Review of 'The Courage To Be Transformed' by Dr. Robert Moore - Part 2

1:05:10

There is the good news and the bad news. The good news is that there is no way at the ontological level that you can separate yourself from the power of being. Sometimes you may just not be able to access it in a useful or life-serving way.

1:06:31

The bad news is though that as a human being you are always going to have a feeling a lot of the times. This feeling is going to make you think that you are alienated from the fountain of being. The human mind will tend to feel estranged from the power of being. This is because we know that we can be more: more kind, more loving, more courageous, more caring, etc.

1:08:10

If you don't "think" well. If you are not aware, you will come to the conclusion that the alienation or estrangement, is the most important thing about you. You are focusing on half-empty.

1:09:37

Anxiety, at the root, is all grounded in estrangement, which is grounded in the human condition.

1:10:20

There are 3 types of anxiety that anxiety will tend to split into in different people, but they are all rooted in the same thing, which is estrangement and alienation.

1:11:18

The first type of anxiety is Anxiety of Fate and Death. The person experiencing this type of anxiety is really thinking a lot about the destiny pole. The thought of "I'm a human being and I'm going to die". This looms so large that it sucks the air out of life. When you are experiencing this type of anxiety, you know you do not have an unlimited amount of time. This could get worse as you age into your later years. This is when you get into despair. It becomes almost impossible to choose or think or look to the future or try to build a relationship.

1:13:47

Negative thoughts and feelings begin to cloud your mind. "I've wasted my life", "I'm already X age and what do I have to show for it", "I was born a ___ and it affected my life", "I had this ___ health problem and I never had a chance".

1:15:23

In the second type of anxiety, which is Anxiety of Emptiness and Meaninglessness, it is very different from the first type of anxiety. In this second type of anxiety, one goes through "ennui" (nothing matters). There is no energy in life. It is almost like depression.

1:19:40

The third type of anxiety is the anxiety of Guilt and Condemnation. This one is when you feel your responsibility for your own transgressions or shortcomings. For example, you can look back in your life and see you had some musical talents and ask yourself what you did with them. Or the guilt you may carry for playing the part of breaking up a relationship you had with a great person.

1:22:48

This type of anxiety (Anxiety of Guilt and Condemnation) is when you are aware of all your shortcomings but you get a negative inflation. This is when you magnify the negativity in you and your past decisions to fill the whole screen that you can't even tell yourself "But I survived", "But I keep trying". We need to keep reminding ourselves of the positives. The Courage To Be.

1:26:44

Tillich says that we need to be careful about moralism. There are a lot of differences between morality and moralism. In moralism, they will try to shame you for being human. They will try to shame you and hate you for your life force and creativity.

1:30:16

Our courage to be is grounded by something much greater than us.

1:31:44

There are two kinds of courage. The first is the courage to be as a "part" of a larger whole. The second is the courage to be one self intentioned with the larger whole. A centered self is one that has the ability to maintain its sense of selfhood while changing appropriately and creatively and being able to reflect consciously on one's selfhood and the struggles of one's selfhood. If you are going to be a centered self, you need to have both kinds of courage.

1:34:14

If you don't have enough participation with others, you will become so anxious that you will not be able to individuate. Good relationships contain you. They are not enough for spiritual practice but if you don't want to be crazy, you better be working on finding optimum relationships. Relationships are part of a necessary framework for one's individuation.

1:35:00

As one becomes a more centered self, they will be able to love more. You will want to be in relationships the more centered you get.

1:36:00

If you can get really centered, you will have the courage to be a "part" and be able to love, not perfectly though. And you won't be so perfectionistic that you won't be able to take joy in the imperfection.

1:36:22

And in the courage to be as one's self, the more centered you are, the more you will see how wonderful you are. You will be able to get past that guilt and condemnation, and meaninglessness and emptiness, etc. Death will not be able to cancel out the joy you take in your existence. The more realised you are as a self, the more joy you have, the more vigour, the more energy (useable energy).

1:38:03

One of the things we have to ask ourselves is which is my temptation: to not have the energy to rock and roll (then you'll need to work on connection to the power of being) or to rock and roll and jump off a cliff (then you'll need to learn to not let creativity destroy the forms of your life).

1:39:24

Tillich asks the question: why do we need the courage to be? Because there are so many things trying to kill us. The bad news is that not only are they from the outside, but they are also from the inside.

1:39:50

The Courage To Be is the actual capacity to take a stand against those things that are trying to kill you, outer or inner.

1:40:07

There is a huge amount of envy and hate all around. The bad news is, the better you get, the more of it that is going to come at you.

1:40:18

We have a naive thinking that if we get better, everybody will love us more. That is wrong. If you get better and you shine, the vampires will line up around the block.

1:41:08

The people that hate you are suffering from non-being. They are privileging non-being. They are telling themselves all sorts of things they can't be. The only answer to envy is we have to ask our own selves: where am I missing how wonderful I am? Because if you are pre-occupied with envy and hate, you are missing your participation in this wonderful reality.

1:42:29

Human beings that do not feel connected enough to the power of being will assume a vampiric stance towards others. They watch where energy appears. Instead of hating it, they want it. They idealise you and see you as a source of energy.

1:47:42

It is not demonic to have someone come to you for energy. The world is running on brown-out, for lack of connection in a healthy way.

1:48:04

However, you have to be able to protect your self-identity. In order to do that, you must regulate. You must not let somebody take more energy from you than you can spare. This is called boundaries. It is up to you to set the boundaries, in any relationship. This is what having adequate self-identity and individuation means.

1:49:35

This is an ongoing project. Regulation is not perfection. It is not kind to your partner to give them too much of your energy. A lot of relationship disorder is because of this.