Sunday, 21 October 2012

Post No. 411 - "It's not personal" and other rubbish, and some reading links

"It's not personal" is RUBBISH, and spirituality is not about Deity.

Nothing like starting a post by putting the cat amongst the pigeons, eh? :)

There is a view that one should consider that nothing is personal, in that nothing is directed at you personally. I understand the desire to be objective, or, more accurately, to promote objectivity and dispassion that lays behind this view, but I have to disagree in some circumstances.

I am a human rights activist, and, whilst something may be founded in ignorance rather than malice, to say discrimination is not personal is to downplay its significance, and make the job of changing it - or at least managing the harm that it does - more difficult.

Also, ask Jill Meagher if what happened to her was not personal.

Am example was given of losing one's job as something that isn't personal; BULLSHIT. It affects one's ability to live, to survive, even, given the appallingly low dole we have in this country (and I thank the Goddess every day that I am not in a place like the USA!). It may not have been intended with malice, but it is still personal in that it affects you personally.

Finally, there is the notion that we train others how to treat us. Unfortunately, I've found that, in the current state of the world in this Age of Iron (i.e. the Kali Yuga .. although I am still struggling with the concept that simple stupidity could be the cause of a fair few problems), sometimes I feel like i have to jump up and down to get people to listen to me. If I say, calmly, "that is not acceptable to me", I am often ignored because I am showing no signs of distress. This is particularly so when considering LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, intersex and queer) issues in the workplace - I even had a former cretin of a manager say to me that discrimination didn't matter if the person being discriminated against wasn't upset about it. Again, BULLSHIT. Discrimination is denying the victim, society and the perpetrator (yes, the person doing the discrimination is a PERPETRATOR - of evil) a potential gain. Everyone is actively, manifestly harmed by it. [3]

Closely related to this is the issue of those people who try to needle others or get them to react in a certain way. This can, for instance, in the form of so-called "jokes". Sue Lewis of Swinburne University's National Centre for Gender and Cultural Diversity did some very interesting research in the 90s which showed that male engineering students use humour as a weapon to CONTROL others. This behaviour, whether it is disguised as so-called "humour", or Tall Poppy Syndrome where someone joins in a crowd that is trying to needle someone who is trying to achieve an improvement into behaving in a less evolved way purely so the attackers can say "oh look, they're not so good after all", is an attempt to CONTROL another entity, to bring them under the control of the aggressor's will. As such, it is pure and simple EVIL.

Now, I didn't actually fully mean it when I wrote "spirituality is not about Deity", but I do get tired of people who seem to think it is only about that, or warm fuzzies and feeling nice. It is ALSO about being all that we can be ... and THAT can be very uncomfortable, or even painful, as we are challenged and change or extend or push ourselves. 

On that, I've been listening to a few people at workshops who are self congratulatory about minor matters, and I have been thinking
(a) OK, yes, there is good in having a positive attitude, and acknowledging good things (that helped me overcome depression), etc, but that can also set a LIMIT on how much you achieve;
(b) I was taught to have as professional an attitude in my psychic work as possible, and look at results - meaning, did it work or not, and if not, what do I have to do better/differently (see above comments about spirituality being all that one can be), and if it did, did it work the way intended, or is there room for improvement, and if so, what, why and how? and
(c) my training included a lot about not having an attitude of "victim thinking", which is problematic in the way it was taught as some people genuinely ARE the victims of things like discrimination, and the perpetrators of that discrimination need to be dealt with rather than making the victims capable of dealing with discrimination or lack of (social) privilege, but it gave one a stronger personal control over one's own life, particularly in how one handled what came through from past lives. (Incidentally, if you are trying to sort out the different views I have here, try looking at the context ... )

On that, I attended a past life workshop yesterday, which included an interesting techique for accessing the physical inheritance that one has through the DNA of the family one comes into. It seemed that people found it fairly complicated to sort out the difference between personal past, and family past, but, to use myself as an example, in this life I needed to both not go along with the crowd, and also to combine that with good spiritual ethics: I got that through the combination of the DNA I inherited from my birth family (the "nature"), and the nurture component from my adoptive family. I will take the lessons and changes in attributes those influences have led me to accomplish into my future lives ...

Interestingly, the evidence of people at the workshop suggests that one person can also change matters so that the inherited problems do not necessarily continue into the future - in that particular case, emotional and mental changes accomplished via kinesiology. On that, it might be worth doing some Internet research, if you are interested, into Trauma Encoded Emotional Memories, or TEEMs, which came from the author of the Neanderthal Predation theory (see here and here) ... perhaps start here and here.

Now, a few reading links. As always, I don't necessarily agree with these links, so keep your thinking caps on! As a starting point, how many times did I use emotive words in the preceding? Was this a good or bad thing? :) Whether it was good or bad, do you agree or disagree, and why? 
  • This post is interesting when it delves into (a) ethics, and (b) blame. It is possible for someone to have done something reprehensible in the past, and then CHANGE so that they are, now, an ethical person - albeit an ethical person with a flawed past. There may well be situations, such as those referred to in this article, where the past actions are such that the person needs to resign - immediately; that doesn't preclude the possibility that the person now genuinely IS ethical, in terms of how they live their life now. This is one of the problems that democracy faces - especially the USA's version of "democracy", where politicians are held up to impossibly exacting standards, and behaviours while young, for instance, that were not good, but do not prevent the person doing their job as a representative, get blown up out of all perspective. I'm aware of the need for people to not be vulnerable to extortion, there is a strong argument that representatives need to be representative, not vastly better than the people they are representing. Of course, that argument would not lead to any improvements in society, but the current level and type of scrutiny does discourage some very capable people (particularly women) from considering standing for election ... : "Culture of denial", 21st October, 2012: http://www.theage.com.au/sport/cycling/culture-of-denial-20121020-27yko.html;
  • When I was an EEO rep back in the 90s, one of the tactics we used to try and overcome the prejudice many men had against a fair go for women was to point out that they also could get benefits from EEO, such as more time with their kids. A few years before that, in the 80s, we had one engineer leave work to be a house husband looking after their newborn as his wife earned more money than him. This topic is therefore at least several decades old: "House husbands still a TV fantasy", 15th September, 2012: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/house-husbands-still-a-tv-fantasy-20120914-25xvg.html;
  • Um, a little to my surprise, I have to say this is worth considering. It is one of the reasons I don't accept comments on my blog - I have no interest in managing trolls, and I have had some experience with how time and energy consuming such morons can be. Yep - it would be ideal if they were better human beings, so there is a very good argument for calling them to account, but if you personally cannot cope with what they're doing, seriously think about just cutting the cretins off. "I hate to tell you, but giving trolls oxygen just fans the fires of abuse", 2nd September, 2012: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/i-hate-to-tell-you-but-giving-trolls-oxygen-just-fans-the-fires-of-abuse-20120901-257bd.html;

[1] BPF = Balanced Positive (spiritual) Forces. See here and here for more on this.

[2] Please see my post "The Death of Wikipedia" for the reasons I now recommend caution when using Wikipedia. 

[3] I recently read an article in the paper where a cyclist included the comment that, if a cyclist goes through a red light, does it matter? Well, apart from the gentleman, an elderly pedestrian, killed by a cyclist a few years ago, I guess he meant .. and the cars that get held up by acls of cyclist going through red lights, but apart from all that, there is the simply isue of HONOUR. As far as I am concerned, there are a lot of people on this world today who completely lack in any sense of honour. Yes, I know that is a dirty word in most spiritual circles, these days, but, well, the simple fact is that it is JUST AS SIGNIFICANT AS WARM FUZZIES AND FEELING NICE! The entry halls to Valhalla must be very empty, these days ...

Love, light, hugs and blessings


Gnwmythr, Wannabe Couldabeen Wouldbe Grumpy Valkyrie
(pronounced "new-MYTH-ear")
My "blogiography" is here. I started this blog to cover karmic regression-rescue (see here and here), and it grew ...
May the world of commerce and business be recognised to be a servant, not a master, of the lives of people.
A home is for living in, not feeling, becoming or being rich or a “better” class than others.
The International Labour Organisation's definition of "full employment" is wrong, useless and misleading.
Armageddon is alive and well and happening right now: it is a battle between the indolence of "I only ..." and/or "I just ..." on one side, and perspicacity on the other.
Like fire to the physical, emotions to the soul make a good servant, and a bad master. Spiritual love is far more than just an emotion - it is a concept, thoughts, actions and a way of living.
The only prejudice should be against prejudice. 
"Do not pray for easy lives. Pray to be stronger [people]." JOHN F. KENNEDY 
One size does NOT fit all ... and don't throw the baby out with the bathwater as a result of knowing a little ... 

The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good [people] to do nothing. EDMUND BURKE

Your children are not your children. ... They come through you but ... they belong not to you ... for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow KAHLIL GIBRAN

We didn't inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we only borrowed it from our children ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPÉRY

 Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Those whom we cannot stand are usually those who we cannot understand P.K.SHAW

Tags: about me, attitudes, discrimination, energy work, society, work,

First published: Sunnudagr, 21st October, 2012

Last edited: Sunday, 21st October, 2012
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , ,