The Universal Law of Apperception

"What did you learn?"  
(Stewie Griffin, from The Family Guy, to character Opie at a baseball game)

Apperception is not who you are - it's what you remember

I love the television show "The Family Guy." Stewie, the evil little genius whose imagination sometimes runs away with him is my favorite character. It is not because of anything more than his less-than-gentle way of putting those who have hurt him or who have made him angry his own energy response that makes him so adorable to me. It is the same way with actual people in the real. We are not where we have been, or what we remember, but where we have been and what we have been through dictates a whole lot in our lives. There is not one person who does not have memories of things that impacted them in any way at all. Sometimes it is not just the memory that makes what happened to us so real in this immediate moment but is our reaction to what happened.

Apperception - that is what this is called. One of our greatest teachers is our past and the lesson is not how it made us feel but our reaction to how we feel.

Yes, you read that correctly - we do not learn only from the things that we recall, but also from how we react to how we feel about what we recall.

Reaction Versus Response

I will admit to, only one short year ago, having been a person who reacted on her feelings and thoughts versus responding to them. While this is okay for someone like me to be this way when speaking or writing in terms of a vocational sense, it is not okay for someone like me to react in an emotional sense. While it is fine that someone like me reacts or responds in a Spiritual sense, it is not okay for anyone to react in that same sense. This is almost impossible not to do - to react -until we learn how to deal with what we have gone through and ponder why it is that we react to something rather than respond to it. Most of the time our reaction is caused by fear, and it is the fear within of a perceived threat or loss of something that we think is outside of ourselves that causes our reaction. When we react we do so, not at the actuality of the thing, but to the way that the thing made us feel. Sounds simple, and on the top of things is actually simple...that is, until you inject the memory and the emotions caused by it.

Reaction is physical. Think about it. When we are emotionally inclined, whether it is what we think is Love, or when we are angry, or when we are sad, and we have a physical reaction to it, our souls are talking to us through our bodies and telling us that we need to stop, breathe and ask our Selves what the reaction is all about. When we take it apart like this, rather than reacting, we are responding. For instance, recently my youngest was supposed to go on a filed trip. The details are not that important to illustrate in this writing, but the reaction that my son had to it has lasted two whole years, and in that time my littlest rock star said nothing to me about his feeling about what happened until yesterday, when I figured out, through my own intuitive response to my baby boy, that this was something that he needed someone to respond to on his little tiny 9 year old behalf. That someone, naturally, was me.

NOW, the fun part about this was that, until right now, I had no idea that in that two year time span I learned from my son and his teacher about having a reaction to something that is very highly emotional and something that would have that energy for ANY parent.

Two years ago, I reacted, because as any mother would, my whole energy was that of "HOW DARE YOU?!!!" but yesterday was different. Yesterday I was called to the mat, so to speak, and yesterday and in light of all that I knew was going on, as well as knowing how it is that there are still people on this planet who have no idea that their emotional response, which his teacher's reaction is based in fear and not a whole lot else, dictates their actions. Rather than my allowing my head to again pop off of my shoulders, I chose to call the school and discuss the issue with his teacher. As per usual, I got the reaction that one would expect to get from someone who might believe and even have a Spiritual Path, but who is also not evolved enough past the Ego's views to see things from the point of view that someone who is dearly enlightened would. I cannot sit here and tell anyone that I am completely correct in what is my perception of this situation. I can tell everyone that my response in kind to it is absolutely correct. It is not because of anything more than that I chose to change the energy of the situation, made clear my intentions and my reasons for my actual response to this situation, and so it is.

His teacher may not agree with the way that I have done this, but on the other side of that, I have to believe that her also being a mother will agree that it is not the "fault" of a child when adults are present that when something happens and an adult is "in charge," that a child has to pay for the proverbial sins of those adults. It is nothing drastic, the manner in which I have responded to this situation. While it is that it is personal with me, because my youngest child is involved, it is, the reason for him not going, my...our beliefs that keep him home today, and nothing more than that. My belief is that no adult has the right to blame a child for being a child. My response is what makes me NOT get angry about a situation which is going to remain the same because of the facets involved. I can only do, based on what my past reactions have been versus my present acknowledgments as well as my current response, what I can to keep my little boy from having to deal with this again.

This is called a response. This is called thinking further than where a person has been. This is my quietly letting what happened two years ago be processed and thought about and given a different energy. When we react in the same manner that we have always reacted, nothing changes. When we allow the Ego's typical reaction to be what is the reaction that we will always have, anything that we are presented with and that which is meant to teach us so that we can realize what it is that we are manifesting will not be realized, at least not in the easiest manner that it can. I know that things and situations do not come easy to anyone, but it is our reaction rather than our response to things that makes this the truth.

When we remember what is similar to what has happened in the past to things currently happening and we react to what is new and now in the manner that we did to what was, this is Apperception at work and apperception happening now. The way that we change things up is to not react the way that we once did, is to take a step back and look at what is now and what is applicable to the situation right now rather than only referring back to what happened. What happened, happened, and it was meant to happen so that whatever it is that is happening now can be responded to rather than reacted to.

It is how we look at any situation that truly dictates the energy and even the outcome of a situation. It is how we recall our feelings and thoughts about that thing that happened and apply what we learned from that thing that happened to now and to learn that we do not have to react. That is the hard part, the not reacting, because for the majority time in our lives we have reacted. It is not a sin to react because reacting is a primal thing. Reacting is usually a fearful response. Reacting is the law of the jungle.

Responding is the law of the Universe.

Responding

Believe it when I say that learning to respond is difficult. This is not to say that you will never have another reaction to anything ever again, but it is to say that once it is that you can master a response in a difficult situation you will also begin to learn what situations are worthy of your reaction.

You read that correctly - yes, there are times when it is that a reaction will serve you better. There are times when the reaction will be more of an impact than will the response. It is like this because you are still a human being and you are still going to go through whatever it is that humans go through but will choose to go through them and think first before you react. Responding to something requires the ability to discern what requires a physical reaction that corresponds with the correct and right-minded response. For instance, say you have been telling someone that they told you one thing, you agreed to that one thing, and that other person, through their initial energetic response, does nothing that looks to you as though they are going to keep their word.

A few weeks go by, and you are still waiting for them to do what it is that they said they would. Again, you respond to the situation and do not react. The situation stays the same. This goes on for weeks, and finally NOT in haste and after having repeated yourself again and again, after having given as much as you are going to give as a response to the situation and the person, you finally, out of need for the situation to be resolved, react...not violently, not from the Ego, but certainly, you react. It resolves the situation. You may not have been comfortable with what happened up to the point where you were forced to react, but none the less, it worked.

And yes, this is how the situation is resolved, and it is because you did not change your own energy about things, did not waver from your end of the deal, and after much patience and much thought and no reaction, you reacted. It got handled. Pau hana.

Where we have been in life, where we are in the Now, and how we reacted to those things, all the way until right now has been a series of your choosing to react or to respond to it all. Our reactions are based on our energetic thought about things, and you all already know that my belief and my knowledge is that energy does not lie. It can change, but it cannot lie. Our Soul selves give us the option to go backward in time to the last time that we had this same energy response and in that response we either reacted or responded. It is all due to the learning that any one of us has done to this point.

What we have experienced and what our last reaction to that experience is what will dictate the next time that we are met with that same energy. When we are met with that energy we have the option to react or respond. When we react with our fears we negate the lesson with the energy. When we respond with our neutral energy and without judging what someone else's reaction will be is when we are living with right intention and when we are utilizing the energies of the Universal Law of Apperception.

It is our perception of what happened to us that gives us the lessons that we need, because in the things that have happened with us in our own personal past is what will dictate what it is that we can see coming to us in our future. If we are able to respond we will have a better shot at also being able to utilize the energies as they become new to us, even as they are the same energies that were there the last time something like whatever it is in your own life that is happening now that would make you feel like you need to react.

...would make you want to ask the question "what have you learned?"

I Love You All!
ROX

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