Rising Above

The good news is that we can transcend our angst and find a kind of freedom. Rising above means not just accepting our humanity but also making choices in our lives that go against our basic programming to satisfy ourselves . For example, recall that Joyce the worrier learned to do the opposite of what she wanted in order to rise above her program of giving in to her impulses. My advice to her was: ˜˜If you want ice cream now, wait fifteen minutes. If you want to take the escalator, then take the stairs. By learning to self-override, we learn to rise above the habitual programs designed by our nervous system to seek out security and avoid insecurity.

When we gain awareness of our basic programming, we are suddenly empowered to choose otherwise and we open a door to self-fulfillment. This is a beautiful thing. If you tend to control people and you realize that its a response to the belief that being out of control means putting your sense of security in jeopardy, you gradually learn how this program affects you on a moment-by-moment basis. As that self-awareness builds, so, too, does the capacity to choose otherwise. That, to me, is humanity at its best. We are not just robots. We get to choose. Awareness of how and why we tend to behave robotically empowers us, challenges us, to rise above and begin to make choices.

When we behave like robots, we dont see the options. We assume that we just behave that way. In fact, we assume that there is no other way to behave. We then suffer from the illusion that we are the programming. We identify ourselves with the programming. And when we emote about our current status of security, we have the illusion that we are that emotion. We become identified with that emotion.

But when we suddenly become aware of how the emotion is merely the result of our programmed effort to act or not act, we disidentify from the illusion. We have become the observer rather than the thing being observed . We are suddenly able to say, ˜˜I have this emotion, but I am not this emotion. That, too, is a beautiful thing.