What Is Normal?

As Jim heard my increasing passion and concerns about what was happening here in the U.S. culture, the land of my and his births, he began to encourage me to remove any limitations I had been using, letting my wholistic creativity flow even more fully and freely … and he has also removed his own limitations regarding what I might bring into his Life. Therefore, the previous blog posting appeared earlier than I had originally intended, and now there is this one.

In the present and future Jim is choosing to play a part with me where he listens to what I have “produced” when it‘s already completed as a probable blog posting, where he then can make comments. (So far, his responses have been very affirming.) Therefore, he has become co-responsible in terms of setting the contents of these postings forth to the-world-at-large.

All of this has been a recent culminating result of he and I finally being able to co-craft a way of Being together, which we think can work well for both of us at this time in our Lives. As I noted in the chapter “Expanding and Expansions,” from my manuscript Within the River of Love, Translations and Applications, in the past Jim and I had ongoing conflicts centered around his concerns about what might happen with his peaceful Life if I published my manuscript … And his concerns about what my actions might bring into my and his Lives had continued, which I had chosen to do the best I could with, while at the same time honoring what I felt I needed to do to play the part I thought I could and should be playing. Also, he has had many personal interests, without much additional time, which he too felt he needed to pursue, to honor his Life.

Today I See that an energetic logjam has been broken between Jim and I, where each of us has needed to become and Be who/what we each are currently, in order to participate in these recent conversations. I think that with the patterns we each were using, there had been an individual process both of us needed to move within—where finally we are now able to proceed, individually and together. (I also think there were other viable choices each of us could have energized along the way.)

More background for the contents of this essay around Normalcy. One Saturday when I looked ahead at some of the forthcoming scheduled events on television, I saw that Oprah Winfrey had a program the next Wednesday about “Are You Normal?”—where Phil McGraw, Ph.D. and Mehmet Oz, M.D. would be weighing in with their perspectives. Both McGraw and Oz are people I have a lot of respect for, having watched each of them many times on television, along with reading some of their books. Within the context of our current-day culture, I think they both have been and are trying to help people live saner and healthier lives. I was easily Seeing this focus on Normal could be a logical follow-up to my blog posting about Personal Power and its use in various contexts and matrixes.

Because the Oprah program was being broadcast on my birth day when I wouldn‘t be home, I video taped it, which would also give me an opportunity to pause the tape, studying its contents more closely if I wanted to do so when I did see it. And by having many days of lead time before watching it, there would undoubtedly be a number of inner connections made about cultural normalcy, from which valuable perspectives would be arising to my conscious awareness. In fact, the first one that came forth almost immediately was clear and simple: What is normal in a culture is determined by the consensus within it. If I-as-a-spirit-being-human had been born into a culture where other patterns were used for what is normal, then those would be the contextual norms and evaluators I and others would be using.

When I did watch the Oprah tape, the above perspective about cultural norms and what is normal for specific cultures was a great overall way to think. The subtext of the program was—“is what one does in private normal?” While seeing the video tape, I think “I” was simultaneously and to various degrees in inner “homes” I talked about in my previous blog posting: an Experiencer position, a Witness/Observer position, an Evaluator position, and a Selection/Energization position.

For me as an Experiencer, the program was both interesting and entertaining. In the Witness position, I watched it unfold without adding in any of my own thoughts, ideas, or emotions. My takeaway Evaluation and conclusion is that it was a picture of how many people in the United States are using current-day consensus evaluators with which to live their Lives … while at the same time, I am also aware of how many Americans there have been and are, who are using their creative abilities and personal power to find out how far they can push the envelopes of today‘s U.S. cultural norms, assumptions, and agreements. Then as a Selector/Energizer, I had originally decided the day and time to see it. So the whole feedback loop had been in play.

And now as a Selector/Energizer, Much Love and Best Wishes to All, J.