I recently had a dream and in that dream there was a situation where I paid 60 pounds for this diamond shaped stone. I was then told how it would be worth more if I got it valued. So once I had bought it I went to a jeweller to see if it was actually worth more or if I had just been taken for a ride. Once I had got there, I asked how much it might be worth and the guy began to write down, on what looked like a napkin, how much it would be worth. At first it started fairly small, and then he wrote a different price down and gradually it began to rise to the hundreds and at this point a great smile started to appear on my face. All of the thoughts that I had about being duped had long disappeared from my mind. And each time the value went up, I asked if that was really how much it was worth with the enthusiasm of a child and he smiled and continued to raise the price of the diamond shaped stone. During the last moments of the dream, I can remember that the amount he was writing went into the millions. It just went up and up. As I reflect on what this dream was all about, it occurs to me that this is a metaphor for our own innate worth, and is a reflection of what our value truly is – limitless. We have all picked up the baggage of life, no matter how young or how old we are, that has tainted our true worth and given us a distorted perception of who we truly are. And whether this began as a child, with our parents pointing out what they thought wasn’t right about us and how we should be like our siblings or someone else’s child and matching up to everyone else during our school years. And then slightly later in life our relationships at work, with friends and our intimate relationships, we can have the same experiences of not being good enough. We also have the constant views of society and the media showing us images of what perfection is. It is easy to see that if we are told something enough we can begin to believe that it is true, and from these powerful imprinting experiences in our life we can carry this sense of not being good enough, that can influence and sabotage every area of our life. With are success, relationships, confidence, health and how attractive we see ourselves also being affected by these perceptions. And through all of the conditioning we have received, it can make it extremely difficult to observe ourselves and detach, so that we can start to question what was actually going on in these moments and if any of it was actually true. However, with reality mirroring back to us what we believe about ourselves, it can become almost impossible to see and experience that what we have been told is not the true. It can feel incredibly overwhelming and can lead to us creating a self perpetuating prison. I would say that these moments of being told that we are not enough by others, is just a projection of how they see themselves and the result of unconscious behaviour and not that people are consciously malicious. With them having experienced the same treatment and not having questioned the validity of it, they have become and continue to be the very example of what they despise. And the pattern of unconscious behaviour continues, very often from generation to generation. Through the process of removing the images we have about reality and about who we are and how much we are worth, we will begin to see that inherently there is nothing wrong with who we are. And that the person we have been told we should be has no real significance or meaning to us. This then gives us the opportunity to get in touch with our own unique gifts and value. As it becomes easier for us to be authentic, the need to plan how we are going to be or what we are going to say starts to diminish and allows us to speak our own truth, which enables us to be who we really are. And being ourselves is so much easier than living a life of imitation. A by-product of this is that we will find that the images the media shows us of what perfection is will no longer have the power to control how we feel and how we see ourselves. And Instead of comparing ourselves to others we will be able to recognise the gifts of others without feeling threatened by their greatness. I feel that we all have something incredibly precious to offer the world, no matter what we have been told by others. And by not expressing ourselves, not only are we hiding our gifts from the world, we are also depriving the world of our gifts. If you feel this has been of value, please leave a comment, like or get in touch. And feel free to share this article. Oliver J R Cooper http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk/
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It occurred to me how running is a great metaphor when it comes to the journey of removing the images and projections we have of reality and seeing reality for what it truly is. Something that can also seem to be, two steps forward and one step back at times. When we first start running it can be a real struggle and strain and it can even be so extreme that we feel like we’re going to pass out. However by continuing to push ourselves we will soon find that we can run for a certain distance without feeling too overwhelmed. And once we have proven to ourselves that the distance we have been running is not to hard after all and our body has adapted to the pressures, we will feel that it’s time to go that little bit further. As although previously we felt comfortable and at ease for most of the distance, now that we are going further it feels as though we are starting all over again, but fortunately we can see that we are actually going further than before and that it’s not that our fitness levels have regressed to an earlier stage. And from our own experience of running, we can see how this process never ends. However our own ever evolving evolution of who we are is not always as linear as running or as easy to measure. And it can often feel as though parts of our life are actually getting worse. This is especially common in the early stages of our journey when we are just beginning to become conscious and aware of ourselves. As depending on how old we are, we can see that during those years, there has been certain of amount of repression and quite naturally now that our attention is being placed on those areas it can seem overwhelming and a lot to take in. But just like the running that is initially hard at first, it gets easier and more manageable. From my experience of this once we are on the path, we won’t be getting of it, due to realising our own responsibility and the incredible power we have. And I also believe once we have experienced truth, our own capacity to live in denial will gradually start to diminish and become unbearable. And there will also be times when we will be able to see our achievements and to see how far we have come, only for something to appear out of nowhere and take us off guard and make us question our own development. However it is during these great challenges that our next level of growth awaits us with the opportunity of greater levels of self discovery and fulfilment. I also can see how important it is to have mentors in our life that can assist us and allow us to grow and develop through their own experiences and presence. As well as being able to assist us during moments when it can all get a bit much for us. I also feel it is extremely important to compare ourselves with ourselves, as ultimately no one is the same or has the same journey. And all the time we are comparing ourselves with others, we will never truly be able to measure our own progress. It will only create a sense of failure at our own achievements. With it being highly important for us recognise and acknowledge these changes, as no matter how small or insignificant they may seem at the time, they are part of a bigger picture that will continue to expand and grow. With it being so easy to be hard and judgmental to ourselves, we can often forget that we are doing the best that we can in each moment. If you feel this has been of value, please leave a comment, like or get in touch. And feel free to share this article. Oliver J R Cooper http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk/ I have recently reflected on my own tendency to have felt happy only when I felt unhappy. And I sensed that, even when everything was going fine and I could see that I was achieving my goals, there was often a sense of unhappiness within me. By observing my own emotional and cognitive processes it brought to my attention what could have led to some of the reasons why this was happening. As although I have revealed a part of myself here, I think this is an area that is common today. Before I go into my empirical understandings of what is happening at the causal level, I will talk about the effects. Whether the unhappiness is expressed through peoples addiction to the media, that is full of negativity and disempowering content, we have also heard the saying ‘no news is good news’. Or in a person’s need for attention and to be validated for a situation in their life when they felt victimised, and don’t feel ready to move on. We can also feel a tremendous amount of power by feeling down, as strange as it sounds. This can be due to us feeling as though in our current perceived reality that there is no other way for us to have our needs met. So as destructive as the situations are that we are creating, to us that might feel like the only possibility. This occurrence is known as secondary gain. How I see secondary gain is that during our childhood we associate what is going on as being safe for us, no matter how functional or dysfunctional to ourselves it is. And then as we get older we continue to attract the same situations into our life, as to our ego mind, they are familiar and therefore safe. At first glance this doesn’t make any logical sense. However when we are younger we don’t possess the cognitive awareness or ability to be discerning. With the benefit usually being at an unconscious level, as we become more conscious aware of ourselves we can start to see that there is another way to get our needs met. And I feel that the medical profession shoulder a lot of the pressure for us. With a doctor’s role being of far greater importance than prescribing drugs for us, the role they play is akin to a therapist, someone who will understand and listen to us without judgement. And we can all relate to the fact that having someone who will listen to us being an extremely rare phenomenon. There is also the area of friends who only seem to appear be there when things are not going well or when we feel off course. And certain foods seem so much more appealing to us when we feel under the weather. Another part, perhaps the most important one of them all, is in our need to be approved of and accepted. With every one having heard the line your friends will be there when you’re down, there is also another side to it, of your friends will be there for you when you’re up. So when it comes to feeling happy and successful, this could lead us to feeling as though we will separate ourselves from our friends and family, and sabotage ourselves to avoid this perceived reality from manifesting. I think the true of it is that the people who truly love and appreciate us will support us during the good and the bad times. A number of examples come to my attention, when I think about what these causes could be that can create such conflict in our later years. During our childhood we might have only felt as though we received love during our tantrums or times of great sadness and neglect or when we made a scene to our parents or caregivers. What comes to mind is the example the baby who cries’s and then receives attention from their mother. There might have also been a very repressive and cold nature during the younger years, that due to their own pain didn’t want to see their children happy or expressing any kind of vibrancy and forced the child to conform to their perception of the world. Now, I don’t believe that anyone does anything harmful while they are conscious. I believe our parents are ultimately doing the best that they can and if they create harm, it is due to their own wounds being acted out. This is while I feel it is so important to constantly become more conscious and to heal our pain, not only to love and appreciate ourselves, but through loving ourselves we respond the same way to other people and to our environment. I think as badly as we are treating our environment, we are ultimately doing more harm to ourselves, and our environment is just an extension of that pain. My perspective is that happiness comes from following our own truth, which will cause us to feel empowered, free and connected to others. And what we do will not only offer value and make a difference to ourselves, but to the world as a whole.
I was thinking the other night while I was getting to sleep, how being on one of those flat elevators at the airport is a great metaphor for describing how friends come and go in our life. While we are on them some people stay at the same speed as us, going only as fast as the elevator takes them, others might stay at our speed momentarily and then move and others are in such a rush to get forward as fast as is possible for them. To me friends are like this in many ways. I believe we can have connections with the same people throughout our whole life, a friend who will continue to be in resonance with us, although their path won’t be the same, they will continue to be around us in some form. Then we can meet people who are only in our life for what seems like one moment, and then often to great sadness we will not see them again. However, when we are at an airport we are there for a purpose and have to follow strict times or we will miss our flight. We are not there looking for something to do and stand around. At times we can feel the need to hold onto our friends, through our memory’s with them and the sense of safety and belonging they bring to our life. However just like being on the elevator there comes a time when some of the people on there will have to go their separate ways. We have all heard of the saying old friends are the best friends, when I reflect on this view I can see that this is not always the case and could be described as a half truth. I think the people we see as friends are the ones we have a real connection with, regardless of whether we have known them for a month or many years, and we will know in our heart who those people are. As in many ways I believe that very often friends are people who validate each other on some level and if there comes a time when one of them changes their views radically or even slightly this could lead to a gradual or sudden distancing between friends. Especially, if one of the friends feels threatened by the changes being made and doesn’t want to change themselves. Or maybe it’s just a case of its time to let go and move on and appreciate the time you have had together. ''Friends are a gift and not a right'' – Oliver Cooper My conclusion to this would be that people come and go from our life, each offering us the chance to grow and to heal our wounds. And that the people who are right for us will always appear at the right time in our lives. If you feel this has been of value, please leave a comment, like or get in touch. And feel free to share this article. Oliver J R Cooper http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk/ This is another of the defence mechanism that all of the others could be said to come under. Any one of the myriad of Defence mechanism comes under the purpose of escaping our current sense of dissonance, with the aim of removing the uncertainty and into a more familiar (safer) place, regardless of how functional to us this is. With the main two aims of the ego mind said to be, in order of importance, the need to be right and to keep us safe. My perspective is that the need to be right comes down to us needing to trust ourselves, as if we are wrong that could lead to our own death. However, it is easy to see how the need to be right can also have different consequences when it comes to day to day life. Through are living conditions being extremely different to how they once were, these old ways of acting can lead to inappropriate actions in today’s world. When unpleasant consequences occur in our life we believe that via the use of escapism we can leave our stressors behind. And this is usually done by allowing our attention to be consumed by other stimulus, with the objective being for us to forget what is actually going on. If we reflect on this understanding for a moment we can see how important this is for functioning in the world. What leads to dysfunctional consequences is the accumulation of these events and through that, the build up of inner conflict and tension. And this then creates external consequences that make us feel powerless. And then we can create a life that is just our history repeating itself, over and over again. My perspective is that our effort is put into these escapes, not only as a way to avoid pain, but what is also going on, is that we are also looking to somehow find a way of claiming our natural state of aliveness. The parts of ourselves that we are trying to escape from could be described as our shadow, as no matter where we go or how fast we go, it is also there until we face ourselves. The use of alcohol, drugs, overeating, and other things, are a way for us to feel this sense of aliveness again, and as much as these things are label as the ‘problem’, ultimately they are neutral. With what really needs to be asked is ‘why’ these things are being consumed in such high amounts in the first place. As my outlook is, as long as we judge these things as bad or wrong, we are missing and ignoring the real issues that need to be looked at. My perspective is that although the use of these can be prohibited, another problem will appear unless we look at what’s really going on. If you feel this has been of value, please leave a comment, like or get in touch. And feel free to share this article. Oliver J R Cooper http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk/ |
Oliver JR CooperAuthor of 26 books, Transformational Writer, Teacher & Consultant. Introductory Consultation
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Disclaimer
That which is contained within these articles is based on my own empirical understanding and is true for me at the time they were written. However, as I continue to grow, what I perceive as the truth will inevitably change and as a result of this - parts of these articles may not reflect my current outlook.
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