Creative Visualization February 7, 2007
Posted by The Probabilist in : [Books], Consciousness, Creativity, Gratitude, Goals, Psychology, Purpose, Relationships, Beliefs, Vision, Abilities , 3 comments
Shakti Gawain’s Creative Visualization is more than the title indicates. In fact, how to visualize something in order to create what you desire is very briefly explained. The biggest portion delves into the different kinds of things you can accomplish or have in your life, what inner beliefs may be rooted in you that block you from using your creative power of the law of attraction, and also how to reach a meditative state that serves as the best way to have creative visualization work for you.
My own interpretation and what I thought of the book is that it’s 50 % about creative visualization and another 50 % of personal psychology and life lessons that help you to lead a more fulfilled life. To understand the power of intention-manifestation and have it work well, you need to first work on your inner beliefs of what you rightfully deserve, why your natural state is that of joy, prosperity and self-worth, and what the power of your own mind really includes and controls.
The richness found in the book is the many methods that aid and complete the art of successful creative visualization. Among them are meditation, using several senses to visualize, affirmations, the link to spirituality, acceptance, healing, energy flow and centers, sanctuary, invocations, writing a notebook, clearing, goal-setting, idealizing, treasure maps and creative visualization within relationships and groups.
I found it very interesting how much in common there is to this book and what I have been writing about in this blog. There’s the question of what you want, do or are, how the beliefs about yourself are more important than what others think of you, why prosperity is your birthright and how to use a positive attitude to get what you want in life instead of perpetuating what you don’t like about yourself and your circumstances.
Creative visualization has been in the bookstores for quite some time already and I can see that it has had quite an impact in the teachings of many great personal development coaches of today. My copy is a 25th anniversary edition and it also includes some examples of what kind of results the technique has manifested. This book is a worthwhile read and daily reference to visualization to anyone who isn’t yet totally satisfied with how their life has turned out or who don’t enjoy every minute of it.
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Empathy or Equanimity? February 1, 2007
Posted by The Probabilist in : [Articles], Consciousness, Communication, Emotions, Society, Personal Growth, Philosophy, Relationships, Beliefs, Abilities , 5 comments
I was recently faced with yet another new challenge of battling two concepts against each other and introspectively seeking out an answer on which one is better, if both are good or if neither of them are. It seems that this is what I do and it goes to show by the articles I’ve written so far. So let’s break it down into details and see if we can find a reasonable answer.
Empathy is the ability to listen to a troubled individual and literally opening your mind up so that all the problems, worries, negative emotions, traumas and anxiety can flow into you. You literally feel the pain as you balance the garbage so that the other person starts to feel better when the weight gets transferred off their shoulders and onto yours. This is basically what therapy is about, or starts out as. Therapy Doc Linda Freedman posted a great analysis of it.
Equanimity is then exactly the opposite of empathy as it’s an inner state of total deflection from external negativity, misery and nuisances. This means that whatever inner emotional state you are in is very stable, completely of your own making and other people’s misfortunes or troubles don’t mean anything to you on a mental/emotional level. Comedy and Humor blogger Andrew Brunelle wrote a more in-depth post about this state on his blog.
A quick overview of these two concepts makes you think that empathy is service to others while equanimity is service to self. But is it that black and white?
The pros of empathy is that people will love to seek you out and open their heart to you, if that’s what you want through mastering this skill. Moreover, empathy doesn’t necessarily mean that you only use it to acquire negative feelings, but you might use it to gather some positivism and greatness for yourself when you surround yourself with uplifting people. The con is that it might be hard to turn off that connection in places where there’s little joy to go around. Additionally, it may take time to rid yourself of the miseries that you’ve taken upon yourself from a ’session’. Empathy is to improve the world through suffering (or easing suffrage).
The pros of equanimity is that you fully embrace the concept of your thoughts creating your circumstances. It is also the way of living in total emotional balance and harmony as opposed to the roller coaster of empathic living. Whatever you’re facing, it won’t paralyze, discourage or disappoint you, be it either things or people that affect your objectives. The con of it is that you may find it difficult to spontaneously rejoice over your own or others’ fortunate events. You might also become somewhat of a recluse as people don’t find much interest in spilling their guts over you, because they feel distant in your presence. Equanimity is to improve the world through leading by example (as in showing people that you are calm and unshakeable when facing otherwise stressful, terrifying or wretched events).
Equanimity shouldn’t be confused with indifference though. Or that a person becomes incapable of taking action. Or even that such a person is foolishly unafraid or unaffected by immediate danger. It could be described as total clarity of the present moment, but without having emotions influence your decision making or mind-set.
I believe each person is innately orientating toward one of these concepts more than to the other - as with an MBTI preference. Even though one can’t experience both concepts simultaneously, the question is if one can master them both and use which ever state of mind suits a given situation. This would mean that you can have the pros of both and focus on lessening the impact of the cons of each that I mentioned.
Personally, I’ve always been following the discipline of equanimity very strongly. Empathy has naturally seemed to me as something I want to avoid as I feel I’m meant to orientate towards equanimity. My guess is that if I’d start to practise empathy with much effort, then my level of equanimity would suffer. But I’m not ruling out the possibility that a person can make such a mental shift as easily as pushing a button.
What I do suggest is that a person picks a side, any side. And moving from there it’s all about improving the chosen skill as far as possible to help balance society in the right direction. Both skills aim to reach a balance, either internally within each individual or then on the plane of interrelationships. So unless you happen to be a person who finds himself or herself capable of mastering both states whenever you want, my best bet is that you focus on the one that seems more right to you and that you practise it constantly to make it even better.
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