What Are Your Programmed Defaults?

Recently, I have had the idea of “default” floating about in my mind in relation to our attitudes, mindset, feelings, self-talk, and more…

Borrowing from computer science, “default” refers to: “a selection to be made automatically according to a computer program when the user does not specify a choice.” … this gets closer to the meaning I have been seeing in my own personal dynamics.

Did you ever find yourself in a kind of funky space which is usually accompanied with an endless string of self-talk that is critical, negative, and often filled with fear, doubt, shame, despair?

I would like to suggest that for some of us, this is the personality default or the natural egoic mind state into which we lapse unless we are focusing our awareness elsewhere. Perhaps it is also a picture of a natural human condition or angst which is simply part of being. It has been said that our condition and life is what we make it. Which is certainly true to at least some degree. Yet, unless we make choices about where our attention and awareness is focused, it will automatically default to a set of baseline personality parameters.

Of course, this baseline can be different for each person, based on their life experiences from conception onward.

It seems at a very basic level, we are beings of pure awareness and will.

We can be aware that we are aware.

We can make choices and act, react, and respond to the situation in which we find ourselves.

It seems to be a worthwhile exercise to sit and watch the egoic mind present the self-talk. This can provide us with insight and awareness about out individualized baseline or “default” programmed settings. These settings are in the deepest aspects of our conscious and unconscious dimensions of mind and exist within our psyche and cellular memories.

We often simply distract ourselves from these baseline default ‘settings’ though various activities, forms of entertainment, and of course, food, sex, drugs, and work… to name some of the most common ones… I’m sure you could add a few more specifics to the list from what you observe within yourself and others…

Many people simply live their lives, or so it seems, rather unconsciously controlled by these default settings which include early experiences and indoctrination into the familial and cultural milieu… aided of course by positive and negative energies and interactions with others.

The unexamined life can provide a sense of stability and also closed mindedness that leads easily to prejudices, biases, and wrong-right either-or thinking.

We cannot really change others, yet perhaps we can help break the unconscious cycles by providing a safe space for others to expand, grow, create, and explore without judgment or fear. We can influence others perhaps through questions or thoughts. But arguing, fighting, or debating from fixed perspectives and beliefs about ideology and differences usually leads to strengthening differences.

We can make changes most significantly at home… in the recesses of our own awareness, experience, and shadowland. We can shine a light on areas of repressed anger, passive aggressive ways we react, to the old patterns and defaults that lie and lay within our psyche.

We can and often do believe the negative self-talk… and along with others can support it with “evidence” from the past. The egoic mind seems almost devilish in its attempts to keep us powerless and disconnected from a more basic and intrinsic awareness of being… of the Life force and Energy itself.

So, of course, as we are mired in the default settings of negativity, we will look outside ourselves for affirmation, for love, for someone to say we are okay. .We will seek a loving environment of some kind… we may attach to a social group that we feel an affinity with so we do not feel the aloneness that is part of the human condition. We window shop for acceptance and for a soul mate or mates to be with.

In a very basic and scientific and energetic sense, we are never alone. The quantum and holographic nature of existence tends to show us the One interconnected and interacting and ever-changing Essence of Life… Yet in our personal experience we are tricked by our personality into constantly thinking we are separate… individual… apart…  rather than One with all that is…

So, what are your default settings like?

There have been many tricks of the trade within the sciences of psyche, whether it is defined as psychology, spirituality, religion, philosophy, or something else. There are ways to reframe thoughts, think positively, tend dreams, question the beliefs that lead to feeling a certain way, and of course the road that may lead to dependency to find an ‘expert’ … teacher…guide… therapist…to aid in the process of growth, exploration, and re-construction….This can be a useful if the one helping is advanced enough not to foster co-dependency…

Our tendency is to identify with whatever our current experience is… physical discomfort, thoughts, feelings, sensation, visuals… on and on…

It helps me to realize that these contents of consciousness have nothing to do with authentic identity… they are passing experiences and, while they can be quite useful in some ways, they have nothing to do with who we are…

Are we our thoughts? Are we our emotions? Are we our sensations? Are we our body? Are we our hopes, desires, attachments, beliefs, dreams, fears?

We have all these things as part of our experience of life, and they are not who we are in my experience at least.

So, who am I? Who are we?

These are questions that are basic and must be explored in a Life examined by all...

It is my experience that primarily I am both Being and Choosing… Life breathes through this 3D form someone named “John.” Life is one and I am because Life is and continues to breathe its life energy through this form… The essence of being human is one with Being… pure awareness… somewhat colored by the form it is coming through… like light through a stained glass window… I am awareness…consciousness…. And I have a will …a choosing mechanism… the ability to respond, act, serve… The unexamined life usually is simply reacting based upon personal preferences, the defaults of personality beliefs and desires…

So, when the mini or major shadows of life surround us, it seems a good time to explore the what is… what are the defaults of my psyche…my personality structure… telling me… and as we find awareness, we also may be granted an empowering spirit called Life to choose how we will respond.

May Life grant us grace in unleashing and cleansing the old defaults so we may live if the freedom of Life Mysterious Now…

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John Hutchinson - November 27, 2013
Sundance Center fro Conscious Living
www.sunhutch.com ~ john@sunhutch.com

The Blinking Cursor...

The blinking cursor shows me where I am on the page.

It signifies the Nowness of Now.

It alerts me that I am here, Now.

As the symbols and concepts enter the page, the Now-point indicator moves onward.

So it is in Life.

Once we create a concept or express ourselves trying to capture a moment, the moment is gone.

It seems that all teachings and worldviews are part of ego’s content past on by previous expressions of consciousness.

They are rooted in some experience in the past.

When we accept or identify with those concepts that become beliefs and worldviews, we crucify the reality of Now and rob ourselves of discovery of the Presence of Now.

Christians base their beliefs on what is suggested was the experience and teachings of a man from Nazareth. He seemed to have a direct experience of the fullness of Life… of the spirit of Life Energy. He has had quite an influence on the lives of others. Egoic structures have tried to capture that experience in institutions and teachings. While these teachings may point to that which is beyond the words and symbols, an identity and dependence on the experience of others is never the real thing it seems. The need of ego for identifying and attaching to ideas and things and people and anything is neither right nor wrong, rather a simple truth about the dynamics and workings of our human psyche. Once we become identified with thoughts within the natural working of the egoic mind, we will then most likely interpret and filter our experience through that particular world view, be it collective or personal mindset. A set mind is an egoic mind.

Buddhists and any other defined set of teaching may find the same dynamics to be true. The experience of the Buddha is interpreted in the teachings and the concepts can keep us egoically grounded in mental routine.

It seems the most practical approaches if the teachings of any spiritual tradition are to succeed in their goal is to provide others with the process and practical procedures and techniques to the experience. Breakthroughs in consciousness and expansion of consciousness occur in an infinite number of ways. Practice and ‘theory’ are both helpful at various levels. Identification with any one method can be an egoic trap.

Perhaps the most accurate guidance I have found in my experience is that the answers are found within… in our personal process and an awareness of our consciousness outside the contents of the mind.

We can read the teachers of religion and philosophy to see what their experience taught them in their day. And we must also see how those words are verified or not within our experiential understanding of Life Energy. For instance, the French philosopher and author, Descartes, considered by some to be the “Father of Modern Philosophy” or perhaps now more accurately stated,”of Rationalism,” has been often quoted for his dictum: “I think, therefore I am.” At one point in our experience, that may have made perfect sense. Yet there seems something quite backward in that pronouncement which places thinking as the penultimate aspect of human existence. In fact, some, myself included, see it as the reverse… “I am, therefore I think.” 

The penultimate in experience has been given the ‘label’: “I am” which signifies the basic experience of being. All else can be seen as content and structural dynamics of the human ego.

And the blinking cursor moves on within the page.

I am reminded that these words only point to this moment of now and are mere concepts that may jog the egoic mind in a particular direction that is in alignment with one person’s experience.

I must say that I have read much of works by eastern and western spiritual teachers, psychologies, and some philosophy. And in all of these there have moments of insight and expansion.

In Psychosynthesis, there is the attempt to bring the theory and practice together, as in many transpersonal schools of psychologies, in ways that focus on discovering our inner process and the expansion of our awareness toward more inclusive and satisfying living. The psychosynthesis approach is to use whatever methods and practices are appropriate for the person seeking guidance, no matter what school or theoretical roots it may have emerged through.

In Jungian studies, there is the useful emphasis that what remains unconscious tends to control us. This points to need for personal growth and awareness through dreamwork association, and collective archetypes.

Guided and spontaneous imagery, along with dreamwork help us to see pictures of the psyche’s dynamics that are somewhat beyond the ego’s structure or control.

And the blinking cursor moves on and brings us again to this moment.

All that I share is with a sense of helping to give us a broad framework or map of the dynamics of Life Energy that points back to this present moment.

When we look at the thoughts that keep us trapped in endless spirals of regret, negativity, guilt, grief and other thought loops that can prevent us from living more fully in the present, we may discover that they are rooted in what has happened in the past. Most of counseling and spiritual healing importantly looks at these areas. It can be important to express what was trapped in our bodies memory banks. And in order to be more present in the now, I have found it is a necessary step to let go of what was…sometimes through releasing its emotional grip, sometimes through forgiveness of self and others, and always involving some sort of acceptance of what ‘was’…our past experiences.  Then we develop strategies to shift our thought processes so when the focus goes back to the past, we can let go again and return to this present moment.

There are many forms of described meditation and practices. Becoming the aware observer of our experience, including sensitivity to the Life Energy within our body in the present moment is a good way that works for me. Usually whenever we are able to pop into the moment of awareness, we somewhat flip the ego projections and smile or laugh at our human experience and how easily our egoic mental gymnastics can control our feelings and thinking and actions.

There is that blinking cursor again… and I am reminded that there is always more… and we are always more than we ‘think’ we are…

One brief word about the future... It’s not now. All that applies to the past applies similarly to focus and identifying with the future. Nothing right or wrong with planning and having goals… it helps move us in a direction… It is best if the captain of our ship is as clear of the memories of the past or fogginess of the future as possible. Fear or Hope can both be distractions from being aware of what is in front of us right Now…

So let the blinking cursor on the writing page be a symbol of staying present and enjoying the depth of Being that we are…

JH, Feb. 10, 2013

 

Note: As always, my experience and conceptualization of that experience is only that... If these words resonate, that is fine. If they do not resonate, simply let them go as you move on in your own experience and on you own path with blessings and love. jh

"Any Regrets?"

"So, do you have any regrets about.....?"

The question has been asked of me... and you probably have heard it from time to time, especially while making a transition... or regarding a particular situation.

The famous crooner, Frank Sinatra, in "My Way" sang:
"Regrets, I've had a few...but then again... too few to mention..."

I guess, conventionally speaking, we have all made decisions or done something that, if we had the opportunity to go back, would have done something different. Often the regret is based on the reaction or result that followed a decision...some words spoken in haste... or other actions for which we later felt sorry...

"Regrets" do imply that we are sorry or disappointed that things turned out the way they did. It is quite appropriate to apologize and/or make amends if we have disrespected or 'wronged' another being in some way. Healthy living in our world involves right living and right actions that are aligned with our deepest and highest being. This provides a sense of harmony and integrity. We know when we have done something that is out of harmony with our innermost values...unless we have completely become lost in unconsciousness ... and forget our spiritual core being-ness.

Sometimes our egoic mind likes to replay past regrets or even 'sins' we have committed. The 'sins' may be a real missing of the mark to respect all Life...and it may also come with a sense of guilt and shame that is based upon tribal, cultural, or religious 'laws'...

If I feel I have wronged someone, I find that it is always best to apologize and see if there is anything that needs to be done to heal the separation. At other times, we may make decisions that others do not like or do not agree with and they may feel hurt, disappointed, or angry. We can be empathetic and realize that the other person is experiencing an emotional reaction because their expectations, desires, and wishes were not met, and we do not need to apologize for doing what we sensed was the best action or decision at the time.

It does little or no good to try to figure out what happened, why it happened, or who is to blame. Of course, we can hopefully learn from our life experience, but replaying the past can be a dead end street. I heard Deepak Chopra once say, "There are an infinite number of causes leading to an infinite number of results" [paraphrased]. So, good luck with figuring it all out. And I'm reminded of a line in a James Taylor song: "Einstein said, 'we can never understand it all'" [again, a paraphrase]...

So, if you decide you need to go to a 'psychiatrist' to help you get it all figured out, be ready to spend an infinite number of dollars... in an infinite number of sessions ...and perhaps take an infinite number of pills!  I'm not suggesting that counseling will not help us through certain transitions in life... only that if we would begin to search through the past for issues and answers, it might be an inefficient and ineffective way toward finding the true Self we are... the awareness of Being that IS right now...

'Regrets' imply a look back into past 'nows'... or may be left over memory traces that haunt our present thoughts and feelings...  I remind myself all the time that we never have all the answers...and sometimes no 'answer' at all!

Whenever we try to return to the 'past' or revisit the scene of a past 'regret'... we are always seeing it with our own egoic judgments and the judgments of others' egoic perspectives. Letting go of a few 'regrets,' after learning what we can from the experience, can be a positive move to returning to the present moment. We might want to make sure that any trips down memory lane are not simply another ego trick to keep us from the Love, Peace, Power, and Joy that is Life in this Creative Present Moment.

A few suggestions in summary:

1. Focus on 'WHAT IS' right  Now;
2. If those 'regrets' come into our awareness, we can:
1. See if it is something we need to apologize for or make amends;
2. Take action
3. Accept it as what was without looking for excuses, reasons, blame, etc.
4. Love and forgive ourselves or others as appropriate;
5. Be here again in this present moment.
3. If need be, ask a life coach or other trusted friend for some guidance.

I like to remind myself... and all who are reading this...  that we did the best we could under the circumstances at any particular event on the journey's path... be gentle on yourself and others... in Frank's words, "I did it 'my' way"...

So, without another side-trip into the nature of "'my' way"... We do our best, through and beyond ego, in this moment to respect all LIFE... and it IS good enough! We are 'good enough' and better!

Peace and Blessings to ALL!

September 23, 2010 - John Hutchinson

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John Hutchinson
http://www.sundancewellnesscenter.com/ - [latest post to blog]
http://www.sunhutch.com/ - [blog intro page]
Lancaster, PA

"You can only perceive the beauty that lives outside you when you feel the beauty that lives inside you. Honor your body and accept it as it is. You have the right to feel beautiful and enjoy it." ~ don Miguel Ruiz 

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Journey, Comparisons, and Gifts [QnA]

How do you stay on your own journey; stop comparing; see your own unique gifts to the world; and nurture those gifts?

The short answer is… “Only in the Present Moment."

We are on our journey now. The admonition from Rumi is: “Don’t go back to sleep.” And I would add that every time we realize we went back to sleep, we are awake again!

Comparing is always a game of our ego the egoic mind that is always comparing and categorizing. As we stay awake, we also see the comparison start to come in and then we can choose to continue comparing and get further entranced by our egoic thought process…or we can choose to return to pure awareness, without judgment. Usually comparison involves making self and others ‘worse than’ or ‘better than’… both egoic distractions from the Present Moment…

Being aware of your unique gifts and nurturing them also goes beyond thinking about what they may be… As we live in the present moment, we can choose to follow our heart and allow our natural gifts to continue to express themselves. Realizing that the creative Life Energy living through us can express itself in many ways and will never be limited to a lists of ‘gifts’ we may come up with through the thinking process… There are times when we use our thinking abilities to contemplate a particular quality, topic, word, or action… which is both in the moment and potentially useful in building a point of tension in cognitive and creative process that nurtures the intuitive, inspiration, and illuminating ‘pops’ to emerge.

Each aspect of your concern begins with awareness and acceptance of ‘what is’ in this moment… Follow your intrinsic nature to create and continue to give expression to the Life that is living through your form, your emotions, your thoughts, your sensations, your actions.