We live in a paradigm that believes that there are good people and bad people. Everyone feels this pressure at some level: not wanting to be found out as one of those bad people. But truth has many sides. Nothing and no-one is all one or the other.
Hate is not a sexy word. People really don’t want to hear about it. When speaking to groups of people around the country, I often say, “I want you to get the level where you come face to face with your own hate.” Audiences just cringe. They say, “Oh, well, maybe I don’t feel that good about myself, but I don’t have a problem with hate.”
Then I ask, “How many of you embrace your mean self, or your inconsiderate self, or your rude self, or your selfish self? And how many want to get rid of those parts?” People begin to see that they hate those parts of themselves. But if you hate anything, you hate everything. We are the world, we’re a microcosm of the macrocosm, and hate is a pressing global issue. We have to deal with hate both internally and externally, because not only are we promoting hate unconsciously, but hate is why we don’t take care of our families and why our educational system, by and large, is in such a sad state.
If we have an internal shift and learn that it’s okay to take care of ourselves, then we will start taking better care of our world.
The process of becoming whole and embracing the totality begins when we stop hating. It is so important that we stop the internal violence that is hate. And the process must begin internally. People hate themselves for not taking care of themselves, for not making their own unique contribution, for not being the greatest expression of who they are. But they don’t know what to do with that hate. In most cases, they don’t even know that it is hate, so they project it out into the world.
If we can’t see the dark side we cannot harness the power it holds because we displace it with our denial.
Denial is rooted in our struggle to be one of the good people. Projection and displacement of our own misbehavior adds to the toxicity of the emotional body. We cannot release what we cannot acknowledge exists. So the first step in emotional detoxing is recognition of the dark. This self-recognition, combined with the larger recognition of the entire range of programming called “human,” is a prerequisite to being able to release patterns we have held onto.
This is an internal process. Once we shift internally, we can begin to ask questions that further our social evolution. We can dip into the collective unconscious where all the answers lie. All the answers are within us.
Compassion is the key. Compassion includes tolerance of our humanity, and acceptance of what is inside us—both the dark and the light. Learning to forgive ourselves, to be conscious, aware and gentle with ourselves is vital. If we do that internally we will do it externally as well.
Fortunately or unfortunately, pain is a great motivator. More than anything else, pain makes people wake up and open their eyes. When we are comfortable, we don’t make changes, look for new answers, or invent new solutions. Pain can also signal the need to embrace a larger perspective: to know that our perceptions aren’t the only true perceptions. Imagine if we started teaching children in kindergarten that there is no hard and fast reality. Imagine teaching them the nature of both perception and perspective—how these shape our view of reality.
What if, instead of teaching our children to be “right” and “good,” we taught them that everybody has a different reality and just because your reality is different from mine doesn’t mean that your reality is wrong, it just means that it’s different. Teaching just one course—about shifting our perceptions and looking at different perspectives—each school year, would create a whole new human race. It would produce miracles.
Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Debbie Ford
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