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)
