Hello!
Today we are going to be exploring all the ways that the Love and Light perspective is truly helpful and really does support us in our spiritual growth.
We are going to do a deep dive into all the ways we can use this way of thinking to empower ourselves and move ourselves forward in life - because there are a LOT of good things nested in this way of looking at the world.
Now, before diving in, I suggest you go back and read:
Part One
And THEN come back for this part.
Now let's dive into the benefits of the Love And Light perspective!
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Where Does Love And Light Get It Right?
I know for a lot of us, the ‘Love and Light’ perspective really HAS benefited us in some ways. This is because there truly ARE some AWESOME things about this way of thinking and looking at the world that we can’t override or forget to acknowledge if we’re going to be fair.
The truth is, even though there is a lot of toxicity in the ‘Love and Light’ world - there is also a LOT that we can take from it that IS healthy and helpful.
The truth is, *most* people on this planet could use the reminder that looking for the positive, looking for the good, acknowledging what is working, being grateful for what we have and seeing the bright side of things really DOES improve our life experience.
When used in the proper context, the idea that we can ‘positively focus’ is actually a very beneficial idea.
For the most part, when we are able to have a *general* attitude centered on the idea that life is something we can find joy in, when we have a *general* attitude centered around looking for the good things that are happening to us and centered around the POWER we have to create goodness in our own lives and the lives of others, we are going to be happier.
When we can take this idea of gratitude for what is and focusing positively and we can use it to help us find MORE satisfaction in what is ALREADY good enough about ourselves and our lives - in this we are going to find that this philosophy can actually take us out of the toxic culture we live in that is perpetually asking us to feel inadequate and to see our lives as inadequate and into a state where we are able to really FEEL and EXPERIENCE the enoughness that we DO have and that we ARE in this moment.
When we can live from a place of acknowledging what is TRULY GOOD about the reality we are living, we are going to be far less vulnerable to chasing things that we don’t need, and far less vulnerable to the messages that tell us that we are never enough and that we never have enough. It’s going to help us really feel that we do have things we can enjoy in our lives right now, and it can help us STOP perpetually striving and START actually LIVING.
This positive focus can be a powerful reminder of all that we already have, and it can drive us in the direction of actually, actively appreciating and experiencing the joy of our current, lived, enough reality.
This can have a profound impact on the way we feel in life and the way we interact with our systems.
Looking For Our Strength
Next, the idea that looking for our strength, looking for what we are capable of, looking for the steps we CAN take, having a belief in ourselves to overcome challenges and obstacles and knowing that we are generally MORE able than we give ourselves credit for is another MASSIVE benefit to this world view that I think a LOT of us could really utilize more.
It’s SO common in our world to feel like we CAN’T do things, to feel like if we’ve never had something or never been somewhere that we can’t EVER have or go there, and it’s common to be surrounded by messaging from others and cultures in general that tell us that what we want isn’t possible, that we aren’t capable and that it’s better to just stay where and as we are.
We live in a world that very much clings to ‘sameness’ for security, and that discourages anyone from really reaching for anything outside of ‘normal.’
Many of us live and work in communities that can feel very much like ‘crabs in the bucket’ where everyone is in competition, everyone is rather negative and everyone is just going along with ‘what is’ - and discouraging anyone who wants to change from even trying.
There are a lot of reasons for this - again in our culture we’re raised to be pitted against one another and to see everyone around us as competition for the things we want and need. We’re trained to be hyper individualistic and to have an ‘every man for himself’ kind of attitude. We tend to fear anyone around us doing something other than what we’re doing, because a lot of us unconsciously see this as a kind of ‘attack’ on OUR way of life and therefore OUR security. We tend to live in communities of people who are live, work, relate, raise children, eat, sleep and think in relatively similar ways - which can lead to a sense of security that we’re ‘doing life right’ when we go along with the crowd, but can also lead to a LOT of antagonism and doubt when we dare to do anything outside of the norm. Again, people tend to feel REALLY triggered by those who are doing things differently, and we are living in a world where criticizing, tearing down and downright demonizing those who dare to be different is really the standard operating mode.
So when we develop a mindset that allows us to see our strength and capacity to change, grow and be different, this can go a LONG WAY in supporting us in making changes when those around us are pushing back on us.
This perspective can help us OPEN to these other perspectives and ways of life, and it can help us find compassion for them, tolerance for them and it may even help us adopt the parts of them that are truly beneficial for ourselves - and this can be incredibly liberating.
Learning that we can do hard things, that we can fail and try again, that we can learn on the way, that we are allowed to make mistakes and keep going and that we are allowed to be different from those around us is a HUGE thing that this mindset can really help us cultivate. And for most of us, if we want to live a healthy life, we are going to NEED that because chances are we don’t live in a perfectly healthy community where everything that is ‘normal’ to those around us is also ideal!
Learning to look for possibility instead of what isn’t working, learning to have hope for what we can’t yet see or haven’t experienced, learning to ‘feel’ how we want to feel and using that as a guide for taking steps, learning to honor our wants and needs and to go after them, learning that we can face challenges and overcome them - this is all SUPER valuable.
The Value Of Shifting Our Perspective
There are also times and places where we DO want to shift our state/mindset/perspective to one that’s more favorable.
There are times and places where it really IS our vantage point that’s causing us to suffer or that’s ADDING to our suffering - and by shifting how we view things we really CAN improve our situation or at least how we are FEELING about our situation.
For many of us, it is super beneficial to realize that ALL of us are viewing reality through a lens. We are viewing the world around us through a filter that has been set and influenced by MANY factors all throughout our lives. What this means is that rather than experiencing life for how it is, a lot of the time we are experiencing life for how we THINK that it is. We are experiencing life through several layers of meaning making, through past projections, through future projections and through what we BELIEVE is happening.
Pretty much all of us, when we start to scrutinize the way we are viewing the world around us, are going to come to find that there are many ‘errors’ in our current way of processing.
We are going to come to see that we aren’t simply experiencing an interaction with another person, but rather we are coming up with many narratives in our head about what this interaction ‘means.’ We’re going to realize that we are assuming things about what the other person thinks/feels about us that we have no way of knowing if they are actually true or not unless we ask, we are going to be assuming that our interactions mean certain things about us, our future, our safety and our worthiness and we are going to notice that we are thinking things about ourselves during the interaction that come from past assumptions vs. what’s actually happening in this moment. We are going to start to recognize that rather than just having an interaction, we are making the interaction MEAN so much about life and reality that we may not even be aware of! Then when we check in, we’re going to notice that a lot of our feelings and emotions are arising not from the interaction itself, but again from all the STORIES we are coming up with ABOUT the interaction.
For instance, we may notice that when talking to our boss we feel really anxious. We could be having what is a normal conversation about work flow or even a conversation about expectations that our boss has of us and what we should be producing. We may then check in with our thoughts and realize that we are thinking things like ‘my boss is disappointed with me, and that means that my job is at risk. If I lose my job, I have no idea what I will do next - everyone will judge me and I will have to move back in with my parents. I’ll lose all my friends because who wants to be friends with someone who still lives with their parents at my age? I can’t believe I’m going to lose this job. I’m such a failure and a fuck up.’
In real reality, the conversation that’s ACTUALLY happening is one of work-flow and expectations.
But the conversation we are EXPERIENCING is one where we’re being fired, having to move back in with our parents and where we’re losing all of our friends and freedom, and one where we’re also feeling like we don’t deserve respect or kindness!
Another example is one where we look in the mirror and notice that we’ve gained a few pounds.
Again, in objective reality this is all this is. Extra body mass.
But what we may be making that extra weight MEAN can be a whole different story.
We may have a perception that tells us that to be ANYTHING other than as lean as possible is to be unattractive. Is to be someone who is weak, lazy or not taking care of themselves. We may have conditioning that tells us that to gain weight is to be BAD, shameful and undeserving of love. We may have a program that tells us that gaining weight is going to ‘trigger’ an ‘out of control’ spiral where we aren’t going to be able to keep our body how we want it to be.
We may have experienced being judged, criticized and rejected for our body shape and size in the past and thus feel like this is going to happen again now that our shape has changed.
We may notice that we are feeling all kinds of scary emotions and saying all kinds of unkind things to ourselves as a result of the weight gain that are making everything feel SO much worse and like a HUGE deal we must fix as soon as possible.
We may realize that again, in objective reality, nothing bad ACTUALLY happens when we gain or lose weight - that in objective reality we are still loved, we are still able to work, we are still able to feed and clothe ourselves - but it can FEEL like we are literally losing our stability and like we are going to end up alone and in pain forever if we don’t get that weight back down.
This is all because we have been given a perceptual filter that tells us that weight gain MEANS that we aren’t good enough/are weak/lazy/undesirable, and we have a whole bunch of associations with being not good enough, weak, lazy and undesirable that make us feel like we’re going to be UNSAFE.
So we aren’t just witnessing weight gain - we’re seeing weight gain and through our perception we are making that MEAN a whole bunch of things about ourselves, which we perceive will mean a whole bunch of things about the outcomes we are likely to experience in life.
We aren’t experiencing weight gain as it is, we are experiencing weight gain through layers of filter and meaning making that are making us FEEL like life is falling apart or is at risk - when in actual reality we are likely totally fine and nothing is actually threatened at all.
But again, we don’t see this because most of us aren’t aware that we even HAVE perceptual filters over reality. Many of us don’t realize that our stories about what we are experiencing may not be true. Many of us don’t recognize that how we are feeling is a result of our perception and not a result of what’s actually occurring.
We may come to realize that this VALUE of thinness, and all the stories we have about what it means to be overweight or even just ‘not thin’ are just that - stories. They are PERCEPTIONS that have been passed down to us from culture that, when challenged in REAL reality, don't actually align with what is TRUE. We may notice that the idea that thin people are inherently ‘better’ than people in larger bodies as nothing to do with anything that is true in terms of how people actually operate or what people are actually capable of - but rather that this is just a societal judgment that again, isn’t actually true in real reality.
We may notice that a lot of our fear comes from the fact that those around us hold these values and perspectives just like we do, and thus augment how they treat us/speak to us based on our body size. We may have had experiences where we really WERE treated in ways where we were denied the love, care and community we wanted and needed because of how our bodies looked. We may notice that again, we don’t have the stories that weight gain = being alone forever simply because we wanted to tell ourselves a scary story, but because of what we EXPERIENCED in terms of being antagonized or treated poorly based on our body size. We may even notice that we didn’t directly get treated in any specific way due to our bodies, but we watched OTHER people be treated in certain ways based on THEIR body size, and we are afraid of that same treatment being projected onto us.
Oftentimes our stories are deeply ingrained, and they come with a LONG line of history. We are going to notice that we don’t simply have a story about life and what it means, but a whole long line of experiences that we have witnessed through our lens of perception that have REINFORCED those stories. We are going to notice that we have been filtering reality through the value systems and judgements handed to us in our childhoods for an entire lifetime - and through this we have been excluding evidence that life may be different via writing it off/explaining it away and we’ve been using any experience that supports what we already believe as ‘proof’ that what we believe is the ultimate truth.
We have been spending our entire lifetime believing that we must have a specific career in order to be good enough - and believing that anything else is a failure. We have been spending a lifetime over emphasizing every interaction we had with our authority figures that enforced that we MUST become this thing, and we’ve been minimizing any evidence that supported that there was another way to work that would be just as good - because it didn’t match our filter of perception.
So if we then end up not being able to step into that career, it’s going to FEEL like the end of the world and we are going to FEEL like there’s no other option/no other way that could be good because we’ve been building this story in our minds for a LONG TIME.
This kind of story-telling and meaning making, this kind of projecting and this kind of filtering of reality is something that, when scrutinized, again will often show itself to be incorrect - which can lead a LOT of us to a LOT of freedom - but it takes a LOT of patience with ourselves and a lot of compassion to be able to shift our perceptions and to be able to figure out the difference between what’s ACTUALLY happening and what we THINK is happening.
Perception is a HUGE thing that has a MASSIVE impact on our lives - and working to ‘unpack’ so to speak what we are perceiving and why, and learning to CHALLENGE our perceptions and to see that life might be a whole lot safer/better/more comfortable than we THINK it is in this moment is again, a MASSIVE tool that the ‘Love and Light’ community can help us cultivate.
So you see - the 'Love and Light' perspective isn’t at ALL all bad.
It’s not something we want to throw away full force, because at the end of the day there are some truly helpful tools in there to be utilized.
We just want to be able to BALANCE those tools with the practical, grounded tools we can find in the alternative perspective of Shadow Work ?
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Let’s take a break here and come back next week for a deep dive into all the issues with Shadow Work!
<3
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