Some explorations, opening up a moment of Me, and relationship to System.
Looking at a mild discomfort, a movement within me, the turning of a point in the region of my solar plexus, the shadow of its energetic resonance as it ripples through my inner world, passing through a moment of experience – in a meeting with another human being – and then is gone, is sinking into memory; I have experienced this same reaction often, but never really brought it back here to ask myself what the features are of this within me, where in a way the usual statement I accept would be, ah yes that is just a part of me that I feel this way – only that – I usually brush past this, what more is there to say, I accept that there is no more to it, and so moving swiftly on, I smooth it into my normality, as if that moving-on was also merged into it.
Experiencing this reaction and as well my reaction to it all as one I passively experience my automation, and call that Me, where defining it as such I am defining Me as impenetrable, inaccessible, it is like I have accepted and allowed this word Me to also function as a term of self dismissal. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed the inner statement, That’s just Me, to justify a tendency to dismiss investigation of an event inside of me, by apparently moving on, away from. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed a judgement of myself as a part of my definition of Me. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to attach emotion to self investigation, in which I react to thoughts of failure of getting access to the information of what exists within Me. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that experience that I have linked to failure. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that experience of the judgements that I put on me in giving up on me.
So here slowing down the swiftness of that moving-on, and bringing back the moment of that apparent ‘mild’ reaction, so that I can look at it, that passing shadow in my experience of me reacting in the outset of a conversation with another being. In specifying what was the actual nature of this energy, of this discomfort, what came up next was that this was ‘mild’ fear: and so the question followed, fear – connected to what? And then rather than looking directly into me, I looked outside of me, to seek the cause of fear in something that the other being was doing. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to react to finding in myself an energy that I have labeled fear, by immediately seeking out the source of it in terms of where to place the blame. I forgive myself within this that I have not accepted or allowed myself to see that I still have not investigated the nature of that fear, where rather than owning it as mine, have instead reacted to it with this reflex of seeking where to place the blame.
So calling it Fear: Fear apparently of people leading the conversation into areas in which they can compete and win and so assure themselves that they have not lost control, or prominence – I mean many of us – if not all – have experienced this strategy – after all it is like a raison d’etre of consciousness, and so of the designs and personalities expressed by it – and energetically, like expressions of maintainance, upgrade and refreshment drives – playing out an algorithm of energy fulfulment, scanning for an opportunity, a personal spin. An expression of the self as willingness to accept the drive to exploit the material shared for one’s own ends, and so distract and self deceive to get that energetic hit of winning, so that the superiority is stabilized and renewed, and prevails in setting the agenda.
And so bringing it back to self: who am I within the mirror of this projection: “Fear of people leading the conversation into areas in which they can compete and win,” within the experience of these words is a statement like, “Oh no it’s happening again, there is nothing I can do… “Like I can see where this is going and I am powerless…” And within that, I am left to hoping that it will not happen, hoping that they won’t go and do this… so immediately I have given my power away, I mean I could say something like, “Let’s not go there…” but instead I let it play out. What fear – or other emotion – exists within the making of these decisions, of what to do, and not do? How do I imagine how it’d be for me, as me, if I simply stopped the play-out in its tracks? It’s like I’d have to stand with me as a change of character, saying no, and with that saying no I’d have to stand stable, and not get drawn into the game. Is that the fear, that when tested I will not have the stability, and so will get drawn into the game, that I myself will lose control, will lose my balance, lose my way? Does this nice guy personality have any real stability? In looking into this it shows me that this is a position only that I have fallen in the habit of, it is based in insecurity, based on ‘swiftly moving on’.
As I look at this complaint, and start to open it, I realize how much that perceived “Fear of people leading the conversation into areas in which they can compete and win,” is but a cover, a generality and a distraction, because here disguised in this perception is my unwillingness to look into myself, into my own needs of self assurance, that I have judged in me, and so am here projecting onto others; making it in this scenario that they are to be blamed; that they were tending to their needs to win. And so, avoided is the issue of myself amongst and in these words, superior in my observations of the outside world, while at the same time being the victim to it; in a way, in fear of challenging the system.
Projections onto others can be useful when recognized, being those rejected pictures of the way things are inside me; because in looking into them I can show me details that I may not as yet be ready to immediately own. So in a way it’s kind of helpful – for a moment – to validate the projection, while seeing it for what it is, for the purpose of extracting further information – with the claim that it isn’t just and only me; that it takes two to tango; and it’s true that all of us have systems, participate in systems, though that is not all there is to us, but when both are busy in this game we set off reactions in one another, as well as in ourselves; and what makes the ground more slippery is the conviction that it is mostly the other and only just a little bit ourselves, just that little bit within ourselves that we employ to understand the situation, just that little eagle eye aloof that claims to know the details of the other’s thoughts and motives. There is quite an arrogance within the claiming of this knowledge while at the same time remaining in denial of its source within ourselves, coming from our own experience of doing it too; it’s as if this knowledge were just pulled out of the ether, and as if our ability to do that is an aspect of our claimed superiority.
And then in blame, in serving up the allegation – in making it stick – we revert to our definitions of the other for reference and evidence to prove our claims, making it as if those definitions in our minds were perceptions of reality. And so then we see these other beings as like rigid objects, taking up and standing as positions, and in the act of trying to defend themselves, protect themselves from collapse, seeing them as possessed by their personalities, not having any other choice, and so within this, robbing them, constricting them, and locking them down. I mean when both are at this then, there is a sense of all being lost; the potential of the meeting also – in the fact that the opportunity of collaboration has been lost. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear such constriction foisted onto me, of being locked down, of being robbed of other aspects that are me, of accepting and allowing being defined by others. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed to be defined by others as if in an attempt to keep the peace. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not see how in such an inner deal I have accepted and allowed the play-out of the system both within me and without me, and so am within this accepting and allowing the consequential play-out of the world. I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to judge myself in this.
So within this there exists for me like a fear of owning my experience of giving up when it comes again to that old situation of being aware of abdicating all to system, a vision of puppets clattering uselessly in the dark, the facing of the fact of my giving of the power to the strings I have accepted and allowed, and allowing myself to participate in that feeling of uselessness and waste that I have linked to it. And my pattern here would be to revert into a silence, to revert into that illusion of potentiality, to abandon that opportunity of collaboration, and of mutual creation, to give up on the reality of the other person having choice.
Here within this is a layer of spite, and here again my own projection. I mean here I am looking at the expectation of the other responding to me the way I wanted them to, that together we might perhaps do something, that was not expressed, was not even clear to me, was not defined, and because my expectation did not happen here I was giving them both the power and the blame and then taking umbrage in a way because it did not happen. The actual failure here was my own manipulation. And then, in me, dismissing, or brushing past that momentary umbrage, that is so familiar, hardly even noticing it, defining it as ‘mild discomfort’, I see how it is I slip so quickly from a glimpse of awareness of my abdication, to those feelings of uselessness and into the apparent solace of blame and righteousness.
That issue of control, of accepting and allowing self to become an expression of control, as a point of permission, submerged beneath the layers of automation: it becomes an ‘issue’ where an emotional connection is made, linking to that point, together with a judgement where a dream of self seems to rise up from the bed, and dis the self that is currently overwhelmed in its comfort of acceptance, in the flowing streamlines of the consciousness, not seeing how this view of things has also been prepared, and undersigned by me, that this knowledge of awareness is no different, is just another annex of a false reality.
Adam's Journey Into Life 