[Perna]

You know how some people, when they lose a parent or spouse or child, someone really meaningful to them in whom they've invested a lot of themselves says, "I can't live without" this person and seems to get stuck with that belief? In natural grief people move "through" the grief and out the other side but I think some people have trouble doing that because they don't know themselves well enough to know they'll make it through the other side. Because they don't "know" they'll make it, they look towards and cling to the deceased person who can't help them anymore. They focus toward the wrong direction. If they look at it coldly/logically and admit the person is dead and can't "help" them further by "being" part of them and that they themselves don't feel good enough about themselves to get further, the problem can shift to learning about one's self and changing one's self so one can see one's self and all one's facets (including the role of the deaceased person) instead of just the other person "out there."

So I'm thinking about "belief" and how my stepmother and therapist (two different people, one abusive and one helpful) use to claim that if she said the sky was "blue" I'd say it was "green." For me, the sky can be "green" and that's equally as valid and true as it being "blue." Whether I say I can-live-without someone or cannot-live-without someone are both (whichever) true for ME and that's all there is. It's just that some beliefs and ideas to persue are more "useful" than others.

If I'm psychotic and say "I am God," that's true for me at that time. I just read the book, Mercy Unbound http://www.amazon.com/Mercy-Unbound-.../dp/1416908935 about a girl with anorexia who was saying she didn't have anorexia, she was an angel and angels didn't need to eat. Obviously her parents got her help, not necessarily because she said she was an angel, but because she wasn't eating. A psychotic (or other person with "belief" problems) isn't necessarily being treated for their beliefs per se but because of how they relate to the world. If someone's beliefs hamper their being able to care for themselves (or others like children under their care), then those beliefs aren't useful. The sky is blue/the sky is green doesn't hamper me in any way except "personally" since the majority of people around me see the sky as blue. But that doesn't mean it IS blue, that's just common belief and is wholly "made up." Everyone looked up one day and decided (pointing up) to label that color "blue." I wasn't there or I would have convinced them to label it green :-)

So, anytime you're stuck, realize it's your beliefs that can get your stuck and arbitrarily decide to look at an "opposite" belief and see if you can't get unstuck. If you're facing someone you can't-live-without, decide to face yourself/the other direction instead and find out what that looks like, why everyone ELSE says you're intelligent, kind, creative, stubborn, lazy, whatever. Shifting your beliefs can shift your focus and get you unstuck. I'm reminded of when I was a kid and use to climb up on top of my dresser and look at my room that way. It's arbitrary convention that things are "agreed" upon and there's no police that can "make" you believe one thing or another. But you can decided to believe one thing or another -- there's no Truth higher than you saying, "The sky is blue."

[(JD)]

Absolutely. Cognitive Behavior Therapy works on this premise, that it's our cognitive distortions that help create our world, good or bad.

TC!

[moodyblu]

I can agree with a bit of that. I feel that we can also become somewhat stubborn and set in our ways...in particular...with old age. That's more of a natural thing though and not necessarily a mental health issue. If we are not willing to accept change in our lives...or be concious of difference and our reaction to it...it can be detrimental to our spiritual growth. Whatever faith.
I have a serious problem...of course... with any belief whose cause would be to harm one's self or other individuals. I'm tearfully reminded of this daily on the evening news.I'm absolutely certain that it is NOT ordained by a loving God. Whatever faith. The so called "concious" reasoning behind a harmful act has to be questioned...always.
m.b.

[Perna]

True, Moodyblu. I try to ask myself "is that the sort of person you want to become?" when I'm not sure of any action and am slow to apologize or see when I've been wrong :-)

But everyone gets to decide for themselves. I don't believe a person is necessarily "better" than some other living thing, don't want children OR animals abused. But, for me, if I had to choose between my pet's life and the life of an animal in a shelter, I'd choose my pet. If I had to choose between my child and a child in another country, I'd choose my child and if I had to choose between some little old lady's pet, her only companion in the world, and some other child in another country, I could easily end up choosing the pet, especially if the little old lady was my grandmother? We make choices like that daily, often without even thinking about it; we can't "save" everyone. Who/what was your last charitable instution you gave to; I can name 10 you didn't give to that I'd consider "better"?

I can decide to put someone else's life before mine but that could end my life. And, since I'm only alive once, while I'm in this world I think I'm supposed to look after "Me" first for that reason. I only get one choice/opportunity to die but might be able to choose many ways to "help" another if I want but only if it "benefits" me. If I want to be my definition of a "good" person, living under my green sky :-) then I'm going to choose to help others, that is useful to me and benefits me, makes me feel good.

But I can't judge what another does because I am not part of their "world." I can try to stop someone from robbing or killing me and mine but take a "simple" war where you have one "thing" that two people want. Solomon acted like he was going to cut the child in two and when the "true" mother said no, give the child to the other woman, Solomon knew she was the mother because she was acting to preserve the child. But that doesn't always work, sometimes it is all right to divide the "thing" and sometimes it isn't. But most of us aren't as wise as Solomon and sometimes the child gets cut in two/killed or given to the "wrong" mother. And merely 2 people wanting 1 "thing" and Solomon's case are very very simplistic and we don't have that either/ever. Nowadays it's easy to get into a double bind without trying, "Have you quit beating your wife?" you can't win because the other person "believes" you have been beating your wife, doesn't "know" if that's true or not, is just the information they've been given. It's not a malicious situation, deliberately designed to hurt, just not the right information behind the belief and there's no way one can see that.

I didn't really know any black individuals until I was in college. I did not have the "right"/enough personal information/experience. I had been raised/told certain things but it wasn't until after I met black individuals myself that I knew whether what I had been told was true or false. Was I a bad person before college for thinking I knew X about blacks? I was in college 1968-1972. My mother/grandmother, who knew no blacks was in a large city during looting at that time and all the looters were black. Looting/stealing is "harmful" to others but so is oppression and ignorance. But I can't really judge either side because I don't know THAT looter's life/history/belief system OR the oppressor's/ignorant person's. The Bible/Proverbs says, "Raise a child up in the way that he should go. . ." but that's in almost all Holy books only "the way" is defined/believed differently. Lots of Muslims are raising children to hate Americans. I don't have their life/history/belief system so I can't really judge them, I can only stop them from trying to kill Me because that's my "job" in being alive. I'm alive and am supposed to stay alive as long as possible and be the best Perna I can be based on my life/history/background/belief system :-)

I can't judge Muslim "holy warriors" anymore than I can judge Roman Catholic Spanish Inquisitors. Do you know the very real/very plausible theory about the Fall of the Roman Empire being caused by the Christians? You don't have any Christian "generals" who know how to fight Barbarians so the Barbarians came and "knocked" on the door of Rome and all the Romans could do anymore was try to give them money but eventually that wasn't enough. Europe had the so-called "dark ages" and if it weren't for the Arabs/Moslims, we would have lost European culture entirely. They preserved in in their libraries since the Christians burnt down and destroyed all the Roman/Greek, etc. ones. I "believe" the Christians of that time were "wrong" in their beliefs but I can't judge them because I wasn't there and it's not "my" world. I can never been anyone else besides myself. That being true, I believe I should concentrate on that Self and giving it the beliefs I "want"/that are most useful to me.