Thursday, April 5, 2007

Seeing through new eyes . . .

Paradigm shifts in March:
OLD PARADIGM: It was Caleb’s ("the Man’s") job\duty\responsibility\physical measure of worth to get me a house.
NEW PARADIGM: If I want it, I can achieve it. My desires and the achieving of them are no one’s responsibility but my own.
OLD PARADIGM: A home is worth it’s equity and therefore a better financial decision than renting.
NEW PARADIGM: A house has no intrinsic value. The emotion I invest in a place is all the worth that place holds. And I can invest it in a cardboard box if I want and be happy. I have learned that what I actually VALUE about owning a house is not the ownership or the "financial freedom" that is promised, but instead the privacy and the fenced yard for my children to play in.
OLD PARADIGM: The prophets and apostles don't know what I recognize as the 14 principles of prosperity – or better said, the governing principles of the universe.
NEW PARADIGM: They know, live and teach all fourteen principles of prosperity. It makes sense, when I finally looked at their teachings instead of assuming they couldn’t possibly know what I do because I didn’t know it three months ago. I mean, how many super poor, victim minded, money grubbing socialists do you see sitting on the stand at General Conference? None. Because they are all living the Principals of Prosperity. They may not recognize it by those terms or words, but I know if I listed the principles to them, they would all nod their heads and say, "Yeah, that’s what we’ve been trying to tell you for years, in fact, since the world began!"
OLD PARADIGM: My children’s happiness is my responsibility.
NEW PARADIGM: My children’s well being is my responsibility. They have agency in their emotions and reactions just as much as an adult.
OLD PARADIGM: If I pick up a book and it "looks like Greek to me," It must be a dumb book and not worth reading and therefore I will rally with picket signs against the obvious pride and stupidity not only of the author but of his wordy ideas.
NEW PARADIGM: Some books are written poorly. That doesn’t have anything to do with the core ideas they are written about. I was just upset that I felt stupid and felt that I was being excluded from knowledge.
OLD PARADIGM: Teachers who won’t accept another view of a piece of literature when it’s offered to them must be stupid and prideful.
NEW PARADIGM: It’s prideful of me to go into a learning situation assuming I already know more than the teacher. It isn’t easy to look at something with double vision when you have been seeing it in single vision all your life. And it’s their choice.
OLD PARADIGM: There are certain things you can and cannot say to someone – particularly if you are married to them.
NEW PARADIGM: What on earth are you together for if you can’t talk to each other? If my vices are clear to my husband, and not to me shouldn’t I desire him to let me know and help me work past the negative and destructive behavior? I have decided. Yes. He may say it’s like I’m emotionally vomiting on him, but he also describes my moment of realization as "Ahh . . .there you are." I’m so proud of my husband.
OLD PARADIGM: If I can’t lose weight like other people, governing principles do not govern and I am broken.
NEW PARADIGM: There are all sorts of governing principles. I happen to practice the spiritual ones with great ease, and have all my life. The physical\health one’s . . . not so much. But if I learn them and practice them, they will work for me. It is inevitable and indisputable that if I live by governing true principles, I will prosper.
OLD PARADIGM: If I don’t understand something and I get angry, it will go away or it will get fixed merely because it is afraid of my power (doesn’t make sense, yet I believed it.)
NEW PARADIGM: Anger is an emotion that constrains the angry person to find something to blame. "Why am I feeling this way?" Anger is my way to not take responsibility for my part in whatever is making me mad. "Making me mad." Hear that? That’s the sound of my brain being scrubbed of it’s destructive thought patterns.
OLD PARADIGM: There are things I cannot say to my mother.
NEW PARADIGM: If I respect my mother and love her as much as I say, cowering from her does no good. I have always known my mother and I are alike. If this "call me on my junk" junk works on me, I have a high enough opinion of my mother that I believe she will see it and pull out of it. I have heard my mother say before that we are sisters and that when we leave this life, we will return to that state. I choose not to be afraid of the mother/daughter relationship anymore. If this woman is my sister and I see her struggling and unhappy I will not make that world more comfortable out of fear of her.
OLD PARADIGM: I want to help my mother because I want her to be happy.
NEW PARADIGM: I want my mother to be happy not solely for her to be happy. Basically, I realized what’s in it for me. Which is great, because then I can image it rather than sitting here thinking how I wish she would change . . . This said, I hope everyone caught the above paragraph where I talk about respecting my mother and loving her. I think I’m beginning to look at her the way Caleb looks at me . . . and I see hope of her returning whole to herself.

These are a few of my shifts. Oh my head!

3 comments:

WildBound said...

Way to go! I agree with your husband on "ahh, there you are..."

I am seeing a more humble and peaceful you.

WildBound said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Fedaykin said...

Another stellar post. My little brain is pulsating with wonder and awe... and joyness.