consequences | David M Masters

Stuff Happens (consequences)

Stuff happens. When you do stuff, stuff happens to you. Sometimes directly or indirectly, but pretty much it’s true, what goes around comes around. It’s all a process of watching, evaluating, finding a relation to things that have happened in the past, calculating and projecting variations of how this might look in the future, and basically trying to learn from your wins and/or mistakes.

You try different things, and when you discover a method that gets you what you want, it’s a keeper. It might not be politically correct, maybe a little inappropriate, but it works. In this way, you are the result of what works for you.

When people try to get you to do something that you don’t want to do, there is an initial natural resistance because, of course, you don’t want to do whatever it is. Something happens when you do stuff that is resistant, this “something” is called consequences (you might have heard of them).

This energy is the substance of the stuff which happens to us. Sometimes consequences are imposed upon us by those bigger, tougher, and meaner than us or in authority over us (parents, teachers, bosses, law enforcement, and the government).

In other times, natural consequences are just a “natural” energetic response to the decisions we make and the action we take. The hope is that we might learn from our experience with consequences, natural consequences, at least.

Imposed consequences appear to not be as effective method of training as we might like to think, as the spare-the-rod-and-spoil-the-child model of punishment doesn’t seem to be working very well in our modern society, or else our prisons would not be overflowing with those who insist in noncompliance regardless of any imposed consequences.

Punishment eases your mind if you’re witnessing someone being punished for doing something you don’t like. It makes you feel vindicated and is like a reward to your ego for taking the high road. It’s like, you’re not awarded any recognition for doing the right thing, but it feels good to see others punished for doing the wrong thing. This is punishment’s reward for you, seeing others suffer.

But does it work? No.

Whenever you tell someone, “Don’t,” (fill in the blank), it doesn’t work very well. If you tell a young child, “Don’t touch the burner. It’s hot and it will hurt you!” The child will obsess over the burner for the rest of his or her life, unless he or she tests it out to see if there truly is any natural consequence. If the natural consequence is severe enough, learning happens naturally. If burned from touching the burner, the child will probably never touch a burner again.

Punishment, or discipline, is not a natural consequence, they are unnatural consequences imposed by you or someone else, and the imposition of them does not foster learning. Instead, resentment is the more likely result, which causes the offender to see any imposer of unnatural consequences as a threat who must be defended against, or even punished for bullying the offender who sees him- or herself now as the victim.

Even if you or some arm of the system have obtained compliance via threat of unnatural consequence, the people who have complied will harbor resentment which may be suppressed. On the surface, this may look like a huge success for the imposer, but the truth is, there is little or no respect or love, only resentment and fear.

Repressed resentment will eventually explode into some manifestation of rebellion unless so much fear is imposed that the offender sees his or her self-submission to a life of slavery as an acceptable means of survival.

There are people who either naturally or unnaturally found their own sense of inner balance. They do not need to be told what is right or wrong or lorded over to force them to behave a certain way. They just have a knowingness within and an innate desire to do the right thing.

We would like to see more of them.

Unfortunately, our society has become so obsessed with crime and punishment that even these otherwise self-governing good people are caught up in the punishment-for-compliance system and find themselves being punished, not for doing something bad, but for being in the wrong place at the right time, or inadvertently crossing a law that was put in place to catch criminals, when no crime was committed.

We have so many laws on the books now, who could possibly keep track of them all?

Once you have broken the spirit of one of the good ones, they, too, become one of the other ones, as they give up and surrender to the system of the herd.

I think there should be only one law: Do whatever makes you happy, unless it interferes with someone else’s right to their happiness. That’s all.

Otherwise, let reaction, anxiety, fear, and panic run the show and see where that gets you.

Am I Gonna Be Stuck This Way?

I don’t know if you can remember the time (I know I can) when you were so stoned that paralysis set in, your mind was going whacko, you were in a state of panic and dared to ask, “Am I gonna be stuck this way?” I mean the very thought that you might have exercised your worst decision-making skills to suffer the effects which may never be reversible.

To add to the fear, we have all heard stories, seen it in the news, or in the media. Someone did just that; made a one-time decision which changed their life in a tragic way or may have even lost their own life when clearly suicide was not their intention. This is beyond frightening when you find yourself thinking that you might have spoken your last words, be potentially having your last thoughts, or breathing your last breath.

No one would blame you or even question your crying out with your mind (because you may not be able to speak), “Dear God, if you ever let me get out of this thing alive, I promise never to do this again.” And you might throw in some other promises to sweeten the deal so that the Creator of the universe would stop whatever it was that was going on just to tend miraculously to you.

Though some of us came out of such an incident physically scarred for life for the whole world to see what the consequences of one bad decision might be, if we survived, we were virtually the same. We looked, talked, acted, and walked just the same. People who saw us months following the event could never have thought that we’d been through such an experience.

Time goes on… and we forget the incident because we have no constant reminder every time, we look in the mirror. And those promises we made? Well, we’ve forgotten them, too.

Then there are those, people like you, who would do anything to avoid finding themselves in that situation ever again. In some way, you have changed, become a better person. The axiom rings true, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

While you may not find yourself, in a sense, “one toke over the line,” you do have these metaphorical moments when you make decisions that do not turn out as you had planned. How you respond in the moment of recognition (which could be severely delayed) that you made a mistake, and how you respond to your decision and the results from it, it up to you.

You may have no control over the results of your decision and any action or inaction that took place in the process, but what you do about it is totally another decision to be made. Again, your action or inaction will have a huge impact on the results.

Every decision you make is like a wheel in the middle of a track. If you spin it to the right, it takes off to the right depending how much force you exert on the wheel. The same to the left. To the right is in the direction of positivity and to the left negative. The more energy exerted greatly influences how far the effects of your decision will travel in that direction. This energy includes all energy exerted, both seen and unseen.

Energy comes in many forms and may include unspoken desires of your heart, or hidden fears and trauma from the past, and any other form of energy, including thoughts both conscious and unconscious.

If you can take a moment to consciously consider first what direction your decision will cause your decision wheel will travel, in that moment of pause and reflection you can ask yourself,

How can I apply love to this decision?

Love is the most powerful force in the universe, and you can call love into action at any moment. If your decisions are made in love, your decision wheel will move powerfully in the direction of positivity. While the consequences may include what appears to be negative, later you will discover that even the seemingly negative effects of your decision made in love will be for your highest and best interests.

Nevertheless, if you make a negative decision, chances are, you will get another chance, and you don’t have to worry enough to ask, “Am I gonna be stuck this way?” for tomorrow is another day and with the day comes new opportunities to make new decisions. You aren not going to be stuck this way.

Love is the key to making powerful, life-changing decisions, with miraculous results. Anything else leads to negative vibrations which move the results in the opposite direction than that which you think.

Think to yourself,

I love you. I love me. Let’s see how positive the results of this can be.

Apply love and see what happens.

Truth and Consequences

Once you get to a point in your journey when you are attaining a level of personal integrity, you also begin to gain a desire to be open and honest – which is a good thing – but it doesn’t take long ‘til you find that telling the truth and being totally honest can come at a very high price.

Being totally honest is an authentic urge as you continue to grow as being true to yourself makes you want to be truthful to others also. One would think that since being brutally honest with yourself would indicate that being brutally honest with others would be just as effective. Yeah, not so much.

The more radically open and honest you are the fewer people will be attracted to you. Unless your goal is to completely isolate yourself from society, then you might consider tempering your honesty with a snippet from the Hippocratic Oath, “To do no harm.”

Otherwise, an unbridled purveyor of truth might be considered as arrogant, self-centered, antagonistic, whacked (crazy) and possibly deserving of being safely locked away in an asylum. To counter public opinion about the truth you desire to share, simply being considerate of others can be a highly effective approach when applied to communication that might otherwise be difficult or hurt someone’s feelings.

This is a skill wielded by the savvy therapist, to be able to challenge the patient with contrarian ideas in order to break a particular pattern, without approaching the idea from a full frontal attack. Some empathy in this situation will go a long way. Consider the person you’re involved in the conversation with, use a bit of imagination and try to put yourself in his or her shoes. How does it feel to be that person, in this moment, with respect to the life he/she has lived up to this point?

Keep in mind, you want to tell the truth without overawe and do no harm in the process.

Simply taking a moment to observe your breathing, connect with your heart, thoughtfully and purposefully setting the intention to effectively and sincerely communicate heart-to-heart prior to sharing will help to set the tone for a potentially abrasive interaction.

To avoid the pitfalls or consequences of being blunt, a more ‘round the bush approach may be a more affective tactic, especially if you would like to avoid alienation, desiring a more positive outcome.

As you become more open, honest and intimate your thoughts in a sincerely truthful manner, you find increasing feelings of satisfaction, joy and fulfillment from this advanced perspective. Your whole outlook begins to improve, as does your lifestyle, you live a healthier and enjoy a longer lifespan.

If you can learn how to honestly tell the truth with respect and honor for the life and perspective of the recipient, you will be respected as an authentic person who speaks with authority and integrity, while being kind and sensitive.

The more you do it, the less intimidated you are about sharing and the more courageous you become about intimating important details to others.

When your kindness predicates your sharing honestly, you come from a place of love and compassion and people with whom you are interacting feel as though you care about them, when the very same information would have been rejected and you shunned, without first setting your authentic intention.

Still, there will be times when even with the best intentions and efforts, your honesty will be rejected, but that says more about the state of the receiver than you. Some people cannot handle the truth and build protective walls around themselves to disallow any ideas that may seem incongruent to them.