Critical Thinking: Does The Establishment Mobilize Collective Toxic Shame?

If someone was to think about the main thing that the mainstream media was focusing on at the turn of the century, they could think about terrorism. What could also come to mind is how much of a focus there was on the Middle East.

Further, it could occur to them that thanks to what this source said and focused on, a lot of people developed a very negative view of those who lived in this part of the world, were from there or who had ancestors who lived there at one point in time. Quite simply, it was normal for some people to put everyone who looked a certain way into a box.

The Enemy

What a few people had done ended up being attached to the people who simply had a similar look. Once this had taken place, someone could treat someone badly who looked a certain way and believe that they were doing the right thing.

To use a very basic example, this is like being bitten by a rabbit, or seeing someone else being bitten by one, and then believing that all rabbits are bad. Someone’s mind, coming from a place of black and white thinking, would have prevented them from being able to think rationally.

A New Target

As the years went by, this source of information had a new enemy to focus on - men. In the same way that the actions of a few were attached to all of the people who looked a certain way, men were seen as the problem.

Corporations also got involved, with ‘Toxic Masculinity’ being seen as something that needed to be dealt with. It wasn’t that toxic masculinity was something that both men and women could embody, as this is an energy/aspect that both genders embody, it was only something that men have.

Out of Balance

The fact is that the western world as a whole is very masculine, being very much about the doing not the being, so how could men be the only gender that could possess ‘toxic masculinity’? A healthy way of looking at it would have been to say that as with the wounded feminine, there are parts of the wounded masculine that are destructive but that masculinity as a whole is not toxic.

What added more weight to the view that it was an attack on men as a whole was that very little was mentioned about ‘toxic femininity’. Something that led to the black and white view that men were bad and women were good.

Disharmony

As with the first example, putting all men into a box caused a lot of harm. If the intention was to actually improve the world and to bring people together, the whole thing was an absolute disaster.

But, if the main purpose of this was to create more ill-feeling and division between men and women, it certainly did the job. Still, it wouldn’t be accurate to say that this was what took place in the past as it’s still going on.

Keeping the Salad Tossed

Now, it would be easy to point the finger at the mainstream media, corporations, academia and the entertainment industry, seeing them as the problem. However, what if these sources just tap into what is already contained within the collective field?

The collective field can be seen as an unseen container that holds what is going on for each individual at a conscious and unconscious level. Once something has built up within this field, it will end up needing an outlet.

One Element

Toxic shame, for example, is one of the hardest, if not the hardest, feelings to tolerate. Due to this, it is highly likely that the collective field holds a lot of toxic shame.

Taking this into account, when the mainstream media picks someone or something to demonise, it provides an outlet for this field to express what has been repressed and hidden up until this point. Those who are carrying a lot of toxic shame will then have something ‘out there’ to place the part of themselves that they are unable to acknowledge.

Another Part

This could be seen as the last part, though, as through having this toxic shame held in the collective field, something will have to appear in the external world that mirrors what is going on at this level. Therefore, unless what is taking place at this level is brought up to the surface and dealt with, there will continue to be an external manifestation of this feeling.

The trouble is that as it is so painful to tolerate this feeling/inner experience, it is hard for someone to take responsibility for their own toxic shame and to work through it. Dumping it into others, thereby creating a safe distance between their own is far more appealing.

The Illusion of Separation

What this Illustrates is that although the human ego creates the impression that someone is separate from everyone and everything, and thus what is taking place inside them doesn’t affect their outer world, this is not the truth. Ultimately, one is always having an impact on the outer world, whether they want to or not – they are not purely an observer of reality.

This also means that just because they push something out of their conscious mind, it doesn’t mean that it will have disappeared. Their conscious mind can forget all about something but it will still be in their unconscious mind, and from there, it will influence their reality.

Conclusion

Taking this into account, if someone wants to change the world, it will be a good idea for them to deal with their own inner baggage. Through owning their own stuff, they won’t need to feed into the dramas of the world.
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Instead, they can be the change that they want to see in the world, as opposed to fighting what they don’t want and strengthening it in the process. This is not the easy option; it is far easier to try to change others. 

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Oliver JR Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk