Q: I’ve had a challenging time recognizing some patterns of my self, that I somehow thought was done with. My father died two and a half years ago now and a lot of the patterns that I saw in him I’m sort of acting out. It’s getting more obvious for me that there are things I’m not in control of. It’s basically reacting with irritation and anger when I’m stressed, out of my comfort zone. I get really angry. It’s not that I burst out at once, but I feel it like a volcano rising. I open and I soften but in the midst of it, it can really take me. Part of me doesn’t believe that it’s enough to relax into it because it feels like fire. I have a feeling that this is so strong that I cannot just open and soften my heart in the midst of it. Is there any other way?

John: Your behaviour is controlled by your inner attitude. Your inner attitude you are in control of.

Q: Can you say more about that inner attitude?

John: The one that feeds your anger is the one that you don’t need. Instead of focusing on your anger, trying to control it or trying to deal with it, realize the inner attitude that’s fueling the anger. You can form your inner attitude from something in your self or you can form it from something of your being. When it’s formed from your being, you will love; when it’s formed from something in your self, when it’s formed from anything polarized, it will produce behaviours of irritation, frustration, annoyance, anger.

Q: I get that about the inner attitude. What I wonder is how come it’s become stronger and stronger? I’ve been doing this work for so many years.

John: What have you been doing it for? What you do it for forms your attitude. That you’ve been doing this work for years, that on its own doesn’t really mean much. What you’ve done it for, that means something.

Q: Are you suggesting that I’ve done it for my self?

John: Your inner attitude, all along, will tell you what you’ve been doing that work for.

Q: To me, it’s not like you only have one inner attitude. That’s what you’re saying, that one big inner attitude that sort of stands over everything else?

John: Your inner attitude either speaks of your self or it speaks of what’s deeper within than your self. Whatever you do that work for is also what you will be like. If it’s for your self it will make you more like your self; if you do that work for what’s deeper within than your self, that will make you more like what’s deeper within than your self.

Q: So you’re saying that I’ve been doing this the whole time for the wrong reason, for my self.

John: You say. I can help you see, and then you say.

Q: In that case, it’s a huge blind spot for me that it’s been for my self.

John: When you really open within to see, it doesn’t matter what you see; it’s so good to see. When you love seeing, it doesn’t matter what you see.

Q: I see that what I’ve been doing was not objectively seeing. I’m sort of entangled in this kind of behaviour.

John: When you feel any kind of polarization inside, when you just even begin to feel it inside, love letting that tell you that, right there, you’re beginning to fool your self, way before it turns into any kind of behaviour.

Q: To my self, it feels like this kind of jumps over that, that it goes so fast that I or my self don’t have a chance.

John: If you are a little bit honest within, all of this will be really difficult. If you are quite honest within, then all of this will be difficult. If you are profoundly honest within, then it’s easy. Wherever there is honesty within, you are there. Wherever there isn’t honesty within, you’re not really there; you are taken over by your self. Profound honesty within means that you are, as awareness, facing what you directly know within. What you face is what you’ll be. Face the direct knowledge within, and you’ll be that regardless of what your self is like. If you face your self, that’s what you’ll be regardless of what you deeply know the truth of within. Your inner attitude comes from what you’re facing.

Q: This kind of reaction I have feels very physical and biological, but you still say that the attitude reigns over this emotion and feeling?

John: It’s your inner attitude that will form what you feel.

Q: Can that be inherited? How did I make that attitude, where does it come from?

John: When your inner attitude comes from what’s deeper than your self because that’s what you’re facing, that’s what you’re belonging to, then any feeling that comes up that isn’t generated there, by you – it’s something that life is touching in your nervous system, in your body, a pattern, something that’s old – that will bring it up right to the surface, into your experience. That’s where it gets cleaned. It can’t be cleaned and healed unless it’s up into your experience. What cleans it and heals it is you being what’s deeper within than anything to do with that. As you live that way, instead of in some way embodying your self, you’ll embody what’s deeper than your self.

Q: That I totally get. My feeling was that this is in my nervous system, this is embodied completely, the way it has been built from whatever genetics and things like that.

John: By your ancestors, passed down to you and then adopted by you and further built by you. But it doesn’t matter how big it is; it isn’t more than you. Your self isn’t more than you.

Q: I get that. Not to put the responsibility away from my self, but I have the notion that this got stronger after my father died. Do the patterns get reinforced after one’s parents have died?

John: It depends on what you need. When someone dies, what inherent goodness is there is going to go to someone and whatever developed patterning and embodied attitudes have been there is going to go to someone. Whichever of the two you need, you’ll get. Either one will help you.

Q: So somehow this actually helped open my eyes to that pattern, because it really got reinforced and even stronger, or that’s the feeling I have.

John: Lovely.

Q: (chuckles) Yeah.

John: Whatever it is that you didn’t want to see becomes so easy to see.

Q: Mm. Yeah. That’s really interesting. Yeah. Thank you.