Some Thoughts On Self-Destructive Behaviors and Self-Judgment

This morning I received Tom Kenyon’s latest “A Hathor Planetary Message” entitled Escalation of Chaotic Nodes and the Dismantling of 3-D Reality. (Note: For those unfamiliar with Tom Kenyon, Tom is a highly accomplished sound healer. If you have never read any of Tom’s channelings (or listened to his sound healings), you can find his website here.) Tom’s channelings of The Hathors (a group of interdimensional, intergalactic beings who assist humanity’s evolution on Earth) are a compelling source of contemporary spiritual information.

Given where we are in our planetary evolutionary cycle, many of the Hathor messages that Tom has channeled over the past few years have been about the ever-increasing difficulty of the challenges facing our planet and human beings in particular.

But this latest one is… well, it’s a bit of a doozy.

The following is a passage from this latest channeling that made a particular impression on me because of the soundness and usefulness of the insights and advice given:

Without mincing words, to use one of your phrases, we would say you are entering one of the more difficult passages of planetary transformation.

At this fork in the road, one path leads to self-destruction, madness, despair and hopelessness while the other fork leads to a deeper connection with your interdimensional or spiritual nature. It is this fork in the road we wish to explore.

It is not an either/or proposition. Many of you who possess a transcendent and interdimensional or spiritual sense of yourself may find yourselves, from time-to-time, on the path to madness and self-destruction in spite of your self-knowledge.

…

In its simplest terms the requirement to successfully make this passage through the escalation of Chaotic Nodes is deep authentic contact with your interdimensional or spiritual nature and the self-renewal that arises from such contact.

There are two things that particularly strike me about this communication.

The first is the assertion that the fork in the road is “not an either/or proposition”.

Although this statement is pretty much true in every circumstance where we find ourselves confronting a life decision (i.e. a “fork in the road”), the reality is that we nonetheless often approach these moments attached to the belief that once a decision is made we are stuck with it forever.

Thankfully, though we may at times forget it, life simply does not work that way. If it did, there would be no such thing as redemption or forgiveness (let alone love and compassion), and we would have all been long ago banished to burn in the infernal flames for all of eternity. My imagery here may be a bit dramatic, but certainly no more dramatic than the belief that we are forever stuck with our poor or ignorant choices.

Furthermore, no decision that we ever make about how we live our lives has a totally and completely uniform effect on us. Our choices almost always are, like the underlying intentions that give rise to them, decidedly mixed. Spiritual ascendance, like health, is not an event. It is a process. And at any given moment in that process, we are a mix of light and shadow — good and bad; conscious responses and unconscious reactions; adult and child. Or, in the imagery of the Hathor’s message, self-destructive AND self-preserving. The relative proportions may change, but we are always a mix.

Which leads to the other assertion from this communication that struck me — the suggestion that in order to successfully make it through these Chaotic Nodes the requirement is “deep authentic contact with your interdimensional or spiritual nature”.

Notice that nowhere in there does it say anything about judging, berating or castigating ourselves because we engage in self-destructive behaviors.

Just like any reasonable person would not expect perfect behavior at all times from human beings, neither does God. God is not keeping score. In fact, no one else of interest is really keeping score (and if they are, consider that we tend to call that type of behavior petty, at best).

God knows (better than we do) the difficulties of moving through some Earth experiences. And even a moderately self-aware person can understand that the only reason we engage in self-destructive behaviors is because we are suffering, we are in pain, and in those moments we are just looking for some sense of relief. And just like any reasonable person would, our higher power anticipates and expects that as humans beings going through these kinds of challenges we WILL, at times, choose to engage in self-destructive behaviors.

Of course, not judging ourselves does not mean we are absolved from taking responsibility for our actions. In fact, it is very important that we take responsibility for everything we do. It is how we come to truly know what it is that we are choosing. But in a world where we already know and expect that we will make mistakes, it would be irrational to believe that “taking responsibility” means feeling badly about ourselves.

In fact, a good rule of thumb is that when we no longer judge ourselves as bad because of our choices, that is when we know we’ve truly taken responsibility. We might feel regret, grief or perhaps even a sense of guilt about our choice or its consequences. But there is no feeling badly about ourselves — there is no self-judgment. If there is judgment, it means we are still in resistance - resistance to taking responsibility.

So if in response to life’s stresses and Chaotic Nodes you find yourself choosing self-destructive behaviors (and we all do), take a deep breath, take another deep breath, and then remember: it is not the end of the world; you are not stuck with your choice forever; and no one is keeping score. And if you’re patient and just wait for a bit (in my experience, usually no more than a few minutes), you will find that life soon enough brings you the opportunity to make a different, more loving or more self-preserving choice about something in your life. (And if you “blow” that one, don’t worry. The universe contains an inexhaustible number of opportunities to choose.)

But above all, don't waste your time judging yourself for your self-destructive behaviors. Judging ourselves and others is not what we were put here to do.

Our Earthly experience is a school for our soul, and we are here to learn who we really are (i.e. what we are “made of”) through the experience of the choices we make. And when the choices seem to get harder, it is only because we have advanced to the next grade-level.

On the 2012 Prophecies

By now, most people have probably heard at least something about the year 2012 and the date December 21, 2012 in particular. That is the date that the world will either (a) end, (b) be transformed or (c) experience the shortest day of the year and go on existing as it always has. It all depends on who you listen to.

At the extremes, some people dismiss the 2012 prophecies as some kind of "new age" folly, while others seem to embrace 2012 as a potent excuse to live out their apocalyptic fantasies. But the one thing that is most consistently associated with the period around 2012 is that it portends significant change of some kind.

For some time now, I have resisted writing or even discussing much about 2012, except in situations where others have specifically asked me about the subject, for two reasons. One, I have some, but not a lot, of knowledge about the 2012 prophecies, and so I am in many ways still working out my own perspective. Secondly, beyond the very real and meaningful work that many people have contributed to our understanding of the 2012 prophecies, the potential wisdom of these prophecies is often obscured by both the hype of the overly zealous believer and the derision of the cynical detractor. At times, this has made it more challenging for me to separate what feels real from what is only drama, leaving me with what feels like little more than soundbites and uncertainty.

But, having said that, things do feel different now. Although I still do not have what I would consider a deep understanding of the mysteries or the cosmology surrounding the 2012 prophecies, I do have a well developed sense of the guidance I have personally been receiving for some time now about the times through which we are living.

What I see is that regardless of what I may or may not believe about the 2012 prophesies, our world really is going through a tremendous amount of change. And, perhaps more importantly, that change feels evolutionary because it is affecting all existence at every level of consciousness -- from human to non-human, from sentient to non-sentient alike.

How the world moves through, and emerges from, these changes -- whether we come out in a better place or not -- is sure to depend in great part on the choices that we, as humans and de facto stewards of our planet, make (both personally and collectively) about how we live and, in particular, about how we are in relationship to each other and the world around us. Will we only allow ourselves to be led by the individual, self-serving and materialistic concerns of our ego, or will we embrace and be guided by a broader vision of who we are -- a vision that encompasses the individual but also acknowledges our interdependence and ultimate spiritual unity with all other individuals, beings and life forms that together encompass the many communities of which we are a part?

December 21, 2012 may very well mark some kind of meaningful shift in this evolutionary process -- I genuinely don't know. But I don't think we have to wait till then to see. Change is already here... it's time to choose.

The Gamer Advantage

From today’s Yahoo Games Blog comes this story about a video game called “Foldit” developed for the purpose of tapping the spatial skills of online gamers to solve real-world research problems:

Online gamers have achieved a feat beyond the realm of Second Life or Dungeons and Dragons: they have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that had thwarted scientists for a decade.

To the astonishment of the scientists, the gamers produced an accurate model of the enzyme in just three weeks.

I had read about this study a while back when it was first getting started and remember thinking how it was a great example of collaboration among people that showed mutual respect and a willingness to play to people’s strengths rather than the usual divide and conquer of much scientific research.

It’s great to see the early promise of this approach bearing fruit.

Zombie Like Caterpillars

Just in time for the Halloween season, a story of zombie-like gypsy moths. It has apparently been known for some time that among invertebrates, parasites are able to affect and change the behavior of their host in a zombie-like fashion. The exact mechanism through which this is accomplished, however, has not been known.

Now, in a study published in Science Magazine, scientists studying gypsy moths reveal that they have found a genetic basis for these aberrant behavioral changes. In particular, the study states that:

Gypsy moths infected by a baculovirus climb to the top of trees to die, liquefy, and “rain” virus on the foliage below to infect new hosts. The viral gene that manipulates climbing behavior of the host was identified, providing evidence of a genetic basis for the extended phenotype.

OK, so zombies are not just the stuff of science fiction. Somehow, not really all that surprising.

However, what really freaks me out about this story is that apparently the USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and The Northern Research Station have in the past partnered up to produce this baculovirus to use in the control of gypsy moth populations.(See here.)

But if this genetic link is only now being discovered, it means that we have been playing Russian roulette with germ warfare without really knowing what we were doing.

Scary, but again, somehow not really all that surprising.

If At First You Don't Succeed

From the anthology The Best Advice I Ever Got: Lessons from Extraordinary Lives (edited by Katie Couric and published by Random House), as excerpted on Yahoo), an almost unbelievable tale of Kathryn Stockett's experience writing her best-selling book The Help, the long and difficult road to getting it published and her incredible capacity for stick-to-it-tiveness:

It took me a year and a half to write my earliest version of The Help. I’d told most of my friends and family what I was working on. Why not? We are compelled to talk about our passions. When I’d polished my story, I announced it was done and mailed it to a literary agent.

Six weeks later, I received a rejection letter from the agent, stating, “Story did not sustain my interest.” I was thrilled! I called my friends and told them I’d gotten my first rejection! Right away, I went back to editing. I was sure I could make the story tenser, more riveting, better.

A year and a half later, I opened my 40th rejection: “There is no market for this kind of tiring writing.” That one finally made me cry. “You have so much resolve, Kathryn,” a friend said to me. “How do you keep yourself from feeling like this has been just a huge waste of your time?”

In the end, I received 60 rejections for The Help. But letter number 61 was the one that accepted me. After my five years of writing and three and a half years of rejection, an agent named Susan Ramer took pity on me. What if I had given up at 15? Or 40? Or even 60? Three weeks later, Susan sold The Help to Amy Einhorn Books.

Such an amazing and inspiring story of unwavering perseverance and determination. This story was particularly poignant for me because I loved reading "The Help" so much and felt such gratitude towards the author for the gift of her work. And this was before I even knew the backstory of what she went through to get it published.

Thank you, Kathryn, for never giving up and for always believing in your passion!

(Note: The Help has now been published in 35 countries and three languages. As of August 2011, it has sold five million copies and has spent more than a 100 weeks on the The New York Times Best Seller List. (Source, Wikipedia.) The movie version of the book was released August 10, 2011.)

You Can Lead a Horse to Water

From an article entitled New Study Says "Food Deserts" Only Part of the Problem:

A new study confirms that being able to buy healthier food is only one part of a larger issue. According to research published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, improving access to fruits and vegetables does not necessarily result in better diets.

It is very difficult for healthier foods and methods of food preparation to compete with the variety, convenience, mass-marketing and ubiquity of processed foods. In a world of sound bites, immediate gratification and 15 minutes of fame, the comparatively understated simplicity of unprocessed natural foods faces a difficult uphill battle when it comes to winning over tongues and stomachs if not hearts and minds. And processed foods are, from a certain perspective, simply more palatable.

Real widespread change in people's eating habits can only come, like everything else in life, through inner change. The value of a healthy diet cannot be either imposed or instilled through fear, will, exposure or accessibility. Its appeal and its strength rest primarily in an appreciation for the sense of goodness evoked when we take care of ourselves. In other words, it's how it makes us feel on the inside, not how delicious or appealing it looks on the outside, that matters. As such, it is our relationship to how we nurture ourselves that must change if we are to be healthier.

War and Prejudice

From an Associated Press article that appeared on Yahoo last week:

Two Muslim religious leaders say they were asked to leave a commercial airliner in Memphis on Friday and were told it was because the pilot refused to fly with them aboard.

Both passengers are Memphis-area residents. Rahman said he was dressed in traditional Indian clothing and his traveling companion was dressed in Arab garb, including traditional headgear.

Rahman said he and Mohamed Zaghloul, of the Islamic Association of Greater Memphis, were cleared by security agents and boarded the plane for an 8:40 a.m. departure.

The aircraft pulled away from the gate, but the pilot then announced the plane must return, Rahman said. When it did, the imams were asked to go back to the boarding gate where Rahman said they were told the pilot was refusing to accept them because some other passengers could be uncomfortable.

Rahman said Delta officials talked with the pilot for more than a half-hour, but he still refused.

As abhorrent as I find this type of profiling behavior, once I got beyond my initial outrage after reading the article, I began to think about how particularly common this kind of behavior is during times of "war". Whether the war is a military one fought on battlefields or an ideological one fought in the space of individual and public opinion (or both, as we seem to be living through at the present time), war urges us to judge and separate the bad fromt the good.

The human ego is inherently disposed to fear and be suspicious of that which is "different," which is ultimately what gives rise to bias. And superficial segregation and broad-brush stereotyping are among its most preferred tools for dealing with this kind of fear.

In this sense, profiling is not just about bias. It is also about efficiency and expediency. The broader the brush, the less the ego has to think about or ponder the limitations of its decision making process (let alone the consequences of that process) and therefore the quicker it can get back to a state of presumed security and control. A strictly black or white outlook is very effective at settling the mind,  if not the emotions. And during times of war, in our desire to feel right, safe and most of all normal, we often take whatever relief or salve we can get.

From a moral and philosophical perspective, I do not agree with, and choose not to condone, the process of profiling. Yet from a purely human ego perspective, I not only understand it but I also deeply appreciate its appeal.

My inner sense of inspiration to love more openly always seems to inevitably run into my also compelling desire to feel free of danger.

And in the midst of that conflict I find myself over and over needing to take sides and having to choose.

We all must choose...

love or fear?

Making Friends In Unusual Places

This very cute video of a group of dolphins and a cat playing together takes on a whole new meaning for me now that I have a cat!

Get Up On Your Feet

This in today, from an article in the Yahoo Health blog entitled The Most Dangerous Thing You'll Do All Day:

Scientists at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana analyzed the lifestyles of more than 17,000 men and women over about 13 years, and found that people who sit for most of the day are 54 percent more likely to die of heart attacks.

What makes this particularly interesting is that sitting appears to be a causal factor for heart attacks regardless of any other lifestyle considerations, i.e. it doesn't matter how much a person otherwise exercises or how fit they may otherwise be. Other factors such as diet and whether you smoke or not were also irrelevant. If you sit for much of the day, it is a factor.

For a long time, I have thought about the possibility of incorporating a standing desk into my work routine, mostly because of the negative impact of sitting for long periods on posture and back health. Looks like there's another good reason to start checking out some standing desks.

If you don't know what they are, just google "standing desk" to find lots of resources about them. You can also find one person's informative account of her experience switching to a standing desk here.

A Statistic About Cancer Worth Remembering

It is estimated that about 1/3 of the most common cancers can be avoided simply through changes in behavior, diet and exercise. (See here.) Among the recommended changes are avoiding sugary drinks, being physically active for at least 30 minutes a day and eating a larger variety of fruits, vegetables and WHOLE grains. It is never too late to start making changes, and you don't have to change everything at once. Any change, no matter how small, is change for the better. In fact, baby steps are encouraged...  you just need to keep making them.