Once upon a time, you felt scared, afraid that if you
didn’t follow the crowd, or do what you thought was
needed in order to please others, rather than standing
up for your own truth, you’d be ostracized.
Chances are that at least once or twice, you sacrificed
your own sense of right and wrong in order to fit in…or
keep your job, or avoid conflict…
When you did this, you lost a bit of your own sense of
pride, integrity, trust in yourself, confidence. It
made you feel some measure of anger and shame.
And, when you did this, as others surely did also, the
group lost the richness of you as well as that of
others.
This increases tension in a group, and the tendency of
those who have given up a bit of themselves to require
that others also sacrifice their individuality and
follow the “rules” of the group. If you had to make
sacrifices, others should do the same, right? If others
don’t follow “right and wrong,” but bow to the values
of the group, then you shouldn’t either, right?
The group becomes more rigid. The tendency toward
violent enforcement increases. Each person feels more
anger and more shame. The fear of reprisal if one is
out of step increases.
It becomes a cycle, an increasing spiral of obedience,
shame, and anger.
This is what happens when we believe that other people
are the source of what we need: the source of food,
shelter, love, approval, money, power, companionship.
We get lost in a no-win game of competition, anger,
shame, punishment, dependence.
This is the ground of illness, injury, and
deterioration.
What is the alternative?
Aren’t we social beings, after all?
The only alternative of which I am aware is to open our
awareness to a much higher level of connectedness, and
to trust that when we draw our sense of joy, abundance,
power, and belonging from a non-physical source rather
than from bending and twisting ourselves to please
other people, that source, through the law of
attraction, will match us to the perfect people and
resources to meet all our social and physical needs.
Keep this in mind when you watch the video I’m
recommending in the next post, “Cure for PTSD and
More.”