Subtle Reinforcements

Remember the study of Pavlov's Dogs? Each day someone would ring a dinner bell and feed a group of dogs. After doing this same thing for a while they decided to ring the dinner bell but would not feed the dogs. However the dogs had developed a "conditioned response" and would still get excited and salivate in preparation for the food.

We are not so different from the dogs. What I am coming to realize is that no matter what "stimulus" I choose to have around me -whether it be positive or negative- I become conditioned to it. This is amazing really and what good information to be armed with...if we know this happens we can choose with awareness what "stimulus" we will allow to be in our lives repeatedly. We can also see what patterns are happening in our lives...ie. how we react to situations on a regular basis.

What separates us from the dogs is our ability to think and reason. Pavlov's dogs had no choice...they just continue to salivate. We have the ability to tell ourselves "dinner is not coming, its just a bell" and change our response. This may take a couple of (or many!) times to "re-condition" our behavior but as human beings we are blessed to be able to do this.

This new understanding has given me an opportunity to look at the patterns of behavior in my own life. I am staying aware of how I feel physiologically and emotionally. When I am feeling very low I can look to what I am doing to reinforce my low feelings; sleeping too much, overeating, not taking care of myself physically, telling myself negative things. These are my conditioned responses to feeling an unpleasant emotion. When I am feeling great I can look to see what I am doing to reinforce those feelings as well.

The challenge here -at least for me- is having the strength to make a different choice. I know I cannot do it on my own for very long...it seems to work for a while but then ultimately I can't keep it up and I end up doing what I've "always" done...

I mentioned we are blessed with thought and reason; I believe accessing the place where the blessings come from for guidance and strength is the key to changing our behavior. This place is in all of us at our center and there is more strength in us than we could ever imagine. We simply have to choose to use it.

Change You. Change the World.

(UR)ACTIONS=PEACE

Why do people who say they love us, hurt us? In the past, my first response to this question would have been "because I did something wrong". But this is a little girls response.

In an adult relationship this answer can't apply. As adults, we lose the right to treat each other like children and punish or retaliate. Not that it makes a difference to some, as it seems as if this type of behavior is becoming epidemic.

It seems many people are able to express maturity in business and in there "thinking" lives, but bring the attention to emotional issues and they fall apart. I know, I have had my own learning curve to summit.

Western society, with its material focus, "land of, I want what I want when I want it" mentality has much responsibility for creating a society full of emotionally under-developed people. Not only does it make it difficult to have a healthy relationship; but it is my opinion, emotional under-development plays a big role in our crime and poverty problems as well.

In the end, it is up to each one of us to take our lives and happiness into our hands and seek out ways to teach ourselves how to feel and process our own emotions. As we do this, the world becomes a much happier and peaceful place to live.

Rise UP

(I don't write many of these but every now and again I take a stab at being a little poetic...I hope you enjoy it.)

RISE UP

It's time to lighten up the energies that have gathered around; pulling and tugging on our shoulders and waists...

It's time to unlock the chains that bind; let them sink back into the depths and back into their case...

Find the key. Lock the box. Bury the case that holds our captor.

Hide the key, even from ourselves and begin to rise again in rapture.

The light is bright. The colors are bold. The air is thin.
We rise up to these new vibrations; embracing a chance to begin again.
Careful...
Thoughts of the key threaten to deflate; but dismiss this threat; we know we are safe.
All that is gone has created what is good;

transforming the old, and forever leaving behind the place we once stood.

Cell-Mates

A very good friend of mine said to me "There are only two people in this world that can steal our peace and serenity, and they are Great Big I and Poor Little 'ol Me".

I thought this was a clever way of remembering that when we are angry, resentful or self-righteous, it's usually our great big ego going on a binge at the expense of our happiness. On the other side of the coin, wallowing is self pity and playing the victim can also be quite satisfying to the poor little ego.

So you see the problem here is with the ego. It can never be satisfied. There isn't enough attention for it. The ego doesn't mind that the attention be based in negative thought or emotion. To it, attention is simply attention.

Sometimes I wonder if the ego has a mind of it own! It finds any way it can to keep us thinking about ourselves -what we should have gotten, what someone should have said or done to/for us, etc -The more we allow ourselves to stay the center of attention in our own thought world the more we stay trapped in our own minds.

And the "ironic icing on the cake" here is that we are the only ones who have the key to this prison of thought. The ego doesn't truly have a mind of its own. We CHOOSE to continuously feed it and the bigger it gets the more food it needs to survive.

The choice is ours. It is up to us to stop feeding the ego, unlock our own cell door, let our two cell-mates "Great Big I" and "Little 'ol Me" go, and so free ourselves.