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Blessings With Persecutions:
Living With Enemies...and maintaining groundedness.
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© John Erickson
Say you're undertaking a personal discipline - dieting, working out, studying - and out of the blue some little demon accuses you of something you've never done, insults your intelligence, your accomplishments... or generally your right to exist. Suddenly your personal goals are compromised by this negative energy.
Our social impulse causes us to value comments and opinions of others, even if they're entirely unqualified to comprehend the issue they're discussing. We react to people not via a logic process but by learned social reflexes. We don't want to be exiled into an anti-social limbo so we usually humor all comers on the social landscape. Unfortunately, that lets open a shield which would normally filter the comments from the rabble according to their proven value.
Consider the logic process one employs when assessing inanimate objects: replacing a worn appliance, deciding which model has the best reviews, best track record and the like. These decisions are made much less self-consciously than decisions about the comments we allow to rent space in our heads. But, being human, we can't freely eradicate harassing comments once they've been smeared upon us. We can develop our self-actualization tool kit to prodigious degrees, but knowledge alone won't slay this beast. The catalyst that enlivens our self-sovereignty is "time."
Devoting time to oneself impresses an image of substantiality and import upon our minds with respect to whom we are and the things we value. This isn't just time spent consuming mass quantities in front of the tube. This is a sequestered moment of an uncorrupted awareness of your spirit and a simultaneous immersion in the Lifesource. A journal exponentiates this energizing process, I find, as it reacquaints us with our roots via past entries, then builds on these strengths as we substantiate our present revelations by the physical action of putting them to paper.
This is the "service" that is routinely performed in your temple.
And, without notice, those emotional ghosts of the past die of neglect in the shadows of your reawakened self.
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• "The Valid Self" on Kindle
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