Personal Chaos

Large, or long lasting paradigms generally transition slowly into the next. But suppose that once upon a future time the next New Age had arrived, and the Old Age was finished and done, then what would that be like? If you were willing to be part of a New Age spiritual transformation you would probably have learned something about cellular consciousness and its parameters, that your very consciousness resides in a cluster of about a hundred trillion living cells and that at any given moment each one is either in a protection mode or a growth mode. What was unsustainable failed and your new lifestyle choices would reflect that. Most likely, you would have learned that survival requires avoiding toxins --  toxic food, toxic emotions, toxic people, and toxic situations, and you probably would have adopted some sort of a personal strategy for coping with stress. Stress, frustration, anger, repression, disappointment, hurt, rejection, alienation and violence are all toxic and push us toward a downward spiral. These negative trends have been steadily increasing with industrialization and over-population, but we have mostly not responded with a strategy for coping. Instead we experience skyrocketing illness, addiction and apathy. Other symptoms range from mild to severe, but generally, the more trauma we have seen, the more chaos we find in our personal lives. And the earlier in life and the more severe the trauma, the more damage it does. Children from dysfunctional families suffer from indifference, neglect, abandonment, addictions and violence. Psychological trauma can be just as bad, even when it comes from parents who are too strict. Dysfunctional parents may emulate over-correcting they had from their own dysfunctional parents. Being sincere but wrong is not uncommon. Psychological scars, like physical scars may never go away, like pieces of old furniture in the rooms of our minds. Most of us are unaware of how much old baggage we drag around. Anyone who has expierenced poverty, addictive parents, neglect, abuse, or violence needs to develop a strategy to counter the negative effects of trauma. And anyone who has experienced the horrors of war, definately needs to have a plan to deal with it. People who have combinations of the above traumas have special needs. A person who is displaying depression, anxiety, unhappiness, though distressed may not be aware that they may benefit from help, and feel no compulsion to receive it. But one of the ways you can judge how much of this applies to you is to look carefully for the chaos in your life.  A Personal Chaos Scan might help you to recognize problem areas where you are vulnerable: Physical Health: over-weight, smoking or addictions, lack of sleep, bad health.  Forgetful: chronically late, transportation issues, seldom comes to a full stop, routinely speeding or out of gas, does not check the oil, puts off needed repairs, junky car, traffic tickets. Environment: personal chores uinfinished, grocery supplies depleted, laundry not done or put away, cleaning neglected, dishes unwashed, untidy. Work: chaos at work place, missed appointmemnts, phone calls not returned, chronic lateness, being behind in promised work, and unmanageable in-basket, and “too many irons in the fire.” Interests: lack of fun, creativity, recreation, constructive hobbies, excercise. Social Life: withdrawn,  feeling isolated, alienated, or disconnected. Family/Significant Others: disconnected from those closest to you, silent, overtly hostile, passive-aggressive, feeling unloved.  Finances: the ability to support yourself in jeopardy, chequing account unbalanced, or overdrawn, bills overdue, no cash, spending more than you earn, financial overextension.  Spiritual Life and Personal Reflection: lack of routine personal reflection, stress reduction and self improvement. Compulsive Behaviors: watching too much TV, overeating, biting your nails, slips of the tongue, jealousy or possessiveness, any habit you feel bad about afterward. Now decide how you will do things differently. When you know the warning signs you will be more capable of taking action to do things differently, stay on track and maintain the changes you have made. But you must learn to control your negative thoughts. All of us have a darker side and a lighter side. Everything you are that is negative is to some degree hidden from society and even hidden from ourselves. The shadow self or "shadow aspect" which the conscious ego does not recognize in itself, which is largely negative. "Everyone carries a shadow," Jung wrote, "and the less it is embodied in the individual's conscious life, the blacker and denser it is." So it is instinctive and irrational, linked to more primitive animal instincts, which would otherwise be superseded during childhood by the conscious mind. The shadow may cause a nagging feeling of personal inferiority that sometimes is projected as a perceived moral deficiency in someone else. If unrecognized these projections insulate and cripple individuals by forming an ever thicker fog of illusion between the ego and the real world, and society. Shadow work can be a fast track to personal improvement, though it takes some courage and a certain willingness for introspection.  Any areas of chaos in you life are probable clues to hidden shadow problems. Look for low levels of organization, productivity, creativity and calm. Both anger and alienation (withdrawal) are the result of frustration. However when any organism is prevented from being able to meet its basic needs to the point of a crisis, that is the point where an evolutionary leap is most likely to occur. Necessity being the mother of invention is at the heart of all very significant biological changes.   Some of the global challenges include climate change, fuel and clean water shortages, deforestation, biodiversity, over-population, poverty, and  irresponsible governance and financial mismanagement. But underlying it all is that as a species we tolerate what is clearly unsustainable. Most of us sit by idly watching the destruction of the very eco systems necessary for our very lives to continue. Turning around this downward spiral can only begin within each of our lives. We are perched at the very end of an old paradigm and at the beginning of a New Age. In order to start anew, we to pause and re-evaluate. With courage we need to abandon whatever holds us back from our true potential. It is not a sacrifice, but a catharsis. Driving a car with one foot on the gas pedal and one foot on the brake is an illustration of the way we often attempt to go forward in life. By becoming aware of our approach and avoidance habits we free ourselves into a more wholistic and organic approach.

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