Awareness becomes seemingly split from itself when it conceptualizes a position in here looking out at there and remembers experiences in terms of my pain that I was unable to avoid and my pleasure that I tried to keep. This split is not a really occurring fact, but is an apparent perception constructed attributing location and object-significance to self. An emotional sense of pleasure, for further illustration, associated with bodily experiences, feelings of belonging, or being recognized by others is fit into a self-image. A sense of what constitutes emotional pain may be associated with experiences of rejection, abandonment, rage, neglect, or abuse. The psychological split is healed when pain is neither retained nor defended against psychologically.  Pleasure is neither sought nor rejected.  To assist an individual in understanding the direction in which one might move, in making the decision for a particular direction, and in acting on it requires that the helper understand the obstacles involved. We assume—almost without qualification—that the other will have mixed feelings about getting help. Part of the person wants help and part does not. Part of the person looks forward to coming and part does not. There are no easy answers; there are no pat solutions; there is no great messiah who is going to make everything all right by magic or majesty.

There is no quick or easy way to work through a person’s ambivalence about receiving help. Feelings both of wanting help and resisting help are required to be respected. One may move in the direction of health by integrating experiences that have been avoided, but is fully healthy when rejection and acceptance are not options.  To the helper looking on in another’s life, the direction may be obvious. To the person struggling with his own situation, direction may be far from obvious. The security operations by which one maintains oneself in the face of the demands of the environment are not easily modified. Anxiety has a way of crippling an individual’s ability to respond. The more fully the helper enables the sufferer to clarify conflicts within oneself, resistance to securing help, and hostility against the person trying to help, the easier it will be for everyone involved. Perceptions of lack are investigated, understood as constructed, and resolved when there is neither need for something from outside nor retention of self-image kept inside. One does not add self to World, nor remove self by withdrawing from the World as a result of such an opening.  We have to be sensitive to the World views that others hold. On the level of acceptance, because of the major change in the way we perceive others, we now become aware of the inner innocence behind the frantic, fear-driven struggles that have obscured it in ourselves and in our neighbors, friends, and family.

Negativity which we see in a person or in society is really due to blindness, ignorance, and unconsciousness. This inner innocence, once it is perceived in others, is also perceived in ourselves. All that we did was done because we just did not know any better at the time, we would have done it a different way. It seemed like a good idea at the time, we might say. We see that same blindness operating in others, and we can look past their character defects and see the innocence within. Once we see our innocence, there is an identification with others and a loss of feeling alone and stressed. We are able to see innocence even behind the rashest and apparently undesirable behaviors. We look inside an individual and see the frightened soul that just does not know any better. We are aware that, if provoked, it will surely retaliate. In acceptance, it is possible to forgive our own past, as well as that of others, and to heal past resentment. It is also possible to see the hidden gift in past events about which we have been resentful—including their possible karmic significance. We have to learn to create a different context from which to view the past so we can heal from it. Then we will feel secure about the future and can move on to the levels of love and peace.   

The Winchester Mystery House

From the lingering spirit forever working in the Grand Ballroom and the band of children prowling the garden to the lights on staircase, The Winchester Mystery House is truly haunted. https://winchestermysteryhouse.com/