Fulfillment

We, as clinicians, not only play the role of clinicians but also have many other roles. As we often say, we wear lots of hats, and we are continuously either consciously or unconsciously trying to juggle many things simultaneously. We are striving for balance in life, for harmony, and also striving for fulfillment, though what that really means may not be as clear.

One of the definitions of the word Fulfillment is, “The meeting of a requirement, a condition, or need.” Fulfillment is indeed both a requirement and a process. As such, to be fulfilled follows the following 7 Steps:

1. Safety and Security

2. Freedom and Variety

3. Self-Worth

4. Love and Belonging

5. Growth

6. Purpose

7. Contribution

Before going through each of these seven steps as part of a series of articles on this topic, let us look in practice at what it means to be fulfilled. In practice, being fulfilled means a lot of things. Below are only three of them:

1. You know who you are. You are living authentically, including with authentic happiness and authentic success

2. You do not do things “in order to, “ or “so that,” or even “because of.” Rather you do things just because you choose to

3. You practice Word Congruence. You do your best to mean what you say, to say what you mean, and to do what you said you were going to do

While this is only a short list, it does encapsulate some of the main reasons why being fulfilled is not only beneficial but also a natural process we all may go through. Yet, many of us may not, but there is a way, and this way can best be illustrated through the above seven steps. In this spirit, let us elaborate on each one of the seven steps in the process of fulfillment, starting in this article with the first step:

Safety and Security:

Safety is defined as “the condition of being protected from or unlikely to cause danger, risk, or injury.”  The question is, how? If safety is part of the process of fulfillment, how does one get to safety? How does one get to be protected?  To answer this question, it is worth looking first at how most of us try to get to safety. But before we even look at that, it is worth looking at the different types of safety that we often think of whenever we are alluding to the concept of Safety.

Among the types of safety are physical safety, mental safety, emotional safety, financial safety, and social safety. With these five types of safety, we can now take a deep dive into what most of us tend to do to get to safety. Some of us do so by accumulating, whether it is the accumulation of money, or knowledge, of hours of meditation, or of friends. While none of these is either good or bad in itself, doing any of them with the purpose of obtaining safety is shared by those with a specific type of thinking. On the other hand, some other people claim that safety is innate and there is nothing they need to ever do to get to safety, and they also will never do anything, anyway. This second group of people also belong to a category of specific thinking. There is a third group of people, still, who said safety does not and cannot come from the outside; that safety is innate; and that saying that safety is innate does not imply they do not have to do anything; rather, they have to ensure that whatever they do does not interfere with the innate nature of their safety. And this third group belongs to the middle road. Now, let us elaborate on each type of these three forms of thinking.

Those in the first group belong to those who seek safety in the outside. They do so at all costs, yet to no avail. They do so because they are operating from illusion-based thinking and therefore fail to understand who they truly are, how life really works, and how their brain and mind work. This first group, therefore, does not just look for safety on the outside, rather, they look to the outside to either get or justify everything and anything. Here is a list of examples:

1. They look for “Truth” on the outside, thinking there is such thing as “Truth” without understanding the Neuroscience concept of Consciousness.

2. They look for “Power” on the outside, confusing Power with Force, not understanding that Power comes from only with a certain level of Consciousness

3. They look for “Health” on the outside, having no idea of the concept of a Health Consciousness

4. They strive to acquire and collect money, striving, stressing, without the understanding that abundance is innate, it is the most natural thing there is as evidenced by nature, and that scarcity is simply the absence of an abundance Consciousness, which one can shift to at any moment

5. They look for comfort in food, sex, in anything on the outside, not understanding that wellness or wellbeing is characteristic of a healthy mind

6. They have their version of freedom that denotes bondage, for they look for freedom in material possessions, which in turn keep them from sleeping at night, as they worry about losing it all, or having it robbed from them, or being cheated by someone

7. They have their own version of happiness, which is rather ephemeral, which they look for in alcohol, sex, relationships, food, or all types of pleasure while being unaware of the concept of authentic happiness.

These are simply some examples of this first group. Now, imagine the second group of people do the exact opposite, but also tend to do nothing at all. The third group of people, however, hold the same belief as the second group, but also understand that they are the Operant Factor; that nothing happens until something moves; and that though things are taking place regardless, doing some movement is part of the aliveness that is required in our participation in expressing what is already innate. This type of thinking illustrates what it is like to live an inside out life. Here are a few examples of what this looks like:

1. You know there is only One “Truth,” which means only One “Power”

2. You know this “Truth” is universal. It permeates everyone and everything, though many may not be conscious of it

3. You know that it is, therefore, a matter of Consciousness, that we can experience only that which we are conscious of, and this, itself, is at the basis of what it means that it is and it can only be an inside-out world

4. You know that an inside-out world means that everything that you perceive in the outside is merely a reflection of your inside world, of your own level of Consciousness and of your own thinking

5. You know that True Power means the ability to think, feel, perceive, focus on, see, hear, and experience, that which you choose to and nothing else

6. You know that you choose to experience based on Reality and not based on appearances

7. You know health, wellness, wellbeing, authentic happiness, authentic success, is innate

8. You know that ease, comfort, aliveness, strength, vitality, is innate

9. You know that resilience, stamina, variety, is innate

10. You know that it is all innate but you get to choose what to express and how to express it at any given time

11. You know that nothing from the inside is designed to make you happy, rather, you get to make that decision

12. You know that you see in the other what you choose to focus on and it is all a world of projection and extension

The above 12 examples may help explain one of the three practical meanings of fulfillment mentioned above. It is the practical meaning of fulfillment that speaks to knowing thyself. Knowing who we are. Knowing our True nature. What does all mean? It means everything. It means why so many in the world are not fulfilled. It means why so many in the world die by suicide, are living in such dire poverty or so much ailment and suffering. The above 12 examples of what it looks like to live an inside-out life explain why being fulfilled means knowing who we are. For we know we are fulfilled because we are living an inside-out life. To live an inside-out life, we ought to know who we are.

The next natural question is, therefore, who are we?

We are not our body, we are not our mind (with lower case “m”), rather, we are Consciousness. In a 2019 article from the journal, Nature, a historical overview of the scientific study of consciousness is outlined, including how much has been evolved to better capture consciousness-who we are-our true nature with the use of the types of sophisticated imaging techniques that used to be required in the past.

Consciousness is everything. It determines who we say we are because it determines our self-concept. It determines our self-concept because it determines the constellation of our beliefs about ourselves, and it determines the constellation of our beliefs about ourselves because it determines which thought we pay attention to and which thought we do not, which therefore means, which feeling we pay attention to and which we one we do not, which in turn helps determine our behaviors which form our habits, which in turn lead to our results, and which in turn ultimately shapes and/or reinforces our identity.

Our Consciousness, therefore, allows us to experience. It allows us to know that which we experience, and it allows us to know that we are experiencing. It is constant, it is everywhere and it is infinite. And given its infinite nature, it is of several different levels, and each level determines what we get to experience, how we experience it and how conscious we are of the experience itself.

This gets us back to the first of the steps to fulfillment, which is safety and security. If safety is innate, what determines one person to experience safety from an inside-out perspective while another person, from an outside-in perspective? The answer is Consciousness. Our consciousness allows us to experience, which includes to understand, to see things as they are, in Reality, as opposed to perceiving them from an Illusion-Based Thinking.

When we can fully appreciate the Reality that Safety is innate, when we can live this Reality, experience, and understand such an experience, we will be on our path to fulfillment, which all of us aspire to knowingly or unknowingly.

This is an article series on Fulfillment, and this is simply the first article. SWEET Institute is bringing awareness to all of us clinicians, particularly around fulfillment because we know that as clinicians, we can give only what we have, and the more we are on our path to fulfillment the more we are able to help our patients and clients get on their path to fulfillment because this is a universal aspiration and failure to be on such a path is one of the main reasons behind disease.

Would you like to learn more about how SWEET can help you and your agency with fulfillment for you, your staff, and your patients and clients? If so, please contact us now. contact@sweetinstitute.com

We look forward to serving you,
Karen and Mardoche