visavis wrote:I really want to understand and be involved in a discussion of tangible ways we can live on a higher / purposeful / actually positive / STO level.
My kind of post.
Okay, I'll give this a try...
Tangible ways we can live on a positive STO level:
When I hear/think the term STO, the first connection that arises in my mind is: giving.
GIVING
In this society and age, giving seems to be bound up with money and materials. We can serve others by giving financial and material support, but this kind of giving isn't the only kind. If you do choose to give materially or financially, though, a helpful question could be: What level of the person am I serving by giving? Am I serving their ego? Or, am I enabling the manifestation of their heart's desires? Answering that requires discernment, but I think generally, if you're giving money to an individual (and not an organization, and if that individual really needs it) it's because they need help surviving or manifesting a dream. Also, of course, if you're giving to be noticed for your giving then you've just left the (STO) building.
But, again, giving money isn't the only kind of giving.
Other kinds of giving:
*Listening
("Give" others the floor, give by allowing them to process their issues out loud).
*Give by giving compliments
(Don't stroke egos, but if you notice positivity in someone else, verbalizing your recognition of it--through a compliment or through gratitude--could help them further their journey towards positivity. Awareness, by itself, has organizing, healing effects. If a person, through your observation, shifts their attention to what is positive in them, the negative in them is already partially disempowered).
*Expressing affection
(Be Service-To-Others by openly showing your love. The MCS has conditioned us--especially in America--to be embarrassed by public displays of warmth. Forget the "rules." Express the warmth you feel whether it is for a member of the same sex or not, if others or, say, your boss are present or not. I feel that this is an STO practice because...Well, I won't intellectualize about it. Love feels good. If you're helping others to feel good, that's STO in my book).
*Be Honest
(Honesty is STO because it facilitates an alignment with reality in others; by deceiving others you--in some part, I think--become the Matrix, you spread illusion. Of course, [1] people can learn by being lied to, once undeceived, and [2] honesty sometimes hurts more than helps. Globally however, lies are a blockage of energy; honesty is flow. Be being as honest as possible, you encourage flow [health] in others).
*Sharing Intuitions
(There is a difficult obstacle course to be negotiated, of course, in telling a person what you intuit about them. And the obstacle course only comes after the issue of uncertainty with and the accuracy of your intuition. But I can personally attest to--and I bet many of you can--how my life has been changed, taking a turn for the positive, after a person dared to share an intuition they had about me. It is a form of giving because it can help that person re-align with their real/true/highest self. It can dis-illusion them. It can say Hello to their spirit).
*Sharing Information
(If the MCS, and the STS mode, is held together by the control of information, then its hold will be broken by the flow of information. Sharing information isn't cramming "the Truth" down a person's throats. I think, on the level of STO, it takes the form of an extended invitation. "Hey, what about this...?")
NEUTRALITY
Practicing non-judgment, or neutrality, is also I think an STO practice. Have you ever felt good after spending time with a group of people you felt weren't judging you?
Neutrality fosters a healing space. It is an awesome giving to others. Being in the energy of true non-judgment is for your spirit what rest is like for your body--it creates an environment in which the spirit can begin to "fight germs," no longer having to actively contend with judgment.
HUMILITY
I think practicing humility is STO, too. It may seem obvious, but I put it in here because I think humility ends competition . STS thrives on competition. If you stop competing with others, you allow them to feel safe, feel free to truly express themselves without fear of looking weak (non-competitive), and it increases their chances of...having a simple sense of being okay. STS is predicated on a feeling of not being okay, of needing something else to be complete or better.
EMPATHY
Practicing empathy, or an awareness of what others are feeling, is almost an automatic step away from STS. If every general/sergeant/solider in a war could literally feel the pain, the horror they were causing, how many wars would there be?
Remember the scene in the movie "Powder" when Powder helps the deerhunter to feel what the dying deer is feeling?
I'm not condemning hunting or meat-eating (I eat meat) here, but the image in the movie says a lot.
Practicing empathy you serve others through understanding them. Being understood, being seen, having someone "get you" is a deep drive, I think, for all beings.
Think of the joy you have when you're with the people who "get you" in this life. Empathy is a practice that allows you to spread that joy to others--to give it back.
You can't change a tiger's stripes,
but you can avoid its teeth.