What happens when you’re in a hatred environment? What happens when you’re threatened? How’s your reality changed by this? What is your first reaction in case of aggression?
The standard answer when you’re threatened is to respond in kind. To fight back. To protect yourself. Responding to hate by hate, to threat by threat, that’s what we’ve been taught to do for centuries. It’s like you’re receiving a hot ball and in order to avoid getting hurt, you’re passing back the ball, possibly with even more heat on it. That’s the standard answer.
The “smarter” answer (as opposed to standard) is to observe the ball thrown at you and do nothing. Yes, you will get burned if you touch it, that’s right. So, why touching it in the first place? Why letting it reach you? Instead of accepting it, switch your focus from the reaction state, to the witnessing state: just observe it, see where it goes, don’t interact. You’ll have the breakthrough of your life.
Because the ball doesn’t really get to you, if you don’t allow it. That’s amazing! I know it sounds pretty strange and voo-doo-ish, but it really works like this. Once you start to just observe the things, to witness with detachment, you will see them in a very different way. Even more, by observing things instead of accepting them into your reality, you reach some kind of power over them. You will be able to allow or disallow them to reach you.
This is something really difficult to perceive and even more difficult to accept. I confess it took me a lot to even understand that. Reading about this really helps, that’s true, and I read a lot about how witnessing, observing your reality, without interaction, can actually change it. But you have to do it, not to read about it, in the first place. And it’s the direct experience of this attitude which reveals this incredible mechanics. (By all means, do not consider I’m a master on this technique, I just know enough to write a blog post about it. All I know is it works.)
Observing versus Giving Attention
There’s a huge difference between observing something and giving attention to something. Since we’re going to use those terms a lot in this post, let’s make a quick round up.
Observing means witnessing something, without any involvement. Giving attention to something means acting on that thing somehow: reacting emotionally to it, rationalizing it, comparing it with past experiences, doing something about it, anything.
Observation is stillness. Attention is focused movement.
Observing is non-action, attention is always seconded by action.
Gravity and Reality
Now let’s get back to our balls of fire.
You can’t receive something you don’t want. Every time you’re receiving something is because you accepted it. Being it a present, a relationship, your job, money, health… Or anger, illness, scarcity… You let it into your life. If you step back and look at the world from an observer place you’ll have this image very close to the planets and satellites: all the stuff that surrounds you is kept together by your own personal gravity. And the gravity which keeps your world together is your attention. The stuff around you, what you call your reality is orbiting around only because you accepted it and focused on it. You make your world living by giving it your attention.
Now if you’re not giving any attention whatsoever to some stuff, you’ll actually observe it floating away. There’s no more gravity to keep it close to you. Just think at something you didn’t think for a long time and you’ll have this feeling of distance. That thing seems so far away. Yes, that thing really is far away, because you didn’t offer it your undivided attention. The moment your focus shifted towards it, the thing started to get close to you.
Without your attention, things are just floating around. You create your environment by attracting stuff into your life the same way planets are keeping things on their surface with gravity.
So, now you realize that the ball of fire doesn’t have any direction of all. It is just a meteorite wandering through space.The author of a threat doesn’t direct the ball at you. Yes, he may use your name, he may use his mental projection of what he thinks is you, but it cannot make the ball land on your planet. Unless you give him permission to do this. The ball doesn’t really have any direction, it floats around, like any other thing which doesn’t receive your attention. It’s you who’re giving it mass and shape, by shifting your focus towards it.
What Goes Up Must Go Down
Now, what really happens when you’re not accepting hate at all? When you’re just observing the balls of fire and not allowing them into your reality? They drop. Most of the time. Most of the hate you receive or you get exposed to is circumstantial. It’s a result of chaotic situations, confusions or misunderstandings. This type of hate will just drop off. It’s like interplanetary meteorites lost in space. Consequences of small accidents, debris of violent but short and blind interactions.
But when the hate or threat is calibrated, ignoring it creates a surprising consequence: the ball goes back to the sender. When a ball of fire is calibrated it gets an extra weight. It’s not incidental anymore. It’s like a volcano erupting from a planet with so much power, that the ball of fire actually lifts off from the atmosphere and is thrown away in space. It’s something way bigger than a meteorite. It’s not floating around like a light, circumstantial ball. And it’s exactly this weight which makes the ball finding its way back to the sender. The ball is attracted by gravity. If it doesn’t find a suitable place to land (meaning: you’re not giving it the benefit of having a physical mass by your attention, you’re just witnessing it) the ball will look for the closest planet. And of course, that’s the sender.
In real life, this is a somehow hidden process. Not always the threat one sends come back to him in its exact form. Most of the time, the hater goes through a painful process without any visible connection to his initial threat. It may be an accident, an illness, some bad incident or any other kind of difficulties. The sender doesn’t really knows what hit him. In his reality system, he got rid of the ball, or so he thinks. He eliminated something from his system, and the only form he’s expecting that thing came back to him is your version of a ball of fire. If you don’t throw nothing back, he’ll assume his threat finished its cycle. Only it didn’t.
I saw this process from both ends. I was both the hater and the hated. And it worked on both situations. While I was hating somebody, and that person either ignored me, either didn’t really pay any attention to me, I found myself in violent circumstances. Accidents, violent incidents that I didn’t deserve to be part of. Or so I thought.
And when I was hated and let the hate pass me by, the perpetrator faced the same situations: accidents, illness or pressuring surroundings. At the first sight there wasn’t any logical, rational connection between the ball of fire and the violent incident. Only at the first sight.
Love and Hate
An ignored ball of fire will always land of the sender. It may be in a different form, the energy of that meteorite has been somehow modified by circumstances, but it will always come back to the sender. If no one wants it, it will come to the source.
But if you really want something, if you put all your attention and love in that specific thing, it will finally be attracted. Your attention made that thing slowly come to you. Love is acting in the same way.
In fact, love and hate are the same force, only with different polarity.
Hate is what loves sees in a twisted mirror. Hate has the same power and it will change your life at the same level love will. Except hate is destructive and love is fulfilling. They both use the same energy. One is building, the other one destroys. They are both powerful gravitational fields around you. And they attract their kind.
Why Is This So Difficult?
If things are really as simple as described, then why is it so difficult to manage a violent situation? Why hate is still there? Why people are getting hurt every day?
Because pain is real. Being hurt is real. You can’t always avoid a ball of fire thrown at you. Hitting one every once in a while is part of the game. Accept it or not, believe it or not, you do have parts in yourself which are attracting balls of fire. Most of them are placed under the surface, in what we call “the unconscious mind”. This is why you’re not always aware of the cause. But just because you’re not aware at the moment, that doesn’t mean you didn’t attracted it.
This is why is important to observe yourself instead of act upon those balls of fire. In time, you’ll start to see some patterns. You’ll start to identify similar situations. You start to find continents on your planet which are attracting balls of fire. And the only way to avoid other balls of fire is to start working on those continents. Because this is all you have.
Your reality is the only thing you have control on. You can’t control other people’s realities. All you can do is to work your attraction fields. Understand why are you attracting those balls of fire and how you can manage them. You have total control of your planet. You are the one who built that ecosystem, and you can still modify it whenever you want.
Maybe you won’t be able to solve it instantly. It may take years. But if you accept that you do attract some balls of fire into your life, you’ll be at least aware of that. You’ll understand that pain may be unavoidable, but suffering is optional.
At some point, those balls of fire you used to receive day and night, burning your forests and drying your oceans will stop landing on your planet.
All you’ll see will be some trails on the sky. Maybe somebody just thrown a huge ball of fire at you. But since your focus is somewhere else, all you’ll see will be a trail on the sky.
Dragos, this is very interesting. I do something similar. I am the stillness in the background and I simply observe the activity in the foreground. It’s incredible, but I’m not that good at it yet and I don’t do it enough. When I am able to master it, I think I will have a very powerful tool in my toolbox. Excellent job!
.-= Stephen – Rat Race Trap´s last blog ..The Circumstances of Happiness =-.
I feel consider who said what and why it was said. Often people say things when they are stressed or mad at them self. It is not intentionally said to hurt me but it is because I was there at the time.
If we interrupt something wrong and think it is said to be an insult or that we are unloved that is stupid.How we project with all possible motives thought out is a process of considering the source.
Who – possible reason- and is it worthy of a reply. If it is a love one, space then hugs and laughter.Someone else, I would raise an eyebrow and then laugh.
I refuse to walk on eggshells in order to avoid an argument but in order to refrain from arguing people both need to be relaxed and ready to talk. I am not saying run away from one never walk out on one but mutually take 5,10,20 minutes and cool off.
.-= BunnygotBlog´s last blog ..Coco Chanel: Famous Quotes =-.
Being honest with you (and with myself) I avoid issues until I can’t. Once I am in a place where I have to respond, I over do it. To the point of hurting myself, who cares. When I am at that point where a reaction is required I only want to see the body cooling on the ground. If I hurt myself in the process, it just does not matter to me. A lot of people have said that I put too much into winning, and that is probably right. But winning for me is usually measured by someone else losing.
Not that I recommend this way for others, but I know that I do it.
.-= McLaughlin´s last blog ..Project Management Sayings =-.
Dragos,
I am finding your ‘Balls of Fire” post really helpful! I love the idea that I am my own planet and no-one can dump their junk their without my permission. I love that I can make anger directed at me, simply disappear. I am slowly reading all your articles and finding it all very challenging and life affirming.
Thank you Dragos,
Jan
Welcome here, Jan and thanks for the nice words. Sometimes my writing can be challenging, that’s for sure. And that’s because I’m putting myself in a lot of challenging contexts :-))
Getting focused and staying focused are the two most difficult things in the world, yet this post really inspired me a lot. Keep those great articles coming, Dragos!
I’m glad you found value here. And thanks for the nice words 🙂
Dealing with aggression is an art in itself and I really appreciate your thoughts shared on this. There is a lot to gain by not giving into reaction – and maintaining the harmony inside and outside.
.-= techzen´s last blog ..Apache AJP =-.
Yeap, dealing with aggression is really an art. A very difficult one.
I was just writing in a discussion group about detachment from things, and your article just popped up. LOL. There is really an intelligence at work behind all of this.
What I find is that detachment from outcomes and from an undisturbed peaceful state of mind to be defended, is the base skill for enjoying life. Yet very little people seem able to catch even a glimpse of it, since the common sense artlessly suggests to fight fire with fire. How much suffering could be avoided, with all of its spiral consequences.
IMO when your switched-on awareness doesn’t seem to stop the continual threats, the reason is not because of the observation itself, that’s a powerful tool per se. Often it’s just because you need some more self esteem to get enough power to handle reality. Without threatening.
Yes, mastering focus is everything.
That’s very interesting, d1d0, especially the last part of your comment. I understand that self-esteem is one of the core energies involved in creating your personal gravity. And I think you’re right. The weaker your self-esteem the lower the gravity, making it easy for all sort of floating garbage to land on your planet.