Being a Work in Progress

In today's posting, I want to again ruminate around thinking of ourselves as works in progress. In actuality, the whole process our physical selves go through, from fertilized egg to an elderly person, exemplifies the individual physical self as, "a work in progress.

Little thought was given to the workings of the personality residing within that physical self, until the late 19th-early 20th Century with the arrival on the scene in Europe of Sigmund Freud. Up until that time, human behavior was considered the province of the Church.

The upheaval in society that took place during that time was tremendous, it being the time of the split between the new intellectual interest in the workings of nature, which came to be called, "Science," and the Church. The end of the 19th Century, with the advent of, "Science," in many respects, was comparable to the time of Martin Luther's breaking away from the dominance up-to-that-time of the Catholic Church over everyone. By the middle of the 20th Century Science had become dominant; the battle between these two factions still goes on today.

Currently, there is another upheaval in thought occurring; that upheaval has to do with the overthrow of the dominance of the Scientific Belief System over people's thinking, and, thus, their lives.

Much of the material aimed at taking control of one's life sounds, to many (Indoctrinated) people, a lot like the old, "magic" which the scientific paradigm believed it had successfully debunked. One of the older ideas, which has been around for some time, is the "power of positive thinking." Dr. Norman Vincent Peal's book bearing the name, was a major best seller. A search on the Internet will turn up many references to recent scientific studies establishing the validity of the value of such an attitude in life.

In the process of adopting, as a philosophy-of-life, that the self is "a work-in-progress," rather than a finished, static, (or deteriorating) product, it is necessary to remove much of the Scientific Programming one has been subject to, and incorporated as part of the personal Belief System.

One of the most entrenched is the idea that you cannot change, "facts," i.e., that how you are feeling at this moment-in-time is a fact, and saying/thinking, "Every day in every way, I'm getting better and better," will change nothing. Or, believing that, if you get up in the morning, and think, "I'm feeling lousy today" is nothing but a statement of fact, and is in no way programming your day.

Another entrenched "scientific" belief is that one's personal reality cannot be changed, for example, one's physical condition. The AMA, allopathic doctors have been indoctrinated to believe that illness and disease are the product of aging, and/or disease agents; that these are Facts. Also, that their way of doctoring, primarily, cutting out diseased parts, and/or suppressing symptoms, is the only method of fighting ill health, (to which, over time, they have added a large number of specialties). The resultant predominate belief of "patients" being that the AMA Doctors are the ultimate authority when it comes to one's personal health. It is usually not until the AMA Doctors have, "given up on one, that, as a last resort, some individuals try some other methods in order to survive.

If one decides that they are going to take responsibility for their own health, the general response of friends/relatives is that you are making a grave mistake. In some circumstances such individuals have had the person declared incompetent, and have forced the person to undergo unwanted intervention by the AMA medical practitioners.

"Aging" is perhaps the strongest deterrent to beginning a program of self-development. Everyone has received so much programming regarding the aging process that few of middle, or advanced, years are willing to accept the idea that they have created what they have become, and that, even at a later stage of deterioration, they can change anything.

In recent years, fortunately for many individuals, because of ill health, they have been somehow convinced that what they have believed much of their lives, "ain't necessarily so," and have reversed and/or removed physical conditions considered by the AMA Doctors to have been, "incurable."

If you want to change your reality, a word that must be removed from one's vocabulary is, "impossible." If you continue to believe something is, "impossible," however, it will be for you.

With that, I end today's blog.

Shirley Gallup