Create within yourself what you want to attract from without.  To attract a friend, be a friend first.  To be loved, love.

A simple truth is that everything you experience is not out there, it is in here, inside of you.  It is your experience, not reality.

Distinguishing your experience from reality is one of the first steps to becoming free- it empowers you to choose, rather than tolerate, the way you relate to the world.

This, in turn, will empower you to make the difference in the world you're really out to make.

Anything you look for, you will find- it is a function of being human.  We're not talking about your car keys- those you can find just by looking for them, because you know what they are and more important than that, you know that you're looking for them.  On this level, it makes sense: what you look for, you'll find, because that's what you're looking for.  This occurs not just on the level of your car keys- it occurs at every level of your conscious and unconscious self.  As human beings, we're always on the lookout for things that concern us- a better life, happiness, fashionable shoes... and we're also on the lookout for things we've told ourselves it's best to avoid- things like danger, embarrassment, and pain.  This goes on constantly in the background of our heads, running our lives- that is, we're not aware that we're looking for many of them and we're not entirely sure what they look like.  This quest is literally the blueprint for who we are, and is responsible for the results we produce in our lives.

The question is, what are we seeking at the level of our subconscious selves? (as opposed to the 'right now I want ice cream' level of self)  Who are we being that consistently turns up the results we're getting?  Obviously, this question will be a personal one, but what follows is a conversation intended to empower the reader to help to distinguish for themselves just what it is that they're up to- what they're after in the grand context of their lives.

A powerful insight into the nature of 'reality' as we know it is that our relatedness to it is extremely limited by the fact that we're human beings. The nature of being human is such that our experience of the world is rooted not in reality itself, but rather, in our perception of it- and coming to grips with this is both an opportunity and a challenge.  If you're like me, you're in love with the idea that you know what's real and what is not, and beyond that, that you know what's right and wrong-  Thus, the notion that our experience of reality is rooted in unreality can be daunting.  At the same time, this knowledge can be highly empowering, and it can provide you with access to a life you would otherwise never have known to be available.

Yeah, it sounds like a lot of hooey, but if you think about it, there's something to it- and the more you dig, the more it becomes clear that very little of the world we experience is truly objective- much of what we experience is ourselves, reflected back at us, after a fashion.

Another way of saying the same thing is that our experience of the world happens in our consciousness- that is, in our heads.  When we feel anger or joy, it happens inside us, rather than 'out there' in the world.  When we stub our toe, spot a stranger across the room, or hear a bird sing, the event may have happened 'out there', but your experience of it happened between your ears, as a flash of signal in your grey matter.

Simply noticing this- that your experience is not reality- becomes incredibly empowering when we step back a bit and realize the extent to which we're working to control our circumstances in order to regulate our experience of them.  Many of the things we do to regulate our experience of reality that don't produce the results we want fail because we're trying to fix 'out there' that which never existed there- it is a reflection, not the truth.  To impact your experience of your circumstances and create a new experience, we must look to the source of your experience apart from the circumstances that surround you.

Holographic World

The Holograph is an apt metaphor to use to describe what we're talking about. A Holograph is a 3-dimensional picture that changes perspective when you shift your observation point of it.  Holograms are created using a laser and have a special quality in that if you break the medium (usually glass or crystal), each of the broken pieces will contain a whole representation of the original image.

The data a hologram shows you changes objectively as your relationship to it in space changes- just as everything in your life (objects, people, ideas, concepts) changes for you as your relationship to it does.  Thus the hologram illustrates a useful model of reality in several respects:

1. Perspective is a determinant for all other data and experience of the image,
2. Every part of the image contains all of the information of the whole of the image.
3. No single perspective can contain all of the information in the image.
4. No single perspective is objectively better or more accurate than any other.
5. All perspectives of a given image differ, and yet all are true.

The upshot of all of this is that what you see is not what is there, ever- what you see is only a small part of what is there, and this is a function of interpretation.

'Interpretation'

It is common to regard interpretation as a passive activity, one in which we observe and describe what is there so that we can know what to do with it.  What is less common is the notion that interpretation is an active, generative process- and it is this meaning of the word interpretation that is intended for use in this conversation.

We interpret our world according to our beliefs and feelings and state of mind in any given moment- because unless we interpret it, it's just shapeless data.  It makes no sense until we relate to it somehow.

The process of relating to a thing (say it's a picture) requires us to relate to it within a context of some sort- without a context, the information is unrelated and uninteresting and not very useful- so in order for it to be meaningful and useful, we have to bring our context to the picture.  Another way of saying this is that we project into, say, a picture we see in a magazine, the kind of information we need to experience the picture meaningfully.

This process, whereby we give meaning to our experience, is declarative in nature- that is, our experience of a thing is a flash in our gray matter, generated by us in the moment, and informed by the context we brought to it.  In this sense, interpretation is a context-derived declaration:  We see what we see where we see it, and we say to ourselves in some way or at some level, 'this is what I saw'- and this declaration IS your perception.

For the literalists among us, this declaration doesn't need to be spoken literally- what is meant here is that the sum of our experience is the output of our own 'reality interpreter', and not that of reality itself.  Our Reality Interpreter's job is to take in raw data and give it meaning relevant to your situation based on two kinds of inputs:

• what you see and
• the context you bring to what you see. 

This is great- without meaning relevant to your situation, you'd never be empowered to do anything relevant to your situation.  In this sense, it is our interpretation of the world that gives us access to being empowered (or not) in it.  There's also a pitfall here, and that is the fact that we forget that we are the author of the context we bring, and that we are the ultimate author of our own declaration of how reality is for us.

In other words, the pitfall is that it is possible to bring an unempowering context to the table with you.  One example of such an unempowering context would be one in which you declared 'This is just how the world is'- once this is really true for you, it's impossible for you to see that you are capable of changing it.

Projection

Projection is the process by which we bring our own context, our own expectations, and our own listening to our experience of the world- that is, when we experience the world, we project upon the world our own expectations, hopes, and fears.

Projection is not a shortcoming or a psychological problem- it's actually a very useful tool, one that allows us to filter information in the world so that we can filter out what we're not looking for.  It's a means by which we may view the world in a specific way, and if you examine the statement 'what you look for, you'll find' then you understand completely what projection is-  It allows you to look for danger or beauty or love or your car keys without being overwhelmed by the other infinite kinds of information available out there.  In other words, projection is a mechanism by which we filter our perceptions.

By it's nature, what we project is invisible to us- it's there to enable us to find what we're looking for.  ...and deep down, what we're looking for goes well beyond simple things like food, things on sale, or our car keys- we're looking for the things we've told ourselves all our lives that we need to be on the lookout for- things like  love, beauty, opportunity, danger, and pain.

Conceptually, projection is, well, a concept- but in practice, it shows up as a way of being: for example, we might 'be' loving, friendly, frightened, frustrated, angry, etc.  It is who we are being that provides the context in which our experience of 'reality' is cast.

Reflection

Reflection is our access to what it is we're projecting/who we are being- and because what we project filters what we see and what we see defines what we're reacting to, reflection is ultimately our access to what it is that we're looking for in our lives, both positively and negatively.  It is called 'reflection' for the simple reason that if you want a clue about the stuff you're projecting out into the world, it'll generally be in your face, reflected back at you.

For example:

• If you relate to a person with distrust, the distrust is not a quality of the person, it is instead a way of being that you bring to your relationship with that person.  If you did not generate this way of being inside of your relationship to that person, it would be impossible for you to experience it.  In other words, that which you perceive in others is always a function of what's present for you, and it will always look like it's an 'over there' phenomenon.  It looks like the person is untrustable, when the un-trust (along with whatever opinions you have about that) exists only between your ears.
• If you relate to someone with love, it is YOU being loving.  Love is an experience that you must generate or you can't experience it.  It's not over there- they can't feel it- they have only access to the love they themselves generate.
• If you hate someone, the hate isn't over there, the wrongness isn't over there, it's an 'in here' phenomenon- you're the only one generating and experiencing it.  Hating someone is like injecting yourself with poison, and then waiting for them to feel the pain. :-P
• Ultimately, that which you experience as an 'over there' experience (that this person is a certain way or that something is right or wrong) is not 'over there'- no experience can ever be 'over there'.  It is your experience, it must be a 'within' phenomenon.

Reflection is the means by which we can become present to what we're filtering in and out- and this is enormously useful information to have.  It provides an empowering access to why the world is the way the world is for you, and with that, provides you with the opportunity to re-cast some of the declarations you've made about the world.

More than that, the things you see in the world that irritate you don't do so because 'they're irritating'- they are just what they are and the irritation is a function of you- generally, the things that irritate me are the things that I'm irritated with about myself.  By the same token, the things you see in the world that inspire you don't do so because 'they're inspiring'- they are just what they are and the inspiration is a function of you- generally, the things that inspire you are your access to your purpose in life, the way in which you will make a difference in the world.

These distinctions become practical when the results we're producing in our lives are not the ones we want, because these distinctions provide us with access to the contexts we bring to our experience of the world.  Context is either empowering or not, and when we have access to the context that informs our lives, we have access to empowerment.

It should be noted that what we're talking about here is not merely slapping a happy face on circumstances that don't work or are intolerable- that would be neither empowering nor honest.  What we're talking about is the ability to be in the world in a way that works, that expresses the true you, that leaves both you and the world in better shape than it was when you found it.