There's always another layer,
Which I think in many ways makes life interesting and certainly means you can never win at the game in the sense of completing it,
Which is beautiful.
If you could complete it,
If you could win at the game of life,
We all would have probably stopped coming back to this planet a long time ago,
Assuming you believe in reincarnation.
So a pattern that I have become really precisely,
Really intensely aware of recently,
Especially after visiting some extended family on the East Coast for a wedding of a childhood friend not too long ago,
Is that many of us,
Myself included and much of my family included,
Have bought into the trans,
The illusion that life is generally speaking a punitive,
Dangerous,
Vengeful kind of affair and that God,
If there is one or whatever you want to call it,
The source from which this entire cosmos originates,
That that God is also a punitive and vengeful and dangerous and unpredictable God.
And when you believe these kinds of things,
When you are unconsciously bought into the trans of this,
Which most people,
At least many people are,
There's no shame in that.
There's no judgment that they are.
It's just much of our society,
Western society,
Eastern society,
Societies all over the planet,
Many cultures have this fundamental belief system,
This fundamental paradigm operating in the background.
And when you're bought into that,
Well,
You're more likely to try hard to avoid mistakes,
Try hard to avoid anything that might displease life,
Anything that might displease this God.
And so you're willing to stay way within the bounds of a comfort zone inside of a region where you feel relatively comfortable,
That you won't be punished,
That you won't be harmed.
And what that makes unavailable to most people is actually striving for and going after true satisfaction,
Real creativity,
Pushing the boundaries,
Coloring outside the lines.
For me,
This shows up in simple things like I will slam on the brakes to avoid running a red light rather than accelerate and go through a yellow most of the time.
And this is a pattern that I started to shift and it's been an interesting one,
Haven't consciously been working on this,
But I've worked on many other things related to this broader pattern of the extensive efforts that I,
That we,
That many of us go to,
To avoid the possibility of punishment.
For some people,
This shows up in the feeling that there's always something that could be lurking behind you.
In the collective unconscious,
There is the sense that danger is always around the corner.
For some people,
It's more acute than others.
But when you make the shift to recognizing that that's an illusion and to seeing that life is at worst neutral,
That God is at worst neutral,
That the universe is at worst unconcerned,
You start to see possibility.
You start to see the opportunity to try new things,
To color outside the lines,
To let go of the little things that you might do that in the past you would have beat yourself up for,
You would have shamed yourself,
Judged yourself,
Criticized yourself for.
Like I mentioned that earlier example,
That simple example of running a yellow light that's about to turn red even maybe.
Rather than beat myself up or get into a panic about,
Oh my gosh,
I'm going to get a ticket,
Oh my gosh,
I'm going to get arrested,
My license is going to be revoked,
Something extreme like this.
I just move on with my day.
I meant no harm.
I made a split second decision to go forward rather than to slam on the brakes.
Didn't hurt anybody.
Didn't put anybody in significant danger.
Moving on.
It's that simple.
What other things,
What other behaviors,
What other thought patterns stem from this big picture belief system?
One of them is the judgment and criticism of others.
There's other belief systems at play,
Other specific beliefs that you can work on directly that feed into judgment and criticism.
But this one plays into it in an interesting manner because if you believe,
You may not be aware of it,
But if you believe that the universe and God are a punitive,
Vengeful,
Dangerous,
Fearful entity,
Then when people misbehave,
If they don't get punished,
But you do,
That's not fair.
So it's necessary that all mistakes are punished.
It's necessary that all coloring outside the lines gets criticized and judged in order for life to be fair in the mind of someone like me or you who thinks that the universe is punitive.
If someone else does something that violates the general social contracts or colors outside the lines or steps outside the boundaries and they don't get punished,
Your options in that moment are essentially twofold.
One,
Recognize this meta program that you've been running that says that God is a punitive God and the universe is a punitive,
Dangerous place and hostile.
That's unlikely to happen in the moment where you see somebody else behaving in a way that irks you.
So that's option one,
Unlikely.
Option two,
Criticize and judge them as a form of punishment in order to stay consistent with your view of how the universe operates.
You probably get that most people choose option two unconsciously from moment to moment all throughout their days and throughout their lives.
Some people are very specific and intentional about this and go to church and talk about it all the time.
Some people are much more covert in the ways that they do this.
For me,
It was much more covert.
I've been walking the spiritual path for five-ish years.
And so I'd gotten to a place where,
Oh,
Being judgmental is unspiritual of me,
It's undeveloped of me.
And so my judgments became much more covert and hidden and,
Oh,
That person,
They're not as spiritual as I am,
Or they're not as developed,
They're not as conscious.
And their actions are harmful here because of their lack of awareness,
Because of their lack of consciousness,
They're doing harm here.
And so they should be punished and they should be judged and they should be criticized.
When I woke up to what was really happening there,
It was a beautiful moment in many ways.
It took sleep deprivation,
A lot of activation,
A lot of overstimulation to bring all of this to the surface for me so that I could look at it with clear eyes.
So I could look at it honestly,
Look at myself honestly and see,
Oh,
Yeah,
There is that young one in me who is cynical,
Who is lonely,
Who is hostile,
Who believes the world to be a hostile place and believes he's justified in his self-righteousness,
In my self-righteousness.
Yeah.
And now I've gotten to and get to continue to accept that part of me and love that part of me and understand that part of me and say,
Okay,
Yes,
I see that in you,
Max.
I see why you're angry.
I see why you feel it's necessary to judge others.
I see why you feel so lonely and I see why you feel the need to make yourself morally superior to them from that place of loneliness and pain,
That very narcissistic,
The world revolves around me and therefore the world is on my shoulders alone.
It's a great burden for a two-year-old psyche to carry.
Many of the two-year-old parts of many people's psyches are carrying a burden like this.
The beauty for me on making many of these shifts and being in the process of unwinding and integrating this in my own system is other people,
They're going to have their stuff and they're going to be at whatever level,
So-called level of consciousness that they're at.
They're going to behave however they're going to behave.
And you know what?
That's okay.
I'm not morally superior to them because I've chosen to focus a lot of my time and energy into cultivating awareness and consciousness.
They've chosen to focus their time and energy into other things.
And so they're better at those other things than I am because I haven't spent time and energy cultivating those skills.
And that's a good thing because there are many things in the world that I need and other people need and you need that I can't do because I haven't chosen that path.
There are some things that I can do.
There are some things I'm quite good at,
I'm quite gifted at,
Quite developed in my capacities.
And it's only those certain things.
I can't fly airplanes.
I'm not a good truck driver.
Could I do these things?
I suppose if I put the time and energy into cultivating those skills,
But I haven't,
And I don't have that time and energy to put into cultivating those skills.
So if you,
Like me,
Have fallen into the trap,
Have fallen under the illusion that somehow walking the path of consciousness makes you morally superior to others and are using that as a means of judgment and criticism,
I encourage you to take a look at that and see what's underneath it for you.
My imagining is that for you,
Like me,
Underneath it is pain.
Underneath it is a young being needing to be held and needing to be healed.
And when you do that,
Compassion for others becomes much easier.
That's been my experience at least.
And this is where I'm most excited to continue growing.
When I have true compassion for others,
It also allows for the possibility of true boundaries.
Not rigid boundaries,
Not wishy-washy boundaries,
But just a clarity of this is where I am.
This is my space.
This is what's okay for me,
And this is what's not okay for me.
And in that space,
You can have compassion for someone who may be in the process of either doing harm or just behaving in a manner that is dysregulating or disruptive to your system.
You can say no to that.
You can walk away from that.
So I appreciate you walking the path,
Wherever you are,
Whoever you are,
In whatever ways you are finding it useful to work on yourself,
To heal yourself,
To integrate yourself.
I recognize you for doing that work.
It can be a lonely process.
It doesn't have to be,
But in many stages it is for many people.
It can be a confusing process.
It can be a frustrating process.
It can be a challenging process.
I think all of these things are in many ways baked in.
I don't know that there is an option of walking this path of self-discovery and self-transcendence and self-creation without challenge and hardship and pain.
And there is joy in it,
And there is growth in our moments of integration and moments of transcendence and moments of clarity.
And so I recognize you for your resilience and your dedication,
And I send you gratitude and appreciation,
And I wish for you more and more ease as each day passes.
See you or hear you or you'll hear me on the next one.
Take good care.
