“Just The Facts Ma’am”

Greetings my very gentle readers to anther weeks installment of the “Be Yourself, Often” blog found here at: http://www.joelwlamoure.com/id43.html . Ah, that time when we can sit back and appreciate the calm and soothing sense of nature and the chaos theory that abounds within Her.

This week we will take a look at one of my favourite movies, which is Dragnet. The modified one (of course) with Dan Aykroyd as the uber straightlaced, yet prone to impulsive decisions and actions Sgt. Joe Friday and Tom Hanks as his partner with a list of merits ad citations yet a flagrant disregard for the status quo. The dynamic and yet unusual duo that end up together through some cosmic mis-association in the LAPD. We all know the movie!

The Facts present us well and define us when they are filtered through the chaos of nature vs the amorphic and sometime ambiguous definitive lines that exist in a set culture, society or where there is a rigid pecking order. Quite intriguingly in my observations->  it seems across over 20 years of practice (11 in psychiatry), 140 journal articles, unknown OTN lectures and discussions, over 500 lectures, 3 continents and 60,000 hits to this website alone (plus 6000 on Academia.edu: www. http://uwo.academia.edu/JoelLamoure ) that the opposite is true.

Home is where the heart is. Not a place of straight lines, but one of amorphic curves. Per wit, embracing nature vs the man made entities that have their manipulation and unpredictabilities. Sometimes, one has to make a set stand in their Belief Systems and in their Creator to see that. These decisions are not easy, but do reflect how expectations can drive one insane. Totally, truly, clinically insane.

A wise person told me yesterday about anger, uncertainty and stress being like a balloon and how every event is like a puff into that balloon. And ways to distress and decompress that balloon…especially where there are factors that cause inherent impacts on the balloon to start with: like abuse, harassment, PTSD, anxiety, loss, grief to name a few. Interesting as I love writing and using metaphors in my sermons and writings.

“Just The Facts Ma’am” and knowing all the facts before making hasty decisions helps prevent inflation of the balloon and wiser minds to prevail. Step back and analyze what are the root causes and cause/effect and epidemiology and taxonomy of the situation Step back and analyze what are the root causes and cause/effect and epidemiology and taxonomy of the situation and prevent unneeded provocation and escalation. These are the facts of life to live. Peace, patience, silence, humility and serenity as I have stated many times (with varying success). I too fail, often.

Touching nature as it is meant to be in all its glorious, unrefined chaos is an appealing idea. To return to the roots and the Earth is to be yourself, often.

___ Rev. Dr Joel Lamoure    July 2013

Living the Evidence-Informed Self: Those Silent Moments (Part 2)

Greetings my gentle readers to another week’s installment of the “Be Yourself, Often” blog. As always this is a time when we can sit and in quiet meditative mindful reflection look at the week that was and realize the impact of the decisions that we have made. As we touched on in our blog last week, too often people will assign blame to other people, and embrace as was stated by Eckhart Tolle as our “pain-body” and the role of victim, vs active participant in our life.

Unfortunately, this is often falsely convicting another party, which inherently will have to establish changes in boundaries, changes in verbal, as well as changes in non-verbal responses to that individual and similar situations in the future. This is your altar that is changing. You hurt, they hurt…everyone hurts.

Too often have you looked at somebody and made a preconceived notion or judgment about them? They look like a bum because they are not clean? They look smart because they wear glasses? They look like they have money or credible because they have clean designer clothes? Indeed, way too often this is done. Our evidence is filtered through an improper lens which causes not evidence informed decisions but rather emotional-based decisions. We will discuss evidence-based emotions next week.

However, going back to evidence informed that living. In being able to ground and connect with higher spirits through prayer, healthy diet, exercise and play then we can understand what is important to our spiritual connection. When we do not fill ourselves with the detritus of society and societal dictates or the man’s, we are more able to be free and make an appropriately informed decision. Per wet, we are not mere puppets of a Western culture.

Other clouds and filters that may impact on your ability to make a decision include unhealthy living or filling your life full of stuff that are not relevant to positive long-term objectives. They may be items, tangibles, ideas, beliefs or constructs. This may even include sacrificing your inner self and existing belief structures in order to be someone else, or by someone else’s objectives for you. At the end of the day, there is very little you in there. Across time, the whole organism that is YOU is bound to, in fact has to change with the constant onslaught of challenges. Welcome to the jaded world! SO emotionally driven and hormone mediated, while at the same time often not believing how much control you really HAD in the situation.

So in order to make an evidence informed decision, which will drive, a more positive, evidence informed life then we need to be at one with our spirit. We need to know our biases. We need to live a purpose driven life. There needs to be an awareness of our gifts and how they can translate into helping ourselves help ourselves help others. At this point, we can read the evidence and the impact as it occurs and understand how our subconscious has made the decisions that it has.

This is not a hard thing to do. It is about prayer, diet, healthy living, and play. There is indeed a balance rooted in a strong Spiritual foundation to build upon. It is about not assigning bias, nor blame and indeed assigning a healthy role to the moment. Life is not always a paranoid individual’s constant dream of conspiracies! There are players and victims, heroes and villains and a more open-minded approach and embracing the gestalt of the situation helps so much. It means, even when it is hard, that you might be not correct. Notice that the word “wrong” was not used.

How can this life be wrong or when there are so many miracles and gifts that exist within it? If we embrace our life as a gift in the present, rooted in mindfulness, then we should be able to truly be yourself, often.

~~~ Rev. Dr. Joel Lamoure March 2013