Emotional and Spiritual Growth

The Rules for Being Human, author unknown, are posted on a plethora of web sites. While these rules are helpful, there is one fundamental flaw in its wordingthat being that we are here to learn lessons. The concept of learning lessons is flawed in that it flies in the face of Carl Jungs concept of The Collective Unconscious, and the fundamental laws of human existence.

The collective unconscious refers to that part of a person's unconscious which is common to all human beings. It co103Bntains archetypes, which are forms or symbols that are manifested by all people in all cultures. They are said to exist prior to experience, and are in this sense instinctual. Critics have argued that this is an ethnocentrist view, which universalized Jung's European-styled archetypes into human beings' archetypes.

Less mystical proponents of the Jungian model hold that the collective unconscious can be adequately explained as arising in each individual from shared instinct, common experience, and shared culture. The natural process of generalization in the human mind combines these common traits and experiences into a mostly identical substratum of the unconscious. Thus, it can be said that we all have access to the same archetypal information and therefore, we are remembering what we have known since the beginning of our existence from the source. The source being the entity we call God, Higher Self, Essence Greater than Oneself or any name people use to identify this unseen, unheard, unobserved, and therefore unknown-by-anyone-else entity.

Therefore, I offer to you a revised edition of The Rules for Being Human: I will title itLaws of RememberingEmotional and Spiritual Growth.

1. You have a body. You may like it or hate it, but it is the one you chose for the entire period this time around.
2. You will have the opportunity to Remember everything you choose to remember. You are enrolled in a full-time informal experience of Remembering. Each day you will have the opportunity to Remember what you choose to remember. You may like what you remember or you may think it irrelevant and/or stupid.
3. There are no mistakesOnly opportunities to Remember. Emotional and Spiritual growth is a process of trail and error: Experimentation. The failed experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately prompts you to Remember what you have known since the beginning of existence.
4. An opportunity to Remember is presented until you choose to Remember. An opportunity to remember will be presented to you in various forms until you have remembered it. When you have remembered it, you can then go on to the next opportunity to Remember.
5. Opportunities to Remember do not end. There is no part of life that does not contain opportunities. The opportunity to Remember is infinite and continues for infinity.
6. 'There' is no Better than Here. When your There becomes a Here, you will obtain another There that will again look better than Here.
7. Others are Mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need to Remember. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9. Your answers lie inside you. The answers to Lifes questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust you are part of the whole.
10. You will forget your soul's sole purpose is to Remember.
11. You can remember it whenever you choose.

Dorothy M. Neddermeyer, PhD, author, international speaker, and inspirational leader specializes in: Mind, Body, Spirit healing and Physical/Sexual Abuse Prevention and Recovery. Dr. Neddermeyer empowers people to view life's challenges as an opportunity for Personal/Professional Growth and Spiritual Awakening. http://www.drdorothy.net

John Ortberg