Communicating Some New Ideas

(Page 2 of 2)

As a student of psychology, I found two major topics that aroused my interest: feelings and thoughts. I discuss these terms in this chapter. It is important that you be introduced to the way we use them in the Self-Powerment Model before moving on to the Model itself. Other terms that are discussed are time and space, Here-Now, the I Am, and feeling-thoughts.

When I became more skilled at listening to people, I observed that although the content of what people said varied, whenever they spoke about their worries and fears, they were always talking about the future. Whenever they talked about their regrets and guilt, they were always talking about the past. Whenever they talked about their anger, they were always focused on other people and things outside of themselves or on a very narrow aspect of themselves. The common denominator, regardless of the specific experience, was that they were speaking from a specific time-and-space perspective, and that focus was away from their direct experience of the present moment in other words, away from the Here-Now.

I began to realize that there was something about what we label "unpleasant" feelings that made people talk about them in any way but from a Here-Now perspective. After I started to read enthusiastically and extensively in the area of physics, I experimented with how concepts like time and space can be applied to how people talk about feelings. From there, I worked on developing a model that people could use which combines some of these concepts to achieve awareness. The next section presents our working definitions of these concepts as they are used in the Self-Powerment Model.

Thought

Thinking is as natural as perceiving and behaving. We all have used phrases like, "Let's think about it," "Think before you speak," "We need to give it more thought," and "Let's try to think outside the box." The act of thinking is highly esteemed in our society. Despite this, most of us think without giving much attention to the actual thought process. The dictionary definition of thought is simply "the product of mental activity." Yet most of us do not realize how much power our thoughts have over us. When we begin to grasp this, we can begin to shift that power so that we can use thought for our own self-powerment.

A key to self-powerment is to observe thoughts in an objective way. It is to our advantage to become the outside observer of our mental activity and thoughts.

In the Self-Powerment Model, the different aspects of thought are introduced. We explore how we create our thoughts. The structure of thought has two dimensions: time and space. The structure of thought tells us (1) where we are in time (that is, past, present, future) and (2) where we are in space (that is, where our attention is focused).

When we put gelatin into a mold, it takes the form of the mold. The mold then structures the gelatin into a shape, such as a star, triangle, or circle. Gelatin is the thought and the mold is the structure that shapes the thought. Using this analogy, the mold can be seen to be the structure of the thought, which is where the thought takes us in time and space.

For example, when we go to a movie, as soon as the movie is over, when we think and talk about that experience, the thought takes us into the past, since the direct experience of it is over. We will likely talk about just a few aspects of the movie, specific fragments that caught our attention or piqued our interest, such as the plot line, a certain character, or the special effects. Even though we may try, we can never completely and accurately re-create our former direct experience of seeing the movie, since we need to rely on thoughts that are structured in the past to do so.

We call the actual experience of watching the movie direct experience. The structure of the thoughts that reference this direct experience are (1) when the movie was watched (past) and (2) where our attention is focused (on a character, the plot line, and so on). These two elements, time and space, make up the structure of the thought. After we move away from the direct experience of watching the movie, we categorize our experience with thoughts referring to the specific time and space that made up that experience. But we are always re-creating that experience with thought and never have the genuine direct experience again. Even if we watched the movie again, it may remind us of the experience we had initially, but our first watching of the movie is always unique.

By differentiating between the thought and its structure, we can separate them to determine what is real.

In the Self-Powerment Model, the structure of thought is where the thought takes us in time and space. When a thought occurs, being conscious of where we are in time (past, present, future) and where we are in space (where our attention is focused) is a new experience for most of us. Observing this gives us a new way to detach from our thoughts. Many of us have never been told that having an awareness of where we are in time and space is so important. That's what is so exciting!

Take a moment to observe some thoughts you have frequently. For example, "I will never get this done," "I'm overweight," or "I'll never find someone I love." See how these relate to the structure of thought.

Time and Space

Our working definition of time places us in the past, present, or the future. Our working definition of space lets us know where our attention is focused. In everyday terms, time and space are perceived as separate. Time is seen as a limited interval or period, and space is seen as an expanse in which material objects are located. Actually, time and space are important because they are points of reference for us. They define and shape an experience. For example, "The project will take three weeks, or Yesterday was my father's birthday." Time and space limit and define experience. They are important concepts because they help us to locate and reference direct experience and to communicate the experience to others.

In this book, time and space take on a whole new value: they help us to locate ourselves when we are not in the Here-Now. In the Self-Powerment Model, time and space are seen as a continuum. In The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav says of a continuum, it is "something whose parts are so close together, so arbitrarily small that the continuum really cannot be broken down into them. There are no breaks in continuum. In other words, time and space are experienced as one in a continuum. Together they provide a compass for navigating to our place of Self-Powerment.

As used in this model, time and space are universal reference points that allow us to enter the gateway to direct experience. Remember Alice's Adventures in Wonderland! She opens each door and finds herself in a different time and space. We do the same when we open a door to the past or future and shift our focus to other people or things. We leave where we are at the present moment and visit another time-space with thoughts like, "Yesterday was my father's birthday."

Structurally learned patterns of thought take us out of the present moment. As a society, we use learned patterns of thought frequently. When doing this, we leave the Here-Now without consciously choosing to do so. This is why it is important to observe our thoughts regularly.

Here-Now and I Am

Being in the present moment, without thought, is being in the Here-Now. The Here-Now is where we access direct experience. It is where we experience consciousness without thought. Another way to define Here-Now is I Am. To be in the I Am is to be fully in the present moment with attention focused on our internal multisensory experience. These two terms, Here-Now and I Am go hand in hand. As you can see, Here-Now and I Am reference time and space. I Am is the way Here-Now is expressed in our language. It is the way we associate ourselves with time and space. I Am defines us in time and space.

SPACE HERE I

TIME NOW AM

The columns above show how we can make practical use of the concepts of space and time to position ourselves in the Here-Now, which is expressed in our language by the words "I Am.

To be in the I Am is the most wondrous state because it is in the I Am that we experience our authentic self. It is the only place where we know what is so. Fear, anger, and guilt no longer create our reality. Our mind is free of structurally learned patterns of thought. We are not subjected to or limited by the learned patterns of thought, which force us to judge, evaluate, compare, and negate, and leave the Here-Now. Indeed, we are free to experience the Here-Now in its fullness. In the I Am, all the blending, folding, shaping, textures, and nuances of life operate perfectly. We are fully present, aware, and at peace. We are free to create from infinite possibilities. In the I Am, the wisdom housed in our very cells is available to us. We can experience without the encumbrance of the artificial boundaries that thought imposes. We have access to the vast array of sensory information that is not clouded or limited by thought. There are so many gifts we have when we are fully in the Here-Now.

When we are in the I Am, we are able to focus on our talents or work. We focus our talents, be it on work, the person we are with, the task we are doing, or just being. This is the time-space in which our true creativity and full potential emerge.

I am not the first person to know that the Here-Now, the I Am, is the place where people are self-powered. We see the I Am when Tiger Woods plays golf, Michael Jordan plays basketball, Mark McGwire plays baseball, or Venus and Serena Williams play tennis. We experience it when our child is hurt and we go into the immediate right action or when we call a parent or relative spontaneously because we just know something is wrong. We call it the "zone." When we are in the zone, we access data from direct experience with an expanded sensory database.

In the zone, we are able to intuit our experience totally. We are self-powered. We are aware of the extraordinary amount and variation of information accessible from our senses.

Once, after taking attendance when teaching a course to college freshmen, I asked, Who is really present? I mean whose attention is focused in this room at this time, as opposed to being somewhere else in time and space: for example, reliving a fight you had with your boyfriend last night, worrying about an assignment that is due tomorrow, or trying to figure out how you are ever going to pay back your loan for college tuition and such? I reminded them that since I was a guest lecturer, their response would not affect their grades. Out of the forty-five students, not one could truly admit that their focus was on being in the class at that moment.

Feelings

Feelings play a large role in our life. A feeling is a physical sensation. It is experienced in the Here-Now and has no thought component. Feelings are nature's indicators that one of our emotional needs must be attended to. Feelings are the fundamental tools that nature gives us for staying in the Here-Now. Feelings allow us to stay in balance. They allow us to be aware of both our strengths and weaknesses. In the Self-Powerment Model, we focus on three of these feelings: anxiety, frustration, and disappointment/sadness. For example, when we have a half-completed report due at three o'clock, and it's already two o'clock, we experience a feeling anxiety that allows us to focus and stay present with the task at hand to complete it and feel secure that we are doing our job competently. When we experience frustration and disappointment at the end of an emotional relationship, these feelings allow us to know it is over and let us take accountability for our part in the ending of the relationship.

Feelings emerge in response to experiences, such as missing the bus, having a flight cancelled, getting a divorce, or receiving a demotion. We learn to ignore these feelings because they are not valued and often not acceptable in our society. We demean natural feelings and avoid experiencing them. Everyone knows the cliché "Men don't cry. Generally, feelings are not communicated in our society and are often treated by denial.

Feelings are the fundamental tool that nature gives as for staying in the Here-Now for staying self-powered. Feelings are physical sensations that are experienced in the Here-Now. Natural feelings maintain balance, clarity, focus, control, and self-confidence.

Feeling-Thoughts

As seen in the previous section, we often do not allow ourselves to experience feelings. However, feelings occur all the time. Because we are not allowed to experience them, we have had to find a way to discharge them. We have learned to link them with a thought to discharge them.

As we discharge our feelings, we automatically associate a thought with a feeling. We may see them as partners in crime. We link feelings to our thoughts, and by doing this we create a feeling-thought. When this occurs, we lose the experience of the natural feeling.

A feeling-thought is defined as a feeling that has been so inextricably bound up with thought, that the pure experience of the feeling can no longer be distinguished from the thought. Compare it to making batter by mixing milk with eggs: soon you are no longer able to see the milk separate from the egg. After a feeling has been combined with a thought, it is no longer possible to experience the feeling as separate.

As in the previous example, we often do not allow ourselves to experience the frustration and disappointment in the ending of a relationship. Instead, we might blame the other person and continue to focus on the "should haves," "could haves," and "would haves. When we do this, we are no longer able to distinguish the thoughts from the feelings.

For instance, when we point out, "That's his house," to identify the exact location of a residence, we can experience "his house" as the stage for our personal drama if internally we are thinking, "That's his house where five years ago he told me he wanted a divorce. In this way, we experience the divorce over and over again, attaching the feelings of frustration and sadness to the event.

So how can we know the difference between thought and feeling? Remember that the experience of a feeling is a physical sensation with no thought component. Initially, the frustration and disappointment were natural feelings without a thought. In a nanosecond, we discharged them by linking them to thoughts of blame or should have, could have, and would have. By listening to the structure of the thoughts that is where those thoughts take us in time-space we can reference ourselves in time-space and reconnect to the natural feeling. It is a remarkable awakening to experience consciousness without thought. This is possible when we learn to distinguish between thought and feeling.

Take a moment. How do you deal with your feelings on a regular basis?

*   *   *

A feeling links with a thought taking us out of the Here-Now, without choice. This is the reason we create structurally learned patterns of thought to discharge those feelings that we do not allow expression. Possibly, as a way to identify ourselves as uniquely human or to separate ourselves from lower species, we have come to discount the importance of feelings and to exalt thought. We must remember that feelings are very real. We may ignore them, but they remain with us, only to surface at another time when they, once again, try to get our attention.

This Model allows us to remember what we already know but have not been encouraged to experience. When we don't fully experience our feelings, we become disenfranchised from our own inner and authentic power. When we reconnect to the place where we are fully immersed in experiencing our natural feelings, we are able to open to compassion, connection, conjoinment, integrity, and love. We experience the fullness of life and naturally express our gratitude for the ongoing gift of it.

Time and space are universal reference points, which are indispensable to civilized society. They have tremendous practical value. They help us function on a daily basis: to schedule and attend medical appointments, work meetings, and dinner engagements. They are necessary for the mechanical processes of life, such as preparing a menu or building a house. They help us to establish ownership: my car, your book, or his problem. In addition, they create the forum in which we do long-term planning: for example, I will get my degree in three years from the university. However, over the thousands of years of human conditioning, we have come to expand the use of time and space. They now serve an additional function to structure our thoughts, which then become the vehicles to discharge personal feelings by reverting to the past, speculating on the future, or focusing outside ourselves and away from the present moment.

By using nouns, pronouns, and verbs the time and space words in our language and linking them to the discharge of feelings, we personalize time and space. Time and space become meshed with feelings. When we combine time, space, and feelings, we lose the practical benefits of time and space, and the ability to stay in the Here-Now.

The next chapter presents the Self-Powerment Model. This Model allows us to create a mental picture of where we are in time and space. Are we in the past, in the present, in the future? Are we focusing on other people and things? Are we looking only at a fragment of ourselves? This internal picture becomes the means to connect to and experience our natural feelings, which guide us into self-powerment. Just asking ourselves, "Where am I? Who or what else is with me? Am I seeing only a fragment of myself? Am I only listening to thoughts that dwell on the past and future?" brings a new way to identify if we are in the I Am. This simple inquiry is very powerful. When we pay attention to the structure of a thought, we can choose to observe what the focus of the thought is that is, on others or only on a fragment of ourselves as well as where the thought takes us in time-space. And once we have this awareness, we can choose to eliminate those thoughts that cause unease and dissipate our energy.