Each of us is 100% responsible for our subjective reality, i.e. our private mental and emotional space, our own universe. This includes our interpretations of events, based on our beliefs and memories, attachments and fears, and our corresponding emotional reactions.
The corollary is that we are certainly not at all responsible for another person's subjective reality, i.e. their thoughts and feelings. And another person (or situations and events) cannot be at all responsible for our own thoughts and feelings.
This runs counter to our cultural programming, in which we are taught to blame others or situations for our upsets, not recognizing that we create our own beliefs, interpretations and emotional reactions. It's built into common phrases, such as "He made me angry." By not realizing that we create our own emotions, we instead identify with them and feel we actually are them. We say "I am angry."
With identification there is no distance from which to view. Only by becoming the witness to our feelings can we adopt the responsible viewpoint, from which we can then release the emotion, to let it go when it no longer serves. Then you can change your mind - beliefs and decisions can be changed in an instant when you've released the emotional charge attached to them. This new understanding is well proven as the basis of successful modern psychological practice and therapy, as discussed in depth on the Emotional Intelligence pages, and well-taught in the Start a New Life!.
Less identification leads us to gradually acquire a more spiritual viewpoint of our mind, emotions and body. We can be more stably happy, with less stress and conflict and with a certainty of our own identity. We have started on our spiritual path and now we encounter a new hurdle...
An even greater jump in consciousness is required to encompass the enlightened spiritual viewpoint of Christ Consciousness. This is also the 'Full realization' one gradually works towards with The Insight Project and in all successful schemes of spiritual development. It's the ascension of one's awareness above the customary limited human consciousness - and requires an open-mindedness to one's part in the causation of the objective reality, the world around us.
Christ Consciousness is the way of looking at the world that Jesus exemplified and taught. It was also the basis of the Essene practice, though little of this remains in the version of Christianity we see in the Bible. It's the spiritual viewpoint of life in which one is at the same time both an individual playing in this objective reality, and also one with God, the creator of this objective reality. As God, the Prime Creator, one is therefore 100% responsible for creation.
Fully grasping this, it then follows that each of us is 100% responsible for the objective reality - what we perceive and experience as the physical world. Everything in our reality is created by our own beliefs - and so our subjective reality in this way transfers into our objective world experience.
This is definitely the bird's-eye-view of reality, rather than the one we generally have when involved in the game of life. You don't think about unconditional love when playing football - you are concerned about how to win! But one needs to understand the ascended viewpoint, this spiritual or God-like aspect of our nature, as the two levels of consciousness interact. There's a kind of magic that goes on here, where the world mirrors our inner 'case' or view of the world and ourselves. The Insight Project students have long found that life situations mirror the issues that they are dealing with in session, and when these issues are cleared-up, situations 'magically' change.
Each of us, through God, creates our reality according to our beliefs. We are God's contact and intermediary with the world. So nothing can be in your reality unless you create it. From this point of view, there are no accidents, and nothing happens by chance. Everything happens for a reason.
This can be hard to swallow as it is quite the opposite to the beliefs we are taught in our culture and even by the Church. Normally all of this operates automatically and sub-consciously, but it is possible to awaken to our true power, to remember our Christ nature, and to start to consciously influence our world. Since we create all, the dialectic qualities of good/bad, right/wrong and beautiful/ugly have little meaning.
It is only from this viewpoint, actually, that the non-judgmental qualities Jesus taught of acceptance, forgiveness and unconditional love can become a practical way of life. Emotional frustration or 'charge' - which drives less-than-conscious behavior - is caused by resistance. Resistance is feeling something is not OK the way it is (or was or will be). It is judgmental and taking sides, rather than understanding with compassion. Truth is always seeing things with love, as part of one's greater self, with the consciousness of Christ.
Peter Shepherd is the founder and producer of the Trans4mind personal development website. A transformational psychologist by background, Peter supervises The Insight Project, and is author of 'Transforming the Mind' and 'Daring to be Yourself.' He edits and publishes the Trans4mind Newsletter. Get in touch with Peter Shepherd here.

Daring to be Yourself
The aim of the new book, Daring to be Yourself by Peter Shepherd, is to help you achieve a 'wide-awake' state of consciousness, with integrated use of left and right brain abilities, forming the bedrock for breakthroughs in personal consciousness and spiritual insight. The practice is based on the premise that we have learned disabilities that set boundaries to our action and knowing. But no one need accept that they must remain as they were shaped by their hereditary body-mind and by the conditioning of their childhood and culture.

This 264-page eBook is like a "best of" the Trans4mind site, all brought together for your convenience. But much more than that, it's also an incredibly powerful program for personal growth. Remove the barriers to self-knowledge and reveal your full potential with this step-by-step approach... Daring to be Yourself. Also available for Kindle (or the free Kindle Reader application for all platforms) at Amazon.com.

Our Blog features excerpts from the book plus current news, views and links.

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A digital copy of Daring to be Yourself is included with purchase of the Start a New Life! home-study course - which is effectively the practical "workbook" that accompanies the book by Peter Shepherd.
Working through this course enables you to dare to be yourself and design a brand new life. Expressing your true needs, wants and feelings, you can start to live your life's purpose!
After you have purchased the course, Peter Shepherd is available whenever you wish by email, to guide you every step of the way from where you are now, until you are established in a brand new life - the life that you have designed... Start a New Life!
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