July 7, 2025: How to Embark on a Journey of Insight and Mindfulness
The search for meaning, clarity, and inner peace is as old as humanity itself. Every individual faces moments when the world appears weighty, chaotic, or misaligned with their aspirations. Yet, within the stillness of deep introspection and the practice of mindfulness lies the potential for profound transformation. These tools act as a bridge to not only self-awareness but also a nurtured connection to the greater tapestry of life.
If you’ve found yourself yearning for meaning, seeking clarity amidst the noise of existence, or aching to align with a sense of purpose, this guide offers a reflective pathway forward.
Insight is the revelation of a hidden truth or the peeling away of a facade to reveal a deeper reality. Unlike fragmented surface thoughts, it allows us to see into the essence of problems, emotions, or behaviors that define our lives. A moment of insight can be liberating, breaking habitual responses and enabling us to view ourselves and the world through untinted lenses.
Mindfulness, on the other hand, is the practice of anchoring oneself in the present moment, free of judgment. It cultivates an awareness of what is rather than what might be or could have been. Together, these practices are guardians of personal and spiritual awakening, lighting a path toward clarity and healing.
Through intentional reflection and heightened awareness, countless individuals have uncovered the threads of their past traumas, healed wounded narratives, and rediscovered their authentic selves. But what does embarking on this path practically look like?
Step 1: Confront the Stories You’ve Lived By
Understanding begins with courage. Courage to look at the stories you’ve internalized about yourself and the world. Many of these narratives are shaped unconsciously during formative years, woven together by societal norms, family dynamics, and cultural expectations. While these stories may have provided safety or belonging at one point, they often become a straitjacket.
To begin your exploration:
- Write down the core beliefs you hold about yourself. For example, “I am not good enough” or “I must always please others to be worthy of love.”
- Reflect on their origins. Is this belief authentic to you, or was it inherited from a caretaker, friend, or societal norm?
By documenting and questioning these beliefs, you begin the process of unwinding the self-imposed constraints inhibiting your path to greater fulfillment.
Step 2: Observe the Mind Without Judgment
One of the most challenging—but rewarding—aspects of mindfulness is the practice of witnessing your mind without reacting. Our thoughts often carry judgments, comparisons, or narratives we unconsciously accept as truth. Through mindfulness, you learn to see them objectively, as passing events rather than determinants of reality.
Practical Exercise:
- Find a quiet moment each day, even if just for five minutes.
- Sit comfortably and close your eyes.
- Notice your thoughts, one by one, as they arise. Don’t try to suppress them or attach meanings; simply observe and release them.
- Picture them as clouds drifting across a vast sky, coming into view and floating away again.
The pause between thought and action, between mind chatter and next steps, is where clarity and intentionality are born.
Step 3: Pursue Self-Honesty
Insight is impossible without honesty. Recognizing where you’ve contributed to your own suffering—even unwittingly—is a difficult but empowering step. The human instinct often directs us to place blame outwardly, onto others, culture, or circumstances. True liberation, however, begins by accepting full responsibility for your responses to life’s challenges.
Ask yourself:
- Where am I avoiding the truth about my behaviors, relationships, or choices?
- What am I holding onto that creates more burden than freedom?
Honesty is not an exercise in guilt but a reclamation of authenticity. By facing the unvarnished reality of who you are, you unlock the doors to change.
Step 4: Seek Intuitive Guidance
Our intuitive capabilities often exist beneath layers of noise and distraction from daily life. These subtle nudges, be they in the form of dreams, gut feelings, or spontaneous “aha” moments, offer profound clarity about our deeper truths.
How to Listen to Intuition:
- Keep a journal dedicated to recording dreams or unexplained insights that occur.
- Engage in daily meditation to quiet the noise and tune into intuitive whispers.
- Begin affirming small choices based on intuition, like trusting a hunch or pursuing a curiosity, and observe its outcomes.
Many have found that profound truths surface when we stop overanalyzing and allow the quieter parts of ourselves to speak.
Step 5: Commit to Awakening
The path of mindfulness and insight is not a one-time endeavor nor a quick detour but a lifelong commitment to growth and learning. Like tending a garden, it requires patience, devotion, and trust in the sometimes slow but inevitable unfolding of life’s truths.
Awakening starts by letting go of rigid thinking and deeply entrenched patterns. It invites curiosity and humility in their place.
Practical steps include:
- Engaging in spiritual readings or teachings that challenge your perspective and spark self-reflection.
- Surrounding yourself with individuals who value conscious living and encourage growth.
- Reflecting daily on how your actions align with your intention to live mindfully and authentically.
Step 6: The Ripple Effect of Transformation
Through greater awareness and understanding, you don’t just change yourself but become a source of change for those around you. Healing, as personal as it is, has a collective ripple effect on families, communities, and beyond.
When you operate from a state of insight and mindfulness:
- Your relationships are less likely to be driven by judgment and reactivity.
- Communities formed around genuine empathy and understanding become possible.
- Cultural patterns of suppression, prejudice, and neglect can be challenged and rewoven into conscious, inclusive frameworks.
Bring curiosity to how your personal growth might begin to echo outward, inspiring transformation in all it touches.
To truly see, to truly live, means embarking on a profound and occasionally uncomfortable but ultimately rewarding exploration of who you are. Through the lens of mindfulness and the gift of insight, even the most fractured stories can be rewritten.
Begin your exploration now; much depends upon it, not only for your own peace but for the collective well-being of humanity.
Seek wisdom in stillness. Question well-trodden stories. Trust that beneath the complexity of being lies the simplicity of truth. From here, everything becomes possible. Now is the moment to start believing that.
Many of the insights of the saint stem from their experience as sinners—Eric Hoffer
It is through deep introspection, contemplation, and the cultivation of mindfulness that we can unlock the doors to profound insights. Engaging in mindfulness, self-reflection and deep introspection not only enhances self-awareness but also opens doors to personal growth, allowing us to refine our perspectives and make more informed choices. Insights are those sudden flashes of understanding that have the power to illuminate the darkest corners of complexity, or even the darkest corners of our minds. Insights transcend logical reasoning, allowing us to grasp the essence of intricate problems and find innovative solutions.
In the honest seeing of our problems through enhanced and sincere insight and awareness, our freedom is ultimately attained from our culturally conditioned and trauma influenced minds. The preceding statement is a variation on quotes by many spiritual teachers, prophets, saints and savants, so please give it your highest regard. We all can be spiritually erumpent, yet our lives will never blossom into the beautiful, independent, fragrant flower they can become, while we continue to neglect our true selves, our life’s meaning, and our inner spiritual GPS. Sadly, our hearts will never break out into a dithyramb, instead remaining in stunned, helpless silence. We yearn for a better day while mourning the loss of our happiness and greater potential. We remain entombed behind the massive burial stone created by early family and cultural wounding, other forms of trauma, and our unconscious response to those wounds, until we begin the journey of self-discovery and spiritual awakening.
The oppression of major blocks of humanity coupled with Capitalist attitudes supporting the decimation of the plant and animal kingdoms reigns supreme in major sections of our culture. We tend to turn away from the suffering of others and avoid taking responsibility for the healing of this world, while remaining a distracted culture. This inattention is fueled by addictions to media devices or mind-numbing ideologies, and diversions of our life force into mindless entertainment while also worshipping TV actors, sports stars, movie personalities, and spiritual gurus.. Alcohol, drug, and personal power abuses continue, seemingly unabated. False or underqualified teachers and leaders we have ignorantly chosen to follow continue the disturbing trend started by our ancestors until the beginnings of human consciousness. Some still play make-believe and cling to the spiritual accomplishments of others, such as the historical Jesus or Buddha, and ignore the call to work out their salvation.. As a result, those who do not perform the required spiritual reclamation projects will continue to needlessly suffer, while bringing no relief from suffering to others…
To facilitate awakening and healing, we must reject the precedent that has been established, while aspiring to become our saviors, with awakened powers of understanding and compassion. New thoughts not based upon wounded memories are essential. Otherwise, we continue layering over, or covering our non-examined embedded belief structures with another coat of paint, while our decaying house of consciousness shakes with its ever-eroding foundation..
There are no quick-fix solutions. Our country has been fed on spiritual and religious fast food for much too long. What is next in the queue for us?
- drive through healing?
- five-minute meditations for transformation and prosperity?
- new diets that guarantee weight loss and immortality?
- books that promise that all of your prayers will be answered if you would just pray the one special way offered by the starving author?.
- a magic pill that erases all difficult memories, and creates pleasure where there once was only pain?
Or, should we just declare “it is what it is”, throw up one’s hands in surrender, and just accept defeat, or that all is “God’s will”?
If we do not understand the system that we are trying to repair, we are only introducing more chaos into an already unstable process, and we risk further damage to, or the destruction of, an already compromised life. We must not get bogged down by resentments, judgments, denial, and ignorance.. We need to proceed carefully and consciously as we look for the causes of our individual and cultural distresses. We must enhance our understanding of ourselves and all of our relationships. Then, we can intelligently and logically troubleshoot them with the best tools and techniques, knowledge, insight, and intuition presently available.
I have lived two complete lives in my 69+ years on this planet. Much of the first life is still available to me, both through my family history, my writings, and my own very good memory. In my first life, I was plagued with toxic, self-limiting and debasing internal dialogue and beliefs. Had it not been for a deep need to understand my dysfunctional process, and try to find an underlying healing truth amid my chaos, I would not have awakened, and instead I would have passed away long age. Some aspects of my former life eluded my ability to communicate around and about them, and thus added to my personal and cultural conspiracy of silence. Some wounds were so deep, and primal, that I had no language for them, with just a vague, ongoing anxiety and disconnect from others that plagued me through the first iteration of myself.
If we begin our search for truth and healing, we will eventually find the common threads that were woven together into straight jackets, and then burial shrouds, rather than as potential mantles signifying discipleship to higher spiritual possibilities..Often, our clues are not immediately evident and obvious and available. It pays great dividends to give attention to our dreams, personal poetry and writing, physiological issues, conversations with family members, and therapists, and, sometimes, just following up on hunches and our intuition to finally expose what our clues may be, or where to research further for them, A good assumption to start with is that we have been traumatized in one or more ways during our childhood, especially if we are presently not experiencing great bodily health, joy, love, and a sense of purpose.. How might a successful search for truth begin?
- By tiring of the way things are or having our hearts broken and becoming willing to make changes in course.
- By studying the narratives of our culture, our family system, and ourselves, and developing a curiosity about new possibilities.
- By becoming aware of collective archetypes that unconsciously, influence us, and developing a willingness to let go of any unhelpful controls.
- By listening to our intuition, insight, meditations, and dreams, and following any clues that are revealed.
I began seeking healing and balance in earnest in 1987. Before that point, the act of creating personal stories with their isolated lonely context characterized my narratives. I found that just being conversational about the details of my life, without accompanying insight, did not dislodge the detritus from my field of conscious awareness. The Devil is in the details, figuratively speaking, and, as my desire for change was great, I found that I needed to find a way to see under the vast matrix of my oft-times conflicted mind, a mind disordered by a fixation on the chaos generated from our cultural influences and from my past..
The healing journey is to find the timeless silence at the foundation of our being, but this requires great insight and dedication. Plato, and the Oracle at Delphi, stated that once we really understood ourself, we could become intimately aware of God and the Universe. But we must comprehend the whole process of naming and all knowledge subsequently inspired, for the stories that arise may be just more time-based narratives characterized by intellectual knowledge and self-satisfying entertainment.
To develop the capacity for the insight that brings divine knowledge requires a tremendous depth of desire to know one’s self. This is a complete, more profound holistic knowing that overcomes a lifetime of suffering, ignorance, and indifference and oppression by others, and repression of one’s emotional and spiritual nature. Once we truly know ourselves, all that we see, and will ever see, unto eternity, is our Self. If we are still fragmented, chaos driven, and divided within ourselves, our perceptions of the outer world will reflect that inner turbulence.
- Is the Book Of Genesis within the Bible pointing to something completely different than most people realize?
- How does one eliminate the causes, within our consciousness, of the emotional and spiritual equivalents of the auto-immune diseases within our bodies?
- What if a real miracle was trying to happen in our lives, and too few people cared or were not even aware enough to attempt to look for it?
Indifference and its favorite dance partner, ignorance, are the foundations for chaos in our world and within our minds..Those who refuse to look at the toxicities within themselves and within our culture become unconscious and unwitting contributors and supporters of the darkness. Indifference, ignorance, and its deadly spawn hatred continue to threaten to destroy everyone and everything. Tragically, in this age, collective outpourings of love and support for victims follow domestic terrorist acts, rather than healing and preparing the culture enough to prevent the heinous behavior in the first place. But through Insight and mindfulness, minds and hearts are transformed, making all of us much less likely to become the source of suffering for others, and we become living examples of loving non-violence in action. Insight plants the seed of the miracle into our minds, and mindfulness is the great gardener of that miracle, resulting in a more abundant, healthy crop of happier, peaceful, loving, and ordered thoughts.
One of the greatest insights that I have made is a direct result of a science class that I attended in fourth grade. Mr. Hill, our Principal and co-teacher of the fourth-grade class, was going to experiment, and he wanted to teach the students about the power of observation. Each member of the class was to record everything they observed onto a notepad, so as to completely describe what they had witnessed. He had heated a portable electric stove. He then grabbed with some insulated tongs a thin sheet of metal and set it on the burner. The metal immediately began to distort in size and became quite disfigured, and the metal no longer looked like it did before. I watched, yet I had no words to describe what it was that I had just witnessed. I had never seen anything like that before, and I was struck dumb by it. I saw two kids writing feverishly on either side of me, and in my need to be accepted, “fit in” and not look stupid I looked at each of the two student’s writings, and saw how they described the event. I used their expressions to help me to create my own descriptions.
At an early age, I saw how dependent I was on other people to describe events that I did not have the words for. As a result, I have seen how the mystery of life can sometimes get overrun by society’s need to establish and maintain a continuity of reality and a shared understanding of events between all of its members. Someone else had a description of what I could not yet describe, so I used second-hand words to fill in the gap. Extrapolate this need to fit in and to belong to all collective gatherings of human life, including religion, politics, and society, and it is easily seen as the potential foundation for illusion within all such bodies of experience. The description is never the actual event, yet those who did not have the experience, copy and worship the description, and overlook the event that may be still happening right under their noses. They have never developed the capacity and/or the willingness, to give their unique description of an event, they are in fear of offering a different or contrary version of the event, or they have never witnessed the event itself.
In my junior year in high school, I was required to keep a daily journal and record my insights into myself for a writing class. The problem was that I had no insight, at least as far as being able to put into words what the interior nature of my mind and life looked like. I did not spend a lot of time giving descriptions of events happening around me, and, instead, listened to others as they described their own experiences, which I either accepted and supported or rejected and judged against. But for me to describe the interior dimensions of my being seemed an impossible task. I had to submit something, and in my desperation to get a decent grade i went to a bookstore, to find a book to help me to ‘look at myself’.
Hugh Prather had written a book called ‘Notes To Myself’, and I stumbled upon it, and bought it. I was so empty of complete statements about myself and my life that I copied statements from Hugh’s book, and tried to ‘personalize’ them so that it would not be obvious that I had copied his work. I got my passing grade, felt very relieved, and continued on my awkward, highly dysfunctional path through high school. I was near the top of my class near graduation time, yet I was completely out of touch with the majority of my classmates, as well as with myself. I had hoped that to finally graduate from high school might change, if not end, much of my social anxiety and sense of disconnect. Of course, this could not be further from the truth. When I entered my freshman year at the University of Portland in 1973, I was lost again, and I had no internal maps to guide me through the complexities of college life. The use of pot, alcohol, and relationships with emotionally diseased people continued in earnest, obscuring any clear vision of my goals, and I constructed many self-destructive roadblocks that impeded all progress.
Looking back, this verbal and emotional disconnect would have been great stuff to write about in the high school class, but I was living a lie, without having the words to even describe it, and the telling of the truth to others, let alone to myself, might force me into changes that I could not embrace or consider as possibilities. The absence of personal honesty and insight, and to be verbal around it, and the inability to communicate my distress with others doomed me to a deteriorating life experience. This limited my choices so much that for many days, and years, I felt trapped in a prison, with interior windows sometimes only opening to Hell. I did not even have an adequate description to communicate my hell to others, so this is the secret behind the motivation for many mysterious suicides. ..
I will bypass a few years, and revisit insight. In April of 1984, I placed myself in the Care Unit of Portland’s Lovejoy Hospital for a month, to maintain my job with the U.S. Postal Service, as well as, maybe, stay sober for a little while. I had a female Christian counselor named Claire, who was my guide while residing in this facility. A requirement was to keep a daily journal and to document our “internal weather” while undergoing reorientation into the new life of sobriety.
I remained quite uncomfortable recording my interior universe. Little had changed within me since high school in regards to becoming honest with myself and finding any hidden gems to discover and write about. I did start to write poetry about my pain, and darkness. I found that I could write a lot in my journal, hoping that it might be pleasing to my counselor Claire.. Yet, something else was also brewing inside, which was the need to bring peace into my mind.
Every day my desire for PEACE was acknowledged, all the while attending the daily groups, and counseling sessions. I attempted to practice the 12 steps of AA, for alcoholic recovery, which demands insight, and rigorous honesty. My chances were still less than average, due to fundamental flaws in the basic makeup of my consciousness, and awareness. A lifetime of oppression, insanity, and repression of spirit does not just magically disappear because others, or even me, think that it might be a good idea. This first foray into intensive recovery from addiction was not to be a success for me, however. The three-year period following the relapse was to become the most horrifying period of my life. The final descent into life-threatening darkness is documented elsewhere.
Suffice it to say, to follow new paths of consciousness means to become aware as a human being, and listen to my heart, and the heart of others, as we travel these uncertain paths of life that lay before us. And I must become conscious, and maintain the conditions for healing, for me to continue on an awakening path. I must make verbal, as best that I can, that which defies description, no matter where those revelations place me on the spectrum of human energy. And I must continue to accept personal responsibility for all of my thoughts, words, and actions, while supporting others to do the same. We must try to walk together, or many of us will die alone.
When we finally realize that the conscious world that we feared, the conscious world in which we created idols and gods, and self-protective psychological mechanisms, to protect us from the perceived or potential evil, was actually a world that we created through our own ignorance, both collectively, and individually. This manifests in all of the horrors that we witness on the world stage daily, and in all of the family and cultural dysfunction under which we were raised. We are all wounded by this process known as projection, and rather than find a way to heal from it, we ignorantly arm ourselves against further assaults from others, even though we are part of the attack against our own self in the first place. This is the most insidious component of the Common Knowledge Game, and the one almost everybody REFUSES to face together. The outcome is inevitable, and, ultimately, we will either heal together, or we will die alone.
A most diseased way that human beings acting out of their own wounded natures is by continuing the attacks against those that they have already hurt. It is just heartbreaking to be a witness to, or to be on the receiving end of, attacks against our souls and being by those who have already hurt us, and who cannot or will not acknowledge their own culpability. The victim is made wrong for having feelings, and for expressing their anger, fear, distress, or heartbreak at having been attacked, either in the past, the present, or both. Because the perpetrator does not want to face his own bad attitudes and behavior, he lashes out, and makes wrong, those who attempt to speak up for their own life, and rights. If we cannot accept responsibility for our own wayward thoughts and actions, healing and forgiveness, whatever that word may point to, remains an impossibility.
Those who remain silent about their own responsibility for and participation in their own projections of hatred, ignorance, pain, suffering, intolerance onto others, remain a fixture of our culture’s conspiracy of silence. It happens on the cultural level, and on the personal level. We are all victims of racism, sexism, misogyny, xenophobia, and all other malicious, malevolent attitudes and behaviors, trickling down from our politicians, corporate boards, employers, family members, co-workers, acquaintances, fellow drivers on the road, or the person in the cashier’s line with us at the grocery store. Our country owes an apology and reparations to all of the minorities it has persecuted and punished, such as the Indians, the Blacks, the Hispanics, the Immigrants, the Infirm, the Old, and the Poor. Our religions owe an apology to the homosexuals, to the infidels, to the gentiles, to the “Jewish faith who crucified Jesus”, and to all who have been persecuted because they were “non-believers”.
MINDFULNESS
A fixed truth about life is that if we can’t honestly look at where we are in life, we will never find the true motivation, or foundation for change in our life’s experience. The non-examined life always results in a damaged, dysfunctional life, and that characterizes both individuals, and the collective society that they participate in. The Christians tend to believe that they can be saved from their own darkness by claiming the work performed by somebody else (the blood of Jesus?). Well, for those who have really made “conscious contact with the God of our understanding”, the realization comes that our own “blood” is the sacrifice that we make, as we make mistakes, and learn from them. In fact, the only sacrifice that ever needs to be made (and the only sacrifice acceptable to the Truth within us) is our erroneous understanding of who we are, and who or what our fellow-man is. Our own “crucifixion” continues until our own physical deaths, unless we release ourselves from all of the false illusions of self and other. Our misunderstanding of life, no matter how “Christian” we claim to be, creates infinite opportunities for chaos and disharmony with each other, and we feel betrayed by, and suffer endlessly from, all of the wounds incurred through fragmented belief systems.
We are typically healed though the power of awareness, awareness that operates through the present moment of experience. We need not claim a healing through the long dead consciousness of some purported master or saint to have a true healing experience There is always somebody trying to layer the Truth of Being with their own misinformation and broken philosophies, and this includes the Church, in whatever forms we address it. Truth and healing DO NOT REQUIRE AN INTERMEDIARY, IMAGINARY OR OTHERWISE. No teacher will affect our salvation, we must work it out for ourselves. The God of our misunderstanding only needs our humility, patience, and sincerity to approach it successfully. The medium for healing is our own consciousness and the consciousness of our spiritually aware “helpers”, and this is always happening NOW. To believe otherwise is the absolutely damaged understanding that has been foisted upon the unaware, philosophically and spiritually uninterested, socially conforming group of people claiming to follow religious and spiritual teachings for countless generations.
I will allude to my own personal experience here, to add to the mental picture that I am trying to re-create. Recently I was motivated to write a story about my unfolding as a human being, and my entry onto the path of spirituality. This inspiration resulted in the writing of a story that resulted in a more complete understanding of the blocks to love’s awareness that existed in my mind/heart during my childhood and early adult years. A cathartic event resulted, revealing a long ignored inner voice that I was called upon to finally listen to. I had to look at and listen to my history completely, as there were early periods in my life when there was nobody to listen to me when I needed it most, and thus some damaging marks were left on my soul, which were then healed through the powers of present moment awareness. Healing can be instantaneous, or it can be a lifelong process, but because refining the powers of awareness is a lifelong process, children would be well advised to begin early the study of themselves and their developing hearts and minds, and not some worn out lines of dogma that do not carry the spirit of Truth within them.
I attempted meditation upon my own source of pain and suffering, and what came to me was how most of what I know about myself, and my reactions to the world, was created by my fundamental relationship to my parents. I had never developed a complete sense of self in my early years (I will not call it Asperger’s Syndrome, or Autism, though it manifested similarly to ADHD) and my sense of self revolved around internalizing what my mother and father expected from me, what I could or could not give back to them to attempt to please them, In addition, I developed defense mechanisms for managing the fallout when I failed to either please them, or protect them, or myself, from the results of the conflict that arose in our house when I either made yet another mistake, or when father overreacted to any situation that brought a sense of fear or threat into the home environment. I needed to be heard yet I did not know what to say to make myself heard in such a way that I could feel love and peace consistently. There was also that aspect where I felt a need to balance whatever energy was being over-expressed at any particular moment, which certainly added to my passive-aggressive component of self-expression. It was as if I had extra self-organizing principles or personalities occupying my ego mind, my creations of who I thought my father and mother were, and my own need to be heard and recognized, which was crowding out the real me, whoever or whatever that might be, if anyone. I wondered if there ever was a real “me” present, or only some sort of complex verbal construct that became collectively known as Bruce.
Who, or what, am I now? I am often now a mystery, even to myself. I need not be anxious, though the transition times from what I thought I was to who I am predestined to become can create intense anxiety. I am to be forever walking into the unknowable present moment, unless I lapse back into ky conditioned mind and all of its certainties. Living into the Truth of what that is now is the new story of my life. There is but One Mind, but its truth cannot be experienced except by resting in the Unknown of the present moment.
While watching our minds both while in meditation and being mindful, we will watch many trains of thought just passing through. While physically and emotionally engaged with the outside world, we will find many trains of thought just passing by, as well. The first thought response to any situation is usually a conditioned response, which means, to be mindful, we must take a pause before acting on each thought. There is always another train of thought ready to take the place of the last thought, and this next train might be the better response.. This is almost the equivalent of taking a deep breath before taking action. That next train has a much higher likelihood of being filled with more spiritually inspired passengers, especially when it arises from the pause moment. We can have a happier, more peaceful and loving “train of thought” ride, just by pausing before acting, and not jumping on the first train that passes through..
The Windshield Wiper
I get questioned from time to time about why I need to write about performing personal inventory work about the impact of Toxic masculinity upon my life, and upon the human race in general. Some perceive that I must have anger or hatred motivating me for attacking our masculine heritage and background. Those questions have led to the following story appearing here:
A man got into his car, and put Jimmy Cliff’s song “I Can See Clearly Now” onto his car audio player. He started the car, and began driving down the road during a driving rainstorm. Not more than one block down the road, he slammed head-on into another car, critically injuring himself and the other driver, who happened to be a female. The policeman who showed up on the scene investigated the accident, and noted that the male driver had failed to turn his windshield wipers on. He visited him in the hospital to interview him, so that he could finish his report. When the driver who failed to turn on his windshield wipers awoke from his coma, the officer asked him why he didn’t turn on his windshield wipers.
“Officer, I did everything right. I was playing the right music in the background, and I trusted that I was seeing all that I needed to see. I just did not think that I needed my windshield wipers”.
The officer immediately cited him for reckless endangerment and reckless driving.
There is your answer.
Our unconscious behavior causes damage every moment of every day. Turn on those damned windshield wipers, fellows, and leave them on! If we are still a man, and a human being, it is always raining somewhere inside of our minds, or even in our heart. If someone writes us a citation for our behavior, we need to learn from it, rather than resisting it.
Why would anybody think that they can just apply another coat of spiritual paint to cover over a house experiencing rot and decay, and expect that new paint job to have any lasting, positive effect? New thoughts layering over, or covering our non-examined embedded belief structures are just like slapping another coat of paint over the decaying house. This is like affixing a fig leaf over our genitals, like in the Garden Of Eden myth. In the program of AA, we call our “look good”, which means that we keep our exterior looking just fine, thank you very much, all the while our interior remains corrupted, unexplored and unhealed. A favored expression is “We are only as sick as our secrets”, but our secrets to keep all of us sick, whether we want to deal with them, or not. The examined life demands that we take inventory of ourselves and make every effort to understand the motivations behind all of our thoughts and actions in this world. The deeper we dig, the more that we learn that we are connected at a much deeper, more profound level with the rest of humanity than we ever dreamed possible. It is then that the healing we undertake as an individual can have a “ripple effect” upon the rest of humanity because we all influence the collective, as well as individual, consciousness that we experience as human beings.
There is hope. I found balance and healing in my own life, without using outdated religious fundamentalist modes of thought, which continue to pollute the minds and hearts of millions of Americans. The 700 Club on TV should be called the 666 Club, and Pat Robertson, and all of the other unconscious supporters of this nonsense, need to make way for the New Truth dawning in the minds and hearts of our Awakening America.
The Evangelicals who continue to obstinately support Trump have revealed their true colors to all thinking and feeling Americans, and I remain appalled by their collective ignorance, hatred, and collusion with anti-Christ principles. Many are now promoting loyalty pledges to their anti-Christ master, and who knows what the dangerous endpoint will be for this nonsense? I fear that the formation of the pseudo-Christian equivalent of the Taliban is happening right before our eyes. If you have ever wondered how Germany descended into Nazism, now you know. Thank you Republican Party, and the undereducated and ignorant Americans who continue to support the Trump administration, even in the face of his dysfunction and threats against decency and democracy.. Yet, each offending party still has the capacity for insight and change.
In the absolute, All that we ever see, unto eternity, is our self. As I look upon the world, and all of my relationships with the people, the land, the animals, and inner and outer space, I see an evolving landscape that demands collaboration and involvement by ALL PEOPLE and representation for those beings who do not have a voice in such matters. This is a landscape that demands that I make my unique impression upon it. I must first confront the demons within my mind and heart, and give them personalized names representing the truth of my life experience before I strike out against the “outer world”, lest I project unhealed non-verbalized images and intentions upon the unsuspecting population.
Insight and mindfulness, meditation, walking away from self-destructive dependencies, maintaining dialogue with others, speaking my truth, fighting against the oppression of others, and repression within my own heart and soul, following new paths of consciousness, working out my salvation, while helping others on their paths as well, are ways to develop collective awareness and healing, and bringing peace of mind to my interior universe. I cannot love others, or my own life, completely, until I make peace within my own heart and soul.
“The unexamined life will be painfully lived”
—-Jack Boland
The Word (peace, love, healing, wholeness, unity of life) must become flesh, and dwell within me, and within all of us. To not have that experience is to invite all of the darkness, turbulence, and disease that the world has to offer into our individual, and collective, lives. Through insight and mindfulness, the difficult emotions that arise within the human experience are experienced in the most sacred, honored way of the Spirit within us, and not subservient to the controls of those in religious, cultural, or political power who attempt to dictate to their flocks who we should be, and how we should express ourselves. We become more free, and honest, human beings. And, a few of us get to experience the real miracle, where we see from that aspect of our real nature that can watch our thoughts arise, without being the self who remains unconsciously controlled by them
“Nothing will come near your dwelling place, for those who live in the secret place of the most high”.
—Psalm 91:1
Mindfulness is meditation, with our eyes wide open. One day, perhaps we will all stop looking through the kaleidoscope of our broken minds, and see a glorious vision of unity, love, peace, and healing. Insight and mindfulness work together to bring the parts of ourselves back into alignment with each other and reduce the profound impacts of brokenness and chaos in our lives. It is a lifelong process, and personal awareness is more necessary than the brushing of our teeth, the daily changing of our underwear, or the eating of organic and/or non-processed foods for our overall well-being (but please do not discontinue those healthy behaviors!). With mindfulness cultivating the seeds planted by insight, a new world order can grow, and bring our world back into alignment with the higher orders of peace, health, and collective well
In October of 2022 I was at a 14-hour spiritual retreat. It was the most powerful and transcendent experience that I had experienced in many years. The facilitator, after deep meditation and extensive personal sharing, questioned me as to why I did not recognize myself as a beautiful person. I replied that, though I know of my interior beauty and the beauty of my world, my body now shows to the world anything but that. I am in my late 60s, I have psoriasis, skin cancer, wrinkles on my neck that Botox would help etc., so my body image certainly kept me from acknowledging a truth that the facilitator wanted me to see, and of which my wife concurred with upon my return home.
I had long ago left that part of my biological and cultural self that sought a more perfect body in a quest to be attractive to the opposite sex (I am heterosexual). My search has ended in that regard, with my present spiritual and physical partner Sharon having become my life partner since 1989. Yet, I forget to consciously cultivate my love for my body, and express gratitude for the continued miracle of its existence as the vehicle for my version of consciousness.
The facilitator stated that if I only perceived my beauty to be an interior phenomenon, I was still just living out of my “head space”, as beauty is of THE WHOLE BEING, body, mind, and spirit, and a reflection of our connection with Mother Earth, and the Universe. We are all of immeasurable beauty and significance, and these two qualities must forever remain within our hearts, and remain independent of our biological, social, and personal agendas, AND THE UNINFORMED OPINIONS OF OTHERS. Otherwise, our failure to conform to the expectations of others will create internal informants who become our tricksters, and fool us into accepting disfigured visions, and versions of the innate perfection of life.
Wow, that was quite a call on me.
I remembered the times growing up, when I felt rejected by most peers, sometimes because of my appearance. My wife reminded me of the time that Marsha Feldman (deceased), a pulchritudinous friend of mine from the 1980s, had rejected me as a lover because I did not have the classic handsome characteristics that her spoiled heart had demanded of all of her previous lovers. I was not emotionally impacted by her assessment, as I had little interest in sexual relationships at the time. I treasured her platonic friendship, however. Yet, was the indifference that I exhibited, and claimed for myself, only a facade, and an actual manifestation of some deeper denial, self-neglect, or even hatred?
Marsha had the most perfect body, and face that I had ever seen. Yet, even she was not happy. She even visited with her Rabbi several times, trying to get to the root of her unique problems. She had an auto-immune disease and wanted her Rabbi to explain to her how she could find God, and be healed of her suffering. Her Rabbi told her, quite succinctly, that he had wasted much of his own life searching for God through the scripture, and through its laws, and he never found the Truth. It was not until he began an intense exploration of himself that he finally arrived at the doorstep of the Truth. He advised Marsha to learn about herself and her judgments against others and against herself,. He told her that she must explore the darkest corners and secrets of her life, her relationship to her body, her friends, her enemies, her family, her loves, her hatreds, her employment, and her connection with Nature. Marsha had to first see what “God” isn’t,, to find the path to what “God” is.
Her Rabbi stressed that If Marsha was to find the healing balm that “God” could provide,
SHE HAD TO FIRST FIND HERSELF.
The Rabbi’s message is one for the ages and one for all of us. Marsha’s Rabbi recommended that even though she was not an alcoholic, she should try any twelve-step support group, to begin exploration of her life at a deeper spiritual level. That is how I met her, at the 1987 International New Thought Alliance conference in Portland, at the talk given by the world-famous expert in twelve steps work, and all-around motivational speaker, Jack Boland. He was a true master, and several years later at another Portland speaking engagement, he had the temerity to tell me that he probably knew me more than I knew myself. He stated to me that I needed more pain in my life, to motivate me to want to dive deeper into my true self, and recovery.
It has taken me a while, but I now realize that one of the dark forces that had dominated my early life continued to act as a subtle informant to my unconscious conspiracy of silence around my traumatic wounding, and my, as yet, failure to fully turn the dark black holes of negative influence from those early years into the light of the beauty of an infinite present moment experience.
Something that my mind now tells me is obvious, was not so obvious, before. The self-negating fact was so close, and so normalized historically, that I had accepted it, and made it a foundation, or an unconscious subroutine, that supported the incomplete understanding of who I thought I was. I have an auto-immune disease:
I AM ATTACKING MYSELF,
through a false understanding of my body and its appearance to myself, and to others.
Should I have known better?
As I am an evolving consciousness, by remaining open to the wisdom of others, my own improving insight is enhanced and supported by other awakening souls and their compassionate feedback. Our collaborative insight helps all of us to see which part of ourselves to feed and support, or which parts to starve out of our awareness. Mindfulness and meditation help keep us connected to the “what is”, and the light of that awareness can bring transformative changes to the “seer” and to our “seeing”.
Another great insight was gained through the retreat and feedback process. While in my spiritually adjusted state (higher consciousness) I was able to see, without judgment, one of my last remaining attachments to ego identification, other than to my body.
It was my body of writing!
The same judgment that I had heaped upon myself for the state of my body, I was also heaping upon myself for the state of my writings. I saw how I had tried to bring my writings to the world in a way that was more presentable, and readable by the general public. I had fallen ill to the need to cater to other people’s perceptions, rather than just making my own best presentation and letting the chips fall where they may. In my most exalted state, I saw that my writings, just like my body, were suffering from an auto-immune disease, the disease where I permitted myself to attack myself for the failure of my self to make my appearance to others more pleasing.
The related, and parallel ideas that my face, and my writings, needed a botox treatment to be more presentable to others is an ongoing revelation. Yet, I am in the process of transforming that darkness into the light of the present moment.
It is important that one fact still be entertained within my consciousness:
My body, and my writings, are temporary containers for my infinite spiritual potential. As such, they were created to serve my Spirit as channels for Its Infinite Expression, while my evolving consciousness and mindfulness keep me focused on that ultimate goal for my human expression and experience…
How do I bring healing to all of those mistakes of perception? Sometimes, the greatest healing techniques have already been developed, so in this case, I don’t need to reinvent the wheel. The 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, spiritually reinterpreted, plus an ancient mindfulness story, are great supportive tools.
12 Steps Revised To Reflect My Spiritual Experience
1. Through our extended suffering, we finally found the desire to want it to end. We admitted that when we become self-destructively habituated to any substance, situation, or perception, or judgment and/or lack of forgiveness in our relationships with others, we lose our freedom of choice, bring unnecessary trauma into our lives, and into the lives of others, and, thus, fail to achieve any lasting sense of inner peace and joy. We finally realize that our lives have been lived unconsciously, and have become unmanageable as a result of that neglect.
2. With our newfound hope and openness for change, came the desire to begin to awaken to higher possibilities for our lives. We realized that, in our essence, we have an interior, though neglected, power that will heal us and restore us to balance, if we pursue it in earnest. We now realize that we have not been living up to our full potential as human beings.
3. We decided to turn our will, and our lives, over to the care of our higher interior power. We become open to the possibility of embracing a new Truth in our lives. We want to access the power to continuously evolve, and we want to cultivate our hearts to be more loving to ourselves and to others. We decide to let go of ANYTHING that impedes our progress toward happiness, healing and wholeness. We realize that without the deepest of desires, and intentions, to change our behavior, we will not be transformed.
4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. We have lived a life without a high sense of self-esteem, and we have made unfortunate choices because of the scarcity consciousness that has resulted from it. We realize that when we find the blocks to our evolution and become willing to remove them, our newfound insight will guide our paths with precision to the Truth of our existence. This is our entrance onto the path of mindfulness and higher consciousness.
5. We admitted that we were not being truthful with ourselves and with others, and by talking with another whom we may trust, yet not be beholden to, about our errors in judgment and in actions towards ourselves and others, we can better deal with the shame and self-judgment that so often arises from the deadly secrets that we once felt that we must keep. Just by honestly talking with someone else, our burdens can be lifted. Our secrets need no longer keep us imprisoned, and mentally ill. When two or more people come together in the spirit of truth and honesty, mutual compassion and empathy also become part of the gathering.
6. We became entirely willing to let go of our attachments to unhealthy attitudes, behavior, and people. We wish to see clearly, without the limitations of our past, of our family history, and of our cultural conditioning, with all of their embedded trauma.
7. We open our hearts through humility and the willingness to change to embrace a new possibility in our lives. Our newfound sense of connection with our higher interior power inspires us to become more grateful for the gifts that we now have, and we are now spiritually preparing to finally give back to the world in a meaningful, positive way. We want to finally let go of all of the emotionally charged memories that keep us trapped in a dead past. Rejoice, for the old demons are being transformed into the new angels!
8. While we were unconscious of our higher potential as human beings, we brought emotional, spiritual and perhaps even physical harm to other innocent beings, and we want to try to bring healing and peace to those who have suffered from the effects of our ignorance. We realize that through the mirror of all of our relationships, dysfunctional or otherwise, we are granted a view into how we truly see ourselves. We want to see through the eyes of Truth, and not through the pain and suffering that unfulfilled relationships may have brought to us.
9. We made direct amends wherever possible to all people we may have brought harm to, except when to do so would bring further injury to them or to others. Our guilt will not be assuaged at the expense of others. We make full application of our newfound wisdom, and our renewed desire to bring no harm to any sentient being. We want our world, and our sense of self, to feel safe from further attacks from us, and our honest disclosure of our mistakes to those impacted by our errors in judgment will continue to support that intention.
10. We continued to take personal inventory, and, when wrong, promptly admit it. We have become honest with ourselves. We practice mindfulness and continue to develop our capacity for insight into ourselves. We now know ourselves, and we now know many of the potential impediments to experiencing and expressing the Truth of our being. We no longer solely abide in old modes of thought, and now we are more focused on the beauty of the present moment.
11. We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with the Truth of our being, praying only for knowledge of Truth, and the willingness to live within its infinite domain. We now understand that this whole process of recovery is a meditation on life and that the evolving, healing life that we are now experiencing is our living prayer. Each time we drink from the deep interior waters revealed to us by meditation, more of our painful dreams are dissolved. We finally realize that the capacity to change, to evolve, to grow in our infinite spirit is the whole point of our human existence. We are now traveling upon new paths of consciousness.
12. Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we attempted to carry our message of recovery to our world while continuing to practice these principles in all our affairs. We have finally become whole, and are now conscious, caring human beings. We have accepted full personal responsibility for our lives, including healing our past and keeping our present balanced and harmonious, and we no longer blame others for who we are now. We are now experiencing prosperity on many levels, and have witnessed the healing of ourselves. We have saved the world—from ourselves. Our life is now our truest teacher. We realize that we have no power to bring salvation to others, yet, it is our responsibility to point to the way of healing for others who may still be suffering, and who may finally become interested in overcoming their limitations.
