TED Community » Holli West

More About Me

I'm passionate about

Family, Healing, Freedom, and Spirit

An idea worth spreading

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

Talk to me about

Observations of human behavior; Sociology; Paradigm Shift

Comments

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• A comment on Conversation: Do you believe we have true freewill?

  Jun 12 2011: my perception is that there is pure potentiality in every moment...neither the past nor the present exists outside the mind and memory is a construct. We experience the MOST potential for "free will" when we encounter stimuli that directly challenges our beliefs, sometimes the more painful the outcome of the challenge the more movement toward freedom the mind makes. I truely believe that EVERYTHING is a construct of the mind...even biological responses or so-called "survival instincts". my hope is that as a species we will make the shift from having to find "free-will" via pain and suffering to finding it via enlightenment and conscious contact with the "other" (outside the self).

• A comment on Conversation: is Stress correlated to to the level of believing and loving God?

  Jun 12 2011: When I was young my mother had a rule for my sister and myself that there was no "whining" allowed...she added to this by saying to us, when we would enter a self-pity process (aka: whining) ,"how about you offer your suffering up for someone who suffers more than you." When I became a teen this used to frustrate me...in my self-centered paradigm of adolescence who could possibly be suffering more than me....and "why should i care any way!?" Point being, stress is the result of specific paradigms of thinking. I think the role of belief in God does indeed have an impact on ones experience of stress relative to the construct of "God". for example, a design that creates more judgement in expectation could lead to more stress conversely a belief in something beyond the "self" I think does increae a person's ability to"let go" of fears that may contribute to increased stress. Perhaps, because belief allows the individual to find meaning in suffering...otherwise whats' the point? nothing? well...thats just boring.