“Yes,” came the reply from the digitized burning bush, “Just type in the following letters in this particular sequence (not case sensitive) and you’ll have your answer.”
“Okay.”
“B-E-T-R-A-W-A-L”
“Well, when you put it like that…” was my almost first response when the “AWAL” at the end of the word jumped out at me. Then the digitized burning bush continued, anticipating my next, inevitable question…
“Here’s how it works.”
“It is the accumulated experience of life not responding to you the ways you’d like or expect it to, and, depending on the severity or the quantities of the pain, you will tend to respond to these betrayals with one of or a combination of the following five reaction states: ANGER, CYNICISM, DENIAL, SELF-BETRAYAL, PARANOIA, as articulated by James Hillman in his definitive essay on “Betrayal.”
“Eventually these attitudes become chronic orientations to life…your default template basic judgment screen, as it were, through which you filter all that life sends your way. (And you’re not limited to one…oh, no, they work better in combination, and if they’re used effectively, they will deprive you of the primary rights of your existence. (oh, that Pesky ol’ existence again)… which colors all your perceptions and in consequence of that, all your decisions…from which your life experience evolves…and which predictably determines your “Next.”
“You see, when your “Next” triggers pain and resistance to it, that’s what we’re calling, “Betrayal.” It happens from the git-go…being thrust out of a very pleasant watery environment into one in which you’re going to have to work for a living. Whoa!
But wait…there’s more…you are thrust out into circumstances that are demanding, confusing, frustrating, etc. (you fill in your word that denotes “expletive-ing) and that you’re sure you… did not order.
“Then you go to one of the default responses, or you mix and match as needed.
Question: Your preferred response to betrawal?
A. Anger
B. Cynicism
C. Denial
D. Self-betrayal
E. Paranoia
F. All of the above
G. A unique mixture of all of the above depending on what triggers the memory of the pain of betrayal.
“So… it’s kind of like you create this swimming pool and you fill it with one of the above, (anger, denial, cynicism, self-betrayal, paranoia). Basically, you swim around in this stuff, breathing it and looking out at life through the distorted picture that it necessarily gives you. That gooey mixture becomes the interface between you and life.
“As the irritant in the oyster triggers the creation of a pearl, the one of great price perhaps, the irritance of betrawal creates the equivalent of the chaos of cancer cells trying their best to not get with the program.
“Since we swim about in this mental slush (your own patented combo of anger, denial, cynicism, self-betrayal, paranoia du jour) it will ultimately deprive you of innocent point of view and you could very well end up living a soul-less life.
“(While you can’t really completely obliterate your soul, you certainly can handicap it, and deprive it of your awareness…not realizing that your awareness of your soul and it’s awareness of you provide the equivalent of the ever-spontaneous-power-generating system of Being otherwise called, “Life.”
“So, there you have it. What’s to be done?
Three R’s:
- Re-cognize: Start by learning to catch yourself in the act
- Re-frame: Pick out a point of view that you’d like to have even though you cannot justify in any way having that point of view…(go to our web site, ww.betterpointsofview.com aka www.sexmoneygod.com for options)
- Re-solve: Make a commitment to yourself to live your life as if this “superior” (or at least preferable) point of view IS valid for YOU, and keep choosing/making up your life according to that perspective (practice, perservere, ask for support…from me for instance)
Oh, and by the way…leave your expectations at the door of the next… “Next.”