surprise value, and how to get some of it

Hey, Reader.

I’ve written a whole bunch about the shadow kingdom, about positive vs negative, but most importantly about the deep impacts of the crooked game.

You should not be scared, but you should also not pretend it does not exist or has nothing to do with you.

Paying attention to the not so light side of your kingdom is like eating your vegetables. It’s the prerequisite of changing unhealthy patterns and habits and you’ll learn to value it eventually, even if you may still prefer ketchup chips.

Here’s the backstory for everyone who wants to know why when we don’t recognize the value in something, we often resist it.

We need to make judgments to determine what serves our interests and what causes harm. From the perspective of human nature, we can say that patterns are very well designed, and perfectly serve a core need: pursuing interest and avoiding harm and seeking simplicity and avoiding complexity.

With respect to the large amount of complex information we constantly take in, without our patterns of the consciousness how can we process it?

We can easily skip the conscious effort to look at everything, process the information and then come to a conclusion.

They make things so much easier for us. So very fast.

Thank goodness we have them, otherwise we’d have to use so much energy and space to process everything anew, AND how would we know what is beneficial and what isn’t? This also relates to the second aspect of human nature, which is seeking simplicity.

We want things to be simple.

Even today, the ability to assess our environment for safety is still important and necessary for the survival of life. You can imagine how it would be if this ability hadn’t been passed down from generation to generation–the human species would be long gone.

Undoubtedly, our culture mirrors our current state of human nature and thus plays a big role in helping us to form patterns in a quick way, too.

We value efficiency.

If something can be done quickly, that’s better than waiting a long time. This is why we come to see things in a polarized way–good vs bad, right vs wrong, positive vs negative.

It’s about simplicity.

This simplified way of seeing things can be applied to everything, and our consciousness needs a lot of reference points to know how to process that everything. The patterns of the consciousness play that role. They are the criteria used for processing information. When unhealthy patterns are part of our life and information is processed through these, the information that we use to make decisions from is fragmented, partial, twisted and lacking totality.

In other words, it’s inevitable that they will create lots of problems.

They are a welcome reminder how valuable they are to our growth, especially when it's so pretty easy to develop a negative view of our crooked patterns, so-called negative thoughts and emotions—the parts of our shadow kingdom—because they are the source of our problems. And it’s also pretty easy to look at them as very bad, also because overcoming and changing them is a very difficult task.

They make things so much more complicated for us. So very slow.

More or less what makes it so difficult to not dislike, resent or fight them is:

The difficulty that we don’t truly want to deal with them. We don’t want to have problems. That’s the real difficulty. The don’t want is the most difficult thing to come by.

Surprise values like them don’t happen by accident.

Maybe you are already aware of this and got already some of your surprise values. If so, hat tip to you. Skip this email.

Or maybe you have been noticing there are things you don’t want and you have difficulty seeing the value in them. In which case, this email is for you. Please pay attention.

Here’s what happens next:

We start to experience a contrast, a duality. And in this duality there are things that are desirable and things that are not. There are things we don't want, we want to avoid, and we want to hide from. We want more of the good and we do not want the opposite.

Human nature will pursue the good and will avoid the uncomfortableness, and "shortcomings". Human nature is so very well designed.

In this process an emotion rises up and that emotion, the FIRST PRIMAL EMOTION that comes, is THE FEAR.

The fear of anything that you don't want.

This is important. You can't touch what you can’t see. You can't touch what you resist, because you resist for a very 'good' reason. You already know that your shadow self is one of the very best long-crooked-game strategies in your kingdom. So I won’t press the point.

Going through 'gates' of life can be hard to value. We know this.

(it's absolutely possible that one day you'll feel GREAT about every new 'gate' you stumble upon. Here you can read this year's very first newsletter about 'gates of life' if you missed it or want it as a reminder).

That's what makes your shadow self so meaningful.

As you can see, even the obstacles to seeing the value of the shadow kingdom, the "don’t wants", can be 'gates'.

Oh, and one more thing.

People often don't understand why they should spend their precious time and Qi with their not so light side.

Is anyone really hanging there? Does it have to be this way? Who'd want to be with problems all the time, anyway?

The answer is:

Yes there are ones (it's way more fun if you know more about taking on your 'gates', so you can confidently play in the crooked game and see what needs to be touched).

​Watch this video and maybe you will want to VALUE your 'problems' (gates). ​

Wisdom guided living is way more fun.

I also happen to know the universe is a really great support in your growth and it is super present with opportunities in every given moment; whether they are or not is up to you.

Get your not so light side touched in 2024.

XOM

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