TavBlog Values and Ideals Summer 2021
The Difference
Values and Ideals Week covers a lot of psychological ground. The things that shape what we each find valuable are myriad, and taking a look at your own list on paper is a great way to check in with yourself on the matter. It is also the first step in managing the tornado of thoughts that can occasionally occupy our brains. It naturally prepares fertile ground for more creative use of that thought space. Note to Reader: Observing your values list on paper is a very different activity from checking off that exact same list in your head! For starters, you can easily spot the ‘holes’, or spaces you forgot to acknowledge. It gently forces you to put more attention on the intention.
As you sit down and get personal with your own objectively-rooted accountability, you begin to recognize your Values List as the template for how you organize your thoughts in a ‘best case scenario’ situation. That is, when you aren’t preoccupied, emotionally stirred, or otherwise engaged. This can be a solid plan, provided you are able to remain emotionally steady and non-reactive from the inside out--for the duration of whatever you encounter. Hopefully, we can all agree that life generally doesn’t unfold that way though, yes? We often find ourselves operating from emotion and/or general reaction, where our best case scenario thinking easily slips out the window. If we are practiced in ‘awaring’ (holding the perspective of both our ego and our soul for equal consideration) around what is truly important to us, that balance alone will help keep our reactions grounded and true when something comes along and ‘rocks’ us. That balance, all by itself, can be (and is) a powerful, under-recognized, internal tool for helping us ‘weather’ our emotions and the varying conditions that have and will continue to unfold in our lives, for the foreseeable future.
When you consider your values in terms of where your time is actually spent v. where your ideal efforts are made, you may encounter some turbulent thoughts and feelings that can also create defensive and/or judgmental thinking. This occurs in part because we can each easily justify why we don’t always spend our time doing things we value--usually with a lot of things that are and/or seem out of our control. There are many outside influences and pressures that our egos ‘need to handle’ for us in their role as our protector(s). Our expectations can stray seriously off track when we compare the presumptions of ideal-looking situations to our own mundane experiences. At some point, we begin to question whether or not we, ourselves, are good enough, leading us to focus our efforts and energies to our ego scale, rendering us unaware that there is an entire other scale operating quietly inside us with a wholly collective objective. We look at the great things that happen to/for others and measure them ounce for ounce (with our ego scale) instead of evaluating everyone’s unique experiences (with our soul scale) and giving merit to how each encounter fits each of our lives perfectly, even if it is to teach us a lesson--and especially if we feel we have already learned the lesson and are therefore, ‘done’ with it!
For example, we might not like our current ‘job’, but we need the money so we make a choice to stay indefinitely, without looking for something else. We have, whether we know it or not, placed the value of money above that of enjoying our chosen ‘work’. That situation, unchecked by the soul/ego combo, can lead us into some negative thinking cycles before we have a chance to recognize that we put ourselves there in the first place for a reason. If the money is where we place the value (for any reason), it becomes our responsibility to find the things to enjoy within that environment because it is providing us with the very thing we have chosen to value. Sometimes we can overlook the simple things we are grateful for in favor of putting energy toward the more complicated things that we are aware we DO NOT have, but wish we did. Our ideals can definitely be goals, or things that we value, but we are learning every day that they can be so much more than that! There is a magic that ignites both our creative passion and our unlimited imagination when we practice this inner awareness not only for ourselves, but for everyone and everything we touch. The key is simply looking from both angles and breathing comfortably with the discord that may occur in our own bodies. This sets the stage for allowing discord with others, while not accepting views that you do not share. It moves us from disbelief to curiosity. If we are curious enough, we will find the answers to our ‘why’ questions, rather than being stuck asking them over and over--often to other people who don’t have the answers because they are also ‘caught’ in the same loop..
When our Egos are making most of our decisions (this is a fully natural condition right now), we easily conflate the definitions of Values and Ideals. As a society, we have done it for so long that we have, in many ways, forgotten how to use our Ideal thoughts the way they were originally intended - as a tool for manifestation! When we find ourselves swept up in a positive daydream, we begin to identify naturally-occuring connections and see ‘signs’ that we are on the right track. The path seems to light itself with each step that we take in a direction that intentionally lines up our values to our ideals. We feel alive and powerful. If we get too far away from awareness of our soul connection into more ego-based personal ideals, the conditions of our lives will generally change in some way, encouraging us to look at life a little differently. These energies are so subtle that while we were building our egos, we barely paid attention to them--unless we were trying. Since the pandemic, they have been getting louder and more palpable within our bodies, whether we invite them or not. All of that focus on mindfulness we have been reading about? Covid gave us each the chance to put it into practice, if we were ready.
In very recent history (let’s say, gaining ground since the mid 1960’s, and reaching a pinnacle with the pandemic), the universe, or ‘god’, or whatever we call the collective group that we are all a part of, has gone into a state of actively trying to make us aware of the deeper connections among us, which keep us all rooted to each other in some manner. Some of us are keenly aware of this fact, while others feel a desire to challenge it, or find actual ‘proof’; they just can’t yet see that the world shows us this proof in subtle (and not subtle) ways at all times, if we are looking for it from the inside out. Whether we know it or not, we are currently experiencing a collective ‘waking up’ from the long-held illusion that we are each separate. The simple truth is, we are both separate and connected, supported deeply by both our Egos and our Souls, even though they may not be consciously aware of each other.
It is our eventual (and ideal) collective task, when we are more fully ‘awake’ as a group, to make transformative use of the powers that are unlocked from the memory of that ancient balance. In the meantime, if we find ourselves ‘waiting’ for others’ awareness, we are being offered a chance to play around with our own scales, and encourage our ‘inner healer’ to find its passion(s). We have the chance to know better and do better, simply because we can. This practice holds the stuff that supports the magic and the miracles.
No matter what our opinions on Covid, we are being forced to make personal choices that, in practice, transcend our obvious differences, but in reality, aren’t being wholly considered because there is so much fear in the way of our underlying concept of ‘Truth’. For most of us, our ability to breathe has become more consciously valued as we’ve ‘learned’ the nuances of this virus. When we feel we are in a safe environment, we spend more time breathing deeply and with more intention; hoping to stay healthy within our own bodies, and as the human race. For the rest of us, finding any space to breathe freely seems nearly impossible as fear runs rampant and takes over our manifesting energies, emanating more fears, as we worry about how things will work out, and everything else under the sun… This is nature’s way of guiding us to recognize and align with our own inner workings so that we can use our inner control to work with our external environment.
As an ORM practitioner, I value my ideals and make a thoughtful practice of recognizing when I become overly ego-focused (literally, hundreds of times each day--that is the human way). This practice takes our most resonant thoughts, intentions, values and ideals and helps us incorporate them into our bodies. It uses the already-existing powers from our ego/soul energies to align our thoughts by asking simple questions to determine which of those energies is producing our current reaction(s). We can start to see that we have opposing opinions even within ourselves as we take a look at the things that matter to us from the perspective of both the ego and the soul, so that we can feel confident about our choices because we know how they are rooted and connected to our values.
It is my ideal hope that ORM is well-regarded as a tool for being comfortable and joyful in a human body. I spend a lot of time wanting the power of Soul/Ego Balance to pervade our consciousness so that we might collectively elevate our abilities to manifest the things that spark our passion and improve our spirits from the inside out. I value my own ORM practice because I am grateful for what it has produced within me and I look forward to seeing it unfold with the rest of my life. My ego would love to ‘prove’ how well this works to anyone and everyone, but my soul knows that we will each be ‘called’ to it in our own time. I am standing at the doorway between the soul scale and the ego scale, ready to allow safe passage between the two scales for anyone seeking awareness, as we each learn how to access and use their available powers by lining them up to our true values, sparking our aligned ideals into action.
Yesterday, a friend told me she felt guilty for not ‘trying’ ORM. She said she wants to be supportive of my endeavors, she’s just been too busy. I tried to assuage her guilt by explaining that ORM transcends my own ego and people will find their way to this practice when and how they do, not because I would like them to--this is for life, not for a moment. I have a deep understanding of the place where her guilt originates, but it is also obvious to me that the guilt itself serves no real purpose. Guilt takes up the energetic space where she (we) could be actively manifesting instead. When our Intentions are aligned with our Values and Ideals, we make choices based on what actually fits, not what ‘looks good’. This means that when we have to miss something ‘important’, we can simply put good energy toward it--knowing that we made a choice that best fits our current conditions. It might create disappointment somewhere along the way, but disappointment is a feeling we can work with and through because it helps us transform.
At its heart, the broad concept of values and ideals supports the structure of our psychological makeup, both from an individual standpoint (our Ego Energies), and as part of our collective human perspective (our Soul Energies). If we know, from intentional consideration, what we value and keep that information present when we are making decisions, we are more apt to align with our desired intentions. When we have a decent grasp of our values, we set up the space for the magic of playing around with ideals. Personally, I’m going to start imagining an ideal world where our guilt dissolves as soon as the feeling appears so that we might all feel a little more connected to Wholeness, and more comfortable with our own natural rhythms.
Can’t find a good place for this paragraph:
One of the earliest places we went ‘wrong’ (read ego-directed) as human beings is the (our) literal ‘fear of god’. If we fear ‘god’ (or whatever you call that energy), we place limits on our ability to heal and manifest for ourselves. We also allow our own value to be based on the judgment of something outside of ourselves, which further erodes our connected awareness. We take our own internal monitoring out of operation, which leaves us with skewed and distorted perceptions about life and our individual role in it. At worst, we have been made to feel wicked for using our imagination for manifesting grounded ideals, to the point that many of us have forgotten that we even have that ability. If we can go back to that root in our own lives and ‘detangle’ the things that stand in the way of our direct connection to/as part of ‘god’, we expand our awareness and our abilities. I get that this is a lot to take in and absorb. It has taken me several years of ‘digging’ to pull these basic bones from our human experience, building on the work of so many previous efforts to do the exact same thing, as we further uncover the structure that existed before we piled a mountain of Ego Energies on top of our Soul Scales--to the point that we can barely make them out when they have been right here with us the whole time.
