{"id":133,"date":"2010-12-27T15:01:21","date_gmt":"2010-12-27T23:01:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/?p=133"},"modified":"2012-08-09T14:10:29","modified_gmt":"2012-08-09T22:10:29","slug":"and-the-devil-will-drag-you-under","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/?p=133","title":{"rendered":"And the Devil will Drag You Under…"},"content":{"rendered":"

That phrase from the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls (\u201cSit Down, You\u2019re Rockin\u2019 the Boat<\/a>\u201d) is evocative; but really, it\u2019s not \u201cthe\u201d devil\u2014really they\u2019re just old patterns of childish motives combined with the imps of facilitating mental magic that work to seduce you. They\u2019re prevalent, in everyone, not intentionally malignant to begin with. This is how the muddy middle-unconscious works. It\u2019s sort of like spam from the inner brat\u2014that\u2019s the unsavory side of the sweet inner child complex. (Ha ha.) You know, those seductive appeals from wherever about how someone\u2019s died and left a fortune that you can get a big hunk of if you\u2019ll only… ? What I\u2019m saying is that we need the equivalent of spam filters and scam detectors to identify and counter the really rather seductive messages that play on our unrealistic subconscious motivations.<\/p>\n

One temptation is to think about or reflect on our own thinking as little as possible. There are many external social co-enablers as well as internal saboteurs who will suggest that we can get away with this, that it isn\u2019t that necessary, that just being yourself is fine. There\u2019s a germ of validity here\u2014just a germ\u2014in that you don\u2019t have to be consumed by self-doubt; but complacency isn\u2019t the answer either\u2014it\u2019s best to have a balance.<\/p>\n

Many of the other maneuvers also draw on the one above\u2014they operate in the shadows. It\u2019s best if you not look at them too closely\u2014sort of what they say about it being best to avoid watching the making of sausage out of yucky body parts of animals, or the making of law by politicians. But really, it isn\u2019t better\u2014ignorance is only a temporary avoidance and what you avoid comes back and \u201cbites\u201d you with venom. Consciousness and responsibility is uncomfortable, but wise, and it saves you grief in the long run.<\/p>\n

In other columns under \u201cfollies\u201d I\u2019ll be describing various scams. It\u2019s sort of like getting an anti-virus program for your computer: Identify the buggers and don\u2019t leave yourself open to be sabotaged by them. But you have to do the work for yourself, because where it\u2019s coming from is not the outside, but yourself.<\/p>\n

So, lesson one: Unless you consciously notice and relinquish certain goals, they\u2019ll continue to operate under the surface. One is the hope that life can be easy and that if it isn\u2019t, it\u2019s not fair. It was okay to feel and think that way for a few years when you were very young, but that passes as you become more able to determine your own destiny. A listing of some other childish illusions is in a paper on my website<\/a>.\u00a0 If you haven\u2019t deeply, honestly admitted that these desires are in there, and made a decision to let go of them, they\u2019ll continue to use all sorts of ways of perpetuating their goals.<\/p>\n

The inner childish child doesn\u2019t discriminate between work and un-fun duty. It doesn\u2019t know that you can take responsibility and also think of ways to make your work fun, as Mary Poppins teaches in her \u201cSpoonful of Sugar<\/a>\u201d song. If you really do what\u2019s needed, you can make time to enjoy yourself in other wholesome ways. But not knowing that, there\u2019s a deep program to avoid consciousness and responsibility and to get by on manipulations and inner self-deceptions. In the shadows, these inner scams work\u2014though in the light of consciousness their childish underpinnings are more obvious.<\/p>\n

So I invite you to watch this category and read more about waking up, fighting the inner saboteur.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

That phrase from the Broadway musical Guys and Dolls (\u201cSit Down, You\u2019re Rockin\u2019 the Boat\u201d) is evocative; but really, it\u2019s not \u201cthe\u201d devil\u2014really they\u2019re just old patterns of childish motives combined with the imps of facilitating mental magic that work to seduce you. They\u2019re prevalent, in everyone, not intentionally malignant to begin with. This is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,11,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-follies","category-literacy","category-wisdom-ing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=133"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":603,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133\/revisions\/603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blatner.com\/adam\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}