A while back I had the unfortunate experience of having a virus invade my computer. I had become a bit complacent about upgrading my antivirus program, and what happened next was frightening. The virus proceeded to send itself out to everyone on my mailing list. Fortunately, most of my contacts were more conscientious about virus protection than I, and were unaffected. However, an interesting new metaphor had made its way into my consciousness.

Consider the way in which our personal programming is affected as we go through life. We are born into this world pure, innocent and trusting. As our lives unfold, things happen which may cause us to ‘quarantine’ some of our feelings. If those closest to us were untrustable, we may have an issue with trust, and may not be able to access that part of our program. If we were unloved, or loved only conditionally, we may not be able to access that part of our wisdom which allows us to love and honor ourselves. If our worth and capability was never reflected back to us, we may have a hard time believing in ourselves. These are all ways in which we lose access to our inner resources.

The more insidious aspect of  ‘faulty programming’ occurs when we take that negativity, insecurity, lack of trust, for example, and project responsibility for those onto others, and especially those in our primary relationships. This is the way in which an unconscious part of self sends the ‘virus’ out to others in our lives.

It took me a couple of days to get my computer sorted out, cleaned up, and ready to use again.

With humans, if our system is ‘infected’ with a psychological ‘virus’, we may never use it (our body/mind/soul) for its intended purpose. Instead, we may spend a lifetime struggling one way or another with people, situations and relationships, trying to get our lives in order, and to find our true path. The number of self-help books alone reflects our preoccupation with ‘fixing’ our lives.  Life will never be all bliss, joy and comfort. There will be joy and sorrow, pain and pleasure, beginnings and endings, birth and death. The ‘darker’ sides of life are not ‘bad’ or ‘unnecessary’ –  they are real and unavoidable. These are not the ‘viruses’ in our programming.

The ‘viruses’ are things like judgement, criticism, or blame of self or others, a need to control, being codependent, and a lack of trust or belief in oneself. The antivirus programs are compassion, love, understanding, acceptance, forgiveness, and tolerance of self and others. ‘Psychological viruses’ can only affect the ego, not the soul. Indeed, ego viruses can and do block access to soul. Soul is connected to a larger network (all that is), and being conscious enables ‘live updates’.  We may have to ‘shut down’ ego programs in order to run soul’s ‘rescue disk’. Once the system is corrected, of course, it is advisable to run ‘virus-scans’ often, and to keep your ‘antivirus’ programs updated. Running such ‘virus scans’ requires a deep commitment to self-honesty – a willingness to genuinely confront our own need to judge, to criticize, or to make others responsible for our happiness. Updating our ‘antivirus’ programs means opening ourselves to grow in wisdom, being centered and grounded, and, like a plant reaching for the sun, to lean towards, and into increasingly deeper levels of integrity in both our inner and outer lives. When we do this, there is no need to search for the path, for we are on it.

Gwen Randall-Young is a psychotherapist and author of Dancing Soul: The Voice of Spirit Evolving. She has also written Echoes Through Time: A Message of Healing for Men, Baby Soul: A Blessing of Spirit, and produced audiocassettes entitled, After Recess: A Calming Meditation for the Elementary School Classroom,  Healing the Past: A Meditation for Wholeness, and   A World of Kindness: Experiencing Personal and Global Harmony

gwendall@shaw.ca