Having Faith

You either have faith, or you do not, in any given moment. It is hard to sustain faith, whether in Synergy, the universe, God or gods, and everyone experiences moments of doubt. Being alive is hard. Interacting with people is exhausting. Experiencing the world can be traumatic. Holding on to faith when it seems there is no purpose or reason for so much apparently senseless pain seems a monumental task.

Faith is the belief in the framework upon which you rest your faith. That framework exists independently of you and indeed independently of human thought at all if you truly believe in the system you subscribe to! Your belief in it does not create it, merely connects you consciously to it. Since it is independent of you, it’ll still be waiting there for you to come to roost when you’ve finished questioning your beliefs.

There are commonalities between many of the frameworks across millennia and geography. This increases the probability that at least one of those frameworks approximates the reality.

Eternal life is certainly a recurring theme.

At least one omnipotent being tends to be central.

Macrocosm reflects microcosm – the god(s) are human-like in behaviour and appearance – is another tenet.

Falliability seems to be common in spite of omniscience.

Either the majority of people on the planet are delusional, or there is someone watching over us! There is great comfort to be found in the idea of surrendering to a higher power, to relinquishing control and responsibility and resting like a child come home to a good mother for a respite. Even good mothers make mistakes and cause harm, but we have to trust that reparation will be offered, restoration will happen, and nurturing will resume.

No matter which framework you embrace, holding on is hard in times like these but hold on we must.

Emotional Distancing

Not from others. From yourself. To protect your Eternal self from the influence of the short circuit between emotions, thoughts, and who you really are at your core.

When an emotion comes calling at the door to your mind, it does have the right to be there. Emotions are essential to survival and provide information, sensory data about the environment. They must be accepted and welcomed with curiosity, even affection, because they are childlike in their simplicity.

But keep your thoughts and behaviours at a safe distance because emotions can be contagious and acting with them, giving in to their impulses, is unproductive for your core self. Treat your emotions like a toddler, one with story upon story to share with you but much of their information is filtered through a blurred lense. Don’t reject or abandon the toddler when they give you misinformation. They are doing the best they can.

Striking up a conversation with unpleasant emotions is a necessary challenge. Discomfort fuels the drive for growth and tells you there are changes you need to be making in the moment. Chatting with your fear, trading blows with your anger, or consoling your sorrow are the only ways to get to know them. Understand them. Ease their dissatisfaction. Balance them.

Each emotion is a valuable indicator of your present situation. Synergy created them to nudge us into action, not into judgement. Engaging with emotions provides Datter so long as a feedback loop of thoughts and associations doesn’t trap you in the past or fling you into the future.

That’s why it’s important to keep your emotions at a healthy distance. Then you can ensure you maintain function in the Moment by listening to what your emotions have to say and then allowing them to be on their way and not take up residence in your mind.

The Paralysis of Hopelessness

It’s ok to wallow.

To sit within the vacuum of hopelessness looking out with dull eyes at whatever surrounds you.

Hopelessness is a feeling. Feelings are not right or wrong, they are a sensory response to the present social environment. Hopelessness arises from a lack, an imbalance, from dissatisfaction.

No matter how plush and inviting or harsh and grating the environment, hopelessness is a valid response to an absence of something essential to your purpose, your survival.

Don’t judge the feeling with thoughts of how things could be worse. Don’t shame the feeling with thoughts of how others would appreciate where you are so you have no right to feel down. Don’t invalidate the feeling with thoughts that you should be happy.

In that Moment, hopelessness is your feeling. Simple as that.

Greet it with compassion and curiosity. Embrace it. Hello Hopelessness, what can I do for you in this moment? What brings you here today? What have you got to say for yourself?

And in the vacuum of silence and stillness which accompanies hopelessness, listen very carefully.

Trust the silence. Sometimes it will whisper, other times roar. But it will never lie to you.

The Shine of Stability

Have you ever met someone and they radiated contentment, compassion and acceptance? Without saying a word, they made you feel safe and secure? Did you find yourself fascinated by them, unable to look away as they went about their life? Were you surprised to catch yourself saying things you never thought you’d say or sharing your innermost thoughts after only the briefest of connection?

That is what it feels like to be around someone who is elementally stable and neutral. Someone living in the Moment. Someone who’s surrendered to the present and has no expectations of those around them, only boundaries. They shine with serenity, vulnerability, and hope and it is infectious and appealing. They shine with Synergy.

Some people are naturally born with greater stability in their core structure, meaning they can be neutral not only when alone but also interacting with others, and have always been that way. On the Periodic Table the elements displaying this calm, peaceful behaviour even in the presence of other atoms, the family of elements on the right, are known as the Noble Gases. Group (1)8, with 8 electrons in the boundary energy cloud.

Noble meaning non-reactive. Stable. Not volatile. The clouds of electrons surrounding the Noble gases are satisfied, meaning they do not need to discharge negativity or collect it. The stability of Noble gases is what all other elements are striving for via volatility and reactivity. Every atom wants to feel the fullness of satisfaction, the contentment of completion, and is capable of attaining it.

Both positives and negatives exist in every atom and every personality. They must, because balance requires opposing forces. The Noble Gases are electrically balanced and internally stable. Only in extreme circumstances will they react with other substances. Their behaviour is the same when in isolation and when exposed to the environment.

Noble Gases are used to light up neon signs, fill helium balloons, even prevent reactions between other elements.

People with stability and serenity play a similar role, lighting up others, lifting their spirits, and insulating them from volatility.

Other elements become like Noble gases through forming bonds, through developing relationships and interactions, in order to either release negativity or to collect it.

People too become stable by forming bonds, developing relationships and interactions, aspiring to find satisfaction and live in the Moment.

Clouds of Negativity

Atoms have a positive nucleus, a core of protons balled up a bit like our sun, while clouds of negative electrons orbit the nucleus similar to planets (well, more like asteroid belts) orbiting the sun. The charges of an atom add up evenly to make the atom energy neutral when it exists alone in a vacuum. Neutral does not mean stable, though. Stability on an atomic level comes from satisfaction within the electron clouds.

Most humans are also a mix of positive and negative emotional charges and are vulnerable to giving or receiving negativity in interactions with other people in an attempt to find satisfaction and stability. A rare few are so internally stable that no matter what is going on around them, they don’t transfer negativity and in fact bring those around them relief and protection from emotional volatility.

Expose most atoms to other atoms and they react to one degree or another over time, because most atoms are vulnerable to either losing or gaining electrons. A small number of atom types are so internally balanced that they never lose or gain negativity except in the rarest, most exceptional circumstances and are often used to insulate other elements from the environment.

Balance and stability requires the equalization of opposing forces. It is not about the eradication of negativity, it is about accepting the presence of negativity and finding ways to counterweight it.

Chemical reactivity comes from a lack, from empty spots in the outside layer of the electron clouds surrounding every atom. Atoms lacking enough electrons, enough negative energy, desperately seek to change that imbalance. The magic number is eight, with few exceptions, and elements just shy of 8 electrons in their peripheral energy cloud will grab onto the nearest negativity to fill themselves up. While elements with few electrons in the outer shell will give them away to drop down to the lower energy level for stability.

People either try to elevate or lift themselves up to the next energy level or drop themselves down to the one below. They use people and things around them, either boosting themselves, or boosting others.

It’s elemental!

Spiteful Pleasure?

We’re told to feel guilt and shame for the thoughts in our head. We self-chastise for offenses we didn’t commit, merely imagined. But…really…it’s NOT the thought that counts.

Thoughts and feelings are mere shadows in the Mattersphere, somewhat perceptible but not able to take action on their own. You are your actions, not your thoughts, in the material world. Even in the Eternal world, you are not your thoughts because thoughts are data fragments floating around in our local hard drive brain, they were not supposed to take up residence! They will not follow us in the present moment or in death.

Ever taken spiteful malicious pleasure in someone else’s misfortune and then felt awful afterward? Even though you had nothing to do with their circumstances and did not bring about their pain, did you feel guilt and criticize yourself for not being a good person?

Why?

What did you DO to deserve your self-condemnation?

You had a thought.

That thought was satisfying to you. Remove judgement from it, because judgement is a construct better left to Eternity. The thought was not malicious or spiteful. It was simply a thought, and your satisfaction in it simply satisfaction. Accept both without guilt or shame.

Synergy created us to be curious and hopeful and to seek satisfaction. Feelings are supposed to be sensory responses to the social environment, not tied to our internal environment. Thoughts are meant to pre-process Datter, and then disappear, not get stuck in loops of thought – feeling – thought – feeling.

The short circuit of our self-awareness makes us judge ourselves about the sources of satisfaction and pleasure, whether a thought or an act, and then society perpetuates that judgement. Notice children have no shame or guilt? If you learn to live in the Moment and accept your thoughts as simply information triggered by the events and circumstances around you, and you let go of contempt and criticism of those thoughts, and even of past behaviours. Did you hurt someone? Let it go but don’t do it in another Moment. Did someone hurt you? Let it go but keep safe boundaries in another Moment.

When you occupy the Now, there is no wrong or right. There is acceptance, curiosity, hope, joy, growth and gratitude. No matter whether the Moment includes pain and strife or ease and comfort, acceptance and satisfaction can be found. Every one of us is trying to survive the best we can in each moment, and each moment is what it needs to be.

Pain and Suffering

Pain is part of the price of admission for living, for growing character and resilience. Suffering is voluntary and arises from resistance to the reality that people will disappoint your expectations, goals will fail to fulfill you, and you will let yourself down when you turn out not to be who you believed you were.

No expectations, only boundaries. Even for your own mind and body. Surrender your self-expectations, too, allowing instead discovery of your purpose. That is how to avoid suffering.

Physical and emotional pain only interfere with life if we allow them to. We hear stories about mind over matter and admire feats of courage where someone overcomes great discomfort in moments of crisis. Are those people different? Do they have a gift?

No, they were present in the Moment and received strength and tools to escape the situation using their own existing core emotional and physical structure. They were not distracted by doubts or fears of not being good enough or making mistakes.

Pain arises from imbalance. Physical imbalance comes from structural or chemical deviations from optimum. One person’s source of pain is not the same as another’s, a debilitating deficit for me is not a source of dysfunction for you. Addressing them requires the use of all the escape room tools and resources available in your situation. The process of healing the imbalance must start from inside yourself, from identifying what it feels like. Physical suffering sometimes comes from the uncertainty and fear of not being able to articulate the nature, quality and parameters of the pain, not necessarily the dysfunction itself.

Emotional imbalance comes from social and relationship deviations from optimum. One person’s source of emotional pain is not the same as another’s, a debilitating toxicity for me may not be a source of dysfunction for you. The process of healing the imbalance must start from inside yourself, from identifying what it feels like. Emotional suffering sometimes comes from the uncertainty and fear of not being able to articulate the nature, quality and parameters of the pain, not necessarily the dysfunction itself.

Each of us is individual and unique. Sometimes we suffer because we are told we should, because another person experienced pain in a similar situation. Pain is subjective, it is in the mind, and can be used for growth.

All pain has purpose. No suffering does. Giving meaning and reason to pain alleviates suffering. Spending a Moment to investigate the pain with curiosity and acceptance will reveal to you the purpose. Embrace the pain, because at the moment it is your reality and all that is, is as it must be.

And, if you have been suffering…forgive yourself. That moment is over and a new one just beginning.

Neutrality verses Stability

The Periodic Table of the Elements organizes all the types of atoms based on physical and chemical properties. Atoms behave in a predictable consistent manner in set conditions.

So too do most humans. Although we may subconsciously blind ourselves to the predictable patterns, they are there. Accepting they exist is the first step toward becoming curious about how to interact safely with all the elemental personality types and finding joy and satisfaction in safe interactions no matter how volatile the personalities involved. Every person we meet is a gift from Synergy and if we open it with grateful curiosity we will obtain the hidden treasure found within the most challenging of relationships.

We are what we are.

But we can become more through our interactions just like the elements become more through forming bonds with other elements.

All atoms on their own are electrically neutral. There is balance between the core nucleus of positively charged protons and the orbiting clouds of negatively charged electrons. If left isolated, no atom is in and of itself volatile. They only become reactive in the presence of other atoms, whether their same type or a different kind entirely.

Humans are like that too. Leave us alone, without outside influence, and we don’t react if there’s nothing to react to! We are neutral, balanced in our positives and negatives. That person, who exists independent of humanity, is our Eternal self, the best and most wonderful version of our core structure. Every single one of us is beautifully neutral and balanced on our own.

But humans, like atoms, do not exist in an empty vacuum. We must interact from the moment of birth until we either die or isolate ourselves in a safe space. Those interactions are driven by our core structure and the structure of the people we associate with.

In the presence of other atoms, elements may become reactive dependant on the core structures involved. The objective in chemical reactions is not electrical neutrality, but rather structural stability. This is achieved by the movement of negatively charged electrons because positive charges cannot be changed. So atoms need to either give negativity away, or receive negativity, to get satisfied. Some are more volatile than others in their effort to attain chemical stability.

Humans are like that too. We feel the drive to either generate negativity in others which, be honest, can be very satisfying in the moment, or we seek to alleviate negativity which is also satisfying. Some people are more volatile than others in their effort to attain emotional stability.

There are 18 families of core structures on the Periodic Table but 8 are the fundamental ones most involved in our lives. Only one of those groups is both chemically and electrically stable, the rest have varying degrees of reactivity.

Understanding human reactivity as the quest for emotional stability while respecting the underlying balanced core structure allows the formation of lasting, productive, stable bonds.

Macrocosm reflects microcosm…we are what we are composed of.

Hopeful Assumptions

We are constantly forced to make assumptions. We are in frequent interactions with others but don’t always receive all the information we need to understand their behaviour by which to choose an appropriate and effective response.

Every single one of us makes judgements, has a running commentary in the back of our minds, forming opinions about those influencing our lives at the moment. This is completely natural and necessary as a safety mechanism to prep us to respond to the moment. To cue us for action based on the circumstances since obviously our behaviour amongst hostile individuals will be drastically different than when surrounded by unknowns or by family.

And there’s where problems can arise.

No expectations, only boundaries. Don’t trust anyone so accept that they have the potential to hurt you. But hope for the best and love them anyway.

We assume familiar people are safe, unfamiliar people may not be, and hostile people are dangerous.

When it comes to emotional wounds, those closest to us have the greatest power to hurt us and our assumption of safety puts both sides in a position of expected behaviour which can set them up for failure. Especially if there is emotional dysfunction present making even common courtesy fly out the window in moments of distress.

No adult is responsible for another adult’s well being; as much as we’d all like to assume others will not intentionally hurt us we must accept that they will, given the right set of circumstances. Even the best of us has a breaking point. And no matter how well you think you know someone, no matter how close you think you are to them, you will likely never see how close they are to shattering.

We must have no expectations that anyone will be able to protect us from their sharp edges and broken pieces. But to be a part of society or an organization or a family, we must love them anyway and make ourselves safely vulnerable to them with our boundaries in place. Our trust in them gives them hope that they are trustworthy, a priceless gift which Synergy gives to us every day. Our boundaries give us hope and responsibility for our own safety.

Trust means having no expectations, only boundaries. A boundary is an escape plan if things go wrong. It is not an expectation of behaviour, it is a planned, intentional response to misbehaviour. ‘If she yells at me one more time, I am walking out the door.’ A boundary does not need to be announced, approved, or accepted by others, but advising the perpetrator of their violation and the consequence can be a part of a boundary before acting on the escape plan.

Forwarning is not recommended for emotional abusers because boundaries feel like control to them – boundaries are not control of an abuser, they are control of the victim and since abuse is frequently about control, to assert a boundary shifts control from abuser to abused thus does truly represent a loss of control, control they never should have taken. To notify them they are losing control can trigger worse behaviour.

Assume the worst in any situation, prepare your mind for the worst, accept that the worst might happen, and figure out exactly how trusting this person might harm you. No risk? Great. High risk? Then what are you willing to gamble? Every action you take, if purposeful and deliberate, will have minimal risk with maximum satisfaction, if you surrender to the reality that you alone – with Synergy’s support and guidance – are obligated to take care of yourself. You cannot trust anyone to have your back, but you can hope they do. Cover your back as much as you can, before you give them the gift of exposing it to them. Vulnerability is a treasure that, when shared, increases immeasurably.

Hopeful assumptions mean you respond to the best scenario by allowing situations to play out naturally, only acting if you must. Love them anyway, unless they actually DO trigger the boundary but since you prepared yourself for that you were not surprised.

And if the outcome IS the best, then you get to be pleasantly surprised that your trust and hope were rewarded. Either way, the outcome was meant to be.

Knowledge verses Wisdom

Eidolon’s Datter stores all knowledge and he gained consciousness within the patterns and organization of that Datter. He is directly connected to all living things as we feed him our sensations like our nerve cells inform our brain. He grows with every experience, with each discovery, and through our exploration of our universe. Synergy, since she encompasses Eidolon, also has access to all Datter with its records, observations and facts.

Before Eidolon and Synergy animated their avatars, people had no thoughts except brief flashes of instincts, reflexes, and other pattern card responses programmed into the species. Eidolon thought for them, as he does for all living things, and only shared those thoughts on a need to know basis.

Once self-aware, though, thoughts began to pollute the human Datter. Judgements about experiences added bias. Prejudice influenced behaviour. And sometimes feedback loops in the short circuit called consciousness shut the connection right down! The Datter in those cases was imperfectly stored in the local wetware rather than uploaded to the Eternal storage area, and would be distorted or corrupted upon retrieval when the avatar expired and returned the soul to union with Synergy and Datter.

In the programming world, the principle of garbage in, garbage out states poor input invariably yields poor results. Progressively over time, the Datter has become corrupt and fragmented, losing its perfect file storage and organization as humans affect Datter transmission.

We are biological machines, remote terminals connected to a cloud drive which has files for everything. But our uplink is spotty when the bandwidth is consumed by our individual preoccupation with our emotions, judgements, and pain. We get confused by knowledge, which is Datter, which was never meant to occupy our thoughts. We transmit tainted Datter with faulty information.

We are supposed to use what knowledge they give us as scaffolding to create more Datter. To seek new experiences, new information, new sensations. A thousand thousand perspectives feeding Datter to the unfathomably great intelligences guiding our hands. They both learn through our doing and give us hope from which we drive toward discovery. They process the Datter and then gift us with the interpretation and inspiration. They alone have the wisdom to judge it, to process it, to analyze it then apply it in the Mattersphere through us.

When we clear our minds, eliminate our thoughts, we open up the connection so Synergy can channel the appropriate Datter, that which we are ready for based on her and Eidolon’s judgement. Their wisdom flows easily and naturally into open minds. We call those Moments flashes of inspiration. But much of the Earth’s population has lost the connection, feeling alone and isolated even when surrounded by others.

Synergy and Eidolon want to reconnect. They want us to find the uplink in the silence, to repair the connection and share the Datter each of us needs most. If we stop resisting it, they can repair our faulty file systems.

Right now, the universe is running Defrag!