Personal
Tendencies
“So the
challenge for each of us centers on understanding our own eternal
journey in terms of which of our personal tendencies are life
nourishing and which are destructive, which are we upholding and
which are we resisting. Paradoxically, only being human on earth can
offer up the experience of spirit necessary to alter our tendencies.”
Mark Nepo
(Finding Inner Courage, p.152)
We all have tendencies to
act, speak, and behave in certain predictable ways. Our tendency toward particular personality traits often comes from our family of
origin—by internalizing our first-chakra family norms. For
instance, my own family were of Scottish/Irish heritage. We tend to
be acerbic in our manner of speaking and in our humor. It can come
across as funny, yes, but also critical, cynical and mean-spirited,
even when, to us, it is not intended to be. I, personally, have a
tendency to analyze and explain, whether or not any other living,
breathing human being cares to hear it. Usually, we have conscious
tendencies, and unconscious tendencies, but even when we are
consciously aware of which ones are destructive, we may fall back on
them in times of stress. I find that when I am frustrated, I become
even more sarcastic, and at times outright bombastic and hateful.
Believe me, it's not pretty.
I know people who are
proud of their tendencies toward sarcasm, even proud of all their
other 'isms.” They are aware and don't care if they wound, and
some even intend to inflict damage. I know many more, however, who
are unaware of their innate negative tendencies—toward racism,
sexism, misogyny, homophobia, just to name a few. This is the cohort
that is truly dangerous, because they keep oppressive institutions in
place through denial that they exist. If you grew up with any of
these family traits, they may be inherent in you though you are
unaware. In fact, most of us deny being racist, but sometimes our
thoughts and even our actions veer in that direction—old tapes play
automatically. This is not the singular province of Caucasians, by
the way. We all have a tendency to prefer our clan and exclude
others.
The good news is that we
can change our behavior, even change our inborn traits. We do this by
becoming conscious of them. When the old tapes play, we stop them.
When an opportunity for insensitive humor or comment presents itself,
we refuse. We change our destructive inclinations by knowing
ourselves very well—what our tendencies are, which are good and
caring, and which are not. And then we monitor ourselves to keep from
simply following our instinctual proclivities. Being a human being on
planet earth offers us the opportunity to change—to become more
accepting, tolerant, and compassionate. We are imperfect beings, but
we are conscious beings. We evolved this way for a reason, and it is
our privilege and our responsibility to move that consciousness
forward—one step at a time on this eternal journey.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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