Reality vs. Perception: Valuable Tools to Use in Creating Your Future

What is the difference between perception and reality? And why is it important to know the difference?

To learn the difference, you must first determine whether you are seeing things through the filter of perception.
Begin by asking yourself this question:

"Is what I am seeing verifiable by others?" 

In other words, reality is when you look at the sky and see a cloud.  Others are able to verify there is, indeed, a cloud in the sky. 

Perceptional thinking would look like this:  I am seeing a cloud in the sky and it looks like a clown.  Another person would say,  "No, the cloud looks like a train."  The perceptional thought is not verifiable most of the time by another because even though they are also seeing the same situation, they are having a different experience. 

It is the different experience that is perceptional thinking.
 
The next step is to check to see if what you are experiencing is, in part, connected to an emotion that is realistic or understandable based upon  the circumstances, versus an emotional response based upon a harmful perception.
 
To determine this, ask yourself:                                                

1. On a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being completely relevant, 1 being not at all; "How much of this emotional response pertains to this current situation?"
                         
2. Using this same scale, "How much pertains to me historically, (i.e. reminds me of an experience in my past when I felt the same way)?"

If you find any of these emotions are pertinent to you historically, then sort out those emotions by telling yourself, "the percentage relative to the situation at hand is this amount ______________."

This will make it easier to realize how much your past beliefs or perceptions are influencing or clouding your reality in the moment.  For example, the cloud in the sky is verifiable, but it makes you feel happy and the other person sad, because he had an earlier experience of being scared by trains, but you enjoyed going to the circus where you saw a clown.
 
Once you have determined what percentage is relative to the moment, the next step is to look at the emotional responses involved. 

Are you angry, afraid, frustrated or feeling hopeless? 

If there is any level of hopelessness, be cautious.  This emotion is usually dependent upon past experiences.

Remember - you are always going to have emotional responses running through your system.  Sometimes you will find yourselves in reaction, and that is normal.  Even finding yourself responding emotionally, based upon the 'historical you', is normal and understandable. 

The goal here is to understand how much emotional energy is being expended based upon past circumstances, versus your fears of the future. Expending emotional energy in either of these ways is understandable, however not always productive.

For example:  "I am so angry with myself for I stubbed my toe because I was not paying attention."  Your anger in this moment is understandable and on your scale of 1 to 10 it is a 10. 

Or:  "I am so angry with myself because I stubbed my toe and I always do that  when I am climbing  stairs, I never pay attention.  Therefore I will  never climb stairs again."  In this instance, your emotions are a 3 on your scale.  This means that only 3% of your anger and frustration  is based upon the present occurrence, and you are making future decisions more based upon your past experiences.

Determining your emotional state using these steps will help you fine tune the question, "Am I making decisions based upon realistic thinking verses perceptional illusory thinking?" 

Illusory thinking is usually dependent upon a historical influence, usually painful or traumatic, that is unresolved. 

These are just a few steps you can take to help you see more clearly the difference between reality versus perception.  Why do you want to accomplish this?  In order to be able to look at any given situation at hand with a realistic view point.  When you can accomplish this level of thinking, then the choices you make will subsequently be based upon reality.  By then making those reality-based choices, you establish a dynamic creating influence that will produce results efficiently, magnanimously and powerfully.  There is nothing more powerful, potent and efficient than Truth and Clarity.

Remember our saying, Clarity Creates!

blessings . . .

The Law of Attraction: Clarity vs. Fear

If you are in fear of any condition arising, whether it be this over here, or that over there, you are going to act like a magnet in these times to draw those conditions to you. So, if you're in fear, you're going to position yourself unconsciously inside circumstances that will create more fear within you. 

If you stay clear, hold a clear intention, you will literally provide yourself with opportunities that will create more of the same.  
 
If you stay clear, yes, you're not an ostrich, you're aware of what is out there and aware of potentials, but you stay clear inside yourself, encase yourself inside these bubbles so to speak, then it will definitely, definitely help support you in staying steady on this path that we are speaking about.

see Visualization for Protection, posted December 22, 2008

Prayer For Peace

As the sun sets upon your Earth with consistency and assuredness,
May all Beings find peace in that.

As the sun sets upon your Earth every day,
It is not dependent upon thought, effort, pain or suffering.
Like the breath, it is consistent.
May that be every Being's experience, every day.

May every Being find peace in the fact that,
Every day the sun will set,
And every morning it will rise.

May every Being find peace within the knowingness,
That as sure as the sun will set every day,
As sure as the sun will rise every morning,
That every Being is blessed,
Every Being is surrounded in grace and compassion,
And that all that is necessary,
is that every Being knows that,
And sits in the peace of that.

May every Being find comfort and respite from any pain and suffering,
Any fear and delusion, in the fact that
As the sun sets, as the sun rises,
They also live, they also breathe,
And they also always have an opportunity and choices
Of peace available to them.

Contemplate this, Sweet Ones.
Stay with this, Sweet Ones.
This is reality.
This is what you know to be true and consistent in your lives.
It will help to support you.
Blessings.

Namaste.

An Exponential Leap into Consciousness

The Trend of Emotional Turmoil: Where it’s Leading and How to Cope

In the past several months, Cathy and Guidance are finding an increase in personal turmoil that many have described as downward “spiraling” into hopelessness, confusion, and despair. Please know that this is part of the process we are collectively undergoing and that it is no time to give up, though it may be challenging on all levels. We hope you will find this information useful in supporting a process that is meant to help propel you forward into consciousness.

Possible Symptoms: Physical, Emotional, Mental
• Terror
• Anxiety
• A sinking feeling
• Loss of appetite
• Insomnia
• Abject emotional pain
• Confusion
• Feeling trapped, overwhelmed
• Awareness of a darkness “pulling you in”
• The sense of an internal “earthquake” (being shaken to the core)
• Hearing yourself say: “Everything I’ve done is meaningless,” “There are no answers,” “I feel like I’m going crazy,” “I feel like I’m dying”

Humans learn most efficiently by being painfully tapped on the shoulder because that is what gets their attention. The kind of pain we’re hearing about frequently is arising so that you can collectively become aware of who you are not, by first addressing it individually.

In past group sessions, we have used Captain Hook as an example to explain that by being the shadow aspect, he became a propellant to remind Peter who he really was. Like Captain Hook, often that propellant is painful. The harder it grips you, the greater the indication that it is time for the entirety of you to release yourself from that confusion and delusional thinking. The pain you are experiencing can be directly equated to the fact that all five bodies (mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, and energetic) are coming into a congruent understanding and relationship with the fact that this untruthfulness or confusion is no longer in service to anyone.

As individuals begin to look at themselves clearly and learn what’s true and what’s not, they begin to see what belief systems they’ve held inside themselves are harmful—not only to themselves but to others. As one begins to peel that proverbial layer like an onion, all of those aspects come into congruent understanding and relationship, and it’s like giving birth. It’s that painful contraction—the physical body in reaction to the shadow of attachment—that facilitates release.

The mind has to understand the issue or problem not just from an intellectual level, but also physically and emotionally. Since the physical levels (that is, the body and the mind) are the last to receive, they are also the last to release.

Oftentimes the mental will receive information so that you can understand it intellectually first, with the emotional body trailing behind. At other times it starts with emotional understanding and settles into the mental later. Either way, the physical components of you are always the last to receive and to understand.

The experience of pain (emotional) and confusion (mental) are part of processing and release on those levels—you may even notice your body reacting to pain and confusion through physical symptoms such as loss of appetite and insomnia.

What Can You Do?

• Don’t try to escape the intense feelings. Initially, don’t DO anything. Sit quietly with them. Breathe.
• Become the objective observer (See Sept. 2009 posting)
• Celebrate: it’s a birth you’re experiencing, not death
• Be in gratitude. The fact that this is occurring is a sign that your consciousness is expanding.
• Ask what percentage of it is reality and what percentage is your fear that it will become reality?
• Take it apart like a puzzle
• Write out the steps of your own resolution
• Take action
• Be compassionate and kind to yourself as much as possible through the process
• Remember, it has to be an exaggerated experience in order to get you to pay attention
• Continually check in with yourself and ask, “Am I taking action to solve this situation on a practical level or am I just nursing my wound?”
• Trust that you are putting the puzzle pieces of your complex life together and that you’re making an exponential leap into consciousness

Resist the urge to “fix” yourself. Sit with the feelings; let them wash over you; pace with them; welcome them. Breathe deeply.

Such a time is really to be celebrated. If one could take oneself into becoming more of the objective observer that we speak about so often, one would see it’s actually a time to congratulate oneself, because it’s really like giving birth. This pain you’re experiencing is the contraction that creates.

This “spiral” process is really about tearing down false illusions and birthing oneself through the complexity of one’s life’s details. Whatever the instigating issue or challenge, one can take it apart like a puzzle and examine the individual pieces.

As one dissects the whole experience, one should be able to see, incrementally, that the tentacles of each emotional response could be tied into various phases of one’s present or past lives. So you see, those experiences and associations are like tentacles that continually tie you back into the initial experience(s) that supported you in beginning to believe in certain illusions and non-truths about yourself. If you had a lifetime to study just that one main experience, you would be able to track it and see why it was so relative to who you had become up to that point in time; you would be able to see how you developed belief systems that became your foundation; and you would also see that those tentacles are far reaching, not only into past lives but into the future of who you have the potential to become.

Since most people do not have a lifetime to study the source of their foundational system, these times of “labor,” provide an opportunity for concentrated review. Ninety-nine percent of the time, when one goes into this type of birth crisis spiral, the experience is purposely exaggerated. Just think about it: if a little voice simply entered your consciousness saying, “Excuse me, you’re holding an internal experience of untruthfulness and it really would help you to do something about it,” you’d pay no attention to it whatsoever. It has to be exaggerated in order to act like a magnifying glass, helping you to look at all of those illusions upon which your foundation rests.

In experiencing the “earthquake” internally; of welcoming it and letting it move through you; it eventually brings you to a place where you can step back and say, “Whoa, wait a minute, what I feared was the truth isn’t reality.” It allows the light bulb to go on for an “Ah ha!” moment where one gets to realize, “Wait a minute, if this isn’t truth and reality, how often am I living in non-truths, how often am I separating myself from reality?”

This process facilitates an exponential leap into consciousness; it opens one’s eyes to reality, to truth, and takes one to another level. When it’s over, it doesn’t mean an end to those feelings ever happening again. In fact, even after such a leap, you may find yourself inside similar situations, perhaps not as painful, questioning yourself again, asking “What am I doing?” (so to speak). Think of these as other propellants to take you into even more levels of truth.

While in the process, when do you let yourself “off the hook?” How do you know you’ve reached the end of it? How do you know if you’re in truth and not merely trying to escape into delusion?

We teach so often that what counterbalances the emotional responses is the intellect. So this is how you check yourself. Ask: “Am I continuing to step into my life based upon trying to run away from what feels bad and, in that running away, only using more emotions to cover up?” Such impulse to escape might look like eating a whole plate of chocolate chip cookies, resorting to drugs or drink, planning a trip to Disneyland or resorting to other artificial means of making oneself “feel better.”

If you determine that you are only self-soothing, letting your emotions lead, you can step back and ask, “OK, how can I use my intellect to take me into what’s next? How can I sort out this problem step-by-step, from a logical approach?

Let’s say your “spiral” was started by some sort of crisis or simply having found yourself in a situation that you’re very uncomfortable with. What can you do about it? First, make a list of logical steps you need to take towards resolution. It’s not as much about your making yourself feel better in order to override the feelings, it’s about you taking very systematic action towards resolution…if that is in direct relationship to solving the situation.

Sit down and ask yourself, “What can I do about the problem?” Not, “What can I do to make me feel better?” When you’re at that level of using your intellect to detangle emotional issues, you’ll be at a level of clear thinking. Certainly there may be a little internal whine of, “But I want to feel better” and it’s ok if that’s intertwined with what you’re doing. In fact, try to take care of yourself physically as much as possible while you work out the logical steps toward resolution.

Continually check in with yourself and ask, “Am I taking action to solve this situation on a practical level or am I just nursing my wound?”

Those are two different actions and you’ll have very different results. The practical action, based upon reasonable, clear thinking, will have a positive result. If the action is just to cover up the emotion, the emotion will get stronger—it has to in order to get you to understand that this isn’t about covering up anything, it’s about taking you into clear thinking and seeing the wisdom that is required to develop clear thinking. It's also about creating a system to achieve resolution and systems of resolution are going to be as different as individuals and the different challenges they’re presented with. Everyone has to find their own system through the experience of the “spiral” as a propellant.

If you’re covering up intense feelings in an effort to quickly dispense with them and “move on” to immediately feeling good, guess what? Other opportunities will arise to support you in clear thinking, for that is ultimately the outcome of this experience. If you don’t “get it” the first time around, it will usually crop up as an even more painful situation to be experienced, examined and understood.

What you get to do is step into trusting yourself. You may not have all the answers but be at peace with that. As long as you are taking logical steps, trust that you are putting the puzzle pieces of your life together and, in so doing, are becoming, as we say, the ultimate puzzle-ist. In other words, you’re become the ultimate problem-solver, a detective in your own life; unraveling the mysteries and illusions of your current reality and assembling the pieces like a puzzle.

As you put this into practice, you’ll begin to be at peace with the process and say to yourself, in the midst of crisis, real or imagined, “Ok, on a very practical level, I’m okay. I know I’m becoming the ultimate puzzle-ist. I know where to go, I know how to resolve this painful situation to the degree that, on a practical and emotional level, I can say I’m ok. This situation is okay. I did it.”

Check yourself on every level that’s important to you—mental, emotional, the level of integrity you have, the commitments you make to the people that you associate with, etc.—and know that if there’s a feeling of congruency, you’re on the right track. At the same time, notice whether or not you’re still trying to just cover up the emotion and are taking no logical steps towards resolution. If that’s the case, there will be a feeling of internal incongruence. Look at yourself truthfully and ask, “Have I done everything I can to find resolution?” Then find peace in that. There will never be absolutes in life but you can commit to continually stepping forward with courage, intention, and integrity. It is that process that points the way to an expanded state of consciousness that will be the reward; the new life you’ll have birthed.