Knowing And Being

[Louisa]

I do think there is a lot to be said for positive thinking, asking or opening your mind to the possibility of help, from God or Spirit or from some inner wisdom that can rise up from somewhere within, trying to have a better attitude, just taking action. There is a lot to be said for trying to be a continual reminder to someone of a simple truth or of a possibility that someone might be able to find. So to say, you know, this experience of enlightenment might be possible for you, or to encourage someone to try to find it, to say it probably might not be that difficult to find, is one thing. It is a good thing, I think, because people often learn false helplessness and only repeated reminders and persuasion can get them to consider another view. As long as it is not a blanket statement, that it is always a certain way, and all someone has to do is "fill in the blank" and then that person will always be in a state of transcendent benevolence and peace.
Because, I think sometimes, maybe I've experienced something like what some call enlightenment, for brief times. I have experienced lingering broadening of mind, more giving, generous, interconnected values and perception of experiences, an increasing sense of oneness. However, I keep slipping back down. And why? Because - Pain! Intense physical pain. Mental disorientation, adhd, poor memory, psychological trauma. I get the feeling that some can't even acknowledge such things as valid reasons why some people can't just always be in a state of peaceful benevolence. And even so, maybe eventually those things can be transcended - but I think - eventually! they can be transcended. And only eventually! How gradually? It depends on the person and the situation.
Some people do acknowledge these difficulties and delays, though, I know. And it is tricky trying to point out to people that they are stuck in learned helplessness. It's just sometimes difficult for someone to know whether another's helplessness is just learned victim mentality or true helplessness. I don't like it when people act as if no one is helpless or that they can always judge whether someone is truly helpless or just playing the victim.
Still, I applaud those who are willing to try to help people see beyond what might be potentially false victimhood or laziness or rationalization and tricks of the the mind, because that is a very touchy situation, where people are liable to get their heads' bitten off. Yet it is something that needs to be done, and is one of the most powerful ways to help people.
Anyway, now that said, I think I am going to go hide away for another few days or week or so, and try to find my mindfulness, which is still eluding me but I feel like I'm getting closer to it. It's difficult to find with a baby who is teething and screaming and running around demanding my attention all the time. But I am extremely lucky to have someone here to take my attention off of myself so thoroughly! And she is extremely adorable and funny and sweet. She is my difficult present-moment zen teacher, I guess. lol

[Louisa]

I also realized that, you know, a lot of things we do are so unconscious or subconscious. Then if there is a positive possibility that we half-consciously ignore, reject or block, then maybe the best way for that positive possibility to break through to us is by it being affirmed in our surroundings, suggested and reminded and spoken or seen around us. Then, though we half-consciously and wrongly have blocked it, it is being half-consciously suggested and reasserted to its truth and power. So I think that is what people are doing a lot of times when they remind us of their "truths". They are reminding us of a possibility that we may be unconsciously blocking from our minds.
In that case, they are reaching in beyond our unconsciously chosen biases to help us consider a truth that may be real and possible for us, but beyond our current perception. I wouldn't call it learned helpless, but rather unconscious stumbling, mistake, unintended. Learned helplessness has a stigma attached to it, but even "false victims" are real victims, of their own unintentional, unconscious mistakes, I think.
Unless someone is aggressively preaching, criticizing or telling us we are not trying, then I am open to their gentle suggestion. It may be just what I need to see but for some reason my mind has blocked it out. They might be the only thing that could break through the barrier that had became an unconscious self-defeating fixture of my mind. I have had this happen to me several times. The fact that humans are so prone to hypocrisy, even in our institutions of religion and spirituality, shows how prone we are to self-delusion and how we can need help in overcoming our unconscious false beliefs.
Realizing this makes me think I am going to try harder to help people subtly overcome unconscious harmful beliefs, by gently suggesting things, even if that puts me in the line of fire when they don't want to hear my suggestions. It makes me realize how valuable it is to speak a truth, even if others don't want to hear it. There is a time and a place to speak one's truth, and a reason for freedom of speech, because speech is the power to reclaim and uncover and negotiate reality, which for humans is always half-conscious. We never know our whole reality, because our perceptions are just so limited and partly subconscious.
Okay, that's all I'm going to say now. Bye for a while, be back in maybe a week or so.