Again and again I keep coming back to one central notion: That what’s most important to us, what our key motivator in our daily lives seems to be is how we feel.
I might have said how much money we have, whether we have a life partner or not, whether we have a pension or not, etc. People do value these things.
But if we look deeper into our situation, what we probably will come up with is that these external facts are not as important to us as how we feel.
And this isn’t just so with unwanted or unpleasant feelings. Wonderful feelings like excitement, joy, and love also motivate us. We want them. We buy a Maseradi to have them. We vacation in Hawaii to have them. When all along, they’re always there for us to enjoy if we only knew how to access them. (1)
Let me give examples from my own experience.
I saw myself today feeling concern about how I fit in, how I measure up. This introspection was caused by a legal wrangle that’s occurring.
This line of thinking – that I need to measure up – is malarkey, but nevertheless there I was thinking it – and feeling it, which is the important part. I felt dismayed and “less than.”
This feeling of dismay was what spurred me into my reflection. It was my motivator.
I reviewed the plus side of my life resumé and felt confident and reassured again. My feeling state had changed. No longer was I motivated by dismay; now I was motivated by confidence.
Since I like the feeling of confidence and security, I allowed the matter to pass from my attention. That was my action taken: I let the issue go.
But I did not like the feeling of concern. Therefore that matter remained with me longer. (What we resist persists.)
A second example.
Being a writer means a lot of time alone. And I constantly wall myself off to have that time.
But that leads to an empty schedule and feelings of loneliness.
Loneliness is one of the most difficult feelings to tolerate. It often spurs us into action. I think of it as a good example of a key motivator.
You’d think I’d be motivated by thoughts about loneliness. But, no, the motivator is to escape this awful feeling itself.
So I set up a coffee engagement to enjoy a little human company. And later that day I brought a coffee home to a friend in my building. Two social contacts dissolved my loneliness. But the dislike of loneliness motivates my action.
When an unpleasant or unwanted feeling arises, we often automatically respond to it.
We might then be found to say, “You made me (mad, jealous, frustrated, etc.).” We completely overlook our own feelings as the motivator and blame the upset and its results on another.
If we remember that our feelings are our key motivators, then we can interrupt the cycle of unconsciousness and automaticity.
We can treat the feeling as simply a feeling and “be with it” – experience it and observe it with neutrality until it leaves, rather than acting on it and risking making a foolish mistake. Here’s Archangel Michael describing that process:
“The [traumatic] event can be remembered, or not, without the impact of trauma, without the impact of feeling that you have been damaged, hurt, compromised. It is a piece of information that has been brought within you, and not even what you would think of as healed, but held, the same way you would hold a child, until the feeling or the experience of the charge, of the trauma, is gone.” (2)
Exactly. If we can observe the feeling without engaging it, being aware of the thoughts that attach to it without judging anything, the condition will run its course and disappear. And we haven’t blown our stack or in other ways made an idiot of ourselves.
This’ll become more and more important as time passes. The Arcturians once said to me that we lightworkers will “have to be the master of your consciousness at all times.” (3) On another occasion: “You will be called up to master EVERY thought and feeling.” (4)
I’ve just been sitting with the feelings, as Werner Erhard used to say, “like a brick in your lap” and they’ve passed without me embarrassing myself. But it’s going to get tougher and tougher in the months and years ahead. The challenge will be to use this time to prepare.
What I set out to do in 1974, when I started the study of patterns in thought, word, and deed by reading Eric Berne’s Games People Play was to understand the wellsprings of human behavior – how it’s conceived, what drives it, and how it can be harnessed to fulfill divine intentions. I’ll continue burrowing down until I feel I’ve really seen the way the mind and feelings work.
Erroneous views such as another person makes me (mad, afraid, jealous, etc.) are not going to help me. They don’t describe what’s really going on.
And it’s what’s really going on that I want and need to know.
Footnotes
(1) Draw them up from your own heart, where they “reside.” Use your breath to do so.
(2) Archangel Michael in a personal reading with Steve Beckow through Linda Dillon, Oct. 11, 2011.
(3) The Arturians in a personal reading with Steve Beckow through Sue Lie, July 22, 2014.
(4) Ibid., Nov. 8, 2013.