You Believe What?!

While listening to various points of view on a topic I’m currently researching, I’ve once again come face to face with the realization that that each of us really does lives in a unique world of his or her own.  That’s hardly a new thought.  But lately the fact of it has struck me with a new clarity.   In fact, a while back I started using the phrase “Reality Bubble” to describe the personal belief-realities in which we live.

Oh sure, there’s the “consensus reality” we all more or less agree on:  That’s a tree.  The sky is blue.  This is a table.

But when it comes to remembering things we observed, or interpreting events, we slide into some muddy ground.   Ask any police officer who’s ever taken an accident report from eye witnesses.   Three people will give three different accounts.  We even have to watch replays of video tapes to decide whether the right call was made about a football play.

And when it comes to what we believe about, say, diet, or religion, or politics, or what’s important, well, watch out!  The ground is more than muddy.  It sort of resembles quicksand, where, before you know it, you’re sunk.

I took a psychology class once from a professor who had a special interest in belief systems.  He found three guys in different mental hospitals, each of whom believed he was Jesus Christ, and he had them all transferred to the same hospital and assigned to the same support group.  His hope was that their delusions would be lessened.  But instead, they began by aggressively arguing with each other about which of them was holier.   And finally each found ways to convince himself that the other two were, in one case, insane, and in the other, dead and being operated by a machine.

(The professor wrote about their encounters in a book called The Three Christs of Ypsilanti, if you’d like to read the whole story. )

The primary lesson the professor brought away from the experiment is that we strongly identify with our beliefs.  When they’re threatened, we respond defensively because it feels as if we, personally, are being attacked.   We each believe that what we believe is the true reality.  And our brains work hard to support our beliefs.  They carefully scour all incoming data and present us with the evidence that matches our beliefs, filtering out the stuff that doesn’t.     

And because people who hold beliefs that are similar to ours reinforce our identity, we tend to like them better than people whose beliefs are different.  And the more different the beliefs are, the more we dislike the person who holds them.

If we want to create more harmony with others, a good place to start is by recognizing that we aren’t our beliefs, and our beliefs don’t necessarily provide us with a true picture of the way things really are.  Remember, at one time, most people believed that man would never fly.

Other people aren’t their beliefs either.  But they probably feel that their beliefs are a part of their identity, just as we tend to feel that what we believe is an intimate part of who we are.

Beliefs are just thoughts that have been repeated so often that we assume they must be true.  Maybe they’ve been repeated to us since our early childhood.  Maybe we picked them up from TV or from social media, or adopted them in school because they seemed to have so much proof behind them.  And our brains have been bringing us evidence ever since to reassure us.

Sometimes, if you’re very tactful, persistent, and patient, you can provide enough evidence to someone to persuade him to accept something that you believe in place of a belief he has held to be true.   But his first response is likely to be defensive.   (And later, he may conclude that you’re either insane or dead and being operated by a machine!)

But on the whole, the most harmonious way to deal with those who hold beliefs that differ from yours is to recognize how crucial our beliefs are to our sense of being, and to respect that each of us is entitled to his or her own view of things.   When I want to have a conversation with someone about a subject where we disagree, I like to begin by saying, “I don’t see it that way. In my reality bubble . . .” and then I share what I believe. I’m not saying the other person’s views are wrong, just that I see things differently.

Look for the things on which you can agree, and agree to disagree on the rest.   And above all, try not to take offense when someone’s beliefs are different from your own.  If you’re really brave, try looking at things from their point of view.  Who knows?  It may turn out that you discover your own view needs some alteration.  Reality is, after all, a very relative and mysterious place.

Wishing you kindness and an open mind.

Warmly,
Susan

Image by Silviu from Pixabay

The Breathing of the Earth

To the oaks, the seasons are the breathing
of the earth, exhaling her life-giving sustenence,
then drawing in the radiance of the sky.
To them, it’s all a grand ballet—
the upward rush of sap,
the emergence of leaves,
the arrival of the singing birds,
the flowering and fullness of it all,
then the inward flow, the returning to the source
with gifts of flaming crimson and gold.
And between the going out and coming in
the deeply balanced pause,
allowing summer to ascend to its heights,
winter to reach the fullness of rest.
The oaks surrender to it all, caught
in the beauty, joyous in the rhythm,
glad for their part in the dance.

The Pantry

It never hurts to have some staples set aside.
That’s what Grandma used to say, tucking jars
of home-canned plums. apples, pickles and soups,
beets, tomatoes, white beans and green
on wooden shelves that lined her cellar wall.
Sometimes I’d stand in its doorway marveling at the colors,
remembering the fragrances that wafted through the house
when grandma canned. I thought of them today
when I saw the ripened cherries and recalled
how they hung encased in ice last winter,
and how the early-returning robins
feasted on them in the March snow.
Mother Nature, it seems. has her pantry, too.
Maybe she knew my grandma.

Autumn Lullaby

Hour by hour, the lake’s music softens
and slows. The songbirds have gone,
taking their whistles and chirps
to warmer climes, and with them,
the buzzing insects. Now, little more
than the rustling of leaves remains,
an autumn lullaby floating across
the still waters, whispering
the season’s Gloria in hushed
and reverent tones. I stand
on the banks, barely breathing,
and my heart sings its own amen.

Morning Fog

The mornings are bathed in fog now
as if the earth were filling her bowls
with some luminescent porridge
to help the sun ward off the autumn chill.
It softens our wakings, letting us linger
a while in the world of wispy dreams
before the illusions of the day solidify
around us, pulling us once more
into the stories of the plays that are our lives.
The oranges and golds of the remaining maple leaves
gleam in the filtered light, bright reminders
that we may play out our stories with lustiness and joy.

Song for the Golden Maple

You, magnificent maple, are the essence of delight.
To stand inside your sun-filled arms
is to banish every residue of sadness,
every wish for something other than
this shimmering slice of now.
Your lemony leaves sing the music
that I have so longed to hear.
And I dance to you, my bright one,
my every cell shouting Yes.

Found Poem 2

After the rain, boughs that just yesterday
still waved golden leaves, stand revealed,
poking their bare branches into low clouds.
Beneath them, as far as the eye can see,
a poem of fallen leaves is newly written
on the grass. Its countless verses
tell the tale of the life and death adventure,
the mystery and wonder of dancing in the sun,
never knowing what a day will hold,
but each having its measure of beauty.
And then the final letting go, the sailing
in the wind to the earth below,
and the breathing of the final song:
Home. Home. Home.

The Devil on Your Shoulder: Overcoming Self-Sabotage

I’m one of those people who likes order. I’m not a wholehearted “neat freak,” but clutter bothers me. So I was kind of embarrassed when I realized I had walked past a leaf that was lying on my clean kitchen floor about four times, bothered every time by the fact that it was there. Why didn’t I just pick it up when I first noticed it? Ah. Self-sabotage had struck. I had bowed to the whispers of the devil on my shoulder.

We all have one. It’s that part of us that holds us back from getting what we really want, from being who we really want to be. It’s the evil little devil that tricks us into believing that all the bad stuff it whispers to us about ourselves is true. We’re weak, it tells us. Or vulnerable, incapable, worthless, needy, too tired, foolish, stupid, careless, clumsy, lazy, irresponsible, unlovable, and probably unattractive, too. Sheesh! You can see why I call it a devil.

It’s as tricky as one, too. It loves to reinforce our bad habits. “Go ahead,” it softly coaxes, “Take a break. Have another slice of pizza. Have a drink. Have a smoke. You deserve it.” Or maybe it says, “Don’t bother trying that. You know you’ll only fail.” It urges us to spend money we don’t have, to eat what we shouldn’t, to let people take advantage of us, to lie a little, to cheat a little, to be mean to our loved ones, to isolate ourselves, not to make an effort to achieve, not to take a risk that might win us all the marbles.

Its mission is to rob us of all that’s good in our lives by tricking us into doing whatever is against our best interests.

Noticing the Whispers

But here’s the good news. You can defeat it. Overcoming self-sabotage is simply a matter of becoming aware of that little devil’s voice. Begin by noticing what the self-sabotage devil is saying to you when you’re about to do something that you know you shouldn’t do–or when you find yourself not doing something you know that you really need to do to move toward your goal, toward your better self.

When I noticed the wayward leaf on my floor, for instance, my personal little devil was whispering things like “Not now. You’re too tired. You can do it later.” It spoke in a soothing voice, as if it was comforting my irritation and trying to lift the stress of it from my shoulders. But what it was really doing was preventing me from taking responsibility for solving the problem—and thereby insuring I would continue to feel irritation. See what I mean about “tricky?”

That’s why noticing what the devil on your shoulder is whispering to you is so powerful. Your awareness of it throws a monkey wrench into its game plan. Suddenly you spot how it’s justifying the choice to do what’s not in your best interest. Just notice.

You won’t always hear words, per se, in your mind. But you can learn to notice the moment of decision, the moment an impulse snags your awareness and see what you’re feeling. Even if you have already given in to it—you walked past the bit of clutter, you ate the piece of chocolate cake, you bought the new shirt—you can ask yourself what message the self-sabotage devil was using to trigger your choice.

If you will do only that—notice—you will develop awareness of what’s happening as it’s happening. And that lets you say to that self-sabotage devil, “Oh no you don’t! You’re not going to get me this time.”

Move to Your Point of Power

Recognize, too, that the messages it whispers, the emotions it stirs, aren’t coming from the adult you. They’re remnants of your past, reflecting your child’s-eye-view of something that your parents or caretakers or teachers said, or of the models they presented to you of what a grown-up does. But you’re not a child now; you can decide for yourself. You can choose to distance yourself from old patterns.

When you notice the impulse, the temptation, pull yourself into the present. Wake up from the self-sabotage trance and remember that you’re here, now, and that in this moment, you get to choose what you truly want to do, who you truly want to be, what will best move you toward your aims.

So notice. Just that. Oh, and maybe tilt your head a little towards the “Best You” angel that’s sitting on your other shoulder, too.

Wishing you a week of delicious victories, large and small.

Warmly,
Susan

Image by Peggy und Marco Lachmann-Anke from Pixabay

Free for All

This beauty, this air, these cycling seasons,
this wondrous rock on which we stand,
these waters, each tree, every leaf and blade of grass,
every drop of rain, each creature, large and small,
this glorious sunshine, this wild, tumultuous variety
of texture and color and form, was given to us all.
Not to an elite, however defined. Not conditioned
by anyone’s notion of worthiness. But freely,
in love, for our wonder, for our comfort, for our joy.

The Last Gold of Autumn

As many leaves have fallen
as still cling to the trees.
I wander through a world of them,
remembering their first pink whispers
as they peeked from their buds, so shy,
and then how they unfurled so easily
against the spring‘s wide skies. They served
as the canopy of summer, spreading emerald
everywhere, soothing us with their shade,
passing along the secrets of birds and breeze.
And now, here they are, holding the last gold
of autumn even as they sail to the earth
below to return to the Mother, to feed her
with their bodies as their spirits ascend
singing, their mission accomplished,
their purpose fulfilled.