In a search for an article by Michael I came across an old friend. (1) This one by Horace Miner was very influential on me in my university years, matched only by the books and articles of Erving Goffman and Eric Berne. It threw things into such stark relief that I never forgot it. It […]
Emerging from the Shell
I was talking to a colleague when someone planted the idea in my mind – out of nowhere – that it’s all about emergence. For us it’s all about coming out of our shells. What is “it”? Growth. Enlightenment. Ultimately Ascension. We’ve been conditioned by a hundred forces all our lives. It’s time to come […]
Inner Peace Within?
One-hundred and seventy-six people had their lives snuffed out recently, over … well, it doesn’t really matter what or where. (1) And it isn’t the only loss of life today. Catastrophes and tragedies are happening all over and on a scale that is unprecedented – witness the false flags in Australia and China. I’d like […]
Jesus through Gina Lake: Moving Beyond Identities
Moving Beyond Identities from Jesus Speaking: On Awakening to Love Jesus channeled by Gina Lake, email, Dec. 24, 2019 Everyone has multiple identities: You are a son or daughter, perhaps a mother or father, an employee or a boss, or unemployed or self-employed. Identities are traded throughout your life, depending on your circumstances. All that […]
Understanding the Constructed Self
Please accept a combined Christmas and New Years gift from us to you – a new book on the constructed self. What’s the importance of knowing about the constructed self? The constructed self is the view of ourselves – also called a mask, act, or self-image – we try to sell to others. When we […]
Claiming Our Divine Authority: What Will It Take? -Part 2/2
(Concluded from Part 1, yesterday.) I also see barriers to the resistance falling away. Here’s one. I think I have to say to someone who challenges me on authority: “I speak on my own divine authority.” No, I don’t. “I speak on my own authority.” To say “on my divine authority” is to invite controversy. […]
The Picture of Dorian Gray
I came across the Mother’s comment about the fate of dictators this morning. She said: “It is painful for a being that seeks power for themselves or power over another, whether it is a parent over a child, a husband over a wife, a man over an army. It matters not. “The yearning [for], the […]
Did You Return to the Fray?
I personally don’t have as much time to process vasanas these days as I did a few years ago. I have to make room for speedier measures. And so today I just dug in and asked myself: What is the chief mischief maker? Never mind beating around the bush. Let’s get to the heart of […]
When is the Wounded Child in the Driver’s Seat?
Whenever I feel guilt or shame or dismay, I can say with certainty that my Wounded Child is in the driver’s seat. I can say this with certainty because of what I saw and felt in a meditation I did at Xenia Retreat Center on Sept. 18, 2018. I saw the Self in the depths […]
Layer Upon Layer of Constructed Self
A friend called me the other day on not acting very compassionately. And she was right. There is a side of me that’s superficial, uncaring, unconcerned. I’m incredibly shallow about the world and I actually don’t know what to do about it. Seeing how shallow I am brings up fresh, new levels of constructed self […]
Recoil from Perceived Criticism
I notice that, when my personality, my constructed self is in the driver’s seat, any action that goes wrong stands as an indictment of my whole personality – so conditioned have I become to criticism. Let me exaggerate a bit to make my point. This is the emotional truth for me, not the actual truth […]
Realization: Turning Puzzles into Pictures
I’ve just had an eery experience. Listening to a friend, I heard details of her story that made the whole of her self-presentation at that moment shift from being a mystery to me to being clearly and instantly understandable. Everything about the way she was in a certain area of her life was now crystal […]
About-Turn
The combination of processing my vasanas, patterns, and interests and exporting these gains to the outside (by interacting with people rather than fleeing from them) is revealing things to me. For instance, this morning, I re-connected with my happy self. I was about to shave and I remembered my Christmas as a shaving-cream Santa. In […]
Reconstructing the Deconstructed Self
Eric Berne’s ego states are particularly helpful in looking at the operation I’m doing on myself. What Berne meant by “ego state,” I think, would be the same as what we mean by “states of consciousness.” “Ego’” here just means “I.” If I can adapt his terms, I grew up with a bad-parent ego state […]
The Deconstruction of the Constructed Self
Even taking Mondays and Tuesdays off, the number of stories there are to get out make me want to use those two days to post. The two – days off and posting articles – now seem unrelated and not mutually exclusive. So I’ll resume reporting on Mondays and Tuesdays. We’re in a process of having […]