1. That others cause our reality. When we believe this, we feel pain, bitterness, anger and hate when we do not have what we want and need.

2. That we are the cause or creators of others' realities. This leads to feelings of guilt, shame, fear, bitterness, self-rejection, anger and hate, when others do not cooperate with us to as to create the positive reality we believe they must have in order for us to be successful and worthy as the "creators of their reality."

Such beliefs lead to co-dependent relationships that are much more susceptible to disappointment, bitterness, guilt, pain and of course conflict. Love requires that we take total responsibility for our reality and allow others to take responsibility for theirs.

Love relationships naturally thrive on caring for each other and helping each other as much as possible. It natural that we will ask for help and will loving offer help the others. But we cannot create their reality and they cannot create ours. Much love is lost when we blame others for the reality we ourselves are creating as well as when we blame ourselves for the reality they are creating for themselves.

How then do we create our personality reality?

The ability to love requires that we arrive at an even higher level of perception were we can understand that there are universal laws governing all that occurs in this universe. Scientists understand this in relationship to the physical and energy realms. Few however have totally understood this in terms of consciousness, mind, spirit, human will and fate.

All religions embrace the concept that spiritual laws govern all events in the universe according to a hidden wisdom and justice that is often difficult for us to understand. Spiritual philosophies teach us that all of creation is designed to facilitate the evolution of the soul, and that all that happens to each of us is exactly the stimulus we need in order to move forward in that evolutionary process.

Another spiritual precept is that each soul - personality is the sole creator of its personal subjective reality and that no other can create or be responsible for our reality. And in turn we cannot be responsible for or create others' realities.

Here are some factors that intertwine so as to create the matrix of our subjective personal reality.

Creating Reality Through Interpretation and Projection

1. We create our subjective reality by the way in which we interpret behaviors, situations and events. Unfortunately we often do not perceive what is there, but actually what we have been programmed to believe is there. It has been shown in scientific experiments that we have difficulty seeing what we do not believe. Our belief system works as a filter that subjectively and selectively interprets whatever is perceived in ways that corroborate what we already believe and ignores what we do not.

For example is we believe that others will reject us and do not love us, we will interpret their actions as a form of rejection and lack of love for us even when that is not the reality. We have all been surprised by people who have misinterpreted our actions and believed that we had motives and feelings that we never had.

We do the same. We project onto persons and situations motives and dangers that simply are not there. When we do so, we experience fear, pain, bitterness, creating unnecessary unhappiness for ourselves and others.

We, however, may find that we have differing and often conflicting beliefs creating a confused reality. It may be useful here to discuss the various forms of belief systems. I would like to hypothesize some different categories of beliefs.

a. Emotionally Charged Impressions - These are not so much beliefs as "impressions", which are imprinted on the mind during traumatic experiences. The mind then identifies this particular stimulus with this emotionally charged feeling, and when we think of it, we feel fear and other emotions. We do not go through thinking processes here such as analyzing, evaluating and coming to conclusions. This kind of "belief" has a strong "emotional charge" but no actual inertia or mass, because it is not based on observations and facts, but rather on one or two intense experiences - which of course - are not representative of reality.

b. Mistaken Childhood Conclusions - These are usually mistaken beliefs about a reality in which we perceive ourselves as weak, wrong, unlovable and to blame for just about everything that happens around us such as our parents anger, absence, unhappiness, indifference, divorce, illness, death etc. We falsely interpret that we are unworthy or unable and that others will always behave towards us in ways that we experienced in childhood.

These first two categories are usually repressed in the subconscious mind (shadow, inner child - whatever you prefer) because of the pain and confusion they produce. We suppress them so that we can focus and function in our daily lives. They are encased in an "energy membrane" much as our body envelopes a sliver or cut in our skin in order to prevent it from poisoning the rest of the body.

Although these "beliefs" are repressed so that we do not feel the unpleasant negative emotional-energy charge associated with them, they are activated whenever we come into contact with or think of the specific stimulus. They generate fear, emotional withdrawal and often aggressive behavior. They also create psychosomatic illnesses. They control our reactions to events, situations and persons.

Because of their repression and subsequent isolation from our conscious mind, these first two belief systems do not evolve as we do. They remain in their original state regardless of our evolving logic, reasoning, new experiences and spiritual faith. Unless we engage in inner psychological or spiritual work, they receive no new data.

The third category of beliefs is our:

c. Evolving Conscious Belief System:

This is our conscious belief system which, as it processes new data, reevaluates its perceptions of reality seeking to make the adjustments necessary in order to understand the truths behind the phenomena we observe.

This is actually evolving in only some people. Many have stopped processing new data and thus have remained with the same conscious belief system for many years and will leave their bodies with it.

This belief system understands that we are safe, secure, good, worthy and capable. It also realizes that we are not in danger from people, heights, cars, insects, dogs, cats, elevators, airplanes etc.

The facts available to it cause it to realize that its fears are unfounded. It realizes that our self-worth has nothing to do with what others say, think or do.

Yet we continue to experience fear and its resulting emotions due to our previous two categories of beliefs, (Emotionally Charged Impressions and Mistaken Childhood Conclusions) which are isolated from and usually stronger than our Evolving Conscious Belief System.

b. Our Spiritual Intuitive Faith constructs our fourth category of beliefs. These beliefs are usually based on faith rather than proof. We feel that what we believe is true. In addition to being affected by others' spiritual beliefs, we also experience inner awakenings or revelations in which we just "know" that something is true.

The last two conscious categories of beliefs are usually weak when confronted with specific stimuli, which awaken our first two repressed categories. We may have total faith in our immortality or in divine wisdom and justice, but when confronted with stimuli that awaken our Emotionally Charged Impressions and Mistaken Childhood Conclusions, the power of these later two often temporarily overshadow our faith and logic.

We have simultaneous multiple beliefs, which are working at different levels creating conflicting emotions and reactions to events and situations. We can simultaneously feel love, peace, hurt and anger because our various beliefs are creating different internal realities.

To be continued.

(From the forthcoming book LOVE IS A CHOICE, by Robert Elias Najemy)