Posts categorized "Authentic Life"

The psychopaths in our lives; what can be done?

There are people in your life who are never wrong. With the blame for everything being external, there is this total commitment to being right.

This common and powerful delusion is caused by a total service to ego identity. Lacking faith in anything other than their own ego, admitting any form of imperfection feels akin to self-destruction. 

Ego-centeredness (self-centerdness) destroys relationships by making everyone wrong and guilty. To defend against the perceived threat of ego-frailty, no insult or attack is too great. Everyone around must be made lesser for them to feel superior. The problem is also clear at work. These people are very difficult to employ because they take no accountability. It's everyone else's fault and to suggest anything else is perceived as a personal attack. 

Yet how they insult, attack, and cause drama yet none of it is this seen as a mistake. Apology and course-correction is impossible. Kindness is also impossible because there is always a negotiation in play to take and get more. To this type of person, there is only one goal: building up a grandiose ego identity. It doesn't matter if they know nothing about a particular topic, they are the expert. Doesn't matter if their relationships are a disaster, it's someone else's fault. The company is losing money, blame a colleague or even the customers. The rest of us only exist to validate their need to make their own egos more important than anything else in life.

When you think about it, this is psychopathic behavior. Common, but psychopathic nonetheless. As a wife or husband, their partners are made to live in guilt, fear, and trauma. As a parent, children are used to build up their own image of success. All of life becomes a game to look important, rich, attractive, smarter, more well-travelled, whatever it may be--and to this individual, those attributes where they see themselves as strong are all that matter. 

What can be done to change such a person? Nothing, really. So fixated on this one goal, they would sacrifice anyone, anything, or any situation at the altar of their own ego. If you confront the person, they will either cut you out of their life or claim to need more time to work on it. They will claim that they are doing better, working on it, making progress. Yet the same behaviors continue, and nothing really changes because the thought assumptions haven't changed. 

When we humble ourselves and realize that we are not special, life opens up, flows, and feels lighter. Love becomes our natural, uninterrupted state. When ego thoughts subside, we serve higher ideals. We value who and what we have. We serve. We take care of ourselves and look within, accepting that there will always be problems in the external world but none of it is actually real.

But the determined, inflexible psychopath will never choose to change. They are blind to life's beautiful dimensions that can only be found if and when they do.

Sacrifice of ego-identity is ultimately a personal choice and only tends to happen when there is a crisis. But even then, most people don't make the transition. The most difficult thing to understand is that there is no changing a psychopath. You can only stop playing their games, work on your own spiritual development, and accept the consequence that you are likely going to lose the person. As difficult as this is, the cost of sacrificing your life on the altar of someone else's ego is too great. 

Perfect love is possible, both within yourself and when shared with another similar person. Do not fear psychopaths, play by their rules, and sacrifice this eternal present moment for the benefits of any arrangement or situation. God and reality, itself, have something superior for you beyond the bounds of ego.


How to not care what people think of you

Some people say that they don't care what people think. I truly mean it.

To care what anyone else thinks is to give them control over your life. It also adds layers of confusion into your thinking. One person might react this way, another that way.

How can you be sure what to do or say? How can you even know what anyone is thinking or if they are even thinking of you at all?

Better to care what you think and believe about yourself.

  • Am I being loving?
  • Generous?
  • Forgiving?
  • Honest?
  • Am I willing to tell a necessary truth?
  • Am I fighting for a better future for my children and grandchildren?
  • Am I creating value at work and doing the job I am paid to do?
  • Am I fair to everyone, even my enemies?
  • Do I see myself as an equal to all brothers and sisters?
  • Do I generally want to make people feel good and set them free?
  • Do I feel good and am I happy?
  • Am I in a state of internal peace?

When I can answer those questions to my satisfaction, I don't care how anyone else reacts to me.

Your thoughts and reactions are about you, while I am free. I am good. I welcome anyone and everyone with open arms if there is respect going both ways.

But if you are the kind of person who cares what people think...here's what I do think of you: if you seek these types of positive ideals, you have my admiration! To the extent that you fall short in terms of basic human values, I hope and pray for a change of heart. What are you doing with your life? You aren't shining your truth. You can do so much better, and your life could be wonderful. As it is, I don't think you are happy. You are suffering.

Now stop caring what I think and fix that. You are capable of healing yourself and fixing your world in love, truth, and freedom. The real truth about you is that you were born perfect and remain so.