I’ve just been through 24 hours of upset – the kind that goes with the territory – and watched myself respond.
Something I did was called unwise – and it was. My apologies.
However, holding myself back from going into Third Dimensionality with the mushrooming upset was hard, probably rigorous, work. It gave me a possible glimpse of things to come.
The state of consciousness I was in as this upset progressed is what Werner Erhard might have called “jeopardy.” I’m still in jeopardy of falling back into Third Dimensionality. I’m not out of the woods yet. My behavior is not necessarily reliable.
But I’m getting the picture.
The first thing I saw myself do in response to the upset was to eliminate anything I did from the equation of what went wrong. I suddenly noticed, this time, that I didn’t show up in my retelling of the story. It was all about the other person. This pure self-servingness, rooted in survival, was my first line of response … uhhh, OK, defense.
I saw that I began laundering my version almost immediately, the only difference now being that I told others what I was doing.
“I’m about to give you my laundered version of what just happened. Please don’t believe it. I’m just telling you for me to feel better. On second thought, maybe I’ll skip it.”
I, perhaps like others, entirely overlook – that is, pass over in the retelling – my own mistakes, just as if it’s a natural thing to do. And the unspoken rule is that everyone else agrees with us, right? Our friends agree; our enemies disagree? That’s part of Third Dimentia, isn’t it?
I have to really watch myself to see myself behaving this way because it feels so natural. And it all goes on wordlessly, below conscious awareness, so there are no words to explain it, anchor it, or provide markers in memory.
In my experience, attitude works through the emotions, not the mind. It pushes with anger, jealousy, shame. It titillates itself with arrogance, pride, self-importance.
If asked to state in words what’s happening, the effort slows attitude down and adds to the confusion. It thrives best with a look and a glance. It’s communicated best through tone and gesture.
Next arrogance blossomed. Who do they think they’re talking to? They can’t talk to me that way. I won’t take it.
This mood was exceedingly hard to overcome because arrogance feels so darned good. We’ll teach them a lesson. No one attacks me and gets away with it.
I “be’d with” and observed the arrogance and finally it too passed. And I wondered what was next.
Some of my conditioned scripts were next. They are word-based. They kick in with “Say this. Do that,” parry and thrust. Competitive, proud, afraid – more confusion of emotions.
It was as if the army had suddenly been summoned. The troops are going this way and that, wondering what happened and what to do.
There I am, the observer, watching and feeling action is needed, but which voice am I to listen to? I hear Casey in Tomorrowland ask: “Which wolf will you feed?”
The one I choose to feed is the one of conciliation but it took work to arrive at that place. Oh, man. I am a shadow of my former shelf. No, if I were to stop telling the story self-servingly, then I’d say the other parties contributed greatly, even critically, to the resolution.
It all felt so unfamiliar to me. I’m used to duking it out behind the barn and these new and dharmic ways of being and doing don’t fit my usual patterns or the pictures I have of how it should be.
I feel humbled at finding myself in Werner’s state of “jeopardy.” But then perhaps I should celebrate having at least one foot on dry land.
Since I need to feed another wolf than self-servingness, I’d rather celebrate one foot on dry land.