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Cognitive
and Reality Therapy
Article:
Grave
Results
from the Omission of Gravity in the Salute and Pledge of Allegiance
Applied Ecopsychology: the
science of increasing personal, social and environmental well-being
Reality and Cognitive Therapy: Grave Results from the Omission of Gravity in Saluting, Allegiance Pledge and Consciousness As you read these words, you are looking directly at and through what contemporary humanity is desperately seeking. It is a cognitive reality that, like the rest of us, you can't see. You and I have learned to ignore how we sense or feel it. What your mind overlooks is "natural attractions," the binding energies of nature that fill the space between you and this screen. They provide a form cognitive therapy or reality therapy that we seldom use. One of these natural attractions is Gravity. If you hold a pencil in front of the screen and then let go of it, gravity will attract it to the floor. With respect to the reality of natural attraction and gravity, I occasionally ask people what they experience, think or feel when they salute the flag. Their answer usually describes their values and/or conflicts with regard to saluting, or to pledging allegiance and God being part of it. What they usually fail to mention is that while they are engaged in saluting they are also registering and reacting to their natural sense of Gravity. Gravity is neither in their immediate consciousness nor their thinking, yet, if their saluting arm does not respond to sensing gravity, their arm will fall to their side. They won't be able to salute. Most of us have learned to omit the sense and sensibility of gravity from how we consciously think and feel. We seldom experience it, nor do we morn its loss. This is a grave omission. The gravity of the omission of this reality in our cognition and therapies is quietly taking us to the grave. Although we have lost conscious contact with Gravity, it is part of nature in action. Gravity attracts rain to the ground. It holds the atmosphere, soil, oceans and us, to the planet, and the planet to the Sun. Gravity can be seen as an endearing embrace by Mother Earth for us to be close to her, a natural hug that has guided us to grow a skeletal system so we can be upright and mobile and respond to nature and our planet in ways that benefit all things. It is Mother Earth's nature to give her gravity hug to every form of life, not just us. Our thinking's loss of conscious contact with Gravity as a sense or sensation is a key problem that we learn to ignore. This is because it not only occurs with Gravity, but with most of our additional 53 natural attraction senses, as well. Each is a reality. If we don't experience or love gravity and nature like we love our country, what then motivates us to adequately respect, protect or preserve nature, within and around us? The answer is "very little" and the at-risk state of individuals, nature and Industrial Society results. The insanely unbalanced and deteriorated state of the world shows that nature, along with ourselves as part of it, suffers from our insensitive neglect of nature due to our desensitization many other senses. When healthy, nature seldom causes nor displays our destructive effects on people, places and things. In fact, unadulterated nature does not produce garbage or pollution as it sustains optimums of life, diversity and cooperation. Be alarmed. Our natural sensory attraction loss, described above, not only holds true for our sense of gravity. It is equally true for at least 45 additional natural senses that we are similarly taught to neglect. These senses include our inherent natural attractions of trust, community, friendship, belonging and place. With respect to nature, we have trained ourselves to feel senseless, to lose the supportive value of belonging to the global life community and our inherent love for it. By not thinking or feeling with the self-correcting sensibility of natural attractions, we insensitively produce many of our disorders. In addition we suffer because we lose nature's ability to help us compost or recycle to health our polluted thinking and remedy our disorders. We have a major problem. Our socialization programs us to sever our thoughts and feelings from nature's restorative powers, balance and beauty. We learn, instead, to seek, support and addict to the excessively nature-destructive ways of Industrial Society. Fortunately, a potent solution is available for this dilemma. The nature-connecting methods and materials of Natural Attraction Ecology provide us with a natural antidote for warps in our mentality. Its potent activities for educating, counseling and healing with nature are readily accessible to those who are sensible enough to use and teach them as part of their lives and livelihood. Our deterioration of peace, environment and society results from the consciousness of most individuals -be they great leaders or preschool children- being robbed of its inborn ability to think like the attractive integrity of nature's purity, balance and beauty work. Instead, our psyche continues to be injuriously programmed to pledge allegiance to the robbers. Learning how to add NAE to our personal or professional lives, makes an important contribution to the benefit of our families, clients, Earth and ourselves. Gravity is a natural attraction energy that originated in the Big Bang origin of our universe. It is one of many universal natural attractions that we can experience at any given moment. There are at least 50 additional natural attraction senses that we are born with so that we may consciously sustain personal, social and global well-being, in sync with the way nature works.
"I began
this activity outside my office door.. it is morning and the air smells
amazing, the birds sing to me, it is quiet and tranquil. I have
spent most of my life being so driven, hard on myself, insecure and
unhappy. Today it was wonderful to just enjoy and celebrate being me.
all that is in me and around me... the world is a much more beautiful
place when you embrace the natural attractions :) I ended
my day listening to the frogs singing a sound that is actually quite
beautiful... i chuckled when i realized i couldn't enjoy the music in
my past because i was always too concerned with the warts. haha! ^^^ "I want to trust and will continue to
use this process because it feels right in my spirit to do so.
I have never felt this connected to anything sustainable and it isn't
something i am willing to compromise or give up. I enjoy my life now
that i have discovered this, i am no longer just living but i am alive
and there is a difference. I want to teach others to enjoy there
natural environments as well.. ^^^
^^^ Walking up the road from Stanley Creek state park in the late afternoon, the sun flooded the whole area with intense golden light. I loved this because the golden light flooded me with feelings of comfort and inspiration. I like it a lot! I appreciate hugs and cuddles from my dog, Snowy. She loves me and I love her. I love her affection because is an ever-present joy in my life. I love how the thick layer of snow we have here insulates the earth beneath from the (sometimes) bitter cold which reigns here for months during winter. Underneath the snow, the earth teems with living organisms, and the fallen leaves and other composting matter continue to break down into nutrients to feed the plants come spring. The blue light of just-before-dawn is something I think is good. It feels good, so I think it's good. I love the blue light of pre-dawn because within it is a place of clarity, peace, and quiet knowing. Within it I am able to discern what feels essential, true and right. It is right that the fir trees shelter and feed my extended family and neighbor-birds. It feels right that we take care of each other. Interdependence and mutually supportive, mutually consensual relationships feel right. I love mutually consensual relationships because everyone wins and everyone's happy and we can do things and have things together that none of us could do or have on our own. I love fresh air! Clean, pure, fresh air feeds me oxygen, whisks away my "used air" with CO2 and other refuse. It carries scents that please me; scents of good things that help me. It carries the scent of my living neighbors, those to whom I belong, whom I cherish. It carries scents which give me information and guide me. Right now I smell the wet earth, which tells me, "Time to plant your seeds!". I validate that the natural world within and about us is identical, that we are to it as our leg is to our body. With the exception of the stories and experiences that separate you from natural world, we and it are one. I can feel that it is so. This truth makes me feel deeply satisfied to be alive here in this Earth. I find the new green shoots of life coming up inside me very attractive. Having these new shoots makes me feel attractive, too. These fresh new faces of myself are like little miracles, and they portend new eras of my life-being. One thing I really like is that I am able to flood my whole area with an intense golden inner light that fills me up, and can fill others up with comfort, beauty and inspiration. I really appreciate giving hugs and cuddles to my family and friends. I love them and they love me. My affection for others is an ever-present joy in the lives of those I love. One worthwhile skill which I posses is the ability to put down a layer of emotional insulation which protects me from the harsh environment in times when warmth is not immediately available from others. This is extremely useful in situations where another person might be cold or hostile toward me. Because I am able to insulate myself, I am able to stay calm and continue to be productive and helpful. I can wait until conditions are more conducive to outward expression. I can remain friendly, and sometimes this helps them recapture their friendliness toward me. I can protect my delicate feelings; I'm not wounded if the other lashes out with harsh words the way I would be if I took these personally or let them sink deep into me. I am also able to wrap this insulation around others, to some degree. It does seem to help. There is a light within me that is rare and fresh and blue. It is a quietness, a way of being which is conducive to deep listening and feeling deeply to understand what is most elemental. This is a very good quality because in this blue light of pre-dawn, I am able to discern the essence of myself, of my day, of anything which I view and feel in the space of the blue light. Living from my true and authentic self feels good; essentially good. Sometimes, I am able to cultivate this quality in careful quiet moments with friends and clients. They are able to see clearly, to feel deeply into the essence, when they find this space of blue clear light in their heart and mind. It is right that I am interdependent with others; that I feed and shelter others, and that I accept food and shelter of all sorts from others. When we share what we have, when we offer our skills freely, when we rejoice in what others offer just by being who they are, it is easy for all of us to live happily and comfortably. This is how Earth naturally is. The more I become overtly interdependent with others, the happier I am; the happier I am able to make others. Mutually supportive, mutually consensual relationships are now part of the fundamental nature of my life. My food arrives in my mouth by consent of the plants I eat. My friends and I share more and more of our resources, skills and talents. Project NatureConnect runs on sharing of skills, talents, insights, experiences and love. This feels right. I love being fresh, pure and clean! I am able to refresh others and whisk away their emotional refuse. The freshness and purity which I offer carries scents that please my friends, family and neighbors; scents of good things that help them. My freshness carries the scent of my life-force to my neighbors, those to whom I belong, whom I cherish. It carries scents which give others information and guidance. Right now I smell of the wet earth, which tells my friends, "Time to plant your seeds!". This activity was delightful. I really do resonate with each attraction within me and recognize these as qualities and capabilities which belong to me, which others do notice in me, and which I value and seek to cultivate in my personality. Putting these into words also helped me notice what I want to amplify even more. For example, the Blue Light of Pre-Dawn is a particularly treasured inner (and outer) space which I want to go to every single day. Going to sleep earlier will help me to awaken to enjoy this precious time of day and inner way of being. As I completed the three things I learned, a sadness arose in me when I mentioned that I could use the activity to heal. As this arose, it cast a cloud over the whole experience. A shadow moved in front of my sun. The golden light fled the scene. My blue light of pre-dawn shattered. A very icky feeling arose in my heart. "Oh-No!" I felt. This brought a perfect opportunity to practice the reference activity for working with nature negatives which was offered in this chapter (Chapter 13, Reconnecting with Nature). I went outside into my back yard; it is a glorious afternoon today, on the last day of February. Tomorrow is the first day of the month in which spring officially begins. Today feels like a good day to take care of business closing down some wintry weather in my heart. I took in the brilliant blue sky, the fresh air, the sparkling granular melting snow-cover, and the trees and plants around me, dripping. I was attracted to my dear friend, half-fallen apricot tree, who invited me in, invited me to bring my heart-sorrow feeling. It invited me to take hold of its branch and give the sadness to it, for composting. I did so, and my heart opened and I began to cry a little, opening. Then, I felt my heart open and release a big load of waste. I helped it to go with my hands. I felt the cleansing and release. I understood that the freshening elements of the activity started a detoxifying process and this is what I was experiencing. The sadness was just the emotional sensation of these waste products of living which had for one reason or another not processed out of my heart before. Just a normal process, it was; not necessary to know what the content of the icky feeling was then. I let the cleansing happen. Then, I naturally became interested in what was around me and knew the process was complete. There was still a feeling in my heart, though, and as I walked, I felt myself gather around this feeling with a soft loving embrace, asking it, "Who are you? How can I help?" At that moment, the being-ness inside began to take shape; a person, a part of me. He (feels masculine) needs me to know who he is, to hear his story, to witness to his experience. I felt drawn to go inside and journal his story, to connect with him, to honor and validate his pain, so that he would be able to heal. That felt very good! And as I discovered this solution, I realized that the Blue Light of Pre-Dawn and the Golden Light of Late-Afternoon and the Love-Blanket of Insulation and the Interdependent Web of Mutually Consensual, Mutually Beneficial Relationships and the Hugs and Cuddles of Affection and the Fresh Purity of Clean Air were all present and active in this healing moment. Thoughts: Verbalizing nature-loves and identifying with them is deeply validating and increases these qualities in myself. I can use this activity as an empowerment tool to ground myself in cherished qualities, to help me heal the places where my natural sense attraction have been hurt in the past. This process is a healing tool which knows no end of helpfulness to people and their lives. My experiences in nature show me that I am a person who gets good feelings from bringing my essence to light, that I am valued and loved, and that my qualities are expressions of the beauty of nature. I am an expression of nature's beauty. Nature connections bring nature's gifts directly to me in all their glory." ^^^
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