We live in a time when attention spans are shrinking while demands on our emotions are accelerating at ever increasing rates. The media that once brought us news now seems determined to interpret it, forcing us to take sides rather than come to understanding. This growing white noise of conflict threatens to overwhelm our ability to find peace of mind. How can we clear away the unnecessary clutter and help ourselves, and others lead lives of true contentment and continuing growth? The answer to this question is found in a remarkable new book, Beyond Help, by Dr. Camaron J. Thomas. It is a breakthrough guide that shows us, step by step, how we can help ourselves and others become better human beings in a dehumanizing world. Thomas' text is profound yet easy to grasp and richly illustrated by examples taken from her long experience as a professional mediator. It leads the reader through the challenges and pitfalls of self-perception to the heights of the abiding presence; showing us how to cast debilitating baggage aside along the way so we can rise to our fullest potential. Beyond Help breaks the mold of self-help publications by empowering rather than manipulating the reader. It is a lifeline to anyone struggling to evolve in the turbulent waters racing beneath the surface of today's social network.
Beyond Help
A Breakthrough View Of How We Help Ourselves and OthersBy Camaron J. ThomasAuthorHouse
Copyright © 2011 Camaron J. Thomas, Ph.D.
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4634-3283-6Contents
Introduction..................................................xiii1. A Thinking Self............................................32. The One That Knows and Needs...............................133. Needing Conflict to Survive................................294. How Conflict and Help ... are the same.....................475. Is All Help Broken?........................................616. "Help" On a Social Scale...................................777. Right on the Cusp..........................................1118. From the Heart and Then Some...............................1259. How We Help in Presence....................................14310. An Abiding Presence.......................................171Epilogue......................................................187List of References............................................195Index.........................................................203
Chapter One
A Thinking Self
We live in a constant state of conflict with ourselves, with others, and with what is. We don't see it because it feels normal; we've grown accustom to it. We wake up, weigh-in, check for wrinkles or gray hairs, and our spirit sinks. Or we recall the argument from last night; the things we didn't mean but said with gusto. Or we remember it's Monday and we have to go to work; it's cold and grey outside, and need to hit the gym before dinner ...
Worse still, our world is nestled in a much larger one that seems to be running amuck. Law-abiding citizens are finding it makes more sense to walk away from a mortgage contract then to pay it. Adult children are flocking home because they simply cannot make it on their own. Entire states are thinking about filing for bankruptcy. Global warming, long term health insurance, and spending cuts have become everyday topics of conversation ... just as our commitment to civil discourse has all but disappeared. And we haven't even touched on world affairs.
We blame this condition on all sorts of things: bad parenting, a lackluster education system, the erosion of moral values; fewer people attending church, a rise in violence, the decline of the family unit, an unrestrained media. At times, it can feel like we're beyond help. But this is a hopeful sign: the fact that so many structures are crumbling is pointing to what's wrong and to the way out. We only have to look at the situation more deeply ...
In our heart of hearts, we each think we're somebody - and therein lies the problem.
Contracting Into a "Me"
Most of us were taught we evolve as human beings. We start with certain personal aptitudes and universal capacities, innate abilities and gifts, a given temperament, and we grow from there. We acquire language and, to a lesser or greater extent, the skills to communicate. We learn to navigate a family situation and over time, increasingly larger and more complex social settings. We accumulate knowledge and experience, to varying degrees and over differing lengths of time. We learn to maneuver in a society of expectations and a culture of rules and opportunities.
There is however, another point of view. We can be seen as condensing into our present form: from a state of pure energy which contains all possible configurations, we shrink down into this body and this mind. From there, the contraction continues: from the full breadth of all the possible ways we could be, we condense down into this particular person with its own thoughts, emotions, fears, and desires (See Yogic Sciences, Kashmir Shaivism; See also Shantananda, Easwaran, and Frawley).
You can imagine pure energy as infinite potential, brimming with every conceivable outcome, capable of manifesting any shape, form, thought, or entity. Then it contracts into a particular body and a particular mind. A body that loves to run, makes varsity track, has no sense of rhythm and consequently, can't dance, has a weakness in its back muscles which slowly becomes chronic ... maybe condensing further to a body that used to run, grows heavy and lethargic, and tires on an up-hill climb.
The mind follows a similar contracting pattern. We start as an open slate of abundant possibilities and step-by-step, we create a self ... a person-self. The person-self is our slice of the infinite breadth of possibilities ... the one that's known as "me". It's comprised of all the thoughts, associated emotional states and behavioral patterns we repeat most frequently, the ones we identify with. It embodies our temperament, moods, beliefs, values, opinions, needs, feelings, mannerisms and reactions. We also share a set of deeply conditioned collective patterns with our fellow beings; among them,
• An underlying feeling of uncertainty;
• The tendency to compare people and things;
• A viewpoint that tends to be dualistic; and,
• A nagging sense of discontent.
This person-self has a voice. It's the voice in our head and a tool for expression. The voice speaks the mind. It interprets our external experience and narrates our moment-to-moment inner world. It tells us what we think and often conveys that thought out-loud, and gives expression to the repetitive ways we think, feel, and behave. But it also talks to us: reaffirming, rationalizing, analyzing, explaining, labeling, questioning, and reiterating our reality. The once abounding pure energy is more limited now: it's compressed into a distinct being where experience is processed in a very personal way.
From this point of view, we live life as a person-self, a mental image of who we think we are. Our patterned ways of being harden down from use and become automatic; or as some say, as we grow, we grow more so. The future becomes defined by what has come before. We anticipate, experience, and react to life in a fixed way, shaped by the past. So "I" am as I've always been ... which leads to such comments as, "Well, you know me," "That's just how I am," "I have to be true to myself," or "I'm standing on principle here." It's all a process of contraction.
These two points of view are not contradictory. When we live as a person-self, we still continue to accumulate knowledge, only of a more limited kind: book knowledge, individualized experience, relational skills, and navigational tools. What distinguishes the two views is the sense of direction: one sees the person-self as an expanding experience, the other as a condensing one. The former sees the person-self as the goal; the latter sees it as a step. Yet even while we're condensing, we still have pure energy, the supply of infinite potential, at our disposal:
[We have] the whole room, and we limit ourselves to the one tiny portion of it where we have "spun" our own creation.... We perceive some objects and not others ... make associations with our past experiences, and so we invest our perceptions with our own meanings ... This, then, becomes our world ... We have no other (Shantananda, 2003, p. 76).
Of all the possible realities, we shrink down to one – mine - and a habituated collection of thoughts, feelings, and actions we repeat over and over again.
We Each Have a Story to Tell
Every person-self has a story to tell. It's the story of "me". Our story is the running...
