Given our premise that there is one Being, of whom we are all expressions, it is logical to assume that somewhere in our depths we are conscious of this fact. There must certainly be an infinite number of levels of communal resonance developed down through the eons to where our particular attention is focused right now. I think, therefore, that in our interactions with other people we are at least subtly aware of being included in those deeper communal spaces, or excluded from them, implicitly or explicitly. Our sensitivity to that inclusion or exclusion will likely be experienced energetically as undifferentiated resonance or dissonance. At deeper levels, its impact would be much more subtle, and at some depth disappear into ranges where the wavelengths are too broad for most to perceive given where our attention is currently focused. Yet they are still there.
The Impact of Completion and Incompletion
Choices are typically made for some end, which is ultimately some form of perceived perfection – a more beautiful (better or perfect) state – which can then be appreciated. It is, as I have said, our nature to create and appreciate. If that cycle is completed, one is left fulfilled at the level at which a choice was made. Choosing to open the refrigerator is still a choice, requiring intent and action, but its completion does not really register in our conscious attention as satisfying since it is commonplace within our conscious frequency range. A knock on the door may defer that action but altering any of our minor choices with another choice does not seem to leave any energetic residue. But choices are associated with frequencies and so, like frequencies, exist at varying energetic levels. Some take more focused and longer term attention so the energetic impact is more impactful.
Some people get a college degree and realize that some very different career calls them and the degree’s focus is dropped without regret. It was a long term goal but the choice to leave it behind seems pretty clean. This example of completion is consciously choosing to no longer pursue the intended outcome.
Another example of dealing with a choice is to ignore it, deny it or put it on the “back burner”. With this in-action, it is my experience that the intention hangs out until it is brought to some conscious conclusion. Given the varying amounts of energy applied to goals, some will pester you consciously, like “I really need to get that done”, and some lie in the background unattended, like wanting to be a doctor when you were a kid (yes, it’s still there). But all require some degree of energy to hold them in place. The mind was given a command and until another one alters that energy, it lives on awaiting completion of the “choice-appreciation” cycle. I think that a fair amount of the energetic clutter that flows in and out of our minds is a result of incompletions waiting for an opening to remind to us of the desire we once had to have them be fulfilled. The mind is a perfectly oiled machine and it does everything that we ask. All requests lie in wait until their “completion and appreciation” cycle is done, even if some intentions are contradictory.
I Am Alone, or Not
We come into this world as infants who surely seem more merged with deeper aspects of Being, or whatever you’d like to call it, than those who have been here a while. It takes time for us to train our attention consistently to this particular physical environment. Somewhere during that process we achieve a benchmark level of, at least perceived, separation.
When I was 6 my we moved into a larger house in a new neighborhood closer to the university where my father worked. It was full of children. After a week or so, I don’t really remember, I went to my mother and said “I don’t think that there is anyone in the neighborhood my age”. She said, “Well, Christine Daley is about your age”. In that instant I realized that she’d known that there was no one my age and had kept that from me. In my little mind I thought that if I couldn’t trust her to be honest with me, I was really alone in the world. That declaration, in that silent moment, made it effectively so. Many decades later I remembered this event at some Landmark course where they were specifically looking for such a “break in belonging”. I went to share what I’d seen with my mother and before I was even done she said, “I remember that. I regretted it the moment that I said it but it was too late”. Even she saw the impact that it had on me and remembered it all those years later.
It seems to me that at least one component of the process of being trained to be in this physical world comes in some form of a declaration that “I am alone”. It may be “nobody loves me, I’m not good enough, I don’t fit in” but is something along those lines. The “I”, in that moment of declared separateness, realizes that it must take responsibility for its choices as a solitary individuated entity. If it is going to survive in this world – to get what it needs and wants – it’s got to take charge and make it happen since it cannot guarantee the same resolve from anyone else. Given that on some level that each of us does have to make our own way, it makes sense that we do have to come to that declared state at some point.
Choice, One Source of Shadow
In the piece “Choice and Appreciation” I proposed the possibility that there is a flow of choices all the way from the “big bang” to my moment-by-moment choices right now. From an energetic perspective, that means that every single choice upstream has some impact on the energy that is represented as me, since I am sourced by the entirety of that stream.
I’ll return to my “Siemens” analogy about levels of awareness. Choices made upstream always will have some impact downstream. Those upstream choices will impact a wider array of downstream people and processes in their organization but typically at a more subtle level. Upstream choices are reflected in me primarily as moods, ways of being, tendencies, worldview, and the like. They can act like an overarching steering mechanism. They obviously are experienced, but I tend to be most aware of them when I’m not actively engaged in anything. What is most visibly impactful are the choices made with clear and present attention. Conscious choices will most often override upstream intent because, as I’ve pointed out, downstream shorter wavelengths tend to mask the longer ones. You’re not likely to be thinking about your overall commitment to life while you’re zipping down a mountainside on a snowboard or trying to put a squirming child into a car seat. Though your overall commitment is reflected in your individual choices here, making an impact in this world still requires taking action within these local frequency levels where it can be experienced and appreciated.
Certainty and Freedom
I think that when anyone has an insight, on almost any topic, that very state of insight has as its natural energy, the space of simple certainty; a sense of knowing. This is, I believe, indicative of thoughts that appear when tapping into any of the longer energetic wavelengths. An insight shared from that deep space carries with it a solid sense of certainty. As I experience them, longer wavelengths live in the background and thus are the relatively stable canvas on which my everyday experiences are alighted. So when a new insight is tapped from that wider field and expressed, the listener may feel the impact of the words landing as fact. Declared facts, by their nature, eliminate options contradictory to the stated position so can be experienced as restrictive to the listener. Just as when you are fully focused on some task, everything outside of that area of focused attention disappears from your experience. Certainty pushes alternate frequencies/perspectives to the sideline.
Now one of the most fundament aspects of Being, is freedom. Being is unencumbered at its origin. I think that most would agree that at Being’s deepest level absolute freedom is one of its fundamental attributes. And since it lies there in our depths, it is one of our fundamental attributes too. Thus anything we experience as impinging on that absolute freedom can evoke a dissonance that can reverberate downstream from the natural depth at which our boundlessness resides.