One of the more popular posts on Shards is How To Get Rid of Excessive Negative Emotions

Most people come, read it, then move on. Without input, I have no idea of whether the post was useful to them or not. Occasionally someone will leave a comment. These are usually positive, which, from an ego point of view, is rewarding. Recently I got one that wasn’t so ego gratifying. As would happen with most of us, my first reaction was not positive. My stomach tightened up. Adrenaline began to flow. Hints of anger crossed the screen of my mind.

But then I took the time to stop. I looked at what was happening to my body. I realized my negative emotional reaction was a result of identifying with what I write. I let go, let the adrenaline state discharge, then re-read the comment. I ended up glad it was made because the points the author brought up are important. Many people, maybe most, don’t agree with the viewpoint I express here at Shards. The comment led me to review what some of my basic beliefs are and why I hold them.

1. Our fundamental beliefs will color, condition, and guide what we do, how we feel, and what we see as possible and impossible. If we believe we are purely a result of physical forces, we will have a different life than we will have if we believe we are something beyond the physical.

2. The techniques I talk about here work. If we practice them, we will see results. This is especially true in regards to meditation and belief work. The key is that we have to practice them. Browsing the web and saying That’s interesting or I believe that will accomplish nothing. Action follows belief. If we really believe something, we will act on it.

3. Our emotions are not a part of us. They are something you experience. One of the channels of their creation is the neurochemical reactions throughout our brain and body. We have both a mind and a body (which may be two aspects of one tool). We are neither. If we believe we are a just a body, a product of purely material forces, all debate about free will and personal responsibility is a content free discussion. We can then only be victims. Any I, for that matter, don’t even exist. The I would be as much an illusion as free will or personal responsibility. The nonsense isn’t that we are more than a random assemblage of atoms, but that we are only a random assemblage of atoms. It is the materialistic belief, along with the belief that one person has the right to physically enforce their will on another person, that has caused the majority of the pain, war, violence, and destructive behavior in the world’s history.

4. We cannot avoid an immediate emotional reaction to the things that happen to us. That emotional reaction is as much, if not more, a habit of thought as anything else, though.

5. Emotions are useful. They serve an evaluative function in our lives. In simplistic terms, they are us telling ourselves this is good or this is bad. If the only way to get you to provide food for yourself is the fear of starving, the fear is useful. More useful is to provide food for yourself so you can do something more fulfilling. Action driven only by emotion isn’t useful. Emotions are most effective when guided by thought.

This is honesty. Abdicating responsibility for yourself and your life is not.

Popularity: 15% [?]

the silver moon glides
it’s silent path through the night
the sun hides as dreams
shape the day to come. futures
are lived and discarded. time

a lake we dive in.
not a river, not a stream,
an ocean. we dive
here. we dip cautiously there.
we taste the moments, then choose.

we wake to the light,
dreams fleeing to the shadows,
where they silently
guide us to the life we chose
as the moon silvered the night.

Popularity: 12% [?]

There are three main models of personal growth and development

• The engineering model
• The artistic model
• The gardening model

In the engineering model you use suitable techniques to create a change in yourself that you envision beforehand. In the artistic model you remove things that have accreted to your personality until the you who is already there is revealed, just as a sculptor removes material to reveal the work of art that lies within the block of stone. In the gardening model personal growth is the natural unfoldment of your self as you receive appropriate mental and emotional nourishment in a healthy social environment, just as a plant will grow best given the proper nourishment and physical environment.

In this podcast I take a closer look at the gardening model and how it applies to personal development.

 

 How Does Your Garden Grow? [5:15m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (931)

This episode of the Shards of Consciousness podcast is based on a post I wrote in June, 2007 called How Does Your Garden Grow?.

If what you hear is useful to you, subscribe to the Shards of Consciousness podcast through iTunes or the feed. Tell your friends about us. Let me know what you think.

Music Featured

Corey&Cosmo - We’re All Stars - Transcontinental Experiment Remix

Music provided by the PodShow Podsafe Music Network

Popularity: 12% [?]

The name Luddite was originally applied to a group of British workers who rioted and destroyed textile machinery in the early nineteenth century. They are said to be named after Ned Ludd, a British laborer who was supposed to have destroyed weaving machinery in the late 18th century.

Think about it. We look back on the industrial revolution and see it as a time of technological change that has led to increasing economic prosperity, increased leisure, and the opportunity to engage in creative endeavors.

What did Ned and his followers see? They saw the end of their lives as skilled craftsmen. They saw the food leaving their table. They saw life become long hours of work at boring, repetitive tasks for low wages. Their skills became worthless. Their children had to go to work in dangerous conditions for long hours. The lion’s share of their productivity went to the entrepeneurs who financed the new, higher efficiency mills.

Were they wrong in becoming angry? Much of their destructiveness grew out of the fear that came from the social dislocation that resulted from the industrial revolution. While in the the long run industrialization has led to vastly improved standards of living, in the short run those improved standards benefited only the few. There was no avenue for the displaced workers to renew their skills. Change for the sake of change, change to put money in the hands of a few, had unforeseen consequences whose effects still reverberate.

We see the same things happening today. For the sake of a few dollars, the way we do business is undergoing dramatic change. Multinational companies have splatted (yes, I said splatted) across the planet as they pursue cheaper labor and lower manufacturing costs. Large segments of societies are displaced as urbanization accelerates. Pollution has mushroomed in developing areas of the world. Disease, hunger, war gain ascendancy. Now though, due to the network of interrelationships we have built, problems in one corner of the world affect other corners of the world.

I’m not opposed to change. There are many things we have developed that I wouldn’t want to do without. But using technology just because you can, change for the sake of change is always a bad idea. Appropriate technology is more important than high technology. Responsible development is more important than constant development.

I look around where I live and see a constantly expanding sprawl of shopping malls, parking lots, and the so-called McMansions. Where once stood trees and fields is blacktop. Where once children played, those same children shoot each other.

This is cancer. Cancer is not healthy growth. Society has come to rely on cancer as the norm. Is it worth it? In a few generations, no doubt. But what of this generation? What of our children?

Technorati Tags: Luddite, pollution, urbanization

Popularity: 12% [?]

Lessons From a Goldfish

Sunday in Spring. I love it. The sun has returned, bringing with it smiles on the face of child and adult alike. The apple trees are in blossom. The grass has received its first manicure. Lady Glynis has repaired the ravages of winter on the small fish pond in which we keep goldfish outside. Even with their home frozen over and absolutely no feeding or other care throughout the winter, the fish have not only lived, but prospered, being almost double the length they were last fall and all have survived the winter.

Is it due to persistence?

Terry Starbucker in The Key Ingredient to Sustained Success? Calvin Had it Right

Is it due to resting in the arms of the infinite?

Nneka in Surrender, Powerlessness, and Other Bad Words

Is it due to the power of gratitude?

Robyn McMaster in The Power of Thanks

Is it due to just doing what they were meant to do?

Liz Strauss in Find the Extraordinary in You!

Or is it due to staying in the now?

Michael Weir in Outside your window

Technorati Tags: Nneka, Terry Starbucker, Robyn McMaster, Liz Strauss, Michael Weir, gratitude, persistence

Popularity: 14% [?]

One point that seems to be missed in the dialog about the environment is the lack of ecological thinking involved. Some of the words are there, but the underlying basis seems to be missing. A large part, if not all of our environmental difficulties stem from never having really learned to deal with the urbanization of the past few millenia and the gradual spread of decent hygiene and nutrition. The combination of these has led to localized pollution so bad that the ecology of the planet cannot properly deal with it, and the massive growth in human population that is the real root of any overall ecological difficulties.

The sad thing is that the current crop of greens and the vast majority of the population have essentially the same world view. Both view man as an alien entity that has been plonked down on the planet as an afterthought rather than an integral part of the the web of life on this planet.

The greens appear to view us as a cancer, capable of nothing but destruction. In reading the rhetoric I get the feeling they feel that we are a stain on the planet that should have been extinguished before we started. There is a strong element of self hate in anyone who thinks that by our very existence we cause damage to the world around us, while at the same time feeling that something like a beaver dam, with all the destruction it can create on the surrounding environment, is okay.

While I was growing up major issues were air and water pollution. While these have not been totally overcome, both the air and water are much better in the US than they were then. So. the environmental movement moved on. Now the issue of the day is global warming. Carbon dioxide has become the pollutant of choice to talk about. Any realistic way to decrease the release of carbon dioxide is almost reflexively shot down.

Windmills? They kill birds and they’re ugly.

Solar power? Cradle to grave too polluting and inefficient.

Nuclear? Horrors! Horrors! Dams? They’re an ecological disaster waiting to happen.

Alcohol? The only easy way to make it right now is from foodstuffs such as corn and sugarcane. Diverting these to fuel will increase food prices which will lead to more hunger and starvation in poorer parts of the world, as well as such practices as slash and burn farming, which has had such negative results in places like Brazil and Southeast Asia. Look in the news and you see the result.

What are we left with? Just stop burning fossil fuel. Society worldwide is dependent on fossil fuels, so just to stop using them is tantamount to condemning a large part of the population to even deeper poverty and in many cases, death.

The view of the non-greens is that the world is here for our manipulation, our comfort, and our service. Any fouling of our own nests that we cause through our technology is amenable to further application of technology. This is a recipe for a Rube Goldberg socio-economic machine that becomes either increasingly fragile or increasingly rigid as further changes in the way we use technology have to be integrated into prior usage.

Wouldn’t it make more sense to view ourselves as a natural part of the world? We are not an afterthought. We are not an alien injection. The world isn’t here purely for our comfort and manipulation. We are not the kings of all we survey, but an integral part of the planet in which we live. As with all other creatures, by our very existence we change the web of existence and adapt to the changes in the web that are caused by the other creatures within it as well as the physical being of the planet itself. In all the talk of our effect on the environment there is an underlying pride, vanity and hubris which must be laid aside if we are to continue to prosper in this world which we have created, and which shapes us.

The fear mongers are just that. It may not be totally impossible for us to destroy the planet for life, but we do have the capacity to change it greatly. In doing so we will make it less fit for our own existence and we will pay the consequences.

The most important thing we can do is learn to deal with the improvements in hygiene and nutrition we have experienced. These have led to the large and growing population that currently exists. If we do not learn to slow it, it will be slowed for us. The four horsemen are always waiting in the wings.

Popularity: 11% [?]

Today is primary election day in Pennsylvania. I was talking to one gentleman who said he voted, but he didn’t know if he voted for the right person.

It struck me what an odd concept the right person is. So many people think the right person is the person most likely to win. Others think the right person is the person their neighbors, friends, or family are voting for. Some think the right person is the one who thinks or looks the most like them. Some think the right person is the most powerful speaker. Right has as many meanings as their are people who use it.

Please. When you vote, no matter what the election, don’t base your choice on who you think will win. Base your choice on who you want to win. That’s the only way that the wisdom of crowds will have a chance to operate in an election. If you’re not going to vote your real choice, don’t vote.

Popularity: 10% [?]

Gain weight. Lose weight. Eat this. No! Eat that. Follow this diet. Follow that diet. Take this pill. Use this herb. Life as a yo-yo goes on and on while meanwhile you flush money down the drain.

For most people, the secret of losing weight isn’t much of a secret. Eat fewer calories than you burn off. When you do eat, eat decent food. Get some reasonable degree of exercise. Gain control over the emotional factors that lead you to eat more than you should.

There is one more thing you can do. Breathe.

Yes, breathe. There is a breathing technique developed in India called agni sara. One of its effects is to help you normalize your weight. If you are overweight, it can help you lose some of the excess. If you are underweight, it can help you put a few pounds on. The technique is simple, takes just a few minutes a day, and in conjunction with proper food and other exercise, preferably yoga , can help you utilize what you do eat more effectively. Listen to this episode of the Shards of Consciousness podcast and learn how to perform agni sara.

 

 How to Normalize Your Weight By Breathing [5:38m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (981)

This episode of the Shards of Consciousness podcast is based on a post I wrote in June, 2007 called Using Breathing to Normalize Weight.

If what you hear is useful to you, subscribe to the Shards of Consciousness podcast through iTunes or the feed. Tell your friends about us. Let me know what you think.

Music Featured

Corey&Cosmo - We’re All Stars - Transcontinental Experiment Remix

Music provided by the PodShow Podsafe Music Network

Popularity: 12% [?]

Life isn’t complicated, but we do make it hard.

Popularity: 11% [?]

I want.

Two simple words that will never go away. Everything I do, everything I say, has it’s roots in two simple words - I want.

I want tells me where to go.

I want tells me what to do.

I want tells me what to say.

I want tells me what to think.

What do you want? Are you sure. I want can be a tangled skein, with ways and means confused with goals. Until you know the goal, wanting the ways and means will lead you on a chase with no end. So think. Write down the things you want. Make lists. Make a vision board.

Then put it all out of your mind, except when you go to bed. As you lie with your eyes closed, breath slowing into the rhythm of sleep, ask yourself one question.

What do I want?

Dreams will come that remain with you in the morning.

Or as you awaken a thought may be in your mind.

Or as you go through your day an impulse will strike.

Pay attention. These are the keys to tell you what you really want. And when you figure it out, when you find out what you really want, everything you do, everything you say, will be guided by a clear vision of those two words that never go away.

I want.

Popularity: 12% [?]