Clanger
Is the word I associate with something that gets dropped, resulting in a noisy emission.
So I thought about unity and disunity and the words that get us so stuck. Like ‘good’ and ‘bad’ for example.
Due to the recent revelations about the founder of Rapid Resolution Therapy, I have, with a heavy sigh and unsurprised shrug, moved on to yet another modality. Not in the quest for some kind of personal ‘answer’ to healing but simply to find a way to both make a living and assist people to review, reassess and even shift their messy stuff, myself having learned techniques to do so, which are outside of apparency to themselves at the moment of our meeting. If we’re on the right track this causes a re evaluation of circumstances and outlook, which are, in general, a fortunistic agreement to that person’s projected progression.
In other words it’s all about the words.
Words are power. Subtle power. We have to be careful.
In this ‘new’ modality words like ‘good’ ‘negative’ positive’ and ‘deserve’ are displayed in such terms as to give them right of way. Of course, until I felt illuminated to the nature in which these words can be held hostage in our minds, I too used them as if it were ok to do so. And it is ok to use words in any way you want, until it looks a certain way to you. And once you see it, it’s hard to unsee.
Only my opinion, of course, but these words are used by ourselves to enslave us within a certain mind state. This weekend I learned that our primitive mind is essentially negative. And that negativity breeds more negativity, stealing our focus into an horrendous negative nightmare of life without - you’ve guessed it - POSITIVITY!! (trumpet fanfare and streamers here). It didn’t go much deeper and I thought that, as a training practitioner, I could do with a bit more!
I learned this stuff in a different way, mindfulness stuff gave my the body language to feel the difference and explain that it’s not my fault that this is happening, and more recently, through the twisted genius of the discredited psycho-cult figurehead, Connelly, I learned some more precise words for it. Or words and images, even, which made more sense to me than did the packet of triple chocolate cookies on the shelf of the coop on Sunday, the remnants of which are currently fuelling the movement of this particular explodation of thoughts.
When we think of the mind as acting negatively or being ‘a bit slow’, because we are comparing it to our conscious intellect, we are essentially attributing parts of ourselves with judgement labels, which only get in the way of inquiring into these parts of ourselves with an open mind, in order to understand our own ‘inner motives’ better.
So when someone who is teaching an accredited psychotherapeutic approach might say, for ease of communication, that our primitive mind ‘doesn’t really know what’s going on’ or is ‘a bit slow’ that person is leaving out a crucial angle of inquiry. The person is probably coming from the need to make the science easy to understand.
There is nothing stupid or slow about us and everything, conscious or unconscious is happening for a reason. This is the beautiful thing. Our minds are not slow, they are finely tuned, and when anxiety is in charge it is because we are spending time thinking anxious thoughts. In other words, our input has given it every reason to be reacting. Our primitive mind, being the dutiful, powerful warrior it is, will slay the heavens to bring the person more of what they focus on - especially if it is understood that safety is a an issue. It is far from stupid, far from slow. It is reasoned and precise. More of what you are focusing on. It’s both logical and reasonable.
It only goes wrong because we don’t quite get it, or more often, forget those facts due to heightened emotional states, brought about because primitive mind gets all the signals that that’s what we want, beyond a shadow of a doubt. So, essentially, if we are splitting hairs, it is our conscious mind which is slow, but we would rather blame the mute workhorse, than take responsibility for not understanding what’s going on.
Does that make sense?
Language is subtle and when we see our thoughts as ‘negative’ and that we have to become ‘positive’, we are essentially calling out our own mind, chastising it, as no schoolteacher or parent would now see fit to do and if they did they might come under scrutiny as a bad ‘un, which in itself is an awful thing, wouldn’t you agree?
So, with the risk of this piece becoming confusing, I wish to say the following things.
there is no such thing as good
there is no such thing as bad
there is no part of us that is negative
there is no part of us that is positive
there is no part of me that is a bit slow
We have to think up better words for this stuff. Useful and useless are more interesting. Everything has a function in our lives, there are no spare bits that are dangling there, like two steering wheels on a car or a third wing on a bird. In nature, nothing is wasted, nothing is ever wrong or bad or good.
If it is no use to us, that is when we have to look at changing it, because we are collectors of things, many of which serve no function but to make us feel safe, which is a function, until it starts impeding us again.
So, let’s respect our innate intelligence, which got us this far and ask ourselves if we really need to feel so safe all the time. Is the world really that threatening?
If you want to sit around judging your mood and feeling unsafe, it’s fine to do so. But if you don’t feel it’s fine to do so then the best thing to do is adjust something until you feel ok again.
An emotional life is full of ups and downs - that’s not what nature does. We are emotional beings but we rest in the emotions, which is a focus for anxiety. For sure, the natural world has its moments but it rests in a peaceful place - a lot. Even when we’re testing our nature to its extremes, like we are right now.
I’m saying that emotions are not good or bad but are designed to make us want to change something. In my opinion we need stability over change, just like the natural world does.
Everything is neutral. Natural.