Note 34 - Musing on love - familial and unconditional - My Operational Choices aka Core Values

 i think i don't understand the concept of familial love because, if love is supposed to be unconditional, and people who are family pull away from you or offer you anger/resentment/upset without ever really empathizing with your point of view, then - to me - the translation of that is they don't unconditionally love you. And if there is love that is -not- unconditional, that means it can get taken away. So if they pull away, and you never get anything that feels like it matches that energetic frequency again...yes, you can understand logically that they love you, but the energetic sensation doesn't feel 'right'. It doesn't feel like unconditional love, because it's buried under layers of their own hurts and pains, so isn't translating properly. Assuming they aren't being -intentionally- malicious. 

For those that have been intentionally malicious, my money is on that they - at some point in their life, whether consciously or unconsciously - made the choice that the world is operated by fear-based rules. I don't disagree with the fact that their 'choice' exists. I've seen and experienced awful things as a result of unconscious choices.

The 'trick' is becoming self-aware of your patterns and behaviors. Once you start seeing the pattern, you can start making different choices. It changes how you think about things. It changes how you see different situations. The more you practice seeing patterns, the better you get at seeing the choices available. 

I've had a hell of a time seeing my own patterns. It's taken a -lot- of sitting and thinking. And there has been a LOT of denial, because some of the behaviors seemed so...innocuous. And not necessarily because they were small actions, but because, in my eyes, they seemed helpful and loving. It's hard to acknowledge that I've probably caused pain in my effort to offer and/or give help from a place of love.

It's been awful, watching people in my life constantly exit. But at least now I can get why they do and, even better, not beat myself up so damn hard because of it. I have been kicking myself for shit for years, and... I don't need to. At the same time? I don't need to be pissed at -them- either, and I can see how that anger and defensiveness in my reactions to their behavior caused an isolation effect. 

Because I either pulled away from them - not wanting to socialize or communicate because I simply wasn't enjoying how it felt to me - or they pulled away from me, because of the same exact reasoning. And neither side reaching out to try to understand the other side because of the pain.

I remember a few times I did try reaching out, to try to understand. Whether to the person specifically or through third party methods that I see now are super unreliable due to getting information transferred through yet another, most likely as-skewed-as-mine filter of emotions and label definitions and life experiences. It causes such a distortion between the logical understanding and the energetic understanding, something I have no true scientific proof for yet, but yet feels -completely- accurate to me. Does that mean it is? I have -no- f-ing idea lol. I would like it to be, but that doesn't make it proven yet.

However, I do like that idea that physicists have already verified with the double slit light test (I think that was the name of it, not 100% on that). But the idea was that watching the photon of light changed how it behaved. Which sorta means that how we perceive the world changes how it operates in our perception - aka, the beliefs we have sorta shape and guide what we experience.

And...if that's true, why not experiment with the idea that you can guide and shape your own reality. I don't know the extents that it goes to or what, exactly, humanity is capable of. There's the theory of multiple dimensions - to the extent that absolutely anything you can think of is a reality -somewhere-, and that only your belief and expectation of that reality as -your- reality decides whether it is so.

Truth? Verifiable? I don't know.

I -do- know that I've used meditation and introspection to successfully control anxiety for....20+ years of my life now. I should probably note, anxiety that was, at one point, to the extent that I would enter catatonic states where my body would simply shut down. I could do nothing but think, blink, and breathe. That...is a -terrifying- experience. Especially when you don't feel like you can control a whole lot in your life as is, which...as it happens, was sorta -why- the anxiety started in the first place, if you think about it lol.

Not super helpful, but -really- brings the problem to a hyper-focused attention, don't you think?

So I got to work on it because...well, it was either work on it or never have -any- semblance of a normal life again. But I get why some people wouldn't agree with me. Not having experienced something like that yourself would make it harder to understand it. Very few people are being consciously malicious, I think.

I think most of us are just operating off hurts and pains that sometimes make it a little harder to offer someone else compassion or understanding in that moment. And, hell, sometimes hard to even -want- to offer them compassion or understanding, because it's something that triggers such an emotional reaction in us that we can sometimes completely fail to see how someone else might be seeing it different from us.

Some topics make me -so- angry, so fast, that I straight refuse to hear a subject at all. 

That's not something I'm proud of. That's something that has hurt people I care about, in ways I wasn't even remotely aware of until now. And I hate that I hurt them. I have never been intentionally malicious.

I don't know that I will ever bother having conversations with all of the people I have systematically alienated myself from over the years. I don't know if I could handle trying to open some of those doors and discovering the person on the other side isn't consciously ready to have that conversation in a compassionate, understanding way and I don't know if I could handle triggering an emotional reaction in them.

It takes a lot, sometimes, for me to be willing to ask someone a question or initiate contact. I have a hard time -not- asking questions to things that are on my mind, which is why I sorta got to the point where I will not actually reach out and talk to someone unless I need to for some reason. So I actively chose not to interact with people to stop myself from asking questions that I wasn't sure I could handle the answer to.

Well, introspection is allowing me the chance to -see- that pattern of mine and personal experimentation is showing me that offering myself -gentleness- instead of a 'what's wrong with you!' lets me then turn around and see that -they're- probably not being consciously malicious either. It's just hurt and pain, and... I don't -have- to go open that door. I can just...unlock it.

I can state my mind, even if only to myself, and be okay with whether that door opens in this physical world or not. I can have the preference that...it'd be nice to feel a sense of familial belonging. It'd be kinda nice to have one or two really close friends that I love to hang with regularly again. And maybe it'd be nice to be able to socialize at gatherings again, without the overwhelming anxiety of 'did I offend them? Am i dressed right to blend in? Do I look okay? do I have to defend my appearance, or my choice of family status, or my choice in hair style, or my choice of not wearing make up, or my choice of ...damn near anything against someone else's opinion of how I -should- be because it's what they think would be better or safer or more fun or more interesting? 

I'm still a little bitter about that... I'm tired of having to defend why I want to be the way I want to be. Why I don't want kids. Why I like comfortable clothes. Why I don't like wearing makeup. I'm tired of people somehow thinking I'm wrong for what I've chosen because they have their own preferences about things and that somehow means -mine- are wrong. That part I'm still emotionally triggered by, and that's me just sitting here typing and thinking.

I'm still trying to offer understanding and compassion towards those I've received that behavior from. And it's not that I don't love -them-, it's that I don't like being treated like that.

That's an important distinction for me. Because -I- have felt completely unloved as a result of being treated like that, and turn around and remove every option to be shown different but, just like me, it might not mean they don't -love- me, just that they're operating through their own hurts and pains also. And I don't have to be angry and hard on -myself- for pushing them away so hard. It's just... we -both- had hurts and pains, and we both deserve some compassion and understanding.

What about those who are consciously malicious? Who know that what they're doing is hurting someone else?

I question that, to be honest. 

I'm not saying people don't make those choices. There have been deliberate murders and all this sort of thing, yes. I think that comes from a choice - made consciously or not, at some point in their life - that fear rules the world. 

I don't believe it does.

But I don't necessarily think that love rules the world either. 

I believe that neutrality rules the world. The laws that govern our physics are entirely neutral. Which, to me, given everything else so far - including the double slit light experiment - ends up meaning that we get to choose.

If we believe and expect, that's what comes about. Regardless of which direction.

There's a quote attributed to Albert Einstein that says the most important question you can ever answer for yourself is - do you live in a loving universe or not? And, for what research I've done, I can find nothing that verifies he said that. However, for me, it's not about -who- said it so much as the words themselves. 

I take it as proof, but that's because of my own personal, physical experiments within my own life. I can relax my control of my meditation practices, and let my beliefs slide to another skew and, wah-lah, the health issues I had, the ones I recognize as going into a full blown seizure again, start to come back. Not a fun experiment to run, mind you, but one that showed me, very very clearly, that my beliefs absolutely affect the way my body operates.

And, I am adamant about the belief that if it does not work in both the micro and the macro, then it can't really be a fundamental law of physics. So, I explore and I experiment, and I find that when I let my beliefs slide towards compassion and understanding, to the extent that I offer -myself- the same level of love I'm told I'm supposed to offer others - and get to a point where I can balance myself and be understanding, compassionate to -both- them and me at the same time... My relationship stabilizes and the fighting stops. We start to understand each other more. 

And then things start to go back to how they used to be. Why/ Because -I- let my balance slip and start to be influenced by old expectations and the world around me starting to reflect to me what I'm believing and expecting. And so I get frustrated and angry at the reflection...which is triggering an emotional reaction...which I then beat up on myself for having.

Vicious cycle, yea? I'm done trying to be intentionally malicious to myself...

I'm done beating myself up because it feels to me like other people think I should feel guilty for not reaching out more. I've heard it from some people, that hurt and pain in their voice that I don't call or reach out at all. But that doesn't necessarily mean I did it intentionally and I don't have to beat myself up for it. And I hope they don't either. I hope they don't think ill of me, -and- I hope they don't think ill of themselves. Because I've heard that, too.

The pain caused by hearing how I felt about something for years, and me not understanding why it might've -caused- pain to hear that. So many things done that can cause pain. We hurt those closest to us the most, usually without even being aware of it and often even regardless of how hard we try not to. Sometimes that just makes it worse. 

I may not pull a 180 and start to reach back out. But maybe I don't have to pull away anymore. Maybe I don't have to try to give so much of myself, to put my heart out so far that, when someone else is acting from their own hurt and pain, it doesn't have to hurt me and trigger resentment and isolating behavior. I like the idea of there being a really comfortable middle ground - where I can see where their behavior is coming from and not take it personally anymore.

Some subjects are easier than others, but it's nice to be able to see the patterns and mark the progress as I experiment with my life. And... I'm enjoying this experiment, now that I'm recognizing I can skew this belief. A lot more clarity has been coming through because of it. 

I can see a parallel with Vedic astrology and the tarot readings and the intuitive knowledge I've been picking up. This clarity may well diminish (or disappear) for a while before too long here. It might get buried and forgotten for a bit, at worst, but it's nice that I've had a chance to see it and mark it.

Love exists on many levels. I believe the only 'true' love is unconditional love. 

With all things being energy - something strongly supported by science and personal experimentation - it makes sense for that most important question to ask myself, to answer for myself, would be whether or not I'm living in a loving universe. Not because that magically makes the universe a loving place.

The universe doesn't suddenly become a loving, wonderful place. no. It opens up other options. other choices. other paths.

Ones that can't be seen when I'm so busy focused on fear, or anger, or injustice.

Those things absolutely exist in this world. It becomes more about 'what do you want to experience'? 

It'd be wonderful, in my opinion, if things like hate crimes no longer existed. It'd be amazing if things like human trafficking, sexual slavery, and every gawd-awful torturous thing that takes away another person's autonomy didn't exist anymore.

I'd love to live in a world were everyone experienced, at all times, their free will.

Oh... Hey. We do.

It's just a matter of understanding how our emotions color the filters we have on the world...

So, introspection, and coming to a place of self-love while maintaining compassion for others makes a huge difference. 

Buddhism talks about 'the middle way'. Not being so pulled by anger or unpleasant emotions, AS WELL AS not being so pulled by love, joy, pleasant emotions. The idea isn't to lack compassion and understanding. it's to see the choices ahead of you so that you can choose the one that makes both sides feel understood, and heard, and loved because, we're all one. And to hurt another is to hurt yourself.

Namaste, right? I see the divine in you? I love studying the ancient religions. Newer religions are interesting, but the older the religion, the more interesting to me. I like seeing what their perspective on the world was. How they thought to operate within the world. The old pagan traditions are fascinating. Ancient traditions - Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity (I think maybe the youngest of the 3 listed here, but I'm not 100% on that)... They all have a similar message under them. 

It's all compassion and understanding. Both giving and receiving it. 

I think everyone, on some level, just wants to be understood and shown they're not a bad person. I think some have pushed so far away from that, that it can flip into the reverse, where they'll act in ways to repel that desire.

I think, at the extreme, it causes people to willfully choose violence. I've watched friends go into the military and come back out ...different.

I think there's a brainwashing of sorts that has to go into making people be able to survive combat. I deeply appreciate those who enlist because of their desire to serve and defend. I've watched a lot of people who enlisted because they didn't know what else to do. I watched at least two close friends, both males, come back after boot camp...not the person that went in. 

Those friends were gentle souls. When they got out they were hard. Bitter. I have family members who are proud veterans. Or were, since not all of them are alive anymore as of writing this. I deeply appreciate their service. And I admire their fierce dedication.

I also remember how those friends, and at least 1 of those family members were before. And I mourn the loss of them still. Because the person that came back had a whole new set of filters, and those filters look like they hurt them every single day.

And I can't help, because they've chosen, either unconsciously or not, whether they've been brainwashed or hold tight to that conscious belief that the world is a hard, awful, evil, hate-filled place, it's their choice. Their free will. And I can't hold it against them, but just love them and appreciate them.

I respect those that serve. The pain they put themselves through. I also acknowledge that I can only see it through my own filter. They might feel completely different, and... I have no understanding of that. I'm trying. I understand it logically, but I still have a hard time being around it. 

I'm winding in circles and I can't remember why. I do think the laws of physics are neutral, though. I also think that, as a result, we get to choose how we implement them. 

My operational choices are compassion, understanding and autonomy. Both giving and receiving. I'm choosing those values as my compass. I'm not perfect at it by any means, but the more introspection and meditation I do, the better I get at seeing my patterns. The better I get at seeing my patterns, the easier it becomes to make a different choice.

Those choices determine the path you take. That is how you choose your own reality. That is my belief, and the results that I've been cementing more and more with my own personal life experiments.