Tag: Personal Development

The Lifeguard Principle: What it is, what is it good for, how to make friends with it.

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Economics, Personal Development, Psychology, Science, Spirituality
Fotosearch_k22192444
(c) AlexMax http://www.fotosearch.com

I am realizing that many of us, me included, have a tendency to readily notice and respond to the things in the world that are blatantly wrong, or problematic, and that this may consequently mean we simultaneously are not giving enough attention to the things that are right. 

I first became aware of this tendency decades ago when I worked a couple summers as a lifeguard.  When I found myself in the lifeguard chair, looking at a large, crowded pool with lots of noise and activity, I had a moment of doubt.  I wondered how in the world am I going to see someone in trouble in this chaos?  I asked an older lifeguard that question and he replied that I just needed to keep my eyes on the pool and if someone got into trouble, I’d see it.  Sounds too simple, right?  It isn’t.  As it turns out our attention is drawn to the things that aren’t right.  Whether it is inconsistencies, differences in movement, sometimes the obvious shout for “help”, or some other more esoteric phenomenon, it is a reliably real thing.  I would always find my attention drawn to someone in trouble.  Sometimes a few seconds before they were actually experiencing the distress.  Of course it is also true that my mindset, my internal desire, was to see such occurrences.  That may be a part of the function at work.  I began calling this tendency to have our attention drawn to what is wrong “the lifeguard principle”.

While paying attention and looking for trouble was an explicit part of that job, I think it is something we all do to a greater or lesser extent.  It definitely is a survival trait in times of threat.  Maybe it’s a carry over from the days when we were walking through forests or jungles and we had to be aware of our surroundings to avoid being eaten.  It definitely is a behavior that is necessary in times of warfare, one person, gang, tribe, nation, attacking another.  I believe it is universal among humankind.   For those interested in looking into such things, there is some correlate in the functioning of our “exciting” and “calming” neurotransmitters.  Our bodies have evolved in a way that we deplete our “calming” neurotransmitters well before we are in danger of running out of “exciters”.  I suppose that would help keep us from just lying down and being eaten when being chased by a tiger.  But now, in the year 2020, for many if not most of us, the dynamics we face in our day to day lives are not quite the same as they have been through much our existence.

It’s not that there still aren’t some acute dangers in the world; in some places much more than others.  However, the dangers most of us face in developed nations are more of a chronic nature.  We don’t get pounced on and quickly killed and eaten by a tiger, we get killed more gradually by being slowly consumed by worries, fears, anxieties, and insecurities.  Just as the nature of the threats has changed over time, our reactions to the threats we’re facing needs to change also.  A sudden, pervasive startle, fight or flight reaction to all the, sometimes subtle, threats an average person may face during their day would certainly result in a person becoming overly stressed, burned out, and significantly more at risk for a plethora of diseases.

Sometimes we need to intervene in what direction our “autopilot” chooses and become more reasoned with our reactions to life’s events.  Having an innate sensitivity to things that are “wrong” in our environment can be part of an important survival system.  Our “lifeguard principle” exists for just that purpose, to help guard our lives.  This brings to my mind a book by Gavin De Becker:  “The Gift of Fear”.  It addresses the important role fear can and does play in our lives.  However, with both the “lifeguard principle” and “The Gift of Fear”, whether or not these innate aspects of our being serve us or sabotage us depends entirely on how we react to the input we receive from them.

In our complex, more populated, human culture primitive responses to what are often sophisticated situations become less and less viable.  As a culture, we need to get way more invested in learning more about what it is to be human and what we inherently, and universally, require to establish and maintain healthy, vital, lives.  When we learn to respond to human, social, problems in a manner based in seeking to solve those problems on by seeing needs met and lives stabilized, it will benefit us greatly.  We are going to find ourselves in a thriving, vibrant world such as we have only had glimpses of, during a few periods of time in the past 150 years.

Within the current available knowledge from the fields of psychology, sociology, physiology, and spirituality, we have all we need to have more than a good start.  It only requires our will and determination to do so.

Always, never, sometimes, all, none, some.

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Personal Development, Politics, Psychology, Spirituality
Fotosearch_k17282832 (1)
(c) mrdoggs http://www.fotosearch.com

I’ve been writing letters to our local paper and articles for my blog for some time.  However, all that pales in comparison to countless conversations with many people over many years.  When you converse with and/or get written feedback from intelligent people on the ideas that you’re expressing, it can lead one to have to refine one’s communications.  That’s a good thing.

One thing which over the years I have had to face repeatedly in my communications, and which I often see in the communications of others, are the instances in which, by design or default, a person makes an all encompassing statement which, in it’s breadth, renders the statement inaccurate, untrue.  One often sees this in cases in which someone is angry about something, or purposely trying to sway the opinion of an already biased audience.  The thing about the heat of emotion is that it often abates in the presence of objective (coolheaded) thought.  This can be good if the goal is to find rational resolution to problematic issues, or, possibly not considered a good thing if the goal is to incite thoughtless anger.

One clue that what is being communicated is not based in reality, often is the use of the words “all”, “no”, “always” or “never”.  Or statements which clearly imply the use of those words, even if the words themselves are not present.  This is particularly true when the topic has to do with human traits, characteristics, and/or behaviors.  For example, and I am going to jump right in with a loaded example, if I write that all men are emotionally shallow, cruel people, I, unfortunately, may be accurate about some men, but because I include the word “all”, my statement is untrue.  The same is true if I omit the world “all” and simply say that men are emotionally shallow, cruel people.  The implication is clear that I am referring to all men.  But if I state that some men are emotionally shallow, cruel people, that is a statement which is defendable, true and accurate.  This same principle is at work if I make the statement that no men are shallow, cruel people.  At this point some reading this are probably going, yeah, been there, done that.  Some are possibly considering this information for the first time.

The difference this adjustment in our communication, and our thinking, can make in the world is tremendous.  We human beings are complex beings and, in our complexity, sweeping statements trying to characterize genders or races, referring to deficits or strengths in any particular area of our thinking and/or behavior, are seldom, if ever, accurate.  This is the case no matter the gender or skin color of the people being referred to.

So the next time you’re arguing with a friend, or your spouse, or getting ready to deliver a characterization of a particular person or group of people, please give some thought as to whether or not what you’re about to say, or write, is actually, literally accurate/true.  Sometimes doing this can lead us to realize that we are not correct in our initial thinking/perception.  Sometimes that can be a very good, comforting thing.  And it is always going to put us a step closer to resolving issues, reaching agreements.  It is a positive thing if we aren’t inciting defensiveness and hurting feelings by mischaracterizing those we’ve found ourselves in a problematic situation with.

Psychology, manipulation and the coronavirus.

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Environment, Politics, Psychology, Unified Field
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Why do I use a graphic of Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs so often in my articles? Because it informs us of a reality key to a successful life as a person and as a culture.

I began studying psychology in 1969, as a Freshman in college. I had a predisposition to being interested in human behavior. I felt the same about psychology as I imagine a lot of people do about chemistry, engineering, nutrition, or medicine. I felt psychology held keys to understanding and improving the quality of life for everyone. During my Sophomore year I changed my major to psychology (it had been music).

As time went on, I found myself in a wide range of environments, exposed to just about the full gamut of human behaviors. All through this time I have had the good fortune to be exposed to instruction ranging from the cutting edge, the esoteric, the eclectic and the classic trains of thought. My life has pretty much revolved around working to understand why we humans do what we do. I am happy and grateful to report that, on the whole with information coming from a plethora of fields of study, we humans have garnered a very great deal of knowledge about ourselves.

We know much about what we need to have healthy, full, wholesome, complete lives. However, as a race, there has possibly been no other time in recorded history, in which we, as a species, have ignored so much available information. I would add: not only are we widely ignoring so much available knowledge, some individuals and groups which are working to advantage their own wealth and power, are perverting and abusing much of the knowledge that we do have. I don’t think there’s any field of study more widely abused right now than psychology.

The “powers that be” within industry and government very early on recognized the potential the information coming from the field of psychology offered for manipulating people. Not for informing and leading people to understand ourselves, make wise decisions, and have healthy, full lives. But for manipulating people to do the things “they” want to see people doing. Buying things “they” want people to buy. Believing things “they” want people to believe. Behaviors that enrich their lives, not ours.

The contemporary, industrial use of psychology as a tool for manipulation of the public began manifesting as: advertising, which evolved into public relations, which has evolved into engineering consent. Engineering consent is currently the art of controlling what people perceive so that their/our reactions will pave the way for the fulfillment of the controllers’ agenda(s). We used to simply call it “lying”, and that definition still applies. But the current manipulative efforts are happening in such a sophisticated and technological manner, being done in service of people whose agendas are so totally based in egoism, so devoid of consideration for those who are the targets of the manipulation, that merely calling it “lying” doesn’t do justice to the depths of depravity these manipulative efforts emanate from.

Back in the early twentieth century, one of the seminal people in this dark trend was Edward Bernays. A nephew of Sigmund Freud, His efforts contributed heavily to women getting into smoking tobacco and fluoridation of public water. He has been referred to as “the father of spin”. I would say his title should more appropriately have to do with mastering the art of betrayal of trust.

What began as, and still is, a science with so much promise for improving the quality of life for humanity (which is how most sciences get started) is going through a time of profound perversion.  Mental health services are, I think, the most common interface between the general public and psychological expertise.  However mental health in many cases has become just another sales outlet for the pharmaceutical companies.

The reality of the evolution of the science of psychology is that what we have learned can show us much of what is needed to establish personal and sociologic well-being.  One example is Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” which provides a basic template for personal and collective well-being.  But these aspects of the science of psychology, the aspects relating to the general population becoming healthy and whole, seem to be truly frightening to those who have been using psychology for manipulation and exploitation.

Restating the situation, the science of human behavior contains great deal of understanding of what we need to be whole, as individuals and as a culture.  What we know about what we need to be whole and healthy, as individuals and as a culture, is often directly contradictory to what many in positions of industrial and political power, around the world, want us to believe.  What we need for health and wholeness often informs us to behave in ways those currently holding the reins of industrial and political power do not want to see us behaving in. Ways that do not primarily serve them and their egoistic agendas.

Very often today the field of mental health is viewed with skepticism.  The results frequently experienced by those accessing mental health services, and seen by those around them, tends to cast mental health services as a marginally effective service at best. To a very significant extent, this is a result of what I call the unidirectional nature of how mental health knowledge and services are most often applied.  Every challenge to our mental health is occurring within a context. To try to resolve the issues by only addressing the dynamics within the person experiencing the challenges (mental-emotional distress, maladjustment, mental illness) without simultaneously addressing any pathological dynamics within the context, the society, the person lives within, is to simply ask a person to be healthy within an unhealthy culture. It is a unidirectional approach to mental health.

(There is a similar unidirectional phenomenon happening with laws and law enforcement in the U.S.  But that is another story for another time.)

There is a saying: “Culture is to people as water is to fish.”  The fact is, a human being cannot be whole and healthy within an unhealthful culture any more than a fish can be whole and healthy within a polluted lake.

The best that can be hoped for is to compensate as well as possible until the challenges with their accompanying stress finally take their toll. Physical illness, and/or mental illness, and eventually a hastened death are not an uncommon result. One coping option, one which some have been using for centuries, is that an individual or group can try to escape the hellish dynamics too often present in society at large by attempting to live in a self-contained society. Monks and Nuns have sought refuge in such an attempt at controlling a micro-environment for centuries. In the U.S. small communes have experienced varying degrees of success. However, such efforts come at a price. That price is the seclusion itself. While those opting for such a lifestyle may genuinely feel that the benefit is worth the cost, such a system is not a viable answer for everyone.

So where does all this leave us? Exactly where we are right now. We are a species too often turned upon itself. Narrowly defined self interest expressed in predatory financial practices, an absence of consideration for others and even an absence of consideration for our natural environment itself, combined, are genuinely threatening to extinguish us as a species. We are on a spaceship called Earth. You would think that even the most narrowly self-centered among us would have consideration for the natural life-support systems we all rely upon. But, as widespread pollution and destruction of essential habitat and species shows, that isn’t the case. Right now, the fact is, there are some extraordinarily short-sighted, narrowly focused, inconsiderate, egoistic, ignorant (by default or by design) people running too much of what is going on. And we’re letting them.

As I’m writing this, April 1, 2020, much of the U.S. and the world is quarantined due to the coronavirus pandemic. As someone has put it: It’s like mother nature has sent us to our rooms to think about what we’re doing. Will we? Will we, across the globe, use some of this time to consider our own thinking, our own behaviors, and rejoin the world at large better for it?  Will our individual and collective well-being be prioritized higher than corporate profit, corporate well-being?  We’ll see.

Will we, can we, as a species, realize our interconnectedness (as demonstrated graphically by the current pandemic) and apply this awareness to the betterment of our collective well-being? It’s all up to us. Part of what a genuine recovery will entail, is the realization of how pervasively our cultures have been being manipulated by those with narrow, self-serving agendas.

Too often we are being manipulated to hate and fear those who are different in some way from ourselves. We are being manipulated to believe that pursuing narrow self-interest is what we should be doing. We are being manipulated to believe that those who are the most successful at narrowly pursuing their own self-interest are the successes in life. That we should look up to them, emulate them.

As a species, ultimately, we cannot survive, we absolutely cannot ever thrive, with such a mindset.  But if we truly grasp our interconnectedness and act in ways which, in every way, further our personal well-being and our collective well-being, we have the potential to experience a quality of life beyond what many have imagined.

Ten Truths

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Personal Development, Spirituality, Unified Field

img_2343In my almost seventy years on Earth, I’ve learned a few things which I have a great deal of confidence in. These are ten of them:

1. While it most certainly is in our best interest to learn from the lives and teachings of wise and illumined individuals, saints, any person or institution which tells us that we require that person’s or institution’s intercession, or anyone’s intercession, in order to have a personal, intimate relationship with God, the Universal Creative Spirit, is lying.

2. Any person or institution which wants us to go to war against an entity from which we perceive no personal threat, is most likely trying to manipulate us in order to acquire some worldly wealth for themselves. Any call to war should be examined with immense skepticism, with the same attitude as you would regard a carnival barker. If, without the contribution of those calling you to war, you feel a real, personal, and imminent threat, then maybe the threat is real. But be very sure before you move to take another human being’s  life that there is no other possible path to a solution.

3. If the love of money isn’t the root of all evil, it certainly is one of the major contributors.

4. Use things, love people. Not the other way around. I saw this in a Facebook post. However, truth may even come from Facebook posts and this is a profound one.

5. When a person’s words and actions disagree, the truth of that person is to be found in their actions, not their words.

6. We live in a reciprocating universe. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. If for no other reason, that makes the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you., truly golden. However, we may break a chain of injurious reciprocity with forgiveness.

7. Anyone who is exorbitantly wealthy relative to the world around them, has acquired that wealth through scheming; through finding a way to unfairly benefit from the work of others.

8. We never, ever “get away with” any immoral act. There is always a witness: our self. And we always, ultimately, desire justice.

9. Wisdom comes with age. If a younger person exhibits profound wisdom, they are an older soul come again to this Earth. If an older person exhibits little wisdom, they are a younger soul in an older body. If a younger person exhibits little wisdom, well, that’s life.

10. We are social beings. Without a healthy society as a context for our lives, our lives will not be healthy and we will not develop to our fullest potential. Your genuine well-being benefits me and vice versa.

The most important battle going on.

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Mental Health, Oppression, Personal Development, Politics, Science, Spirituality, Trust and betrayal., War
Fotosearch_k17282832 (1)
(c) mrdoggs http://www.fotosearch.com

 

This post is essentially an invitation to watch a documentary which was produced in 2010.  However the subject matter of the film is timeless.

Whether you’re watching FOX, MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, etc., you’re being fed bullshit. But it comes in different flavors, because those controlling the news know, everyone doesn’t like vanilla. However there are certain constants no matter what channel you tune in to. Some of them are:

1. Accumulating vast wealth is good.
2. We should all admire those who have accumulated vast wealth.
3. Be afraid, be very afraid.. Depending upon what channel you’re watching, what we’re supposed to be afraid of can vary. But it’s never the extravagantly wealthy, nor war.
4. War is a necessity.
5. We need to spend more on war.

It is important to those busily accumulating wealth and power, regardless of the effects of their actions upon the majority of people in the world, or the planet itself, that we, the masses, believe these things. They are constantly endeavoring to engineer consent for their actions. Our continued belief of these concepts enables them to maintain and advance their agenda.

All we need to win this war is to realize our kinship, our innate interconnectedness. To love one another as we love ourselves. And to love the universal creative spirit that gives us life. To respect the creator, respect the creation.

The most important battle going on is to control our perceptions of what is going on. The battle to control our thoughts.  This documentary provides a clear picture of history and nature of this battle.  Click on the link to be taken to the full video on YouTube:

Psywar

What’s changing the attitude of immigrants?

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Economics, Environment, Oppression, Personal Development, Politics, Spirituality
sailing-ship
(c) NesaCera http://www.fotosearch.com

There have been a number of posts about how someone’s ancestors (like mine) immigrated to the U.S. Were glad to be here, learned the language, and assimilated into the culture. That used to be the norm.

As is all too clear from the news that is not necessarily the case with immigrants today.

However, there is something else that is different that isn’t as widely distributed via the news. When my ancestors, and others, in the past came to the U.S. it wasn’t because U.S. individuals and corporations, and foreign tyrants, often with assistance from the U.S. government, had destroyed living conditions in their countries of origin.

That being the case, why would they want to come here?   Why come to a country whose governmental policies obviously, and increasingly, show moral bankruptcy?  A country which the home to those who have absconded with a great deal of their country’s natural resources? That’s a good question, however, it also provides the answer. They are just, as the phrase states: following the money.  The wealth which, at one time, resided in their home countries, or was the land they lived on and farmed.

Countries are like ships.  While conditions are acceptable on them, whose going to jump overboard and risk the dangerous swim to a ship on the horizon?  Nobody, or very, very few.  Everyone needs a ship to live on.  We all need a home.  We all need hope.

So, unless we want to see this mad scramble continue indefinitely, this mad scramble to find space in one of the ships of state where conditions still offer hope, one of two things has to happen.  1. We either try to revitalize conditions on the other ships in our world, or, 2. We kill a whole lot of people around the world, stop the flow at the source.

At this point a lot of you are offended, shocked by the latter option.  Good for you, you’re still fully human.  But there are some reading this who may not be shocked at all.  Who will think, good idea, let’s take that second option.

There are a number of ways that a human being’s innate sensibilities can be numbed to the point the second option seems attractive.  Ongoing trauma, over years, might do it.  Chronic severe stress, again over years, might do it.  Or belonging to a group, a family or club, which engages in practices designed to numb, to obliviate, those aspects of our humanity; empathy or any other innate connectivity to others, can do it.  And if you aren’t already aware, there are such groups, families, and clubs.   If you occupy a position of authority, it doesn’t seem to be all that difficult to find some who will blindly follow.

Humankind has a sorry history of people being willing to be used by those in positions of authority.  We’ve been doing it for decades, centuries.  Sometimes it doesn’t require a whole lot of effort on the part of those working to manipulate us to serve their agendas.  If starting with a human being early enough, with the right indoctrination, mass murder can just seem normal.  I think that was probably one of the goals within the Hitler Youth movement.  There are many reports of practices among groups claiming to be satanic which feed such a state of being.  And, as noted in the prior paragraph, there are others.  If you doubt this at all, look around, events in the world clearly show there are a good number of  people who do not flinch at the prospect of killing, murdering others to gain some worldly resource or another, or simply because someone in a position of authority told them to.  They can be found in dark alleys, on battlefields, and  they can be found in what has come to be known as “polite society”.

I tend to think it requires even less in the way of indoctrination to get people to perform activities which support rapacious, materialistic behavior when all they know of it are figures on a spreadsheet, abstractions.  White collar crime has, in many places, had many of it’s forms legalized by those who benefit most from it’s practices.

So, what about the rest of us, those of us who are still fully in possession of our innate human faculties?  Do we just follow the example of the three monkeys, hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil?  Following that model will only help pave an unobstructed road for those who seek to prey upon the world at large.

I am in the U.S., the examples I have given refer most directly to things going on the U.S. However, the behaviors, the actions, the dynamics described in this post are most certainly not limited to the U.S. The very same dynamics are going on around the world. Different predators, same activities.

What those of us who still are cognizant of the interconnectedness of life, who are still guided by our innate sense of what is fair and reasonable, must do is speak out, act out.  Speak out the truths we know.  Do not quietly allow those with purely self-serving agendas slant, distort and/or fabricate the information which is being disseminated within our communities.  Act out.  Vote whenever possible to support just causes.  Participate in and support businesses and activities which truly are benefits to our communities.  Refuse to participate in the machinations working to drain the economic life out of our communities.  Refuse to participate in activities which are polluting our air, water, soil, our world, our very bodies.  Discourage our young people from becoming tools for the militaristic destruction of other people, the takeover of other country’s resources.

Love one another as we love ourselves.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“The only devils in the world are those in our own hearts.”

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Mental Health, Oppression, Personal Development, Spirituality
Fotosearch_k17282832 (1)
(c) mrdoggs http://www.fotosearch.com

Mohandas K. Gandhi is quoted as saying:  “The only devils in the world are those running around in our own hearts. And that is where all our battles ought to be fought.”

Is this true?  Or are there spiritual forces originating from outside us which bedevil us?  Sometimes I perceive that there are spiritual forces present around us which do try to exert influence upon us.  To push us this way or that.  However, in order for them to succeed, we have to be providing them with the opening, the thought/feeling processes, which they can then add impetus to within our minds, our hearts.  In other words they can energetically “nudge” us the direction they desire us to take.  Sometimes possibly more strongly than others.

Even if this is true, it in no way lessens import of Gandhi’s statement.  Because if we are paying enough attention to our own mind, our own thoughts, our own feelings, we can own our own direction.  Truly be the Captains of our own ship.  If, on the other hand, we do not pay enough attention to our own thoughts, feelings, we can be exposing ourselves to being manipulated via “handles” we didn’t fully realize we were subject to.

By engaging in a process of paying attention to our own thoughts and feelings, we can provide ourselves with true autonomy.  True freedom.  We can decide if we really want to be kind, considerate, empathetic, or rude, inconsiderate and heartless.

On our path to such a state of autonomy there are challenges we face.  Most, if not all, of us have been through traumas, times when we have been hurt bodily, or emotionally.  We can have gone through times of chronic stress, anxiety.   Or times during which we have had certain thoughts, feelings, values imposed upon us by others.  Those times leave an imprint on our psyche.  Those imprints can influence our lives, our behavior for years, decades, after the condition or event which resulted in the imprint has past.  These types of imprints can be some of the hardest challenges we face.

Often, to us subjectively, these imprints can be so deeply imbedded, and/or so old, have been with us so long, we may not recognize them for what they are.  We may consider the thoughts and feelings stemming from such imprints as “normal”.  We may believe that everyone carries a similar orientation as a part of their innate being.  But nothing could be farther from the truth.

If we have, somehow, had fear, hate, a judgmental orientation toward something, maybe a people or a place, or a behavior, deeply ingrained within us, we can truly believe that the thoughts and feelings we experience when we are exposed to those people, places or behaviors are entirely normal.  That they are truly an innate part of our being.  And being such, they are from the source of our life.  From God, divinely ordained.

How much suffering, how many wars have stemmed from exactly that illusion being mistaken for reality? 

And it isn’t just that carrying around such imprinting may cause us to harm others.  Carrying around such imprinting can also result in our regarding ourselves in an unrealistic, negative, derogatory manner.

Engaging in an ongoing practice of examining our own thoughts and feelings can be difficult.  We may not like what we find.  Sometimes these revelations can be emotionally, even physically, painful.  Yet, even when that is the case, there is cause for gratitude:  because we have found it.  When we have found it, we can enter into the process of changing it.

One thing we should all know about such processes of change is that they usually (always?) take time and repetition.  Deeply ingrained feelings/thoughts tend to occupy networks inside our mind, our spirit.  We will find ourselves facing the same, old, thoughts and feelings over and over.  They gradually emerge out of the nooks and crannies of our mind.   We need to endeavor to be aware, as often as we can, of what is happening and to consciously intervene in our own lives at those times.  We need to edit, replace the old thoughts with those we want to replace them.  By doing this, over and over, gradually we will retake ownership of our own lives.  We will have “cleaned house”, so to speak.  Sometimes it takes less time, sometimes more.  But it is inevitable once we make the firm decision to mindfully take back the control of our own life.

 

 

 

 

What is the nature of the future we are creating? Will we have a place in it?

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Economics, Environment, Innovation, Personal Development, Politics, Science, Spirituality, Unified Field

Oliver and the fishIn case you haven’t become aware, throughout the U.S. and other places in the world, we have been being sprayed from airplanes with metallic nanoparticles for years now.  We breathe them in, they permeate us.  Also, they are toxic, they accelerate forest fires, and they contaminate the soil and water.  Now powerful microwave stations are being set up across the U.S. and other countries (5G). What we know from the study of human brainwave activity is that the potential to affect human brainwave production with external sources of stimulation is very real. We can be induced to be anxious, angry, docile, sleepy, even dead, via external stimulation at varying frequencies. I have worked in this area for years doing neurofeedback and have seen how even a small amount of external stimulation can drive our brainwave production up or down the frequency spectrum.

By turning us into even more sensitive walking antennas through infusing us with fine metallic particles, the potential to be able to externally affect us with microwaves increases. Does anyone think this is being done with the intention, the plan, to somehow make us healthier and happier?

There are people, rich and politically influential people, who want to see us gone from the face of the Earth.  This is not some hidden agenda, it is written and there for all to see, if one looks.  The Georgia Guidestones, Agenda 21, and other sources reveal this agenda.  They believe there are too many of us. They have collectively hoarded trillions of dollars, built vast underground bunkers, some quite luxurious. Some small cities. What we common folk represent to them are people with needs. Needs they don’t want to have to think about.

The technology, the resources exist for all of us, literally every person on Earth, to have happy healthy lives. But that requires those who have captured the vast majority of worldly resources to want to use them for that purpose.

What is our future going to be?

What we have been doing through hating one another, fearing one another and being willing to abuse one another, is feeding the mean spirit of those who love material wealth more passionately than the spirit of life itself.  

We can turn this horrible pattern of events around.  To do so we must turn to our source, the Universal Creative Spirit, God, and embrace love.  Not a passive, complacent love,  but an active, vital, love.  An active, expressed, caring for life itself.  We must realize it is us who must engage in the nurturing of ourselves and the beautiful planet we call home.  We must lovingly, but firmly, resolutely, expect it from ourselves and from others.   It must be our creed, our guiding motive.  Doing so we all can not only live, but thrive.  We can experience personal development beyond anything we are commonly taught to expect.  Working together, we can heal not only ourselves but our planet.

Or we can continue with the fearful, hateful, short sighted, egoistic, greed-filled, patterns that are tearing our lives and our world apart.  It’s entirely up to us.

 

Postscript:  While the mainstream news media pretty much ignores the dumping of tons of toxic metals onto the U.S. and other countries, some information is making it’s way to the light of day.  Here are some videos which shed more light upon the subject:

Ted Gunderson was the former Director of the F.B.I.’s Los Angeles office, and a couple others. After retiring from the F.B.I., working as a private investigator, he began to discover truths he had never imagined in his career in law enforcement. By all accounts, he was killed for it. There are many videos on YouTube of him reporting his findings. They are shocking, a lot of people will find them difficult or impossible to believe. His videos are indispensable to anyone trying to get a clearer picture of what is going on in the world, and why.  Ted Gunderson on chemtrails.

Documentary:  What in the World Are They Spraying?

A typical bureaucratic response:  Interview in Shasta County.

One of the Most Important Questions Facing Humankind Today

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Environment, Personal Development, Politics, Spirituality, Unified Field

Ripples 1For most of my life, the U.S. has been involved with one war or another.  My young life was very much affected by the Vietnam war.  I remember when it was over.  I thought maybe sanity would have a chance to take hold of the world.  It looked like it might, for a while.  But that was only an illusion afforded me because I had no idea about what was taking place in the private rooms of the power-brokers of the world.  Other plans were being laid.

There were a few involvements here and there, Granada, Lebanon, and others.  However it still looked to me like maybe we (the people of the world) were on our way toward a more harmonious existence.   I do believe that is what the majority of the people in the world, the common people, want.  When the Iron Curtain fell in 1989, that seemed confirmation that a positive trend was indeed happening.  But again, that illusion was only afforded me, and in retrospect a lot of other people, due to ignorance of the plans the rich and powerful had in mind.

As time has gone on and I have learned more about what has precipitated the wars of my lifetime, I have learned the leading cause can be summed up in one word:  greed.  Of course if any country tries to fly the banner of “greed” to enlist the support of the common citizenry, it probably won’t go very far.  Nope.  So other banners have to be flown.  The favorite ones seem to be “freedom”, “ending terrorism”, “human rights”, “democracy”.  Stopping communism from spreading was the rallying cry during the Cold War, but we don’t hear too much about that anymore.  Except connected with the Presidential election cycles.  I think a while back those who have been able to construct an economic matrix which funnels the vast majority of the world’s wealth into their hands, realized two things:

1.  It was/is important to not let the manipulations and inequities of the system being developed to become a mainstream issue.  This means finding/inventing reasons which direct the public’s attention in other directions.  One of the ploys has been to create a faceless entity “the economy” as a peg on which, with little or no grounding in the day to day world of the general population, explanations for financial conditions can be hung.

2.  It is important to keep the attention, the dissatisfaction, of the general public directed toward issues which drive a wedge between different factions.  (And away from the reality of what is happening with the wealth that is being produced.)  Racial, religious, ethnic, gender, along with a few other issues of the moment, have lent themselves well to keeping the public’s eye off of the wholesale looting of entire countries that is going on.  By widely and repeatedly publicizing aspects of these issues on which there is disagreement within factions of the general public, and framing the news coverage in as inflammatory a manner as possible, a great distraction can be achieved.

So here we are, facing a world which is on the brink of a war chasm as deep and dark as any humankind has faced in recorded history.  With the possible exception of the Cuban missile crisis and one or two other events of the Cold War, we have never been this precipitously close to a potentially nuclear war.

The past few decades there has been an underlying, insidious, movement within the worldly “powers-that-be”.  A movement away from organizing principles such as unity, equity, fairness, compassion, kinship, and toward more divisive ones:  individual identity, competitive acquisition;  a winner-take-all ruthlessness that regards others as little more than abstract entities to be used, and/or discarded depending upon the agenda of the moment.

The cultures of the “developed” Western world have had a lot to do with this unfortunate evolution.  One major contributor has been the emphasis on individual wealth, fame, power that has been increasingly pervasive since the post WWII period.  It is interesting that such a development would take place on the heels of a period in which unity, combined effort, and a worldwide recognition of mutual interests, had played such a critical role in preventing the conquest of the world by ruthless, authoritarian powers.

Considering the current world situation, the current values being exercised, it is enough to cause one to wonder who did win WWII?

Right now we, the people of the world, have been lied to about a lot of things for a long time. We have been lied to by governments, industries, religious leaders, even those from medical science and other sciences. We have been so programmed with lies and half-truths, that for any of us to develop a solid understanding of what is going on in the world is a herculean feat.  Yet we get caught up in the storm and fury.  Usually coming from a place of caring about something in the world which we see threatened, we throw our perspectives back and forth at each other.  And our perspectives on world events, even national events, are often based upon the half-truths and lies the “authorities” have shared with us.

What do we want to be the defining value of our world?  Individual aggrandizement or collective well-being?  That seems to be a dichotomy today’s conflicts all revolve around.  It’s not a matter of whether or not to have a one-world-government, a one-world-bank, an economy based in free enterprise, capitalism, or managed as democratic socialism.  It’s not even whether or not to have a democracy or a monarchy.  The question on which everything going on in the world hinges upon is none of these things.

The question which determines how viable any system is or isn’t is, how viable any culture is or isn’t, whether there will or won’t be wars, is this:  how do we, as individuals, regard one another?   

What do we think about one another?  How do we feel toward one another?  How do we treat one another?

You know what we are aren’t hearing from our leaders in governments, industry and even too rarely from the leaders of the world’s religions?  That we are all brothers and sisters and we should be loving one another and treating each other right.  If all of us would do that, if we will turn our backs on all the urgings from all the different sources that we should fear, hate and attack one another, we will be fine.  All of us.   

We have the resources and the knowledge, as never before in recorded history, to do what is beneficial for humankind and this beautiful planet we call home.   All we need is the will to make it so.

It is probably unrealistic to think that everyone, all around the world, can forget about, let go of, all the hateful, fear-mongering propaganda we’ve been being fed for decades.  But unless some of us do, unless enough of us do, the future does not look bright for humankind.

A beautiful aspect of this reality is that it doesn’t take a college degree, it doesn’t even take a high school diploma, for us to know how to treat each other right.  All it takes is for us to first be honest with ourselves about how we would truly want to be treated in any given situation, and then working to treat others in that manner.  To have empathy.

One key, which is absolutely essential to this effort, is for us to know the answers we accept, for how we want to be treated and then how we intend to treat others, are based in love.  If they aren’t based in love, they’re based in a falsehood.  

 

We Can Heal Our World

by kendunning, posted in Building our future., Community, Economics, Environment, Fixing our Culture, Healthcare, Mental Health, Personal Development, Politics, Science, Spirituality, Unified Field

IMG_1010My life from early adulthood has been focused on learning what I can about mental, physical, and spiritual health.   I’ve managed to accumulate time in 5 colleges, earning 3 degrees.  I’ve accumulated countless hours in workshops, seminars, trainings, not to mention all the I’ve time spend reading studies and research reports.  I’ve traveled a good deal, seen a lot of different cultures both within and outside the U.S.  Also, I’ve spent time in 4 different jails and 2 maximum security prisons (one in the U.S., one not).  I’ve spent time with people from all walks of life:  doctors, shamans, people holding high governmental office, engineers, rocket scientists, writers, outlaw bikers, priests and ministers, drug dealers, prostitutes, psychologists, veterans and draft dodgers, bankers and bank robbers, persons inside the intelligence community and the mob.  Hippies (I’ve experimented with many psychoactive substances), wealthy “straights”, a lot of musicians, the homeless and some with multiple residences, murderers, artists, bartenders, hermits, socialites, social workers, nurses, people from every race, sexual orientation and religion.  At one time I have sat across the table from and had a conversation with a cannibal (we weren’t having dinner).  I could go on, but even I am getting weary of the list.

Where I am going with this is:  all of these people, all of them, are much more alike than dissimilar.  

This is our reality.  We are all so similar; it’s like we’re all from the same, very large, family.  This being true, how have human actions and interactions gotten so fucked up?  You would think after all those experiences I might have encountered some answers.  And I have.  Why do we so often mistreat each other and destroy what we need?  The reasons all come back to something one of the shaman I spent time with shared with me:  “All sickness is sickness of the mind.”  I know, what about germs:  bacteria, viruses, parasites, etc.?  Yes all those things exist and all of those things, and more, can and do affect us.  Yet, when we track it all down to the least common denominator, to the source that saints and prophets, spiritual leaders have been informing us about for centuries, and which quantum physics is now confirming, the instruction I was given by the shaman back in the early 1970’s is absolutely correct:  “All sickness is sickness of the mind.”  As a matter of fact, what is becoming increasingly clear, is that all that is, is of the mind.  But for now, for this post, I’m going to try to stick to sickness, and health.

It took me a surprisingly long time to realize that the inverse is also true:  All health is health of the mind.  Now, that is something to weigh into.

That includes your or my personal sickness or health, our families’ sickness or health, and up to and including the sickness or health of cities, nations, and the world.  Whatever the case may be, the origins of it are in our minds.  Does this mean that all the doctors should just send their patients home with prescription that says:  “Think Healthy”?  No, although positive, healthful thinking is never going to hurt the situation.  Our reality is a little more complex than that, our minds are more complex than that.  But on the most profound and inclusive level of our being, it is that simple.  We get to decide a lot about how things are going, both within our personal body and, collectively, within the body of humankind.

Let’s heal our world!  There are three criteria necessary for us to heal our world.  That’s all.  With these three criteria met, we can build a world which can be a nurturing, supportive, exciting, wondrous home for all of humankind.  And a much more hospitable world for all other living beings, and species, upon this planet we call home.

These three criteria are:

  1.  The Resources Needed to Create and Sustain It.  In spite of all the doomsaying about depleted and disappearing resources, we have enough to handle the population of the world, and then some.   Our problems have never been about insufficient resources, not on a planetary scale.  Our problems in this area have all stemmed from our management, or mismanagement, of what we have.  For one thing, we have allowed various resources to become like pieces on a game board for certain players to capture and hoard.  This is a horribly dysfunctional manner in which to manage the precious resources of our planet.  Another horrible aspect of our mismanagement to date is the quantity of resources we have allowed to become unusable due to our too often  cavalier regard of them.  This includes polluting our precious natural resources in the name of monetary profit.
  2.  The Knowledge to Engineer the Reality.  There also is no deficit in the knowledge needed to heal our world.  Again, not on a planetary scale.  Today, too often the most potentially beneficial innovations and inventions are often shoved into a closet.  Effective treatments and cures for illnesses, which aren’t the potential money makers for those who currently control and monopolize healthcare and pharmaceuticals, are either ignored, suppressed or somehow co-opted.  Realizations about better, more efficient, cleaner energy resources are ignored by those in power in deference to the money being applied by those controlling the archaic, dirty, systems which have managed to monopolize world industries.  If we were to measure the what, when, where, how and why of the resources and methods we employ in our day to day lives by the yardstick of human well-being, we would find we have all the knowledge we need to create and sustain a culture which provides for all of us, with food, housing, education, jobs, medical care, opportunities, and with abundant, exciting wonders to go around.
  3.  The Will to Make it So.  One might think this would be the most readily available of the three criteria.  Who, in their right mind, wouldn’t want a healthy, thriving, prosperous, exciting, wonderful world for themselves, their loved ones, friends and neighbors?  Especially as we’ve already seen centuries of what the alternatives are:  war, death, illness, suffering, hunger, homelessness, hopelessness, depression, stress, anxiety, loneliness, trauma, abusiveness, every plague; physical, mental and spiritual, known to human kind.  We get to take our pick.  The will to make it so is the only criteria which is the stumbling block right now.  Are we going to opt for the sickness or the health of it all?  

It is easy for anyone to look at these three brief descriptions of the criteria needed to heal the world and think:  but that’s not enough details.  We need more details!  The reality is that all the needed details are readily available.  All it takes is looking to find them.  Articles, videos, books, information detailing innovations which provide all the materials, engineering, health related and sociological knowledge needed to heal our world exists.  It is waiting for us:  online, or in the libraries and, most importantly; the minds of people around the world.  It’s all there, ready to be accessed.

Just to “prime the pump” of awareness a little, start looking at the possibilities available if only we would optimize all the uses of hemp.  Look at the health benefits we would reap if only we would clean up our environment, eat organic food, lower the toxic burden on our bodies.  Imagine the benefits of increased nutrition, education and health care, along with decreased stress.  I’m telling you, it’s all here, now.  All we have to do is want it enough to make achieving it, bringing it into reality, the organizing principle in our thoughts and actions.  If we do that and truly act it out, treat each other how we would genuinely like to be treated, we’re there.  We’re home.

Too idealistic, too utopian?  That’s the sickness which has crept in and set up housekeeping in your mind talking to you.  That kind of thinking has kept humankind involved in all manner of war and other inhumanities for centuries, millennia.  Negativity, egoism, jealousy, envy, greed, self-defeating thoughts, grudges, apathy, depression.  These are a few of the common psycho/emotional stumbling blocks we have to overcome to realize that which is actually our birthright:  a bright, incredible future.

We have a birthright!  The primary reality it is incumbent upon us to understand, to embrace, in order to realize our birthright is this:  we are, all of us, children of the Universal Creative Spirit, the Divine, God.  We are family; we are interrelated and interconnected.  When we learn to treat each other not only with equity, trust and civility but with love, then, as a global community, we will be opening ourselves to the full benefits of the divine and transcendental nature of our being.

I feel it’s important to interject here that a global community and a one-world-government, are not one and the same.  Throughout history diverse people have managed to more than just “get along”.  Very different cultures, races have prospered together.  Today, more than every before in history, people’s lives are made richer, more enjoyable through experiences of other culture’s food, art, music, dance, science, medicine and more.  We don’t need a one-world government, but we do need people from around to world to share a few basic values.  Such as mutual respect, honesty, fairness.

This moment in history, when the world is “smaller” due to advancements in communication and transportation, and when the world is more vulnerable than ever due to the destructive potential of modern weapons of war, learning how to co-exist, to live in harmony is more imperative than ever.  If all people would adopt a few basic, user-friendly values, we could all enjoy our diverse cultures, experiences, and do so in harmony, rather than in conflict.  It is so logical, so available:  all we have to do is desire it, will it, then act in our own best interests.