start esoteric studies is invited to think it over twice, and weigh it all, before he rushes to cross the moat-threshold. We repeat that it will not be possible for him to return to exterior life and to find his place, his pleasures and his satisfaction there as in the past. However, as well as the difficulties which are the first results of his evolution, such a man will receive comforting impressions, especially in his human relations. He will be surprised to perceive one day that certain faces which only yesterday appeared to him ordinary, today shine in his eyes with a bright beauty. It is because his sight, sharpened by esoteric work, has acquired the faculty of penetrating beyond the external crust. It is amongst these brighter beings that he will find his new friends.”

~ Boris Mouravieff, “Gnosis”

While disillusionment is often an intense process, the pain can be mitigated by keeping our objectives in mind and having support from friends who are also engaged in sincere self-work, whom can provide honest, constructive, and loving feedback. Having a diverse network of friends from which to have feedback and support is essential since life can be increasingly difficult on the path toward awakening, and the more positive influences that help reinforce productive self-work, the better! Furthermore, nobody can see themselves objectively, so the more points of reference from others who can hold themselves in the position of being a neutral observer providing feedback while striving toward objectivity, the more well-informed our perspectives and decisions become.

This aspect of helping one another is crucial. Aiding others in the process of disillusionment from one’s false conceptions of life is called “mirroring”. This is often a tumultuous aspect which must be guided with great care, otherwise the new foundation may be worse than the original one, and to re-correct a re-built view of the world after an initial disillusionment can prove to be even more difficult. Mirroring is an essential skill to develop. Receiving a mirror for objective feedback is a very powerful thing and an extremely profound and powerful way to learn for those capable of withstanding the shock and utilizing that heat in a beneficial way. For other people, however, it can ‘shut them down’, even to the extent of preventing further progress. It’s important to consciously adapt one’s approach by whatever means is needed to reach and help a person more deeply, since there is no “one method of communication fits all”.

There will be attacks and resistance, but they can always be overcome with the right Self-Work, networking, and support. When breaking beyond conventional limitations, especially through metaphysical research and esoteric study, people may try to mock, guilt, and shame you for being the bearer of new knowledge and uncomfortable realizations. They will distort your expanded perception through their tiny lens. They will try to make it seem as though you are wrong for being who you are and they’ll try to make you feel small. Your playing small does not serve your greater purpose. There is nothing enlightened about limiting your path in life to comfort the illusions of others. Those who seek Objective Truth are bringers of light in to a very uncomfortable darkness, and it will seek to stop you in any way it can. We must not give in to the darkness that tells us to dim ourselves. Every courageous step toward Objective Truth is what liberates others to do the very same. This is the battle to awaken and we must not lose sight of this objective.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Humberto Braga is a professional visual artist, life coach, and author whose life is dedicated to facilitating an accelerated evolution of consciousness through providing practical knowledge, personal healing, social awareness, and holistic spiritual guidance towards truth, justice, freedom, and wholeness.

His work ties together several subjects and provides effective strategies to help actualize the best version of yourself and navigate the challenges of life, ranging from health, psychology, personal relationships, activism, society, government, voluntarism/ anarchism, environmentalism, paradigm shifts, metaphysics, and the Hyperdimensional Matrix Control System.

Raised in Wisconsin through a very difficult childhood, Humberto grew up seeing UFOs, extraterrestrials, ghosts, and other paranormal phenomenon which compelled him to seek answers to the deeper mysteries of life. Through willpower, research, and divine guidance, he’s transformed his life far beyond his greatest childhood dreams, and presently resides in Topanga Canyon, California, living an amazingly blessed and fulfilling life.

You can connect with Humberto via:

• Email: HumbertoLVX@gmail.com
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/Humberto.LVX
• Facebook (Artwork Page): www.facebook.com/HumbertoBragaArtwork
• Visual Art Portfolio: www.humbertobraga.com
• YouTube: www.youtube.com/TimeOfTransition
• Blog: https://humbertolvx.wordpress.com

The post Self-Work: The Path of Conscious Evolution appeared first on We Are Change.

Actually, evidence shows that the opposite is true.

For example: Having been present during an exchange of prisoners in upper New York between the Iroquois and the French in 1699, Cadwallader Colden in his book “The History of the Five Indian Nations” observed:

“Notwithstanding the French Commissioners took all the Pains possible to carry Home the French, that were Prisoners with the Five Nations, and they had full Liberty from the Indians, few of them could be persuaded to return. It may be thought that this was occasioned from the Hardships they had endured in their own country, under a tyrannical Government and a barren Soil: But this certainly was not the only Reason; for the English had just as much Difficulty to persuade the People, that had been taken Prisoners by the French Indians, to leave the Indian Manner of living, though no People enjoy more Liberty, and live in greater Plenty, than the common inhabitants of New-York do.  No Arguments, no Intreaties, nor Tears of their Friends and Relations, could persuade many of them to leave their new Indian Friends and Acquaintance; several of them that were by the Caressings of their Relations persuaded to come Home, in a little Time grew tired of our Manner of living, and run away again to the Indians, and ended their Days with them. On the other Hand, Indian Children have been carefully educated among the English, cloathed and taught, yet, I think, there is not one Instance, that any of these, after they had Liberty to go among their own People, and were come to Age, would remain with the English, but returned to their own Nations, and became as fond of the Indian Manner of Life as those that knew nothing of a civilized Manner of Living. [This] has been found true on many other Occasions.”

Mirroring this natural inclination to reject “civilization” when allowed to live peacefully and enjoyably in nature, Benjamin Franklin, in his correspondence to Peter Collinson, wrote:

“When an Indian child is raised in white civilization, the civilizing somehow does not stick, and at the first opportunity he will go back to his red relations, from whence there is no hope whatever of redeeming him. But when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, and have lived a while among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first good Opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them. […] There must be in the Indians’ social bond something singularly captivating, and far superior to be boasted of among us; for thousands of Europeans are Indians, and we have no examples of even one of those Aborigines having from choice become Europeans! There must be something very bewitching in their manners, something very indelible and marked by the very hands of Nature. For, take a young Indian lad, give him the best education you possibly can, load him with your bounty, with presents, nay with riches, yet he would secretly long for his native woods, which you would imagine he must have long since forgot; and on the first opportunity he can possibly find, you will see him voluntarily leave behind all you have given him and return with inexpressable joy to lie on the mats of his fathers.” 

~ J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur, in his “Letters from an American Farmer” in 1782

The fact is that humanity is meant to live in accordance with nature, and has the knowledge needed to live in harmony with it. The only reason people fear it is because the authoritarians dominating society have conditioned people to fear the unknown, imagining they need government to happily and peacefully survive. That might have been true in certain circumstances in the past, given the lack of consciousness and harsh conditions, but is that true anymore? The promising, liberating prospect of returning to a more localized agrarian society, given the advances in sustainable permaculture designs and technologies, could be a readily integrated reality even in urban environments. There are so many ways to change our local collective momentum in order to evolve ideas. Change starts closest to home since society at large is slower and more reluctant to change, so it’s up to us to begin ourselves.

Transformative change always begins at the margins of society, and, regardless of the opinions of the mainstream, inevitably finds its way in to the mainstream in some way, shape, or form. Much like the naturalists and environmental activists of the early to mid-20^th century that were dismissed as “crazy tree-hugging hippies”, today we see the global establishment of numerous organizations for wildlife preservation, ecological conservation, and alternative energies, and even a widely known political “Green Party”. In the words of Margaret Mead, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

No government, nor any mainstream institutions, will ever bring about the necessary creative solutions for the problems society faces. In fact, government has made living self-sufficiently off the grid ILLEGAL since it effectively removes government’s ability to directly control and regulate you. And if one well-known group of people do it it’s allowed to flourish and prosper, others will catch on and ask, “Why not us?” Therefore, it depends on the rebels, the innovators, the creative minority willing to forge ahead as quickly as possible, even at the risk of non-violently breaking the law, to establish new, more conscious, innovative, increasingly sustainable, scalable, and easily reproduced means of living. Thousands of people have already begun, keeping it relatively low key.

But how might that look, and what are some simple steps we can tangibly apply on our own?

For that, see my follow-up article: “Eco-Friendly Sustainable Solutions for Better Living“

The post Returning to Nature appeared first on We Are Change.

Let’s cut to the chase: Unsustainable industrial civilization is rapidly destroying the global biosphere, and there is no greater issue facing humanity. Even though most of us already know this on some level, we still take the planet for granted and waste time fussing over an endless circus of political distractions. This is exactly what those in power want: stay distracted, stay divided, and keep giving your power to the system. Like a virus, the psychopaths in positions of power will keep consuming, while infecting society with the same self-destructive pathological mentality, even though they too will die along with the host- our planet Earth. Yet even though most of us obviously  know industrial civilization is responsible for changing globate climate, killing entire species at an alarming rate, and will consume humanity so long as it rains a marginalized issue. It is the elephant in the room that nobody wants to discuss because it means we ALL have to change our cozy, privileged lives in big ways. We have to stop trusting government “authority” (who made this mess) and start take responsibility for ourselves.

However, over the past few decades, as satellite imagery has become increasingly able to observe the rapid depletion and destruction of various ecosystems around the planet, environmentalism has increasingly been coming to the forefront to humanity’s concerns. The rampant consumption of natural resources which drove the Industrial Age has hit a wall as the demand for resources and production continues to grow exponentially. Fossil fuels have become increasingly difficult and harmful to extract, leading to disastrous extraction and transportation methods like fracking and oil pipelines which have caused hundreds of horrendous spills since 2000 in the United States alone. The overwhelming number of subsequent ecological disasters that have injured countless people and wildlife have made it abundantly clear that if humanity is to have any future AT ALL, the land base upon which it depends for its very survival must take foremost priority. The consequences of neglecting our relationship to natural living not only affects us, but it damages the growth of our children both directly and indirectly, compounding the problem for future generations. We must rid ourselves of the ridiculous, sycophantic Stockholm Syndrome, believing that the wealthy are entitled to perpetually increase their power, ownership, and wealth at the expense of everyone and everything that they deem subservient to their own interests- ESPECIALLY NATURE!

“Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect.”

~ Chief Seattle

“According to official history, this grid [industrialized authoritarian social system] is the natural outcome of an inevitable evolution. Thus natural history is not a multiverse of potentialities but rather a linear progression from Prometheus’ theft of fire to the International Monetary Fund. A million and more years of species life experienced in organic communities are dismissed as a kind of waiting period in anticipation of the few thousand years of imperial grandeur to follow. The remaining primal societies, even now being dragged by the hair into civilization’s orbit along its blood-drenched frontier, are dismissed as living fossils (“lacking in evolutionary promise,” as one philosopher characterized them), awaiting their glorious inscription into the wondrous machine.

Thus, as Fredy Perlman argued, imperialism is far from being the last stage of civilization but is embedded in the earliest stages of the state and class society. […] The instability and rapidity of change as well as the violence and destructiveness of the change both belie empire’s claim to natural legitimacy, suggesting once more an evolutionary wrong turn, a profoundly widening disequilibrium.

The frontier expands along two intersecting axes, centrifugal and centripetal. In the words of Stanley Diamond, “Civilization originates in conquest abroad and repression at home. Each is an aspect of the other.”

[…]

But the process is replicated internally on the human spirit: every [pathologically programmed person] finds an empire in miniature “wired” to the very nervous system. So, too, is repression naturalized, the permanent crisis in character and the authoritarian plague legitimated. It starts with frightened obedience to the archon or patriarch, then moves by way of projection to a violent, numbed refusal of the living subjectivity and integrity of the other — whether found in nature, in woman, or in conquered peoples.

At one end of the hierarchic pyramid stands unmitigated power; at the other, submission mingles with isolation, fragmentation and rage. All is justified by the ideology of Progress — conquest and subjugation of peoples, ruin of lands and sacrifice zones for the empire, self-repression, mass addiction to imperial spoils, the materialization of culture. Ideology keeps the work and war machines operating.

Ultimately, this vortex brings about the complete objectification of nature. Every relationship is increasingly instrumentalized and technicized. Mechanization and industrialization have rapidly transformed the planet, exploding ecosystems and human communities with monoculture, industrial degradation and mass markets. The world now corresponds more closely to the prophetic warnings of primal peoples than to the hollow advertising claims of the industrial system: the plants disappearing and the animals dying, the soils denuded along with the human spirit, vast oceans poisoned, the very rain turned corrosive and deadly, human communities at war with one another over diminishing spoils and all poised on the brink of an even greater annihilation at the push of a few buttons within reach of stunted, half-dead [pathological people] in fortified bunkers. Civilization’s railroad leads not only to ecocide, but to evolutionary suicide. Every empire lurches toward the oblivion it fabricates and will eventually be covered with sand. Can a world worth inhabiting survive the ruin that will be left?” 

~ David Watson, “Civilization in Bulk”

Industrial civilization is controlled by psychopaths and pathological people for profit and control. They utilize government which depends on imperialism. This implies the invasion of foreign lands, the mass-murder and brainwashing of indigenous people, the perpetual consumption of resources, dehumanizing people as resources as well, ever-invading, ever-consuming with no regard for symbiosis, like a deadly virus. All “green” movements are merely concessions to pacify the general public. But even the fact that there’s and “Earth Day” (which most people don’t celebrate), as if giving back to the planet should be relegated to just one day, shows how marginal environmentalism is in the public consciousness. Unfortunately, most people are woefully unaware how rapidly the planet and its inhabitants are dying off.

Clearly, the needs of the environment are more important than the needs of any fraudulent economic system which relies on perpetually increasing consumption. Therefore, any economic model or society that harms the environment upon which it depends is unsustainable, unethical, and, simply put, stupid. Any such system, therefore, must be either dismantled or reconfigured to harmonize with nature. Civilization (if such it can be called at this point) must be rapidly modified to become as sustainable on all levels with environmentalism as a priority. We have the capabilities to do this easily. Anyone who tells you otherwise is either underestimating the human potential to change, brainwashed, or trying to make money off the perpetuation of an obsolete paradigm.

“The US Military spends well over a billion dollars per day to kill people “fighting the war on terror” and expanding US Imperialism. A billion dollars could pay for 5 million Third-World children to attend school for a year. For what the US spends to kill people people in 5 days, potable water could be provided to every human on the world who lacks it. Excluding land acquisition, the US government spends less on recover efforts for all endangered species than it spends on the military in 12 hours.”

~ Derek Jensen

We as privileged consumers are culpable in contributing to this mess, and if there is any conscience within in us, we must face this mess ourselves and strive to fix it in any way we can. Anything short of this is to tell lies to each other, and especially to ourselves, in order to maintain our predatory, unconscious, and violent way of living. It is a mistake to base our social priorities on profitability, convenience, or whether it is popular or offensive to complacent, politically-correct fence-sitters. Remember that we are led by psychopaths in power, and consequently the conventional culture is deeply ponerized, unable to judge right from wrong, deeply conditioned to fetishize superficial pleasure, violence, death, and retribution. This is more than a physical challenge, it’s a matter of consciousness.

“There are periods in the life of humanity, which generally coincide with the beginning of the fall of cultures and civilizations, when the masses irretrievably lose their reason and begin to destroy everything that has been created by centuries and millenniums of culture. Such periods of mass madness, often coinciding with geological cataclysms, climatic changes, and similar phenomena of a planetary character, release a very great quantity of the matter of knowledge. This, in its turn, necessitates the work of collecting this matter of knowledge which would otherwise be lost. Thus the work of collecting scattered matter of knowledge frequently coincides with the beginning of the destruction and fall of cultures and civilizations.

This aspect of the question is clear. The crowd neither wants nor seeks knowledge, and the leaders of the crowd, in their own interests, try to strengthen its fear and dislike of everything new and unknown. The slavery in which mankind lives is based upon this fear. It is even difficult to imagine all the horror of this slavery. We do not understand what people are losing. But in order to understand the cause of this slavery it is enough to see how people live, what constitutes the aim of their existence, the object of their desires, passions, and aspirations, of what they think, of what they talk, what they serve and what they worship.”

~ Gurdjieff, “In Search of the Miraculous”

In the end, it comes down to priorities. Regardless of what the mass of humanity says or does, are you aspiring to live in ways which are more ecologically conscious? Are you walking or riding your bike for short trips, or do you drive your car? Are you consciously spending money supporting sustainable local farmers’ markets, or eating over-priced, pre-packaged, mass-processed, nutrition-less “food” stuffed with additives by corporate conglomerations that ruin the earth through chemically-induced agriculture and the horrific industrial torture of animals? Do you know how to grow your own food, and are you doing it now, perhaps in a community garden? For those whose time and money is obligated to raising children, dealing with a disorder, or just trying to make ends meet, are you at least taking some time out of your day to research and make more well-informed decisions? In this culture of convenience, most people waste a lot of time with superficial preoccupations and their own immediate pleasures. Are you willing to make necessary changes in your life? When self-work meets practical application in our lives for the betterment of all life on Earth, we must be consciously developing ourselves to become more aware, more capable, more educated, more resourceful, and more loving, so that we become a benefit to the world and not just another bystander.

“The system is designed to harvest all of our energy and that’s why we have to step away from it. We’ve got to realize how much we are being played and open our eyes and begin to realize that everything we are facing comes down ultimately to the simple choice between right and wrong. The simple choice of the actions you take every day, the decisions that you make, the way you interact with people that is the simple fact of the matter.

And that’s why the situation could be changed so easily. Because it is a simple matter of people changing their perspective. Getting the information to a large enough amount of people for them to see the reality of it. Of course, breaking through the programing is also very difficult. The amount of social, economic and religious programming that people have been subject to is a huge problem. But again, even these types of programs can be overcome once people find themselves in a place of absolute hardship and scarcity, which is where we are going. That’s what is waking the world up by default . There are so many measures being used against us right now, the system is coming to people’s backyards. And so they are actually beginning to see the control routes for themselves, and that’s a good thing. It’s just a shame its got to a point of absolute hardship before they have actually seen it.

If we have strong supportive communities around these people then we can show them. There are people that care and that there is a better way we can do things. But its got to come down to the individual, by you making the correct moral choices in your actions. And don’t comply with anything that cause you to deviate from your moral compass. Just that action is enough to create huge ripples in reality. Imagine if the whole world started doing that. We could quite literally change the world in one day. That’s how simple it could be. It’s just getting the information to enough people. Not only getting the information to them but helping them to apply it to the rest of the world. Unfortunately, most people like to follow. To see that other people have done things and it didn’t get them in trouble, and say, “He got away with so maybe I will have a go too.” This is the way people think. And this is part of the fear program instilled in their minds, unfortunately.

Fear is the underlying mechanism of this whole system. Its all about fear based mind control. Fear based mind control is what prevents people from doing the right thing. It’s what prevents people from disobeying legislation. What prevents people from speaking out, speaking the truth, to their neighbors and friends, fear of what these people might think of them. So we police our own thoughts. We say what we believe people will want to hear. We say what people might perceive to be clever. We just want to say that which will make us popular, which is really unfortunate.

Truth is not a popularity contest. Life is not a popularity contest. Its about doing what you can with the potential that you have been given. We have enormous potential as a species. We each do individually. But combined as a species, we have unlimited potential. And that what I’d like to see us embrace. And that is everything that the system is designed to prevent us from realizing. The powers that be are desperate for us to never realize our own potential. They are desperate to keep us believing that the fiction they use to enslave us is real. And all this fiction does is keep us doing the wrong thing by each other. And its time we stopped that and question the morality of the system.

The system that is in place was apparently created by mankind to service our needs. So why is mankind the most expendable thing in the parameters of the system? Why does the system work so hard to balance the books rather than balance human consciousness? Balance the state of our societies. Balancing so that the people are living in their natural state of abundance, being in balance with the planet that we live on. What we got here is a massive state of imbalance. Because we have a very small group of people who have taken responsibility for everybody else and have done this by taking responsibility away from everybody and training the vast majority of society to give their responsibility and give their power away, and done that with the promise of trinkets, little games and little things to keep us happy, little designated entertainment zones we can go to, entertainment we can watch on the television or in the movies, different levels on the social ladder that we can attain, and when we get to these levels they give us little trinkets and toys to play with. And all at the expense of the earth.”

~ Max Igan & TheCrowhouse, “Creating the New Tribe” 

Thankfully, despite this lack of consciousness, there is rapidly increasing awareness for ecological and environmental concerns, small-scale, decentralized, local solutions to sustainable food production, and the widespread implementation of alternative energies.  

But how might that look in our own lives, and what are some simple steps we can tangibly apply?

See my follow-up articles: “Eco-Friendly Sustainable Solutions for Better Living” and “Return to Nature“

The post Global Extinction: Unsustainable Industrial Civilization appeared first on We Are Change.

This may be controversial, but we’ve reached a dangerous point of critical mass where we need to start facing the facts about our collective actions instead of “politely” running away from them. This issue affects us all in many ways which we’ll discuss. But because it’s a sensitive subject for some people, let’s rip the band-aid off quickly and get right to the core of the issue – ZIONISM.

First off, we need to make a clear distinction between “Jews” and Zionists”. They are very different. Judaism is a religion. Zionism is a nationalistic movement that demands the return of the Jewish people to “their” “homeland” to establish Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel based on a fictionalized Bronze-Age religious superstition. Not all Jews are Zionists and not all Zionists are religious Jews. In fact, many Jews in Israel disagree with Zionist Religious Nationalism. They see how Zionism differs in both principle and practice from the fundamental Jewish faith, and has been used by wealthy elites as an emotionally-driven tool of brainwashing and infiltration that manipulates Jewish people to usurp sociopolitical control.

“Zionists” are a group of people that believe Jews must be in control of the historical land of Israel, and are willing to use unlimited violence, theft, and subversion to achieve this goal. This is not an opinion – this is a restatement of many Zionist figureheads’ own words.

“We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.”
~Yisrael Koenig, The Koenig Memorandum.

“We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?’ Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said ‘Drive them out!'”
~ Yitzhak Rabin, leaked censored version of Rabin memoirs, published in the New York Times, 23 October 1979.

“We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai.”
~ David Ben-Gurion, May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, A Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.

Some religious people may cling to the Zionist notion of “the chosen people” and their “god-given right to the holy land” that is based on a completely absurd Bronze-Age religious superstition with no scientifically factual legitimacy.  In a sane, rational world, your beliefs don’t entitle you with magical “god given rights” to take away the inherent rights of others.

For example: the following clip refers to the lunacy of religious fanatics condemning gays because of what it says in the Bible. But it can also be applied to the lunacy of Zionism condemning everyone who doesn’t completely agree with them, their twisted interpretations of old scripture, and their demand for Religious Nationalism.

Check it out.

Honestly, if simple logic and reason were enough to resolve the situation, we could stop the article here and begin the conscious evolution of the human species.

But religion, including the religion of the State (of which Zionism comprises both), isn’t based on logic and reason. Religious and statist brainwashing is based on emotional “justification”, social pressures, and fear-based indoctrination. So, in case you happen to be someone who needs an avalanche of facts and statistics to show you the horrific illegitimacy of Zionism, along with how people around the world, Jews and non-Jews, are being manipulated towards global destruction by Zionism, let’s continue.

The imaginary religious rhetoric used as the justification of Israel’s establishment says, ‘Semites are God’s chosen people with a right to their holy land’. Even if you believe this megalomaniacal, borderline insane declaration, most Israelis (estimates suggest between 70-85%) aren’t actual Semites! They are converted Ashkenazi Jews from Europe that immigrated to Palestine after World War II. Ironically, the TRUE Semites are the Palestinians, having descended from the Semitic tribes in the Middle East! It’s sadly hypocritical that Israel’s apartheid genocide of Palestine over the past 70+ years is the most horrific “Anti-Semitic” oppression in the world.

Since we’ve clarified the “Semitic” issue, in regards to the “Anti-Semitic” claim, we can see that it too quickly falls apart with no legitimacy. Even former Israeli Minister Shulamit Aloni admits that “calling people ‘Anti-Semitic’ is a trick. We always use it.” It’s a manufactured form of cultural shaming based on lies. It’s part of a desperate attempt to shut down dissent, critical thinking, and inquiry, since obviously using facts, logic, and reason doesn’t work so well in support of Zionism.

So now that we’ve deconstructed the fundamental justifications of Zionism, let’s address Israel’s purported “right to self-defense”. Israel’s main opponent is Hamas, and there has been years of horrific fighting with both parties carrying responsibility. However, did you know that Israel (and the US, by proxy) created Hamas? For those unaware, the Israeli Mossad (their CIA) created Hamas in 1987, with the frontmen Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Yassin and Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi. Why? Because, as Zeev Sternell, historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, says: “Israel thought that it was a smart ploy to push the Islamists against the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO).”

Divide and conquer: the oldest military tactic in the book.

Well, isn’t that interesting?

This is the same story for the creation of Al Quaeda/ ISIS by the USA in the endless, hypocritical “War on Terror”. Since war is profitable, the psychopaths in power “solve their problems” by making an even bigger problem, then use the state-controlled mainstream media cover up their responsibility by spinning the situation to play the victim card when things get out of hand. This is the same behavior seen in psychopaths. Psychopaths covertly and purposefully create their own problems, using guilt, gaslighting, and divisive rhetoric to act like the victims, doing exactly what they demonize others of doing (like using children as human shields), pandering to their allies while simultaneously manipulating them, inflaming the drama to generate more power, all while continuously lying and feeding off the energy of others.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was even caught on film admitting all of this!

It doesn’t get much more blatant than that.

In the same way, Israel has continued to lie, manipulate, murder, and drain resources from other countries with impunity, despite breaking international law, arms laws, and unjustly murdering tens of thousands of innocent civilians in Palestine and other countries which creates even more civil unrest and backlash. It’s all part of the Machiavellian plan to maintain power, and Zionist sympathizers have fallen for it, hook, line, and sinker.

Bottom line: when you are illegally occupying territories that are not yours based on fictional beliefs, contrary to consensus of international law, purposefully arming other religious extremists to create bigger problems, you have no inherent moral superiority deserving of defense or “rights” over that land. PERIOD. Don’t agree? Let’s say I broke in to your house declaring, “One of my ancestors wrote in a book a long time ago saying this is my land forever because I believe something different than you, so I’m taking everything you own and putting you in a concentration camp. And If you fight back, I have the right to kill you.” Would you allow it to happen and say, “Well, he has a right to self-defense because of his religious superstition”, or would you consider me a criminal who’s mentally delusional? Obviously, it would be criminally insane! So why would any person with a conscience and an ounce of sanity allow it to happen to Palestine?

In this way, we can compare Zionism to the American settlers’ apartheid genocide of Native Americans under the fictional, religious ideology of “Manifest Destiny”. Same as always, those with more power demonize those that resist with propaganda, calling them “terrorists”, “savages”, “lesser”,  “insurgents”, and “a threat to civilization”.

Just like America’s excuse of their oppression and expulsion from England to “seek their own land”, Zionism also uses a fictional, wildly exaggerated narrative of the Holocaust as the justification for turning Palestine in to an apartheid concentration camp. And just like America ignores the underhanded, subversive details of its history, Zionism also conveniently leaves out much of its history which causes the conflicts it pretends to be the victim of. For example, Zionists ignore being responsible for the economic collapse and cultural exploitation of Germany in the early 20th century. And when they were removed from their positions of power, unable to usurp off Germany unto its demise, International Zionists used the Jewish people as a scapegoat for declaring war on Germany pre-World War 2.

They say “Truth Fears No Investigation”, yet the Holocaust continues to be ILLEGAL to simply question in many countries. This is one of the many mechanisms of mind control we see to maintain social ignorance so Zionists can continue their endless predation of entire countries.  I guess the Zionist declaration “Never Again!” doesn’t apply when you are the one committing the genocidal atrocities. How convenient… for the psychopaths behind it all.

With these psychopathic commonalities, is it any surprise that America is Israel’s biggest supporter– politically, industrially, militarily, and financially? Even while America’s infrastructure crumbles, it has increasingly given hundred of billions of dollars to Israel, at $3 billion per year and rising (not including loan guarantees, massive weapon stockpiles, military and private development contracts, and more). If a government’s loyalties are supposedly to the betterment of its people first and foremost, above all, then why would the US government sacrifice the well-being of its own people to support a foreign country? It’s more than just strategic positioning to spread control in the Middle East. The reason why is because, just like in pre-WW2 Germany, behind the scenes, key elements in government, banking, industry, and media have been hijacked by Zionists who are beholden to the elite private interests that put them in positions of power over the interests of the people. History repeats itself when people don’t learn the lessons.

Speaking of “history repeats itself”, we’ll come back to discussing who’s behind the scenes after a quick historical segue to better understand how and why the situation came to be.

In my discussions with Israeli supporters, people try to justify the occupation by claiming, “The region is better now with Israel there because before Israel came along, nobody was really in Palestine. It was full of violent, uncivilized people oppressing women and cutting peoples’ head off.” This too is incorrect, and desperately in need of some education. Here’s a quick history lesson to set the record straight, so get ready for rapid fire facts.

From 1517-1917 Turkey’s Ottoman Empire stretched across what is presently known as Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, and Israel. During World War I (1914-1918), Turkey supported Germany. When Germany was defeated, so were the Turks. Prior to this in 1916, as the region was being taken over by the Allied forces, control of the southern portion of the Ottoman Empire was “mandated” to France and Britain under the Sykes-Picot Agreement supervised by the League of Nations, which divided the Arab region into zones of influence. This was not meant to permanently retain control, since the region had been under Middle Eastern control since the 16th century. Instead, it was intended as a temporary measure to facilitate the transition “until such time as they [the native communities] are able to stand alone“, as was stated in The Covenant of the League of Nations. In other words, “Don’t try and manipulate the region for control. Just keep the peace and let people govern themselves”. This was considered a very reasonable agreement to everyone involved at the time (except the Turks and the Axis powers in the war, obviously). Lebanon and Syria were assigned (mandated) to France, and “Mandatory Palestine” (today’s Jordan, Israel, and Palestine) was mandated in trust to Great Britain.

To the well-established native Arab population who lived in Palestine, it was their homeland. Return of their native rights had been promised to them both implicitly in The Covenant of the League of Nations which was the charter for the League of Nations through which they formed an agreement with local communities, but also by the Allies in the McMahon Agreement (1915) for their help in defeating the Turks in World War 1. However, soon after in 1917 this would be betrayed by the Balfour Declaration, wherein the British would also promise Walter Rothschild, 2nd Baron Rothschild and his Zionist counterparts the establishment of a Jewish state in exchange for financial, industrial, and political support to win WW1 (and gain support for all future conflicts, obviously). This betrayal and introduction of privatized ultra-wealthy elitist Zionist sociopolitical control is the pivotal demise in the history of the region. It also ties in to the imposed injustice in Treaty of Versailles after World War 1, the socioeconomic destruction of Germany between the two wars, and the hidden history of World War 2, all of which was instigated and manipulated by Zionist interests to their benefit for the creation of Israel.

But from these facts, we can see that before Israel, Palestine was a relatively modern, well-established area with a diverse, thriving culture under Turkish/ tentative British rule and influence. Now it’s well known as the largest concentration camp in the world. For anyone who wants further proof that Palestine was a legitimate region with a cohesive national community which was destroyed by Zionist interests, having existed well before the illegitimate creation of Israel, there are several authenticated photographs which document that period in history. Even more, here is a minted coin from 1927 worth 10 Mils (this currency is obviously no longer used).

Note that the word “Palestine” is written in both Arabic and Hebrew indicating not only a Jewish presence, but a prominent one! Jews and Arabs DID live side by side in peace. The modern idea that they cannot coexist is an absolute fallacy, purposefully manufactured by the same wealthy Zionist interests who wanted to destabilize the region for their own power.

There are a dizzying number of crimes and offenses by Zionists that we could further address. The unprovoked attack of the USS Liberty by Israel, complete US political control by AIPAC, the suspicious assassination of Yitzhak Rabin (referred to as Israel’s JFK trying to make peace with Palestine) by a proud Zionist, the Golan Heights development and other continuing land grabs, the horrific human-rights-violations towards the Palestinians, the myth of the Iron Dome defense, MOSSAD’s involvement in the 9-11 attacks, and much more. But each one is deserving of an article (if not a book) by itself. This is simply an overview. If you want to go deeper, please check out the links provided and do your own research.

But since we’ve laid the groundwork, it seems appropriate for a foremost researcher on the subject, David Icke, to elaborate and tie together the history of Zionism & Israel, he hidden controllers behind it all, and the specific puppets in power we see at work today.

So there it is.

Looking throughout history, this is nothing new. From Egypt, to the Dark Ages, to the Vatican, religion and politics have been “partners in crime” since their inception, creating conflict for the benefit of a few psychopaths in power, outside the public eye, at the expense of everything else. Until people realize the Zionist Story and learn who is behind these manipulations, history will continue to repeat itself. Mere concessions and appeasement will not suffice. Considering the state of the world and the consequences of our collective ignorance, we desperately need truth, love, and justice, and we need it fast.

Religion, politics, society are exploiting you, and you are being conditioned by them; you are being forced in a particular direction. You are not human beings; you are mere cogs in a machine. You suffer patiently, submitting to the cruelties of environment, when you, individually, have the possibilities of changing them.”

~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

The post Exposing Zionism and Israel: A Definitive Guide appeared first on We Are Change.

“A great change of our psychological attitude is imminent, that is certain…we need more psychology, we need more understanding of human nature because the only real danger that exists is man himself, he is the great danger, and we are pitifully unaware of it, we know nothing of man, far too little. His psyche should be studied because we are the origin of all coming evil.” ~Carl G. Jung

 

If history has shown us anything, it’s that the human capacity for normalizing unhealthy, pathological behavior is astounding and perilous, even in well-meaning truth-seekers. We all have blind spots. It happens on every level of life more often than you’d think! For a simple, immediate example: observe your body right now. Feel what muscles are unconsciously constricted- your back, jaw, neck, legs, your stomach muscles causing you to take shallow breaths? All of these are physical responses to psychological stress. But are you in any immediate danger now? Probably not (unless you’ve been glued to Facebook for hours, letting your butt slowly pancake to your seat, causing your legs to atrophy. ;-)… In which case, take a walk and come back…) Now, feel your body and sit silently with yourself for a moment. Are you carrying any unresolved stress inside you? Probably. Even sitting in front of the computer for long periods of time causes stress on the body.

Now relax your body, take a few slow, deep breaths from your belly, drop the energy from your head in to your body, and feel the difference as your body realigns itself to be more comfortable. Feel the difference? Chances are that you weren’t even consciously aware of how uncomfortable your body was until you were encouraged to stop, observe, and let it unwind. This same “normalizing principle” applies not just to your body but also your mind. Collectively, we have been both consciously and unconsciously influenced to assimilate to unhealthy ideologies and behaviors since childhood.

The majority of our functioning stems from the unconscious & subconscious mind, be it the regulation of neurological chemicals, automatic breathing, emotional responses, how we hold our bodies, how we respond to others, etc… The list goes on and on. Despite how much control and awareness we think we have, our unconscious & subconscious mind plays a far greater role than the conscious part. Compare the psyche to an iceberg. The conscious mind is the observable “tip of the iceberg”. The unconscious & subconscious mind, however, is much larger and obscured under the surface.

So it goes without saying that “delving under the surface” of our psyche is essential to truly knowing ourselves and, therefor, improving ourselves. This may seem awkward or scary at first. It’s natural to feel afraid about diving where we are not used to going in ourselves. It can seem dark, difficult to breath, and unsafe with waves of emotion tossing us beyond our control. This is why it is essential to have the support of a fundamental education in Psychology, coupled with hands-on therapeutic healing, in order to become more conscious, whole, and contribute toward creating a better world.

But first, before we dive with the help of others, we must first understand a little about the history of psychology. Unfortunately, the study of psychology and practice of therapy remains largely ignored by compulsory education and misrepresented (often mocked) by mainstream media. Due to this cultural ignorance, we must be very discerning when entering psychological work, researching the method of therapy and the therapist. After all, a therapist is a person who we depend on to help us see ourselves clearly, and any of our trusted therapist’s personal, biased perspectives can easily be transferred in a time of vulnerable suggestibility. This is when research and time-tested methods of systematic critical thinking and discernment, such as the Trivium Method, are essential. It is helpful to research and ask questions from a potential therapist.

There is no “one-size-fits-all” method to therapy and healing, and there are many considerations dependent on one’s personal situation (age, medical issues, gender issues, sexual orientation, cross-cultural concerns, etc.) so it’s important to research and be discerning. While the traditional practice of psychology, being a work-in-progress, may have areas of distortion, there are many new concepts and practices that have evolved, combining psychological work with body-mind techniques and integral spiritual dimensions in very effective and practical ways, such as Gestalt Therapy, Jungian Psychology, Trauma Work, Somatic Release Therapy, and various other body-mind techniques.

In Western society, most people have come to associate psychology and therapy with Freud’s psychoanalytic “talk therapy”, and it’s largely still used as a foundation in many academic psychotherapy courses. More modern, progressive developments in Psychology, however, have pulled away from archaic ideologies such as the Freudian dogma which essentially frames every psychological problem as stemming from sexual or psychosexual repression, with little regard for the deeper emotional and spiritual dimensions of the human being. The historical distortion of psychology and the influence of Freud’s rudimentary theories pressed upon the treatment of society are clearly seen in the overall convention of mainstream media: obsession of sexual fixation and fetishism, and lack of true emotional and spiritual depth. Atop all this distortion, now more than ever, with corporations interested in psychological social engineering to maximize profits, the mental health field is rampant with abused prescriptions of “mood stabilizing” pharmaceuticals. Even the foremost pioneer of A.D.H.D. – Dr. Leon Eisenberg – warned of often-over-generalized, falsified, and abused psychological diagnoses, remarking, “ADHD is a prime example of a fabricated disorder. The genetic predisposition to ADHD is completely overrated. […] Instead, child psychiatrists should more thoroughly determine the psychosocial reasons that can lead to behavioral problems.” Most recently, it’s the ridiculously Orwellian diagnosis of Oppositional Defiant Disorder.

Is it any wonder why so many kids grow up taking drugs, feeling lost, repressed, and angry at a society that pushes them to conform? Nowadays, adults either shove them full of pharmaceuticals or condemn and dismiss teenage behavior as “just hormones”. But perhaps if we as a society were more emotionally intelligent, compassionate, and knowledgable about what comprises a healthy psyche, we might understand that there is something deeper being shown to us as a child steps in to the world of adulthood. Perhaps it’s not that children become “unreasonable” but rather it’s society that is unreasonable, unhealthy, and is fundamentally opposed to the natural conditions humans are intrinsically disposed to.

The expressive nature of children through emotion and imagination is perfectly healthy and oftentimes astoundingly insightful. In a progressive society, we can see how the role of mature adults is to use the mature intellect in order to nurture that natural expression and creativity in more constructive ways. When society lacks understanding of basic psychology, it lacks a deeper connection, freedom of spirit, and chooses instead to suppress the individual with compounding regulations which reduce the organic being to a robotic automaton. We can clearly see, by the skyrocketing statistics of mental illness and pharmaceutical drug use, that this ignorance of psychology is rapidly destroying humanity, proliferating neurosis, insecurity, anxiety, and hostility.

It’s clear that most of society is both ignorant and uncomfortable with the ego-dissolving vulnerability that comes with sincere psychological work. Take a good look at what the mainstream identifies as acceptable and “cool”:  the “tough” mask of straight-faced emotional immunity, the contrived disengagement, the disassociation of reality. And it’s all driven by shame, isn’t it? “Cool” preys on insecurity through unrealistic facades, marginalizing others as “flawed” and “undesirable” in the eyes of society. “Cool” always implicates shame on impressionable people because, when you strip away the mask, “cool” is really just dressed-up insecurity, identified with superficial appearances, terrified of losing control and the approval of others.

I drank that proverbial kool-aid early on as well. I used to think psychology and therapy was “only for those damaged, weird, messed up people who were too weak to cope with life”. I had the image of therapy just being someone sitting on a couch, blathering on with an over-paid therapist scribbling notes and occasionally chiming in, “Well, what do YOU think it means?” on and on and on until the patient was either locked up in a padded room with white bunny slippers, or learned to just cope with the fact that life is tough and they should just buy a helmet… I was blinded by my hubris.

Now I see that I was shadow projecting my own fear of facing MY wounds, MY weakness, MY vulnerability, MY pain. It’s the same defensive mechanism I used to “cope” all through a traumatic childhood: just shove down my feelings, make fun of whatever is uncomfortable or strange to me, and “be a man”. Fast forward to my introduction to REAL psychotherapy: a group Gestalt Therapy session at Esalen– one of the most amazing, loving, freeing, transformative months of my life. Never underestimate the power of presence, empathy, and vulnerability. As I sat in the safety of the group,  guided by a trained professional, I found myself feeling truly nurtured, free to say what I truly felt with no filter, feeling decades of armor drop away with my tears, shaking as I released trauma long held inside, coming to find peace and amazing realizations in the unconditional arms of Gestalt Therapy. (Oohhh…. I’m getting teary-eyed and choked up  all over again just remembering it.) It was the beginning of my journey towards understanding psychology and therapy. As I went on, I become acutely aware that health is holistic, and I began integrating other healing modalities in tandem to facilitate a holistic process. I explored massage and bodywork and realized the healing power of touch. I understood the deeper meaning of embodiment and presence. I worked with dream journaling and truly listened to what my subconscious was trying to communicate. I utilized plant medicines mindfully with the expertise of experienced shaman to help remove energetic blocks. I practiced breathwork and meditation. I practiced qi gong and yoga to ground and center myself. I expressed myself through “5 Rhythms Dance” sessions to engage my body in expressing its kinetic language. The list goes on. The path to healing can be challenging, but trust me- it is one of the most rewarding and enjoyable paths one can walk.

The point is that our ego is terrified of facing its own shadow. The shadow is an archetype that consists of aspects of oneself that exist, but which one does not acknowledge or with which one does not identify. The shadow exists as part of the unconscious mind and is composed of repressed ideas, weaknesses, desires, instincts, and shortcomings. This archetype is often described as the darker side of the psyche, representing wildness, chaos, and the unknown. These latent dispositions are present in all of us, although people sometimes deny this element of their own psyche and instead project it onto others. The same goes with small social groups and the whole collective of humanity. As a basic example, we often think relatively well of ourselves, considering ourselves to be honest, loving, tolerant, strong, hard working, responsible, and good. On the other hand, we consider those we dislike as dishonest, judgmental, hateful, weak, lazy, irresponsible, and evil. This tendency is exacerbated in times of conflict. But in truth, we all carry all these aspects within us in some capacity. It is only when we integrate these shadow elements within ourselves through conscious psychological self-work that we can begin to see ourselves, others, and life more clearly as it is with compassion, patience, and love.

This integration process, where the ever-righteous ego is forced to let go of the lies it has identified with, may feel like one is “breaking down” but this is really “breaking through”. It is a psychological necessity for conscious human development as illustrated in Dabrovsky’s “Theory of Positive Disintegration” (TPD) which views psychological tension and anxiety as necessary for growth. These “disintegrative” processes are therefore seen as “positive” for bringing about new aspects of conscious awareness, whereas people who fail to go through Positive Disintegration may remain for their entire lives in a state of “primary integration”, or, in other words, less self-actualized.

With all this in mind, it is clear that until we step in to the light of healing through psychological education, we will be defenseless against the momentum of social pressure, conditioning, and fear of rejection that causes most people to conform to pathological institutionalized behaviors. Some people will be able to do this work, but others may not because they are so heavily entrenched in their identifications, afraid to let go of their security blanket. This fear, aggression, and avoidance, passed on through generations, has rapidly developed in to Authoritarian social conditioning which begins at a very young age. Socially speaking, it has allowed the normalization of pathological behaviors: predatory financial institutions, political  bribing, war crimes by the Military-Industrial Complex, shadow government agencies (NSA, CIA, MOSSAD, MI5, etc.) trafficking drugs and money to fund covert warfare, committing acts of terrorism and framing innocent civilians with no accountability, power-hungry corporations, over-industrialized environmental desolation, and the list goes on and on. These are the institutions we depend on to oversee and regulate society, but, if “by their fruits shall you know them”, then it’s obvious that we’re being led by Psychopaths in suits and their Authoritarian puppets. And without the discernment of Psychological awareness, quite simply, we’re screwed.

Think of psychological education and critical thinking as “good mental hygiene”. You know how to clean yourself physically, right? You don’t “normalize” dirty socks or body odor that would send people running, do you? (Not unless you’re at Burning Man, I suppose…) Without psychological hygiene, being able to detect the red flags in the psychological landscape around us, we’re walking blind through a minefield. Many of these disorders remain hidden under the surface until you step in to the danger zone and it’s too late.

Let’s take a closer look at this phenomenon. For example, it is well known that Psychopathy is very difficult to detect without prolonged, professional observation. It is also impossible to cure and historically has been one of the most ruthless psychological disorders known to humanity. Yet because psychopaths are adept at blending in with a “mask of sanity”, most people haven’t had the knowledge to detect them, even with all the damage they create. Psychopathy is primarily characterized by superficial charm, egocentricity, addiction to stimulation, sexual promiscuity, enjoyment of violence, impulsivity, irresponsibility, pathological lying, lack of remorse, empathy, or guilt, manipulativeness, emotional shallowness/ fakeness, and endless hunger for power and control over others.

(Side note: Reflect for a moment on these characteristics and then look at their abundant popularity in mainstream society. Think of the corporate and banking oligarchies which operate with these behaviors, destroying the lives of everyone around the world- from environmental pollution, to the dumbing down of society, systematically removing the Trivium from public education, advocating violence and material-fetishism, perpetuating ‘divide & conquer’ war, creating fraudulent economies that inevitably collapse, and essentially owning “democratic” governments around the world through various means. Is it clear enough that this is hitting the root of all the world’s problems? Perhaps those in power who have crafted society as they wanted are genetic psychopaths? Again, “by their fruits shall you know them”.)

Psychopathy can be both genetically inherited (which is interesting to consider, given the interconnecting bloodlines of those in power throughout history) and it can also be conditioned through extreme circumstances – malnutrition in the stages of early brain developmental as a child, physical trauma to the brain, or extreme, continuous psychological abuse. As of yet, studies have shown that experimental psychopharmacological, neurofeedback, and combined psychotherapeutic treatments have at best suppressed the impulsive behavior of psychopaths, but, conversely, improved their ability to strategize, mimicing regret and other emotions governed by the pre-frontal cortex, thereby enabling them to become more methodical and surreptitious over the long run. There is no cure. This disorder is not a rare fluke of fate; it is wildly prevalent in society, with low estimates putting the global population of psychopaths between conservative estimates of 1% (70 million) and more recent estimates placing it at around or above 6% (420 million). Putting this in to a global perspective, we can see that psychological disorders are like a virus in a global body- a relatively small part of the entirely of the world, but detrimental to the integrity of a healthy, functioning system.

“Just as a disease organism seeks its own survival and to propagate, pathologically deviant persons want power over others and they are not inhibited by considerations of conscience or feeling for others. An analogy of this is that the disease pathogen is totally uncaring of the damage it may do to the organ systems it invades. It only wants to survive and propagate. The bacteria or virus has evolved many unique characteristics that enable it to take over a body when that body is weak. Thus, when societies are weakened for any of a number of reasons, deviant personalities are able to utilize their specifically evolved methods and means to achieve that power that normal people with normal morals simply cannot comprehend because it is not part of their reality and all human beings tend to assume that everyone else is like themselves.” –Laura Knight-Jadczyk

 

It has only been within the last 50 years that the field of Psychology has begun to understand that the inner landscape of people can be extremely different. This one fact and its implications should give all activists in the world pause to consider the saying, “Do not attempt to cure what you do not understand”.

“Understanding the nature of macro-social pathology helps us to find a healthy attitude and thus protects our minds from being controlled or poisoned by the diseased contents and influence of their propaganda. We can only conquer this huge, contagious social cancer if we comprehend its essence and its etiological causes. Such an understanding of the nature of the phenomena leads to the logical conclusion that the measures for healing and reordering the world today should be completely different from the ones heretofore used for solving international conflicts. It is also true that, merely having the knowledge and awareness of the phenomena of the genesis of macro-social Evil can begin healing individual humans and help their minds regain harmony.” ~Andew M. Lobaczewski, “Political Ponerology“

 

Let’s get back to the main point. The fact is we take on the behaviors of those we look up to for guidance- religion, government, schools, parents, friends, etc. Unfortunately we have been raised in a very sick society. For example:

• Children are encouraged by coaches to “beat” others in competition instead of appreciating the abilities of others to inspire personal growth. And so, we see “success” as a ruthless domination over others, instead of mutual respect and cooperation.
• Instead of objectively informing and empowering the truth, the mainstream media, controlled by corporate interests, advocate fear, materialism, and entitlement in order to normalize neurosis, anxiety, and insecurity.
• Instead of seeing all people on earth as connected and deserving of care, Nationalism creates a social narcissism whereby others are marginalized by notions of regional supremacy.
• It’s acceptable in “polite society” to glorify violence in movies, but unacceptable to glorify making love.
• It’s much easier to buy a gun than it is to have access to mental health care

It’s clear that every facet of our lives and society is saturated in psychologically hostile ideologies that are unhealthy and unnatural to the intrinsic human condition.  If psychological education and healing were made to be a predominant pillar of education for all people, we would not only be more integrated, healed, and at ease with ourselves, but we would have far greater understanding of the struggles of others, equipped with the tools of compassion to work through whatever issues may arise socially.

Through my own experience, study, and research, I’ve come to see that the most important step to an accelerated transformation of oneself and society is through psychological education and healing. As powerful as this process is, this will not be a magical quick-fix (but quicker than anything else), for we are not just healing our own wounds- we are healing the world’s wounds too. So, with every clearing of our psychological debris, with every foray into a healthier way of being, with every excavation and release of old trauma, we heal the collective heart and mind. Deep within our genetic material and in the spiritual realm, we are carrying the memories of our familial and karmic ancestors whom had little opportunity to heal their pains. When we heal, their spirits breathe a sigh of relief. We become clearer and more compassionate to each other and all of nature. We are all in this together. We heal in unison.

The post Why You NEED Psychological Healing & Education appeared first on We Are Change.

It is said by several esoteric sources that to “Know Thyself” is one of the most important things a person can do. Without self-knowledge, we are absent from ourselves, easily controlled by others, and lose all direction in our lives. So how do we go about actually “knowing ourselves” and reclaiming our lives?

In our head-centric society, most people take the admonition to “KNOW THYSELF” as a primarily intellectual endeavor, with endless books and thinking, all the while neglecting the deeply felt presence of our embodied experience. In our lives, we’ve polarized our intelligence to our heads, often ignoring the “gut instinct” and deeper awareness of the body. To truly “Know Thyself”, one requires a deeper Gnosis, which requires as much awareness as possible, experiencing the full presence of our psychosomatic bodymind, fully sensitive, present, and receptive to life with every sensation we experience as a form of thought.

However, as we see throughout society, our “head-centric” attempt to understand ourselves, and reality, creates an imbalanced, unhealthy confused schism between our ideologies and reality, our selves and others, as well as our bodies and our minds. While this approach has created some convenience and novelty (at the expense of destroying much of the world), it primarily keeps us divided, hostile, clinging to a “top-down” authoritarian model of reality, and in a perpetual state of existential malaise.

Underneath all the top-down, head-centric, tough, desensitized, and divisive games we play from this cultural indoctrination, the fact is that the intellect alone will not suffice in the deepest sense of ‘Knowing Thyself”. After all, can mere words hold the full beauty of a tearful symphony? Can words substitute for the experience of falling in love? Can words give you the same feeling as the thunderously euphoric release of a rapturous orgasm? Can words adequately touch the eternal grace of nature which holds all things in ephemeral cosmic balance, with its constant cycles of birth and death? Not even close. But the fully embodied presence of Being can, in every moment.

Getting in to the body can be as simple as regularly allowing ourselves to slow down, breathe slowly and deeply in to your stomach and even deeper in to your pelvic bowl, releasing the clenched pelvic muscles, vocalizing and moving as needed, stretching our tightened bodies, and feeling your energy body expand as you breathe. Feel the breath enter in to you from all over your body. Be still and silent until you can hear your own heartbeat. Feel the tightness melt away as your armor dissolves and your dormant senses begin to rejuvenate. Be present with your breath, letting thoughts come and go, but never being attached to them. When this sort of practice becomes embodied in our daily relationship to our sacred selves, you will begin to awaken the inherent embodied wisdom of your full presence and deeper gnosis. This is only the beginning of the process with a few short suggestions, which will help you go deeper more rapidly with regular practice. These deeper layers of awareness are already in you, awaiting your conscious care to nurture them back to the foreground of your awareness.

The most intimate, real, and authentic parts of you are ecstatically invigorating and deeply ever-present, yet they are constantly dulled by culture’s loudly indoctrinated obsession to try and confine life, and ourselves, in to tiny, “clean”, labeled boxes of logical organization of thought. Our sovereign authenticity requires a willingness to surrender control of our intellectualized notions of “what should be” and allowing the vulnerable, spontaneous “messiness” of pure being to emerge. While logical constructs serve an important purpose in “DOING”, we are too often polarized towards their rigidity and we lose sight of what’s most fundamentally important- BEING.

When we integrate the two polarities, however, doing no longer requires “hustle” and “struggle”. Our “Doing” comes from our “Being”, and effort becomes effortless. We act not from the conditioned constructs of our identity, but from ourselves in the present moment in harmony with our environment and greater awareness of the world. This embodied connection, which is to be experienced as fully as possible, with all its ineffable joy, sadness, silliness, passion, fear, presence, wonder, and love, is the essence of what it means to truly “Know Thyself”.

For an even deeper look in to what it means to “Know Thyself”, please watch the following short, yet in-depth video. You’ll be glad you did!

The post What It Means to ‘Know Thyself’ appeared first on We Are Change.

The world can be a demanding and difficult place, and we all need someone to help us through our dark times by holding space for us to process our emotions. You don’t need to be a therapist or a genius to hold space. Holding space is something we can all do for each other, wither it’s with our partners, our children, our friends, our pets, our neighbors, and even strangers in passing. We all need it, yet relatively few of us actually know how to do it well, so let’s explore the art of holding space.

When it comes to truly supporting people in their own growth and emotional processing, we know it’s harmful to take their personal power away. Yet regardless, we still tend to unconsciously do this is several ways: by trying to fix their problems for them, shaming them by implying that they should know more than they do, or overwhelming them by giving them more information than they’re ready for. While we may think it comes from a well-meaning place of wanting to help others, true personal growth happens best when people are given free space to process their emotions, feel supported, and are empowered to make their own choices. Feedback is fine in the form of giving gentle guidance when it’s needed and sincerely asked for, as long as it’s done lovingly so they feel safe even when they make mistakes.

It’s important to feel emotionally supported even if we are unsure and make mistakes because otherwise we feel “not good enough”, unworthy, unwanted, unloved, and even abandoned. The consequences of this can have severe repercussions. It can trigger a deeply-rooted survival response driven by fear of abandonment causing us to depend on lying, manipulation, and deception in order to maintain the approval of those we look to for emotional support. It’s the same reason why children lie to their parents so they aren’t yelled at and punished.

Socially speaking, because most people aren’t made to feel emotionally safe in their community, family, or in valuing and trusting themselves, they are conditioned to trust and rely on “authority” instead, often in the form of government. We can see the consequences of this deficiency of love around the world- authoritarianism, war, anger, hate, divisiveness, greed, exploitation, disconnection from nature, etc. The list goes on and illustrates the importance of holding space. Simply put, holding space is necessary to overcome all these unhealthy, destructive behaviors, personally and globally.

When it’s time to hold space (as opposed to strictly venting or problem solving), and both people have agreed to it, it’s important to be mindful about HOW we hold space. Here are the lessons I’ve learned about holding space:

1.) Drop your ego, buddy: This is a biggie. All of us fall in to this trap. We all have a natural tendency to want to “fix” people by pointing out their blindspots, telling them how to fix a problem, or judging their circumstances with the standards we hold for ourselves. Remember that what’s important is supporting the other person and just being there for them, not taking on their problems or trying to “fix” them. The more space your ego takes up, the less room it leaves for them, and the whole point is to create and hold as much space for the other person as possible.Also, don’t take their emotional outpouring personally. When we get caught up in someone else’s drama (which is a result of not giving YOURSELF enough space),we can feel like whatever emotions they happen to be expressing are about us and our ability to hold space, instead of them just venting in their process. We can feel like their success is dependent on us and their failure to quickly move through their difficulties will be our fault. It’s not about you. Getting your ego out of the way will open the door for sincere vulnerability, authentic communication, and a feeling of safety for emotional processing.

2.) Create a space that feels safe enough to make mistakes: Nobody’s “perfect”. Mistakes will be made along the way while processing through sadness, fear, grief, etc. Even after processing, integrating these changed parts in to our daily lives isn’t always a clean and easy process. By dropping judgement and shame, we offer them the space to find courage, take risks, and find their inner resilience even in the face of adversity.

“Failure” is simply “things not going according to plan”, which is a part of the journey guided by greater forces than we can comprehend. Often times it’s beyond our control, but it’s not the end of the world. By allowing them the sacred space to “live and learn”, they’ll spend less time beating themselves up and more time lovingly learning from their mistakes, which is what it’s all about.

3.) Don’t take the person’s power away: Taking the decision-making out of a person’s hands does little, if anything, to help them grow. With rare exceptions, like interventions for addiction and abuse, it’s best to nurture people’s autonomy by encouraging them to make their own choices (even children). Don’t forcefully direct or try to control the other person.

4.) Give people permission to trust their inner wisdom and intuition: Have you ever looked back in retrospect and thought, “I had a feeling about it, but I just didn’t listen to it”? We all have an internal guidance system, but we ignore it when we get “stuck in our heads” and feel pressured. We’re often best able to tune in to this natural navigation when we’re relaxed, embodied, and feel supported. Our inner garden grows much better with trust and support, rather than doubt and criticism.

5.) Give people only as much feedback as they can handle: Whether information or emotional intensity, be mindful not to overwhelm others with more than they can process in their tender, vulnerable time. Too much emotional intensity can be distracting and take people out of their internal presence, or make people feel unsafe, even if the words are kind. Too much information can disconnect us from being with our emotions and processing. Even worse, it can make us feel incompetent, inferior, and unworthy.

6.) Provide support with discernment, mindfulness, and humility: People in distress can get desperate. They may think it’s better for you to provide them with answers, when it’s actually better that they learn to look within themselves. Using your own discernment will allow you to give only as much is as needed when it is truly and sincerely asked for and necessary. The balance between giving and withholding is a part of the dance when holding space and can be as subtle as prefacing suggestions with “In my opinion…” instead of “You should…” when giving guidance. Offering the right kind of support and feedback takes humility and practice, but it makes all the difference in the world.

7.) Provide a container for intense, complex emotions: Victims of abuse (which we all are to varying degrees) have intense, often conflicting emotions. This can be extremely challenging if we haven’t done the necessary self-work of digging in to our psyche’s shadow and become familiar with the darkest, most intimate parts of the healing process. Deeply suppressed and confusing emotions may arise when people are suddenly held in ways they aren’t used to. It’s important that we not meet it with shame and judgement, but strength and compassion. By meeting them with tenderness and confidence, you provide them with trust and assuredness in their own process, as well as yourself.

8.) Support different decisions and experiences than what you would prefer: When it comes to holding space, honoring our differences of ideology, culture, expression, and experience is necessary. We have to release control and judgement of what we think “should happen” or “is best”. Looking back on life, we can see how some of our choices, while perhaps “stupid”, “weird”, or “irresponsible” in retrospect, have led to consequences which place us exactly where they need to be. Sometimes the only way out is through, and in order for them to truly understand the lesson they need to have experiences unique to their own path in order to step in to the fullness of their being and true purpose.

Holding space is not an art that we can suddenly master by just reading, nor can it be completely summarized by any list. It’s a uniquely idiosyncratic experience depending on the people, place, and circumstance, with endless subtleties, techniques, and levels which evolve the more we practice it. And the more we practice it with others, the more we can give it to ourselves, heal, and grow even faster, together.

The post The Art of Holding Space appeared first on We Are Change.

When it comes to the betterment of humanity, activism is perhaps the most important yet most controversial element in society. Activists are the free thinkers, the system busters, the loving warriors, the boat-rockers, and the truth tellers. These visionaries are the vanguard of social reform, acting as the warning system for a society out of balance. Activists are often criticized, ostracized, and even killed, yet their legacy stands among the most virtuous of contributions throughout history. Whether in the form of social media outcry, boycotts, protests, public art (Banksy), sit-ins, or armed insurrection, activists have undoubtedly been a major driving force of progressive social change.

Yet despite the intensity of external focus typical in most activists, honorable and necessary though it is, internal focus for the purposes of Self-Work, tends to be lacking in the majority of activists. This explains why there are social REVOLUTIONS (revolution = revolve = circular spin = going in circles) instead of social EVOLUTION, which transcends the violent, divisive, authoritarian paradigms which has enslaved humanity for centuries.

If activists integrated Self-Work as part of their transformative process, not only would they be more effective and healthier on all levels, but their impact on society would move beyond minor accommodations to a deeper paradigm shift. Due to this deficiency of Self-Work, many well-intentioned activists, swept away by their righteous anger in the “revolutionary mindset”, become just as aggressive and power-hungry as the tyrants they vehemently oppose. Violence is all too often met with violence as police brutality is met with rioting (an understandable yet self-defeating reaction), and “in-fighting” by activists against other well-intentioned activists exacerbates our challenges rather then allowing for a peaceful exchange of ideas. This hyper-aggression only serves to perpetuate violence which could otherwise be resolved with responsible self-awareness, compassion, critical thinking, and a broader perspective. This is the obstacle humanity has yet to overcome through Self-Work, and, as the saying goes, “When people do not learn their lessons, history repeats itself.”

There are many people speaking out about the atrocities and injustices of the world. Oftentimes activism comes with a lot of finger-pointing and hostility. Understandable. Who wouldn’t be upset? The problems of the world often seem insurmountable and sometimes the weight of life wears down even the best of us. As important as honoring our healthy boundaries and anger is, dwelling in anger causes us to miss out on the richness of higher understanding. It’s important to keep in mind that the moment we demonize or vilify those who disagree with us or do things differently, we commit an act of violence by severing an opportunity to learn and find loving empathy and compassion to resolve conflict. We cannot hold on to spite and vengeance, for the problems of the world are too enormous, and hostility, no matter how small, simply creates more violence. We must become more mindful, understanding, and conscious in our behavior if we are to ask others to do the same.

Time shows us that even in the most dark of circumstances, there is understanding and love to be found, within and without, for all things serve a purpose in objective reality. As difficult as it can be to come to terms with, all moments of life are like lessons in the school of Earth. It is rightfully natural to be angry, afraid, sad, and defensive, passively or aggressively, but for the sake of transformation and growth, we must not stop there.

Justice is neither avoidance or vengeance; it is taking responsibility by utilizing the opportunity to see things clearly through gaining knowledge, healing, and, ultimately, understanding and finding forgiveness by seeing the greater context, which ultimately leads to compassion. With communication comes new perspective. With new perspective comes new understanding. With understanding comes connection. With connection comes love. And in the words of Martin Luther King Jr., “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

If we, as activists, ever want to realistically live in a world wherein people are well-educated, empathic, and responsible enough to be sovereign and easily resolve (or avoid altogether) social injustices, we must embody the very maturity and virtue we ask from others. We must strive to be a living example of the principles and ideals we uphold.

The post Taking Activism to the Next Level appeared first on We Are Change.

Here’s a passenger’s video of this million-dollar breakthrough technology in action:

Impressed? Of course not.

Are you really surprised that the TSA, well known for its history of incompetence and abuse, spent $1.4 million of your tax dollars to get this silly little program up and running?

Again, it’s just a program that randomly shows an arrow pointing left… or right.

Here’s a video showing how this app could easily be built in 10 minutes:

While $1.4 million total may include the purchase of iPads and other cross-platform setup details, the iPad app cost about $336,000 alone, a ridiculous price tag for big arrows.

What’s the motivation here?

In theory, making an app to direct passengers removes liability of bias from TSA agents.
In reality, it’s another way to expand the TSA’s price tag and continue pretending like it’s a progressive, relevant, and necessary agency.

If we’re looking for efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and a better passenger experience, how about shutting down the TSA forever? The TSA has never caught a single terrorist, despite the invasive, awkward, inefficient process we’re all subjected to every time we fly. In point of fact, a leaked report exposed how undercover agents managed to get fake bombs through TSA checkpoints at major airports like LAX and Chicago O’Hare 60-75% of the time (never mind that if someone actually wanted to blow people up, they could do so on a bus, a shopping mall, or a Donald Trump rally. Just sayin’…). By contrast, private security agencies missed detecting fake bombs only about 20 percent of the time.

In short, given the TSA’s abysmal record, it’s not too surprising that this $1.4 MILLION dollar blunder was allowed. It’s a wonder , however, why the public still allows the TSA to be funded AT ALL!

The post The TSA’s Wasteful $1.4 Million Random Arrow App appeared first on We Are Change.