Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Are You Afraid Of Electric Lighting?

Written By Don Shetterly
I'm seeing so many conspiracy theories these days that it almost makes my head explode.  This person is afraid of this device.  Another person is scared of another device.  Other people are fearful of gadgets and things too numerous to mention.

Everyone has their own set of facts, beliefs, and opinions to back their conclusions up and prove they have the truth.  I've seen it so many times.  Quite frankly, I'm getting so tired of seeing it everywhere I turn.

These days in our society, it doesn't have to be proven, it just needs an "element" of truth in what is being stated.  In our news, we sprinkle in a few facts along with the opinions of guests on these shows and act as if we invented the best news source in the world.

Let's start with modern day devices.  Lately, I have been seeing how microwaves spy on you and how Alexa is spying on you.  Does anyone know if these things are right?  Most likely not, but it doesn't stop them from forcing the world to hear their beliefs that this is true.

Alexa has been in the news supposedly spying on everyone.  Maybe it is true, and perhaps it is not.  I have no way to know.  If she wants to listen in on our conversations, she is going to get very bored.  They can't hardly keep up with programming her with answers, so I doubt they have time and capital to fund the massive workforce that would be required to monitor everything.

I have seen so many people treat the Alexa device as if it is some evil person coming after them.  I shake my head because these people act like any technological advancement is a bad thing.  Be wary they say.  Run, they say.  Hide, they exclaim.

For me, I'm one that believes in invention and progress.  Actually, I think we are running far behind where we should be.  There should be more advancement and growth, not less.  Will there be mistakes and hiccups along the way?  You betcha!

It all reminds me of the story I heard about Thomas Edison when he was inventing the electric light bulb.  In his wintertime hometown, he wanted to build an electric light grid so the town would be lit up.  He offered to pay for it out of his own pocket, but the townspeople said NO!  They were afraid of the electric lights.  The lights were new.  They feared them as if they were the worst things invented.

Today, we can't imagine a city or a home or a street without lights.  We don't run from electric lights in fear.  We don't pass around conspiracy theories about electric lights.  These are welcomed advances now in our lives.

We may want to think how we view progress and innovation.  If we don't keep advancing, others will.  If we stay stagnant in what we know, we've doomed the human race.  Part of being human is growth.  Part of the mind body connection is about awareness and growth.

Let's not be afraid of electric lighting, but instead embrace that which makes us fearful.  Don't follow blindly, but don't be scared to step out the door because someone has convinced you that it might be too frightening (metaphorically speaking).

Let's embrace our mind and our body.  Let's be more than we are today.  We will not get there by hiding our heads in the sand.  We won't discover and become more aware and conscious if we're against stepping out into the unknown.

Even in the light of all that has happened with data collection, we need to be cautious, but not over the top.  Each one of us should be careful of the things that we share online because any time you type the words on the screen, you no longer have control over them.





Thursday, April 19, 2018

Conditions On Being Tolerant and Loving

Written By Don Shetterly
These days, I get so tired of seeing this on display.  In social media, we wear it as a badge.  I'm talking about how we say and preach one thing to the world while doing the opposite with our actions.

We say we are tolerant and loving, but then we put conditions on it.  Of course, we don't acknowledge that, and if someone pointed it out, we'd dismiss them quickly.

We think it is everyone else.  Those who disagree that are not tolerant and loving.  We've got such a big log in our own eye that we cannot even begin to see this in our personal life.  It is everyone else that has the problem, not us.  We're self-righteous and holier than thou.

We exclaim, we're telling it like it is or we claim that somehow we take the superior high ground because we're enlightened.  It doesn't matter which side of this you are on because we all do it every day.  If you don't believe me, show your social media feed to a young child, and I bet they can point out the hypocrisy quickly.

We go to our churches, and we claim how full of love and righteousness we are, but we don't stop to know ourselves.  We don't stop to look at ourselves and see what is within us.  If you don't go to church, there's a good chance you use some other belief system to do the same thing.

Then we point fingers at one another.  We have to tell others just how wrong they are.  After all, we are tolerant and loving.  We just gloss over the conditions because we are so self-righteous.

Growing up, we were in one of these ultra-religious churches that stated bluntly if you did not believe the way they believed, you weren't going to heaven.  There were a lot of other "beliefs" that they taught that I've written about before on another blog post.  It took me many years to let go of that brainwashing hatred for others that were different than us.

Most of the people outside of that church were much more tolerant.  I didn't hear politics discussed or hatred towards gays.  They were down to earth peace loving people that were fun to be around.  I admired and respected them.

Now, however, when I go view some of the stuff on their social media pages (next to the things about how much they are tolerant and loving), I see some of the vilest hatred that exists.  How can people not see what they are doing?  If you say one thing, but do another, your words mean nothing.  Your actions tell the real story.

These days we are so consumed with things that have knocked this entire planet so far off its course, we cannot even see it on display.  We're so numb and disconnected and unconscious that basic decency and respect for one another is something from prehistoric times.

No, it's not the other people that do this in the world that is the problem.  You can't control them.  The only person you can control is yourself and whether you engage and propagate the hatred and divisiveness or you walk away from it.  That's a choice you make each day.

So when you claim you are tolerant and loving, make sure you're choosing something that matches that.  If your rhetoric and social media feed say the opposite, it might be time to have a hard look at what is within your heart.  For what lies in your heart is showing the entire world what that is.

Tolerant and loving people show it through all aspects of their lives.  It isn't just the words you say, or share and likes.  It isn't the retweets and screaming.  It is pure love that treats each other as human, not as something less than ourselves.  It is your heart in action and your ego filtered with respect.


Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Broken Regulators In Life

Written By Don Shetterly
Right now, we're not functioning with our mind and our body.  We are half engaged, but we act as if we are fully engaged.  Our human regulator is broken and causing us great suffering in this world.

When we are not aware or conscious, we don't fully engage in life.  We pull back and only put in part of what we need to put into life.  We numb from fear, and we engage from the ego, not from the heart.

Our emotions may be over the top or nonexistent.  Our passion for causing change may have no regulator on it.  Our words become a way to prove that we know more than others. Our ability to slow down and stop or rest has become one of that is a meme, rather than something we do.

We can only exhaust our body systems before they start breaking down.  If we don't deal with the stress that is piling up on us every day, it will be our stalker that attacks us in the night.  There is no way you can exist in life right now without stress having an impact.  Yes, you can numb yourself by wishing it away, but it is still there.  It lurks in the shadows.

When we stay fully engaged all day long through our electronic devices connecting us to every morsel of "breaking news" that others deem is important, we are hurting our mind and body.  Most of this stuff is noise in a day, but we consume it as if it is the last drop of food we will ever see.  It is not healthy in the least bit, but for some reason, we cling to every new feed, tweet, and a bit of gossip as if it is greater than our life.

When we live in fear and we numb, we are disconnecting ourselves from everyone around us.  We put up the wall between them and us, so we continue to operate.  There is far too much that we use to separate ourselves, rather than help to further the world.  The fear and numb is insidious because even though we act like it does not exist in our life, it operates freely behind the closed doors of our life.

We go online and leave comments that prove to the world we know more than they do.  Memes and happy thoughts become what we share with everyone.  Instead of fully engaging on a human and personal way, we fire back those tweets that will put someone in their place.  Instead of expanding our views, we huddle with those that we agree with not seeing others that hold a differing opinion as someone real in life.

Our broken regulators in life keep us from bouncing from one thing to another.  We don't even fully see it because we are not aware and conscious enough to do this.  We've lost the grounding in our body, yet we have convinced it is still there.  We've lost the ability to disengage from the ranting and screaming because we're convinced we have to fight.

In the meantime, love and compassion and respect has disappeared.  We claim we hold these truths in our life, but our actions fail as a witness in court for us.  We struggle physically with health conditions because we are not dealing with life.  Life has dealt with us in a way that we're no longer in control of our body.  Our mind convinces we are, but the body has long ago shut down.

If we want to and if we have the courage and determination, we can wake up in our body.  It is not easy and very few even do this.  The more you have shut down to in life and what you are inside, the more distance you have to travel back to awareness and consciousness.  It can be done, but it is not easy.  Too many stop before they get very far along this journey.

No one can tell you what you already know in your life, even though it is hidden from view.  It takes each one of us going deep within and seeing what is there that we don't want to see.  If we don't fix the broken regulators in life, we're going to end up in a very awful mess - the likes of which we do not see at this moment.

We can wake up if we so choose, but it is a choice.  It is not a bunch of words that you say.  The evidence shows through your life.  No one will be able to claim if you awake or not as that is something that others around you will know without a doubt.

In this world, we have been marching to the edge of the cliff for a long time.  We're not meant to do that.  Instead, we are destined to wake up and grow in awareness and consciousness.  Life is about becoming more of who we are, not succumbing to what the masses convince us is correct.

Each day of our life, we make a choice as to how we will fit in the world.  Our tweets, social media postings, interactions with others and how much we get to know the depths of our innermost self will reflect our awareness and consciousness.





Thursday, April 5, 2018

What Is Your Idea Of Rest

Written by Don Shetterly
I saw this question posted online by a friend and so I thought I would write about it.  What is your idea of rest?  Doesn't it sound simple and straightforward?

Unfortunately, I don't think it is because from what I see in this world, very few people take time out to stop and rest.   No, I don't have hard evidence of that, other than what I've observed and seen in people and in the bodywork clients I have worked on.

We spend too much time with our phones and staying connected continuously.  We run from this activity to that activity without really looking hard at where our time should go.  In many ways, we are so busy being busy that we are too busy to notice that we are.

The mind and the body need downtime.  Yes, we need sleep, but rest is beyond the sleep moments.

Can you run your car a 1000 miles without stopping?  Can you work 24 hours a day without stopping?  The answer you would most likely give to this is no, you can't.  However, we still tend to apply these same principals to our life.

The mind needs time to process and defrag itself, but if we are continually going, there's no way to do this.  If we don't stop and spend time observing life (such as nature or our breathing or stillness), life will pass us by.  Life will slip away before we realize it and all the essential stuff we will have missed.

The mind needs periods of downtime.  We're so stimulated with data and input coming at us a million times a second that rest seems foreign.  We don't even realize because we are so unconscious and unaware these days of our limits.  Many times, we are keeping our minds in a constant state of busyness is not health.

Our body's need rest.  It needs to build up and recuperate, but we see how far we can push it.  We don't give it a second thought.  We keep piling stress on top of stress in our muscles, tissues, and cells.  The more we do this, the more we add layers to something that could have been so simple to release and let go.  As it builds, so do chronic pain and health issues as a result.  Then we wonder in amazement why we are in the shape we are.

The more you give your mind and your body some downtime in life, the healthier you will be.  You will see things in a more balanced way and not be so numb or fear driven in life.  It will help bring balance to all parts of your life because you will be taking care of yourself instead of neglecting yourself.

Of course, you can continue to do what you do thinking that very beliefs will take care of you.  Unfortunately, if you don't deal with life, stress and stopping to rest, it will deal with you.  You can count on that.  Just look at the research that shows how much of doctor visits are related to stress.  We don't take care of ourselves, and the result is not good.

You don't have to meditate on the edge of a cliff for 5 hours every day.  You can take little steps like stopping to notice your breath.  You can choose 10 or 15 minutes at lunchtime and sit there in nature or in a quiet place and just be still.  Observe.  Put the phone away.

Sometimes quiet and stillness is an excellent form of rest.  Without it, we turn our lives into one noisy and busy nightmare that we will never wake up from in our life.  Don't wait until it is too late like I did.  Take charge of your life by taking care of your life.



Copyright




Blog Post And Images (c) 1/01/07 by Don Shetterly
  • Permission required in writing before any part of this blog is reprinted, reworded, transmitted or used in any format.
  • Feel free to share the blog post LINK and a brief summary.
  • https://mindbodythoughts.blogspot.com

  • “Amazon, the Amazon logo, MYHABIT, and the MYHABIT logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.”