“I can’t change the world, but I can change the world in me” — Bono
Very often, I witness or listen to or read something that sparks a blog, and I start writing. It usually comes through quickly—I can hardly keep up with my tapping fingers. This missive was stimulated by a podcast I was listening to called The Emerald, with Joshua Shrei. The episode is called So you want to be a Sorcerer in the Age of Mythic Powers (The AI Episode). He speaks of many fascinating things, and I found myself particularly stimulated by the part about what we are projecting into the world. Because Projection is the first of five principles I have gathered on the maturation process of our coming into mature, self-aware Joy. So whenever I hear someone speak of projection, I perk up. And this is what I thought about…
Projection is at the heart of our perceived reality. We are projecting out all kinds of material, from unhealed wounded parts to happy joyful strong parts, and everything in between. The world we see is the world we are SEEING. As Anaïs Nin said long ago, “We do not see things as they are, we see them as WE ARE.” We cannot do otherwise. So the good news is that we have more control than we think over our life experience, even in the midst of challenging circumstances. I’m not making this up. Viktor Frankl spoke of this beautifully in his book MAN’S SEARCH FOR MEANING.
We are watching our world of effects play out in ways that seem in part both horrifying and, for some, totally mystifying. But we have all created this world, and we are perceiving it through our lens of seeing. What is more concerning to me is that we are unknowingly perpetuating it with the very states of consciousness that are creating the problems we say we are opposing, not realizing we are literally energizing the problem with our form of attention on it. The important distinction here is not that we are blind to what we see playing out in the world, but that we feed it with our emotional state and belief system that it is the primary or only reality, that the outcome is on a linear path. We have participated in everything we are seeing happen in the world, whether we have had a direct hand in it or not. My very wise mother used to caution me when I was young, “Melanie, that which you think you bring toward you.”
The urgent moment we are at though in these times, as I see it, is a critical choice point where we either succumb to the world of technology to the degree that we move further and further away from our inner authority, or we reclaim that deep connected intimate relationship with our own nature and how it lives in this world as connection to Self, planet, and others in direct experience, and how it connects with something much larger. We are using technology, and younger people are certainly using it, in ways that disconnect us from speech patterns and using our voice, from complete sentences, from critical thinking skills, from human contact and touch. We aren’t taking the organic time to listen to ourselves and each other to respond mindfully, slowing down in life to experience things and people directly rather than through media, social media, and devices. We are being algorithmically fed information that skews our attention and thoughts and tells us what we need and when we need it. This is scary folks. Because it changes us, and then we project all of this out. We are forgetting that which we value as we dive into the disembodied technological viewpoint. And many of us know this is happening, because we talk about it all the time. I have conversations with people almost daily about things cherished long ago and what seems lost in these modern times. We are stressing our minds and bodies with overwork, lack of nature time, lack of direct verbal connection and communication time with our loved ones and our communities. We are allowing ourselves to indulge in processed fast foods and having strangers cook for us because we have closed the window of time to our own self-nurturing. And we are wondering why there is so much depression and anxiety.
Joshua Shrei, who I mentioned above, is infinitely more articulate than I am in describing the vast implications of AI and technology in cultural historical contexts and also human extinction. I believe we need to come back to Step 1, which is what we are Projecting into the world, and how to connect with something within that feels more true and life-affirming and that which brings us Joy and Peace and Meaning and a sense of connection. It is our responsibility, and our’s alone, to do what is necessary to see clearly what we are projecting and why, to clean it up to match what we say we want, so that we can actually See more of a world we want. It is available, and it is our own responsibility to get there. When people ask me how I manage to do certain things that seem magical, I know it is simply that connection I have to what I’m projecting into the world that is creating the moment, the manifested thing. It seems like magic, but it’s not. It’s just a finer-tuned awareness of how things work.
Don’t believe me? Think I’m being woo-woo? Check it out for yourself. Please don’t just believe me. I’m talking about direct experience. Pick one thing that you don’t like in your life that you’d actually like to change:
Look sincerely at how you hold the energy within you, maybe some or all of it coming from past experience;
Take responsibility for it and how it plays out in your life, don’t blame anyone else for it…write about it, meditate on it, take a walk in nature while you’re thinking about it;
Set a Strong Intention to engage with the world differently through reframing a life-affirming positive thought and an action in your life that is different than one that has sabotaged you until now;
Catch yourself when you revert to the old thought and re-focus; and finally,
Watch what happens.
For example, if you are angry inside about something, or life, or your past, you will continue to serve that to the world in a variety of ways. You will see anger, you will add to the sum total of anger, you will look for anything that feeds your anger, and you will try to convince others that they should also be angry. You will find evidence, that’s for sure. Because it’s out there, projected by others, and now it is available in an instant through social media. You will find thousands and thousands of YouTube videos and websites that confirm your anger. It’s all Projection. Turn within, take responsibility for your own anger, work with it, understand it, heal it, have someone help you heal it, and when you choose to focus differently, you will see a different world. You will see a different YOU, that’s been there all along. I can’t convince you of this. You must experience it for yourself. If you have experienced abuse, that will be held within your cells and will either make you victim or perpetrator because it is what is being projected. It will add to the sum total of abuse in the world. The event may not ever be forgotten, but it can be healed.
John Wheeler, theoretical physicist, said that “We could not even imagine a Universe that did not contain observers (Us)…the very building blocks of the Universe are the acts of (Us) observing the Universe…We are a part of a Universe that is a work in progress.” He called it a Participatory Universe. He also says we will never find the edge of the Universe, or the smallest particle, because he says its the act of us observing with expectation that will create that into experience. —excerpted from a course with Gregg Braden.
We are powerful beings who have the capacity to align with our inner authority and heal and create new sight and a life experience of our choosing. We can change the reel and project something different. We must dig deep though, and do the work to experience this power within us. This doesn’t make us blind to what is being chosen in our world, or the circumstances of war and hatred that we can see being projected into our world, or to feel great compassion for those who are at the effect of it. But we can also know the freedom that comes from having dominion over our projections and projecting from a healed place rather than a wounded place. And even when we still have work to do, and we always have work to do, we can know that we are on the right path to freedom rather than bondage. None of us are perfected, but we can feel the vibration of strength and perfection as we connect with our true selves and our true power.
That’s it folks…that’s all I got…
And by the way, I wrote this myself…no ChatGPT…
Happy New Year, 2024 is going to be a fascinating year,
Melanie
Need help? Email me at melanie@innertegrity.com