DAY 151: A Pigeon and World Peace: Conflict resolution in real-time

An unexpected event has been assisting me over the last week to understand two things clearer in my mind about conflict towards something or someone: firstly, that I fear that which I don't know and look for excuses in my mind to validate the fear, and secondly that the fear dissipates when I get to know the "other" side and my whole behaviour changes, from rejection to equality, empathy and compassion.

Last Friday, on his way to a meeting my husband saw a little pigeon outside the house and told me to check him out. All I could see was a dark thing that had nowhere to go and in me I saw someone that had no idea what to do. I had been given the instructions to check him out but I could not even hold him! I could not stay outside the whole day so I decided to get my thick gloves and try to hold him - one thing I was sure: under my attention he would not be caught by the cat that was already on his way. So with my super gloves I got him out of that hostile environment and brought the little one home. If initially in my mind I was the victim of such a bad luck, now I was defending him in the name of Life. There was a massive contradiction within me: if on one hand I could sympathise with his position, on the other hand my backchat was telling me that it was dangerous to have a pigeon at home. I had no clue what to do and I was shaking inside - I was with a bird that I judged as dirty, smelly, probably sick, ugly and useless. This was my mind speaking but at the same time I could not leave him outside.  After two attempts of putting him to fly outside and seeing him struggling with the cold and not being able to fly, I decided to open my harms to this new unexpected guest. I called my husband asking for help and what he said to me was crucial: "Put yourself in his place and treat him as you would like to be treated".

So how could a pigeon assist me to grasp this? Well, the details of the experience are as relevant as the realisations thereof, but the important thing here is to see that the experience of familiarity and stability in the presence of another being can happen even when initially there is resistance to accept another's existence. Sadly, this often happens only when the circumstances force us to face the inner fears and when there's no choice rather than to change in real-time, step by step.

The little one that I once thought to be dirty, smelly, probably sick, ugly and useless became my best reference point of self-change. On the second day I stopped wearing my gloves and I could feel his soft feathers for the first time, I could appreciate his smell without judging it, I could look at him as who he is - a breathing being in this world just like me. The former experience of disgust was transformed into a constant caring, attention and dedication that has gradually grown. I gave him the space to know me and he trusted walking on my hands, the same hands that have tried to put him outside twice to fly away. I then realised that his life was dependent on me to feed him and that I was not giving up on this responsibility - this decision had ripple effects and empowered me to not accept other giving-up thoughts in other areas of my life. With this we have been supporting each other, each one in his own process here.

We notice a considerable change in him, from being depressed and in a state of hopelessness, to now being curious about everything, walking around new places in the house, opening his eyes completely and being physically stronger. He can now fly higher as well (luckily we have high ceilings in the house!) and once he is able to eat by himself we will see if he is ready to fly outside.

My husband and I are fully dedicated to this mission and the young pigeon is responding well. We give him food regularly as he does not yet eat by himself, (we test different mixtures of seeds, vegetables and bread to make sure he has all the nutrients), we watch videos on youtube and read forums about pigeon-care, we took him to the vet, we do flying sessions in the living room, we walk with him around the house (he is very social and likes to be with people), we wake up earlier than usual to feed him before work, we try to do shifts of working from home so that he is not alone during the whole day, we place him in areas where he can get direct sunlight in the house, we talk to him and stroke him. Another important element is to have a stress-free environment (for him and for us!).

The timing of this experiment couldn't be better as I am currently writing my dissertation on conflict resolution and investigating the neurological and psychological mechanisms involved in the perceptions of the "we" and the "other", the fear responses, the distrust and the dehumanisation of the out-group. By bringing this point to myself, I can now see that I saw the pigeon species as less than my species, as not worthy of living in the same city or even sheltering on my roof. When I look deeper into this resistance towards pigeons I see memories that have shaped this continuous separation - the childhood memory of being in the park in Paris and getting my trousers dirty with pigeon poop; the image from the movie Mary Poppins where the bird lady is in a dark setting, surrounded by pigeons that cover her and walk on her hat; the memory of when I was maybe three years old and used to go Avenida da Liberdade in Lisbon to give bread to the pigeons and I was scared of them and also tried to scare them away. In my mind I have associated pigeons with darkness, dirt, bad smell, confusion, poverty and irritation. I had no reference of anything else but separation.

But none of that prevented me from saving this little one. Who I am now and who I want to become cannot accept such inequality anymore. Over the last week I created the opportunity to redefine my relationship towards this pigeon and pigeons in general, to move from "them" to the "we", together sharing the same roof and the air we breathe. The simplicity of this micro-experience in my life can be projected into the societal and international divisions between people that define themselves as enemies, as opposites and as a threat to one's existence. Peace and reconciliation is possible, and it starts from within by living out the words we want to see manifested in this world, such as peace, understanding, respect, growth, equality

Finally, there was also the physical aspect of the pigeon - it is apparently not as expressive as a dog or a cat and at first sight pigeons have an intimidating look. It's a human habit to judge the book by its cover and missing much of what is here in this life and world. If I had never accepted this change in me I would have never seen the delicate presence of a pigeon, the preening movements to clean his feather, his response to sounds, his begging for food, his patience, his curiosity and his every-day discoveries.

So what changed since last week? I did. He did. We got to know each other and created a mutually supportive environment, where I give him that which he is unable to provide for himself and he assists me to be present here as nature. The giving and receiving approach is a practical way of living the word Peace, as perfectly explain on the Consciousness of the Dove interview, where peace exists when I become Peace and live as it in everything I do - in this case, through treating another as I would like to be treated and in recreating supportive relationships and a new way of existing within myself, with others and with the world as a whole.



Recommended Interview: 

The Consciousness of the Dove - Part 1,2,3

What does it mean to become and live the word ‘peace’?

Why is it not enough to desire peace as a way of manifesting it?

Why is it not so much your intentions, ideas and thoughts that influence your body, but your beingness?

Why are many people not aware of their beingness?

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DAY 92: Quantum Suicide and Quantum Life

Third Contact movie

This year I have had the opportunity to see the questions of life and death projected into the screens and scripts of two featured movies: one of them was the documentary The Act of Killing, and most recently, the thriller Third Contact. Today I will explore points that I realised while watching the latter.

This low budget movie touches upon the issues of bipolarity, depression, immortality, life after death, memories, past lives and traumas through visual communication and interlinked stories of the characters that we come across. This blog post is not so much a movie review but rather my sharing of the points that came up while watching it. At some point, I thought: what if that person (or someone going through the same mental turbulence) was to apply self-forgiveness on the memories of the mind, on the anger, on the sadness, on the experience that one is creating to oneself and others, on the past, on the self-definitions, the multiple personalities, the fears and on thoughts that are against oneself? Would this not be a form of re-birth? Are we not all desiring to kill the thoughts in our own minds that keeps us going on in circles and ultimately our own physical death?

I found that it is not a coincidence that the image of suicide is often related to bullet in the head, not in the heart - one is actually killing the mind, the thoughts, the addictions that we have never been educated to deal with. The heart is the physical organ that distribute the blood and the oxygen throughout the body, the same with the lungs that feel the body with the air we breathe, however, none of these organs are associated to suicide, because these are not supposed to be stopped while they are functionally working! Why would a human being kill its own body when is fully functional and healthy? Nevertheless, the body will stop working when the mind takes control. This has to do with our own acceptances and allowances, our misdirection and our distractions that keeps us away from our own self-honesty as Life. So, the act of suicide that pops up in the mind appears to be a "solution" to a Life that was never fully lived.

Back to the movie Third Contact, were these deaths real? Or was it the end of the personalities? Or even the end of memories that hold people back?  How would life be if we were to let go of the past?

I then considered that a quantum life, lived in every moment of breath, consists of a quantum death of personalities that must be cleared if we are to know ourselves.

Our physical existence allows us to birth in every breath we take, and to die in every out-breath. An opportunity to change who we have been so far. And I agree with the quote from the film, where she said: "Your concept of death is outdated", because at least for the majority of the people in the developed countries, death is not a consequence of physical hunger, or lack of healthcare or even physical abuse against human rights. Death here can appear as the idea of the mind that one cannot stand anymore, or that one does not have strength to face the problems in Life, or that one is emotionally fragile due to the end of a relationship, or that the loss of money took away one's pride and therefore life does not make sense in that person's mind.

For others, it is actually the concept of Life that has been disregarded and needs to be recreated - those are the ones that are starting to be aware that Life does not necessarily need to be a fight, or a struggle, or a proof to go to heaven, because life on Earth should be Heaven for Every single being.  This is the group of people where I  stand and I have been realising that a mind-death is actually a process of re-birthing from the physical within the realisation of who we are and what Life can be. The physical death, when it is not caused by physical accidents, it's the consequence of the self-abuse from within, as the physical body can only handle that much... And as I mentioned earlier, the act of Self-Forgiveness is one of the most revealing tools that I could ever come across to help myself, to face my mind, to get to know me, my fears, to stop allowing the depression within me, the polarity of lows and highs of the mind, the excitement and the passiveness, the paranoia and the movies in my own mind.

The director of the movie overcame his own resistance by living the decision of making this movie. As he said during the Q&A session, it was a priority that he gave to himself and directed himself to do it, without procrastinating anymore. We can learn from him! It is true that, at some point, we cannot stand our minds anymore and something must be done. Considering the pre-programme of the mind, we will go through the same cycles over and over again, even repeating our parents' patterns, until we stop creating and participating in such cycles of thoughts and actions.

As I got older, I could see the patterns manifesting in my different relationships and in different situations of my life. I couldn't see it by myself - it was just impossible because nothing in my reality was pointing me to a way out. My religion in Portugal was not helping either, quite the opposite. My friends did not know how to help and I was creating consequences around me. I wanted to understand what was going on and why the patterns were repeating. Where were the fears coming from? I also wanted to understand where my accidents were coming from. Was there a god punishing me? Was there a devil punishing me? What was the common element in all of these patterns? Was it me punishing myself? Was I creating my own thoughts and fears? Well, if I got the questions and I must have the answers. If I was creating these thoughts to myself, I should be able to delete the thoughts. If I was killing myself in such a state of mind, I must be capable of rebirthing myself in full self-awareness and start again. I can see this now. I couldn't see it before I was introduced to Desteni, their articles, the interviews, the forums and the videos. Even today I still ask myself how the hell was I able to hear them, considering that my mind is so complicated and suspicious. So I realise that I am the example to myself: if I was able to slow my mind, to start forgiving myself and to let go of my self-distrust, then this is the proof that I am able to change myself.

It is interesting that in the Third Contact movie, people shaved their heads when they were ready to "die". When I shaved my head for the first time I remember to think that I never thought I could do it, because I was not ready to LIVE myself, free of judgments! I could see other people doing it but not me. It was easy for others, but not for me. It was OK for others, but not for me.. The same with making movies: I thought that others could do it, but I couldn't. Until I took the decision to make my first video-clip.

I thought that others could be self-honest but not me, until I started to write for myself in complete openness and vulnerability.

I thought that others could write themselves on blogs but not me, until I started my blogs.

I desired others to change themselves but never considered that I could only change myself - until I took the decision to walk the Process of self-honesty and go through my deepest patterns, secrets, paranoia, memories and fears.

I did not have to literally kill myself to start seeing this; I did not have to ascend to a sky/heaven in order to be in peace with myself; I did not have to create conflict with others in order to see change around me - because my change is coming from within and is then manifested in what I say, write and do Here.

My physical reality is an indication and cross-reference of my own Process, as within so without, Life within, Life outside, in Oneness and Equality. So my own ideas of life and death must be challenged, questioned and changed. We have underestimated the potential of Life so much that death became the apparent easy way out, when the majority of the suffering is coming from our own minds, and this is unacceptable, considering that we could be doing much better in actually working on ourselves and then working together to make this Earth and Life an enjoyable place to be. Aren't Wars the projection of our own self-destruction? Isn't Poverty the manifestation of our own greedy mind separated from the others? Isn't this world a mirror of our own lack of self-responsibility for our own creation?

The process that I am walking is a Quantum process to be lived moment by moment, breath by breath, point by point, while walking the various layers of the mind. When a thought comes up, I take a breath and check within self-honesty what is my starting point, where is the reaction coming from or the fear, and I focus on clarifying it within me, self-forgive and let it go, so that when that point comes up again I am able to correct myself and not give in into the cycle. It is amazing to see that so much of my time on Earth is spent in the thoughts and concerns of the mind that really block me to look at other things in this world. It is also fascinating that since I started to sort out my own mind-mess I have been finally started my Masters in diplomatic studies and I am more than ever keen to work in this world to participate in its change for a better place for all, through common sense and solutions that are the best for all, me and the people. 

Would you go back to the mind-paranoia if you were to discover yourself as your own direction, as Life Here?

Movies mentioned:

http://theactofkilling.com/

http://www.thirdcontactmovie.com/

Supportive links:

http://lite.desteniiprocess.com/

http://desteni.org/

https://eqafe.com/free

http://creationsjourneytolife.blogspot.com/

http://heavensjourneytolife.blogspot.com/

http://www.youtube.com/user/SunetteSpies?feature=watch 

http://www.facebook.com/groups/journeytolife/

Picture from: http://www.dailybeefcake.com/2013/07/02/bringing-third-contact-to-the-big-screen/

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Day 44: 10 Years of Addiction to Fear

Let’s stop for a moment the emotional attachment towards 9/11 and look at the whole picture of a decade of consequence. The consequence of the human acceptance of war, the patterns of behaviour, the mindset of conflict, the Jesus-saviour-syndrome of leaders, the propaganda of revenge and the culture of fear.

Instead of blaming anyone else, whether is a nation or a so-called terrorist, let’s look at inside ourselves. How is each one participating as a terrorist? How is each one participating as revenge, reaction and ignorance? How is each one creating separation towards someone else?  

International relations are a manifestation of the human mind projected into decisions that affect the world globally.

It is such a deception to listen to Obama’s speech on protecting “his people” - an attitude that legitimates an idea of superiority that is a big lie, because Everyone in the world is part of THE people. It is so easy to put humans against humans under perceptions of fear and pretending that we are not part of the same race. Afghans are equals to Americans as well as all the other nations. Politicians, economists and decision-makers are no different from any other citizen but they are using knowledge, information and public relations to play the game, instead of changing it.

Ten years ago, the American ego was hurt. More than the loss of people in the Twin Towers, it was the perception of power and security that was affected. Based on that, the reaction of revenge took place globally. More people have died since then. Multiple wars of psychological genocide and murder were legitimated around the world. A cycle of destruction that we have ALL participated in thoughts and action. All humanity is involved as interdependent we are. Nations are an illusion of separation since consequences have no frontiers. 

But international insecurity and war didn't start 10 years ago... War is an addiction and a habit accepted by humanity because we haven’t tried anything else yet. Changing such acceptances and ways of living is the greatest challenge for humanity if we are willing to survive.

Have you ever asked yourself: If it wasn’t war, how would humanity coexist? If it wasn’t war, how would countries show their economical power? If it wasn’t war, how would economy grow? Can you see now why war is still accepted today... Why do we need such economic growth in first place? What is economic growth when half of the world stays in poverty? The planet earth doesn’t grow so where do nations want to expand? We are going in the wrong direction folks. Centuries of nonsensical existence, of medieval conquers and atomic destruction. Humans have not yet realized that we can do much more and much better if our starting point is Life for ALL, Equality and Self-Honesty.

Superiority and inferiority are perceptions, thus are not real. Rich and poor are the direct consequence of such perception and it kills: people are dying, whether in poverty or in wars every day. The friction of conflict generates money in this current economic system and this is unacceptable. Nothing of this would happen if the monetary system was different and if humans were not driven by the ego.

The external enemy only exists in the human mind. The well-known fear of the unknown. There is no point in faking an alien invasion to attack the earth, as the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman wanted to feed the saga of fear with his theory to save (only) the US economy (err... doesn't it make one question the starting point to promote terrorists in the human mind?). Such Hollywood game won’t be accepted anymore.  

We don’t want to create enemies because we know that we are NOT enemies of each other. Human beings are changing and the majority of the people is willing to create peace at a global level. The majority of the people wants to end poverty. The majority of the people wants to stop suffer because we are suffering. The majority of the people is willing to forgive. The majority of the people is willing to change to a new economic system that guarantees that no war will destroy their families.

We are ALL responsible for our human creation (or destruction). There is nothing to protect or to fear. Just need to stop the mindset of separation and stand for a dignified LIFE for all. Can you imagine how politics, the media, scientific investigation and all sectors of society would amazingly change for the better? Can you see how the world can be a nice place to coexist and to breathe? Or are we so selfish that we’ll allow the human deception to pass to our children (...as the sins of the fathers?)

Humanity is falling again in the time-loop of separation. Until we say: NO FURTHER. Look at the other planets: Is this how we want to end? ... or are we willing to change our pre-programmed design of conflict to a better version of the Human species?

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