Originally posted on GRT-CIP, Aug. 11, 2009
As we go forward with the laboratory of our discussion, here are some things to watch for – me and you – in what we say.
(1) The self-serving bias
Are we creating sides and engaging in separativeness, me as well as you? Are we trying to find an identity that distinguishes “us” from “them” and makes us right and them wrong?
Are we saying that we have the truth, the real version of things, and the people we are responding to do not? Are we saying that what we do is forwarding the action and what they are doing is retarding it?
Are we saying that it was always “us,” all along, who carried the group forward and “they” destroyed it? If we are, we are displaying the self-serving bias.
(2) The lengths we go to
Are we whipping ourselves up into a frenzied mob? Are we getting angrier with each post? Are we calling for common action aimed at the other group?
If we are, this tells us that we are acting out of unfinished business rather than a search for the truth. The truth is known out of an introspective examination of ourselves, not out of levelling accusations at others (I am speaking to myself as well) and projecting blame.
(3) The number of times we share
Are we sharing one post after another, on a roll, voicing endless grievances? That gives us feedback too. Where in our lives are we inhibited, that, once a dam breaks, we now start communicating again and again and again. Do we come from a culture that silenced us? A family that told us that children should be seen and not heard? Did we grow up around someone who monopolized the discussion?
Is it a tell-tale sign that we ourselves do not stand up for ourselves on an daily basis or that we have some repression buttons on that require clear-cut situations of right and wrong before we will speak out?
Do we now think that endless speaking compensates for finding what is true for us? I don’t think it does. Handling our unfinished business will.
(4) Looking for Big Daddy
Are we praising me in a way that invites me to become the new Big Daddy, the new XXX (well, isn’t that a secret wish? Take a look and be honest) instead of emerging as fully-whole and capable actors ourselves?
Are we being codependent and asking one person to act as the embodiment of courage and wisdom so that the rest of us don’t have to take the risks and accept the costs of full self-expression?
To be sure, I am the owner of the site and do assume certain leadership responsibilities. Someone has to in many administrative matters. And I am in training to be a leader in the New Age, as I hope you are.
But are we lulling ourselves to sleep again because we think that we have one person who can be exhorted into watching from the parapets instead of us watching ourselves?
Have we surrendered our full rights, our unviolable human sovereignty, at the cost of bowing down and worshiping this new emperor without clothes? (For shame if we are.)
And when we have corrupted that new god into thinking that “the people need a strong hand,” will we rise up against him as well when he, seduced into loving power, makes unwise decisions and says things simply designed to maintain his hold on his or her “followers.”
(Many of you have been talking with me about this offline. Time to come online with your discussions.)
I said I wanted the truth, not power. If you treat me like the new god on the block, I will appoint a new owner and move on.
Power corrupts; flattery seduces; they are not part of the new paradigm and the new paradigm is what I’m commited to. That new paradigm is of full and complete individual sovereignty and I want nothing less for my experience here. Your experience is up to you.
Read all the shares we post here and see if we are doing these things. If we are, then that tells us something about ourselves and what we need to do.
We are here to emerge as leaders in the coming age. We are not here to become a better lynch mob. If we are exhibiting lynch-mob behaviour, then let us take that as feedback.
If we are showing the signs I identified above, then that should demonstrate to all of us that we have old issues and unfinished business that drive us, rather than having the truth drive us.
You remember I said many times that, when anger comes up, if we project it outwards, we lose an opportunity to complete a piece of unfinished business. And here we as a group may be doing just that – me as well as you.
(1) Instead of doing that, stop a moment.
(2) Name that emotion. Name it so precisely that it disappears.
(3) But if it doesn’t disappear, then look for an earlier, similar incident which drives our reaction. When it comes, if it is the truth, then our unwanted feeling may disappear at this point.
(4) If it does not, then stay with that unwanted feeling, without trying to change it, until it does disappear.
Yes, as I said earlier, it is a counter-intuitive path. Feels like we jumped into the hole in the privy. Much easier to rage at another and watch our relationships fall apart.
I assure you that, as our clarity increases as a result of emerging from our issues rather than going ever more deeply into them, we will feel more bliss, openness, and equanimity.
This is the brass ring here: Spaciousness, joy, tranquillity.
So, again, keep sharing, but watch your share and watch those of others. Treat this is as a very educational body of sharing we’ve done since Sunday. Study that body of literature as I will. Watch for these traps in your behaviour and that of others.
Let ZZZ be a foil. We have asked them to leave and they did. We cleaned the site of an inseparable mixture of fact and fiction – of what Hatonn called “false information.” That was what he asked us to do and that job is done.
From now on, treat our shares as a mirror that allows us to see the depth of our reactivity, the lengths we go to, and so on.
Watch whether people are speaking a degree of truth or just venting and blaming “the other side” and congratulating our own. See whether we are choosing sides and becoming separative.
See whether we are saying our side has the truth and theirs does not. Watch to see if your choices of names for the site don’t have a veiled “Screw you!” in them. See how far we are willing to go with this. See if we are sharing four or
five times a day on the same theme, disguised as different instances.
If we won’t actually look within ourselves to find the Kingdom of Heaven (the Truth), then observe how our minds insist on throwing us outward and behaving as I’ve described. Either way is useful. We have all the time in the world to accomplish the purpose of life.
At the beginning, I said that “sharing” is a statement of our personal truth. It is not blame, flattery, counselling, fixing, congratulating, seducing, or getting agreement.
It gives all that up.
Sharing is part of our search for truth. It is effective. It is harmless.
That’s what I’m here for. And that’s what I see as my responsibility to communicate to you, as one leader among a leadership community, many New-Age leaders, all of us learning our trade.
Namaste,
Steve
