Allowing and Believing
Quick summary: Lately I have noticed that not all obstacles are nearly as insurmountable as I had previously thought… I am not intending to suggest that environmental roadblocks do not exist… instead I am suggesting that perhaps the greatest wall keeping us from our ambitions, life paths, meaning, desires etc are related to an inability to allow. The question I am posing today is simply this – what would come to be in your life if you allowed yourself to try and what would come to be in your life if you allowed yourself to be different from the masses. In order to allow you must believe… not in the certainty of the future… but in yourself in the moment.
There is a trend in this country that most people can see but only a few are doing anything about. To a degree we have allowed our subjectivity to be hijacked so that many of us in some way or another are following a path and making daily decisions that are against our best interests and that are dually against the best interest of the whole or the collective.
It is easier to move with the flow of the norms of your specific time and geographic location… and sometimes of course it is nice to do so. But if those norms are not particularly healthy and those norms move you away from life satisfaction, familial connectivity, integrity and happiness than how do we escape the pull to be ‘normal.’
Externally there is a pull… this pull is almost greater than a suggestion… this external pull seemingly has a power that could almost be measurable…
This pull uses the cognition “should” and accepts no contrary information… this pull is rigidly dogmatic unconscious of dialectics in any sense.
This pull will use the suggestion “you should” in a way that will effectively result in guilt if you are to resist the cognitive persuasion.
Some of the norms of this country suggest at times that:
– You should watch hours of TV a day.
– You should eat unhealthy food to ‘save time’.
– You should work unhealthy and counter productive amount of hours a day, as that is what everyone else is doing.
– You should neglect the needs of your body such as exercise for ‘more important’ activities like television and work.
– You should spend the majority of your efforts acquiring objects.
– You should suppress most emotions and exaggerate your anger.
– You should do what is ‘normal’ as anything else would be selfish.
Normal is not particularly healthy these days. Allowing yourself a life which respects your body, emotions, individual meaning, and thoughts is an effective way for you to be a healthy influence on others and for you to be helpful to those around you…
To help others you must help yourself – doing things for yourself is then both selfish and selfless at the same time (this is a dialectic).
You have an equally strong force within you that can offer balance to the external pull towards norms.
You have the power to allow… to allow yourself what you intuitively find to be the choice which is simultaneously in the better interest of you and the collective.
As you begin to allow yourself to make the healthier choices you find that there is a last ditch effort exerted by the norms to encourage a fear to grow inside you.
“What if” questions might start to exert there influence on your behavior. Generally the ‘what if’ question is a leading question… “What if a catastrophe…”
At this point you must allow yourself to believe… and not with a type of faith which is rooted in future thinking… a faith in the moment…. a faith in your intuitive ability to choose a direction that is in the best interest of the individual and the collective.
I understand that this seems a bit as though I am oversimplifying… perhaps.
If you would feel more comfortable it could be a good idea for you to break up this occurrence into percentages.
What is it that would benefit you and/or those around you? How much of your inability to engage in this benefit is external and how much is internal?
Imagine yourself to be a different person… a person that would allow themselves to engage in the beneficial action you find yourself ruminating about… now imagine if you allowed yourself to be that person.
you are that person.
