Ignoring him, the Master continues pouring the tea and calmly replies “ a mind that is already full cannot take in anything new. Like this cup, you are full of opinions and preconceptions. In order to find the happiness and wisdom you seek, you must first learn to empty your mind.”

This Buddhist teaching story, which goes back many centuries, contains great wisdom because it is talking about the primitive ego that resides in each of us……the primitive (immature) ego of our very young inner-child. Until we acknowledge the presence of this part of our unconscious psyche, and learn the skills required to tame it, achieving wisdom or happiness will be very, very difficult. Some say impossible.

Like the professor in the story above, we must learn to become self-aware so we can begin to tame the unconscious arrogance of our primitive ego. Becoming wise and creating happy relationships with others is very difficult to achieve when others see us as narcissistic and arrogant. So let’s take a look at the skills we need to learn and how best to learn them.

Step one: Our primitive ego is not bad.

Our primitive ego is simply young and immature….not a bad part of us that needs to be eliminated. That would be impossible without a lobotomy and it would mean losing most of what we know about the world. But unconsciously allowing a six to seven year old child to run our adult lives doesn’t make sense either. Which leads us to step two on our journey toward wisdom and happiness……..

Step two: Understanding that our primitive ego can make us ignorant.

Like most very young children, the primitive ego of our unconscious inner-child tends to be a bit narcissistic and often quite arrogant…..rather “me” focused. Those traits do not necessarily make us a bad person, but the unconscious arrogance of our primitive ego does indeed have the power to make us very difficult to live with and even more importantly, it can make us ignorant.

Step three: Understanding that ignorance is normal.

But before you put yourself down, remember……ignorance does not mean that we are stupid, it simply means that we have not yet learned something. We all start out life ignorant about everything! We remain ignorant until another person or our life experiences give us the opportunity to learn.

Ignorance can always be overcome and replaced by wisdom……by simply learning about the subject we are currently ignorant about.

Let me say it again…. ignorance does not mean that we are stupid. When we are unwilling or stubbornly refuse to learn and grow…..that’s when we are in danger of being labeled as stupid… or as Webster’s dictionary would put it….a stupid person is one who “lacks intellectual acuity or a keen penetrating intelligence”. In other words, ignorance is not a bad thing, but stupid is never helpful.

To understand what all this has to do with emptying the tea cup we need to briefly explore the danger of black-and-white thinking.

Step four: Understanding the danger of black-and-white thinking.

Primitive Ego Psychology teaches us that as young children, we learn to keep the confusing adult world simple and manageable by using the skill of “either / or” thinking. Some call this dualistic thinking. Others refer to it as black-and-white thinking.

They all mean the same thing….. that we learned very early in life that things are either safe or unsafe, good or bad, pleasurable or painful, right or wrong. We quickly learned that the world was safer and more pleasurable when we were good and right. It was scary to think that we might we bad or wrong.

Wrong meant that we could be criticized or ridiculed. So at a very young age we learned to strongly defend our beliefs and opinions. Over time all of our beliefs, opinions, certainties, assumptions and conclusions about life became very rigid and inflexible. They all represented what is right and good. They all came to represent various aspects of “the” truth. Period.

The primitive ego of our unconscious inner-child often becomes very angry, defensive, and resentful when others tell us we are wrong. It is positive “we” are right and “they” are wrong….sometimes we even label them as “jerks”. This attitude of course quickly makes their primitive ego angry, defensive, and resentful. We now have two upset, defensive, resentful people attempting to communicate with one another.

Beginning to see the problem?

When we unconsciously attempt to use the black and white, all or nothing life skills and insights of our very young inner-child to manage our adult life, we are almost certain to journey through life with a very full tea cup unconsciously shooting ourselves in the foot by arrogantly and aggressively defending our beliefs as “absolute truths” and openly criticizing the beliefs and behaviors of others.

So much for happy relationships with those around us.

In other words, when our unconscious primitive ego is in control of our life, anything that challenges our existing beliefs is automatically and emotionally rejected as wrong. Our primitive ego makes it very difficult for us to learn new things and take in any new information that might require us to change our existing beliefs.

Unfortunately, our primitive ego’s black-and-white thinking process tends to keep us ignorant, rigid in our beliefs, and labeled by others as arrogant because we refuse to open ourselves to new ideas….especially when we insist on telling others we think they are wrong. None of these outcomes are helpful if our goal is to become wise and have happy relationships with those around us.

Our primitive ego is indeed young and immature, and it is part of our unconscious, so until we learn to become fully conscious and more self-aware, our primitive ego will continue to unconsciously exert a very powerful control over our adult life.

Step five: The single most important skill required for wisdom and happiness

We have now arrived at the single most important skill we will ever need in life to achieve wisdom and happiness….and that is the skill of learning to pay attention. No other skill is more important than learning how to awaken our consciousness and learning to intentionally pay more attention to the energy that we are sending into the universe.

Is our energy open and loving? Or is our energy critical, defensive and angry? If it is defensive and angry there is a good chance that the primitive ego of our inner-child is unconsciously controlling our life.

Stated simply, learning to live in the moment and learning to “intentionally” pay attention to the energy of our thoughts, behaviors, and feelings……is far and away the most important skill we need to work on if we want to achieve growth in self-awareness. It takes time to become self-aware, but eventually, learning to pay attention to the kind of energy we are sending into the world becomes second nature.

The more we pay attention to those times that our energy is negative, the more easily we will see our inner-child in action. Remember, the primitive ego of our inner-child has the power to control our day-to-day lives only when it is functioning outside of our awareness. When we are conscious and self-aware, we have the ability to consciously choose the kind of energy we want to give the universe……through our thoughts, our emotions, and our behaviors.

As we grow in self-awareness we will find our self automatically practicing the art of emptiness…….the ability to embrace “not-knowing”. Remember, our primitive ego uses black-and-white thinking….it knows everything…..and everything it knows represents absolute truth.

When we develop the ability to “not-know” it allows us to be more open, less defensive, and more able to listen so we can more easily take in new information….information that may or may not change our existing beliefs.

The universe is a very large place and there is a lot we don’t yet know or understand. As we learn to tame our primitive ego though growth in self-awareness and learn to embrace new information and ideas, we will soon realize just how ignorant we really are! Reality is not black and white….it is always gray. There is always truth on both sides of every issue. Until we tame our primitive ego we will not be able to embrace these important realities.

When we are able to empty our mind and sit comfortably with our ignorance we will know that we are truly on the path toward wisdom and happier relationships with others. We will finally understand that virtually every new learning in life is a gift that has come to us from another person.

The Stonyhill Newsletter / Blog and the videos related to each Newsletter are designed to teach the insights and everyday wisdom contained in Primitive Ego Psychology. For more technical, in-depth articles on Primitive Ego Psychology and Primitive Ego Theory go to the Stonyhill website at www.stonyhill.com/articles.htm

While we’ve been traveling however, I have been following the comments submitted by readers and would like to use this issue of the Stonyhill Newsletter/Blog to answer some of the important questions that have been raised.

Margaret asks………How does a person start to grow after being stuck for many years…..how do you move forward?

Anonymous wrote…….How do you communicate or relate to those that are not as far along the path without getting drained or dragged down?

Bill wrote…..what can I do to try and save my marriage and my family? I fear my wife is threatening to leave me and my kids barely talk to me.

What makes these questions important is that each of these readers are focused on their own growth……how to change themselves. They are not interested in changing some one else.

As a counselor in private practice, it was common to have clients come into therapy convinced that their happiness depended on getting others to change….not themselves. They would often begin therapy by saying “they” wanted to change, but it was never long before the focus of our sessions would shift over to what “others” were doing that “made them” unhappy.

I would quietly remind them that we have no power to change others. We only have the power to change ourselves. This was often a decisive moment in their therapy. The clients who were able keep the focus of therapy on themselves; their own feelings and behaviors, would eventually begin to grow in self-awareness. Those who listened to their primitive ego believed that it was “others” that needed to change, “not them”. It was never long before they came to the conclusion that therapy was not something they wanted or needed.

Three Basic Universal Laws Can Change The Way You Think

There are three basic universal laws or realities in life that must be understood and embraced if we want to change the way we think…..and changing the way we think is the key to emotional happiness and developing the ability to enjoy healthy relationships with others.

The first universal law, that we just talked about above, can be stated very simply. You do not have the omnipotent power to force others to change so you can be happy. If your goal in life is to change others, you are going to find yourself living a very frustrated, stressful, and unhappy life. All you can do is nag the other person and be critical of them until they either a) angrily agree to change just so you will stop hounding them, or b) what’s more likely, they will simply walk away when they have had enough of your critical harassment and nagging. In either case they will be telling you clearly they have no real intention of changing.

It is helpful to remember that the person who chooses to say “no” to you, either directly, or by simply ignoring you, is the person with all the power! The only thing the “no” person has to do to win the power struggle you create when you insist they change is simply ignore you. In other words, they win without doing anything.

The bottom line…… when you attempt to force another person to change so “you” can be happy, you will very quickly experience what it means to be powerless…….and you will quickly earn the reputation of being an opinionated, critical, know it all nag. Definitely not a good place to be if your goal is to be happy.

Universal Law #2:  You can never successfully violate the law of attraction. The law of attraction is the universal law that reminds us that we will always attract to us what we think about……or stated simply….. “we become what we think about”. For example…..

-if you want to become a brain surgeon, you will need to think a lot about brain surgery.

-If you want to become a car mechanic, you will need to spend a lot of time thinking about cars.

-If you want to become the unhappy, opinionated, critical, know it all nag that we talked about when we violate reality #1 above, it’s easy……. just think a lot about what needs to change in others in order for “you” to be happy.

If you spend a lot of time thinking about how annoying the behavior of someone close to you can be, you will soon begin to see that annoying behavior, not only in that particular person, but in everyone around you.

In other words, the more you think about the annoying behavior, the more you will begin attracting those kind of annoying people into your life. That is the law of attraction in action! Again….not a good thing to do if your goal is to be happy.

Remember, the law of attraction is a universal law. It can never be altered or changed. You will become what you think about and you will attract into your life what ever you choose to think about. More than any other factor, your thoughts, past and present, conscious or unconscious, are responsible for creating the life you are currently living and they will continue to be responsible for the life you create in the future.

Universal Law #3: When you understand the law of attraction you can use it to become the person you would like others to be. If you want to attract cheerful, happy, creative, positive people into your life, all you have to do is become the person you would like to attract.

Primitive ego psychology teaches us that the primitive ego of our unconscious inner-child is almost always negatively focused on what it “doesn’t” want in our lives.

It doesn’t want to be poor.

It doesn’t want to be unhappy.

It doesn’t want to be unsuccessful.

It doesn’t want to have to deal with annoying people.

It doesn’t want to be over weight.

It doesn’t want to be unhealthy.

It doesn’t want to be criticized.

Remember, if all we think about are those things that we “don’t” want, those are going to be the very things that the law of attraction brings into our lives….no exceptions!

Until we understand and tame the negative thoughts of our unconscious inner-child’s primitive ego…..through an intentional growth in our self-awareness……we will continue to live life unconsciously attracting into our lives the very people and things that we don’t want. It’s no wonder so many people are unhappy. It’s no wonder that mood altering medicines are a multi-billion dollar industry.

The Law of Attraction Loves Positive Self-Affirmations

So how do we become the person we would like to attract into our lives.

Easy! Simply use the power of positive self-affirmations to energize the law of attraction. When you create a list of positive self-affirmations and then learn to repeat them out loud several times a day, the law of attraction will automatically begin to attract them into your life. It is important that your positive affirmations always be stated in the present tense, not the future. In other words, I am rather than I want or I will.

For example your positive affirmations might sound like……

“I am a wealthy person”,

“I attract wealth to myself effortlessly”,

“I am a happy person”,

“I am a patient person”,

“I have everything in my life I need to be happy”,

“I am a successful person”,

“I am a person who affirms others and sees the best in those around

me”………..etc. etc.

You can never have enough positive affirmations so don’t be afraid to keep adding them to your list as you think of them. Positive affirmations never focus on those things that our primitive ego “doesn’t want”…..they convert primitive ego negatives into positive self-statements.

Some people suggest that you should recite your list out loud when you get out of bed in the morning, and as many times a day as possible. The last reading of the list should always be just before going to bed each evening. Positive affirmations are very powerful because they shift the focus of our thoughts onto what we want, who we are, who we would like to become…..a fully conscious, now oriented, positive focus that powerfully energizes the law of attraction.

Never Put Yourself Down

It is very difficult to have a positive self-esteem when the majority of your thoughts tend to be focused on what you “don’t” like about yourself! Every time you catch yourself using negative primitive ego thoughts or behaviors that violate your positive self-affirmations….be careful not to put yourself down. I refer to them as old knee-jerk habits that are nothing more than reflections of who we used to be. Just pay attention when they happen. They are not only normal, they are an important part of learning to becoming self-aware. Without them our growth would be very slow and difficult.

Paying attention every time a knee-jerk happens, and then simply reaffirming our positive self-affirmations and moving on, is how change happens. Learning requires repetition. Over time, you will begin to more easily notice when your primitive ego tries to send negative thoughts, words, behaviors or negative energy into world. Again…….be careful not to dwell on either the knee-jerks or on what you don’t like about yourself because that is exactly the negative energy that the law of attraction will begin to attract into your life.

Over time, you will begin to become the positive person you want to become because the old negative energy that comes from negative thoughts will no longer make sense to you. Eventually they will be as uncomfortable for you as fingernails on a black board. When that happens, your life…..the life you are consciously creating…….will begin to change as effortlessly as a snake shedding its old skin so it can continue to grow.

Positive Self-Affirmations Are Not A Pollyanna Denial Of Reality

Maintaining a positive focus and using positive self-affirmations is not a pollyanna avoidance of reality. It is simply a way of consciously choosing the thoughts that you are going to spend time thinking about……because you know that your thoughts wlll determine the life that you are going create. The law of attraction is a universal law. You can’t change it. You can’t avoid it. The only question is whether you want conscious positive thoughts, or unconscious negative thoughts creating your future.

Summary

Let me wrap up today’s thoughts by addressing specifically what I am sure is going through the minds of many readers…….what do you do right “now” with the spouse or significant other or friend who is making you so unhappy? Simple answer? Go back to the universal laws or realities we talked about above and read them again.

What many people discover, when they learn to fully embrace the three universal realities we have talked about today, is that their partner had been driving them crazy primarily because “they” had been obsessively focused and continually thinking about their partner’s behaviors that were driving them crazy. Guess what they had been attracting into their lives!

Bottom line…….if the behaviors of your partner are driving you crazy, become the person you would like “them” to be. Over time you will not only become that person, you will begin attracting those kind of persons into your life. When “you” have become the person you would like “them” to be, the decisions and choices you might need to make regarding those difficult people in your life will become more clear. You might have to move on, but never make that choice until you have done you own work.……..and when that time comes, don’t be surprised if their behavior is still present but you find that it doesn’t bother you any more.

Primitive Ego Psychology teaches us that growth in self-awareness is the most important skill that any of us can develop if we truly want to be happy and enjoy being with other people.

See you in a few days…….we are heading for Anchorage in the morning.

The Stonyhill Newsletter / Blog and the videos related to each Newsletter are designed to teach the insights and everyday wisdom contained in Primitive Ego Psychology. For more technical, in-depth articles on Primitive Ego Psychology and Primitive Ego Theory go to the Stonyhill website at www.stonyhill.com/articles.htm

See the video based on this Stonyhill article…….

And you might be surprised by what you are about to learn.

We’ll begin by taking a look at why true happiness can sometimes be so difficult to achieve in our relationships with those around us, and then we’ll take a look at what each of us can do to begin creating the healthy and happy relationships we so much want to experience in our lives.

I think it’s safe to say that virtually everyone wants to be happy in their relationships……… with their friends, their homes, their children, and especially in their marriages and primary relationships.

Why is it that, despite the often significant amount of time and energy we invest in attempting to achieve happiness in our lives, many of the important relationships we have with those we love so often end in sadness and conflict?

Why is this true?

Building Healthy Relationships:  The first reason why true happiness is so difficult to achieve in our relationships with others is because we spend most of our adult lives under the control of a powerful alien presence.

I’m not kidding! But continue reading, it’s not as bad as it sounds.

The alien inside the psyche of each of us is the unconscious primitive ego of our inner-child…the part of our ego that ran our lives when we were very young children.

What we don’t know is that this unconscious inner-child still continues to exercise a great deal of control over our day to day lives as adults…especially when we are stressed!!!

Our primitive ego is not bad. And it is primitive only in the sense that it is a very young and immature part of our overall psyche.

But the primitive ego of our inner-child it is very powerful and it often makes us do and say things that are not in our best interest. Especially when it interferes in our relationships with others.

Because it’s young and immature, our primitive ego tends to be very self focused and more than a little narcissistic. It is very self-focused on it’s own feelings, needs, and wants!!

It is also very invested in always being right!!!  It gets very angry when others tell us we are wrong or attempt to criticize us!!

Our primitive ego also gets angry when someone takes away something it feels is ours or when another person assumes that their needs and feelings are more important than ours!

And when someone tells us to do something we don’t want to do our primitive ego can quickly become very oppositional and irritated.

In other words, we may look like mature, mild-mannered, civilized adults on the outside, but when we are overwhelmed emotionally, or when someone or something challenges us or creates stress for us, our self-focused primitive ego will very quickly and aggressively take control of our psyche.

When that happens, conflict is almost certain to enter our lives.

See video relating to this subject.

Love Is Not A Feeling:  The second reason why happiness is so difficult to achieve is because virtually all of us assume that love is a feeling!

It’s not!!!!!  Love is a behavior!!!!!

Lets take a look at why this is true.

As a therapist in private practice for 25 years it was common for clients to want me to help them heal the hurts and disappointments that had built up from years of unkind, unloving behaviors in their relationships.

They had forgotten the most basic law of the universe…the reality that every choice we make in life, and every behavior we send into the world, will always have a consequence.

They had lost touch with the reality that if they wanted to create happy relationships with others then it was their responsibility to learn to behave lovingly…especially in those situations where they were not feeling very loving!

They had forgotten the simple truth that we create happiness and love in our lives and our relationships with others one choice and one behavior at a time.

The consequence those choices and behaviors, can either be kind, compassionate, and loving, or they can be self-focused and hurtful.

Fortunately, the responsibility for the choices and behaviors we manifest, whether consciously or unconsciously, is always ours. 

In other words, those unhappy clients had unknowingly allowed the unconscious narcissistic, self-focused primitive egos of their inner-children to take control of their day to day lives….and their relationship with one another.

So how do we avoid this problem? Fortunately the path to happiness is simple.

If we want to create happiness in our relationships with others, we must first learn to become more self-aware…to more intentionally pay attention to the unconscious behaviors that come from our self-focused primitive ego.

As we learn to pay attention to the behaviors we are sending into the world,  we will become less and less comfortable with our many behaviors that create conflict and hurt.

Over time those behaviors will begin to diminish……almost effortlessly.

They simply will no longer make sense to us. We will begin to understand at a deeper and deeper level of consciousness that they are clearly not helpful if we want to be happy.

And secondly, we must never confuse the difference between feelings and behaviors.

It is important to acknowledge that our primitive ego will almost always act out whatever it is feeling. This knee-jerk reaction is the primary reason that we create conflict and hurt in our relationships with others.

Just because we feel unloving does not mean we have to behave in an unloving way with those around us.

Just because we have a feeling does not mean we have to act on that feeling.

We can learn to simply pay attention to the feeling and then we can simply make a conscious choice as to how we want to behave.

Loving behaviors create happy relationships, and loving behaviors in our relationships with others is always a choice that is separate from our feelings.
 
To state it simply, loving behaviors and the creation of happiness in our relationships with others is always our responsibility and is always a choice we can make.

See video relating to this subject.

Dick Rauscher

© Dick Rauscher January 31, 2010
Talking to the bad guys….the dudes for whom life was about to get a lot harder, John Wayne would slowly take off his jacket, shake his head sadly and say “life is hard…..it’s even harder if you’re stupid”. They didn’t appreciate the wisdom he was sharing with them of course, but they soon came to grasp first hand what he was talking about. John is no longer with us, but I am convinced that the world is about to experience the wisdom behind his words…..the consequences of continuing to ignore reality….of continuing to use an obsolete primitive ego consciousness.

As we know all too well, life can be hard for all of us at times, but as readers of the Stonyhill Newsletter, we know it’s especially hard if we insist on letting the unconscious primitive ego of our inner-child have a free hand in running our life.

So how do we know when our unconscious primitive ego has kidnapped our psyche? How do we take back control of our lives?

This can be a difficult task because it is a challenge for our minds to remain intentionally observant of our own behaviors. Fortunately it is very easy to observe the presence of unconscious primitive ego behaviors in “others”. In other words, when we have the courage to be unflinchingly honest with ourselves, the behavior of others can be an excellent mirror into our own psyche.

There are three distinct behaviors that unerringly point to the presence of a primitive ego that has unconsciously taken control of a persons consciousness…..three behaviors that currently dominate the majority of our personal lives and the well-being of our nation.

First is a strong sense of entitlement; the feeling that we “deserve” more…..

• entitled to more free government handouts,
• entitled to more free health care,
• entitled to more free unemployment benefits,
• entitled to larger bonus checks at the end of the year,
• entitled to purchase a nice home even when we know that we can’t really afford the monthly payments,
• and the belief that the many problems and crises facing our nation such as climate change, our dependency on foreign oil, and the depletion of natural resources, are not our responsibility….they’re someone else’s fault therefore, it’s their problem to fix them,
• entitlement’s bottom line……it’s the responsibility of the government to take care of us but don’t even think about raising our taxes.

Secondly, a narcissistic, greedy “me first” attitude that reflects a significant lack of compassion or empathy for others….

• a deep prejudice and bias against immigrants and people different from us,
• the belief that “our” personal rights are more valid and important than the rights of others,
• the assumption we live in a survival of the fittest world so it’s OK to steal what we want from others,  besides……if we don’t take care of ourselves, who will?,
• it’s OK to abuse, deport, imprison, torture, or execute illegal immigrants and other terrorists who enter our country illegally,
• winning the next election is far more important than protecting the needs of the voters who sent me to Washington,
• amassing political power and influence is more important than the crises’ facing our country,

And third, the inflexible attitude that my rigid black-and-white beliefs always represent absolute truth….

• abortions and homosexuality is absolutely wrong no matter what the situation,
• my anger is justified whenever another person challenges my beliefs,
• even if I am a news reporter, or a national news organization, it is OK to lie and distort the truth because we are always “right” in our beliefs,
• the ideology of my political party is absolutely right and anyone who disagrees is obviously of questionable character and not very patriotic,
• it’s ok to be radically partisan even if it gridlocks our nation because my beliefs and the beliefs of my political party are always right,
• my religion is the only religion that possesses truth so it’s my right to go into the world and tell the members of other religions that they are wrong.

If you are becoming a bit uncomfortable that some of these behaviors are hitting a bit close to home for you, congratulations, you are a person who is ready to grow and evolve your consciousness. If this list has not made you uneasy or perhaps has made you angry, you are apparently “not yet” ready to grow. But you can! This is not a terminal situation, it simply means you’re not ready “yet”. Continue reading.

When faced with challenges to our belief system, the unconscious primitive ego of our inner-child (and therefore the primary impulse of our nations’ collective primitive ego) becomes frightened….we begin to feel overwhelmed and powerlessness….we protectively pull inside….we shut down and begin to isolate………we convince ourselves that we are right and those who dare to disagree with us are the “enemy”……..and most importantly…..we get angry and aggressive.

This is a very dangerous behavior for any nation. Unfortunately, this is clearly what is happening to a growing number of Americans today.

This tendency to make our world smaller and thus more manageable can be seen clearly in the emerging political party called the Tea Party Movement. This growing political movement is inevitably attracting the most ideologically inflexible…..the most rigid, black-and-white, all-or-nothing primitive ego thinkers…..those who are unconsciously under the unyielding, unconscious control of their inner-child’s frightened primitive ego.

If you follow the Tea Party ideology you will know that these self styled “patriots” are already talking about………

• the coming civil war between the haves and the have-nots,
• the coming armed conflict between big government and the little persons,
• the coming civil war between those with a conservative political ideology and those with a liberal political ideology,
• they openly debate which side the military will support when the “people” rise up against the government,
• they are calling for the end of the evil Federal Reserve and the IRS,
• they openly refer to President Obama as a dictator or Nazi,
• they fearfully see conspiracies and terrorists around every corner,
• they angrily distrust authority and aggressively reject all aspects of big brother government,
• they insist on the dismantling all government social programs……
• they aggressively insist on the absolute protection of their own civil and personal rights but show little or no compassion for others,
• they do not appear to understand the power and social dangers inherent in narcissistic primitive ego greed,
• they totally reject any and all attempts at political or financial reform as government meddling,
• they advocate closing the borders of our country, and ignore the reality that we are an integral part of a global culture……financially, politically, legally, ethically, philosophically, militarily and economically,
• they reject the reality that a civilized culture requires some individual rights be surrendered…….for example, the right to murder, the right to steal,
• the right to drive however fast you want down a city street, the right to deny to others the rights you demand for yourself……including the moral right to ignore justice issues, compassion, or empathy for others.

The frightening part of the Tea Party Movement is the fact that their numbers are growing. Despite their intentional distortion of truth, and their rhetoric of fear and hate, they are quickly becoming an influential third political power in our country……a New American Patriotic “Anti Everything” Movement. A movement with frightening shades reminiscent of the past…..a New American “World Order” mentality.

I don’t know about you, but there are times when I too just want to move to Canada or go live in a cave somewhere and ignore the whole mess. But then I recognize that my own primitive ego is trying to take over my emotions. I remind myself that dealing with “reality” is not an option…… it is often ignored by our frightened primitive ego, but hard ”reality” is the only thing we “can” actually deal with. In fact, when something is “real” it means we “have” to deal with it……we have no choice! The evolution of our consciousness requires that we be willing to engage with truth and reality….not with illusion, distortions, and denial.

Only when each of us chooses to intentionally evolve our own consciousness, to consciously and intentionally become self-aware of the primitive ego within, will our species awaken to a more enlightened adult observing ego consciousness and develop the ability to pay attention to the reality of “what is”.

If we want to create a more enlightened world then each of us must be willing to become the change we want to create. We must we willing to expand our vision of the world. We must be willing to embrace the evolutionary possibilities waiting for us in the future, and most of all, we must be willing to bring hope into the world…..to become the light in the darkness…..to let go of our primitive “ego-self” and embrace our more enlightened, spiritually evolved observing “ego-self”.

I am not referring to a “religious” concept here, but rather to a more basic spiritual truth. Only when each of us is willing to intentionally awaken our consciousness and pay attention….to become intentionally self-aware of the unconscious behaviors that we are sending into the world….only then will we successfully evolve the critically needed evolutionary growth of human consciousness. This “conscious evolution” of our species consciousness will happen effortlessly when each of us accepts responsibility to become the change we all want to see.

How will we know when we are awakening our own consciousness? How will we know we are becoming more enlightened?  How will we know our spiritual growth is authentic and not simply a fragile shell of  “religious beliefs” surrounding our unconscious primitive ego personality?

The surest sign of an evolving consciousness is the ability to sustain gratitude and thankfulness. As gratitude and appreciation grows, our ability to be happy and openly embrace the future will grow……even when confronted by the global crises and challenges that we are currently facing.

As our attitude of gratitude and appreciation grows stronger, like a snake shedding its skin, the greed and narcissism of our primitive ego will slowly give way to a more mature, enlightened observing ego consciousness. We will learn to listen more and talk less. We will learn to “hear” what others are sharing with us. We will learn to embrace the questions and give up the need to possess all the answers. In spiritual language, we will begin to empty our selves and learn to embrace not-knowing.

Gratitude, appreciation, cooperation, and compassion are contagious attitudes…..powerful energies.

Never underestimate the power of a person who is optimistic….a person who exudes gratitude and compassion. When we are in the presence of a person who is more evolved, more enlightened than we are, their energy is catching. It transforms our own consciousness.  Over time, we too begin to change the consciousness of others. Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jesus, Muhammad, Nelson Mandela, the Dali Lama, and Desmond Tutu are each good examples of an enlightened consciousness that changed the world. There are many more.

Our world is in crisis right now. We have given in to the helplessness of our frightened inner-children…..the unconsciousness of our collective primitive ego. The consequences of primitive ego thinking is clearly visible in Washington. Just as we can see it clearly in many of the people around us, they can see it just as clearly in each of us.

Only as we become increasingly self-aware……only as we learn to intentionally pay attention to our own behaviors we will begin to see the primitive ego narcissism, the self-focus, the sense of isolation, the me first attitude that unconsciously resides in our own hearts.

Again, our primitive ego is not a terminal condition. It is simply the ego consciousness that formed during our early childhood. Every one of us can become more enlightened. The question we need to ask ourselves is “when will “I” make the decision to become intentionally self-aware and begin my spiritual journey into an awakened observing consciousness”?

The day we each begin our own intentional journey toward a more enlightened consciousness will be the day that our nation, our species, and our world evolves and becomes more enlightened…..more able to envision the world through new eyes……more able to create a new worldview that transcends the tribalism and primitive ego thinking we see today.

I am convinced that the world is going to experience a very dangerous social upheaval in the next three to five years, an upheaval that will convince us beyond any doubt that we can no longer continue on the current path. When this upheaval arrives we will begin to see clearly that continuing to use primitive ego thinking will only bring us more pain and suffering…. more chaos to the world.

When each of us discovers the courage to walk a more authentic spiritual path….a path born of deep self-awareness…..only then will we move beyond the current violence created by primitive ego thinking and begin to create a more enlightened global culture based on gratitude, appreciation, cooperation and compassion. In philosopher Jean Gebser’s words only then will we learn to become “more appreciative of things that really matter”.

We need to listen to the wisdom of philosophers like Jean Gebser and John Wayne.

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Listening to President Obama’s State of the Union speech last Wednesday was like listening to a frustrated parent scolding a room full of angry rebellious teenagers and encouraging them grow up and begin acting like mature adults; to deal with the deficit of trust that currently exists in Washington. Judging from the responses on both sides of the political isle in the last few days, it is uncertain whether the message was heard very clearly.

A civilized culture requires a government that maintains a delicate balance between protecting the rights and freedoms of its individuals, while at the same time limiting those rights and freedoms so as to protect the culture itself. For example, an individual has the right to work toward his or her dreams, but not the right to steal or kill another person in the pursuit of those dreams. A government has to decide carefully which freedoms can be allowed and which freedoms cannot.

In essence, Obama was saying that when the ideology of an individual politician or political party is too rigidly focused on the idea of allowing government, corporations, and individuals to function without oversight, regulation, or clearly defined limits to individual and corporate freedoms, the inevitable result is chaos and a rapidly growing economic gap between the haves and the have nots. Because virtually all adults are under the emotional control of their inner-child’s unconscious narcissistic primitive ego, a lack of oversight and regulation always leads to uncontrolled corruption, runaway greed, and in extreme cases, an authoritarian take over of the government itself.

Why?

Because any culture that fails to restrain the greed and narcissism of the unconscious primitive ego of its people, corporate leaders, and politicians is essentially giving permission for them to do whatever is necessary to amass power and wealth. The behaviors of Individual citizens, corporate leaders, and politicians living in such a culture will soon be driven by a self-focused “survival of the fittest” mentality. We see this in many of the worlds governments. We see this in unregulated corporations. We see this when the rights of any one individual, or group of individuals becomes narcissistically more important than the rights of others. In general, granting too much freedom is the inflexible ideological position of the Republican party in Washington.

On the other hand, when the ideology of a political party is rigidly focused on the concept of over protecting the standard of living and quality of life of its individual citizens, the inevitable result will eventually lead to the creation of a socialistic government. It is a compassionate, humanitarian goal but such a culture will soon be buried in debt. A high quality birth-to-death standard of living quickly becomes prohibitively expensive. The unconscious narcissism of a culture’s collective primitive ego tends to be inexhaustible in its wants and demands, and because of the primitive ego’s inability to delay gratification, those wants are always demanded now……not tomorrow. The goal of total equality of all individuals in a culture is called socialism. In general, this is the inflexible ideological position of the Democratic party in Washington.

In other words, both parties seem to have become ideologically inflexible, and far more interested in the next election, and their own personal acquisition of power and influence, than they are in the wellbeing of our country. Stated simply, the protection of their own political careers has clearly become more important than the long term well being of their country. This is certainly a rapidly growing perception among American voters.

This is the message that President Obama was trying to get across to congress in his State of the Union address. Both political parties are too rigidly entrenched in their ideologies. They are both manifesting a rigid black and white primitive ego thinking process. They are both convinced that they are “right” and their ideologies have hardened into positions of absolute truth which leaves very little room for creative dialogue.

What President Obama was trying to tell them was that ideology does not represent absolute truth. An ideology is only one concept of how a country should be governed. Dualistic right-and-wrong, good-and-bad, black-and-white thinking always leads to conflict, violence, unyielding grid lock, a political instability and a serious lack of congressional leadership. This is what has happened in Washington.

President Obama was trying to tell them that there is truth on both sides of any issue and a healthy democracy requires that everyone one, regardless of their own ideological beliefs, must actively search for that truth; for a middlepath that best reflects the strengths and truths on both sides of any issue. The focus should be on the long term health of our country and not on the narcissistic primitive ego needs of the individual politicians, their political party, or the next election. Bottom line our politicians are elected to protect the long term welfare of their country……not their own political careers.

When the unconscious narcissistic, primitive ego of our inner-child is allowed to run our lives, the result will always be conflict, greed, and unhappiness. When the unconscious narcissistic, primitive ego of our politician’s inner-child is allowed to run our country, the result will always be conflict, greed, an unhappy electorate, and an uncertain future for our county.

The struggle to blend the complicated global issues required to create a compassionate global culture in the 21st century is going to be difficult at best. The 21st century promises to be an era of great conflict and opposing ideologies. If we can’t get our own house in order, how are we ever going to provide effective leadership on the rapidly approaching complex global issues that the world is going to be facing in the coming years?

It’s time we began to incorporate a more intentional growth in our individual and collective consciousness. The intentional evolution in our species from a primitive ego consciousness to that of a more awakened, mature, and enlightened consciousness is urgently needed. Teaching the insights of Primitive Ego Psychology to accomplish that goal is the mission of the Stonyhill Newsletter.

Why is happiness so difficult to attain? When we do experience happiness, why is it so hard to stay happy?

Part of the problem is the false belief that true sustainable happiness is a difficult and challenging emotional state that somehow has to be attained through hard work and unending effort.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

We already possess all the happiness that exists in the universe. We have always possessed it. So why then is experiencing happiness so difficult to achieve?

The answer is simple.

Achieving a true and sustainable happiness means we have to eliminate the false beliefs, illusions, and emotions that keep us from experiencing the happiness we already possess.

We must also learn to live more fully in the present moment……..the only true reality that exists.

Living in the moment is a difficult skill to incorporate into our lives when our thoughts and emotions are held hostage by the unconscious primitive ego of our inner-child. When our primitive ego is in control of our lives; when we are trapped in the illusions of the past or focused on worries and concerns about the future, it is virtually impossible to keep our adult observing consciousness grounded in the reality of the present moment….the only place true happiness exists.

The concepts of Primitive Ego Psychology taught in the Stonyhill Newsletter provide important insights into three simple but important spiritual practices needed to remove the unconscious barriers that undermine our efforts to be happy.

• Spiritual Practice #1 - To achieve true happiness we must learn to let go of our primitive ego’s black-and-white, all-or-nothing duality thinking….a thinking process that keeps us trapped in the illusions of our certainties and rigid beliefs.

When we were young children surrounded by the complexities of the adult world it was important to keep our life simple and manageable. To accomplish that goal we learned to split reality into good or bad, right or wrong, all or nothing categories.

Our primitive ego, the young ego of childhood that unconsciously resides in each of us, is convinced that all our beliefs represents absolute truth…..“THE” truth. Virtually all of the conflict, stress, and unhappiness we experience in life is created by our primitive ego’s insistence that “our” beliefs are “right”.

Experiencing true happiness means learning to walk the middlepath in life…..learning that truth is found on both sides of any issue. The bottom line……..rigid black-and-white thinking is a sure path to unhappiness.

• Spiritual Practice #2 – Achieving true happiness means learning the art of allowing others to choose their own life path and drop our judgments about their choices.

If we want the right to determine our own path, then we have to be willing to stop judging the paths and choices that others make. We can’t have it both ways.

Our primitive ego of course, is judgmentally convinced that “our” path and “our” life choices are the only correct ones.

Experiencing true happiness means not only allowing others to make their own choices free of our primitive ego judgmentalism, we have to learn how to actually affirm their choices.

The art of “allowing” empathically encourages and supports others as they work to make their dreams and desires come true.

The bottom line…….judgmentalism of how others have chosen to live their lives is a sure path to conflict and unhappiness.

• Spiritual Practice #3 – Achieving true happiness requires that we embrace an attitude of service and selfless concern for the well-being of others……an empathic concern for others without regard to any personal reward or recognition.

The unconscious primitive ego of our inner-child is self-focused and narcissistically self-absorbed. It is convinced that happiness still comes from grasping for personal power and material “stuff” of the world just as it did in early childhood. It believes that security and happiness come only from a me-first, survival of the fittest mentality.

Altruism and an unselfish focus on the welfare of others is an inner attitude that only our more mature, enlightened, and awakened adult observing ego consciousness can sustain.

When we focus on helping others we relax the unconscious self-focused grip that the primitive ego has over our psyche and our lives.

The bottom line…….a narcissistic, me-first, survival of the fittest mentality is a sure path to loneliness and unhappiness.

Because our life journey is an evolutionary spiritual journey from our unconscious primitive ego consciousness to that of an awakened and enlightened consciousness, true happiness is achieved only when we are working with the evolutionary spiritual goals of the living, evolving, conscious universe….a spiritual concept that our unconscious, self-obsorbed primitive ego is unable to grasp.

The past twelve months of non-stop volunteer hosting for the Bureau of Land Management and the Oregon State Park system has been a good reminder of how easy it is to get caught up in the busyness of day to day life…..how easy it is to lose our “self”-awareness, our centeredness, our sense of balance.

Sitting on the shore of the Oregon coast one morning on our annual trip south from Portland to Yuma, Arizona I realized that I was feeling powerless, overwhelmed, and more than a little stressed. Watching storm driven waves breaking on the shore had lulled me into a reflective trance. Put simply, I woke that morning to the realization that I had lost touch with the importance of taking time to smell the flowers …..to play my mandolin, to do my writing, to stay focused on the things that bring meaning into my life.

I know that letting life get too busy is a sure way to lose “self”-consciousness. I routinely write in the Stonyhill Newsletter about the danger of falling asleep and letting the unconscious primitive ego of our inner-child take control of our lives. What shocked me the most that day on the beach was not that I had “fallen asleep” but rather how unaware I had become; how easily I had stopped paying attention to what is truly important to me. How easily my self-awareness had slipped outside of my consciousness. I had lost my sense of balance and was totally unaware that it had happened.

Pulling out of a county campground in Santa Rosa, California a few days later on our way down the coast, I cut the turn too sharp and caused the back tire of the motorhome to suddenly drop off the curb onto the street. The rig rocked violently back and forth totally disorganizing the contents of every cupboard. When I shared this story with good friends over breakfast a few days later, they casually suggested that the experience of driving the rig over the curb might be a very good metaphor for what had happened to me over the last year; that I had accidentally hit a speed bump in life that had totally disorganized my psychological cupboards. We all got a good chuckle out of it.

It was a funny way of describing my experience of the last year, but it was right on target emotionally. I knew that it was definitely time to rearrange and reorganize my psychological cupboards; to once again re-center myself and re-affirm some of the basic insights I write about …..insights I strive to incorporate in my own day to day life. For example………

• despite what many will tell us, life is not hard. It does not have to be a painful struggle. It does not have to be an unhappy, flat, or lifeless experience.
• life is hard only on our rigid beliefs, our rigid black-and-white opinions, our expectations, our prejudices, and our assumptions; especially those that in any way attempt to distort reality.
• happiness is not something to be achieved…..we already possess true happiness!  We are already whole and balanced.  All we have to do is reclaim our authentic true selves and remove the false beliefs that fragment us and keep us from experiencing the happiness we have always possessed.
• happiness comes when we recognize that we only have the power to change ourselves; not others…….that we can only change what we don’t like about our own lives.
• but what was most important for me to re-affirm that morning sitting on the beach was knowing that I was not a helpless or powerless victim of life. Because the creation of all form is first preceded by consciousness, we are all in total control of the lives we have chosen to live. We become what we think about and the Law of Attraction reminds us that what we think about is what we will attract into our lives whether we want it or not. In other words, what we choose to consciously or unconsciously think about has great power to create the life we live.

As I try to teach in my writing, the simple insights, spiritual practices, and skills contained in Primitive Ego Psychology all have the power to help us become self-aware. They have the power to enable us to transform our lives and create whatever our hearts truly desire. One day at a time we have created the life we are living and one day at a time we have the power to change it. I realized that day on the beach that it was time for me to once again awaken and to take back conscious control of my life.

It was a sobering reality and more than a little humbling to realize how easily life could cause me to lose consciousness and “self”-awareness, but it certainly feels good to be awake again. The colors and smells of the world are definitely brighter and sharper when we are conscious and present to the moment. Losing “self”-consciousness happens to all of us from time to time, but Primitive Ego Psychology reminds us that re-awakening to self-awareness is always a choice.

Welcome to the new format of the Stonyhill Newsletter/blog.