Blind Production is one of twelve modern day pressure points which I describe within my in-progress book, To Do Your Work. This is an essential concept to find your path to claiming your personal power. Blind Production is pervasive and mostly unknown. Here is the first part of this chapter.
Blind Production:
The mistaken belief something must be done or produced to prove personal worth and value as a human being. This belief drives a personal search for external validation to feel valuable, wanted, and worthy.
The most expedient path to absolute control and power is to have a docile, willing group of followers. With such a group, the intention and benefit of Power-Over is easily obtained and enforced.
The individual assertion of Power-Within is the most significant threat to absolute, authoritarian power. To maintain primary authority, Power-Over must immediately counter and silence all possibilities of independent personal choice and action.
Power-Over asserts that personal worth is valueless without proof. Questioned, self-worth is without legitimacy. De-valued, heart-led personal guidance is demeaned as a threat to the preferred power dynamic.
Blind Production first denigrates personal worth as inherently non-existent and then demands that the individual is dependent on outside validation for proof personal value exists.
The sources of proof are determined by Power-Over and the means to attain proof strictly defined by the very power play seeking to invalidate the inherent value of each human being.
The effort to prove personal worth shifts the locus of personal power to external sources of validation, hiding the inherent, inner sense of truth and worth from self-awareness. The result is feeling numb, lifeless, disconnected, and absent from self.
Detached from personal presence, the push for worth becomes blind effort because there’s no certainty or clarity about what effort, what production will prove worth.
Within this self-absence, focus shifts to others: family, friends, society, and authority figures all perceived to know better than the individual. These external sources are believed to be capable of validating any efforts towards proof of personal worth. Perfect action is required to obtain validation – though the exact nature of perfect action is never clearly defined.
Here’s the trouble. Even with others as the focus of personal production, the goal of validating personal worth is not obtainable. There is no way to 100% prove personal worth either by any standard created by Power-Over or by any effort attempted through individually driven efforts.
Panic and fear will set when the realization hits that there is nothing to be done to conclusively prove personal worth. The available choices appear to be numb to the failure or to constantly chase after the unobtainable.
Pushed always into a fruitless external search for what can never come from outside, Blind Production is Power-Over’s most successful effort to maintain control of power dynamics and the behavior and life of each individual. Your doubt in yourself becomes the open door for all the other pressure points.
Additionally, this incessant search for proof has become so ingrained in human behavior and belief, neither the existence nor the fallacy, of Blind Production is questioned.
Here is the paradox of Blind Production:
Your worth is intrinsic.
No proof is necessary or required.
Personal worth need not, cannot be proven simply because personal worth is intrinsic. Personal existence is inherently valuable. Again, no proof necessary.
To do your work and release this pressure point: shift absence to presence.
Said another way, migrate your predominant I-statement from I feel numb and lifeless to I am present to me.
Let’s explore how to do this.
My Story of Blind Production
On the surface I have always appeared as a happy, well-adjusted person.
Below the surface, in the dark moments of my soul, I have struggled with my identity and confidence, and whether I am worthy.
Self-judgment. Self-denial. Self-blame.
Bashing myself at every turn, I have struggled to feel confident, to feel understood, to believe that I am worthy on a fundamental, essential level.
Whether I thought something was inherently missing within me never to be found – or whether I was at fault for not following the memo which detailed the remedy to retrieve the lost – either way I seemed to warrant the judgment, denial, and blame.
In my personal experience and witnessing for others, the moment when people become ready to make a change comes when the pain of maintaining a false façade becomes unbearable.
Thus, when outward efforts to follow the rules and offer self-sacrifice bring neither fulfillment nor the satisfaction of others, dissonance builds. It’s a fundamental human desire to feel worthy of love, trust, and truth. Yet, when we expect that validation comes from outside ourselves, the path to a sense of self-worth is hidden, blinded by personal judgment and external criticism.
Simply put, the erroneous belief is to override the blindness by doing whatever will prove self-worth.
This is an issue of Blind Production. Here’s the definition again:
The mistaken belief something must be done or produced to prove personal worth and value as a human being. This belief drives a personal search for external validation to feel valuable, wanted, and worthy.
The belief is so strong, compulsive, and undeniable that somehow, someway, you must find a path, a plan, or something you can do or be to show the world you deserve to be alive.
This belief is not just in me or you – we all struggle with the powerful push of Blind Production. The urge to find personal validation is part of both the social fabric and spiritual behavior. As a pervasive belief, there is no reason to stop and question the inner drive. Instead, effort is expended in the vain search of finally finding proof. Life becomes constant struggle for proof – yet ultimately a futile struggle.
Here’s the hard-to-make-sense part: there is nothing to be done to prove your worth.
Nothing.
There is no way to conclusively prove inherent value as a human being. No matter the effort, the behavior, or the where or when – nothing will definitively prove your worth.
Therefore proving worth feels insurmountable and unobtainable. To blindly strive towards an unreachable goal is hell on Earth.
If neither success nor failure dictate a difference in this inevitable conundrum, what can be done?
The Fallacy of Blind Production
To move beyond the compulsion to prove self-worth, here’s the fallacy of Blind Production:
Personal worth can’t be proven
because self-worth is intrinsic.
Nothing needs proving because self-worth exists within you naturally, without effort, without producing something deemed to be worthy. However, there are those who benefit from your poor assessment of self.
Power-Over wants to block this understanding of inherent self-worth to exert control, fear, and scarcity. Part of the current change is a friction within the power dynamics of our social-cultural-political lives. Discussed later in the book, Power-Over exerts power in an uneven balance where some people are defined as better than others. Power-Over uses Blind Production as a tool of authoritarian domination, pitting us against ourselves using worth as a defining standard of who is better than the rest.
Liberation from the oppression of Blind Production begins by shifting personal belief and releasing whatever within thrives on your sense of personal lack and self-absence. Understand, deeply:
My worth is intrinsic.
Therefore, nothing about my value needs proving.
This insight is so important to shifting the foundation of your life and stepping out of the detrimental impact of harsh self-judgment, it must be repeated:
My worth is intrinsic.
Therefore, nothing about my value needs proving.
No explanations needed. No need to launch a defense to protect against the failure of proving worth.
No matter the inner struggle, the hidden compulsions, or the perception of the ugly bits which embarrass. Your value is inherently beautiful, intrinsically you. Just as you are, you are a wonderfully valuable human being.
Namaste! The beautiful, inherent value in me witnesses the beauty of the intrinsic value of you.
Each of us – worthy, valuable, amazing just as we are.
Deeper down, Blind Production creates pressure within you to let go of self and serve others in order to prove personal worth. This is how the belief is formulated: I am not good enough so I must help others to prove I’m good enough.
Blind Production pushes others in your life ahead of you. Blind Production requires that anyone other than yourself – your family, friends, a cause, the cultural pull of social media and more – comes first. Everyone is before you. Ultimately this leads to self-absence.
Absence comes first in the diminishment of your thoughts, beliefs, and actions. This leads to letting go of self-awareness and capability and allows others to tell you what is important and truthfully in your life. Intentional or unintentional, in absence is numbness and disconnection. Within absence, you feel lifeless and unable to trust or choose. You are stuck and always seeking external validation. Everything about life is Outside-In – whatever is outside of you is perceived to always be better than you can ever hope to be.
Within self-absence, the domination of Power-Over wins. Now you are disconnected from yourself, mistrustful of you, denying the beauty of you, the inherent wisdom available within inner alignment, balance, and awareness. Within self-absence you are open to manipulation, control, and the fear propagated to convince you that whatever Power-Over wants, Power-Over is justified in obtaining by any means necessary. Absent to self, you will not realize that there is nothing of value for you in this enforced self-denial.
Thankfully, clarity and awareness will eek forward and perceive the fallacy of Blind Production. Without the primacy of Blind Production, all of the other pressure points lose influence and entry into human life. Thus, the push to hold personal worth as a carrot to chase becomes crucial to maintaining the house of cards discussed in this book.
Additionally, if you are not confident, feel less than, or doubt the value of self, you are more easily manipulated and controlled. You are more susceptible to the paralyzing effects of fear. You are also more likely to seek protection and believe that resources are scarce and should be controlled to the benefit of your group first.
Blindness to self-worth keeps you from challenging a power structure which does not benefit you and also pushes you to self-doubt and to seek truth outside of the wisdom of your personal truth. Thus, moving away from absence toward increased inner awareness is the path forward beyond the influence of Blind Production.
Another Layer to Blind Production
Going deeper still, Blind Production has three companion misbeliefs which affect the individual perception of value. Each tease out a nuance of Blind Production which is important to identify and name in order to release and move beyond.
Blind Perfection
The effort to prove your personal worth is fueled by the belief in perfection. If you are perfect, then you stand a better chance to prove your worth. As the primary proof for value, perfection becomes an undefined standard held aloft as obvious but unreachable by those who are less than perfect. Perfection becomes the standard to judge all personal production. The lack of proof attributed to imperfection.
The compulsion for perfection sends self outside for validation and for support. Just as the conditions of proof are unclear, the standards by which perfection is measured are only available to the perfected.
The more diligent the efforts towards perfection, the more actions tighten on a single, all-pervading focus. As the pain of perceiving self as less than perfect becomes more intense, the drive for perfection becomes more intense. Life’s journey tightens into the rat-race compulsion of this must happen NOW – no excuses, no reasonable alternative, only the agenda of perfection. Blind to personal value, blind to personal worth, the urge to be perfect overwhelms all of life.
As personal value is embraced, the tension of perfection releases. The grasp for perfection is seen for what it is: hollow, meaningless, empty. As is in so much of life, perfection is not destination. Instead, within self-presence, awareness of balance, alignment, and resonance in the moment is attainable when the push for perfection is released.
Blind Alignment
Within this level of self-denial, the connection between personal power and creative alignment is beyond self-awareness. Your genius, your beauty, your value is hidden behind your drive to successfully prove worth. If seen at all, you dismiss your incredible alignment, underestimating value, denying worth. Despite the beauty you have already birthed within the world, you see your value as insufficient, lacking in any redemptive value.
Blind Alignment is seen particularly within those perceived as unhappy creative geniuses. The brilliance of creative production goes unseen or unaccepted within the person. The belief of Blind Production keeps the person from experiencing the incredible alignment within which gives birth to powerful creative expression. Plus, wanting to not appear selfish, boastful, or arrogant, both genius and personal value are ignored, denied, and underestimated.
Just as worth is intrinsic, personal creativity and expression are inherently aligned and in balance within the depth and value of each person. As self-awareness awakens, the process of creative alignment comes into focus. Within growth and self-presence, the alignment process becomes a healthy component of personal expansion.
Blind Punishment
Failing to find perfection and prove personal worth, punishment becomes the focus of life. From addiction to self-denigration to harsh, unrelenting insistence to find perfected value, self-punishment becomes habitual response.
Ego and its inflexibility show up within both arrogance and a false sense of humility. Ego fuels the critical voice and reinforces the stories told to self of failed perfection. Within Blind Punishment, judgment on self is constant, relentless, and harmful. A habit, which once begun, takes great effort to halt. In the most severe responses, punishment can create a downward spiral into the worst forms of self-debasement and self-devaluation.
However, in the recognition of intrinsic value, punishment loses its necessity. Life shifts to a process of personal growth no longer focused on perfection or proof. Punishment is replaced with discernment, release, and integration accessed through loving attention to self.
Blind Production in Daily Life
I’ve seen many people struggling in their lives because of Blind Production. A struggle exacerbated by the misunderstanding of Power-Within and the unceasing blind drive to prove self-worth.
For example, Samantha, feeling the pain in her heart was the most difficult part. Yet, what was worse was learning the source of Samantha’s pain: Worth.
Samantha believed herself to be unworthy of any goodness in her life. All her choices for herself including her failed, abusive relationships, her addictions to alcohol and sugar, her self-sabotage – everything came from her belief that she was a worthless human being. Her life was sprinkled with futile attempts to prove that some value, some redemptive quality existed within her. Samantha believed all her efforts had failed. Try as she might, she could do nothing to shift this devasting belief or prove her worth.
However, down deep, was an awareness that there was a difference between the interpretation of her life experience and her essential self. Despite the trials of her life, she felt she was more than the story of her experience. Deep inside, buried, she felt something of value.
Samantha’s search brought her to my doorstep, full of questions about how to live her life differently. She had begun to develop enough personal awareness to know repeating the same-old would not support a new claim for herself.
While there were other threads knotted into her concerns, Samantha’s primary issue was Blind Production. Living her life to prove her worth, she had no idea how to get beyond the compulsion which led nowhere. She wanted to get past feelings of being unworthy and get her life back on track. She wanted to acknowledge her worth to herself and feel valued within the context and community of her life.
As another example, John had the same issue. He told me: I am worthless. In contrast to Samantha, instead of failures, this man had a string of what anyone would call successes. However, he believed that nothing he had ever tried came close to proving his value.
“Like being on a crazy rat-cage wheel, no matter how fast I run, or how quick I shift gears, I get nowhere. I see all of what I have accomplished and know it’s not enough. And I have no idea of what will make the difference.”
John’s Blind Production expressed through his desperate feeling if he worked hard enough, fast enough, long enough he could finally extract the proof of his value. But until that magical moment happens, the inner feeling is that no action meets the ultimate goal. Without alignment between value and action, John was becoming increasingly hopeless and despondent.
John wanted to somehow attend to whatever was broken, healing his life, and claiming a positive sense of accomplishment. He truly wanted a sense of security so he could stop working so hard. He literally wanted rest.
Samantha and John both demonstrate the devastation experienced when a person does not feel worthy. For them, there are only two possibilities for experience. On one side are the people who experience failure and on the other side are those who experience success.
In between are all sorts of variations between failure and success. However, across the spectrum, no matter the reality there is the same interpretation of experience: I am not worthy. My life has no value.
You may be asking how both success and failure can lead to Blind Production. This happens because under the outward appearance of either failure or success, is the personal sense of failure to prove worth. The circumstances of Samantha’s life are much different from John’s. However, the insidious effect of Blind Production is that failure is the personal interpretation no matter the content of life experience. Disappointment in self leading to personal absence is the common denominator with Blind Production.
Struggle, challenge, despair, frustration, anger, depression, futility, and more are all personal experiences and results with this deceptive human experience of feeling unworthy no matter outward appearances. In turn, a lack of value undermines a sense of security or safety for the individual, making balance and alignment difficult if not impossible. This forces self to question, to mistrust, and to feel incapable of finding a way forward in life.
Feeling unworthy also detracts from an inner sense of essence. The heart, the core, the essential being, the inner authentic self – all of these are expression of the powerful, wonderful depth which resides in each person. In worthlessness, feeling connection and receiving communication from the center of being is a seemingly impossible challenge.
For John and Samantha both, the path forward had several beginning steps. The first was to really hear that their apparently failed effort to prove self worth was not failure. Instead, it was not necessary because their self worth was intrinsic. What they pushed to find out there in the world somewhere was inside them, within their own awareness of self.
The first step was to become acquainted with the amazing beings that they are.
For John, this was a relief. “Oh! My goodness! I no longer need to run, to push myself. I have found my way to just be me. I am enough just as I am.”
For Samantha, this shift took much more effort. “I feel so much judgement stuck inside of me. When you tell me I’m worthy, though a tiny part of me agrees, most of me recoils in disgust and anger. And if it is true, then I am most disgusted with myself.”
The suggestion which assisted Samantha to let go of the anger and disgust was twofold. First, as best you can ignore the critical voice out to bring you down. Instead, focus on that tiny part inside which does think you’re worthy and find out why you are worthy. Talk with this tiny part and ignore the rest.
At first this was almost impossible for Samantha. She decided to try journaling. At the front of her journal she recorded everything she got from the tiny part. At the back, she recorded all the negative things her critical voice said with the thought to return when she had time.
At first the back part of the journal filled faster than the front. Then Samantha realized that much of the negative back talk wasn’t her. These were words of condemnation and judgment from others over the course of her life but especially from her teen years. This self-awareness shifted her attention to her and what was true for her. The front of her journal became the place for her to raise her awareness, to feel her Power-Within and to claim the presence and truth of her powerful self-worth.
The Release of Blind Production
In the quiet of this moment, breathe in and breathe out.
Set Blind Production and its struggle aside for just a moment.
In this moment of pause, intense awareness is not demanded as that would be a continuation of false belief. Forgiveness is also not a starting point. Surrender can be continued judgment.
Blind Production attempts to hide you, your value, and your essential nature. To release, here’s what is needed: the first glimmer of you – a you beginning to let go of the requirement for perfected action.
You. Simply. Without explanation. Without demand, desire, or requirement.
Ask yourself, “Who am I without struggle?”
Without struggle in this moment: You.
Without defense, without justification, without the push to validate.
You. Valuable and worthy just as you are.
Take your time to consider. Let your awareness of you begin to bubble up.
If some excuse, some judgment, some denigration begins to flow forward, set all aside to be attended to later.
Set aside struggle to produce for the moment.
Take a deep breath.
In this moment, be aware of you.
You – here is where you begin to live your life outside of blinded belief.
You – here, learning, maybe for the first time, that your worth is intrinsic and needs no proof.
You – free of the struggle to prove and to judge.
Here, now is where your life begins.
Ask yourself: Who am I when I am present to me?
Ask because the key to release the habit and pressure of Blind Production is this:
Shift self-absence to self-presence.
Remember this release is not necessarily immediate and does not require giant steps.
Truly, action is not required in this moment.
Instead, begin with the willingness to be aware of yourself.
Who are you?
What do you want in your life?
There are so many beliefs, thoughts, and actions which hinder and hide self-awareness. Thousands of books and entire industries are dedicated to trying to explain how to be more self-aware, offering loads of practices and buckets of judgment.
Here, in this moment, wherever you perceive yourself to be on the continuum of valuable human being, you owe it to yourself to consider the effects of Blind Production in your life.
I know when I first encountered the idea, I thought Blind Production probably didn’t pertain to me much. Then I asked my Akashic Records, “How do I hold myself as an imperfected human being?”
I saw a tiny little gold heart at the center of my body. The heart was badly tarnished and tightly wrapped with a black, muddy, stinky cord dripping yucky goo. This, they said, represents your belief that because you are not perfect, you don’t believe your heart to be worthy of better surroundings. You have choked your heart so oppressively and you have done this for so long, you no longer have awareness of the hurt and harm. You go about your day as if all is fine and that you have full access to your heart. But you don’t because you are not aware of your beauty, of your alignment, and of your amazing creativity. You are willing to burden yourself so that you do not need to be honest with yourself about your intrinsic worth. In this moment, please see your worth, your value, and your beauty as amazing human being.
The cord fell from my heart, the yucky goo disappeared. A light emerged from the gold heart as it melded with all of me, body, mind, heart, and soul. I felt a lightness within wash through all of me. I felt I could truly SEE me clearly for the first time in my life.
In fact, this image has become a touchstone for me when I feel the creep of perfected value begin to reappear.
Yet, this is also how I know that the first step to releasing all aspects of Blind Production is presence and awareness. Neither are standards of measure. Instead, both are experiences which begin where you are now, and will grow and expand as you become more friendly toward yourself and release the demands for perfection and release the habit of harsh self-judgment.
Try this path to your presence, your awareness of you:
Today, I see and feel me.
Tomorrow the me I see is me, too. Yet a new me who has grown since yesterday releasing whatever no longer serves the truth of me now.
I am that for which I search in this moment.
In awareness of me, I am fulfilled.
I am love. I am presence.
I am I.
For you the same simple process:
Today I see me.
Tomorrow I see me, too.
A new me who learns and grows.
In each moment, I am present to me.
I let go whatever no longer serves me.
I see my alignment and my value.
Each day I see more of me as incredible, beautiful, amazing, creative, awesome, and absolutely worthy.
Here, now, I am present to the intrinsic nature of my self-worth.
In awareness of me, I am fulfilled.
I live my worth in this moment, here, now, with love and presence.
No longer absent to the best of me, I am present, here, now, ready to learn, laugh, and love.
I am that which I seek.
I am worthy.
I am love.
I am presence.
I am I.
Remember:
Personal worth is intrinsic.
No proof necessary or required.
Today I release the push to prove my worth.
In this moment, I am present to me.
In this moment, I am certain my worth is intrinsic.
Today and always, I am a worthy human being.
Five Questions To Do Your Work: Blind Production
Here are the five process questions for you To Do Your Work. You may use the questions for reflection or meditation or to ask within your Akashic Records.
What follows each question is not a response for you. Rather it is commentary from me to help you get to your truth.
There is no limit to the number of times asking these questions will be beneficial. Each round of questioning will take you to a deeper level of inquiry and understanding.
Question 1: Within Blind Production, what no longer serves, resonates or is in alignment with me?
Focus at the tiny edge between all that is wrong with your and the pinpoint of self-awareness. Feel what is ready to let go. Feel what is true for you. Whatever comes, try not to react. Simply be aware. Veer past judgment and rationalization. You owe nothing to no one at this point. Allow awareness to come to you.
Question 2: What fear is holding me back?
Fear of something is often the reason to keep doing the same thing hoping for a different outcome. Plus fear often sits in a place which doesn’t make sense. Or seems so reasonable, it can’t not be true. Fear scares you to believe you aren’t safe without it. Fear keeps you in a pattern which no longer helps. Fear holds you in a future which most likely will never occur period now is the time to look fear in the face, name it, and begin the process of releasing its hold on you. There is no place for fear in your life. Begin now and let fear go.
Question 3: What releases this fear?
Sometimes the path of release comes in acknowledging the origin of the fear. Sometimes the release comes and being present to what the fear threatens will happen. Sometimes the release of fear comes in making a plan if the feared future comes to pass. Sometimes it is simply making the fear present by completing this sentence: I am afraid of or: I have fear about
Because fear drags self into the future where personal power is unanchored, making fear present shifts awareness. In this moment of acknowledging fear, you can check the fear for truth and you can see what needs to happen to release the fear.
Question 4: What is my truth?
Letting go of fear helps revelation step forward. Letting go opens the door to to observe self from a new perspective and to feel within self new possibility and clear understanding. Truth is your sense of alignment, balance, and calm period truth is the unified voice of body, mind, heart, and soul being heard and acknowledged by you, here, now. Truth and self presence. Self presence is the truth of you.
Question 5: What is my next step?
You’ve identified what needs to go. You’ve looked at the fear and how to let the fear move on. You’ve acknowledged you, your power, and your truth. What’s next? Without judgment, snark, or condemnation, where are you now? What comes next?
These questions can be repeated time and again. Not a journey with a destination, instead as a path with repeatable steps which elevate awareness and support presence.
In fact, it is the awareness of self-absence which can indicate to you that you have come to a new layer needing your love and attention, your willingness to question, and your body, mind, heart and soul open to new perspectives and unlimited possibility.
Journal, meditate, work in your Akashic Records with these questions, taking them on one-by-one. Moving to the next when it feels right. Not hurrying, not holding back.
Especially with Blind Production there are both huge boulders and tiny nuances. This isn’t a one-time process of release. Instead, throughout your life you will look at the concept of worth, value, esteem, confidence, and personal power from many perspectives and through many lenses. Just when you think you got it licked, another aspect will show.
Yes, over time the volume will decrease. However, within the current planetary shifts, Blind Production is the fulcrum issue by which the other pressure points either rise or fall. Self-worth is the primary focus of personal power within. As your acceptance of your worth expands both your arrogance and your self-deprecation decline.
Definitely a case of two steps forward, one back, the spiritual practice of your personal power doesn’t go in a straight line. Learning to believe in your intrinsic worth is a dance of joy and awe. Wherever you are, you are learning this dance, you are believing in you, and you are claiming the best of your being and becoming.
Question. Learn. Live. You are intrinsically worthy always.