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Let me open with my favorite proverb. Man
is a monkey of infinite sensibility, easily brutalised,
for which He never forgives himself. Next, we output after
our teenage what went in during childhood, with the addition
of our reactions to what happened and was done to us. Since
most of what happens comes very early in life, before words
turn important, we store this mainly as feelings, and mostly
as pain. We do not know how to clear, process or free ourselves
from this for the simple reason that we recall only how
it impacted on us. The drama, the scripting, the other actors
we cannot remember. This is how western psychology began,
by searching back through our childhood.
We have learnt a thing or two since then,
mainly to shorten the time taken. First it has shifted from
psychiatrists into psychologist and then into ordinary folk
who saw this, rightly, as a matter of self understanding
rather than psychology. Second we have now retrieved much
from our antiquity. Ancient man knew more about these matters
than we have yet to learn. Thirdly, many people have worked
on how shorten the way. Under Freud it took many, many years.
Now it need take but weeks, even days. What we nowadays
call religion concerned more the accumulated experience
of how man coped with his world. That included spirituality
or that there is more to us and then world than seen with
the eyes. Myth, in essence, serves as a constant reminder
of the other dimensions also there.
Our main bugbear is our memory and motor
instinct or monkey. Unless we clear house it simply stays
there, undigested, misunderstood and mostly feared. It resembles
a parcel with the label reading: Keep out, stay away, danger.
The wrapping of the parcel is our own reactive contribution
to what actually happened. Inside the parcel is the event,
the drama. It is seldom worse than implied by the wrapping
and label. It is more usually much milder. Take one example.
Mother has worked in the garden and strained her hands.
She comes in to feed and clean the baby. Putting it back
into its cot, she drops the baby in sheer pain. Baby interprets
that as a personal danger and reacts with: That will never
happen to me again. And baby, however old, makes quite sure
it won't. We cannot call ourselves liars. Our mind is organised
not to contradict us.
It becomes a habit we are stuck with. We
have problems un-habiting habits. There is an easy way.
One can use the habit system itself to set watchdogs to
make you notice every time an unwanted habit rears its ugly
head. Making a habit is as simple as going shopping. During
the week as we use and consume things a tracker records
what we need to buy when next we go shopping. Enter the
shop and up it pops,
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unasked, unbidden, automatic. All we need
do is sit down, imagine where and how we do certain things
and install another instruction that says: when this happens
do that. The first most important thing to do is to install
a pause so we have time to make a suitable decision. Instead
of doing things, thoughtlessly, automatically, we can now
impose thoughts and feelings other than dictated by the
habit.
The ideal way to raise a child is to allow
it, give it freedom to explore its world in its own right.
When it needs help it will consult you, ask, play act what
it wants to explore. Most parents, being intent on producing
a good child interrupt this process by telling it what to
do, how, forbidding things and taboos about what not to
do. We can call these imprints implanted before a baby or
child acquires what we may call reason. It simply does as
told and instructed and takes itself as adults judge it.
This lies a few levels below the habit system. I call it
an ogre system, but any other name will do, including robot.
Whatever feelings we do not like and do not want to know
we bury in our body. This produces numb spots, not part
of our awareness, and when we have too many of them it becomes
a body armour. This contains the triggers that pushpull
us into reactive behaviours. When things happen instead
of being aware of what happens we go numb, dumb and blind
while the orge takes over. As often said in court: "I did
not know what came over me, Your Honour. It was not me".
Indeed so.
One has to dig a layer deeper than mere
habits. We can recall, remember and re-live. Recall is the
tag, its label. To remember is to tell the details. To relive
brings in the feelings and re-live the actual experience.
But with a numb spot trigger how can we do this? Several
ways. We can have a good masseur, somewhat psychic, rub
our body so the numb spots relax. We then get a flavour
of what it feels like to be without the numb spots and thus,
when one itches or strikes we can notice it better. We can
seek out someone who can recognise such things and help
us become more aware of all this. We can also dig it out
ourselves. Our lives, so to speak, contain a lesson. Figure
the lesson and it all opens up. Usually the lesson is what
we were imprinted with as children. Mostly it is about conform,
be like others, don't show off, and, in short don't be yourself.
There are hundreds of ways not to be ourself but the mechanism
is much the same for all.
Robots come in groups. For any victim there
is a victee who will so trigger the victim. Whether it is
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Perceptions
Awakened Perceptions
