How to find empathy

Mean-ing

Forgiveness makes space for peace.

by Timothy Cameron


Autumnal Alignment, October 27th, 2016

Timely breeze snag ten trillion leaves

Aligning choral trees in vibrant season frieze Birch, Aspen, Pine amidst silvical highlights Brittle songs swirl around our happy feet

Collecting anew, sweet summer's death, Aromas rise from earth's ancient breast Inhaled memories, exhale To create more moments like these

 



About

Timothy Cameron

Timothy Cameron is a widely acclaimed public speaker and writer. He lives in the Corcoran neighborhood in Minneapolis.

12/4/16, 1:00 PM:  RABBIT HOLE:  Living in the mystic mystery is more important than "Know Thyself". Once we know, we don't ask, learn or grow. UNKNOW THYSELF is a great place to start. Yes, I understand the value of finding out who we are and then being courageous about being who we are, but the sense of self, when identified as KNOWLEDGE, Kills the Question, kills the faith. Flying blind is a beautiful art.  12/4/16, 12:00 AM:  More Random Thought:  I've heard many descriptions of depression over the years, but one that stuck with me is that depression is anger turned inward. True in some cases, I'm sure, but maybe 'memorized emotions' is another apt description of depression. We mistreat ourselves when we were mistreated, and continue basking in darkness until someone lifts the blinds. What's the opposite of depression? Impression or creativity might be viable. FREE is the best polar to the mental prison so many live within, but incomplete comparisons serve as the portal to paradox. Let the light out and be a prism. Leonard Cohen said light comes in through our cracks, but I suspect our cracks let the light out. Were it only from the inside-out, when we are alone, we will not survive. Root need warmth, not light. Foliage needs light, and I suppose warmth, of course, but roots NEED darkness. BALANCE is the key to happiness. In sickness and in health.

12/1/16.  The following is just random thoughts I was having yesterday.  I'll develop the ideas later.  

Lowering the heat of a negative passion.

We’ve been walking on water for so long and complaining about why God isn’t helping us all the while not knowing we were okay. The problem Peter head as he became aware he was walking on water and as soon as he realized it messed with his mind.

I am not going to allow any thought to go by unchecked that I would want to create as a future.  I was rehearsing mentally and preparing my body for the experience ahead of the actual experience.

Faith is evidence of the possible, hopes for things not seen.  Good or bad, sometimes faith develops first unseen and then seen.  Repetition is a mother of all learning. Repetitive negative or stressful thoughts, evidence is shown, can make someone sick. Perhaps repetitive/stressful thoughts lead to the memorization of the negative emotions that grow from unhealthy soil cultivated in a sick environment. When these emotions become strong enough they can kill us. We know that stress over a long period of time shortens life. Stress creates cortisone and depresses the brain which in turn buries the brain deeper and the problems that itself has created. Unlearning emotions that we have memorized over a great many years might not be so easily remedied. If it takes 10 years to walk in the forest, don’t be surprised if it might take 10 years to walk back out. I’m convinced that once we become conscious of the habits we acquired unconsciously, we can abbreviate the time it takes to heal from our self-induced trauma.

 

One of the apparent mysteries of life is how to people working in the same factory around carcinogenic materials can react differently to the same materials. One gets cancer, and the other doesn’t. Why is this? Why is it that a person with multiple personality disorder in one personality type might be allergic to latex and in the other personality be allergic to nylon? Perhaps the memorized emotion of smoking cigarettes is more addictive than the nicotine therein. We think we are addicted, and therefore we are. I think, therefore, I am. But what happens when emotion proceeds thought? A child feels long before they ever have the ability to coalesce a thought into any structure that we might consider reasonable or tangible. The feelings were long intact before they ordered their first words. Since feeling is first, e.e. cummings wrote, who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you.  We can believe in a thing before we think about it. If we love without reservation, without analyzing everything, and focus on wellness in any given relationship whether was someone else or with ourselves, the likelihood of our experiencing wellness in that relationship are within ourselves multiplies exponentially. If our thoughts or emotions can make us sick, perhaps our thoughts and emotions can conversely make us well.

 

When you ask a serious question of yourself, if the answer is not immediate, suspend your discomfort, sit down, clear your mind and wait until the answer comes.  The answer is within you if you will just wait for it. Often times people get a cell phone call, go watch TV, get distracted by Monday and tasks that have the illusion of capturing our elusive state. By asking those questions, the mind taps into a stream of consciousness, and that stream of consciousness then proceeds to reveal insights to the questioning mind. The mind that thinks it has the answer severs its creative connection to that stream of consciousness, and the answer becomes a prison whereas the question becomes a prism. Creating a new ideal of oneself requires a magnificently but faith. It’s like jumping off a cliff into the unknown and building a parachute on the way down or discovering your of wings or discovering that gravity was an illusion first place.