Why is it so hard to
understand that you cannot change what happens to you, but only how you feel, think
and choose to respond to whatever is it that happens to you?
This is a truth hard to
accept throughout life, but why? Simply because of one attribute to the mind we
cannot unwire or change—that is that we are designed to seek, we are wired to
want to know. In other words, we are conscious and intelligent beings. Yes, our
brain works in such a way, that after posing a question, we have to somewhat,
almost magically, try to have an answer for it. Even if the questions are
ridiculous, fictional or unpleasant. It is much easier to please the mind with
an answer we might not even believe fully, than to leave a question unattended
in our minds. Of course, we also do achieve truths and do find answers that are
in fact true, but in most of our limited experience and much more limited
knowing, we are really deceiving ourselves. So, how exactly is our mind
responsible for making us believe that we are our how we feel?
When we experience pain
and suffering for instance, it is far much easier to directly correlate the
pain we feel inside with an event that we have no control over and although
this is true to a certain degree, we often surrender our humanity and dignity
in doing so. Yes, certain external events have the power to trigger emotions.
The betrayal of a friend, the death of a loved one, the disillusionment of a
dream for instance, all of these can rapidly trigger negative emotions
associated with those circumstances—but they can never determine how we feel.
In other words, they can trigger sadness, but they cannot make us feel sad. It
is healthy to mourn a love one for instance, but it is important to recognize
our conscious self going through an emotion and not being that particular
emotion. Our minds however, make the correlation stronger. They make the bond
between an external event and the feeling you experience—the reality. Why?
Because the mind’s ultimate concern is to understand and be pleased with any
answer. So when we ask, why do I feel sad? Or why does this happen to me? Or Why
is this so hard? Referring to the loss of a loved one—the answer the mind naturally
wants to give is to go back to the bond. It hurts because I am my pain and my
pain is me. In fact, the more the mind asserts the external circumstances as
your own experience, the more it is pleased to assert a particular feeling.
This is why when we experience intense joy or sadness we hold the events surrounding
those feelings as either the source of happiness or the source of all trauma in
life. While nothing can be further from the truth, it is extremely hard and a
lifelong goal, to believe and train your mind different.
We take these external
circumstances and sometimes we go further we them. Not only do we allow our
feelings to override our fully conscious ability to choose them, but then we
define ourselves by those feelings that originate in circumstances we do not
have any power over! This is crazy yet we all do it. To be fired from your job
just because the company had to make cuts to still be profitable, makes us feel
sad, hopeless and incompetent. But then, not only are we overwhelmed by these
feelings, but our minds asks the question, well why did this happen? And your
mind naturally starts to conceive of an answer just to please its hunger for
knowing. So we tell ourselves that we are losers, incompetents and mediocre and
that is why we were fired. Feelings while triggered by external factors have
the power to create a belief sustained by the rational mind which seeks to know
and comprehend at all cost. Again, the unsatisfied mind will not rest until it
has an answer whether this one is factual or not it does not matter. You can
conceive the same scenario happening in a different way. When your mind asks
why was I fired? You can say a million other things to satisfy the mind like, ‘It
was time for me to take on a different task,’ or ‘I deserved better and
something bigger is waiting.’
The empowerment comes
from knowing two truths. First, in the peaceful recognition that we are not what
happens to us. We cannot control external circumstances and therefore they do
not define us. Consequently, our feelings are only manifestations of who we
are—but not in their entirety. That is, they provide information about us,
about our self—but they do not define the self. Second, in understanding how
the mind works. The mind, by nature always wanting to know has to be trained to
ask the right questions and also be trained to be in peace with not knowing. A
life task—for sure. What are the right questions? Critical and complex
questions with specific goals. When experiencing guilt, shame, sadness or
animosity, to ask not why do you feel the way you feel (this might have a quick
answer) but to ask instead what can I do so that this anger, confusion, guilt
or shame doesn’t take over me? What can I do so that I am in charge of my anger
and can funnel it in a productive way? To know that not only does your anger
not deny who you are, instead that it provides information about you, but also
in determining what and how you can do things to convert an unwanted experience
into a transformative one.
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