The Quandary of Evil Tongue
The Evil Tongue Quandary, Preamble III, the Five Levels of Competence
We are dealing with the question from the BE page of www.goop.com, “Why does it feel good to hear something bad about people you don’t like?”
In the May 14, 2009 blog posting I offered a few preliminary explanations which introduced the concepts of the subconscious mind, its belief filters, traumatology, and the shadow emotional frequencies which filter up into our conscious mind and worldly interactions as a result of unresolved trauma and resultant belief filters.
A very simple answer to the posed question would be, “It feels good to hear something bad about people you don’t like because you carry significant shadowy grief, fear, anger, and pride, and you have never learned to ‘nourish the inner aspect’ by healing the old life traumas which enabled shame and guilt (trauma imprints) to push these important emotional tools into their shadowy form. These harbored shadow expressions create severe judgment of yourself and others. Your perceived panacea for these uncomfortable feelings is any attitude or behavior which offers the illusion of feeling comfortable inside of yourself; i.e., the fabrication of self righteousness (shadow pride), and the perceived need to ‘be right’ so as to mask over any lingering self doubts you feel in the moment of your discomfort.”
Can we please simplify the wording of the preceding paragraph into some common sense? Sure we can. Just try more love. I am referring to self love. Self love is nurtured by practicing forgiveness and non judgment.
The answer posed above, as worded, encapsulates the wounding pattern of the narcissist. Narcissism can range from the mild to the very malignant degrees of expression. It is so extremely common, that I venture to state that we all are practicing it to some degree. The purpose of the Evil Tongue Quandary Preambles is to explore how this wounding pattern arises in our lives. The solution is then found inside of the problem itself.
Sample results of this type of wounding pattern may include: fear of scarcity in social and relationship arenas, fear of not being good enough, fear of rejection, fear of loss of control, ongoing comparison of self to others, jealousy when others garner more attention than you, the felt need for one-upsmanship, difficulty in working with others on creative team based projects (usually members of the same sex), attempting to overachieve in arenas where you lack life growth and maturity, all for the sake of desired positive recognition from the outside world, workaholia to escape from the self worth concerns, entrainment of other addictions, shadow anger when critiqued about your self-absorbed (and perhaps well-intentioned) efforts, redoubling of all of the above to help yourself feel better. Etc.
The cure for this common life pattern lies in establishing correct reciprocal balanced communication between the Brain Mind and the Heart Mind, wherein one Mind is not overriding the other. How do we do this? We accomplish this by the lifetime daily conscious mindfulness practice of forgiveness toward self and other, and relinquishment of judgment of self and other. We have to practice making choices in our daily lives which unite Brain Mind and Heart Mind. We will become more and more successful at this unity when we heal the subconscious trauma imprints in the memory of the field (physical body and LightBody) which are driving the memory of judging self and other. Ultimately, forgiveness is the only way we heal.
The statements just posed require fleshing out, literally and figuratively. Most people are simply unaware of how shadow emotional frequencies come to reside in their fleshly and energetic being. This is an issue of competence/incompetence and conscious/unconscious. We can live our entire lives inside of the subconscious belief that the shadow is the only way that we are ever going to use the 6 key emotions of apathy, grief, fear, desire, anger, and pride. We continually, on a daily basis, entrain Brain Mind and Heart Mind neural communication pathways to express these 6 emotions in the shadow with no understanding that we could be practicing use of the emotion in the positive format. As stated, the positive utilitarian expression of these 6 important emotional states is to protect and heal our lives.
We suffer from an unknowing of who we are. Consciousness and competence are required.
Unbalanced communication between Brain Mind and Heart Mind will quickly turn people into addicts. The essential definition of an addiction is any kind of life activity that we do which is being driven by a fear of internal growth. Even so called healthy activities can be an addiction if they are used to avoid self awareness, mindfulness, insight, clarity, and unimpeded communication flow between Brain Mind and Heart Mind. The nadis (nerve channels, in Sanskrit) and samskaras (old karmic knots of obstruction=incorrect beliefs) can evolve into clear channels for a subtle Light energy which carries quanta packets of information about our Being. These quanta packets of information come from our Soul/Spirit and are attempting to inform us about our essential Unbounded Nature.
There are 5 levels of competence that I want to present for your consideration. At any given moment, for any given situation, we are all practicing at one of these 5 levels. As I present these levels of competence, you may discern that you are practicing every one of them on a daily basis in different aspects of your life. The 5 levels of competence is a way of thinking about our individual and collective “learning curves.” Here they are:
· INTENTIONALLY INCOMPETENT-The first level of competence is actually a level of incompetence. This first level is the Intentionally Incompetent, or II. The II type clearly knows that they are incompetent, but they lack the slightest bit of courage or motivation to improve their learning, training, and competence. The II avoids attempts at self growth and improvement out of laziness and fear of further exposure of their incompetence to others. Due to their lack of motivation, the II cannot be helped by well wishers from the outside. It is a waste of other peoples’ time to try to help this type improve. The world is filled with the Intentionally Incompetent types who prefer to reside in their comfort zone of unknowing. Their fear is greater than their desire. In fact they eschew any drive or desire because it might mean that they would have to take on some responsibility to improve themselves. Self accountability is lacking because it is avoided.
· UNCONSCIOUSLY INCOMPETENT-The second level of competence is also a level of incompetence. The second level is the Unconsciously Incompetent, or UI. The UI is incompetent but is unaware that he/she is incompetent. The UI does not know that he/she does not know. These people have had no schooling, learning, training, or life experience situations which would demonstrate their inadequacies. Unfortunately, the UI often learns of their ineptitude for the first time under a stressful situation. They get a “wake up call,” such as another busted relationship, another set-back in career, the heart attack, the breast cancer, etc., and they may take on some level of self accountability to change their life direction. The UI is becoming uncomfortable with their level of pain and suffering, and now they want to do something about it.
· CONSCIOUSLY INCOMPETENT-The third level of competence is the Consciously Incompetent, or CI. If the UI gets through their wake up call, and if they are conscious enough to place the blame on the individual that they see in the mirror, then they can advance to the level of the CI. The CI knows that he/she does not know, and unlike the II who resists improvement, the CI will move forward into the realm of self accountability, and begin to find ways of helping themself to improve. Although the CI is still operating at a level of incompetence, the CI does recognize this issue, and because of the new found interest in self improvement, the CI can focus their energies toward reaching a level of competency.
· CONSCIOUSLY COMPETENT-The fourth level of competence is the Consciously Competent, or CC. With proper help and learning, the CI develops into the CC. The length of time for this transition to occur is related to the quality of the training and the motivation level of the student. The CC goes about seeking to improve his/her understanding, self awareness, and skill sets. The CC is becoming more and more competent, but must still consciously think about making the mindset and effort happen. Decisions, choices, and actions occur as a result of thought processes and memory acquisition via the slow processing conscious mind. The CC has not yet reached the level of reflex response to challenging life situations. The CC will respond effectively to most stressful life situations that do not require split second decisions or actions.
· UNCONSCIOUSLY COMPETENT-The fifth level of competence is the Unconsciously Competent, or UC. After self study, self awareness, good guidance, and thousands of practices of self accountability, the CC emerges as the UC. The UC reacts to life situations with consistent flawless responses that require no perceivable thought processes. Even under very stressful life situations, the UC performs effortlessly because his/her practice and training overrides the conscious thought processing needed by those who are not experts or masters of the skill set or craft.
As stated, these 5 levels of competence are written about so that we can have some kind of barometer of understanding our learning curve process. These levels of competence apply to any life activity, skill set, craft, study, or inquiry that we want to pursue. In the pursuit of our healing and evolution of body, mind, emotion, and spirit, we are all operating at these levels of competence day in and day out. We might be an II at some level of study, a CC at some other level of activity, a CI at another level, and a UC at another.
An important consideration is to have enough self love and self respect to desire to move out of the levels of the II and the UI. These are the levels where we create trouble in our lives, and in the lives of others. We have to understand how to access the emotional frequencies of desire and courage.
Courage is not the absence of fear. Fear is a protective emotion, and we never want to make it go away (suppress it). What we don’t want about fear is the shadow fear that paralyzes our movement and growth. Healthy fear allows us to realize that we may be facing a difficult or even dangerous situation, and some kind of action is called for. Either we declare our boundaries with healthy compassionate anger, or we consciously ignore the situation (utilitarian apathy), and walk away. Another choice when faced with a fearful challenge, is to access desire and courage, and move on with dignity despite having the fear. We move into the adventure, and if the adventure matches our Heart Mind defined primary motivators and passions, then the Universe will support our efforts.
The practice of accessing healthy boundaries with the positive use of either anger or apathy, and the practice of accessing desire and courage when faced with a challenge brings one into some level of competence and mastery. We begin to have faith and trust in our life process. Old sabotage blueprints begin to recede. The even higher emotional states of neutrality and willingness emerge. These 2 high frequency emotions are further defined as trust and release (neutrality), and optimism and intention (willingness). After neutrality and willingness, the next highest emotional frequency that we can reach for is acceptance. Acceptance is forgiveness and transcendence. We have moved up the emotional toolbox frequency scale in response to some fear based situation we were facing, and we have the potential to reach the healing frequency of forgiveness of self and other.
To become proficient in the emotional toolbox requires understanding the use of the tool, and practicing with it countless times at the level of the CC until we become the UC. But first we have to understand if we are dealing with ourselves at the level of II, UI, or CI. Are we using the 6 emotions of apathy, grief, fear, desire, anger, and pride in the shadowy negative application? Are we aware of the shame and guilt (trauma imprints) that are driving these shadow expressions? And do we want to heal out of this morass? Is there a motivation for self accountability, and a desire to release the Judge, Critic, Skeptic, Pusher, and Victim thought traps?
I am bringing us back to the original question: “Why does it feel good to hear something bad about people you don’t like?”
The answer to the question involves a resolution of the issues and considerations posed in Preambles I, II, and III. Preambles are over now. It is time to fish, or cut bait.
We have to become conscious of the wounding patterns of the inner child, back where it all started, from conception to the time of full formation of the subconsciousness and heart chakra at age 7. Many types of trauma patterns can occur in this time of life development of the child. The layerings of the inner child are still within our lives. More on the inner child and its memory later.
Signing off from Crestone and Beyond. Love.