Human By Choice IV: The Precious Intent Behind All Experience
"Man is of good intent. When you see evil everywhere in man’s intent — in your own actions and those of others — then you set yourself up against your own existence, and that of your kind."
– Seth (channeled by Jane Roberts)
All human beings are doing the best they can with the information they have. Across time, and through all spaces and ages. This is a big frame to entertain. After all, with so much war, famine, illness, murder, and crime occurring in the world, it can be hard to relate to any of those occurrences as having a positive intention. Especially when someone in is in so much pain and suffering.
However, this is a frame we shall engage in relating to others’ experiences, and our own. I am not asserting it as universal truth. I am suggesting we hold it as if it were truth, for the relief it can offer us and many others, who may have instinctively turned against themselves and life, in an unworkable attempt to have things be better in life. You often hear phrases in the performance coaching and self-help industry such as:
“You just need to make better choices in life to get what you want!”
“Let me help you become the best version of yourself.”
While the communication of the afore-statements is done with a positive motivational intent, one to better the lives of the ones reading it, these forms of communication are violating to the individual. Because everyone is already the best version of themselves, and they already are making the best choices they can with the options they have available on their life’s menu.
There is no better version of themselves. Or yourself, for that matter. You already are the best version of you. And, that best version can continue becoming in ways that include more choice and experience. “Better” is presupposed. With more choices, we automatically will reach for what we consider better. Period.
Let’s go back to the example of the gentleman who finds himself stuck with narcissistic, mean, and unpredictable bosses. Let’s fast backward in time to gain insight as to how he has stabilized that repeating experience in his professional life.
To illustrate, he might have grown up in a single household where his father was never around, and always in the public’s eye instead. Enjoying his publicity and fame, he might have little to no attention for his son or his wife (the gentleman’s mother).
At home, his mother may have felt neglected, neither seen, held, nor soothed. To deal with her sporadic bursts of self-rage and deep dissatisfaction with her existence, she might struggle with an addiction to alcohol. She says one thing and does another, generally communicating non-predictable cause and effect behavior to her son. She too has little attention or energy to care for her son in a safer and more secure way.
She of course, loves her son. Deep inside. It is hard to sense. But we’ll get to that soon. Back to the example. So as a result, the boy grows up feeling abandoned, neglected, unsafe, and responsible for maturing beyond his years. The world he grew up was unpredictable and insecure. His response was to do anything he could to bring order and organization. For both himself, and for his mother. This was his solution.
Inevitably, he becomes over-parentified at an early age. He takes on the burden of being a caretaker for mum; cleaning up her bottles of beer, paying the bills, and putting a blanket over her after she has passed out on the couch.
Because of never having consistent cause and effect behavior mirrored to him from a young age, this young child become a prodigy at hypervigilance, paying attention to any forms of variation in his environment and in his mother’s behavior. The intended positive? He can respond properly since any following occurrence can be a threat. The command that is programmed deep into his psyche is something to the likes of:
Everything must be perfectly in place.
It is up to me to guarantee this.
Our dear life depends on this.
Notice then, that the older gentleman the boy grew up to become; hypervigilant and a perfectionist. Notice how hard it is for him to listen to others who might tell him to “relax” and “you don’t need things to be perfect all the time.” Sure, the adult version of him probably recognizes this. However, the little one is running that for dear life. And he does so with great positive intention to keep himself intact, and to keep mum in enough tact with the hope that mum won’t need to be so crazy drunk one day.
The experiences he learned to survive became the experiences that continued survival depended. Hence his reptile brain picked out a perfect boss to help remind him of being neglected and unjustly treated. The gentleman is truly doing the best he can with what he has. He can’t help it. And behind all the behavior that seems to diminish his well-being, we can see that those behaviors provide adequate safety and hope to the young version of him, including the hope to have things be better for his mother.
But what about his mother? What was her Intended Positive Outcome (IPO)? It is much easier of course, to cast judgement on her alcoholic behavior and neglect of her son:
“She’s a terrible mother!”
“She should know better! She should spend the money on taking care of herself and her kid!”
“Poor son. And god bless him! He’s doing a great job caring for mum!”
But in holding the presupposition that her action has a positive intention behind it, the natural form of inquiry that arises is:
What “worse thing” did mum fear might happen
if she didn’t leave the house and get drunk?
Perhaps mum feared she might get violent, hit her child for no apparent reason, and potentially be a child murderer. Her way of dealing with her sporadic bursts uncontrollable rage was to numb and dumb herself enough with alcohol to make sure she had little volition to physically damage her son.
Of course, there are better ways to control and express anger than relying on alcohol. But for this mother, her perfect but expired solution, was to numb herself to avoid her rage and to control her violent tendencies. It’s unlikely that this mother grew up in a well-to-do household where she felt she had any control, where the communication she got from her caretakers was that the world is a friendly place full of possibility. Not at all.
Likely, she directed the violence and rage internally to herself, as to not lash out and become just like her parents. Her survival mechanism and attempt to preserve her humanity was to self-disable her being as much as she could possible bear. And these early versions of herself are working hard to preserve their sacred intention. Hence repeating the situation over again with a loving intention to preserve life. She is running a perfect solution that has expired. And one that has an intended positive outcome.
Growing up, the information we have is limited by the nature of our human neurology. At an early age, we are taught to delete, distort, and generalize the infinite amount of information we receive (pictures, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings) so that we can more easily function in physical reality. This is a necessary convenience for the human construct. It helps us manage information overload. And by generalizing, we can keep ourselves doing safe things without thinking.
For example, not touching a hot stove because you will get burned. It would be far too troublesome to consciously figure that out every time you come into vicinity of a hot object. Our brains help us out by generalizing that touching hot objects with our bare hands is not a good idea.
Let’s return to the mother having her experience. When we recognize her efforts to protect her child, there is a greater compassion and appreciation for the way she has perfectly constructed her experience. This creates a space that allows for revision.
Imagine having a similar experience, and having a person approach you, holding true compassion and appreciation for the experience in life you are beating yourself up over. Likely, you would feel safe enough to learn the same compassion for yourself.
When we can learn to respect the aspects of us who are working so hard for us in their own loving way–it allows for a dialogue to occur that helps revise the experience. It diffuses the charge, and allows seemingly conflicting aspects of us to work together towards a better solution.
But what about the father? How is he doing the best he can? Why isn’t he ever home? Doesn’t he care about his son? Doesn’t he even care about his wife?
Go back in time, and it was likely he was neglected: never seen, cared for, or provided. And if he tried to be a little one, he would be violently abused. His best strategy growing up might have been to avoid his parents altogether. That love is best and safest from a distance.
To seek connection, to seek significance, and to achieve anything remarkable close to validation—that father probably went out in the world asserting his presence from a very young age. He probably became charismatic, influential, and talented beyond his years. But going home for this man, is like revisiting the pain that almost crippled his heart and humanity.
There’s always a positive intention. Man is of good intent. When we presuppose that we connect with the heart that resides in All. Everyone is doing the best they can with the experience they have. In the example I have provided, mother, father, and son, are all reaching for the best-feeling option on their menu, and expressing a certain set of behaviors that come from them.
That’s not to say that their behaviors are okay. Not at all. It is simply to recognize that their behaviors are the best available expressions on their menu. Whatever we experience, whatever other people are experiencing, and the behaviors that come with those experiences: we all come by them honestly.
Notice for the mother, how much better numb and dumb is than violating rage and vengeance.
Notice for the father, how much being distant and feeling disconnected, is much better than the terror and agony of physical abuse from his caretakers.
And for the gentleman who is being hypervigilant and suffering significant amounts of stress and anxiety, notice how much that is much better than the imagined (and hence real) experience of retroactive death.
Their attentions and intentions are preoccupied with stabilizing these experiences and behaviors that have long out-lived their use. The intended positive outcome frame enables us (and humanity) to understand that we create our experience, and that as human beings, we are sincerely doing the best we can with the information we have. As Carl Buchheit asserts: “The present state is always better than what it replaced.”
Appreciating those experiences and behaviors as so, empowers us to progress as human beings through trial and error. These mechanisms support this fascinating function in this universe called learning. The all-knowing beings do not have this in their domain. But as humans, we do. That is part of our distinction. That is wholly our dignity as creatures who learn via a feedback function of:
Try something out.
Notice what happens.
Take what is given.
Choose again.
It is my belief that holding the positive intention as true is a great mechanism by which a human being can reconcile with the war within. After all, how often do we try to end the war within by starting a war with another aspect of ourselves?
“I should be doing this … that other thing I did was just wrong!”
“Why am I such an idiot?!? I just wish I would stop doing that!!”
“I’m going to get over my shit, and crush my excuses!”
“I’m going to force and grind my negative thoughts to a pulp so I may be positive about life!”
All these thoughts form part of the positive intention function in life. Rather than separating and suppressing them, it is wiser to give them a space in your heart for the positive intention they hold. If there was a formal path to Self-unification, I believe this would be it.
So, there you are, having an experience you no longer want to have, that is unlikely to linger and stay as you journey with this text more and more. Now, try if you may, and speak to the parts of you creating that undesirable experience you are having, and say, “Thank you for the positive intention you have for me, and the many ways you have been working tirelessly to serve me.” Notice how much easier it is to breathe right now, knowing that every experience is there to serve you.
Take a breath. Relax a little more than you already are. Now I’d like you to step into that younger version of yourself.
Breathe through that younger version’s little lungs, and sync up with this little one’s heart. Place your fingers in this younger version’s finger slots. And breathe.
I wonder what you can now notice that is going on. What pictures, sounds, and feelings are arising? And notice that you are better sensing what this little version of you is most paying attention to—especially since you are fully in this little one’s experience.
And as you breathe, and feel into the deeper aspect of this little version of you, take a log of what this little one is so dedicated to protecting you from.
Got it? Nicely done. Keep on breathe-in now.
Now in the way you can, offer apologies for anything painful this little one is going through. And let’s take a moment to appreciate the job this little one has done so perfectly.
Thank you.
Step out of that younger one, and come back to you now. The one who has all the choice-making authority now. And keep the little one in that location you have chosen—to the top left of your field of vision. And as you take a breath … wiggle your feet, and shake your hands.
Nicely done.
Let’s take a little breather now. In …. and out. In …. and out. Noticing how much everything you are going through is coming together nicely now. That’s right.
In the way you can, take even deeper breaths in and out. And as you do … relaxing a little more. There is always more relax to be having now. Sinking deeply into the seat of this you now that has all the choice-making authority.
And notice that the more you are sitting here, how comfortably it feels like a pair of well-worn shoes.