Friday, September 19, 2014

A Word of Caution for the Conscientious


The Oxford Dictionary (Web), defines the word Conscientious as follows: 
 
Conscientious - adjective
1(Of a person) wishing to do what is right, especially to do one’s work or duty well and thoroughly: a conscientious and hardworking clerk

2Relating to a person’s conscience: the act does not provide exemption from service on the basis of personal conscientious beliefs

Origin (for those who are curious):  early 17th century: from French consciencieux, from Medieval Latin conscientiosus, from Latin conscientia (see conscience).

Derivatives:

·      Conscientiously – adverb
·      Conscientiousness - noun 

Not every human being on the planet has a well-developed Conscientiousness.  For those who have a well-developed Conscientiousness or an even deeper sense, empathy, those lacking conscience can either unintentionally or intentionally exploit your Conscientiousness.  If you’ve ever given this any thought, you may have already come to this conclusion.  An interesting thought to me is how we typically deal with the ensuing conflict when we encounter individuals out of sync with our own level of Conscientiousness.  When we have a fairly well-developed sense of Conscientiousness, we may hold this mistaken belief that if we are Conscientious, that others are or should be as well.  Not so.  As we live our lives dealing with the conflict of our beliefs and the Truth of reality in the absence of understanding, we may become quite conflicted.  This conflict within us may have us wishing, “If only this person did this” or maybe, “If only that person would just do that, then I could or would be happy, fine or content.”  This is where we do ourselves a great disservice in a number of ways.  I’d like to count them for you because I think (notice I did not say “believe”) with greater understanding we can expand our awareness and compassion.  These two things are important to our well-being in ways that are worth understanding.

The Ways:
1.     Just because a thought comes from within our own heads, it does not make it true.  Given this, our beliefs would have us think that everyone should be conscientious but the truth is, they are not.
2.     Every person on this Earth has some things in common and many things uncommon in terms of experience, psychology, and this list, well, is endless.
3.     If we walked through our lives hanging our only capability of finding happiness on the behavior of others in accord with the way we might behave, we’re headed for a life of pure anxiety, anger, sadness and even depression.
4.     If you are conscientious or even empathic, you may positively project that onto others believing they are what they are not which may set you up, again, for an uncomfortable emotional fall.

Now, considering all of the above and it is really a list that could go on into eternity, it might seem a reasonable approach to become very fearful and distrusting of others.  That is certainly an option but how would taking that approach support a true sense of well-being for you?  I’ll say that it is a fairly reasonable approach to life if you’ve experienced many disappointments through interactions with your fellow human beings (truly your brothers and sisters).  However, I suggest to you there is yet a better way.  That way or path is the path of understanding, acceptance, forgiveness and compassion.  When you realize that we may extend from the same Source in origin but that our consciousness diverges based on our individuation and focus here in 3rd dimensional reality, you come to understand that every one may operate similarly at some basic levels of maybe biology or psychology but we all operate very differently spiritually or metaphysically speaking.

That fact, that we may operate differently, is beautiful and perfect even if we learn the truth painfully at times.  We learn the most from others in some very interesting ways.  Let me explain to you a little bit of a theory I have about malware, meaning in the context of this article the emotionally and energetically charged beliefs in our mostly unconscious memories.  I’ll break it down in summary to help explain:

  • We have all had some form of experience while in a fragile state of mind.  Perhaps it was while we were very young and just learning to work within the confines of this world.  Maybe the state occurred later in life.
  • That experience may have created in you a belief that was either negative about you or about the inhabitants of or even your own existence in this world.
  • Depending on the depth and severity of the thoughts generating emotion resulting in an energetic charge attached to the belief (whether true or not), that emotionally charged belief was stored in your memory.
  • This emotionally and energetically charged belief stored as an unconscious memory changed the way you operated in this world.  In a way, it changed the way you operate within the confines of conscious awareness in this life.
  • Any belief that formed around wounding will in time move to the level of consciousness beneath the awake and aware state.  Dr. Sigmund Freud referred to this consciousness as latent consciousness (meaning that which is unconscious with the possibility of rising to consciousness).  The memory of the belief and the emotional and energetic charge attached to it will still be active in terms of how your thought processes work but since the original belief has drifted below aware consciousness, you are no longer consciously aware of it.
  • The amazing minds and physical forms that we hold will always seek a state of homeostasis (study biology and learn some amazing things).
  • If you have an emotionally and energetically charged belief stored in your unconscious memory, you will seek to heal it through the interactions with people in this world or situations that will brush that emotionally and energetically charged belief in the form of a trigger.
  • When you become triggered, you may be acting from the basis of a belief that was not true or that you didn’t even know existed.  When in a triggered state, you may even wonder, “Why am I reacting like this?” or “Why do I feel like this?
  • Until you find your emotional and energetically charged beliefs stored in the level of consciousness below your awareness, you will continually be surrounded by people and situations that will trigger you.
  • This process, while it may sound complex or even far-fetched for some, is actually quite perfect and amazing.  It is more evidence of our innate ability to heal ourselves and to do so individually and perfectly for each of us.  In a sense, we all have some form of malware that we are unconsciously seeking to heal.  This may create the various differentiations between our levels of conscientiousness as we live our days on planet Earth.

Consider this, if you will.  If you are a Conscientious individual, you can think about how others may feel before you act.  You have developed a very good thinking simulation process whereby your mind can rapidly take in lots of data and information, consider the feelings and situations of others and then act in ways that coincide with what you feel deep within is the right way to act.  But think about it for just a moment, why are you conscientious?  Are you just a very aware person or have you had to learn to be 3 steps ahead of others in order to protect yourself emotionally?  Both are perfectly fine and can actually be exactly the same but regardless, in a world where not everyone operates at the same level, Conscientious individuals need to exercise caution.  I say they need to exercise caution because those that are not Conscientious and who may even completely lack any scruples at all due to their own Life Lesson Plan, may exploit you.

So, how do you keep from being exploited or how do you prevent your own disappointment when people don’t behave kindly or maybe as considerately or gently as you do or would do?  There is an easy answer and a difficult answer.  The easy answer is by merely understanding that every one here in this Earth School, or simply the citizens of planet Earth, all operate at different levels of consciousness, have different emotionally and energetically charged beliefs (triggers) and will just act differently than you.  As for the difficult answer, well, you need to step way back and maybe go deeply within perhaps reaching for the metaphysical and spiritual perspectives to consider why we might be here at varying and different levels to begin with.  Consider that you may have come here for the opportunity to learn something.  Maybe that something was a challenging emotional existence fraught with tough life lessons.  What if your lesson plan was to learn to transcend your own triggers by learning to understand, love and hold compassion for the difficult path that every one here must take?  What if you are here to heal the wounds you planned to take on and so you find conflict where ever it is that you go not to wreck your world but to help you learn in better and more long-lasting ways?

The Caution for the Conscientious is to make sure you are aware in your thoughts that all here are learning and in different grades (and importantly, that no one grade or level is better than the other – just, perhaps, different).  Because we are all learning at different levels and in different ways, you must discover what it is you are learning from your own Conscientiousness.  Being Conscientious is wonderful and a great advantage as well as a wonderful way to learn life lessons.  It has beautiful rewards.  But if you hold the expectation that everyone should be as you are, you may be greatly disappointed.  Often times the conflict we think is coming at us from outside of us is actually coming from within us.  Taking a great leap into the metaphysical and spiritual perspective for a moment, we are creating what we experience whether we are consciously aware of it or not.  We will either continue to suffer the processes of our learning or we will learn and rise above.  Through awareness you can exercise caution in your thoughts, caution in your expectations and caution in your own behavior.  You can set boundaries within which you operate but realize those not on your path may crush them, or attempt to.  Understand that some people just can’t know what they don’t know and so will behave as they do until they learn.  You can appoint yourself their personal teacher if you want or you can simply step off of such battlefields without engaging in conflict.  You have free will and you will gain what you came here for.

This is a lot of food for thought, I realize.  If anything, my sincere desire is to paint a picture to illuminate some of the darker perspectives we may hold.  My intent is to open people up to the idea that what they think is True may be the biggest illusion they’ve ever held and all of this--existence, could easily be a simple, maddening or extraordinary dream.  I deeply appreciate all paths of learning and realize that the extent of my free will ends at these thoughts.  I share them for the purpose of presenting an alternative perspective that may cause individuals to think, feel and understand the importance of their existence here so that they may live with an increasing sense of ever unfolding well-being.  

 Rev. J.L. Harter, PhD, M.Msc., B.Msc., Author, Blogger, and Spiritual Counselor, Editor of the JMCC.  See Bio section for more information.

© 2014 Rev. J.L. Harter, PhD (photo/words)