Serenity Prayer of St Francis

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St Francis

It’s a crazy unstable world out there. It’s not going to get better anytime soon. Here’s St Francis of Asissi’s timeless Serenity Prayer. It’s remarkably relevant in today’s chaotic, unbalanced world. It’s very reminiscent of Gandhi’s famous quote, “If you want to change the world, be the change you seek.”

Here’s how St Francis put it:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace,

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

Where there is injury, pardon;

Where there is doubt, faith;

Where there is darkness, light;

And where there is sadness, joy;

O, Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek To be consoled, as to console;
To be understood as to understand;

To be loved as to love;

For it is in giving that we receive;

It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

-St Frances of Assisi, Serenity Prayer

 

The Four Principles of Ego Development

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Smile..smile..and laugh together

The foundation of the Negative Ego

The negative ego is based on four fundamental factors. These factors are:

  1.  Unprocessed toxicity.
  2.  Self-hatred and the victim mentality.
  3.  An innate sense of fear and powerlessness, which often translates into the need to dominate one’s relationships with other people.
  4. An unwavering intention to keep the soul isolated from the conscious mind and ego.

The Foundation of the Healthy Ego

The healthy ego, on the other hand, is happy to grant the soul access to the psyche. It is not interested in distancing itself from the soul, but in closing the gap with the spirit. The healthy ego is also built on four factors, but these factors are very different from those comprising the negative ego. The four factors that contribute to a healthy ego are:

  1.  Cleared toxicity.
  2.  Self-respect and a healthy boundary system.
  3.  The ability to love other people, appreciate and acknowledge them for who they are.
  4.  A strong commitment to unite the soul with the conscious mind and ego.

Self Respect

A healthy ego starts with a clear subconscious. There is no inner victim, no self-hatred, and no tendency toward self-destruction in the healthy ego. Instead, the healthy ego is continually building and expanding its self- respect. Self-respect grows with the ability to reach out and create healthy relationships based on affection and mutual respect. Self-respect is reinforced when we stand up for ourselves. Self-respect flourishes when we are able to give and receive love. Sharing the energy of unconditional love expands and strengthens us. People with a healthy ego instinctively understand that when they wholeheartedly acknowledge another per- son’s talents, gifts, and contributions, they are indirectly acknowledging their own sense of self.
The ability to wholeheartedly support and recognize someone else is only possible when our system has been drained of its toxicity. If we are free of envy, jealousy, pettiness, and vindictiveness, we won’t feel threatened by someone else’s success or see that person’s good fortune as our personal loss. However, until we clear the toxic emotion from our system and learn to set effective boundaries, we will find ourselves caught in a closed system where the tendency will be to do exactly that.

The Evolution of the Ego

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negative ego, victim, ego

When Toxicity Becomes Radioactive

The relationship between toxic content and the victim mentality makes that toxicity highly magnetic and powerful, almost radioactive. The resultant combination attracts an ever increasing stream of toxic situations into the person’s life. These new situations will incline the person polarized by his negative ego to react negatively, like a victim, to perceived threats to his survival, thus causing even more imbalances and fragmentation to his system.
In essence, there is a great irony at work in the primary mission of the negative ego. Instead of protecting its host from more traumatic incidents, the negative ego attracts more traumatic events to him. That is fine with the negative ego, for in adding to its host’s traumas, the negative ego increases its power over the host’s psyche. While a toxic system does not help the person who must live within the constraints of that toxicity, it does help the negative ego project its power and keep the soul at bay. The negative ego is shrewd and calculating. It knows that the more toxic material there is in its host’s system, the less opportunity the host’s soul will have to exert its influence and help the person grow.
As noted earlier, the negative ego does not have a death wish. It protects the toxic content in its host system because that toxicity is the source of its power and existence. Its secret mission, as opposed to its primary mission, is to keep the person focused on outward pursuits and dominated by an endless stream of desires. By keeping its host focused on chasing after a stream of desires, the negative ego diverts him from turning within, taking responsibility for his toxicity, and consciously evolving. By keeping its host focused on the external pursuit of happiness, the negative ego insures both its own continuity and its position of power.

The Healthy Ego

The healthy ego, by contrast, has already turned away from the distraction and glamour of desire and turned inward to confront and clear the unconscious toxicity in its system. In facing its fears it has faced them down. Instead of dissipating its power by turning outward, it is integrating and re-owning its power by moving inward. In moving inward, it is building a positive center of power. Since the healthy ego has cleared the toxicity in its system, it is no longer dominated by the victim mentality and is free to finally develop a clearer sense of self.

The Evolution of the Ego

As the ego evolves, we evolve. The healthy ego was once the negative ego. The transformation of the negative ego begins when the individual decides he has had enough frustration, emptiness, and suffering; when he admits that desire and denial do not work and can never fulfill their promise to satisfy him; when he sees that it is time to face himself, look within, and clear whatever toxic content he may find there.
The conscious, deliberate engagement with one’s unconscious toxicity marks the beginning of the negative ego’s death spiral. That confrontation weakens the desire nature and brings healing to the inner victim. As the negative ego is thrown into the spiritual fire of the Elimination Zone, it is slowly purified, refined, and reborn as the healthy ego. Where the negative ego nurtures the darkness and pursues its own separate goals of domination and control, the healthy ego embraces the soul and is eager to pursue the true goals of the individual, growth and evolution.

The Ego and The Victim Mentality

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Ego States and Toxicity

We can find the secret to the great disparity in viewpoint, values, and purpose that exists between the negative ego and the healthy ego in the relationship each level of the ego has with the presence or absence of the inner victim and the unconscious toxic content of its host. In the case of the negative ego, the unconscious toxicity in its host’s system has not been processed and the inner victim is dominant. In the case of the healthy ego, that toxicity has been processed and the inner victim has been transformed. The negative ego is built on the foundation of its host’s toxic content and the presence of the inner victim, while the healthy ego is constructed on the transformation of that content and the absence of the inner victim. Unprocessed content is crucial to the negative ego’s existence. It imbues the negative ego with power and provides it with a mandate to protect its host from further harm.

Unprocessed Toxicity

A critical component of that unprocessed toxicity is the victim mentality. If someone has been hurt, abused, or shamed and has not cleared those experiences from his system, the role of the victim will be present in his psyche, no matter how unconscious or well hidden that role may be. The inner victim is always angry and always blames someone else for its difficulties. Until the person chooses to take responsibility for what has happened in his life, the inner victim will always stop his growth. Growth is just not possible until one takes full responsibility for the weight of his life.

The Inner Victim

By constantly blaming other people for his difficulties, the inner victim makes a costly mistake. What the inner victim fails to comprehend is that in blaming others for his problems, he not only renders himself powerless, but also transfers what power he has left to his adversary. The unconscious transfer of power makes the inner victim less than who he really is and at the same time, makes his adversary more than who he really is.
Two things happen when the inner victim unconsciously transfers his power to his adversary and neither result is good. First, it makes him feel even more victimized than he did before he unconsciously transferred his power to his adversary. Second, it inflames the inner victim with more hatred toward his adversary. Both results widen the gulf that separates the inner victim from other people and deepens his shame. When the inner victim transfers his power he expands his sense of victimization. As long as he lets the inner victim state exist inside him, he can only move in one direction, down into darkness, and away from the light of the soul and spirit. The only thing the inner victim mentality ever succeeds in doing is making the individual into even more of a victim.

The Healthy Ego

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An Open system

The healthy ego is an open system. It wants to do all it can to help the soul achieve maximum influence in the psyche. The healthy ego is interested in promoting the growth and evolution of the person it serves. It is a true ally and partner in the pursuit of that growth.The healthy ego knows it can accelerate its host’s growth and evolution by merging with the soul and letting the soul be the ultimate authority in the psyche. The healthy ego knows instinctively that when that merger occurs it will strengthen every aspect of the psyche, produce a higher level of systemic integration, and widen its host’s awareness.

A Second Death Experience

The healthy ego also knows that as the evolutionary process goes forward from the Integration Zone and enters the Elevation Zone, it will undergo another upgrade, or death experience. The healthy ego, unlike the negative ego, is not afraid of its own death, because it has died once already when making the transition from the Elimination Zone to the Integration Zone. When it died as the negative ego, the healthy ego was transformed and freed from the chains of unconscious toxicity that bound it in fear and separation.

Seeking Growth

The healthy ego, unlike the negative ego, seeks continued growth and transformation. It understands that as more light enters and integrates the system of its host, the freer and happier it will be. When the ego is upgraded by the influx of spiritual light, all aspects of the individual’s system become freer and brighter. As the ego goes, so goes the individual. The key to personal evolution is to shift the ego toward the pole of the soul and spirit.

The Absence of Fear

The healthy ego is no longer worried about its survival, and no longer dominated by fear. Its goals are no longer antagonistic to the goals of the inner person. Instead, they are the same. The healthy ego is learning to move in harmony with the soul. Where the soul leads, the healthy ego wants to follow.

Overcoming The Negative Ego

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Soul vs Ego

What distinguishes a negative ego from a healthy ego is the relationship that each ego level has with the soul. The negative ego is a closed system, determined to have no further relationship with the soul whatsoever. The negative ego sees the soul as its major competitor for power within the psyche. It is threatened by the soul’s connection to the eternal light of the spirit. The negative ego  does not want that light to illuminate the psyche because the negative ego is afraid the light will reveal the hidden darkness and toxicity that are the source of its power. Since the negative ego is dominated by fear, it will go to great lengths to protect its franchise and maintain its control.

Mortality and The Ego

The negative ego’s primary interest does not lie in serving the person whose system it rules. The negative ego is only interested in protecting its host in order to sustain its own existence. This is not an act of generosity, but one of self-interest. The negative ego knows full well that it is as mortal as the body of its host. If its host were to die, the negative ego would no longer exist.

The negative ego with its fear, self-absorption, antagonism toward the soul, and concerns about its own survival, has no interest in the growth and evolution of the person within whom it exists. Neither is the negative ego interested in helping its host discover his true identity or find his true purpose. Conscious evolution requires the presence of the soul, and the negative ego is fully committed to denying that presence. Since the negative ego’s goals are antagonistic to the true goals of the person, it is neither friend nor ally to the person it is supposed to serve.

The Negative Ego and the Survival Instinct

With its primary orientation organized around its own survival concerns, the negative ego is not interested in growth or integration, but rather, in power and control. Power and control are the negative ego’s solution to the fear that lies hidden at its core. If the person it rules chose to bring down the eternal light and evolve, instead of chasing one desire after another in a futile race for fulfillment, the negative ego would eventually die. Turning toward the light terrifies the negative ego. It knows that it can only achieve its goals of survival and power by misdirecting the person it is supposed to be protecting from further trauma. The mission of the negative ego is to keep that person in the dark about his darkness, not to usher him into the light.

Growth and Resistance

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Addiction & Transforming Consciousness

Consciousness can be transformed from any context. We get real when we face our unconscious toxic content. It is the only way we have to regain our power. The addict can alter his path to self-destruction by facing what he fears most. That is the only way he will regain his power. While the secret of what he must do is simple, entering the Elimination Zone is often a formidable undertaking. In the beginning of the journey, moving toward our fear intensifies that fear. Addiction is an attempt to tranquilize the beasts of fear and pain.

 Courage

The antidote to fear is courage. In the context of personal evolution, courage means that we have decided to move forward and are willing to feel uncomfortable in order to escape where we have been. That’s what Barbara and Frank both did. Courage means we are willing to take a risk in order to be free of an untenable situation. In the case of the addict, courage means that he is willing to sacrifice the habitual and the destructive, the negative comfort zone that he is used to, for a chance at health and redemption.

For the addict, the road home to his real self and his true nature is not a mystery. Its requirements are few. He has to want to do it. Then he has to choose to do it. Then he has to do it. What the addict has to do to right his boat, we have to do to right ours. The addict’s situation is only more desperate, urgent, and extreme than is our own. The difference between an addict and a normal person is but a matter of degree. We may be in different boats, but we still have to sail on the same sea of consciousness.

At some point in life everyone confronts the same question. Are we going to face ourselves and go forward, or are we going to avoid that confrontation, resist our growth, and run in place for the rest of our lives?

California Dreamin’

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Los Angeles

I’ve just returned from a wonderful week in LA. I was lucky. The winter disappeared while I was there. Instead of cold and rain I had brilliant blue skies and temperatures in the sixties and seventies. Wherever I went I ran into people I knew and loved. That always seems to happen to me whenever I’m in LA.

I made progress in getting producers interested in my novel THE SILENT STEPS OF GRACE. One day it will be a powerful and uplifting and inspiring movie that will help people in their lives. One very successful producer of several big movie hits called the book “tremendous”.  He also said that he found one of the story lines disturbing. That most certainly was the hidden history of the United States. The real history of this country is certainly not what we were all force fed in school.

He also asked me why I wanted to get involved in the movie business. “If you have a happy life and are o.k. financially why would you want to make your book into a movie?” he asked me.

“To see it come alive on the screen,” I replied. “Money and notoriety are a distant second.”

“You’ll pay a price for that,” he sighed. “You’ll be dealing with the worst people in the world. My advice is don’t do it.”

He may well be right. Only time will tell what the price of success is.

L.A. is an acquired taste. At first, it’s overwhelming. Huge, too many people and far too many cars. It takes time to get grounded and get your bearings. A friend of mine, who is a Ph. D. and runs a multi-discipline program at USC, calls LA a cesspool. It certainly is that. But if you take your time and separate the wheat from the chaff, you will find wonderful and extraordinary people. I know tons of them and am honored to call them my friends.

Getting around the city is a nightmare. It’s rush hour traffic all day long. One friend said if he has an appointment in Beverly Hills he’ll leave three hours early so he won’t be caught in heavy traffic. He’ll work in a coffee shop in Beverly Hills until it’s time for his meeting. That’s how bad the traffic is. Another friend of mine said it took him 90 minutes to go less than 2 miles. Several people said the traffic made LA almost unlivable.

LA has several advantages and disadvantages.

The advantages are:

  1. great climate
  2. very open and creative culture
  3. great food choices, particularly in Santa Monica and Venice
  4. Santa Monica and Venice are ground zero for healthy conscious eating
  5. Lots of organic restaurants
  6. Great health food stores, particularly Co-Opportunity in Santa Monica which may be the best health food store in the country
  7. Great beaches
  8. Great people
  9. Home of the movie and TV industries
  10. Lots of people striving to grow and become more conscious

The disadvantages are:

  1. High cost of living. Real estate is incredibly expensive. Rents are high.
  2. High taxes.
  3. Traffic and gridlock
  4. Lots of toxic people
  5. LA and Southern California are in the direct path of radioactive winds coming from the crippled reactors in Fukushima
  6. A monster quake that will level virtually every structure in SoCal could happen at any time.

For me, the cost and risk of living in LA outweigh the benefits of returning there to live. That’s why I left after living there for 16 years and will not return. My solution is to travel there frequently, see my friends and work to make my novel into a movie.

If you haven’t yet read THE SILENT STEPS OF GRACE you should. It’s a great story. It will move you, inspire you and educate you. In short, it’s a game changer. You will find more information about it on my website www.alanmesher.com or on amazon.com. It is available in both print and digital formats.

 

 

 

 

Women in Combat

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women in combat

Combat and Targeted Killing

On January 23 Obama announced a new policy that will allow women in combat roles. This is insane. First, Obama came out with a new edict saying that American citizens can be the object of targeted killing. Now he says women  in combat is an idea whose time has come. It’s now time for women in combat to kill the enemy, just like men have always done. Well, men and women are inherently different. Both their physiology and psychology are different. Their brains are different. Their hearts are different. And their reproductive systems are obviously different. According to a female psycho-biologist women speak 22,000 to 23,000 words a day. Men only 6,000. Yet feminists insist, over and over again, that all differences between men and women are due to “socialization”.  That’s their mantra and by God, they’re sticking to it.

Disinformation

 

Why would anyone believe such obvious disinformation and spurious propangada? The answer: Millions of deluded people with NO common sense.   It illustrates how easy it is to brainwash and mind-control vast swatches of the population. Women in combat? Come on Pres. Obama and Sec. of Defense Panetta. Targeting American citizens to be killed and allowing women in combat to kill or be killed? Whatever happened to common sense, honor and the moral high ground? That’s why the world always looked up to America in the past. Now the world despises America. They see us as bullies and terrorists. The days of honor, morality and doing the right thing seem sadly behind us. And our answer is to allow women in combat?

Here’s a great article on why women should NOT be in combat.

http://takimag.com/article/women_in_combat_another_nail_in_the_coffin_jared_taylor#axzz2KVHsQ37i

 

Addiction and Powerlessness

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addiction

I Was A Drug Addict

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The Loss of Happiness

Barbara’s experience in standing up for herself illustrates yet another important truth about addiction. We can’t find happiness when we give away our power. To be happy, we must have our personal power and maintain our emotional balance.
Those who habitually give away their power are in danger of developing an addictive personality. Having effective boundaries and standing up for ourselves is one of the only safeguards we possess in protecting our power from the ravages of addiction. The  person with an addiction has few healthy boundaries. He turns to substance abuse, drugs, alcohol, sex, or other behaviors to replace his loss of power and numb his feelings of toxic shame and the deep sense of inadequacy that accompanies his shame. While an addiction may temporarily suppress feelings of self-hatred and low self- esteem, it can never resolve deep-seated emotional problems.

How an Addiction Amplifies Pain

In masking his pain with drugs, alcohol, and sex, the person suffering from an addiction only amplifies that pain. By giving away his power, the person with an addiction intensifies his anguish. By refusing to face his pain, he unwittingly places himself in a destructive psychological bind. Whatever he flees from becomes larger and more powerful than he is. Whatever is more powerful than he is, owns him. His addiction becomes  the driving force in his life. When that happens, his power is no longer his. It has been transferred to what he fears most and adamantly refuses to face. His life is ruled by his repressed toxic shame. His addiction has neutered him and leads to a path of ever increasing self-destructive behavior.

Addiction and the Consequences of Becoming Less Conscious

The person with a history of addiction has no access to any positive aspect in his psyche. His only thought is to flee from the burden of his life and the weight of responsibility for his growth by making himself less conscious. What the person in the grips of an addiction fails to realize is that the only way to resolve his problems is to become more conscious, not less. However, becoming conscious takes work and commitment, and the person with an addiction has no interest in working on himself. While he may not know it, his ultimate goal is self-destruction. He is thoroughly immersed in his negative ego and totally ensconced in the role of victim.