“I can’t dance.”

“I only date older men.”

“I can’t seem to wake up early these days.”

“I’m a morning person.”

“I can’t start my day until I’ve had my coffee.”

“I can’t sing.”

“I’m a visual person.”

“Life is unfair.”

“I’m just an amateur.”

“Why do girls always like assholes?”

“Life is an adventure.”

“I must be getting old.”

“I’ve always been lucky.”

“I can eat whatever I want and never gain weight.”

“I’m addicted to chocolate.”

We all tell little stories about ourselves, to ourselves and to others. Sometimes we don’t even really “know” something about ourselves until we say it out loud. Usually, we tell these stories when we notice a pattern of experience. We might test out an observation in conversation or thought.

“Hmm, girls with family problems seem attracted to and comfortable around me.”

Then we draw a conclusion from it.

“Spiritual practice must be paying off for me. Chicks must be sensing my peaceful vibe. [pats self on back]“

This in turn, can shape how you experience reality.

“I must be more attractive now to girls who are seeking masculine calm and stability. See? If I smile at this girl, she smiles back.”

Beliefs Form Experience Form Beliefs

We form beliefs derived from observing our own experiences in the environment. This is another interpretation of our individual => socio-cultural environment feedback loop. For our purposes here, let’s think of it as the belief => experience feedback loop.

Now the experiences we observe and the patterns we draw from them are largely colored by our emotional state and deeply held core beliefs about ourselves and reality in general. There’s rarely anything objective about it. Our individual experiences are decidedly not a good representation of the experiences of the population at large.

For example, I go to a restaurant twice in a row and happen to get bad service both times. “Oh, that place sucks,” I tell my friends. But of course, my experience is not statistically significant in the least (you’d need a sample of certain number of people, at least 30 or so, I think). We cannot yet say with any reasonable degree of certainty if any other person there would be more or less likely to experience good service (this is a scientific 3rd person perspective). I also cannot say whether this your reality without asking you (2nd person).

Note that it doesn’t mean my experience is not valid. Far from it, it colors my unique perspective of reality. To me, that the restaurant offers bad service is near-fact in my unique vision of reality. But we must not confuse this 1st perspective reality by generalizing it to then say it is true for 2nd and 3rd person perspectives as well.

Stories Color Our Reality

To look at the first example again, I could just as easily interpret my meeting girls with family problems in a different way if I was in a more negative mood and had core beliefs consistent with lower self-worth or a more cynical outlook.

“Man, why do I always meet psychos with family problems?”

I would then have expectations of the next girl I meet to have some kind of emotional problems, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy as I look for them. (Note even the more positive conclusions drawn above are generalizations based more on my beliefs than a rational understanding of my experiences.)

Of course, we can never have perfect information (it might not even exist! that would mean there was an objective, i.e. trans-perspective not 3rd person, reality and I really ain’t sure about that). We must necessarily draw hasty and illogical conclusions formed into our stories to get on with our lives, hell, even to have personalities!

Then why should we care about the beliefs about and colors of our experiences? Well, there’s no reason to care if you’re content with the experiences you have. But becoming aware of these stories we tell ourselves, we can become masters of our own fates, directing our own narrative rather than having it direct us.

A master storyteller creates her own reality.

“I create my own reality.”

I like that story.

Why Is This Still Happening To Me?

In a previous article, I talked about the need to develop a new perspective in order to move beyond your current set of experiences and enjoy a new reality. Easier said than done, right? In this article, I’ll introduce a belief system that acts as a powerful spiritual guide for your own development, enabling you to continuously develop through new perspectives and personal realities.

Individual and Environment

There is a mutually influential feedback loop between an individual and her environment (see Individual and Socio-Cultural Environment in Synergy). The structure of the socio-cultural environment provides a set of beliefs and values (the culture) that shape the thoughts and feelings of an individual. The thoughts and feelings of an individual causes her to take action in her environment, effecting change within it and so on.

The individual shapes the environment and vice versa.

Which of these has the more powerful influence on the other, the individual or her environment? Most of us adopt the belief that we are victims of circumstance, shaped and shat upon by our environment. The question “Why is this happening to me” itself takes this stance; that one is powerless in the face of the overwhelming reality of one’s socio-economic circumstances, looks, skills or just plain luck. So, what can you do to change your life with this belief? Not very much. Wait to be “discovered”. Play the lottery. Hope your boss will give you a raise. Hope that girl over there makes eye contact with you. Good luck with that.

Complete Responsibility

Now, the opposite belief of being a victim of circumstance is that you are in control. You effect change in your environment. Take this to the extreme: You are completely responsible for everything you experience. Yeah. Everything. It is an incredibly empowering belief. Imagine, if you have created your entire meaningless and pitiful existence, then you have the power to create an entirely new, meaningful and exhilarating existence. Your life can be a work of beauty, with you as the artist. (This belief system also has the added benefit that it seems to be closest to the truth.)

There are also dark and difficult implications of this belief system, however. How can you be responsible if you are a victim of war, rape, torture? I’ve struggled to understand this and I’m afraid I have found no satisfying answer. But intuitively I believe that everything, every horrible thing imaginable, has a place in the Kosmos, otherwise it would not exist. Allowing the universe its dark mysteries, we employ this belief system not to blame victims, but to empower them to move beyond victimhood.

Everything has a place in the Kosmos, maybe even you!

Beliefs

So we are completely responsible for our reality. But what are our tools? How do we shape our brave new world? The same way we created our current reality: with our thoughts and beliefs. Our beliefs are the single most powerful way we understand reality. We literally cannot perceive anything that does not exist within our belief systems. Another way to look at it is that we create our reality through our beliefs. (For more on how are beliefs shape our reality, see The Nature of Personal Reality)

You’re lazy because you believe you are lazy. You’re a night person because you believe you’re a night person. You’re fat because you believe you’re fat. You’re not creative because you believe you’re not creative. You’re sick because you believe you’re sick. And so on. Then to grow, we Just need to throw out limiting beliefs and adopt empowering ones. It really is that simple. But it’s not always so easy, is it?

Present Reality Reinforces Old Beliefs

Any self-development program or deep practice you embark on starts with the belief that you can grow or change. But then, after a few weeks you’re off your diet, back to your smokes, your daily dream journal gathering dust, whatever it is. Why does this always happen, huh? Because your environment provides more negative reinforcement than the power of positive thinking that got you started. And you believe more in your environment and your limiting beliefs than your empowering ones.

Your current reality is continually reinforced by your environment (it’s hard to Think and Grow Rich when you’re surrounded by reminders of your poverty), your friends and family (they have expectations of you to be consistent with your past behavior), and most of all your own patterns of thoughts and beliefs.

Two Months

Actor Vincent Regan (the Captain) during his 1st week of training for 300 at Gym Jones

As a friend in the pick-up community once related to me, it takes two months of practice or work (on your mind or body) before you see results. So the body and mind you have now is the result of what you were doing two months ago. Conversely, whatever you are doing now shapes who you’ll be in a couple months.

Vincent after 8 weeks of training for 300 at Gym Jones

Identity-Level Change

Have you ever worked on changing yourself or starting a new practice for more than two months? When you do, you start to identify with your new practice, it becomes part of you. After more than two years of training, I now strongly identify myself with the martial art that I do, Gicheonmun. I invariably mention it when new acquaintances ask about my work and play. This identification keeps me strongly motivated to continue training at least a few times a week, even when I’d rather just sit on my ass.

Your Whole Self

Now wouldn’t it be great if you could harness the motivation of identity-level change before you’d even changed? Why yes, yes it would. This is exactly what creating the belief in your Whole Self gives you.

Your Whole Self is you beyond space and time. Your spiritual energy as it is manifested at any point in space-time up until its ultimate perfection (or wholeness). Your Whole Self is your spiritual guide. It shows you slices of your potential future selves (and all possibilities are open).

To effect change in yourself now, you simply awaken your imagination to who you want to be at some point in the future. Your Whole Self will tell you what you need to do now to realize that future self as you imagine it. Your Whole Self speaks to you through your intuition and you tell it what you want through your imagination.

As your body and your circumstances now are the result of your past actions, so too are your present actions manifested in the future. Your Whole Self tells you what actions to take to manifest the future self that you want. If you are in touch with your Whole Self, you will always know what to do (”right action”, as the sages call it) to stay on the right path.

Your Whole Self is your self existing throughout space-time, whole and perfect (cover art to Cynic's Focus album by Robert Venosa)

A Taste

I discovered my Whole Self while meditating last week. While doing the meditation exercise my master had given me, I became aware of the physical character of my thoughts, and the thought-like character of my actions, all intertwined. I realized I could project my own reality, my future self, to guide me. Since then, I often imagine a future self walking within me or in front of me. A real potential being present as energy. Me, but more confident and vibrant, taller and more fit, completely healthy and wearing a nicer outfit ( ). He laughs with me, remembering the silly mistakes he made along the way that I’m making now, and is incredibly patient and compassionate. Knowing that there already is a “you” who has accomplished what you want to accomplish, and is what you want to become, is incredibly liberating and empowering. You need but follow the path of “right action”.

This article is a taste meant to introduce the Whole Self. I’m sure I’ll probably be writing a lot more about the Whole Self as I come to understand more about it.