Increasing Your Awareness of Self and Other with regression therapy

Increasing Your Awareness of Self and Other

Understand the nature of the self, the Real Self, which is immortal. This understanding will help you keep things in the proper perspective. Know yourself, so that you can see clearly, without the distortions of the conscious mind or the subconscious. Practice meditation and visualization, detached observation, peaceful perception, feeling a sense of detached loving-kindness or loving detachment. Cultivate this state. Know your thoughts and assumptions, and realize that you may have swallowed them whole. When you generalize into groups or stereotypes, you stop seeing the unique individual.

Erroneous assumptions from our past such as "Men are brutish and insensitive" or "Women are too sensitive and emotional" lead to a distorted reality. Experience is much stronger than belief. Learn from your experiences. What helps without harming is valuable. Discard outdated beliefs and thoughts.

Happiness comes from within. It is not dependent on external things or on other people. You become vulnerable and can be easily hurt when your feelings of security and happiness depend on the behavior and actions of other people. Never give your power to anyone else. 

Try not to become attached to things. In the three-dimensional world we learn through relationships, not things. We all know that you cannot take things with you when you leave. When we die and our souls progress to higher dimensions, we take our behaviors, our deeds, our thoughts, and our knowledge with us. How we treated others in relationships is infinitely more important than what we have accumulated materially. Also, we may gain and lose many material objects during the course of our lifetime. You will not meet your possessions in the afterlife, but you will meet your loved ones. 

This thought should help you to rethink your values if necessary. Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, by John Gray, has been a best-seller for many years in many countries. Numerous other books, movies, and television shows also have emphasized the seemingly insurmountable differences between men and women. A vast gulf separates the sexes and is apparent in the way we think and how we behave. We don't see the world the same way. Testosterone, the male hormone, inclines men toward aggression and competition instead of cooperation, toward "ownership" of home territory and of family. Estrogen and progesterone, the female hormones, seem to foster sensitivity, communication rather than competition, less urge toward aggression and more toward protection.

The way boys and girls are raised compounds the inborn asymmetry and add to the biological walls separating men and women. Boys are socially encouraged to be more aggressive, more competitive, and more assertive. Girls are taught to be more passive, more communicative, and more cooperative. We are taught different values by our parents and teachers, by our society and culture, and by our media and advertisers.

There seems to be a great deal of truth to all of this. No problem can be solved until an awareness of this problem bubbles into consciousness. So now we know. What comes next? Certainly, boys can and should be raised to become aware of and to express more sensitivity. They can be taught to be more cooperative, and they can learn better communication skills. Girls can be raised to be more confident and more assertive. Overall, the raising of boys needs to be altered more than the raising of girls, because the world is engulfed today by the violence caused almost exclusively by men.

But what about the inborn biological differences? How can we change biology? What do we do about testosterone? Here is one metaphor. Hormones and certain genetic factors cause hair to grow on the faces of men. Does this mean that beards are inevitable, that all men need to walk around with long beards on their faces?

Of course the answer is no. Men have the option to shave off their beards. Any man can choose to do this or not. The biological influences are tendencies. They can be overcome by the conscious will. Testosterone and other hormones impel, but they do not compel. Just as men can choose to shave, they can choose to be non-violent, less aggressive, more cooperative and communicative, more sensitive.

The conscious decision by men to choose the loving path, not the violent path, is the next step. Beyond this choice lies yet another step, which is the reawakening to the spiritual truth that we are spirit and soul, not body and brain. The soul has no sex, no hormones, no biological tendencies. The soul is pure, loving energy.

As we become aware of our spiritual nature, we recognize our true essence. We are immortal and divine. Renouncing violence, hate, dominance, selfishness, and ownership of people and things becomes even easier with this recognition. Accepting love, compassion, charity, hope, faith, and cooperation becomes the natural thing to do. Some switching of the sexes occurs over the course of our many lifetimes. We have all been men, and we have all been women. Although I believe we tend to specialize in one sex or the other, we all must, like college students, take some elective courses as the other sex. We have to learn from all sides.

Rich and poor.  Strong and weak. Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Muslim, or other religions. Different races. And, of course, man and woman. And so we all can eventually learn to overcome any negative biological tendencies in order to manifest our spiritual nature fully. Similarly, we all can learn to overcome any negative social or cultural teaching for the same reason. Some will lag behind, because even though we are all traveling on the same path, we are not all progressing at the same speed. It is the job of those ahead to reach back, with compassion and with love, to help those behind. To reach back and help, and expect neither reward nor even thanks. To reach back and help, because that is what spiritual beings do.

Relationships need nurturing and attention. Detach from your fears and negative emotions. When you need to talk or communicate, reset your priorities. Devote time and energy to the other person. Bring your full awareness and attention to the relationship and its problems. The relationship is more important than that television, magazine, or newspaper. Eliminate distractions. Turn off the television; put down the newspaper. Respect the other person. Do not tabs anything for granted. Do not stay in your rut. Renew the relationship through loving actions. The relationship is living, alive in the present. It is not a thing of the past. Allow the soul to enter the relationship through awareness and understanding. This promotes an alchemy to deeper processes: soul/right brain in harmony with ego/left brain.

Soulful relationships bring true joy into our lives. It is safe to love completely, without holding back. You can never be truly rejected. It is only when the ego is involved that we feel bruised and vulnerable. Love itself is absolute and all encompassing. The concept of loving completely and without reservation may seem risky or even dangerous to many. I am not, however, talking about self-abrogation in a relationship, nor enduring a relationship that is abusive or damaging.

Doing so is not loving to yourself or to the other. Staying in a destructive relationship is not an example of loving without reservation—instead it may be more a manifestation of low self-esteem and lack of self-love than anything else. People can be dangerous, but love is not.

Reach out with love and compassion to help others without concern for what you may gain. Whether you reach out to a few or to many is not important. The numbers do not matter; the act of reaching out with caring does. Sometimes when a physician touches a patient with compassion and healing, the physician benefits more than the patient. All of us are physicians of the soul.

Come from the heart, the true heart, not the head. When in doubt, choose the heart. This does not mean to deny your own experiences and that which you have empirically learned through the years. It means to trust yourself to integrate intuition and experience. There is a balance, a harmony to be nurtured, between the head and the heart. When the intuition rings clear and true, loving impulses are favored.

The more you practice listening to that calm inner voice, intuition, or "gut feeling," the more accurate and clear the voice will become. Trust. You can trust in love. Individual decisions may appear harmful, but love is not. When the bigger picture is grasped and appreciated, the loving intent becomes clear. Your child may not understand that the antibiotic injection is a loving act.

You are concerned and will spare nothing to protect your child from a potentially dangerous illness. In the child's mind, however, the injection may appear to be a hurtful act. In a more complex scenario, you may have to send a loved one away because the relationship is destructive, or his or her drug problem demands hospitalization for the person's own safety, against his or her will. These are just examples of the necessity for grasping the overall picture before judging the individual decision or actions.

Like many other men, I tend to think that romantic gestures have to be of the grand sort, such as jewelry, flowers, a big night out, and the like. However, I have learned that sometimes the smallest things can mean the most.

Children who are proud of a drawing or of singing a song or of some other small accomplishment are met with laughter instead of a pat on the back. Later in life, we sometimes find our moments of happiness ruined by someone's criticism. Even though we know that the other person's actions and words are due to jealousy or feelings of inferiority or any number of reasons, we still have that unhappy feeling that we had as a child. It is interesting to note that the word neshumah actually means "soul." The greatest sin is to take away someone's soul.

The following tips offer ways to communicate in a more compassionate and less judgmental manner. They actually are mini-exercises, and if you practice these techniques often, your relationships should improve, if not prosper. Once again, take your time, because the suggestions are crystallized. And feel free to be creative, to modify these techniques and suggestions as you see fit.

For example, role-switching can evolve into a more formalized process where you allow yourself to reach a deeper level of relaxed concentration and try to project yourself into the other person's mind. Try to be the other person, to understand his or her reactions, his or her fears and hopes and joys. This process can take as long as you need. There is no time limit. Give positive verbal messages. Hold hands more often. Compliment from the heart. All of us need to receive love as well as to give love.

Try to communicate without criticism, without judgment, without any intent to hurt or harm. Communicate your love and caring and compassion. Do not communicate to harm or to win.

Put aside ego and pride, as they only get in the way. Listen carefully, with detachment and perspective. Make your shared space a sanctuary so the other can speak safely.

Do not speak until you have something to say, preferably something positive. Do not speak reflexively. It is always safer to be quiet, to listen, to understand. Determine the underly￾ing fear or fears behind the thought or action. See the bigger picture, and do not get distracted by the anger or emotion. See the real issue, the underlying fear that is always lurking there behind the drama.

Never act or speak from anger. Words have a lasting effect and power, and they are not easily forgotten. Never let alcohol or drugs do the talking. You can never completely erase the wounds inflicted by words of anger or hate.

Winning an argument can be losing if ego is involved.

Doing that which promotes love, understanding, and cooperation is true winning. If you promote negative thoughts and emotions: fear, anger, guilt, shame, sadness, anxiety, worry, and hate, either in yourself or your partner, then you have lost.

Letting go of anger is difficult. We feel justified, self-righteous, as if our integrity and honor are on the line, being tested. The only test in this great school we call humanity is whether we are learning to discharge anger and embrace love.

Holding onto anger poisons our relationships. Continue to love, even if the other is angry, hurt, and fearful. Love is a constant; anger is transient.

Determine the causes of the anger, improve the conditions, and let go. How long does it take you to let go? Five days, three days, one day, one hour? If you always let go within five days, why not in one hour? You can do it. We can all learn to compress our angry periods into early recognition and rapid resolution. Eventually we always let go of our anger. Why hold onto it and suffer needlessly?

Forgive the past. It is over. Learn from it and let go. People are constantly changing and growing. Do not cling to a limited, disconnected, negative image of a person in the past. See that person now. Your relationship is always alive and changing.

Begin actively loving the other right now. Do not grieve or regret not loving in the past. The past is over. Begin right now. It is never too late to express your love and compassion. Visualize even more. See the gulf between you and your partner fade away and fill with a beautiful energy. You are not icebergs floating separately, but you are the water that connects them. See and feel this connection. Send your light and love. At some level he or she will receive it. We are all connected to each other. Our souls exist in an energetic stream of love. We are never truly separated from our loved ones, even though we may feel apart and unloved. Our reunions can be unexpected and dramatic.