"Falling in love is the greatest story of addiction in existence." -Philippe Lewis I toyed with this idea for years. Along with the idea that all romantic love is delusion. Delusion and addiction. Why else does "absence make the heart grow fonder" if not because you aren't dealing with the reality of who they are - but rather who you imagine them t...
© © 2017 Jason D McClain, World-Wide Rights Reserved.
Often, we experience some change or transformation--perhaps we go to a weekend event or workshops and we are certain it changed our lives. And yet that feeling fades. Maybe it takes a few months. Maybe it takes a few weeks. For some of us, it takes just a few days.
Why is that?
The answer is quite simple: we've confused transient emotional states for a stable shift in our "stage" of development. But you can have the change -- and keep it.
The understanding of “evolutionary consciousness” is perhaps the most important thing lacking in spiritual practices today. Evolution means growth and development. This means that there are aspects of reality that have not yet arisen in our consciousness. But they will arise if we grow. -Ken Wilber
Condense a process that would normally take a decade into a few months or a year; accelerate your personal evolution.
We could say that "personal development" allows you to increase your skills in a very predictable, linear fashion. "Transformation" allows you to generate instant and unpredictable results. "Personal Evolution" includes aspects of them both, and yet transcends them both, giving you tremendous power and access to your internal life as well as capacities for the external--increasing your core capacities to handle whatever life throws at you. And have that emergent version of you be a more stable version you can count on as a new standard.
Those transient positive states can become permanent traits.
The path is clear. The "how" can be shown to you. The potential results for you are nearly limitless.
In this evening, discover:
Yes. All in about 2 hours. If I hurry. *grin*
Your Personal Evolution is the gateway to the future and the life you envision for yourself.
Yes, it will take the gristly and gritty work of building the muscles of facility with Self. AND it will be the most valuable endeavor you have undertaken because it will bear fruit in every context of your life, whether that is a romantic relationship or a creative or professional project, or as deep as fulfilling on your life purpose.
Let's explore this unfolding together. Let's accelerate the process together.
What: Introduction to Personal Evolution
When: Tuesday, September 24th | 7:15pm to 9:15pm in San Francisco
Where: »» RSVP «« for exact location
Here:
404 Bryant Street @ Second,
San Francisco CA 94107
Cost: free
Value: priceless
[Note to the reader: "God" is used throughout as a signifier to point to wherever you put your worship. It could be conventional religions as I will mainly address, but you could just as easily replace it with Gaia if you "put your worship" there--if the environment is your ultimate concern. or you could replace it with polytheistic beliefs such as Hinduism. Or maybe you put your worship in the Universe, Consciousness, or Community. Consider that whatever your ultimate concern is, the concepts in this article can apply to that thing as "God" for you. Doing this will allow you to get the most from this article. -Jason D McClain]
Is Your Relationship to God Wrecking Your Relationship With God?
It’s a provocative question, isn’t it?
Why even ask it? It is fraught with predicable emotional triggers and will produce reactions that may blur the importance and the point of the topic at hand.
We could use your relationship to your "self" or your relationship to others or even your relationship to money. The fact remains that we could use any of those concepts--any of those signifiers--to get to what we are pointing at and we will use a couple of them as lead-in examples because of their familiarity--but it would not be as effective to stop there for our larger conversation; not as effective as getting to the very root of our relationship to and with our deepest and highest stages. But even more to the practical: we will use God for the simple fact that there is no concept or question more galvanizing—making us sit up in our chair and pay attention--than questioning our very relationship to and with the Divine.
So we use “God”.
Before we begin to explore the question, we need to lay the ground on which we will stand: stages of egoic and emotional development. Stages that we interpret the world through and react emotionally from. Stages through which we will interpret every aspect of our lives--events occurring around us, the actions of others as they relate to us, the world we navigate through politically, economically, romantically, and, yes, our spirituality and the nature of the Divine.
So if we are to examine our relationship to God (or “the Divine) then we must begin with an understanding of the lens we gaze through.
"God is like a mirror. The mirror never changes, but everybody who looks at it sees something different." --Rabbi Harold Kushner
From pre-personal to personal to trans-personal. From vengeance to justice to grace. From pre-rational to rational to trans-rational. From ego-centric to enthno-centric or gender-centric or nationalistic to world-centric. From unconscious to conscious to super-conscious. These are just some of the ways we can label the grossest stages of development of the Self—and they are stages of increasing wholeness and increasing embrace. Each stage transcends, yet also include the benefits of the former. Each is noted for its increase in capacities and increase in the ability to hold an ever-increasing number of perspectives. We could also think about these stages as an expansion of what an individual can identify with or as. From ego-centric to ethno-centric / gender-centric / nationalistic to world-centric; identifying as just an individual to identifying as a member of a community or collective of individuals to identifying as a member of a global community—a citizen of the planet and a member of its ecosystem. Plainly put: our stage of self-development will determine our world-view—and that world-view will evolve over time. And that evolution will have a directionality.
Human development can be divided into three major phases: pre-conventional, conventional and post-conventional, or pre-personal, personal and transpersonal (Wilber, et.al., 1986). This applies to the development of cognition, morality, faith, motivation and the selfsense. The infant enters the world unsocialized, at a pre-conventional stage, and is gradually acculturated into a conventional world-view, whether it be religious or secular. A few individuals develop further into post-conventional stages of post-formal operational cognition (Pfaffenberger, et.al., 2009), post-conventional morality (Sinnott, 1994;), universalizing faith (Fowler, 1995), self-actualizing and self-transcending motives (Maslow, 1971), and a transpersonal self-sense (Cook-Greuter, 1994; Wilber, 1980, 1983, 20001).
-Frances Vaughn, Journal of Transpersonal Research, 2010
We could say that one of the primary practices (as well as one of the primary indicators of personal evolution) is the ability to take on an ever-increasing number of perspectives; the ability to understand—even if not agreeing with—an ever-increasing number of perspectives or “views” of or “from” a given place.
And that lens—or lenses—is the filter through which we view the world as well as being the platform we will likely react from. This is not a box we can put ourselves or others in. It is not a classification as rigid as a “type”. Think of it more as a probability: a weather forecast, or a general orientation within high odds. Think of it more as a lump or a wave. But even still, the fact that we will likely interpret through and react from our “stage” of development of the “self” is hard-wired as a probability can get.
And, the endeavor we call “personal evolution” is the process of activating movement and moving through those stages.
Why is this important?
In the process of personal evolution we have both the mechanisms to create, and the path to enjoy, true peace within--and to reduce conflict without. An ever-expanding ability to hold an ever-increasing number of perspectives leads to a life that experiences greater ease, reduced fear and reduced anger, greater empathetic capacities, increased self-acceptance, increased capacities to handle whatever life may throw at you—and respond more resourcefully, and ultimately, leads to an aligned, purpose-filled and full-filled life.
As within, so without.
In recent history, it has become commonplace in personal development circles and communities for us to realize that our relationship to ourselves is very important—it is an accepted fact that it will determine a great deal of our experience materially, inter-personally, and emotionally. It may be thought of as self-concept, or self-esteem and self-acceptance, self-care, and self-love. This shows up in particularly high-relief/ particularly sharp in contrast in work with relationships where it is clear to more and more people (whether we like it or not) that our relationship with our self will determine our relationship dynamics with others: how well do we honor boundaries both for ourselves and for others? Do we feel we deserve to be happy and deserve to have a relationship in which we are treated well—with kindness and respect and love? How easily and openly do we communicate?
In essense: the degree of health we enjoy in our relationship with ourselves (and to our “self”) will have a great deal of influence on the degree of heath an vitality we enjoy in relationships with others—and life in general.
Conflicts arise. For some of us, they arise more frequently than others.
We all know this.
Conflicts can arise in our personal lives and in our relationships with other people. They can and do arise in professional contexts. And yes, they can even arise within ourselves.
In our personal lives, they can wreak havoc in romantic situations producing a lack of harmony and robbing us of the joy we expect those relationships to provide. In our professional lives they can corrupt professional associations or derail business deals affecting our financial outlook. When they occur within our selves, they can lead to inner turmoil, when we would rather experience harmony and peace.
This isn't exactly news.
What many of us fail to realize is that regardless of the context or the parties involved, we can use the same simple yet effective communication strategies to not only resolve the conflicts and problems, but to use them as a gateway to increased intimacy and connection, broader and deeper understanding, and ultimately, a positive outcome in virtually any situation--personal, professional, or individual.
With the tools we will cover in this mini-workshop, you will discover, gain, or acquire the tools that will allow you to:
Decrease conflict and discord in your life. Increase joy, connection, intimacy, and success.
Start by adding the tools we will offer in this free evening workshop:
What: From Conflict to Connection
Where: San Francisco »RSVP« for exact location
When: Tuesday, March 12th, 2013 @ 7:15pm
Cost: Free.
Value: Huge
»RSVP« for exact location
