The New Land

Everything has a beginning and ending, everything is also always existing; never beginning or ending. This is the duality of life.

We imagine all day but the process isn't complete without action. Imagination is a safe place, there is no way for your ideas to be questioned or put down. The ego is free to live unquestioned. There is no opportunity for true growth because the real challenge, which stems growth, comes when these ideas are put to the test.

If this is understood, then we can proceed.

The average person "sheep" gets stuck in someone else's manifestation of an idea. We are all sheep depending on the perspective you are looking. From God's perspective, it doesn't matter how far you excel in your physical/spiritual walk, you will always be the sheep to him. This understanding is what allows us to excel to any imaginable place. Allowing yourself to believe in the collective/god/universe, which works independently of you, gives you faith in what is attainable. It's like having an absolute value in an equation; the absolute value allows for an infinite assimilation of equations and solutions, from which you must chose to continue this process of discovery/growth.

Our mind is parallel to this equation structure/process. The new land our mind enters into when presented a new experience is where we start to build the equations.

This new land could mean; a new idea you want to expand on, a new relationship you want to learn more about, a new "lofty" goal you want to commit to, an old relationship you may want to depart from, anything that challenges you towards growth. Like the soil that weighs on the seed, or the cocoon that confines the caterpillar, in order to grow we must break from it or we die.

Explorer & Conqueror

Being the herder of your own mind is key to progress. There is never a point at which we reach the pinnacle of awareness or understanding. Enlightenment itself is an amebic existence, always transforming and morphing. Stagnation in any way of existence is the opposite of awareness. This can be stagnation in a way of thinking or living. When I speak on stagnation, I don't speak against standing still, stagnation is an extended amount of standing still; a festering, a rotting. (again, I speak on the balance of life, not the extremities).

When we go into this new land, as an explorer there is a way of existing in the chaos that must happen before you reach some sort of resolution within yourself.

"Roll with the punches" - as they say

The treacherous journey through all the brush, mud, and beasts must be accomplished before reaching the gold.

As we go through the anxiety, tears, anger, pain, sadness, happiness, loss, gain, we are collecting data, subconsciously or consciously. This data we collect (equation) we are using to build the frame work of our truth.

Our Truth

I don't believe many people grasp the concept of "your truth". If we imagine every human soul as a unique pare of glasses, no one can ever be another pare of glasses except their own.

If we can place this analogy on every circumstance, we may be able to live a more focused life. You wouldn't be so concerned about the why, how , or what of another individuals life because at the end of the day you can ONLY IMAGINE what their life is like. You would also be doing much more self reflecting rather than projecting.

Projection : is a defense mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others.

- Wikipedia

The building of our truth is like building the first house on this new land. As we gather the brick and mortar we imagine what the structure will be like.

Structure

The foundation/ structure of a building is the most important part, if you are concerned about longevity (eventually it will fall like every foundation, but the longer it lasts, the better).

When we speak on the structure of our mind or out truths, we speak on understanding. If we want the brick and mortar, instead of straw and mud, we must work harder and longer. This goes hand in hand with mental work as well. We all go through cycles in our conscious mind and the more we are able to labour through them, the stronger we come out of them.

Let's use an example;

Say you are in a relationship and your significant other points out something that you do that really effects them negatively, maybe a bad habit. You have never noticed it before, so you may get defensive at first (ego), but if you love and care about this individual, you will reflect (awareness).

[this scenario is based of the assumption that this is a healthy relationship where each individual promotes growth in the other. --> rejection of projection]

This reflection is when you stumble upon the new land. If we were to narrow it down, there are two ways of going about this;

1. Allowing yourself to go through the toil, time, sweat, and tears it takes to gain this new way of understanding (brick & mortar) yourself in order to transform for the health of your self and the person you love. An understanding that lasts, a truth - this is the foundation.

2. Recognizing this pain but not committing enough attention or care to it, (maybe because you have not yet enough practice in the pursuit of ego death). This can consist of brushing it off with a kiss, a hug, some sweet words (straw & mud) because the desire to be back to normal becomes more essential than committing to long term healing within the dynamic. The reason this is so, is because it hurts. You feel it in your heart, you may call it anxiety, or something else. ITS NOT EASY.

This scenario can be applied across the board, instead of hugs and kisses, the distraction can be; food, video games, tv, work, partying, drugs, alcohol, any and everything can be used as a distraction, don't be fooled.

Which way you decide to go about building you structure will determine how frequently you must mentally toil. (Longevity)

Individuation

At the end of the day I see this continuous process, of exploration and conquering, as individuation. This is a jungian term, used to describe the ever active cycle of the conscious and unconscious mind interacting.

As the individual is not just a single, separate being, but by his very existence presupposes a collective relationship, it follows that the process of individuation must lead to more intense and broader collective relationships and not to isolation.[“Definitions,” CW 6, par. 758.]

Individuation does not shut one out from the world, but gathers the world to itself. [“On the Nature of the Psyche,” CW 8, par. 432.]

Individuation has two principle aspects: in the first place it is an internal and subjective process of integration, and in the second it is an equally indispensable process of objective relationship. Neither can exist without the other, although sometimes the one and sometimes the other predominates. [“The Psychology of the Transference,” CW 16, par. 448.]

Here are a few references you can find at https://frithluton.com/articles/individuation/

Individuation is about building a relationship with the subconscious and the conscious. You can think of the subconscious as the dream state and the conscious as the the day to day thoughts. These two basic opposites is what runs our entire awareness. This ever present friction is what makes up existence entirely. Even in extremities you can never fully extract the opposite.

Intruders

The biggest struggle for me when living as my truth, and finding the conscious and unconscious balance, is warding off intruders. Intruders can be any and everyone. Any one who takes away from the structure you have built. There is a basic exchange that we have with any person outside ourselves and this is the give and take of any interaction. With any initial introduction, there is very little give or take from either individual because naturally, we don't want to be responsible for someone we just met. This responsibility comes when some one receives or gives more information beyond "the weather was great today". Something more like "where did you grow up". There is a gradual (depending on the connection) build up of information that leads into either, having a relationship of any kind, or deciding that there can't be a relationship (due to in-cohesiveness). The in-cohesiveness is decided based upon whether there is an equal exchange of give and take within the dynamic.

This process is ever changing as you change individually. The people or person(s) whom you decide to keep next to you are the ones who you have trusted enough to impact your decisions or perspective (depending on the desires and visions for your life, this circle becomes much smaller). For me, I have many goals, dreams, and desires for my life that I only have room enough for the opinion of my family and my husband. This is the life I chose to live.

Depending on what your vision is for your life determines how much weight you can carry to the "top" (your goal(s)).

Analogy:

If you are a rock climber, and you are deciding to climb the highest mountain that ever existed, you don't want to bring the same baggage along that you would bring for a small climb. You have to be more intentional about what you are carrying and every piece of equipment you do carry already has a specific purpose in mind before starting the journey. You may even have to get rid of more baggage along the way as you gain more awareness of what the journey entails (and you can only do this once you start). Some of these items might be a great loss depending on how it has served you in the past.

This analogy is extremely parallel to your walk of life, depending on the rate at which you are moving through your journey (which depends on the goal: aka: highest mountain) you will be letting go/and/or losing a lot quicker than someone else who's goal might just be to climb the hill or the 100 ft mountain. This doesn't make you better or worse, this makes your journey unique. So when you see your peers/friends/family/idols doing something different, or disagreeing with they way you are doing what your doing, just remember to focus on your goal, because they aren't aware of the mountain you are about to climb (just as you are not of theirs) and it's life or death for you if you don't do it the way you know how.

Don't allow the bystander to become the intruder. You know what tools you have on hand that will get you to the top of that mountain, trust them and also know that you may need to let some go along the way.

Everything serves a purpose

Take on this perspective and you will go everywhere you are supposed to go. Once you can take on this perspective, you become aligned with the collective/God. It's hard to grasp the purpose of some things, but have faith, all things will be understood in time. Sometimes the understanding is merely an acceptance.

So as you continually discover new land, remember that Rome wasn't built in a day and even after it was built, it didn't stop there.