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“When we look at the chaos that faces our news screens in 2012, it's not such a leap of the imagination to wonder where it will lead us. We must be doing something wrong if it feels like we're looking back when we look forward, and all we see are the repeated mistakes of the past. Therefore transformational change is necessary; it's a part of life's deal with us. And how do we go about initiating change for the better? We start that change within ourselves.”
— Mickie Kent
The BBC News Online site has run an article on Andrew Marr's History of the World documentary series which attempts to tell the history of the whole world in one go, by Marr himself. In it Marr describes how he and his team had to choose which "stories" to tell within the historical framework they had chosen, namely to tell the story of man the social animal, and our rise from hunter-gatherers in Africa to today's clever apes and our technologically adept, seven-billion-plus domination of the planet.
Clearly this is human history accelerated, but how do you choose what stories of it to keep, and which to throw away on the cutting room floor? And just where is away? When you throw something away, where is that? For many people that simple inquiry offers much to ponder. It can even serve as a catalyst for transformational change within you.
It was asked by Julia Butterfly Hill during the Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream Symposium by the Pachamama Alliance in which participants learned of social injustices and environmental practices that threaten the planet and were encouraged to act on that information. We honour the land, because it nurtures us. Some people dedicated themselves to recycling and other methods of protecting the planet, others committed to raising awareness among teenagers about the environment - but the question is significant and meaningful to all of us.
When you throw something "away" - where is it in truth going? Discovering that there is in reality no such thing as "away" can trigger shifts in awareness, feelings, thinking, connectedness, or perception. For some it clears the way forward; it offers clarity. Whatever you throw "away" - if not disposed of properly - will come back to you in worse form. And for those for whom the path is yet to be determined, this understanding can still bring about profound cognitive and affective differences. Transformational change is possible at any time for everyone - no matter your background, education, or abilities.
One way to facilitate it is by challenging assumptions you hold about yourself that may not be serving you, that keep you stuck in the same old way of thinking, the same old way of reacting. Assumptions about who you are and what you think you can do. Another is to stop sleepwalking through life, and begin living consciously. We blindly go about our daily activities unaware that if we only made a few, slightly different choices we'd turn out to be completely different people. The path forward will clear when you can say: "What I now know, see, feel, or choose to be and do."
Life is about choices and options. Getting educated, gathering knowledge gives you options. Options means more choices to make, and that is not a bad thing - although many of us have been programmed to fell as though too much choice is somehow not good for us. Most find life is easier just to be given one way to go - to be told this is the "right" way and to follow it blindly, saving us from the headache of having to make decisions for ourselves.
Yet, this is the one real freedom we do have, the right of choice which means we're free to figure things out for ourselves. And providing more options in our lives will not confuse our decision making abilities, it will help them. Sifting through these stories is a necessary process for us to discover who we really are, and what our own unique purpose in life is.
On the journey to your purpose it may seem very simplistic, but the experts say the first step is to just pick. So, a) pick what do you want to be or do, then b) see if it's really for you - figure out if that's really what you want to do, learn, or be, etc. - and then c) go and find out how to become that. During the process what you choose for a) may change - but during the process you will learn and grow and find out more about yourself.
This is what transformational change is all about, and looking for your own unique purpose in life will help you stick to life's deal for constant change. Step c) also highlights the need for options, as when you go out to find ways of achieving step a) you will realise that you will need to look at all of the possibilities before you focus on what it is you really what to do in life. Naturally, life is never easy as ABC - life's road sometimes has turns that are not on our emotional map.
But we shouldn't bury our hopes, dreams and reasons in caves we cannot reach, nor throw them away to leave them adrift, like in those doubtful areas where early mapmakers resorted to curlicued monsters. We should treat challenges as an adventure on the treasure map to the golden purpose of our lives. As a human being there are certain aspects of life that will faze you. To be able to survive you need to be mentally strong.
Keep in mind that any worthy change is hard fought; this is what gives it gravitas, weight, and worth. Every now and then things happen that can't be rationalised in a conventional way. Life isn't about getting things the easy way; it's about finding your way.
Follow your own path
When we look at the history of our world from a distance, so as to see it all in one go, we see how small humans really are in the grand scale of things - how tiny we are on this Earth, like flies on the scale of a Mercator globe. It can be humbling and grounding, and it is also revealing. We tie moments with a string we call time, so they don't escape us like tying a rock to the end of a kite. But we create the real; nothing that is made ever ceases to be - it changes.
The past only exists for us when we look back at it consciously; but neither is it thrown away into the ether. It stays in our subconscious, and unless we dispose of it properly, errant beliefs can sabotage our future successes and happiness. Every moment made still exists; like energy it doesn't die but changes; and thus it is how we perceive things that matter. A moment that we thought hurt us, when we look back on it with awareness, can be made to exist in a more positive light. The past and the moment is like the body and the soul. The past is the past, when it's gone it's no more - we can't go back to relive it - but the energy of every moment lives on. It's up to us what we do with that energy.
We can decide to follow our own maps; allow ourselves more options; de-clutter our lives for a simplicity of vision to see those options, and get out of our rut where we feel everything is the same and we want change. That is life, nudging us to remember our deal. That we must change, move forward, evolve; and like the flow of a stream, we can flow over hard obstacles until they become smooth and then disappear in time. But this will happen only when people work together in unity.
There are some that are citing the global events of 2012 as signs of a cataclysm; as though popular fiction is finally coming to pass and the world is being divided into sides for a fight to the death. We see Muslims being parodied in film similar to the way Jews were parodied in literature in Nazi Germany and persecuted in the last century - and what is equally dangerous and wrong are the violent protests from the global Islamic community. Hate only begets hate; and such protests only play into the parody image they protest against so vehemently.
We need to break the cycles of intolerance. It can be done. Britain did it with football hooliganism in the nineties; it is about changing energies, about shifting perspectives. Barack Obama has been unable to get the United States loved and admired around the world after eight years of George W. Bush, as the turmoil in the world appears to escalate. Some now even talk of war.
Meanwhile, the recession has finally started to bite the budgets of high earners in the United Kingdom. Figures indicate that a third of high earners have switched to cheaper supermarkets and dipped into savings. How rich a person is perceived to be is relative, but the experts are saying this recession is so bad that whatever your income, we're all in it together. However it has also created an anti-wealth sentiment, and an anti-establishment feeling - which the Islamic protests are also tapping into across the world.
And in the face of challenges, if hope feels like a rare flower that blooms, it's because we tend to forget about the eloquence or passion on the beauty there is in life. As much as we may think society seems to delight in the suffering of the weak and failed, we need to stop thinking in terms of black and white, crime and punishment, right and wrong, rich and poor.
People in the public eye are more than ever under scrutiny for their actions (where the privileged are afforded more protections than those society deems less so), and social attitudes are hardening, but let's not preach - rather let's be pragmatic. We can't reach love through old hurts. Highlighting differences in these divisive times breeds only more frustration, aggression and more anti-social tendencies.
There is good news out there to give us something to look forward to. Although financial experts warn that things will get worse this year as the global economy continues to weaken, on the horizon economic recovery is slated to be coming next year, with an outside chance that someone will come up with a formula to save the economy. But, though money is an important thing in terms of representing freedom in our world, we have to realise that money will not buy us love, peace or stability - only we can achieve these goals - together. And we may yet come back from the brink of a major war stronger than ever. A concentrated view of history also shows us that humans are always at their best at the eleventh hour.
We have a mind to imagine, and we can leap after it; such is humanity. This is the best and worst aspect of us. What have we mortals ever thought of that we have refrained to try out? History shows us that there is nothing we thought of that we dared not build. From the worst engines of torture to the atomic bomb, to reaching the Moon and creating the most uplifting works of art - there is nothing that the mind has baulked at or shied away from. The mind is the great theatre where the great and the horrific is played out first; and when we imagine the worse we make the world a little less. Like the age you feel, it's a state of the mind.
Expanding our awareness
“What's the point of this mind, body and soul series? To prime you; to get you consciously aware of yourself, of the wider living community and your surroundings. Without conscious awareness, any advice on love, life and happiness will mean squat. It'll be like teaching someone how to drive a car while they can't get out of bed.”
— Mickie Kent
Some experts suggest that there's a type of "unitive" neural wiring in the brain that literally connects everything. People who have spiritual experiences often describe how suddenly the whole universe is laid out in front of them, giving them an understanding of it all and thus expand their awareness in ways that lead to change - often at a transformational level. It's claimed that tapping into that spiritual intelligence makes you realise that all of the wisdom of the universe is within you.
In this context, it's suggested that we read books and gather knowledge as a way of reminding is of what we have known and need to know now at a conscious level. This is why, it's said, some things "click" with us when we read them. Proponents to this way of seeing knowledge, compare the conscious mind to a circle about 1 foot in diameter around your feet. This circle exists within a much larger circle - 11 miles in diameter. That vast circle represents the non-conscious mind. Spiritual awareness gives you the ability to bring that 11 miles into your conscious awareness - to connect in and build bridges to that wisdom from the knowledge you gather from great thinkers and your own experiences.
One way provided by experts to do this is to "syntopically" read (make mental images of) three to five books in a couple of hours to solve a personal challenge. Doing this allows you to bring in immense amounts of information and look at any given subject from many points of view - like a concentrated visual look at world history on a time-line. Take five experts and look at a problem through their eyes, and suddenly you get to see it through your own lens, a lens you didn't know you had.
Your brain can't think without you; Albert Einstein's brain is now in a jar in a laboratory, it can no longer think without the man. Thus we can teach our brain to do things for us that we never knew we could do before. And that's at the heart of transformational change. A change in the way you make meaning. So the theory goes, all the experts are simply bringing you back to yourself, revealing that awakened, resourceful individual you really are. The real power and potential is within you.
If you think how we interact with our universe - if we are responding with an highly interactive self-aware universe, which the experts say it is - then it's responding to us all the time. Being aware of this interaction means being spiritually intelligent (or sensitive) - and thus having the power to utilise it for your benefit.
Moreover, the experts say that the one thing we know about the universe is that it loves speed (or expediency). Expert opinion says everything in Nature works by absolute law, and works in the fastest way possible. Nature does what she does with maximum efficiency, on time, every time with no exceptions. Thus, if we believe that Nature works in this orderly fashion - and Nature's first law is order - then she responds to our clarity of mind, or our dissipation of focus.
If our focus is fuzzy, we'll lead a fuzzy life, but if we are clear on what we want, we can achieve it. When we have a great image, a visual of what we want to achieve, that is the collaboration between us and the universal intelligence. Some will ask themselves in the context of philosophical issues of fate: Is it me who has the thought, or the universe that is impregnating me with that thought, and many others, with the same thought/image? Some believe it is the latter, the universe is mechanical and planned, using us as the co-creator on this physical planet for its grand design.
Some argue that the comparison with chess pieces is almost too obvious; undoubtedly there are times when we feel like pawns. And what if you were a different sort of chess piece - not pawn, or knight or rook or any of the recognised ranks? If you are as unique as a piece of one, then how would you move on the board? Are the thoughts yours alone?
But whether we prefer to believe we choose the thought, or are given the thought, what strengthens the collaboration is clarity. By deciding specifically, precisely and exactly what it is you want - not what you think you can have. Plus, by repeating that specific goal over and over again, there's another part of the brain called the reticular activating system (RAS) which will let into your concious brain, from all the information being bombarded daily into your subconscious, matched to those things you're repeatedly focusing on.
Feelings are said to play an important part, too, as the emotions you attach to the images in your mind can raise or lower the vibes you send out, and the responses you get in accordance with that. Music can help in this form of visualisation, as it drives in the emotion for you and energises you into a happy state (and any time you hear something that matches that instantly you're in a happy state) - the association between the feeling, emotions and the vision you're creates a very strong neural network in the brain.
Click here to rewire your mindset for success!
In this way, the experts claim you'll notice quickly when the universe responds to the emotional vibration you're sending out to manifest your desires into your reality. And this is how transformational change occurs; you find the tools, the resources, the people - in short everything you need - to help you match the image you have in your mind to your life.
Match your life to your mind show
When transformational change begins in your life, experts tell us to look out for a couple of things that will start to happen.
- You start to vibrate - every cell of your body vibrates and resonates with the image in your mind.
- You start to think more about that image.
- You start to ask different questions than you asked before once you become emotionally connected to the visualisation or image.
- You start to think differently, but more important than that your perception starts to change, because your brain now starts to look for things that match in the physical world with the image that you're now impressing upon day in and day out, week in and week out.
Using a daily system of repeating of your own affirmations and visualisations in a meditative state can manifest physical results in your life. But we have to make the time. We shower, we eat a couple of times a day (some men shave a couple of times a day), so how hard can it be to invest in your own life a couple of minutes a day? It is certainly an easy system, made simple to use daily, to start matching the YOU in your mind to the YOU in your life.
Some experts in this field also suggest acting out your visualisations as though they have already materialised; experts say that acting out in this way is not analogous to "living a lie" if it's about bringing out your true self out to the world. We have to make our mind a den where we can be our true self, so that we can project that to the world. It's about being able to programme your mind in a positive way to give us the power necessary for change.
This is difficult to do in modern societies, where most of us like a reactionary life; we're just bombarded by the negative energies of mainstream news, television, internet. When we read about girls murdered just for the way they look, or mothers murdering their babies, how are we meant to feel?
This isn't about avoiding reality; I'm a news junkie who catches up on the news first thing in the morning every day to see what the world is up to, but I choose what goes into my head. My positive energies are my shield, and if we're not consciously aware and selective about what we're watching, then we're being programmed in a negative, victim-(non)conscious way.
There are also subliminal aspects to this, too. If we look at the neuroscience side of it, every nano second of every day we're receiving billions of pieces of information from what we hear, see, smell, taste and touch. Our brain is deciphering a lot of information all the time; some we are aware of, some we are not, and our brain deletes or distorts the information that isn't highly urgent, or can cause fear and anxiety because its dangerous for us.
When you think about the subliminal aspect, however, beneath our concious awareness the negative messages are getting though, and we do have access to it. Science suggests that the brain remembers everything, it is our ability of recalling that into our conscious mind which centres on what we "remember". And there are techniques experts use to call the information in the subconscious at will, i.e., we can get in a hypnotic state to access what has been picked up subliminally (things we are aware of, but not consciously aware of them).
Subliminal messages go past your senses so fast you don't even see it, you're not aware of its presence and it goes right into your subconscious mind. Experts say that visualising transformational change to help you manifest also works subliminally, that is to to say you allow the image to enter beneath your concious awareness, and when this is done repeatedly it kick starts your RAS to take more notice of information around you that will speed you towards your visualised image of a transformed life.
We need the repetition, it's a part of the learning process, of transforming ourselves. It can be difficult at first; our conscious mind may want to block us with its current negativity due to our initial programming. We can find it difficult to work at it, but from knowledge can come understanding - and even without knowledge, keeping at it and seeing results (even without knowing how it works) will indicate transformation at a subconscious level.
Experts claim that in this way we can programme whatever message we want, because it's the unconscious mind that is running the show. We're making conclusions based on what is coming subliminally into the brain, so our commands are going into the unconscious mind - which is our command centre. And some experts prefer using a subliminal system as it bypasses the filter system (and negative programming) of the conscious mind.
Once we become more consciously aware and raise our spiritual intelligence, we become more aware of our options, of the very sacredness of life. We always have a choice - it is not the gun that kills, it is our choice to use the gun that kills. It is the mind that thought up the gun that kills. And in this context, conscious awareness acts as a bridge between the subconscious and conscious so that you can travel to the very power centre that is running your life - that's magnetising it - and take control of what once controlled you.
Experts say that most successful people come to realise that this inner knowledge to transformational change has been lost in recent time by the masses, and that's why some believe the world is on the verge of chaos. If the balance has been lost, then it must be rediscovered. The key for discovery lies in our brains. This is the MOST life changing information which surpasses and transcends all other levels of self help you will have encountered, because it is about understanding and changing reality from the highest place of all - the conductor of your soul - your mind.
Yours in love,
