Do You Remember: The Transformative Vision

By Terry Clancy

Well being is desirable and many seek to achieve that state. Th is book is about well being through individual empowerment
from remembering of our strengths as both a physical and spiritual being.
Th is remembering is a process of putting the parts of self back together as our narrative that has meaning as forming
ourselves from experiences of the past and purpose in our goals for the future that regenerate us in the present. Meditation
is central to this as a process that integrates lifestyle, beliefs and goals and deepens as old symbols of soul, Spirit and Creator
have new meaning, outcomes for our well being are experienced and we are aware of it happening.
Self healing occurs in awareness of our wholeness. Spiritual healing occurs in awareness of our unity with our environment
as an energy fi eld we are interacting with. In this vision of self we are individually empowered in creating our experiences
and collectively transformation is experienced as a renaissance of culture and way forward to an Age of Aquarius where in
the consciousness of the transformative vision of our wholeness and unity, our energy fi eld is working for us.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Feb 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781499006025

Terry Clancy

The author was a mental health nurse and manager of rehabilitation services for people with mental health disabilities. As practice was developing he started meditation practice. They converged as the therapeutic use of self to heal. Understanding of what the self is changed through experience and his method of meditation on goals.

Book preview

Copyright © 2014 by Terry Clancy

ISBN:   Softcover      978-1-4990-0604-9

             Hardcover   978-1-4990-0602-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 02/11/2015

Xlibris

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www.xlibris.com.au

Contents

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Conclusion

Dedicated to all lovers of life; we can remember.

Introduction

Well being has many interpretations and methods for its attainment and maintenance as there are stars in heaven. Some believe it is achieved through actions, some through understanding of our emotions, while to others it is achieved through thoughts. The different ideas about it could all be true in part. It is usually understood as an attitude of personal beliefs and behaviours, skills in living, understanding of and the use of science and circumstances related to fate and some people just seem to others to have the right mix. But well being is not easily defined as a fixed state. It is an outcome of our interaction with our environment and is experienced as a balanced state within but the great question is, what is it, how do we attain it and why our collective well being is of individual importance.

For health professionals, the task is using evidence-based models that produce the best outcomes for individuals. These models are theoretically integrated methods of interacting parts that generally, not all the time, work for some people in some situations. But improvement in well being is not easy; there is still much personal inner work to be done which affects the outcome of any method of change. We also think our well being is unrelated to the well being of our communities, societies and changes on a global level but that belief is becoming transparently thin.

As the science changes, as it does through different interpretations of facts, so do the models. What was good for us to believe and do at one time is no longer so as the interpretation of information changes. People adjust to this by opting for a middle-of-the-road approach of a balanced lifestyle but are we achieving our goals in a world that is rapidly changing, what are the barriers to that, are we maximising our potential, how do we define that and know when we have arrived?

Happiness as a component of well-being is said to be pleasurable experiences of inspiring moments from our engagement in a lifestyle that gives us a sense of purpose and meaning. Well being, health, beliefs and happiness are therefore connected. When we know we have created them through our own choices, we are empowered to achieve our personal goals. Some events themselves may not have been good, like ill health or those simple twists of fate. The inspirational part is how we resolved them and used what we learnt to create a new future for ourselves that we desire.

A traditional holistic perspective of well being is a model of homeostasis or balance through integration of physical, and psychological health with beliefs about them. Humans are goal-seeking organisms striving for this sense of wholeness. We are not just a physical organism of DNA, cells, tissues, and organs or a psyche of actions, mind, and feelings. We also have a dimension of beliefs that give meaning to the aspects of this whole self and add purpose to what we are doing, feeling, and thinking. Beliefs are meaningful when they give direction to lifestyle choices to achieve happiness and well being, our goals. These choices come from our intentions for self, for others and our beliefs about the nature of our environment, the context of our lives within which we exist. This is obvious to most but seems complex to achieve without a framework of understanding and having tools of change to actualise it. Well being is attained from our beliefs about our actions, emotions and thoughts as an integrated whole that achieves a sense of unity with our environment.

The belief component is an individual relationship of self and environment and through awareness of it and skills in meditation, we are empowered through our knowing participation in change towards our desired futures. Well being is from our empowerment to do this and comes from personal integration of lifestyle and goals using reflection and meditation as tools of change. Self healing occurs as we become aware of our parts as an integrated whole.

It is about developing a new vision of ourselves through beliefs based on our values and a new understanding of how they are integrated with lifestyle through our meditation practice. We are made a whole person in the process in awareness of our own strengths that link lifestyle and goals through beliefs about them. Through their actualisation in our lives, we relate differently to our environment and experience different outcomes. We are not just developing physically, socially, and mentally but also we are spiritually unfolding as a new integrated whole. Our own story of transformation of consciousness is connected to the story of evolution of humanity itself of responsibility for the well being of others. No one can change the experience of life for another but what can be done is present a framework of change that is empowering and could be of use in our present times.

Spirituality is the missing life of development of beliefs and personal integration as we interact with our environment. We think at times that we have arrived at our maximum potential but this is a story about reaching higher levels of awareness. This occurs mostly in a random fashion over time or can be consciously directed as an intention. Our awareness of spirituality as belief and an inner state is growing as lifestyle changes and well being is experienced as the outcome. Spiritual healing occurs in awareness of self as inner peace and harmony with our environment.

The journey to this awareness is psyche’s journey as we go through different stages of personal identity – the physical, ego and Spirit. They are our separate inner realities and determine what we do, how we feel in our relation to others and in the course of that determine our experiences. Self awareness is the source of our transformation as the energies of our whole selves are invoked and we become aware of our own power to create as what was unconscious becomes known. There may seem to be detours and doubts at times in ourselves as to which direction we are headed or want to go in. The detours are the experiences we learn from as we wheel those doubts in as part of our stories development. In the three stages of life, there are different interpretations of what we value as who we are that determines our relationship with our environment. This, our own inner reality, is continuously evolving as our interpretation of the meaning of symbols changes our experiences. When an idea sinks in, we see and do differently as a new state of intuitive knowingness of the whole.

I had an intuition that there was another side to experiences that I hadn’t been aware of. Reflection had become an important part of my life for developing my meditation practice. I thought that I should write about that method for others, but in hindsight, reflecting on it, I could see the context where there was a beginning, a middle, and an end but there was always a new beginning in a new stage of life. There were significant people and events to this other story that gave meaning to it and flow as the development of spirituality from growing self belief. My meditation method changed as the meaning of symbols changed in the different stages of life. I learnt there wasn’t another side to the story of my meditation practice and my life. They were one and the same as my meditation changed how I lived and my experience of it and in the process who we are transforms. The other story, of awareness of the missing spiritual life is the basis of this narrative that puts meditation practice into perspective as a tool of transformation. This perspective developed over time and was influenced by my nursing experience and indeed reflects it.

The book arose from a desire for a society where peace, love and beauty are the founding principles. In this is our collective hope for the things we cherish. It is about change in the course of our lives through individual empowerment. Hope is the basis of it and is a function of our awareness of who we are, what we want and the realisation of our own power to achieve it. This is a paradigm shift of understanding where the tool of change is not about attaining the lotus position, which would cut out most of the population, but change in lifestyle, how we live as a reflection of beliefs about who we are.

You may wonder what can I say that adds to the thoughts, self-development insights, theology, philosophy, religions, rituals, sciences, and experiences of others that are readily available? They are about the understanding of information to give us knowledge. Knowledge is also from interpretation of experiences that changes self awareness. Knowledge from both sources when integrated form our beliefs and when linked with our values give us purpose. When all three, understanding, beliefs and purpose are integrated it is knowingness as our state of consciousness. Through awareness of self, the inner self of values and principles we are empowered to achieve our goals of well-being, health, and happiness as lifestyle outcomes and source of self healing.

This cannot be bought off the shelf as a package or learnt through other people’s experiences and interpretations of them; they can assist the development of interpretation only. We still have the inner work of transformation to do through synthesis of science and self-awareness that gives knowledge, acquiring skills in meditation to connect self with our environment, developing beliefs about that connection, and personal integration of them in lifestyle behaviours. In the process of connecting them we are empowered to achieve well-being. What is empowered is psyche, awareness of self and environment, the context of our lives.

Psyche’s development as a state of consciousness is like buying an entertainment unit ‘flat pack’ without the instructions, where intuition, skills, and knowledge through reflection on experiences is necessary in putting things together. The driver of it all is our desire to know and experience the truth of our beliefs to achieve our desired outcomes.

Well-being is not the absence of disabilities, permanent or temporary, or the doors not fitting correctly on that TV unit. We may have those and still feel ok about ourselves. Beliefs shape our interpretation of experiences, even the negative ones to determine our hopes in future lifestyle directions. That flat pack of life may never get fully assembled and be a source of anger at the sources lack of quality control but it can bring satisfaction as our entertainment unit, when we have put it together from knowing how the parts fit together as was intended. We are learning through our own experiences and wanting to understand to achieve our goals; it would have helped to have had those instructions, even guidelines on the journey through.

But life isn’t a flat pack, that’s the wrong image. Our life is like constructing a pyramid of levels that form the aspects that interface with our environment. In the binding together of these levels into a whole of self there is a different view as awareness reaches higher levels. In this different paradigm of understanding we change how we relate to our environment. The plan for constructing a pyramid is the same for creating a life through building on our levels of awareness. As the inner and outer self are integrated there is different meaning of our present life experiences that gives purpose to our current lifestyle and future directions. This unfolds as we transform into a whole person of awareness of actions, thoughts, emotions and beliefs. As we put the parts together in our reflection, there is a different understanding of our environment. In mindfulness of this, we relate differently to it and experience different outcomes in everyday life.

The human being is an energy field integral with the energy field around it. The question is how do we grasp this idea and what is the significance of it for well being and spiritual healing. Psyche our level of awareness of ourselves as an energy field develops from reflection on experiences, incorporating knowledge from a variety of sources and is cultivated through the skill of meditation. Meditation as a skill is both an outcome and a process of change as the meaning of values change and lifestyle forms around it.

In awareness of our spiritual healing external experiences are a reflection of who we are when in union with the energy field around us. As an energy field we are both a physical and spiritual being that strives for this sense of wholeness and unity. We largely thanks to science understand ourselves as individuals in a material universe but the spiritual paradigm in different cultures uses different symbols to connect us to our unity with the energy field. The well being paradigm is a convergence of the physical and spiritual models of man to achieve this unity as awareness of the energy field expands and spiritual healing occurs. Meditation as individual spiritual practice is a process to achieve this through synthesis and integration of self with our environment as the art of transformation.

In our desire for well being as an integrated person, values, principles of living change in meaning and processes to achieve that change. When given direction through goals and lifestyle integration, our unity is realised in a transformative vision of self and environment that is now creating our experiences.

The question is what is the significance of this for our well being in the present and future?

We do not exist in isolation. As the higher levels of consciousness unfold, there is awareness that well being is collective and to be realised in our vision for the future. This vision of renaissance occurs when what was unconscious, our wholeness and unity is collectively known. This is an ancient desire that has significance in our present times as we as individuals are integrated at higher levels.

I hope the book will at least be interesting but more importantly, empowering. Our journeys, while taking different routes, has the same destination – finding our own power to create. Whether one accepts the human soul into beliefs and life is a personal decision. I hope that if you do not, as I did, within its pages, you may reconsider that view from imagining self in a different way and if you do, it will further aid you on your journey. Spirituality as belief is closer to us than we think as the meaning of words as symbols of the energy field change and there are lifestyle outcomes.

Individually we want the most out of our lives, collectively our intention is towards living in peace and expressing love and beauty through us. Our work is to create this around us and to teach others. Our spiritual practice is to achieve this through mindfulness and engagement in life in the pursuit of happiness. The issue is how do we achieve the art of our transformation? It is in this vision that this book was written.

Chapter One

Development-A New Beginning Takes Root

Personal journeys seem outwardly ordinary but I don’t think any are. My journey seems ordinary; I was born in and spent early childhood in Darlinghurst, Sydney. As an adolescent in the semi rural outer suburbs of Brisbane, I was involved in the antiwar and apartheid protests as a high school activist. I am a father of four daughters. I am married twice, had four partners, was at universities for eight years and was a mental health nurse for thirty-eight years. These six lines describe myself as my roles but are they who I or you are? Personal growth comes from the understanding of ourselves in our roles and our interpretation of those experiences as the unfolding of another life within them.

Awareness develops as we interact with our environment and learn about ourselves from how we connect with it differently at different times. Beliefs are formed from the interpretation of outcomes and life becomes art when we become the artists of our own creation through our personal empowerment. We require beliefs, self-awareness, skills and knowledge to do this and desire to know the answers to our question of how to create a life that gives hope for ourselves and others, now and in the future as we build on our strengths in the present.

Relationships at the Beginning – Son, Partner, Father, and Friend

My father was rather authoritarian and a puritan in most respects except his bush humour, was anti-religious and a unionist as timber, cane cutter and docker. He had physically developed into a muscular six-feet four-inch man honed as a ‘gun’ cane cutter, loading twelve tons a day in the sweltering heat. In the off season he lived in huts in the snow of Mt Buller cutting 300 feet Mountain Ash with an axe that he first had to climb wearing spiked boots and using a leather strap, to sound the tree and top the branches. He was very proud of his achievements. I think there were also several ‘dolls’ in those seasons of the sugar cane ‘off’ season.

He rode ‘The Harley’, wore a full-length leather coat and gauntlets when collecting union dues from the Sydney water-side workers, who weren’t exactly the cream of the society but somehow realised the good sense in their paying for the cause, family circumstances permitting. He had learnt to ride Harleys, racing his brothers on Port Douglas beach in the 1930s at community get-togethers. He was an alpha male in control of his outer environment.

Our environment does not just shape us physically, our psyche, conscious self awareness is shaped and formed through our experiences and interpretation of them. This interaction forms our awareness of ourselves and how we relate to it though our beliefs about it. This personal understanding is our paradigm we have of ourselves and life in general. It is self-validating as what we believe, see, think, feel and experience is determined by consciousness that filters out what doesn’t fit to maintain our inner consistency and sense of wholeness.

My father loved those wild and beautiful places of the natural environment of north Queensland and mountains of Victoria, but awareness was founded on actions that depended on physical toughness in order to literally survive. He was a very hard man, shaped by very hard environments where introspection and sensitivity to others was a luxury, even frowned upon as a possible weakness when actions were required. Workers had to just get in there and do it and hopefully not kill themselves or anyone else in the process which they sometimes did. Those mountain-side wilderness terrains, fires, and rolling logs were unforgiving. He had no concept of fear or the inner life and love was sex, which was ‘bad’. Thoughts and feelings about it, isolated in steamy barracks and freezing huts with groups of men were probably bad for you.

The physical environment, though beautiful, as he later understood it from the distance of years and as we now see it, then was very dangerous for people working in it. Death was lurking and close at hand for the unwary, unfit, and poorly skilled. The survival of the ‘new chums’ to the bush or wharves depended on luck, instincts and goodwill of the actions of others. Life time bonds of the survivors formed in the process as they exchanged stories about their experiences.

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My father as a timber cutter

Later he mellowed but had strong views on social issues. He was a raconteur, talk-back radio personality who advocated social and political issues as a socialist who believed in spiritualism and quoted The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam at length. These were the basis of his later lifestyle. His roles, social and political beliefs gave his life meaning and the purpose of it to him was to improve the lives of others through sharing his lifetime experiences; he was a storyteller of how he had interacted with his external environment during his life and people love stories. He told many but not the one of our inner life as a story in itself that is evolving as we put all of the parts of it together.

He never spoke about the inner life because to him love was synonymous with sexuality. Individuals have separate realities based on their understanding of the meaning of words which determine how we think, interpret, act and feel. Our inner realities are not necessarily related to truth, but on our interpretations to give meaning to it as a whole, as that circle of completeness we need. If we don’t have this, we experience inner dissonance as doubts. Consistency of the inner and outer life is what we seek as our personal balance and lifestyle forms in the process. As understanding increases, we climb higher on that tree or stairway of life where the view is different of the same physical environment through re interpretation of it. It’s our interpretation of experiences and what our environment is that changes, not it. Consciousness is not a fixed state; it is evolving as our awareness, our inner reality changes through interpretation of experiences in different stages of our lives. Knowing this explains much about ourselves as individuals in how and why we change.

It is difficult to understand the separate inner realities of people, but my father was conscious of himself as the physical self within a material universe. The important fact I learnt from my father was that he did not find a sense of purpose of his life as the development of inner awareness from his experiences. They were ends in themselves and the purpose of life was to attain mastery over that external material environment that gave him that sense of inner consistency, that feeling of being home in the world.

He had become a socialist during the Great Depression as a response to that event. Ideologies are systems of ideas and beliefs that relate individual circumstances in the present to the past and future to give a sense of meaning and purpose that defines who we are. It reflected a materialist world view that was consistent with followers view of themselves, their issues and how future well being was to be attained. He was very bitter about our society, what he saw as suffering caused by it, institutions that supported it and felt totally alienated from them as a worker, his awareness of who he was that formed his relationship with his external environment.

Alienation is a state of disempowerment of not being able to find solutions to our problems from consideration and linking all aspects of ourselves as a whole. Durkheim in the nineteenth century described it as anomie, a lack of identity because society itself has no cultural beliefs, ideas, values or expectations that can bind its members together. Our culture of beliefs shapes understanding of what our environment is and awareness therefore of who we are. This sense of alienation caused my father to experience despair in the last chapter