Tuesday 17 May 2011

Post No. 268 - Thou shalt not say not, and addiction to chakras

In my early New Age experiences in the 80s, one of the accepted "rules" of wisdom, was that one should not use a negative in affirmations. Hence, for instance, if one wished to give up smoking, the affirmation would be along the lines of having a positive, such as clean breath, or better lung capacity, etc - smoking was not to be mentioned. There can be a point to this, and the example I often use (from my early learning) is "don't think of a pink elephant" - to which most people's response is to think of a pink elephant, and then banish the image.

However, as I was re-reading (actually, re-skimming; it is useful to go through something you've read as a bit of refresher from time to time - assuming it was good or useful - but it may not be necessary to re-read every single word) one of Katrina Raphael's first three books on crystals (she has apparently recently written a fourth), I came across a statement about - in effect - using a generator crystal to programme "not smoking" into one's being.

That got me thinking: is there a time when it is useful to use a negative - as in the sense of "not smoking"? How about "I will have the strength to not smoke"? Contains a negative, but maybe that is something which is needed as some stages of dealing with an addiction - which generally involves a series of steps along the lines of:
  • naming the problem;
  • acknowledging that the problem is a problem;
  • wanting to be helped with the problem;
  • seeking help with the problem.
If you're hooked on avoiding negatives, naming a problem may be a problem ...

The big step in my experience (which includes an ex-partner who I consider used to be alcoholic - although she no longer is) is that acknowledging a problem as being a problem is a big issue. I personally consider that this is relevant to the negative state of the world, as many people tend to become fixated on living in one chakra (see this post for an explanation of this concept). Typically, this involves living in the personally focused chakras, resulting in people who are selfish and/or materialist. That may be something they need to do for their evolution, but my experience is that many people have, in effect, become addicted to living in that chakra.

This could happen for a range of reasons, such as not knowing there is an alternative, socialisation, even advertising - whatever the reason, it is undesirable.

The spiritual ideal is being able to "live in" (or manifest the energies/attributes of) whatever chakra or combination of chakras is ideally suited to a particular circumstance. Too many people, in my experience, are unwilling to do so, and hence are inarticulate (shut down throat chakra), unloving (shut down heart chakra), emotionally crippled (shut down solar plexus chakra), unaware of spiritual aspects of life (shut down third eye or crown chakra), or uncaring about the physical world (shut down Earth Star chakra), etc, as a result of being focused on only one or two chakras.

In fact, I would go so far as to say they are addicted to living in that chakra, and need to treat the problem along the lines of it being an addiction.

In this case, education is key part of addressing the problem - perhaps much as education about the dangers of smoking have helped address the problem of smoking. The education about the problem of being addicted to living in only one or two chakras may include education being framed with a view to forming a balanced person as a whole. Recently one of our Universities decided to split undergraduate degrees into a general degree first, and then a specific degree. Their arguments for this confirmed my view that secondary education is failing, as it does not develop the person as a whole human being.

It would be interesting to see what would happen to this work if we were not generally so focused on such a small portion of ourselves.

Love, light, hugs and blessings

Gnwmythr
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear")

Tags: negatives, affirmations, chakras, attitudes, personal responsibility,

First published: Tysdagr, 17th May, 2011

Last edited: Tuesday, 17th May, 2011