bette wrote:
Thank you Cole, I'll check it out. Funny, I have woken early today thinking hard about the whole "drugs are bad" thing. Thinking about how better choices could have been made, how it isn't the end of the world that choices were made as they were, but that I could have done better, much better, no matter what was "done to me". Then I was thinking about beliefs and how I struggle to not have automatic thinking based on beliefs, or at least to recognize it when it happens, and how very programmed by whatever society we are in we are. Take money, my daughter asked when she was around 12 what good money was. She said you can't eat it, it's just paper, you can't build a house with it. I had the same type thought when I was around her age about credit, that if I couldn't buy something outright I couldn't afford it. Then I'm reading about the GM company problems currently in the newsletters I get, can see in the TV news the term "The Feds" when talking about money, and what is happening to the people being laid off from autoworker plants that have inflated wages (like $60 an hour) having to take two jobs to earn half the money while also losing their property and investments. It all seem pretty familiar to me. Its like the "as if" game I played, acting as if I needed the credit card I was using to rent cars at first. As if my daughter had the required material things, indicating 'normal' family life, for school so her experience might be more pleasant than my school experience. Then it was as if we could just rent a car and take her, my son, and my daughters friends to concerts, then Disneyland (we love dizzy land as my son having autism allows us to enter rides through the exits, no or little waiting). It mushroomed out of control as the emergencies started, and then the long term medical treatments requiring monthly car renting and out of town dr trips, and medical bills. The emergencies, sick pets, broken cars, etc overtook what I could pay and the cards (0% transfers) started being used for household expenses too. What does this have to do with drugs, well, money is a drug too I think. Drugs are used to control people and money is a drug. I believed I would be able to pay the credit bills up to a certain point on my current income, then as it became obvious I couldn't I started looking for ways to earn more income. My belief that I could work outside the home fizzled as my son decided he didn't want to attend school anymore at 19, and then he had a seizure July 2008 making staying home with him the reality. Beliefs are beliefs, this particular one (that I could pull up out of this before it bit my assets) was bad. I'm getting a better grip on beliefs perhaps. The reason I belief Tom, that MBT is something I believe is because it is not something I know, therefore it is only a belief. It seems glaringly obvious now. Thank you for letting me share ;).
Love
Bette
I hear ya bette... I hope that's enough (to know that others can emphathize with you)...
Money definitely can be a drug, in the sense that both drugs and money can be both addictive and abused. ...Which brings me back to the point: anything used, experienced, or enjoyed is fine if used/experienced/ or enjoyed in moderation and with a clear head, and with as little "collateral damage" (*doesn't harm others) as possible.. <--- I think we agree on that. I hope we can all remember, especially when 'things are bad' that "this too will pass." Live and Learn, I guess.
Yes, belief is tricky isn't it? My way of thinking about MBT is that certain key concepts had "occured" to me before coming across Tom Campbell and his work, and so I feel that I can logically trust that at least much of MBT is "true." That consciousness is fundamental, for example, had "occured" to me on one of the first times I'd tried marijuana. I realized (as I was staring at the perfectly clear, blue sky) the neutral "observer"
behind everything that is Cole Randall ("behind" my body, personality, ego etc.). Suddenly I made the "consciousness connection" and realized
"[My consciousness... is the same consciousness... as everyone else's consciousness... that's it!]".. or something along those lines. I'm sure I had read something on quantum physics, I know I was already into philosophy and writing my 'thoughts and insights' down, but somehow I had yet to "realize" the ineffability of consciousness. Of course my first intuitive reaction to the experience was that "consciousness is infinite"- but (obviously) Tom's theory logically disagrees with this, as in his view- a real system must be finite... and "infinite" is just a 'cap' (or a place holder word for the limit) on our conceptualizations. Again, who knows who's insights are more accurate... the Advaitist, or the Physicist? That consciousness is "apparently" infinite is the only thing I know for sure.
:)
Anyway- what did you think of the interview bette?
Cole
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