(More) on perceptual filters

We are wired to gauge the “rightness” of something by how good it makes us feel.  This is not always what we should use to measure the rightness of an action or path.  Please understand, I am not saying we should ignore feelings that indicate something is wrong.  We should not do that.

However, we might be taking the right action at the right time and it doesn’t necessarily feel good.  Feeling good is a perceptual filter.  If we use our wisdom (our own wisdom) we might benefit from some investigation about the value of an action or experience if we look beyond the feeling state it engenders.  The feeling state might be an old habit.  The action or experience might be something beyond the known. And perfect for us right now.

The “woman” filter: Use it, don’t be used by it

This isn’t a post about whether gender is a matter of conditioning.  Or whether it exists at all.  This is a post about the old-fashioned issue of our societal conditioning as women.  And how that conditioning, like all conditioning, becomes a perceptual filter.

Yes, it becomes psychology and behavior and culture too.  But at it’s root, it is a series of beliefs, which create a perceptual filter.  And that filter lives and breathes in each individual.

I find it useful to be aware of the filter, how it operates in my psyche and, in turn, my life.  But I am cautious:  it is double-edged and I know it.   It acts subtly to increase my sense of separation and, ironically, instead of freeing my mind, intensifies the feeling of being a victim, of being less-than.

When I am perceiving and maybe acting out of society’s ideas or mandates about how to be a “good female,” it helps me to be aware of those tensions, so I can make different choices.  But I focus on the other ingredients mixing around in the mindset.  Things like: “I am woman, I am this, you treat me like that, you are that, you have always treated me like this, look what you did, it will always be this way.”  No. I do not welcome that. That is a prison.  I let it go.

Use the filter.  Do not be used by it.

Frequency Matters

Everything has a frequency.  Visible objects have a frequency as do inner states, which are not visible.  What does the frequency of anger feel like?  What does the frequency of joy feel like?

Inner states may lead to actions or they may not.  Actions are, of course, important and there should be harmony between inner state and outer actions.  However, your inner state comes first.  It is the most important.  It is the point of power; the pivot of creation.