Do you have an addiction?

We are all aware of the common addictions of life, drugs, food, money, sex, etc., but have you ever considered that you may be addicted to certain emotions?

Just like certain drugs, our emotions can create a powerful feeling inside of us, and because that emotion makes us feel so much, we may be addicted to it.

Why do the same things keep happening to me?

In life, there are literally millions of possibilities for us to choose. We could do any number of things everyday. So, if we could choose so many different things in life, why does it seem that the same types of circumstances repeat themselves in our lives? It doesn't matter where you go, it seems that the same things happen to you over and over.

It's possible that you are addicted to the emotions that are created whenever that something happens. Because you are addicted to it, and you want to feel it, you will create it in your life. It's not just God that creates these patterns in your life, it's you! Part of you creates the circumstance that enables the emotions to be created where you can get your emotional high. You're an addict of your own emotions!

Why is this good to know?

When you start to realize that it's not God that creates these 'lessons' of life for you, but you create them because you want to feel them, then you can start to take control of your life. Just like an addiction to drugs will control you and make you do some things you probably never would have, when you are addicted to these emotions, you will do things in life that you probably wouldn't have but you do them because you want to feel those emotions.

So we are creating our problems?

In a very real way, yes. If you stop and look not just at the problem, but what emotions you experienced as you had that problem, you will be one step closer to understanding why you would want those feelings.

For instance, say that no matter where you go, you always seem to find a way to get into a confrontation. You obviously have been wronged by someone, and so you stick up for yourself and make them realize what an ass they are! But this seems to happen over and over to you, even in different towns and cities. So even though the variables keep changing, like the city and the people, the constant remains the same, you get into confrontations with people that have obviously wronged you, you stick up for yourself and then tell them off. Could it be that you are addicted to that emotion? You are emotionally addicted to that confrontation.

How can I tell what emotions I'm addicted to?

When you look at your life, what do you see? What patterns seem to happen to you over and over again, regardless of the place or time? You can compose a mini-science experiment on your life to see what emotions you are addicted to. There are variables, and then there are constants. What is constantly happening to you even when you change the variables, or circumstances, in your life?

Once you have determined what keeps repeating in your life, you can then start to look at what emotions you feel as those things happen to you. Perhaps you really are addicted to suffering, so you create situations where that happens, or perhaps you are addicted to feeling in control, so you create the situations where you get that emotion. As you start to look at what emotions are attached to your repeating pattern, you will then be on the road to being in control of your emotions, instead of them controlling you.

There are all sorts of addictions to our emotions that we should look at. Once we understand that life can be an infinite amount of possibilities, but the same thing keeps happening to us, then we can start to uncover why it is that those things keep reoccurring and whether or not we really want them to keep happening. We co-create our own reality with God. We can influence it and change it, and so it's up to us whether or not we want to really be in control of our emotions, and ultimately, the life that we create.

Thoughts create life

The understanding that our thoughts have power to create

Can we influence life and reality?

I believe that we are active co-creators of reality with everyone around us. Each of us has a consciousness which produces thoughts. These thoughts could be seen as waves of life. These waves give life to and form different elements of matter. As many small, similar forms of matter cling to each other, the thoughts begins to be constructed into reality. As these constructions grows, it acquires other forms of energy that are similar to it until the reality and life is created.

An experiment to see how thoughts form different crystal patterns in water.



The left water was labeled with "Thank you" and the right crystal was formed while playing a symphony by Mozart.

Water changes rapidly and is unstable. Dr. Masaru Emoto, who discovered that molecules of water are affected by our thoughts, words, and feelings. Since humans and the earth are composed mostly of water, it helps us to understand the power that our thoughts have in creating our life and reality around us.

Dr. Emoto conducted experiments on water where he would place labels of words next to distilled water and watch the patterns that would form as crystals.



The water on the left was labeled as 'demon' the water on the right was labeled with 'you make me sick'.

It's amazing to see how elements of water responded to the labels that were placed next to them. We can see that our own bodies, which are about 90% water, might be affected by these thought patterns.

It is possible that thoughts can actually be toxic to the body. And it is also possible that our body can be ordered through beauty.

What does that tell us about the ideas and thoughts that we have and that we are exposed to?

It's possible to see that our thoughts have a real affect at creating the life and reality around us. I think, then, we should really try to be conscious of the different forms of energy and thoughts that surround us and that are in our lives because they have the power to create life.

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How people are like dogs and cats

What is so different about dogs and cats? Dogs are usually genuine, lovable, trusting, and loyal. Cat's are likely to be self-interested, coy, curious, a bit arrogant, haughty, and concerned about themselves.

What can we learn from dogs and cats that can help us understand different ways of looking at life?

There are many people that have the same type of dispositions as dogs. They're genuine. If they love you, they'll show you. If you scare them, they'll bark at you. Dogs love life and they love others, and they show that. That's wonderful, but it opens them up to a huge disadvantage: others will use the genuineness that dogs have against them. They will control them through their weakness, their weakness being that they trust others. Because dogs can't imagine that someone would use genuineness against them, they don't ever question it.

People can be very similar to dogs. They are genuine with their feelings; they're open and honest, and they want to help. They trust others, and they trust that others will have the same way of looking at life; that's what makes them so lovable, because they see the world that way and they can't help treat others with the same type of love.

Are there people that have the same dispositions as cats?

Yes. There are people that use the same type of feelings as dogs, love, loyalty, trust and genuineness, but they manipulate these feelings to make others look towards them. Like cats, these people don't actually care about others, they simply want to use them as a way to get attention and have control over them.

These types of people will use emotions to control you. They use fear, guilt, shame, love, and your self-worth against you to make you do what they want you to do. They live in an emotional reality, where emotions rule the way they make decisions, look at life, and how they communicate with others.

Dogs live on the surface; they're not concerned about using people, so they would never suspect others to use them. Cat's live below the surface; they use the same types of words and emotions that genuine animals use, but they use these emotions to make others do what they want. What do they want? Control. Why? Because when you live in an emotional world like they do, they don't have anything to hold onto. On the inside, they are lost in a storm of emotion, and so to get control on the inside, they will try and control others on the outside so they feel like they have some control. But it doesn't work. Why not? Because they are trying to solve an internal problem externally. They never get to the source, and so they can never solve the problem.

Are there people out there that manipulate the good, the love, and the trust that others have to gain control?

If you do not realize this, then you are in danger. You are in danger of being controlled by people who want control. They will use the same words you use, they will talk the same way, they will say the same phrases, but they do not live on the surface, they are only using these things to get you to do what they want.

How can I tell if the person is like a cat or a dog?

If the person genuinely loves you, they will never want to control you. They will never want to make your decisions. They don't care about decisions, they care about love and trust.

If the person is trying to control you, they will have you look to them when you make your decisions. Your world will be preoccupied with them, you'll think about how they are feeling and if you have hurt them, and they will use all of these emotions to make your world revolve around them.

Women do this very well. Not all woman, but many woman. They will give the man a little bit of love, but they will end up telling the man what to do in all of his decisions. The man will not be able to make any decision without his wife's consent, and the woman will be over the man, telling him what is ok and what is not ok to do.

The church is the same way. The church is much like a manipulative woman; it follows the same pattern of control. They use words like truth, love, and god in order to bring you in. And then, they will start to take away your decisions. Your life will start to revolve around the church. You will start to ask your bishop about major life questions, even though it is your life and he will never fully understand the particulars in your life. You will start to ask God if each decision you make is what he wants you to do, much like an emotional abusive woman would have her husband act. The husband will look to the wife in every decision. Never trusting himself, always giving away his decisions to his wife.

The church will say that they are about truth and light, but they only ever talk about what the leaders say. They only read conference talks about the latest words from the leaders, they quote previous leaders and their opinions about life, and they will have you memorize the leaders words. They don't have storehouses of truth from toasim, buddhism, science, literature, history, etc., in fact, these things really don't matter to them, all they want you to focus on is what the leader says and how to obey the leader. Like a cat, they will use the words of truth and light, but they never seem to go beyond their own words.

Another way they will try to control you is to hurt you emotionally. They will call you names or find a tiny piece of your words they can use to control you. They don't really care about what you say or what you're trying to say, they just want to control, so they find something obscure and meaningless to get you to look towards them. Because you are genuine, you think they are being genuine too, and perhaps there is something to what they are saying, but your are mistaken. They are not looking for understanding, they are looking for control. They don't ask questions, they tell you where you are wrong.

They will also get emotional to try and control you. For instance, they will cry and cry in order to get you to look at them and ask what is wrong. They won't ever tell you, or they will say they don't know, because if they did tell you, you might have a chance of fixing the situation, and they would never want that, because then they would lose their control they've gained over you.

Why are church leaders so emotional? Why do they cry almost every time they give a talk? Is is normal for a grown man to cry? Some leaders are genuine, but when you live in that emotional reality, and you are genuine, it becomes very difficult to tell who is genuine and who is not. The only way is to look at what they are saying. Are they trying to get you to look to them to understand your own life? Are they trying to get you to consult them and their god before you make a decision? If so, you must be careful.

How do you stop from being controlled by them?

The answer is pretty simple. Start living your own life. Start making your decisions for yourself because you want to make them. Do not consult them when you are trying to make a decision. Even if you make a mistake, that is ok. You will learn from your mistakes, and you will not make it the next time. Life is about learning from our mistakes and then getting better. But you'll never be on that road to independence as long as you are always looking back to someone else to help you make your decisions.

When you stop caring about what the controlling person wants, then you will be able to move on with your life. They will scream and yell, they will tell you you are going to hell, or that god will be angry with you, but don't listen to them. God wants you to be you. He wants you to develop and grow in your own life in your own way. You are a unique flower that can only bloom when you believe in yourself enough to open your petals to the sunshine. Don't let them hide the beauty and life that is inside of you. Don't let them stop you from blooming. Life is an adventure, and making your own decisions is the first step.

What is the good?

Part of the 'good' is to make your own decisions. The 'good' could be described as an individual believing in themselves to act on their own understanding.

Why would that be good?

Each of us is unique. Each individual has developed certain traits and talents that if acted upon, will bless them and everyone around them. As you act and are in control of your own decisions, you will start to see yourself grow and become a unqiue, powerful individual.

How do you participate with the good?

When you start to make your own decisions in life, you will see that you have a natural talent towards a certain aspect of life. As you make tougher and tougher decisions, you will grow in strength and ability. You will start to mature and become powerful in the domain you have chosen to act in. As you do this, you will have a specific way of looking at life, or of creating something unique that will benefit you, but it will also benefit the rest of society.

How could society benefit if I simply start making my own decisions?

Because each of us is unique, we each bring something different to the table of life. When everyone is their own individual, they make the society stronger, they create something that could benefit the rest of the group through their uniqueness. This is very similar to our current economy. People diversify enough that by their own individual talent, they can then offer something better and faster than anyone else, and so you go to them to use their services, which allows you to save time and focus on doing your own thing. In time, that other person will come to you and he will benefit from your own unique gifts.

In the same way that our lives have benefited because people can choose for themselves which profession to follow, if people were allowed to make their own moral decisions, come to their own moral beliefs and conclusions, then society would benefit morally as it does economically. People would come up with moral innovations the same way they come up with economic innovations, and it would benefit those around them.

Is that why taking away decisions from others is evil?

That's right. When you tell other people that they are weak, sinful, and shouldn't trust themselves because of the 'natural man', you are robbing them of their chance to extend in life, their chance to make decisions and progress in their own unique way. If they have to give up all of their decisions to their leaders, they will never develop in their own way, they will simply become copies of the leader.

Ultimately, this will hurt the society. It will make it stagnate like a pool of stagnant water. No new developments will be made, no new insights. This is one of the reasons that when you go to church on Sunday, you hear exactly the same things over and over and over again. Why? Because the leaders do not allow for innovation, so there are no new insights, no new understandings.

How can I start on the path towards the good?

Own your life. Start making decisions because you want to make them. Start to take control of your life and stop living it for Jesus, your parents, your bishop, the prophet, or even God. Ultimately, God wants you to be the best you, not the best copy of your bishop. He knows that inside you is incredible strength, insight, creation and beauty. The leaders will try to stop you by telling you that you are weak, sinful, and disobedient, but you are a creation of a beautiful being, and a beautiful being would not create something ugly and broken like they would have you believe.

What is evil?

Sex. sex is evil, right? Bullshit.

What is evil?

Telling others that they should only listen to their leaders instead of making their own decisions.

Why is that evil?

When your decisions are taken away from you, you are not in control. You don't grow morally because you don't make your decisions. That is the goal of the whole mormon church: give away your decisions to the leaders. Then they have power. They have the control over your life.

Why is that detrimental to the individual?

Are you a child? Children don't make their own decisions, adults do. Adults have to weigh different variables in their life and choose which decision is the most correct in their particular context. As they start to make their own decisions, they will begin to see whether or not if those decisions are helping or if they are hurting. If they are hurting, then they will change, and hopefully, they will gain knowledge from their experience so they can learn to choose the good from the bad the next time they have to make a decision. As they do this, they will become more apt at making decisions. They grow. They mature. They are an adult.

The goal is to be in control of your own life. If you give away your decisions, you will be dependent on someone else to make your decisions. You will remain as a child. You will not be able to make more and more difficult decisions because you gave your decisions away to someone else. All you will understand is how to obey. That is what you will learn; how to obey with exactness, not how to be an adult and to make your own decisions.


How do you know if you are in control of your life?

Ask yourself when was the last time you made a decision just because you wanted to make it. Not for Jesus, not for your wife, not for your church, not for your bishop, but you did it simply because you wanted to do it. It came from you, and you wanted to do it, and so you did. If you can't remember, or if you can count how many times you've made a decision only on one hand, then you are being controlled. You are not in charge of your life, they are.

What is the real evil? Gays, or the abuse of Power?

There has been a lot of talk lately about the Mormon Church supporting an amendment that would ban gay marriage. Why are they doing this when there are so many other pressing matters that have such a larger impact on our lives? I think the answer is complex, but there are a few ideas that I'd like to write about.

Gays are an easy target; Homosexuals are not a very large minority within the church (or within society), and because they are not a vocal minority within the church, they become an easy target, much like the youth of the church. So, when the leaders want to close the ranks, they need to find an enemy in order to rally support for their side, and they see the gays as an easy enemy. Can you imagine if the church focused its political power on corrupt political leaders? Or corrupt business men? These two parts of society are very powerful, and they affect our lives much, much more than any gay marriage ever would, and yet they are largely silent about both of them.

What is real evil?

I've asked some members in the church what evil is, and they usually can't come up with anything off the top of their heads (I'll go more into this later) but they mostly say that evil is to not do what God says (which really is just tribal obedience to the chief).

What is evil? I think there are two main types of evil; first, evil is to use others for your own ends; second, evil is to stop people from their own moral growth. Why would the church define morality as simply a matter of sexual relations? If you've ever been to many church meetings, they'll talk all about the immorality of today, and by that, they usually mean sexual promiscuity. I don't think I've ever heard a talk or discourse from the pulpit about abusing your power over people, or correct business ethics for our business owners, or how to find people that manipulate the good to get others to follow them. When was the last time you heard a talk about political corruption? I don't think I've ever heard one.

Abusing your power over others is evil. It is taking your role as a leader and making others follow and obey you instead of trusting in themselves. The church leaders don't say to follow your own understanding. They don't tell you to make decisions for yourself and to see those consequences as the first step towards moral development. In fact, they tell you the opposite; they say that you should consult your bishop over your decisions, you should listen to the leaders to understand how to act, and you should not rely on your own understanding to make decisions. But this robs you of your decisions, and then you are not in control of your life, they are. This is an abuse of power; this is evil.

They don't want you to understand real evil

They take away your decisions for a little bit of safety. And they don't want you to know this, or to even understand that this is evil, so they focus on something that is very powerful emotionally, sex. And then they focus on an obscure act of sex, homosexuality, because the homosexuals are largely powerless.

The leaders' decision to focus on sexuality as the whole context of morality is a big goose chase. And when you're chasing the goose, you won't notice that they are the ones making all of your decisions and robbing you of your ability to act on your own understanding in life, whether it is right or not right. They don't want you to be an adult making your own decisions, they want you to remain as a child, meek, humble and always obedient.

Is it all about Public relations?

It could be a reason. The church wants to be a larger part of mainstream christendom, and so moving with them would seem appropriate to show others that they really aren't that different. But why do other christian churches use their political powers against homosexuals instead of focusing on the real threats of society?

It seems to me that someone down the line used the good as a means to get others to follow them and to get people to give away their decisions, property, and even lives to those in power. And now, the current Mormon church and other Christian sects don't mind perpetuating the morality they have created because it keeps them in control.

Mormonism as a tribe, Part 10: The family tribe

Tribalism is a good thing for the individual in the context of the family.

The basic building block of society is the individual within the family tribe.
Family tribalism is the way to give meaning to the individual's life. When the individual takes a wife or many wives and creates a small family unit, in essence he creates a tribe. The next building block of society then is the family, the tribal family. After that comes the next extension, institutions. After that, states and then nations.

Individual, tribal family, institutions, states, nations.

But in our society, institutions have become more powerful than the tribal family, and they usurp the traditional roles of tribalism to extend its own ends. The individual, without the help of his own tribe, then must look towards the institution for safety and meaning. But we have missed a step. We have taken away the tribal family and put in its place the institution.

Individual, institution, states, nations.

Why would this be bad? Ultimately, when that individual is with his own tribe, there is a mental safety given to that individual: he knows his place, he knows his people, and he knows his duty to the tribe. It's an animal instinct that has been ingrained into us for tens of thousands of years. Nature has found a way for the individual to be safe within the context of this reality, to fully extend as an individual, and to help himself by helping his own people. But that is gone, and in it's place is the institution.

The institution uses the tribal mentality for its own ends

But this is a horrible thing for the individual. Sooner or later, the institution will require everything from the individual in order to appease its own ends, which then becomes the annihilation of the individual for the institution. Ultimately, because there is no check on the institution's power by the power of the tribe, the institution will swallow the individual for its own gain. The family tribe is the check on the institution. The individual can give everything to and for his own tribe because in a very real way, he is the tribe, and the tribe is him. He has come from the tribe in the presence of his elders and ancestors, and he will live as part of the tribe during his present life, and someday he will procreate and strengthen the tribe by and through his progeny. But, the institution is not the tribe, and so it is not the individual.

The institution begins to use these individuals without the proper mental reciprocation. And without the family tribe, the individual becomes lost in the duties of the institution, which ultimately is no way tied to his psyche or progeny. This creates a mental disconnect with the individuals understanding of reality. There is something missing; the tribal family no longer exists in his mind, and he has become disillusioned with the institution because he has seen and felt that it will take everything from him without giving him the necessary mental safety and meaning.

The tribal mentality should only be used within the context of the family tribe

Institutions have robbed the family tribe of its traditions, rites, and rituals for its own ends. Religious institutions use this family tribalism and places itself as the new chief of the individual. And that, ultimately, will lead to the individual's death. But I can see how these rituals, rites, alters, and sacrifices make sense when the chief is a tribal father, whose devotion is warranted because his likeness is the same as the individual. In a sense, the individual is worshipping, sacrificing, and fighting for himself.