Month: October 2022

In Part 5 we talked about how letting go can be hard if we have come to believe a truth about our historical experiences. That is where the other strategy of working on changing our perceptions or the assigned meaning of things might be needed. Reframing might be necessary to do before letting go. Let’s talk about how to do that.

As mentioned, we chose, or choose, the meaning we gave something in our lives. We told ourselves that when this thing or things happened, it meant that:

• We are stupid
• We have no purpose
• We should be smarter
• We can’t trust anyone
• We are on our own in life
• Everyone will eventually leave us
• We have no value
• Others are more important than us
• We are only here to serve, not to receive
• We are freaks
• No one should love us or will love us
• Everyone lies
• There is something wrong with us
• We are foolish or should not be foolish

This is a very short list of the long list of possible meanings we give to things that happen to us. Please hear this, NONE of these things are facts or truths about us or about the world indefinitely. They are what we told ourselves were facts or truths in the moment, and then we have held them so tightly as true, that we can’t imagine that there is any way they might not be true even today. We have been able to find evidence in almost every experience that followed to prove that the information we believe is indeed true. We also believe that if something is true, it is fact, and that means it cannot be changed.

Try to wrap your head around a couple of thoughts. Nothing is true except that we say it is, which means we can change what we think is true by choosing a different truth to hold. There is also no such thing as facts. I have lived long enough to see that what people present as facts are overwhelmingly not facts. They are strongly held beliefs that many people agree are facts. What are presented as facts are simply the things that a majority of people agree are the truth, but that does not make them true. They are true only because enough people think they are true to cause people to start believing they are infallible truths. If you look around the opinions in the world, what you will see is competing information that each group is purporting as facts, but do not agree. Whoever is loudest and gains the most following seems to be the group that has the “facts”. What this can mean to us is what I keep saying. There is no truth until we say it is true, which means we can create our own truth. I realize that this is pretty scary for many people. Please breathe, we got this. Creating our own truth is not the end of the world.

People might argue that Science and Math are factual and present us with absolute truths, but both of those disciplines are easily manipulated to create meanings that suit the scientist or mathematician. That does not make them true or facts. Good news here is that we are not arguing Science or Math. We are discussing the “facts” or “truths” that we came to believe about ourselves and the world around us. Those truths served us once, or we would not have believed them. For example, at one time, thinking that we can’t trust anyone kept us safe when there were untrustworthy people in our lives. Believing that no one could love us helped us feel better when we felt unloved. It was not that there was a problem. It was that we were in fact not lovable, or so we had been able to prove in so many experiences. If we are not lovable, not feeling loved is what is supposed to be happening. We do not need to be distressed. See how we did that?

What I am suggesting though, is that if there are now trustworthy people in our lives, who want to create relationships, who want to love and support us, and we keep holding onto what seems like a fact that no one is trustworthy, and we are not lovable, we will miss out on what might be something truly amazing in our lives. What if instead, we start thinking that any thought or perception that we are holding as a fact that is no longer serving our higher good, might be one to see if we can change into something more suitable to our current life situation.

I can feel the resistance to this. I know. I have felt this too. We believe in our truths. We have built the case for them to be true. We feel as though something horrible will happen to us if we stop believing in this truth. In my experience, nothing bad happens if we change our minds. We are not going to abandon reason and make up a fantasy world. What we are going to do is question our truths. We are going to investigate with open minds, open eyes and an open heart. We found evidence to prove our truth before. Now we need to relax our beliefs, and see if there might be other evidence of a new truth, that is as true or truer than the what we found before. (Thank you Byron Katie and The Work). If you want to watch people practicing it, go to The Work of Byron Katie. While what they do here is not about shame exactly. It is about questioning our thoughts, and in this case, our facts.

Let’s do an example. Say, the truth we are considering changing is that we are freaks. Our proof of this is that for decades we had a sibling that told us that we were a freak or weird and told us all of the reasons we were. They told us about our freaking body, our freaky hair, our freaky actions, thoughts, learning style, clothing, friends, whatever. Then as life progressed, the voices we heard around us were the ones who agreed with our sibling. When someone seemed to like us, well, we assumed they were also a freak or weird and avoided them. We found evidence in our work, our personal relationships, strangers who might have looked at us oddly in public. We became ashamed of who we were and believed that our freakish nature was a factual piece of information. There are other truths that go along with believing we are a freak, like that no one likes or can truly love a freak. That we are unworthy of pride, approval, attention, or accolades, and so, we don’t even notice attention, approval or accolades. We only notice things that point to someone who doesn’t see us, doesn’t love us, thinks we are different or odd. We focus in on every thing around us that proves we are indeed a freak, and that no one will ever love us. It becomes our truth, and it brings us shame, and we are alone and miserable. No matter how we try to have relationships, they end similarly, with us feeling abandoned and shut out as a freak of nature, wrong, weird, unlovable. If being a freak is not your thing, replace it with any number of other beliefs you learned. Maybe it was not a sibling who first showed you the “truth”. Maybe it was a parent, a teacher, a first partner. Know that once we believe it, we set out in life to prove it. As in Science, if we are determined to prove something is true, we will find the evidence. If we believe it strong enough, any evidence to the contrary passes through our consciousness undetected. We do not see what we don’t pay attention to.

Now, let’s try something different. Take that truth and pretend that it is not true. We ask ourselves, “What if I am not a freak, not weird, not unlovable?” What does that change about anything in our lives? Look around at how people have responded to you. That sibling who called you a freak. How did they present in the world? What made them an expert on what is or is not a freak? In the situations where someone else called you a name or you found evidence of your “truth”. What other things did you miss? Who else was there? What were they doing?

Maybe, at one time, the evidence was overwhelming for this truth you are holding onto. Maybe you cannot look around your past when this truth began itself and find any evidence to the contrary. Most truths have some truth in their origin and most experiences had a purpose when they happened. Where things go astray is when we think that something that happened once or maybe a few times meant that it is always going to happen and be true. What if, it was true at one time, or what if it was never true? What if, it is not true now?

If it is no longer true, what are the possibilities for what could be true? Could we be a unique person, as most people are different? Could it be that people did love us, and we were not able to let them or see them? Could it be that some, or many, people are not very good at loving other people, which has NOTHING to do with our lovability? We are not taught how to love others. Especially in a greed based society where people think love and sex are synonymous. By the way, if that is a truth you are holding, it is absolutely not true. Love is not about doing. It is about being. That is another story though.

For now, start looking at the truths in your life. The things you have been telling yourself are facts about life, yourself, other people, etc. Look really carefully at your current situation, all around you. Find at least 3 pieces of evidence that each of those truths could be something different, maybe event the opposite of true. We do not have to go back and prove something was not true in the past. It is likely that it was at one time or sometimes, and our memories are completely unreliable, so we won’t see any evidence we didn’t see then. What we are doing is looking right now, at the present moments, present people, present opportunities, and seeking ways that different things might be true.

I know this is getting long, but I want us to try an exercise with the above list, pasted below. The old truth is on the left. The new truth you are looking for evidence of now is next to it. If these are not things on your list, write down your list and the opposite next to it. Then, find 3 things that might show you it might be as true or truer than the previous facts.

• We are stupid – We are smart (like, how we do at our job, how we do puzzles, our education level, etc.)
• We have no purpose – We have a meaningful purpose (like our job, our friends, our family, community, etc.)
• We should be smarter – We are as smart as we are supposed to be (see examples above, you get the idea)
• We can’t trust anyone – We can trust many people (who has come through for you lately)
• We are on our own in life – We can count on people (who has been there for you lately)
• Everyone will eventually leave us – Not everyone leaves (who is still there for you?)
• We have no value – We have contributed and do contribute in life (What have you contributed in your life, and are contributing still?)
• Others are more important than us – I am just as important as other people (how?)
• We are only here to serve, not to receive – I am able to receive, people want to give to me (see how that is true)
• We are freaks – Truthfully, we are all freaks in some way. Maybe the new truths is that being a Freak is something good.
• No one should love us or will love us – People love us (who?)
• Everyone lies – Many people do not lie (who?)
• There is something wrong with us – Probably, but that is true for all of us. What if, There are more things right with us than wrong?
• We are foolish or should not be foolish – If we are foolish, it is how it should be. Also, try we are smart and make good decisions.

Remember, we are NOT finding more evidence for the old truths. We already know we can do that. We have been doing that for the last, how ever many, years. We are looking for at least 3 pieces of evidence for a new truth, to show that it is as true or truer than the old. Don’t get frustrated if this is hard. It IS hard. Keep trying. Ask other people to notice for you if you are having a hard time. Other people see things we don’t and can help us.

The point is not to change your mind. The point is to open it to see that there is a possibility that what we thought was true or fact, is not the only possibility of what might be true. There are other things that might also be happening. Whether we are looking at our past or the present, which is where we want to focus our attention, we are only looking for other possible truths. The ability to be able to do that, see other possible truths means that when those triggers pop up, we might be able to respond to them differently. Next time, we will start digging into the present moment triggers, which this exercise will help with. Because the triggers are nothing more than having an experience, and us having a fact in our mind, and so we are going to see the experience of evidence as proof of the facts, and the fact causes the shame spiral. So if we can open our minds to the possibility of alternate truths, we might be able to alter the spiral happening. Take a couple of days and work on the exercise. We’ll be back and start looking at the present moment triggers and how to put all of this together. Until then. . .

-Namaste