♪ Intro Music ♪...
Meaning The Self Destruct Button
Mankind has been searching
for the meaning behind every experience that it experiences
since the beginning of time.
People search for the implication
of everything that they encounter.
The ability to seek meaning
is an advanced form of Consciousness,
but as we all know too well,
with advancement comes pitfalls.
An example of one such advancement pitfall
is that someone can be egotistical about being Ego-less.
Mankind is what I like to call - a Pitfall Species -
whereby the very excellence ...
of their particular Consciousness ...
is their very downfall ...
The ability to derive meaning is both something
that sets our species apart
as an evolved and rapidly-expanding facet of Consciousness,
and what causes us to self-destruct.
We encounter various experiences in our day-to-day life.
Some of these we could consider positive experiences
and, others, we could consider negative experiences.
But the flavor of the experience is determined by one particular thing,
and that is the meaning that we assign to that experience.
It's well-known now
that, one woman, will have a completely different experience
of labor and delivery than another woman,
based on the meaning that she assigns to that experience
or the sensations that occur during that experience.
Two people's experience of the same event is often drastically different
based on the fact that they interpret different meaning
to the same experience.
Think of it this way,
if you started uncontrollably vomiting right now
and the meaning you assigned to that experience
was that you didn't wash your hands well enough
and thus caught a deadly virus,
your experience of that particular event - that vomiting -
would be quite different
than if the meaning you assigned to that experience
was that your body was cleansing itself of toxins
so as to become anew ... renewed... into a state of health ...
We must see that meaning does not inherently exist
in and of itself in a situation.
It is in fact an interpretation,
and you cannot simply take interpretation to be Truth.
If Meaning does not inherently exist in an experience
we must, and do, assign it to the experience,
and then, we mistake them for the same thing.
Think of this like Peanut Butter & Jelly ...
Peanut Butter is the experience,
Jelly is the meaning we assign to the experience,
and if we stir the two together we mistake them for one thing.
A third substance.
This disallows us to see the truth of an experience.
We must learn to separate the Peanut Butter from the Jelly.
In other words, the experience from the Meaning.
if we're ever to regain a sense of Truth
and learn to select meaning that benefits us
instead of destroys us.
If you think this idea of assigning meaning to an experience
doesn't sound all too serious,
consider that you can destroy the course of your entire life
based on assigning meaning to an experience.
Case in point:
A little three year-old girl is playing around in her daddy's office
and begs him to play dolls with her.
He yells and gets immediately frustrated
and says "No! I'm busy right now!".
This is a traumatic experience for her - she takes it personally.
Now let's pretend the meaning she assigns to this event is:
'I am insignificant to my Dad'.
That was not the meaning of the experience of the event for the father.
The meaning for the father was: 'I'm busy right now'.
But the moment that that little girl assigns that meaning to that event,
it is as if colored-lenses go up over her eyes,
and from that moment forward all experiences that she has with her father
are filtered through the lens of 'I am insignificant to my father.'
The truth is now colored and distorted
by this 'perception' that the experience of life is filtering through.
Every single time this little girl has an interaction with Dad,
that interaction will now be colored and distorted by this particular filter.
And, here is where it gets really, really, tricky ...
Every single time she experiences anything with her father
that could potentially strengthen this belief,
or this 'meaning',
these lenses get thicker and even more distorted
until, eventually,
only those things which strengthen the 'meaning'
(i.e. make this thicker)
are going to make their way through these 'glasses'.
That means anytime this father is loving towards the daughter,
it's not even going to make it through the filter.
This father could really love his daughter more than anything in life
and do all kinds of loving things
but it will not matter because all of his actions are now
being filtered through the lens of 'meaning'
that she adopted at three years-old.
This girl is likely to grow up believing she is insignificant to men
and will end up in relationships with emotionally-unavailable men,
covering up her misery with various addictions (potentially),
wondering why her self-esteem is so damned low.
Take a look at this lens ...
Doesn't this account for why two people perceive the same event so differently?
What we must consider
is that the painful meaning we assign to an experience
was not the actual meaning of the experience, in the first place ...
What we must consider is that we've been punishing people or avoiding them
for a meaning that we ourselves assigned to that experience with them
it was not something that they inherently did.
What we must consider is that much of the pain
we were experiencing in our lives
is not because of what we actually experienced,
but because of the meaning we've assigned to those experiences.
Doesn't this also make much more sense
why we tend to be so confused about other people's defensive behavior?
It's important to note that conflicts about interpretation of Meaning
account for the majority of our frequent miscommunications.
Take a look back over your earliest memories ...
With each one of these memories I want you to ask:
"What is the meaning that I assigned to this particular experience?"
"What did I decide that it meant?"
Then imagine that, at that moment, your Meaning-glasses went on
and you interpreted everything that was to follow,
up into your adulthood, through those lenses ...
Does some of your life make sense?
Do some of your relationships make sense?
What if the meaning you assigned to event was not an accurate interpretation at all?
I'm going to propose that, from this day forward,
whenever we encounter something that triggers us
or something that we feel emotional pain about,
we ask ourselves the following question:
"What am I making this mean?"
This allows us to separate out what is actually happening
from the meaning that we are assigning to the experience.
This gives us an opportunity to set the record straight.
For example,
let's say that somebody gives you a really crappy birthday present,
something that you absolutely hate and would definitely
expect other people to know that you hate.
Ask yourself: "What am I making this mean?".
Perhaps you'll find that what you're making this mean is
the person doesn't actually care about you enough
to figure out what you really like, and, to know you.
Now, at this point, we have the opportunity
to not put those Meaning-Glasses on,
and to, instead,
either question that particular meaning (that we're assigning ourselves)
or, go to the other person directly with it.
You can actually say to them: "This is what I'm making this mean ..." -
"Is that your actual meaning?"
Not only does this allow the other person to set the record straight,
it makes it so that we are not putting those meaning-glasses on
in the first place,
so we're free from illusion.
Separate-out the Peanut Butter from the Jelly
and then question the Jelly ...
In other words, separate-out the event that actually happened
from the meaning that you assigned to that event,
and then question the meaning you assigned to that event
so as to not become completely convinced that it is the absolute truth.
Question your meaning instead of assuming it.
Take off those Meaning-Glasses you put on so long ago
and prepare to see the world a whole lot clearer ...
Have a good week ...
Subtitles by: Tanya Duarte www.tanyaduarte.com