(11-21-2014, 07:46 AM)Folk-love Wrote: What do I do when I have thoughts like "such and such is selfish and shallow" or "such and such is angry, hateful and unloving"? Do I then try and find the positives in each and every individual that I have negative thoughts about? Or do I just ignore the thoughts all together or are they worth exploring? I don't want to fall into suppressing my thoughts and feelings but neither do I want focus on negativity. I guess this is ultimately a question about shadow work. Perhaps I've got more work to do in the field of positive focus and attitude.
There is nothing wrong with trying to "get to the bottom of it", but I can tell you from experience, there actually is no bottom to it, and it is a never ending can of worms. The fact of the matter is no one is all STO or all STS, so there is both positive and negative in everyone. Finding the good qualities in others and meditating upon them to the exclusion of the negative qualities isn't suppression in my opinion, but rather, a kind of emotional alchemy, where you are finding alignment with the interpretation of reality most consonant with the law of oneness. Focusing on the bad, just suppresses the good. And focusing on the good, just suppresses the bad. You thank the catalyst of negativity for its role of clarifying what you want out of life, and then use that to focus more purely on what is wanted. This transmutes the seemingly negative catalyst into ultimately positive catalyst.
As far as going through a list of people you harbor negative thoughts about and finding good thoughts about them, I would say it depends on the level of negativity you harbor. If it's really negative, I would leave it alone for a while. Find other things to think about. When you find yourself in a positive mood, then revisit them if you wish, and find positive aspects. If you try to do it from the negative state, chances are you will just concentrate on negative. Your vibrational climate will always determine what you "find" in the universe. So get feeling good, and then do your thought bridging. A good rule of thumb is: reach for the thoughts that give you the most visceral sense of emotional relief. Your emotions won't lead you astray, they always reveal what you are really focused upon.
Shadow work, in my opinion, has to do with acknowledging the darker desires present within the self. What we would consider STS impulses, that all of us have, from time to time. These must inevitably be explored, because no human is going to unwaveringly purely desire to serve only others. Orientation develops due to analysis of desire. I was just explaining the mechanism for how things pop up into your life experience. Sorting out your personal desires, which is an expression of unconscious will, is something we all have to sort out for ourselves, as desire/will (unconscious/conscious) is ultimately the director of attention/awareness. That is the touchstone of balancing work right there, the process of making the unconscious conscious.
In other words, the negative interpretation isn't worth exploring unless you are trying to understand service to self more, which everybody already tries to do, unconsciously, which prolongs such catalyst in their experience. But that's just human nature.
Your consciousness turns to where it is interested. So you just have to sort out what you are interested in, and then sort of bask in it.