AN IMAGINARY WORLD - AND WE THINK IT IS REAL
You live in a world (your world) where you create imaginary consequences and lots of resistance to reality such that you create totally unnecessary suffering and pain. The suffering and pain is rarely in the physical domain but in the strictly electrochemical domain where nothing really happens except a few chemicals, aka emotions, that you cause to happen from your imagination.
In dialectic behavior therapy, they teach people to "stay with it" and to tolerate the emotion - and to realize that it is just an emotion, not a real thing that can maim you or kill you. In fact all the "much ado" is strictly about nothing - nothing of any real consequence.
REALITY PLUS MEANING
If I'm broke, then I'm broke. But if I think it is awful, I will suffer, not because I'm broke, but because I think it is awful (and then I fill in my reasons why it is awful).
But, in truth, we are still able to get food and some kind of shelter and to read and do some things that are enjoyable - and even maybe to appreciate working if we can get a job. We still have our inventing and creating ability. We can still figure out how to live, where to get benefits and/or where to earn some dough, as long as we keep our head.
A BASELINE OF BEING OK
At one week long workshop I took, one of the exercises was to come to class with no money or credit cards (maybe we could have $20, I forget). And we were told we were to leave immediately after the class to go the gate and then figure out what to do from there on for the rest of our lives, but without calling anyone we knew for help. Before we were to leave, we were to plan ahead and write out a plan on what we would do and how we would be happy, which took about an hour, I think. Then we got to share it with the others and do some evaluation.
The point of the exercise was soon realized - and the objective was obtained. We discovered we had the ability, the inner strength, to survive and create our lives from scratch. Before that we all, I think, pretty much lived in a vague fear of something happening and ruining our security - and then what would we do - and most of us projected inability and misery. But, once we went through the process of "looking" and planning, we could see that we'd survive and enjoy life, although it might not be luxuries and perhaps only the sun and nature, but we could do just fine.
SEEING THE "BASIS" FOR "BEING OK"
We all have that inner strength, but we just don't know it, because the fear gets in the way, because we anticipate what might happen to us and suffer through the inevitably negative life we imagine. But if we are not letting our fear rule us, and we're simply breathing and deciding and planning, we can live a fine life, just one different than we would have imagined.
But we go through so much angst that we don't notice that we don't need those things we cling to. And after humiliation, rejection, losses of all sorts, disappointments... we still come out the other end totally intact and totally capable, as if we had walked chest high through water, and the water closed behind us after we walked through it. The water and we are just fine, where we are only going through an experience, but with no real threat.
PERSPECTIVE VS. EXPECTATION
Of course, the thinking that is needed here is one of great perspective and realism. If we "expect", in the form of a "must have" (or I'm devastated), an artificially high expectation we will have to live life to protect ourselves against loss. And in so doing, we'll suffer. But in truth, we are still intact and no worse for the wear - as far as actual life - but we have created damage through our suffering and its effect on our bodies which are typically damaged and not functioning very well after alot of artificial traumas.
Notice how what we thought was devastating at the time, simply passed into nothingness in our minds, as we lived life afterward and did reasonably well, with the drama passing as any negative emotion does. The mistake is totally in the thinking, the exaggeration into some belief that the bad thing was permanent and damaging. Even if we were turned into a paraplegic, we would find, as the studies show, that we would return back to our normal happiness levels within a year.
NO MATTER WHAT...
But, to be happy, we need to know that no matter what, being crippled or whatever, we will be just fine and able to enjoy this human experience - then we are fearless. We must see now what we will see later and that we'll see that we're ok and life is fine. My "poster child" here is W. Mitchell, who after bad burns and disfigurement and then a later accident that crippled him, simply realized:
"Before I was paralyzed there were 10,000 things I could do. Now there are 9,000. I can either dwell on the 1,000 I've lost or focus on the 9,000 I have left." He is now an inspirational speaker.
DOES IT HAVE AN ACTUAL. LASTING IMPACT OR IS IT JUST AN EXPERIENCE?
Once you experience something during the day, ask is this lasting, will this be of importance 10 years from now, or is this just something passing through my life? This is nothing, in the perspective of life. It is a big "so what", that's part of life and that's ok. Is there something I can do now that will positively affect my well-being.
And those with true perspective use the old shortcut mantra after something happens: Well, now, what's so here. What has happened? This is no big deal in the perspective of life - I see that. Now I think I'll figure out what I want to do next that will add to my life.
The shorthand:
What's so? So what! Now what?!?!
This is the way to live life.
THE OTHER WAY OF THINKING
"Poor me. I only get a guaranteed $41,000 a year, adjusted for inflation, but taxable. I can only afford a two bedroom apartment with a gorgeous view and it makes things tight. I am suffering. And I worry so much about what people think of me - though I'm not sure what happens to me if they don't like me or approve of me, but there is some vague fear that I'll be abandoned and then... well, I'm not quite sure what."
And then a moment of insight, perhaps: "I guess I'll survive. I guess I'll never run out of money. And I'll have enough to eat and a place to live and a guaranteed income."
And, if this person looks at What I Have, For Sure (or what I call seeing What IS There instead of always 'the what's missing'), then he/she might say "well, now, I can see that I am so fortunate. My life is a life of abundance. I am happy."
AND THEN, WITH FURTHER "SOLIDIFYING", I ARRIVE AT...
"I have no fears, though I do have signals that automatically cause reactions to save me body and life, but I have no imagined fears. I do not fear death. I know almost all "bad" things and emotions are "time-limited" and that life's realism includes some pain and not-so-goods. I do not fear being paralyzed or losing a limb, for, once the pain and shock are over, I know I can go on living life ok, just short of a limb, but still left with 1,000's of things I can still do, including enjoying the sun or a good movie or nature or ... an abundance....I will never be in a world of scarcity for there is so much, if I but look...and I have proof: my list of what is there in this life."
