"The exchange I had with Jonathan continues to be a source of insight for me. It was fascinating how perceptive he was, the questions were intriguing, and within a few minutes he provided clarity to a very confusing situation. Communicating with someone as sincere and knowledgeable as Jonathan is recommended to everyone." - Michael Krimsky

First, there is allowing instinct.  Allowing instinct is the first stage to manifest in the physical world.  It allows the instincts of others (sharing instinct and receiving instinct) to be manifested through it, rather than manifesting its own instincts, and it is consequently out of touch with its own instincts and speech and actions and body.  This makes it quite passive and quiet in its interactions with others, as it allows others to dictate its actions.  It is going to be the listener, as it allows others to talk.  Its focus is on the “I”, but it is unclear to it how far the “I” extends, and since it allows others’ instincts to be manifested through it, it is inclined to see the “I” as having no real boundaries whatsoever.  Whatever anyone else wants, the “I” wants, for the “I” encompasses everything, and the instincts of everything manifest through the “I”.  Therefore, the instincts and desires of others must be fulfilled in order for allowing instinct to be fulfilled, and so allowing instinct seeks to fulfill others’ desires with the idea that this is the only way that it can be fulfilled in itself.  It is concerned with preserving its existence, but because it has just manifested in the world, and therefore has no experience with the world, its attitude is generally, “Let’s just do what we have to do and see what happens and make the best of it, and then we’ll have a peaceful and harmonious environment in which it will be easy and comfortable to exist.”  Essentially, allowing instinct optimistically seeks the fulfillment of everyone, for it believes that only this kind of harmonious and peaceful situation will allow a situation in which it can be fulfilled itself.  And since it is new to the world, and so everything is new to it, it just wants to relax and enjoy the experience.  But it really wants to watch without engaging much itself, because it isn’t familiar with its own physicality, since even this is new to it.  With an inner blankness and pure receptivity that comes from its having just entered the world, it experiences each moment in the present moment, but in a dissociated, disconnected sort of way, for it hasn’t yet grounded itself fully in this world.  It dissociates from any of its own imposing instincts, and especially from anger, which is too grounding in its own desires and disruptive of the peace.  Allowing instinct just wants to avoid conflict, for this is the only way to maintain its existence as far as it is concerned.

Back to the Types

Next, there is receiving instinct.  Receiving instinct is only the second stage to manifest in the physical world.  Therefore, it still has much of the idealism of allowing instinct.  However, by receiving instinct, there is the recognition that things are not so perfect in the world.  In fact, things are quite flawed.  And so receiving instinct desires to fix them, to correct them.  Receiving instinct grasps at instincts, desiring to receive instincts, and so it keeps itself stirred up about things that it might have instincts about.  Essentially, it seeks to find things to be frustrated about in the present moment—things that it feels the need to change or have be changed—and it holds onto this frustration by replaying and holding onto thoughts of anything that makes it frustrated.  Receiving instinct wants to be true to its instincts, and so it feels that, in order to exist, things must be as they should be—things must be perfect.  By maintaining this view—that, in order to preserve its existence in the world, it must make things perfect—it secures for itself a mission and a purpose—to correct the world and make things right.  For it wants to want—it wants to manifest instincts within itself, and so it needs to have instincts to manifest.  It wants to have things, including itself, be perfect, and it sets the bar at perfection because then things will never be as they should be, and it will always have things to have instincts about, for nothing is perfect—everything is corrupt and bad and wrong and flawed in relation to the absolute of perfection.  What receiving instinct ultimately wants, therefore, is to be good and right—to be perfect itself.  But, since it is focused on the “I” and is unsure of the location of the boundaries of the “I”, it wants everything else to be good and right—to be perfect—also.  It has its own, subjective idea of what perfection entails, however, and it will not be convinced that what it perceives as good and right is not objectively good and right.  Receiving instinct seeks to find and grasp at instincts, and so it can be seemingly dominating and imposing in its instructive, or didactic, nature, as it finds things to frustrate it and seeks to correct what it perceives as flaws and wrongs in its environment and in others.  But it is actually quite submissive…to its own conception of morality and rightness.  True dominance and imposition appear in sharing instinct, which is next.

Back to the Types

Sharing instinct is constantly overflowing with instincts that it seeks to impose upon itself and others and the world around it.  It is still relatively new to the world, being only the third stage to manifest in the physical world, but it has been around long enough to come to the conclusion that in order to secure its existence in the world—in order to protect itself from any vulnerability or weakness that might threaten its survival—it must have complete control over itself and its environment—including all of the others and the other things around it.  It is not going to let itself be walked on by others; it is not going to allow others or its environment to assert themselves upon it.  And so what it wants is to be in control—in order to protect and preserve itself.  And it puts more energy than is necessary into everything that it does as it overflows with its instincts, manifesting very firmly grounded and confident in its body and actions and in the physical world.  Since it wants to be in control, it tends toward being the leader (it tends toward assuming this role) in situations, actively imposing its influence upon others, but also doing what it can to preserve the existence of everyone around it.  Sharing instinct always wants to have its way, and it can come to think that it can do anything to get it.  And since its focus is on the “I” and its issue is with boundaries, it feels like its instincts apply to its entire environment and everything and everyone within that environment.  It thinks that if it is in control, and it does what it wants to do, and it has the final say, then everyone will be best off.  And so it assertively voices its opinion and actively engages with the world to shape the world as it wills—in the present moment.  And only strength and toughness is displayed; anything that might get in the way of its being in control, like showing weakness or emotion, is avoided.  But this doesn’t apply to anger.  Sharing instinct definitely thinks that anger is okay to show, because anger gets things going, gets people moving—for anger is all about the instinctual expression of the body in getting what it wants.  Sharing instinct shows toughness, and assertiveness, and forceful pursuance of its desires, and active and intense engagement with the world, and it wants the same things in return from its environment and from others.  For what we give, we should get in return.

Back to the Types

Next is allowing feeling.  Allowing feeling allows others’ feelings to be expressed through it, and it is therefore out of touch with its own feelings.  Since it is the first of the feeling stages, it is on the borderline between past-orientation and present-orientation, and its issue is that of identity—who it is and how it fits in with others—and so it is constantly looking to its past and present interactions with others in order to find out how it should feel about things and, more specifically, how it should act.  And it often looks to the past with regret or shame about how its actions might have made it not look good to others.  And since it allows others’ feelings to be expressed through it, and it also wants to belong, it wants to make others happy with it.  It wants to meet others’ expectations for who it should be, appearing the best that it possibly can in everyone else’s eyes.  It is therefore inclined to adapt to each person’s feelings about who it should be, and this sometimes leads it to change itself depending upon who is looking at it so that it will appear in the best possible light to that particular person.  Allowing feeling is the first stage where the pull of the end goal—self-awareness—begins to present itself, for it is the first stage where others start to be recognized as existing—others with which it can interact, helping it to become aware of itself, and others with which it can work toward some greater goal.  Consequently, allowing feeling is extremely goal-oriented, wanting to accomplish things and to be always driven toward some goal or other.  Since allowing feeling is the first of the feeling stages, it feels that it needs the basis of the instinctual stages in order to fit into the group of others.  Its attitude is therefore “I need to work hard to preserve my own existence in order to be valuable to others, to the group.”  It thinks that if it accomplishes what other people would want it to accomplish, and it is the best at that thing of anyone, then it will be valuable in other people’s eyes; this is how it seeks to find its niche—by being the best at something that others want someone to be doing and that others look well upon someone doing.  Allowing feeling doesn’t know how it feels about things, because it is so inclined to think that other people’s feelings are its feelings.  And it ends up covering up its own feelings, because these can get in the way of good interactions with people—in the way of being productive and accomplished and being seen well by people.

Back to the Types

Receiving feeling, on the other hand, feels like its feelings are who it truly is, and so it grasps at and holds onto feelings, replaying thoughts and events that brought about strong emotions in it.  Any strong emotion—whether good or bad—is good, because it makes receiving feeling feel like it is truly alive, for to feel is to be alive for it.  It is past-oriented, replaying past interactions with others to recreate and explore feelings and thereby to discover, in those feelings, who it truly is.  And it often looks to the past with regret and shame about how it didn’t fit the identity that it has created, or found, for itself in its feelings.  Receiving feeling is consequently introspective, wanting to be self-aware, but ending up self-conscious.  For it always feels like it is lacking something that everyone else has—for it is so wrapped up in its own feelings that it ends up lacking, since it cannot receive new feelings when it is so busy holding onto the same feelings.  It wants to fit in, but it feels like it doesn’t…because it defines itself in opposition, or in contrast, to what is outside it.  So, if others fit in, then it doesn’t fit in.  It wants to be true to its feelings, and it tries to such an extent to do so that it tries to be different from everyone else.  Because then it can have an identity that is so unique that it will have significance for who it is and fit into the group by being something that no one else is.  Like receiving instinct with its instincts, receiving feeling insists that its feelings be concerned with things being different than they are.  And so receiving feeling feels it is lacking something that would make it complete—like receiving instinct feels it is lacking something that would make it perfect.  Receiving feeling ends up imagining and fantasizing about its desirous feelings (its romantic longings and so forth) being fulfilled.  But it is often too disorganized to accomplish the things that might ever lead it to actual fulfillment, because in order to be true to its feelings, it must do things only when it is in the mood to do them.  By maintaining the identity of searching for its identity, receiving feeling assures that it will always be lacking something, and that it will therefore always have feelings to experience…feelings of lack.  It is very concerned with accurately and precisely expressing its feelings, and so it is quite particular about how it manifests and expresses itself—in any and all creative avenues of expression—and it often takes things as personal attacks on its identity and therefore overdramatizes (because holding onto strong feelings makes everything quite dramatic—and makes receiving feeling quite sensitive to anything that triggers feelings in it).  Yet receiving feeling can often be rather restricted in its expression of emotions, as though emotions are something to be felt and experienced fully within oneself and not to be acted out.

Back to the Types

Sharing feeling, however, definitely feels that feelings should be acted out, for sharing feeling is overflowing with feelings that it wishes to share with everyone else.  And what feeling is better to share with everyone else than love?  So sharing feeling seeks to show, often with active and overt expressions of emotion, how much it cares about other people.  Since it is others-oriented, with concerns about how it will fit in with others, it directs this overflowing emotion toward trying to help out everyone in every way it can.  It feels like it knows what is best for everyone (because its feelings are everyone’s feelings, and so if it feels that someone needs something, then that person certainly needs that thing), and it makes sure that it meets those needs to the best of its ability.  Since it is past-oriented, it looks to the past, replaying interactions to see how helpful and loving and caring it has been and, perhaps more importantly, how much everyone consequently needs it.  But what sharing feeling ultimately really wants is to have its overflowing, caring, loving feelings returned by others—in just as obvious displays as its own.  Because the way things work is that when we give something, we get more of it in return.  So while sharing feeling is always doing things for others, it expects everyone else to be doing things for it.  It consequently often ends up concerned with what friendship or what a relationship really means (and how others are not fulfilling their role in these things), and it particularly expects others to be appreciating what it does for them.  And it often looks to the past with regret and shame about its past actions (and especially its past failures to meet people’s needs) and how these might stop people from caring about it.  Like sharing instinct seeks intensity in everything and imposes intensity on everything, sharing feeling seeks closeness in everything and imposes closeness on everything.  Sharing feeling is often overly intimate and physical in its trying to get people to love it and care about it and need it, because it will try to help in any way that it feels it is capable of doing so (and because it seeks the emotional return and appreciation in the intimacy).  And it will impose the need for its help upon others even where it is not wanted, because it needs to be needed, needs to have an outlet for its overflowing emotion that it desires to share with others.

Back to the Types

Allowing thought, like sharing feeling, can be very others-oriented, but in a very different way.  Allowing thought allows others’ thoughts to be manifested through it, and so it is out of touch with its own thought.  Without being able to listen to its own thought, and not really knowing what it thinks—separate from what its family members or friends or religion or whatever would think—anyway, it always feels like it is resting on unstable ground.  And so trust is a big issue for allowing thought, because it needs to find something to depend on, and it needs to know for sure that it can depend on it.  Allowing thought is consequently very skeptical of everyone and everything to begin with.  And if someone or something earns its trust, then it will defend that person or thing to the end, because it will see that person or thing as its source of thought, as its source of guidance and, consequently, as its source of security.  It makes quick first-impression judgments about people (and all things), categorizing them as either trustworthy or not trustworthy and, in this way, it generally (and rather strictly) categorizes all things.  Since its concern is with decision-making, it does not trust its own mind—its own thought—to make decisions, and so it looks to other people and idea systems—to others’ thoughts—for guidance as to how to make the best decisions for itself and for the people close to it.  And since it is future-oriented and it doesn’t trust itself to make decisions, it is always anxious and worried about all of the things that could possibly go wrong if it makes one decision or another, imagining every worst possible outcome—in which it will lose its guidance, its security.  Since it is the first of the thinking stages, it is on the borderline between thought and feeling, between future-orientedness and past-orientedness.  And so it is often unsure of whether it should listen to its thought or its feeling, whether it should worry about the future or regret the past that is leading to that future.  Its attitude is basically “I need to have security with the group or I won’t have individual people to guide me in my decision-making.”  It tries to be loyal and dependable to the individuals—the other “I”’s—and the idea systems in which it sees itself as having security in order to maintain those people and those idea systems in its life—in order to maintain that security, that stability, that guidance.

Back to the Types

Receiving thought doesn’t consider everyone else in its decision-making like allowing thought does.  Instead, it just tries to make the decisions that are best for itself, because if it is happy, then it will be able to be there for the other individuals—the other “I”’s—in its life…by being happy and cheery.  But it really doesn’t know how to make the best decisions for itself either, and all that it knows is that it needs to be constantly thinking and stimulated in its thinking or it will feel trapped.  So it tries to cover every possible option in every situation—choosing every choice available.  Because it seeks to receive and manifest thought within itself.  And in order to find thoughts to manifest within itself, it tries to live and actively engage with every idea that it can think of, so that the resulting experiences might give rise to more ideas—more thoughts.  So it sees the world as full of exciting opportunities, and it wants to experience them all—to provide fuel for more thinking, which will lead to more experiencing, which will lead to more thinking.  Experience is the source of receiving thought’s thinking, because from where else would one receive thought?  So it wants to be thinking and doing, thinking and doing.  And for receiving thought, these are practically one and the same.  The moment it thinks it, it does it—spontaneously and suddenly, while whatever it is is still exciting and new and stimulating.  And so receiving thought is very outgoing and extroverted, constantly engaged in some activity or another.  And when it is not actively doing something, it is actively talking about actively doing something—it is talking about something exciting that it might be able to do in the future.  Since all it wants is to be happy and fulfilled—so that it can be that way for other “I”’s, as well as for itself—it doesn’t want to feel anything that is negative.  If it feels some negative feeling, it starts to feel trapped, and it sees this as being bored, and so it jumps up to seek more mental stimulation through active engagement with experience—be it mental or physical—in the world, to try to keep itself preoccupied and happy.  But because it is always thinking about the next exciting thing that it will do, it is never fully where it is in the present, doing what it’s doing, and so it doesn’t allow any experience to touch it fully, and it is, consequently, left unfulfilled and constantly seeking fulfillment in more and more experiences.  Receiving thought tries to receive things to think about by actively physically engaging with the world, and therefore by manifesting thoughts physically; sharing thought also keeps its thoughts active, but not by immersing itself in experience the way receiving thought does.

Back to the Types

          Sharing thought is overflowing with thought already—too much thought, even, so that it can all become overwhelming.  Every experience with the world provides endless fuel for thinking, because sharing thought can end up thinking about its own thoughts, and about its thoughts about its own thoughts, and so on, and so it doesn’t require much experience for tons of thinking (although the thinking can end up quite removed from experience).  Sharing thought is the last stage of development, and it has had enough experience already.  At this point, and because it is concerned with other “I”’s and with decision making, it is ready just to learn from experience—to see what it can come to understand about it, to see if it can explain it well enough to predict what is going to happen.  This way, it can learn all that it needs to know to weigh all the pros and cons of every option in order to make the best choices for itself and the other “I”’s around it and, this way, it can be a competent, capable, and useful source of information about the world—about what everyone else is experiencing.  Sharing thought seeks objective truth, for with this it can make the objectively best decisions.  But it often ends up being inclined to not act because it never feels like it knows enough in order to make a decision, and also because it thinks that since it can predict everything that would happen if it did something, there is no point in actually doing it—because knowing it is almost like living it.  And so rather than engaging with things in the physical world, sharing thought engages with abstract representations of things, living very much in the world of its mind.  And this can make it actually not so competent physically, leaving it feeling incompetent and unfulfilled.  It will often observe the world with active thought (rather than with the blankness of allowing instinct, which has just entered the world and so has never experienced any of this before), as it figures out and pieces together and breaks down all of its thoughts in its head.  Sharing thought can come, with the understanding that it gleans from the world, to see the world as though for the first time.  Because everything looks different through the lens of sharing thought’s framework of understanding.  The world can be logical and systematic and brilliant as viewed through this lens (although when sharing thought feels like it doesn’t understand, the world can be meaningless and terrifying as viewed through its lens).  And sharing thought wants to share all of this understanding—all of this thought that it has produced.  And it expects other people to be logical and to think a lot and to be sources of ideas (and to be interested in the ideas that it wants to share) as well, for this is what it gives, and it expects more of this in return.

Back to the Types

The Above is Excerpted from
An Experiential Understanding of How All that Is Came to Be

For more information on the types, including a nuanced comparison and contrast of the types and more, see the book


The Inclinations

There are three main areas that require your attention for the sake of your continued existence in this world:  You need to look out for yourself, you need to look out for the group(s) of which you are a part, and you need to look out for the few people closest to you. 

Looking out for yourself entails attending to such things as sleeping, eating, bathing (and taking care of hygiene in general), exercising, practicing mindfulness (through meditation or some related practice)—all sufficiently and regularly (although not too much).  It also entails getting your work done and keeping your surroundings—the environment in which you live—clean and organized.

Looking out for the group of which you are a part entails attending to that group.  This involves contributing your time and efforts to something larger than yourself, whether it be a community or an organization or a team or whatever.  It also involves simply hanging out in groups of more than three people (in total, including you), spending time with a bunch of others.

Looking out for the few people closest to you entails attending to those people individually.  This involves being there to listen when they need to talk, being there to help them out when they need help, and simply sharing your life and experiencing the world with them by giving them your focused time and attention.  It involves intensely interacting with other people in intimate or small groups of a total of two or three people, and even intensely engaging in activities with the world around you, in which your focused attention is directed toward some individual person or activity or thing.

You are inclined toward directing your attention to each of these areas by three different inclinations:  the inclination to preserve your existence in the world, the inclination to belong or to be part of something larger than yourself, and the inclination to connect intensely and intimately with other people and with other things in your experience, respectively. 

Just as your inclination to keep breathing turns into a desire when you hold onto your breath to the exclusion of continued exhalation of carbon dioxide and inhalation of oxygen, these inclinations become desires when you hold onto, and attend to, one to the exclusion of the others.  Like nagging children, they become nagging desires if you do not listen to them or attend to them sufficiently.  When you hold onto anything, you are following your bad inclination.  And you bring about stress for yourself in this way as you bring about more sameness, leading to the extreme of seeking fulfillment in one area to the exclusion of seeking fulfillment in the other areas.  (Notice that it is the failure to exercise your essence of choice that brings about this stress and this sameness and these extremes, for the exercise of choice is required to bring about a change in the focus of your attention so that you can attend to all of the areas.)

        You can imagine the inclinations toward attending to these areas as being like a traffic signal with three different lights displayed vertically.  When you are atop the hill of enlightenment, not under any stress at all, then you don’t need to use the traffic lights, because you are following your good inclination toward fulfillment in each of these areas in a balanced and moderated fashion, and the traffic of your inclinations is thus flowing smoothly without any imposition of strict demands or rules—without any stressful desires to direct you. 

But once you are under some stress due to a lack of focus of your awareness on the present, you start to require the traffic lights to get your attention—you start to require that these inclinations become nagging desires in order for them to get your attention, so that you listen to them.  And so when you are under some stress, the top traffic light goes on as your primary inclination demands that you pay attention to it.  When you are under more than just a bit of stress, the top light turns off and the second light turns on, as though to warn you that you really need to pay attention to the present and to start to change your behavior in order to reduce your stress so that you won’t end up sinking into the valley.  And so your secondary inclination thus demands that you pay attention to it.  When you are under a lot of stress, the second light turns off and the third light turns on, as though to tell you to stop your current way of thinking and feeling and acting because your behavior is causing you to sink into the valley.  And so your tertiary inclination thus demands that you pay attention to it.  When you are under even more stress than this—due to your attention being everywhere except the present moment as it is—your traffic lights stop functioning (they stop turning on), because you’ve been completely ignoring them anyway.  And so the intersection that is your life becomes a series of traffic jams and accidents as your thoughts and feelings and instincts do whatever they please without your control over them, dictating your speech and actions for you. 

Further, the longer you allow yourself to be under significant stress (by not paying attention to the present moment as it is, and therefore by allowing the bad inclination to dictate your behavior), the deeper into the valley you sink—the less psychologically healthy, and the less fulfilled, you get—and the result is that your traffic lights get more use and are, in fact, made to turn on brighter as they attempt—with less and less success—to get your attention (and so your traffic lights are also more likely to stop functioning).  Your inclinations express themselves as increasingly intense, nagging and gnawing desires the deeper you sink into the valley, and they are more likely to stop expressing themselves altogether for periods of time, leaving you severely deficient in any kind of motivating drive and in existence, itself, as you sink into a “What does anything matter?  Why should I do anything at all?” attitude—at which point your bad inclination is in full reign.

Back to the Types

The Above is Excerpted from There is a Place

For more information on the inclinations, see this book and
An Experiential Understanding of How All that Is Came to Be

More on The Inclinations (Adapted from upcoming books):

 

Connecting Inclination (One-on-one Instinctual Variant)

 

You want to have close friends, meet new people, connect with another person—especially a significant other—with whom you can share your experience of life.

 

You want long, intense conversations in small-group settings of two or three people.

 

When you enter a room, you first look for the energy in the room—the most interesting or attractive people, with whom you could have a good conversation.

 

You seek your other half in the world, the person who is going to complete you, that one other person you can depend on and understand and who can depend on and understand you.  You also seek intensity and engagement in all of your experiences.

You want to experience that sense of connection.

 

Your attitude in relationships:  I’ll look out for my close friends and my significant other, and my close friends and my significant other will look out for me.

 

Belonging Inclination (Social Instinctual Variant)

 

You want to have a group of friends, a community to which you belong, and you want to say hi to everyone when you’re in a group gathering.

 

You want to hang out with a bunch of people in large-group settings.

 

When you enter a room, you first look for who’s in power (who would be good to know in getting what you want) in the social hierarchical grouping of people.

 

You seek to fit into and be a part of a group or community, to function as part of a greater whole with a goal that is beyond yourself. 

You want to experience that sense of belonging.

 

Your attitude in relationships:  I’ll look out for the community, and the community will look out for me.

 

Preserving Inclination (Self-Preservation Instinctual Variant)

 

You want to attend to your own physical and material needs and comforts and those of your family—those who depend on you and on whom you depend for material resources.

 

You want to get work done, get sleep, eat, exercise, keep clean, and maintain clean and organized surroundings with a comfortable temperature, lighting, and atmosphere.

 

When you enter a room, you first pay attention to the atmosphere, lighting, temperature, furniture (Is it comfortable?), food (Is there any?  Is it good?).

 

You seek enough resources (money, food, clothing, etc.) to meet your needs.

You want to experience that sense of order, cleanliness, physical and material comfort, and sufficiency of everything for preserving and maintaining yourself.

 

Your attitude in relationships:  I’ll look out for myself and my family, and you look out for yourself and your family, and everyone will be looked out for.