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Terry                                                                                                                                12/29

The guest professor felt like women's equality has been achieved better in the workplace than in the home, that we all fall into gender roles at home without thinking.

DL Hoefer

It seems all conditioning is a great conundrum.  I have to impartially observe myself performing a conditioned response to gain awareness of its triggers –  it's difficult because I have become the conditioned response I am reacting to and I am the triggers for the conditioned response in others – all indistinguishable from the social structure I emerged out of – so where do I find a place to stand to look at it impartially?  

What comes to me as a write this is that the place to stand has to be a new place that has not yet been conditioned – arising from this moment of being.  This new place in my experience comes from being as truthful with myself and others as I know to be.  If I'm not being truthful I'm simply reinforcing old precepts.  Being truthful creates an evolving contradiction between what has existed previously and my arising self.

It seems to me the only way awareness will gain a foothold - or any social change for that matter, is for each of us to realize that we have no choice but to be truthful with ourselves and each other to have any sense of who we are, and what we are about  – or even to experience this very moment in which we live.

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show details 11/18/10

Terry

my boyfriend disclosed an affair - I am taking it hard, I have to move out, my part time job is coming to a close, I feel sad anxious etc

the thing that helps is getting out, making new friends, interesting things to discuss, read about

more about the consciousness raising efforts or what ideas are they trying to bring to consciousness, if you have time

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Dl Hoefer  to Terry

show details 11/18/10

It seems I do today - appointments cancelled.  Most of what I'm seeing in the consciousness movement appears to be a variation of what the social structure has always done - visualize what "I" want and through various kinds of effort – manifest it.  My problem with this is if I'm not THERE now, how do I know what THERE is?  How do I know how to get THERE from here?  And once I manifest what I want, does it give me what I invisioned? 

There is a lot of talk about engineering spiritual evolution,  spiritual evolution is not something that can be engineered – it's impossible to try to be a certain way and experience it at the same time  How would a chimp know to turn off development of its jaw muscle to allow the cranium to expand?  How could we have consciousness without a larger brain and without a larger brain, how would we know to wish for one, or for consciousness for that matter? 

 Engineering consciousness is forcing consciousness back into a chimpanzee skull and asking the chimpanzee what it wants.  I keep coming back to my original understanding – if we desire awareness we have to face our fears – not develop expansive intellectual models and spiritual practices around them.  In a sharing group a lady confided that by observing the uninhibited spontaneity of children playing in her church, she was able to identify the inhibitions within herself – holding her back from the joy of life – and as I remarked, an immeasurable amount of awareness being kept at bay.  Identifying her inhibitions she was able to let them go – experiencing this same freedom she had observed in the children.  

I think supporting each other in embracing and exploring our fears is the source of all awareness. Becoming relative to our fears, self centeredness gives way to openness, caring, inclusiveness – treating your children as I do my own – this is the natural state.  I cannot face my fears if I am creating fears with my untruthfulness.  I cannot have myself if I am not being consistent with you. 

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Terry  to DL Hoefer

show details 11/19/10

thank you very much

Please feel free to get back.  I was feeling very unsupported a few weeks ago - then looked within myself at all the aspects of myself that had never been supported and allowed what had never been allowed to be to be.  It was amazing.  I suddenly felt supported and support now seems to engulf me.

this is how I am feeling at the moment, could you talk about how you shifted?

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DL Hoefer to Terry It seems to me that freedom comes from allowing awareness to all the various aspects and evolutions of my fear.  To become relative to fear, I have to make it my friend:

show details 11/19/10

I was going through a period of sadness I couldn't shake.  I stayed open to it, embracing it if you will – looking for the maturity to spend the rest of my life with it if I must.  There was nothing to do – anything I did to feel better only reinforced the sadness – my evasion only made the underlying issue stronger.  Think about this to see if it isn't true for you?  Then one day a sales girl gave me a very sincere smile and I saw the cloud I was holding over everyone in my life.  That perspective allowed me to hold the sadness and the wellness – it enlarged my consciousness if you will.  

I received a photo of a young woman who I know has been loved and supported from childhood.  When I looked at her photo, I couldn't find a singly inhibition in her expression.  She seemed wholly undamaged and joyful - enthusiastically embracing life, and it occurred to me that if this young woman lost her family today, life would continue supporting her just as it had until now.  I thought to myself.  I don't feel supported - so it is as though I had lost my family – what is keeping me from being that orphan child who has only known support?  

I went inside myself and reflected on all of my inhibitions – given to control and limit me.  I saw their source and  and felt them as deeply as I could.  Feeling them as deeply as I could was my way of fully identifying with what they were and how they had been working in my life - acknowledging as apposed to reacting.  Taking the time to see them as clearly as I could allowed me to know within myself their invalidity - and then I was able to simply let them go.  It was frightening because I had actually come to believe in my inhibitions.  What I am sharing is not a technique so much as facing fear and allowing awareness – caring more about what is true, than how I feel or what I want.  

As I let them go I could see how I had been holding life back through them – not holding life back I felt immediate support.  My experience since that time is that I am that orphan child.