Discussion of the movie: Early Warning

Early Warning is a Christian End Times movie that me and my wife watched the other day. The reason I wanted to write about it is because what is taking place in it, matches the plans that the World Economic Forum has more or less perfectly.

The movie came out 1981!

Just watch the first 10 minutes of the movie and then watch a short video about the WEF:s plans that came out this year. I’ll leave a link to both of them at the end of the post.

The movie is about two journalists struggling to expose the One World Foundation’s plotting to take over the world and usher in global tyranny. It’s clearly low budget, but some effort has been put into it. So if you have nothing better to do and don’t have anything against Christian end times movies, I suggest that you watch the rest of the movie as well.

I honestly don’t know what to make of this. I‘ve talked about it before. On the one hand, people, including myself, are most definitely going through spiritual awakenings. And even if I see myself as a Christian, most of those that go through awakenings don’t. And most of those people believe more or less that we all are here for a learning experience, and even though we are heading for some dark times, there is really nothing to be afraid of for anyone, since reality basically is an illusion anyway. And I believe that there is some merit to this. I’ve noticed, for example, that as I go through my awakening, the world seems both more alive and vivid on the one hand, and less real and solid on the other. This does sound a lot like it could be a part of being in the world but not of it though, when I think about it. 

On the other hand, it seems undeniable that biblical end times prophecies are coming true today. And I know that I can be a bit eccentric at times, but I don’t want to become some crazy doomsday prophet. I’m not someone that has the habit of screaming at people to “repent or go to hell!” or that walks around with a holier than thou attitude. On the contrary, I don’t believe that even the worst of us deserve to go to hell, because I know that there are always reasons for people being who they are and doing what they are doing. And even if there were absolutely no reasons whatsoever, I still don’t believe that anyone can do anything that would justify eternal suffering. And quite frankly, knowing the history of the church, I’m not inclined to trusting the theology that has been developed within its framework since the church became a political power. 

As for the end times, I do not want to live in them. It would be much easier if I just had my spiritual awakening to focus on. I would be glad if I could simply look at all of this as if I'm just here to learn. If there ultimately was nothing to worry about, because in the end it will turn out okay for everyone. Something along these lines is what I hope for. But I'm in no way sure about it.

Furthermore, when I look into alternative spirituality, something that many Christians distance themselves firmly from, I find much undeniable wisdom in it. Not in all of it of course. But in a lot. And a lot of it seems congruent with biblical teachings. So much so, that some Christian thinkers, such as for example Olle Carlsson, have ideas that are more or less inseparable from those of non-Christian thinkers. And yeah, I know that some may say that Olle Carlsson isn’t a real Christian and bla bla bla… What I wonder is when people will no longer get away with making such claims with zero substance in them. I seriously feel lost and confused when it comes to this. I take this whole thing seriously, because I know that something big is about to happen. So I spend loads of time and energy trying to figure out what is what. And the best thing I can come up with is that both perspectives must somehow be true. That one shows us the prophecies that are coming true, while the other shows our true nature - what it means to be made in the image of God. There seem to be people, such as David Wilcock and J.P Sears that seem to be moving in a similar direction as well. 

The makers of this movie however, would in all likelihood not agree with such a viewpoint. There is quite a bit of talk about being saved or unsaved and the threat of hell is always present. This is what I have difficulty with. On the one hand, others that see these prophecies coming true seem very certain that adherence to strict biblical doctrines is the only viable alternative. On the other hand, my experiences, that are undeniably real, that are filled with such blissful feelings of love and connection, experiences that have turned my whole life upside down, continue pointing towards alternative spirituality. And it sucks to belong to a small minority, when most of the world believes that you’re wrong. Especially when you yourself are filled with so much doubt and confusion that I am. And at the same time it’s wonderful. Because even though I don’t know exactly what is happening, I at least know this much for sure: It is real!

Links:

Early Warning

About the World Economic Forum and The Great Reset

GODLINESS and ANIMALNESS

Maybe you’ve heard that according to the Bible we were made in the image of God? What does this mean? And perhaps more importantly: What in our lives today is godly? And what in our lives is not godly or ungodly? 

When we choose whether to engage in a certain activity or not, it may be wise to ask ourselves: Am I acting in a divine or animalistic way? This is one of the ways that we can use to discern how to apply what the Bible says to our own lives. 

It’s also one way to make the Biblical teachings make sense. What do I mean by this? Well, I’ve been noticing how it’s not always obvious why the Bible or Jesus in particular says a certain thing or sets a certain example. But, looking at the bigger picture, I’ve been able to see that it has been good for me. And this is important: The Bible doesn’t say that we should do some things, abstain from others, adopt a certain attitude or follow a certain example just because it pleases God. It says what it says because what it says is good for us. If we look at the Bible as a rulebook that we need to follow to avoid punishment or get rewarded, we are missing the whole point. And for the record, I don’t believe in hell, even though I don’t rule it out completely either. All I’m saying is that I don’t think that the Bible should be viewed either as a threat or as a set of rules that hinder us from enjoying life. 

At the root of godliness and animalness is the question of free will. As far as I know, humans are the only beings with freedom of choice. Animals act according to their nature, to their instincts. They often act out of love, but it is not a love that they choose. 

This means that whenever we are acting mindlessly and just follow our impulses, we are choosing animalness. Or rather, we let animalness guide our lives because we do not make a conscious choice. 

Here I would like to add a small note: This does not mean that if we are not super strict with ourselves, we are acting like animals. This is about making conscious choices. And making conscious choices includes being kind to ourselves. And sometimes, being kind to ourselves means that we allow ourselves to indulge in a bad habit that we at the moment feel is too hard to break. But making conscious choices also means to be ready to let go of one’s vices as soon as it feels as if it is in one’s power. 

Choices or the act of not making choices of course also affects us. Acting like animals does something to us. We become a little less free. A little more ruled by our instincts. And the reverse is also true. The more we embrace our divine nature, the more we move away from our instinct driven selves. 

This is one of those interesting paradoxes of being human. The more restrictions we place upon ourselves, as long as it’s the right restrictions, the more free we become.

We don’t see many things that are right in front of us until they are identified and labelled. So it is with the division between animalness and divinity. Once the distinction is made, as long as we don’t forget about it, we cannot help but seeing it. And the more we learn, the more responsibility is placed on our shoulders. And the more responsibility we can take on, the richer and freer life becomes. But it also becomes harder.

Knowing that we can approach our choices in life from an animalistic or godly place is a heavy burden if we take this knowledge seriously. But it is a burden that we have to take on if we wish to be free. Our animal natures inevitably lead to slavery to our instincts. It might be a comfortable and even pleasurable slavery. But no matter how much gold we manage to pour over our cage, the cage will always be a cage.

Reno Laithienne on Unsplash

A SPIRITUAL perspective on how EXTRAORDINARY the TIMES that we are living in actually are

We are in all likelihood living in the most important time in the history of the planet. If you’ve started to understand anything about the times we are living in, no matter what exactly you think that you have begun to understand, you must agree with me on this. When all of that which is taking place right now, no matter exactly what it is, is over, the world will be completely different from before. So different that nothing in our known history compares. And yes, I understand which events that compete with it and I stand by what I’m saying. If you understand what I’m talking about here, you agree. You agree because you can see this for yourself.

I want you to just take a moment and think about this. What this means. I honestly don’t know what is going on or where it is going to end. I used to think that I knew. But all I know for sure now is that God and spirituality has something to do with it. And that whatever this is, it’s happening. And maybe it’s the same for all of us that are going through this. We know that something extraordinary is happening. And depending on which sources we come into contact with and which ideas we take to heart, we form beliefs around it. But what if none of us know exactly what this is that is happening?

What I do know, is that even though I know that this is happening, I don’t think that I’ve even begun to take in the whole situation. It doesn’t feel really real to me, even though I know that it is.

Let’s put this in some perspective: We are facing something that is going to change not just our world, but our perspective on our very existence, spirituality, the world, God and ourselves forever. But to a large degree it’s still invisible to our five senses. Knowing this, it’s probably not strange that it’s hard to fathom. We’ve put the absolute majority of our attention on our five senses throughout most of our lives. We still do, but as we wake up to other aspects of reality, our attention is drawn away more and more from the five senses. And as it is, our perception of ourselves and the world becomes more clear. Our consciousness expands on multiple levels. As we dissolve blockages inside and connect more with the flow of life, instead of having our focus only on the five-sense reality, we start to connect more dots in the five sense reality as well. We start to see through the distortions. It’s a strange paradox. The more we put our focus in the five-sense reality, the more distorted our perception becomes. What we need to understand is that we are never going to think our way through this. Our thoughts can only guide us when they are free from distortions, which is something that can only happen as we come into contact with more of our insides and remove the energy blockages that cloud our vision. This is also probably why it seems futile to reason with someone that hasn’t begun to wake up. I’m not saying this to create division between those that are awake and those that still sleep. It’s just a fact that there is a very definite before and after when it comes to this, and before it happens, one is blocked from seeing certain things.

People both within the world religions and more modern spirituality are waking up to this. And perhaps we should consider that there is a reason for this. That maybe we need to talk to each other about this and try to figure out what it means, instead of just shutting each other out because we belong to different faiths. I realize that we need to be very cautious when it comes to ideas about a universal, global religion or spirituality, not in the least because of the warnings about this, for example in the Bible. But we don’t have to agree on everything. We don’t have to agree on anything. What is most important is already in place: There is a god and a spiritual reality, we live in very extraordinary, unprecedented times and we do seem to share a common enemy in the World Economic Forum. 

I was first reluctant towards using the word “enemy”. But as long as we remember Jesus’ words “Love your enemies”, I don’t think that this is the wrong choice of words. Because what do you call someone that wants to hurt you and force you into things that are not for your best interests? 

Before I continue, I want to remind your of just how extraordinary these times are. In all likelihood, nothing since the dawn of life, has been so significant in this planet’s history, as what is taking place right now. Nothing. And maybe all of us that see this, regardless of faith, need to start talking to each other. If we start having a conversation where everyone takes responsibility for approaching said conversation with as little ego as possible, maybe we can start discerning what is true from what is false together. This means listening respectfully to ALL perspectives, no matter how disagreeable we find them, and trying to understand where other people are coming from. It means to be open to change one’s mind, but not for any other reason than that one is thoroughly convinced that it’s called for. It also means to stick with what one truly believes in, but without attaching personal importance to it. 

I don’t know exactly how many we are. But I bet that we are many. What can we do if we put away all that separates us and connect with each other for real? What could be accomplished if we start working together and value each other? As long as we are divided, it’s much easier to control us.

Photo by Rutpratheep Nilpechr on Unsplash

Being out of touch with our emotions - a male perspective PART 2

To PART 1

I want to start this post with something that I’ve realized over the past few years: No suppressed emotion goes away. The emotional energy gets stored in the body. And it often comes out as another emotion instead. And sometimes the emotions get buried so deep, that they are not consciously experienced at all. I believe this to be the case with for example really violent and dangerous people. They may be the ones that carry around the most fear, but have completely lost touch with it. I myself have never been violent. But I have carried around a lot of fear that I earlier in my life tried to hide behind a tough exterior. I of course did not know that this was what I was doing at the time. But I most certainly was. And since I’ve suppressed a lot, probably more than most people, I’ve also had a lot to release. And even though I’ve worked a lot with this, I still have a long way to go.

I’m obviously not the first man in history that has taken my emotional life as a man seriously. For example the writer Robert Bly has written about it. Professor, writer and psychologist Jordan Peterson certainly takes emotions seriously. And probably every male artist that has ever produced something of value, must have been at least somewhat in touch with his emotional life, even if it often has been in a chaotic, neurotic way, such as the emotional lives of men like August Strindberg, Vincent van Gogh or why not any of the beatnicks. 

Think for a second how crippling it is for a man to live with this emotional deficiency that our culture has instilled in us from generation to generation. To be, to different degrees, depending on the individual, cut off from such a vital part of what it means to be human. Another reason among many to be skeptical about culture, huh? We grow up taking so many things for granted. And when these things are questioned, the proposed solutions are often even worse than that which has been put into question. To put it bluntly, I don’t like the feminist, politically correct approach to the problem of male emotional deficiency one bit. I don’t want to become more like a woman in order to get more in touch with my emotions. I want to be a man that fully feels. Just like I believe that women need to become more empowered while embracing their femininity and not by becoming more like men. 

Things are not always as they seem on the surface. There is a divine order to things. Whether we recognize it or not. And if we mess with this order we suffer for it. I will go more into detail about this in the next post. But for now I will just say that human beings cannot be treated as blank slate which we can imprint whatever we want on, in order to reach a desired goal. Not without creating emotional dysfunctions, that are at their core spiritual. Dysfunctions that will most definitely lead to dysfunctions on a social level, both in the interactions between individuals and in the collective. 

I’m hardly the only one that is tired of how ideas of how we are supposed to be, seem to always be pushed upon us from above through some sort of ideology. How it sneaks up on us through the mass-media and the movies and music that we consume. I want to be fully human on my own terms and not be brainwashed into some image of what a contemporary man or woman should be like. I want to embrace the nature that God put into me, and not the twisted ways of the world. What we had a hundred years ago was definitely not healthy. But can you really say that what we have today is an improvement of that?

In many ways, I think that healthy emotional expression has to do with appropriateness. This is because another answer that cannot be it, is to just let the emotions go and allow them to be expressed in any way they want, whenever they come up. We don’t become emotionally mature by just letting our emotions run rampant. What is the alternative? Well, here are some ideas that I’ve come across so far. As in many cases we come back to mindfulness and to train ourselves into a non-reactive mindset. To push down our emotions and not express them at all is a bad idea. But we can train ourselves to not express them in a reactive manner. In other words to not express them in the first way that comes up. Instead we can take a step back and first try to understand what it is that we are actually feeling. Which is not always self-evident. And then we can consciously think of a way of expressing the emotion.

And now it’s time to share something that I felt very reluctant about. But I don’t want to go around pretending that I’m perfect, even though my ego would love for me to do so. But the real me wants to look at all aspects of my life and see what can be learned from them. The real me doesn’t care about perfection. Only about truth, knowledge and understanding.

So here we go: As I said in the beginning, I’ve never been a violent person. But I do have some minor anger issues, that have made me shout and punch walls in the past. I have become better with this lately though and it was quite a while since I did this. But I still have to be vigilant with myself when something happens that knocks me off balance. 

These types of reactions have always been followed by feelings of shame and hopelessness because I hate the feeling of not being in control of myself. And I especially hate the feeling of losing control when someone else sees it. I’m trying to look at it as just a pattern that I’ve unconsciously practiced since I was a child, but which can be unlearned with the right tools. 

Then, in my youth, I often learned to suppress my anger. So I never learned to deal with anger in a healthy way. And on top of that, I’ve learned that other negative emotions can be transformed into anger as well, when they are suppressed. I’ve found mainly grief and fear hiding behind my anger. It is also often tied to a sense of lack of control, which in turn is linked to really low emotions, such as helplessness, regret, shame and hopelessness. 

This is not what my soul is like. It is how my soul’s vehicle functions because I’ve never learned how to operate it properly. It’s not as if our bodies and brains come with an instruction manual and our education system is next to useless when it comes to such crucial learning. But I’ve learned tons of stuff that I will never have any use for instead…

Something that I came to think of with regards to this, is that when I took a couple of courses in psychology at the university, we learned that domestic abusers were motivated by a drive to dominate. This was framed as men’s will to dominate women. But what if this is incorrect. What if at least many of these men feel helpless in most areas of life, but try to dominate the few areas where they can feel powerful? It doesn’t make it any more okay, but it sheds a totally different light on the problem. The problem is no longer dominant men that use force to subjugate women. It instead becomes broken, disempowered men that try to grab on to what little power they can in their lives, in the most dysfunctional, destructive way possible. I would never say that this is always the case. There are of course throughly cruel people, that use violence in a cold, calculated way. But what if these are the minority cases? 

I think that there is a case to be made for changing gender norms for both men and women. Just not in the way that is taught by political correctness. But in this case, the focus might need to shift from what is wrong with men, to what is wrong with a society that creates these specific men. And when I think about it, aren’t the cold calculating men, at least to a certain degree, also created by societal norms? Norms that, while having to do with gender, also have to do with the value we ascribe to power in general. Maybe our relation to power has a lot to do with dysfunctional emotions? This is something that I need to think more about. And by extension, what role power plays in my and other people’s lives in general.

Photo by Patrick Hendry on Unsplash

The psychology of the FALL FROM EDEN

The more I observe myself and other people, the more I find that something seems fundamentally broken. And at the same time, there seems to be something divine about us underneath all the dirt. For this reason, I believe that the fall, whether you interpret it literally or not (I’m leaning towards that I don’t, but nowadays I’m sure of almost nothing) has something significant to say about our condition. The Bible says that we were made in the image of God, but we are in a fallen state. And this seems to be a pretty accurate description. 

Almost all of us lie to ourselves and others. Many cheat and steal. Even more either consciously or unconsciously manipulate others. We have no idea why we do many of the things that we do and we engage in behaviors that are hurtful towards ourselves and others. We often assume that we know who we are, but after doing a little bit of thinking, we discover that we don’t even know what the question of who we are entails. We might start saying things like our job title, hobbies or even possessions. We act in ways that are inauthentic and agree with things that we don’t truly agree with just to please others. Meanwhile we ignore making the changes that really count, with regards to how we treat other people. We often prefer what is easy over that which we know to be right. We are cowardly, ashamed and vulnerable and since we know that others share our condition, we exploit this fact in our dealings with others. All of us don’t. Few do all of these things. But many do at least some of them and many would never admit this to themselves. It can take the form of anything from brutal violence for the sake of nothing but satisfying sadistic urges, to pretending that something that we are selling is a little better than we in fact know that it is, to little stings disguised as jokes that we dish out to our loved ones.

I could go on and if you sit down and honestly think about it, you can probably find plenty of examples of your own, both from your own life and from others’, both from your past and from your current situation. 

With the prior discussion in mind, I want to propose that question of whether biblical creation myth is literally true or not, takes the focus off of what is truly important about it. Namely its psychological significance when it comes to the state that we are in today. This belief also has the support of one of my favorite thinkers, Jordan Peterson.

I will go through it in the right order: In the beginning of the Old Testament Adam walked with God. Should we look at this literally, as if God was walking with Adam as a physical person? Or maybe there is some symbolism here? I would like to propose that the these walks that God does with Adam in the Garden of Eden are meant to symbolize the close connection with God that we are meant to have. Even that it is one that we can have right now if we open up to it. 

When it comes to the fall, there may or may not have been some event that triggered it, that is symbolized by the eating of the forbidden fruit. Maybe there was even an eating of an actual fruit that was off limits. Since I believe that most of the things that we think that we know about history probably to a large degree is false, I cannot completely discount this possibility. But I don't know. And since it’s so clear that the biblical stories have huge symbolical meanings, it’s therefore here that their true value lies.

There is a lot to unpack here and what’s interesting about the Bible, is that you can find so many connections between different parts in it. A perspective that I find interesting, is to look at the Hebrew Bible / Old Testament as the display of an original event and all of its consequences laid out over time. Seen from this perspective, these stories show us flawed individuals with good wills, trying to find their ways through a fallen world, encountering all that has gone wrong with humanity along the way. 

What I’ve come to believe is that the fall represents the birth of the ego. And the main characteristic of the ego is pride. Pride was also why what got Satan cast out of heaven. And remember that we are talking symbolism here. I’m not talking about Satan as an actual being, even if I don’t rule out his existence completely either. But regardless of Satan’s actual existence or not, there is a symbolism here that has something fundamental to say about our being in the world. As a side note, it can be interesting to think about the fact that one of the core ideas of modern satanism, is one’s embrace and strengthening of the ego which, at least officially, Satan is seen as just a symbol of.

Adam and Even ate of the fruit because they wanted to be like God (Laveyan satanists consider themselves their own gods by the way). At this point they were still innocent though, even though a seed has been sown even before the eating of the fruit, because of the discontent that the snake has put into their minds. Discontentment with what is, is in other words the absolute starting point of everything else that is broken with our being in the world. Adam and Eve lived in absolute love and harmony with God, each other and the world. And yet, a little voice whispered that there might be something more. Something better. 

Adam and Eve didn’t know what they were doing. It is how they acted after their eyes were opened that got them cast out of Eden. How they acted when they lost their innocence and learned about good and evil. When they learned about good and evil they chose evil. 

Instead of being honest and upfront about what they had done, Adam and Eve tried to hide. And when God found them, instead of owning up to his mistake, Adam blamed Eve and God. And Eve in turn blamed the snake and God. Here we see two of the evils of the world: the impulse to try and hide our mistakes and to blame our mistakes on others. 

When they ate from the fruit they discovered that they were vulnerable. They had always been vulnerable. But now they saw their vulnerability. And not only did they see it. They wanted to hide it. Why do you hide your vulnerability, besides because you are afraid that it is going to be exploited? Because you don’t want to look vulnerable. Most of us want to look better than we actually are and so we hide that which we consider shameful about ourselves. Most of us need to be so broken that it becomes futile to hide our vulnerability, before we own up to it. We are afraid that if we show our true selves we will be rejected. And since we’re not in control of ourselves, this fear often cause us to act in ways that cause actual rejection.

In the next generation discontent and the knowledge that we are vulnerable causes Cain to murder abel. And soon this knowledge, coupled with ego, discontent and pride caused power struggles, betrayal, wars, weapons of war and so on. 

As stated earlier, the Hebrew Bible shows one people’s honest attempts to find something right and true in this broken world, which culminated in the birth of Jesus, the first person that lived a life completely untainted by the world.

Or maybe I’m just reading too much into a fictional story about a garden, two people, a talking snake and an old man on a cloud. I don’t think so. But maybe I’m wrong. But if I’m not wrong and if these stories really are saying something fundamental about our being in the world, the natural questions become: How do they relate to you? And what are you going to do about it?

Being out of touch with our emotions - a male perspective PART 1

How do you relate to your emotions? Have you given it much thought? I know that I’m terribly out of touch with my emotions, even though I’ve worked with my inner life quite a bit. And I’m neither a macho man nor the type of soft, effeminate, modern guy that many Swedish men take up as an identity either. I’m very skeptical towards these types of identities.

The point is that if I’m out of touch with my emotions, there are countless men that are in a much worse condition than I am. And the thing is, that no matter how tough we manage to convince ourselves that we are, there is no getting away from our messed up emotions. There is something messed up with the most fundamental aspects of being human and we need to start paying attention to this. 

I know that this is not a problem that relates to just men either. To some degree, I believe that most people have some degree of dysfunction with regards to their emotions. But the situation is different for men. Throughout a large part of our history, emotions have been labelled as a bit unmanly by large segments of the population. As men, we’ve been supposed to suppress them and push them down. And surely, there is some validity to not go around crying over every little minor problem, no matter if you’re a man or a woman. But suppressed emotions stay in our bodies and wreak havoc in our lives.

I’ve decided that I want to explore how emotions work through books and other means, so that I can shed some light on my own emotional deficiencies and see what conclusions that I can draw from this. 

In this first post I want to touch just briefly on the situation that me and many others, mainly men, have found ourselves in when it comes to our emotions. This is, as the title says, a male perspective, but hopefully it can provide some food for thought for women as well, and maybe help women to understand men better in this regard. Because I believe that many problems in the world stem from a lack of understanding. We think that we understand how other people think and draw our conclusions about them based on that. And it’s not uncommon that we judge based on this.

First of all, I don’t think the answer to the problem is for men to try and be more like women. I believe that men and women function differently emotionally (even if some, mostly for ideological reasons, claim that they don’t). Therefore, I believe that men need to find their own ways of relating to their emotions. Even if I’ll admit that men probably have a lot of things that they can learn from women about emotions. I mean, it’s still the same emotions and we don’t inhabit entirely different worlds or speak entirely different languages. And women are in general more in touch with their emotions.  

You probably notice something now, when I point it out. Namely that this text, a text about emotions, is very intellectualizing. That is because this is how I’ve approached things for most of my life. For most of my life I’ve lived in my head a lot. This has not only led me to be out of touch with my emotions, but also with the place where the emotions are felt - the body. I didn’t really start to inhabit my body until a few of years ago, even though I had been meditating and practicing yoga for much longer. 

At the same time, I guess that, in a sense this is unavoidable. Because you cannot make sense of anything, including emotions, without using the intellect to label, analyze and describe. But you must also not stop there. You have to feel what you are talking about. And here I’ve got some work to do.

Not until a few years back I realized that emotions are just as valid when it comes to perceiving and interacting with the world, as thoughts are. Perhaps even more. Our emotions don’t lie to us, while our thoughts often do. Including our thoughts about our emotions. 

It’s of course difficult to talk about something as personal as emotions, even with those closest to us. So it’s even more difficult to do it with something that anyone is free to read. There are lots of social rules when it comes to this. And I neither want to or think that I should share the most intimate details about my emotional life with anyone.

What I am going to do however, is to talk a bit about some of the things that I’ve been carrying around in the other posts in this series. I don’t know how long this series is going to be, since I’m discovering and processing things as I write.

This post I wish to conclude with something that I’ve realized over the past few years: No suppressed emotion goes away. The emotional energy gets stored in the body. And it often comes out as another emotion instead. And sometimes the emotions get buried so deep, that they are not consciously experienced at all. I believe this to be the case with for example really violent and dangerous people. They may be the ones that carry around the most fear, but have completely lost touch with it. I myself have never been violent. But I have carried around a lot of fear that I earlier in my life tried to hide behind a tough exterior. I of course did not know that this was what I was doing at the time. But I most certainly was. 

Photo by Alora Griffiths on Unsplash

Everything unwanted stays till we learn

In many ways we can forget about the world that can be analyzed through the five senses and laws of physics. When we start to observe our lives and the patterns in them, we notice that there are so many things happening beneath the surface. A saying in spiritual circles is “whatever you resist persists”. While I believe that this is true in one sense, I also believe that it’s a simplification. Because what does it mean to resist something? Or what does the opposite mean: to let go and/or accept? Can we truly let go and accept something while ignoring the lesson it’s trying to teach us?

I’ve several times talked about how life is a constant interaction with God. I’ve also asked the question: How could it be otherwise, if God is omnipotent, omnipresent and deeply personal? 

I know that a clarification is needed, in a discussion such as this one. I’m talking about my experience and probably the experiences of many other people. But I also know that there are many people in the world whose circumstances are completely out of their control and that seem to bring them nothing but suffering. Therefore this first and foremost applies to those that are born in relatively affluent countries. Though I believe that the world is ruled in an unjust way, by throughly ruthless people, those of us that are born where no one has to starve, are for the most part responsible for our circumstances, even if this should not be equated with blame. Because most of us also have been brought up in an education system that does not teach us true self-reliance. But we do have the ability to listen to what God is trying to teach us and make the decision to take charge or our lives and learn what we need to learn to function in this world. I believe that almost all people in relatively affluent countries have the ability to do so. Everyone in the world isn’t able to. But for most of us, it is our own choices that have gotten us where we are, even though we probably weren’t aware that we were making a choice, when we chose things that led to unwanted results.

So, if the less desirable situations in our lives, are really God trying to teach us something, maybe the best things to do is to listen and make the necessary changes?

One example from my own life is my job. It’s not my dream job. And I felt tons of resistance towards getting it. But now that I’ve been there for over a year, I’ve learned to make the best of a less than ideal situation. For example, now that I can do most of the tasks on auto-pilot, I can listen to audiobooks more or less during the whole workdays. I’ve learned to trust myself and become much more confident. And having a steady income has given me some breathing space, allowing me to more freely explore those things that I really want to do, in spite of having less time on my hands.

I’ve learned to be much more present in what I do and to think about the things that I’m engaged in. I’ve most definitely learned that I’m not the only person in the world that screws up sometimes. That it’s okay to do so as long as I take responsibility for it. I’ve learned to appreciate people that have chosen to live very different lives from my own. And lastly, I’ve learned to have a good work ethic that goes far beyond what is expected of me. To consciously choose to work hard and focused not just because I want to keep my job, but because of a sense of duty and because I believe that it ultimately will make me a better person.

It’s not where I want to work forever, but I know that I have a few lessons left to learn. Lessons relating to trusting myself, fully accepting where I am, living in the now and not rely on external circumstances for my happiness. And I know that when I can quit and go do what I really want to do, there are lots of things that I’m going to miss about my job. 

What I’m talking about here seems to be a fundamental part of the structure of reality. I know that you could argue back and forth about what seems to be and what actually is. When I look a little deeper at the unwanted in my life, there always seems to be lessons in it. But maybe it’s just because we always can find something to learn from our experiences. If so, that's fine. It shows how important perspective is. 

Then again, people and circumstances don’t seem to have come into my life at random. Even if I wanted to, I could not write off everything that happens in my life as mere coincidences. Me and my wife have had experiences that definitely fall under the category “supernatural”. And as the years have passed, I've become thoroughly convinced us of the existence of God. With these things in mind, I think that there is a pretty good case to be made for the idea that the meaning that I’m talking about, isn’t just in my head. If you wish to delve a little deeper into this, you could check out what is known as “synchronicities”, which was something that for example Carl Jung observed. 

If I’m going to try to explain how I think that this actually work, I believe that everything is divinely orchestrated somehow. I believe that God’s hand is present in everything, so that what we need in order to grow is brought into our lives somehow. As I said in the second paragraph, it’s probably not the same for everyone. I believe that in a sense, I’m the main character in my show, but that you also are the main character in yours. In someone else’s show, I might be anything from a second lead, to just one of thousands of small extras that flash by briefly. And God is the grand director of everything.

The stage is of course a metaphor for something that words cannot fully describe. But hopefully it can give you some idea of how I see it and how our learning experiences fit into all of this. Because, as you may know, in basically every good work of fiction, the main character transforms as the story progresses.

What happens with the lessons after we die I don’t know. But I believe that they are among the few things that we take with us to the afterlife, in one form or another, whether it’s one afterlife or the next in a series of afterlives. 

Therefore I believe that one of the main reasons for us to be here, is so that we can learn and grow. We’re probably here for a lot of other things as well, but this is definitely one of them. And we can kick and scream and become angry at life for not giving us a smooth ride. I’ve done my fair share of this and I still do sometimes. But life and the world has never even once changed because I’ve become angry at them. Not once. And yet, it’s hard to not feel offended when we have to face one thing after another that we don’t want to deal with. But I believe that the sooner we can adopt a perspective where we see our hardships as part of the learning experience and as part of the adventure, the sooner we can learn the lessons and move on to more of that which we do want in our lives.

Photo by Joe Zlomek on Unsplash

Deciding who we want to be PART 1

What I want with this post is to encourage you to think a bit about who you are, who you want to be, what you fill your life with and whether this represents who you truly want to be or not. I sort of had a rude awakening a few years back, when I realized how much of my life that was not really me. And I can hardly be alone in this. Yes, I know that ultimately I’m none of these things. I know that deep inside we are simply love and everything else is just add-ons. But knowing this, I don’t think that it can hurt to make more conscious choices with regards to our attitudes and what we fill our lives with. Besides, whether we do it consciously or not, we make choices all the time. 

I think that the best way to approach the question of identity, is to have some conscious sense of it, without being attached to it or confusing it with who one truly is.

I will drop a part of this series now and then. I of course want to do something other than just talk about who I want to be here. But since thinking deeply about who one really wants to be will be quite a project, I don’t think that a series from start to finish, with no other posts in between will be any fun for anyone. Not even for me And I want to take my time to think about these things anyway and not just rush through them. There are so many aspects of life to consider.

It might seem a little strange to still thinking about finding who you are and your place in the world when you’re basically forty. Or maybe it doesn’t. I don’t know. I know that I’m not happy just picking a role and then play it. Why should I even bother thinking about this? Why not just go ahead and live life? Because for most of my life I haven’t really felt like me. It’s not as if I’ve always thought of it this way. But it took a long time for me to take a step back and consider what values I truly treasure. What personality traits I admire. What things in life that truly make me feel happy and fulfilled. What do I truly like in this or that area? When I really listen to my emotions, what to they tell me about my life and my choices? How do I want to look? What kinds of clothes do I like to wear? And, perhaps even more important, what things that I currently fill my life with don’t represent who I truly want to be. What things do I want to let go of?

The thing is that I don’t think that most people really, truly think about these things. I can’t believe that most people’s biggest dream is to work themselves to death so that they can consume, make money off of hurting other people, or drink themselves half-unconscious and make fools out of themselves every weekend. Not that everyone does this. But loads of people do, and these are just some of the most blatant examples. And at least when it comes to getting drunk every weekend, this was something that I myself engaged in when I was younger. And nowadays I see it mostly as just a huge waste of time, health and energy. 

The point that I’m trying to make can be summed up in three questions (forgive me for repeating myself a little bit): Why do we do the things that we do? Do we do them because they are what our hearts desire? Or have our lives and that which they contain sort of just happened to us? 

Photo by Ben Sweet on Unsplash