156 posts tagged “life”

Thought Tagging is an essential Ancient Technology you can use to change unwanted behaviors. Where would spiritual growth and personal development be without this technique? Do you understand how to tag your thoughts? Do you know what to do once the tags are triggered?

We walk through life unconscious most of the time. And there are certain situations which push our buttons, so to speak. When they do, and we are unconscious, we react automatically from whatever programming we have in our past.

Tagging your thoughts and actions is like putting a wakeup call on a thought or action. Anytime the thought occurs an alarm goes off. Any time you engage in an action the alarm goes off. You then have the opportunity to become conscious and decide how to respond rather than reacting in a way that you know is hazardous to your well being.

Tagging your thought is a simple process:

1. Decide which thought or action you wish to tag.

2. Close your eyes, breathe deeply, relax and get centered.

3. Focus on the thought or action to be tagged and ask yourself, “What are my buttons, under what circumstances are these thoughts triggered?”

4. Decide what new thoughts or actions you want to become automatic. What do you want your new habit of thinking to be? Create a script.

5. Imagine becoming conscious when tag is triggered, just like a button was pressed and an alarm went off. Imagine yourself remembering that you have a new program to install, to put into practice.

6. Imagine yourself consciously and deliberately changing the thinking or action. Act out the new script in your mind.

7. Repeat these steps as often as needed. You will know you are successful when you become conscious everytime you find yourself in the situation you are attempting to tag.

What to do once the tag is triggered:

1. Stop and let yourself become conscious. Breathe deeply.

2. Take your time and proceed slowly.

3. Remember the new thought; explore it, contemplate it. If it is an action, perform the new action, even if you have to undo the old action and redo the new action. Review why it is that you want the new thought or action to become dominant.

4. Feel the energy of the new thought or action. If it does not feel good you have not chosen a replacement thought that will take you were you want to go in life. Come up with a replacement thought that does feel good. Stick with, keep reaching for new thoughts, until it does feel good.

Remember you are reprogramming yourself here. You need to practice the new program for it to be effective. Even if you make the mistake of automatically falling into old patterns, it is VERY IMPORTANT to rethink or redo the thought or action the new way. You MUST practice if you want the new behavior to automatically replace the old behavior. Practice is what will create your new habit of thought and action.

Mental practice is just as good as physical practice when it comes to physical actions. You can change physical behaviors by mentally practicing the desired new behavior.

Also check out my blog posting titled Reprogramming Self which has more information about changing your automatic thought and behavior patterns.

Love and Blessings,
Michael Skowronski
Author of Unforgettable: A Love and Spiritual Growth Story

P.S. For an enjoyable read that will make you laugh and bring you to tears check out my book Unforgettable: A Love and Spiritual Growth Story. This is a true story that is a good example of spiritual principals being intentionally applied and unintentionally misapplied. The results speak for themselves.

Full book reviews can be found on Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com

I wrote a blog called Drug Addicts, Prostitutes, Child Molesters, Liars & Cheaters…are They the Scum of the Earth? I got a LOT of comments about Child Molesters being in a category of their own. In this blog I want to address this issue in a way that will make logical as well as emotional sense to you. When it comes to the effect these people have on our lives, I too believe they are in a category of their own. Unless we do something very practical about them it is only going to get worse.

Here are just some of the comments made by some of my friends…

Montserrat~ Sacred Feminine Art
I am not sure how much I agree with you bunching up together “child molesters” with “liars” and “drug addicts”…I am sure you realize there is a huge difference between them…HOWEVER, child molesters have NO ROOM in this planet. Can you please explain why would you compare a liar or cheater to a child molester?

Asterope Morgaine {PriestessRising.com}
Michael you know I love you to pieces, and think you’re extremely intelligent and wise…But- I can’t believe you would classify drug addicts & prostitutes in the same category as child molesters! Michael I’m really, really disappointed. Having to sell yourself for money is completely different from molesting a child…You can’t even compare.

Om Jyotish Astrological Services
I agree with others’ assessment on this child molester issue…The degree and severity of the action trumps the others at least one hundred fold. To put the argument that society should have a vested interest in rehabilitating a child molester is valid - I don’t think they should be camped away in some dark dungeon for the rest of their lives.

When one chooses certain actions, the reactions or consequences of those actions are not the victim’s - they are the perpetrator’s. When one abuses a child, it is not the child that punishes the molester, it is the molester’s own actions which come back to haunt him…they still must face the consequence of their actions. Don’t neglect this point Michael. If you do, you’re not being honest with yourself, or others.

I have removed some of their actual comments to keep this blog short. To read their full comments please visit my blog Drug Addicts, Prostitutes, Child Molesters, Liars & Cheaters…are They the Scum of the Earth.

I appreciate everyone who commented on this issue. I felt your comments were all genuine, respectful and well meaning (especially if you view the full text of their comments.) However I can see there is much missing in the understanding of the general public on this issue.

This really becomes an issue of do you want to keep shooting yourself in the foot or are you ready to throw your guns away? You have two choices…which one do you choose?

I lumped Drug Addicts, Prostitutes, Child Molesters, Liars & Cheaters all together in the same category because from the smallest of issues to the largest of issues, judgment will harm you. I know there is a difference in the severity of these “crimes” as in the impact it has on the lives of people here in the physical world, this is quite clear. But there is no crime hideous enough that it should cause us to hate and judge and punish…that is shooting yourself in the foot.

I saw a news report just a few days ago about one state which is considering the death penalty for a man who molested his eight year old step daughter. When I watched the news report, and considered the systems we have in place to deal with people like this, I was all for the death penalty too. Yes, for a few moments, I too wanted to see this man killed and for the message to go out to others just how much we really hate this crime so that anyone with this sort of thinking will think twice about committing such a crime and will seek help.

Okay, but that opinion is only in the context of our current systems, and it was only a knee-jerk reaction to my feelings about the horrible crime he committed. My desire to kill was in the context of feeling frustrated that such things continue to go on in our world. Why haven’t these people gotten the message yet? And my feelings are in the context that I spent time focusing on such an issue and the powerlessness we have as a result of the lame systems we do have in place.

These are very real human emotions that most people in our society do feel.

However this type of emotional reaction is a lot like fighting with a tar baby. The more you punch and kick and wrestle with a dummy made of tar, the more stuck you become until you cannot move at all. It is just like the peace we are supposed to win each time we go to war, yet we discover in time we end up with mental problems, debts, a larger war machine, a lot of dead people, and countries that are angry at each other.

We must move past these painful human emotions if we want to stop such crimes from ever happening again on this planet. I know from personal experience that it is possible to change our automatic reaction. It would be nice if we could eliminate such crimes altogether, we can hope and reach for that, but we cannot control the actions of other people to such an extent.

I do know that we can significantly reduce the number of these horrible crimes. This should be our goal. If we make punishment our goal, these crimes will not go away nor will they be reduced. We have used punishment as a deterrent for crime for thousands of years. It doesn’t work, history has proven this. In the cases where extreme punishments have been used, crime is reduced, but so is the level of confidence, freedom, and wellbeing of the society. In such a society it is easy to push innocent people into a machine we call justice and eat them up alive…which is a crime in itself. It is also easier for guilty people to get off because the punishment is so extreme the guilty will do anything to protect themselves, including terrorizing anyone who would testify against them.

Focusing on punishment is a form of terrorism.

By punishing our criminals we teach the bulk of our society that terrorism is the way to achieve our goals. Individuals are more inclined to strap on bombs, or go to some public place with a gun and kill others when they are upset and decide an injustice has occurred. This punishment mentality cannot be confined to only the horrible crimes such as child molestation, rape and sadistic murders because terrorism becomes a habitual pattern in everybody’s mind for problem solving. Large angry mobs develop and insist we must brutally punish people for certain behaviors that may not even be crimes at all.

We can see this with the war on drugs. As was stated by my friends we can all clearly see that one who molests a child is in a whole different class of offense than one who is consuming or even selling drugs. Yet the punish, punish, punish mindset of America has locked away millions of people for a very long time, in horrible conditions, merely for consuming drugs. It is extreme, excessive and abusive treatment for relatively minor crimes…which should not even be considered crimes at all! Our politicians listen to the angry mobs and run their campaign on platforms of harsh punishment. All sensibility is thrown out the window and we end up living in a society that is cruel and insane. That is the state of America today. It is due to this terrorist mentality of using punishment to solve our social problems.

Our families are affected by this too. In many families parents terrorize their children. Elder children terrorize the younger ones. Bullies abound in America. This is something I see all the time in the USA and hardly ever in Australia or in India. I know it exists worldwide, but our culture promotes such a violent, policing, judgmental type of attitude about so many things that it is reflected in the state of our youngest children up to the oldest of adults. How is it that people in other countries even survive without beating, shooting or imprisoning so many in their population? And why are they so much happier than Americans? And why does it feel so much better to live in those countries than it does in America.

Who is good enough to judge another and to prescribe a punishment for another? Are you? I know that I am not. Most people I know have their own dysfunctional behaviors going on and should be dealing with those issues rather than judging others.

I know for a fact that when I get angry at someone else or even some situation, that I have not understood something. And when I do come to understand it dramatically alters my emotional state and I feel like I was the one in the wrong. Do you know why I know this for a fact? Because I have worked for many years on overcoming my rage and I am about 99 percent there. When I was angry I forced myself to settle down and to pay enough attention and to look deeper into the situation. Then I saw that I had seriously misunderstood the situation. Not just some of the time, not just most of the time, EVERY TIME! I am not just a stupid fool that I always get confused and pissed off! I am a very intelligent man who becomes insane whenever the feeling of anger arises within me. And I am willing to bet this is true of 100 percent of humanity too.

The Worst Crime of All

We stunt our spiritual growth by holding on to a stance of using punishment as the way we deal with crime of any sort. I consider this the worst crime of all. If you only knew the beauty of divine union with God, you would understand what I mean. It is an experience that is so beautiful, that to rob others of it is a crime as hideous as murder. Divine union with God is not possible for someone who would punish another person because that other person is God. Your own desire to punish God results in the inability to unite that closely with God. When we teach our society that punishment is the answer to crime, no matter how small or how large we judge the crime to be, we prevent our fellow human beings from experiencing divine union with God.

When I tell people I have experienced divine union with God they just don’t understand. When a person has not had an experience they cannot relate. Some people try to. Recently one woman responded with, “I too experience God. I have a deep, abiding, PERSONAL relationship with Christ.” Yet the rest of what she wrote indicated that she has NOT had this experience I that am referring to. I have met others that totally understood. Their words and understanding of life reflected it. I tell you this, if you are having a difficult time understanding my perspective, or you completely disagree, then you have not had this experience I am describing. If you have ever experienced divine union with God you will know that all other beings are indeed you, are indeed God, are indeed your beloved Jesus or whoever it is that you worship. If you ever came close to having this experience you would know the incredible pain of coming face to face with God with a heart that wants to put a bullet in his head or lock him up in the darkest prison experience imaginable.

I am not trying to come off as someone who is superior for having had such an experience. I am only trying to impress upon you that I may have actually been somewhere you have not and that from that place the answer to all of our life’s problems was clear. It is just a bit like…

This is Just like Skiing

When I was a young hot shot intermediate skier I wanted to ski the black diamond runs…I am talking about those very steep slopes. My friend and I would stand at the top of the slope and we would cautiously start skiing down by cutting across the slope, but we always got to a point where we had to turn to go the other way. The problem was that by the time we had to make that turn we had way too much speed going and we had to turn such that for a short time we were heading straight down that steep slope. We often fell. Or we would interrupt our flow by stopping and making an awkward stepping and hopping sort of turn to cut across that slope in the opposite direction.

Our style was not very elegant; this was not how we saw the advanced skiers doing it. They were basically going straight down the slope and gracefully cutting a lot of turns as they went leaving a pattern like a snake in the snow. So we tried to imitate them without much luck. Sometimes we would barrel down that slope so fast that all we could do was hope we would make it to the bottom of the steep part and then slow ourselves down, other times we fell, and other times we bailed out and started cutting across the slope again.

Then one day we skied with a friend who had been a ski instructor. He taught us that we had to lean over our tips hard. He showed us how to slow our decent by making a graceful turn every few seconds. “Lean over our tips?!?” That sounded like suicide to me! I had never done it, so I did not understand how that could possibly work. My mind was telling me that I would fall for sure, or go flying down that slope faster than ever. I had a difficult time accepting it. I was really scared to try but I did. You know what? It works and is actually very easy and a lot of fun!

This whole issue people have with punishment is just like this. Most people are too afraid to try something new. They are too wrapped up in their emotions and their judgment and their hatred for these very sick people to see the God within them or to evaluate clearly if the way we as a society have been dealing with them is working. If we want to advance from a mediocre society to an advanced one, we will have to face this challenge and approach this issue with love.

Have I Proven My Point?

So this idea of terrorizing criminals into submission creates an endless cycle of abuse. This should be very clear. Have I proven this to your satisfaction? What is missing? Do you still believe you can punish the wicked of this world in some way and create a world of beauty and peace? Can you clearly articulate what it is that you do not understand, or why is it you disagree? If so then please do so in a comment. Understanding these points I have been making is the foundation of moving out of this endless cycle that humanity seems to be stuck in. If we cannot prove our current ways are doomed to failure beyond a shadow of doubt for the ordinary human being then we cannot motivate them to try a different approach.

There is Another Way

Love is the answer to all problems. Loving someone is NOT the same thing as setting them free and ignoring their dysfunctional and criminal behaviors. You can love someone and still lock them up or come up with other ways to prevent them from continuing to harm society.

If you shift from a shocked, horrified and judgmental state of mind to a compassionate and loving state of mind you are free to explore all of the possibilities for solving a problem. If you become relaxed and peaceful then you open up to inspiration that will NOT come when you hold on to bitter and hateful judgment. This is what is necessary to solve this problem we have with abusive people.

There are many who would say the punishment of the abuser is assured by God. I would disagree because God is not punishing them but teaching them. As such we should leave these teaching methods to God who knows enough to make the judgments and decisions of how to best teach these abusive people. God is in charge of karma. Indeed if I beat someone for abusing me or my child, that abuser has received some of his karmic payback. But still I have created karma for myself. Thus we need to leave the karma of others to God and we need to create our own karma and life experience as we want it to be.

I will NOT say that I have the perfect solution to this problem, as in the physical steps we must take, but I am certain that it starts in a peaceful loving mind. The solution that works will not come from the mind of a bitter, angry and judgmental person. We must clear out our judgment to make room for the solutions we seek to come to the surface.

Examples of possible solutions:

* Lock these criminals up in a compassionate way. They lose their liberty because they cannot be trusted, not as a punishment. Allow them to only have entertainment and reading material that helps them see the harm they have done, and teaches them a way of living that is loving and harmonious. Bring loving and compassionate teachers in to retrain them, even if they will never be free again. Teach them how to mediate and get in touch with God within their own being. STOP teaching them that Jesus forgives them and all they have to do is believe. People who believe this sort of BS do not even try to change, why should they?

* For those who are freed put an ankle bracelet on them that contains GPS tracking, a sensor, and a taser. If the sensor detects violent behavior then the bracelet tasers them to the ground. I bet the technology exists to do such a thing.

* Teach ALL children at the youngest age about such predators. Standardize the ways we teach it. Carefully monitor the results to make sure we are not traumatizing the little ones but preparing them to take care of themselves and stay out of dangerous situations. Prepare them to tell a trusted adult if they are abused rather than letting it go on for years.

* Teach young and mature women that this danger exists. Teach them about how men look for unmarried mothers of girls so they have captive young girls to prey upon.

* Make sexuality more acceptable and accessible in our society. Legalize prostitution! Stop stigmatizing the sexually promiscuous. Much of this is abnormal sexual behavior is due to the repression of our natural sexual desires.

* Make violence and punishment more unacceptable in our society. Much of this abnormal violent behavior is due to being taught that violence is the way to power when they were a young child and they were abused. And it is also why so many stubbornly hold on to it as the way to control and protect our society even though it is not working. People with a violent way of dealing with problems are not powerful, they are powerless!

We must begin to take a long term view of this problem. This person with this horrible social problem is going to come back via reincarnation. Even if we lock them up for life, we need to retrain them such that when they do come back to again via reincarnation and mix in with society that they have developed loving and sane social skills. These habits we embed in the personality through repetition do carry over into our next incarnations. This is one of the reasons I promote loving kindness in the face of their harmful behavior. As one of my friends said, there is “NO ROOM on this planet” for them. But too bad so sad, you have no control over this. If you kill them today, tomorrow they will be born again and soon enough repeat these behaviors. You cannot kill this out of people. They must be taught a new way of being.

By forgiving and loving these unloving people we are loving and forgiving ourselves. We are setting an example for others to follow. Our society will develop the habit and skill of handling horrible events with compassion and love creating outcomes that are best for all concerned.

Tink
Sorry, Michael, have a real problem withholding judgment with regard to child molesters. You honestly cannot place them into the same genre as drug addicts and prostitutes. Apples and oranges.

Walk in the shoes of a parent for just a moment. Your daughter is molested, maybe raped, possibly killed, by a grown man. Your daughter is 4. Say your daughter survives the molestation and it does not go beyond that. The man is captured. The whole thing goes to court.

How can a person honestly set aside all anger, hatred, and even judgment in the face of the horrific act done to an innocent child?

I will agree that NOT everyone will be able to set aside their anger and hatred. Yet as a society this is what we need to be doing for all of the reasons I have already given. To not do this is to remain stuck. We consider a person a hero when they shed their own life in battle, fighting fires, going to the rescue of the helpless, they do it for others and for the greater good of their society. There are many such stories and popular movies around this topic. We get all emotional and swept up in such stories when we see that happen. We are inspired.

What about what Gandhi and the Indian people did in their struggle against British occupation? Watch the video called Gandhi. They conquered their enemy by clearly showing the British that they were brutal people attacking innocent non violent people. They put their own lives in peril, without fighting, but just by being there they won peace.

I will tell you from my own personal experiences in life, that you can overcome any emotion by simply changing your mind and focusing your attention somewhere else. Pain occurs; dwelling on it only amplifies and extends it.

If you let these ideas sink in, if you read my other blogs on this topic of how forgiveness helps yourself and how judgment and hatred poisons the one who is doing the hating, if you take my advice just some of time and observe how it changes things for you and for others, then you will know this is some advanced and profound wisdom. This is the only approach that will work.

I know I have many people reading my blogs with advanced life skills. Please let’s have a show of support, and echo of the truth…how has letting go of judgment, hatred, anger and fear changed your life? And for those who have not yet given it a try…be brave, be a hero, give it a try; what do you have to lose?

Love and Blessings,
Michael Skowronski
Author of Unforgettable: A Love and Spiritual Growth Story