Understanding Ourselves

Heaven is Now, IF you are open to it.

Published on by Jim

When I was much younger, if someone had said to me that Heaven is Now, here, today, I would have laughed at them, for I could see that this world is not heavenly or perfect.  I would have agreed with most people that this world is HELL and that, at best, the most we can do is to work toward a better world. 

That was before I began to examine myself and the assumptions that life and society had conditioned in me. 

After two and a half years of seeking to understand myself and examining my deeply held beliefs, and after a profound and momentary experience without any beliefs or thoughts, I saw that all my ways of thinking were based on lies.  Without those old ways of thinking and just based on the Present Moment reality, absent of memories or imagination, I could see that life is indeed perfect and that Heaven is now, here, today, when my mind is open to it.

Later, I looked at why we are not open to seeing just how perfect and heavenly this world is now.  I could see that it was not in the best interest of certain classes of people, the ruling classes, for us, the masses, to see the world as perfect and to experience how heavenly and perfect this world is right now.  For if we felt that this world was perfect and heavenly, we would not be motivated to be productive and make the ruling classes rich and powerful. 

I would see why people did not pay attention to people like Jesus of Nazareth, who would go around and say to people that if they just radically change their ways of thinking that they would experience the Kingdom of Heaven this AT HAND, here, now, today. 

Few people care enough even about themselves to make the effort to radically change their ways of thinking to experience something that seems so impossible as heaven that is now, here, today.

And I could see that it made perfect sense why the ruling classes would encourage us to seek temporary salvation from our living hell in products and services that they would offer us, if we just worked for them. 

Naturally, we would take on these ideas and ways of thinking ourselves, and believe that if we just work hard, we can have temporary salvation from our suffering and misery if we distract ourselves with material things and entertainment.

But smart people will question their assumptions and look at their ways of thinking that have been conditioned into them to see if those ways of thinking are based on reality or just some faulty ideas that they have been led to believe. 

It is really hard to let go of our ways of thinking, our beliefs, and to just be in the present moment, without thoughts of the past or future, without memories of past pains and sufferings, without hope for better times in the future.

The only reason we are suffering now is because we are suffering from the sickness called hope, which distracts us with thoughts of the future and takes us away from the opportunity to appreciate, enjoy, and love what we are experiencing in the Present Moment. 

I find it easy to get caught up in the news of the day, to read, listen to, or watch the news or stories of all the suffering of others from around the world, and to feel the pain of their suffering.  And when I do this, I don’t feel any sense that Heaven is Now, that life is Perfect and beautiful.  On the contrary I feel that life sucks and that this world is broken or that humanity is deeply flawed and even outright evil. 

It is only when I force myself away from news of the past (all news is of the past) and I look around at this present moment and remember that I am alive and breathing, here, now, in this moment, that I can appreciate how wonderful this opportunity to live in this world.  This is when I FEEL just how perfect and heavenly this world is.

It takes a lot of work to develop the skill of not being distracted by thoughts of the past and future.

Demonstrating Love

Published on by Jim
Demonstrating Love

If you care about someone we want them to be healthy and happy.  Yet, as it has been said, we are our own worst enemy.  So for the most part, each of us is the one who is creating our own unhealthy life and making ourselves unhappy. 

The person who loves us will engage our worst enemy by confronting our unhealthy behaviors and our tendencies toward making ourselves unhappy.  Often people do not recognize this engaging or confrontational behavior as coming from love. 

Most of us still believe the Greatest Lie that words can harm us, so we blame others for our emotional reactions to what they say.  The Greatest Lie is what the ruling classes want us to believe so that they can use words to control, manipulate, and punish us when we get out of line.  They want to be able to say things to us stimulating our emotionally self-abusive behavior which will cause us discomfort or pain thus getting us to punish ourselves. 

The one who truly loves us will continue to engage our worst enemy even though that person is resisting our loving engagement.  The wise person recognizes there is no harm in this engagement or confrontation even if our habit is to resist.  The wise person recognizes that our resistance is what we have to overcome and hence we learn to practice relaxing and not reacting to people’s words.  When we are not reacting to people we are open to their love.

The best way I have found to relax and stop reacting to people is to practice positive emotions; love your enemy type of behavior.  I first try to be grateful to them for their offering, recognizing that they are only confronting me because they care about me.  If they didn’t care they would not point out how I am harming myself. 

Sometimes people are not trying to be helpful or caring about me but their words are still creating an emotional reaction in me.  Because I care about myself I CHOOSE to react to their words by being grateful for the opportunity to practice loving myself in the presence of their words.  Gratitude is one of the positive emotions that neutralizes my unhealthy habit of contracting or tensing up when stimulated by words.  In this case, I am the one demonstrating love for myself.

Of course, I don’t always remember to do this and I get angry with people for what they say.  Eventually, I recognize that anger is always a sign of unconsciousness or stupidity and I laugh at my silliness, thus ending the abusive behavior.  It does take a lot more work to go further and be grateful to others for stimulating my unhealthy habit.  And, it takes even more courage to acknowledge that they might just be demonstrating love for me where I was not demonstrating love for myself.  The ego does not want to acknowledge that behavior.  

The ego here is a fear mechanism (habit) that is there to protect me but at times can get out of hand and become a self-destructive behavior that is not working for my long-term benefit. Our ego is about defending our idea of self which is entirely imaginary. Once we awaken to that, we can laugh at anything that threatens this idea we have of this imaginary thing of ourselves.

An added benefit of practicing these positive emotional behaviors is that you are demonstrating to others that love has to start with loving ourselves FIRST.  

There will always be those who cannot see any demonstration of love.  Part of loving ourselves is to recognize that some will not get it and accept them in all their unhealthy habits and behaviors.  

Mindful Relating

Published on by Jim

Last night I went to the Trident Philosophy Group where the topic of discussion was about “What is Love?” We had a great discussion and I had forgotten what it was like to be around people who have the capacity to talk about things that might be deep or challenging.

Most of the groups I was going to were all about how to limit our discussion or force people to conform to various rules of HOW to speak so as to not upset people. They were so co-dependent that they made intelligent and deeper relating impossible.

I understand that for beginners or people who have not developed much self-discipline that being in ‘safe’ groups is important, but I see these groups as more ‘enabling’ them to stay fearful of themselves and their own reactions to people. I suppose this is why I appreciate ‘spiritual’ groups where they teach people how to develop self-disciplines like mindfulness or meditation so that they can then better relate to themselves and others.

Heaven is a Choice

Published on by Jim

Visions_of_HeavenI wonder how many people are aware that life can be experienced as Perfect, Heavenly or Nirvana right NOW.  It does not seem to be that a lot of people are aware that they can have a perfect life, live in a perfect world and have all the peace, happiness, joy and love that they want, and they can have that right NOW, this very moment, IF they are open to it.

I interact with so many people who seem to have forgotten this or who maybe never knew this.  They look out at the world and see it as all fucked up; filled with evil and darkness…they seem to dwell on the idea that we are doomed.

Mind you that not everyone is that dark, depressed and depressing, but that most people seem to have that sickness to some degree or another, not being aware that this darkness is entirely optional, subjective and voluntary.

Sometimes people acknowledge that they have a choice, but then they go back to choosing the darkness.  I see this as only a habit, a very bad or unhealthy habit.  As a person who sees myself as one with all these people I do for them as I would want them do for me, which is to help me overcome this unhealthy habit.  I do this by reminding people they have a choice.

It is surprising how many people do not want to be reminded they have a choice, as if they WANT to miserable.

I knew a woman who took this attitude to its logical conclusion last year; she died at 50 years of age.  She was so miserable in her life that she admitted she wanted to die.  So when she was diagnosed with cancer she said she was glad.  She had no interest in waking up and realizing that her misery was a choice.  I suppose, given the culture she came from, that her fear of guilt was what kept her so afraid to even look at what she was doing that was causing her so much misery.

And I suppose that is why so many people HATE feedback on their choices that are making them so miserable.

Personally, I LOVE feedback on whatever I am doing that might be causing me misery.  I often do get feedback from people on the things I am doing that THEY don’t like.   These people tend to be the miserable people and they imagine I want to be around them, so they ‘give me advice’ on how to be around people like them so that I, TOO, can enable them to stay in their misery.  I say ‘too’ here because most of their friends don’t really care about them, they just want to enable them to stay in their misery, just as they are.  Misery loves company, they say.

And to be honest, these miserable people are not that miserable around most people, just people who are honest with them.  Most people are not honest so that is not a really big problem.

Yet, these people look out on the world and see it as ugly, sick, evil, bad or fucked up, and that is the quality of their life experience whenever they happen to look around themselves.

I do care about these people but I don’t want to enable them to stay stuck in their hell and I want to be around people who don’t want to stay in their hell.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder…and so it ugliness.  We CAN change how we see things and thus change how we experience what life is offering.  It is an option TO THOSE WHO ARE OPEN TO IT.

My real friends are open to it…

Being Tolerated

Published on by Jim

I guess I have come to accept that not only will I never be appreciated in life, but that I will probably never be TOLERATED by anyone.  This is sad to me but understandable.

The book I am writing, Mindful Listening, is designed to address this challenge that people have with other people, particularly people like me who speak our minds and who find judgment as a positive thing in life.

It is somewhat painful to write this, a pain that I not only accept but appreciate.  I feel the pain because I care about people.  Yet, I don’t feel trapped in this pain; I recognize I always have a choice.

I am feeling loneliness and loneliness is something I have written about before as being a CHOICE.  I have pointed out that it is silly to feel lonely given that there are 7+ billion people on the planet.  The only reason a person is feeling lonely is because they do not have the courage to reach out and connect with people.

Yet, at this time, I feel that I have TRIED to reach out and connect with people, and at every turn I have been rejected and shunned by those people.

Behind my loneliness is my feeling the pain of people’s fear they have of themselves and their reactions what I stimulate in them.  I want to feel this loneliness, this pain, for it connects me to people and helps to motivate me to find a way to help people.

I rarely dream of interacting with people any more.  If I do I imagine I am pissing off people (POP) as a talk radio DJ once described it.  To me, POP is about upsetting people, upsetting their slumber, waking them up.  I imagine that someday I will go back to public speaking where I intentionally say things that will upset someone, if not everyone, and then point out that only those who are asleep can be upset, and that my book, Mindful Listening, shows people how to develop the ‘ears to hear’ and that will enable them to ‘overcome the world’ as Jesus talked about.

One challenge with this ‘dream’ is that in practice when I do such things there is a lot of animosity directed at me and I still have a habit of reacting to that animosity with tension or resistance, which creates a lot of discomfort for me.  One benefit of the practice is that I get to work on my skills of loving myself IN SPITE of the animosity directed toward me.  Sometimes I feel intimidated by the challenge and other times I feel inspired by the benefit.  When I remember to practice loving myself then I choose the inspiration over the intimidation.

Of course, I just did this as I was writing this.

Practice is repetition and building a habit.  I get lots of practice living with the person I am living with.  She most often does not like me, or at least right now does not like me much, so she is constantly judging and rejecting me.  So I get lots of practice being at peace with judgment and rejection and embracing the habits of Emotional Self Care or loving myself.

I am so grateful to the universe that I was privileged enough to be able to wake up and recognize the value of things like Emotional Self Care and the value of loving myself.  I can see how others might not see or understand the value of such things, particularly as they seek out emotional care from others. For them, relationships are all about finding others who will stroke their egos and comfort them both physically and emotionally.

Yet, they cannot see nor will they even look at the inherent fear they feel at the thought that those people can and probably will reject them or leave them at some point in their life.  Although this may not be relevant to them in the immediate situation they still subconsciously think about it and carry with them the fear of this scenario.

Most people live in denial of this but it can be exposed if one talks to them about it and their reaction is often powerful and very negative.  Words are such a powerful tool for exposing people inherent dishonesty, particularly their dishonesty with themselves.

Since I am often one who sees these incongruities in a person’s life, and one who sometimes points them out, people find that being around me is intolerable. Sometimes I don’t even have to say anything for a person to recognize that I have realized their incongruities, which makes them uncomfortable with me.

After a while of being around this discomfort and associating that we me people no longer want to even tolerate my presence.  I wish I could find people who are like me, for I would love to be around someone who would care enough to point out my incongruities, the incongruities that are inherently causing me internal discomfort.

Rejection

Published on by Jim

rejection1Why does rejection hurt so much?  Why do people reject one another?

Yesterday I had someone I wanted to stay connected with unfriend me on Facebook and it was painful.  Intellectually I recognize that this person did this to protect himself; he was afraid of how he might react to what I might say to him.  He is or was a Muslim and had told me that his father was an abusive man, particularly to women and he did not want to be like his father.  From what I have seen of this guy he has been taught to be very afraid of HIMSELF and his own reactions to what life offers.

Simply put, he is hurting.

If I get sunburn I avoid the sun.  I am not really rejecting the sun (some could call me a sun worshipper); I am just avoiding the sun for a while until I can handle it better.

I recognize that guy is avoiding me for now because he cannot handle me and what I might offer to him.  He has low self esteem and just being around me shows him just how little he understands himself and how he has been conditioned to harm himself.

This does not take away from the fact that I hurt.

In my stupidity I blame this guy for my hurting thinking that “he caused my hurt.”  That is stupid.  He really did nothing more than disconnect from me in Facebook.  It was my reaction to that that causes me to hurt.  In my heart I am glad that he did what he had to do to take care of himself.

Years ago I would have done the same thing for I, too, did not know how to love myself any better than to disconnect from others.  In those days I was so ‘disconnected’ that my only dream was to avoid humanity at all cost, hopefully to live in the mountains in a small cabin far away from any others.

Eventually I realized that what I was running from was myself, not others.  Once I had learned how to love myself, to take care of myself and to stop my emotional (and physical) self abusive behavior, I no longer felt any need to get away from others.  In fact, I really enjoy other people, the more diverse the better.

People are so conditioned to abuse themselves emotionally with fear, guilt, shame, doubt and pessimism all of which can be stimulated by words naturally will run from any situation that might stimulate that abuse.

Having compassion for them is the first step in healing ourselves so that we can help the others heal themselves.  So when I am rejected don’t just remember that, I practice FEELING that compassion throughout my body, in every cell of my being.  This is a meditation that ‘heals’ the pain.

This meditation is what I just did to heal the pain I HAD from this friend’s rejection of me.  As I did this compassion meditation I could feel my body relax around the thought of the guy.  I could feel my appreciation for MYSELF and how I developed my ability to take care of myself.

Practice makes perfect…

The Gift

Published on by Jim

GiftMany times in my life someone has said something to me that upset me to the core of my being.  Sometimes I was so upset that I put out of my mind what the person said, but the effect of what they said stayed with me…I was devastated.

Originally at the time I could not see ‘The Gift’ in this experience but later as I watched how this experience manifested in my world I could see that in reality it was a gift, probably one of the greatest gifts that person could have given me, for they were inviting me to wake up to what I was thinking and doing that was creating such devastation in my world.  They were inviting me to choose to love myself and overcome my habit of not loved myself.

This is NOT something that is easy to see, particularly if one is still in the devastation or the reverberations of that devastation.  When in the drama of the devastation I would usually rationalize within myself, and sometimes with others, that I was in the ‘right’ and that the person who upset me was wrong.  The normal progression of this thinking was for me to see them as someone to avoid for they were not considerate of my feelings or emotions.  Never would I look at the fact that I was the one who was not being considerate of my feelings or emotions, I would just automatically assume the other person was responsible and I would go into some form of “righteous indignation” that everybody around me would support.  Naturally I would want to ‘punish’ them in some way and often that meant I would avoid them at the least.

This is a very hard thing to overcome, for our entire society or social support structures encourage us to continue in our unhealthy ways of thinking and behaving.  If everyone thinks this way then can it be wrong?

It took a tremendous amount of focus and discipline for me to see that it really was me that was the uncaring one here;  I was the one who was not caring about my feelings and emotions.

A major transition happened for me in my world when I began to see that when people upset me with their words that this was a gift and I started appreciating it as a gift.  The very act of appreciation was healing my emotional wound or re-training myself to react in a way that was healthy for me.

Today, I cannot remember all the people who have given me this wonderful gift so I cannot share with them now just how valuable I feel that gift was to me.  This thought saddens me but I accept it as part of the process.

Now, often, I see myself as the bearer of “The Gift” to people and most of the time the person who is receiving that gift does not have the presence of mind to be aware that it is a gift.  It has been a discipline for me to be the bearer of the gift and to recognize that most people will not have that presence of mind to appreciate the gift, at least in the present moment and maybe never be able to think of me and be grateful for what I have given them.

The ability to see the ‘big picture’ here is important for our own peace of mind.  It takes work to have the ability to see that in the long run most people who are gifted with an awaking experience like this will not be able to see the benefit of it when it is happening but that in the long run they will be better off because of it.

Of course, not all upsetting people is gifting them in a way that will sooner or later benefit them.  The best way to do this is when you can point out to them how it was their reactions that caused them harm and not what you said to them.  Still, most people will not get this, particularly in the present moment, but later that ‘seed’ of an idea can manifest into some self-knowledge or realization that will grow into a changed behavior that will benefit them in the long run.

When I think of this gifting I often think of Jesus and how he was gifting the people of his time.  Obviously most of them did not get that they were getting a gift; they just saw Jesus as some jerk that was pushing their buttons and someone to get rid of.  Hopefully, with all that animosity directed back at Jesus he was able to take care of himself recognize that in the long run he was serving those others and humanity in general.

I also think of Gandhi and Martin Luther King as they upset a lot of people in their time and most of those people could not see the Gift that they were receiving.

I recognize that it takes a particularly caring individual to make it a habit to gift people in the way that Jesus, Gandhi and MLK did, but we all can and do at times gift one other with our honesty, and honesty that can wake them up to a better life experience.  The important thing to remember is that we are gifting them and that in the long run they will be better off if they are even a little bit open to it.

 

 

 

Being Terrorized is a Choice

Published on by Jim

Buddha-Quotes-on-HappinessBeing terrorized is a choice, a choice that in today’s world we all have everyday.

Personally I enjoy the drama of terrorism.  I see and hear what other people see and hear but I CHOOSE to react to it differently; I choose to react to it in a way that works for me, that is positive and healthy and that fulfills my life.

I make these choices because I realize that I would prefer to experience positive and healthy emotions over negative and unhealthy emotions.  I realize that no matter what life offers I am still going to be here until I am not, so why not enjoy it?  I realize I do not want to give my power away to the terrorist, my power to experience appreciation, enjoy and love.

I don’t understand why people want to empower the terrorist.  I suspect that they don’t but that they react to the terrorist’s act with terror because they don’t realize they have a choice, they don’t realize that by reacting with terror they are doing EXACTLY what the terrorist want.

I can see that there are elements of our society that WANT us to be terrorized by the acts of terrorist so they encourage our being terrorized.  I can see that the military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us about would want us to fear terrorism so that we will be willing to pay more taxes to support large military expenditures.

I can see how religious institutions would want us to be afraid for that tends to motivate people to go to church to find solace for the pain of our fears.  That is there business model.

Terrorism works for these aspects of our society; basically terrorism is good for their business.

It appears that those in society who are least awake and aware of this, the right AND left wing conservatives, are the ones who are most willing to be terrorized and thus support terrorism and the businesses or organizations that profit from it.

I see and hear news stories about terrorism just like everyone else.  I suspect that I do not fixate on those stories as much as those who live in lots of fear. I find those stories interesting but not threatening.  Maybe this is because I don’t value this carcass as much as other people value the carcass they are experiencing life through.  I do value the experience of life that comes through this carcass, but if I value that experience then why would I want to fill that life experience with things like fear or other forms of negativity?

Long ago before I woke up and realized these things, I was in a habit of reacting to life in a very negative way, with such negativity that I really did not want to continue living if that is all that life was about. I realized at some point that this reaction to life with negativity was a product of caring TOO MUCH about life including myself. When I got so depressed that I finally just gave up and stop caring, fully stopped caring, I realized that the QUALITY of life dramatically improved.  Much later I realized that I could care for a while until it hurt too much and then stop caring for a while and rest in that place of detachment until I was ready to go back to enjoying the caring again.

I suppose that this transformation came after I realized that nothing that happens here on Earth is going to matter in the long run, that sooner or later all life on this tiny speck of dust in the universe that we call Earth will disappear with no trace that it ever existed.  I realized just how meaningless life was in the long run.  But I also realized that in the short run I WANTED to enjoy the experience of life and that in order to enjoy that experience I had to CHOOSE joy as a reaction to what life was offering.

One of my favorite quotes from the Buddha is, “There is no path to happiness; happiness is the path.”

It all comes down to practicing the emotions that I want to fill my life with.

People who are being terrorized by the terrorists are practicing the emotion of terror, and that is what they are filling their life experience with.

That is very sad for me.

I realize that the reason I no longer make that kind of choice is that some place along the way someone probably said to me that I have a choice on how I react to what life is offering.  And they probably did not just say that to me but they demonstrated that they did not choose to fill their life with negative emotions.  I suspect that for some reason I was able to hear and see them and the message they were sharing.  I don’t know why I was open to hearing and seeing them, maybe because I was so desperate at the time.  Maybe I was open to them because I was in crisis and open to ANY solution to that crisis.  I wonder if it was not just crisis that opened me up but that I had a belief or attitude that if I just knew of WHAT to do to change my world, and I worked toward doing that WHAT, then sooner or later I could change my world.  I realize that my conviction of the fact that I could change myself if I worked at it came because I HAD changed myself in the past.

In high school I was a card carrying coward, pretty much afraid of my own shadow.  It was through my military experience and Ranger School that I started to gain confidence in myself and my ability to handle what life was offering.  It was the training, the practice of thinking and doing things differently that helped me change who I was.  Maybe it was this experience or memory that gave me the conviction that I could again change myself and my habitual reactions to what life was offering.

So when someone told me that it came time to change my emotional reactions to what life offered, I was open to that message.  I COULD fill my life with positive emotions IF I was just disciplined and practiced reacting to what life offered with positive emotions.

Of course it was not easy in the beginning but I persisted until now my habit is one of moving back to appreciation, joy and love no matter what life offers.

Which is why terrorists have no power over me, they cannot create terror within me nor even fear of what they might do in the future.  Yes, they can and might kill me, but I was going to die sooner or later anyway so why worry about it.  What I don’t want is to fill my life with worry about death or dying or even injury.  I just don’t want to fill my life with worry.

I want to fill my life with beauty, appreciation, joy, love and gratitude, not terror.

Is There a Downside to Cuddling?

Published on by Jim

Cuddling CatsI often go to T-Group, a weekly sensitivity or authentic relating practice group.  The idea behind T-Group is to talk about your feelings and in so doing you become aware of your deeper desires or motivation behind our actions, then share that with others in the group.  With awareness of our inner experience we gain mastery over ourselves and thus enable us to grow in our ability to appreciate, enjoy and love what life is offering.

As children we gain self-mastery when we learn how to detect our bowels or bladder tension, which indicates we need to relieve ourselves.  Then we develop an additional self-mastery when we learn how to relieve ourselves by either releasing the muscle that is holding back our bladder’s contents or activating the muscles of peristalsis.  This ‘potty training’ greatly enhances the overall quality of our life experience.

As infants we need our parents or caregivers to feed us, change our diapers and soothe us when we are stressed.  But as we mature we develop lots of awarenesses and skills beyond potty training, such as walking, riding a bike, thinking disciplines and the like that all increase the overall quality of our life.  The more self-mastery skills we obtain the richer our life experience becomes.  Those who fail to develop these awarenesses and skills have a diminished quality of a life experience.

T-Group in particular and many other types of authentic relating exercises are there to help us practice and grow in our ability to care for ourselves and be honest with both ourselves and others.  As we sit in group the intention is to feel what we are feeling and share that with one another.  If we are feeling anxious or depressed then we share that with the group.

Our body can release various chemicals, hormones or neurotransmitters like dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin that counteract the stress in our body and have an anti-anxiety effect or are ‘soothing’ effect.  Science has shown that these chemicals contribute to “pro-social behaviors” and healthy emotional responses such as “relaxation, trust and psychological stability.” (Oxytocin: the neuropeptide of love reveals some of its secrets. Neumann ID, Cell Metabolism, 2007, volume 5, issue 4, pages 231-233 (DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2007.03.008).)  These chemicals can be released by touch, affection and cuddling or they can be released naturally in the body via positive emotions.

When we are feeling stress, anxiety or depression we have the opportunity to go deeper into the desires or wants that are creating these feelings.  As we keep exploring our feelings we will discover that beyond the anxiety or depression is the deepest feeling and/or desire to be independent, happy and healthy.

If we are constantly asking others to help us manage our emotions or feelings then we fail to develop our own self-mastery skills.

The first step in this process of authentic relating is to fully FEEL what you are feeling without needing to act on those feelings.  If we use T-Group and other social opportunities to become aware of our feelings this will give us an opportunity to develop skills of self-mastery by practicing positive emotions, thus we create a greater sense of self-confidence and an opportunity to develop love-based relationship.  If we fail to develop these awarenesses and skills then our relationships will be fear-based, fearful that we will lose our source of chemicals that soothe us, a chemical addiction.  This chronic fear or anxiety has been shown to be very unhealthy in the long run and greatly reduces the quality of a person’s life experience.

As infants and children we need others to sooth us when we are stressed.  Parents touch and cuddle us, which releases these chemicals allowing our bodies to relax and create a sense inner peace.   As we mature some people learn how to ‘self-sooth’ by practicing positive emotions and thus no longer NEED others to help them sooth themselves when life produces stress.  Others never learn this self-soothing behavior and thus are dependent on others for affection to produce these necessary chemicals in our system to help us deal with stress.  This dependency on others leads these latter people to seek out relationships that end up being very co-dependent, unhealthy and in the long run destructive to the well being of the co-dependent person or people.

T-Group is about first gaining the awareness of our feelings and second about practicing self care by developing the ability to address them ourselves so as not NEED others to address them for us.

In one of my recent T-Groups the other 4 members of the group immediately cuddled together on the bed while I sat opposite of them alone.  There was not much talking about feelings in that group, they were mostly just cuddling.  At the time, I felt ok with them cuddling but later I felt something was ‘wrong’ with it.

When I looked further into what I was feeling I found I felt a sense of ‘distaste’ about their cuddling.  I had to ask myself, “What is behind that distaste?”  What is ‘wrong’ with people enjoying the affections of other people?  And why was I not interested in joining them, even when I was invited to do so?

The other four group members immediately went to cuddling together on the bed; they addressed their neediness the way that had since infants by seeking out touch, affection and cuddling without first looking at their feelings or motivations.  I realized I felt disappointment because those cuddling seemed to be seeking to avoid talking about their feelings behind their desire to snuggle or cuddle.  The cuddling seemed to be distracting people from their deeper feelings that was motivating them to cuddle.

This neediness is the crux of the challenge here. 

I can see that sometimes giving someone a hug or other form of physical contact can help calm them down so that they can look deeper into what they are feeling.  Yet, when people rely on the affections and physical contact with others to soothe them when they are troubled then this tactic of affection or snuggling becomes co-dependent and unhealthy.  In so doing we are denying the very purpose of T-Group and other authentic relating exercises.

What are the signs that a person is co-dependent?  Science has shown that obsessive compulsive, depressed and anxious people are constantly seeking out these co-dependent type of relationship and this is often defined as a kind of addiction. (http://neurology.about.com/od/NervousSystem/a/The-Brain-In-Love.htm)

If when we are feeling anxious or depressed and the discomfort of this motivates us to seek out affectionate or cuddling then we are not going into the deeper feelings and desires and thus not learning how to be independent; we are only enhancing our co-dependency tendencies.  We fail to develop the awarenesses and skills necessary for love-based relationships.

When T-Group or other social functions leads immediately to affection or cuddling it is actually hurting those involved, not helping them.  It is ENABLING co-dependency. Often those who are most addicted to co-dependency passionately reject to this assessment, just as most drug addicts tend to reject any idea of addiction.  Change is frightening so keeping the status quo is much more acceptable.

This is not to say that an honest and healthy person would never enjoy or even seek out affection with others.  Life is a balance of independency, interdependency and co-dependency.  It is very difficult to be fully independent of others.  Historically some monks or yogis, living in solitude or isolation, work on their skills of self-mastery.  These future Buddhas and Christs were working on developing a level of self-mastery that most people have no desire to develop.  But some level of self mastery does greatly enhance the quality of the life experience.

T-Group is an opportunity to start working in that direction.

Do we want to turn T-Group or other social opportunities into enabling sessions for our co-dependency or do we want to continue to use the opportunities to create the skills for love-based relationships?

The choice is ours; the power to choose comes with practice.  We can practice emotional self care via practicing positive emotions or we can continue our dependency on others to soothe us.