I Am Consciousness Itself

 

RED FLAGS AND WHY WE OFTIMES DON’T SEE THEM

OR

WISDOM AND TRUE SIGHT

© C.S. Roberts 2025

A few weeks ago, I was on an online radio show where we were discussing the programming in which we, as children (specifically female children) were raised. It seems, sadly, that this particular form of manipulating, brainwashing programing is still alive and well. Something that one of us said (I don’t remember who or exactly what was said) lived in my head as an echo for several hours.

I finally gave in and went into a meditation to  find out what was nagging me to look at it deeper. It came to me like a dash of cold water “With wisdom comes true sight” I was thrilled and all goose-bumpy for a few minutes. I reveled in my new knowledge until it dawned on me to wonder what THAT meant and where it would lead?

What came to me is the undeniable fact that we all are programed from birth. Now, don’t get upset here, I’m not pointing fingers or blaming anyone for anything, I am attempting to explain so stay with me.

When we come into this incarnation, we immediately become the concentrated concern of everyone around us. They want us to both understand this new thing called life and our place in it. We need to know how to become self-sufficient with all that entails, how to become good decent people  as befits the mores and standards of the family, the community, the village, town, or city in which we reside. This teaching also comes from the traditions of our culture, faith and, quite frankly, the county, state and country where we are raised. We are a very manipulated and shaped animal, we humans. No wonder most of our growing up is so confusing BUT, that’s not all of it.

On top of all those other things we have advertising, input from friends and extended family. If that isn’t enough, we now have social media that is anything but social as well as the types of music and television you plug into. All of this leads us to having to figure out how to use our own thought process, discernment and intelligence to begin to think for ourselves and to overcome our deep-seated programing.

I have told you the above to take you to my next point. As we are raised, so we grow, think, understand and feel about issues that crop up in our everyday lives. If we are raised in an environment of abuse, that is our idea of what normal looks and feels like. Conversely, if we’re raised in a loving and nurturing environment, that is how we see and feel the ‘normal’ in life. Now, here’s the kicker, the two ‘normals’ I have just described are on a very slippery sliding scale. When we feel comfortable in a situation, we stay there even if the conditions aren’t to our best interest. We will stubbornly hang on until we realize letting go and leaving would serve us better. Even then, our reactions to this unsettling situation are determined by our programing until such a time that we learn better coping mechanisms. This step takes a lot of inner work which some do and some don’t.

In the case of those who don’t learn new, better ways to cope, they stay in the same patterns that keep them in the loop of being manipulated. The difference here is that they are now doing it to themselves based on old, learned behavers. They cling to the demons they know, the ones that feel and look ‘normal’.

Those of us who do the deep inner work learn better so old patterns are broken. Old habits are changed to better ones. Red flags are identified and avoided. Life is better all the way around. How do we get caught up in these things in the first place you ask?

We, as humans, have a tendency to make the decision that we think we ‘know’ about something, whether we really understand it or not. We decide it’s the way it’s supposed to be and, more often than not, that’s the end of it. The truth is that, when we firmly  decide and are convinced that we know anything, we shut down and stop looking for anything more to learn about it. (The Dunning-Kruger effect is one example of this, there are others.)

Why is this important? It’s important because those audio files running in your mind, as well as the things you have observed and have reinforced by your actions and what you tell yourself, continue to enforce your programmed ideas, actions and reactions in relationship to yourself and others. Let that sink in for a minute.

Here’s an example of what I’m referring to. In The Blakemore and Cooper1) experiment they took two litters of kittens that were kept in the dark for several weeks and were then exposed to environments with either vertical or horizontal planes for a specified amount of time. These lines, either vertical or horizontal, were projected into the space so that they were the only things the kittens could see, therefore they became familiar with their assigned lines. When the kittens were placed in the opposing areas with things they had never seen before, they weren’t readily able to recognize what was new to them. The ones from the vertical room could not recognize horizontal lines and the kittens raised in the horizontal space were unable to see the vertical planes. The result was that visual (and for this article behavioral) perception is not purely innate but heavily shaped by our environmental input as well.

And here we are back at the original question. Why do most of us have difficulty recognizing the red flags in our lives until they hit us in the face and/or stab us in the back?

The simple answer is they are what we see and believe is normal (whatever that means to those involved in any given situation.) A lot of us have not seen them for what they are because they look, feel and sound like what we’re used to. Until we don’t. Here’s the good news, “Once we become aware, we cannot become unaware.” ( Evolution of Self Program, C. S. Roberts) 

The insidious establishment of this process takes years, however, as you wake up to it and learn how to rewrite your own, personal programming, it becomes easier. As we raise ourselves out of the miasma of our old programing and begin to see things from a higher perspective, we start to see the holes, the red flags and the traps from a clearer vantage point. From our new, aware, elevated frame of reference, we get better at avoiding those things. It’s the hole in the sidewalk example. Until you start looking ahead, remembering your past mistakes and learning from them, you will continue to fall into the hole.

We, as people do, stubbornly continue to stick to what we think we know whether it gets us the desired effect or not. Until we learn better, know better and do better, we will keep making the same mistakes and wondering why. So, look up, look ahead and see those flags! Learn from them, avoid them, change your mind set about them and stand in your own power because with wisdom comes true sight.

C. S. Roberts

 

1(Blakemore and Cooper (1970) | Reference Library | Psychology | tutor2u)