Sandcastles of Belief: Part 2

 

If you haven't read Part 1, just click here 

http://waitingforthereply.blogspot.com/2022/02/sandcastles-of-belief-part-1.html

Last week, we looked at the concept of beliefs. We saw that the content—or story—of our individual beliefs are formed, in large part, far below our level of awareness. Billions of brilliant, lightning-speed transactions are continuously happening at the pre-conscious and sub-conscious levels of your mind. 

In any given moment, your conscious mind is presented with a tiny fraction of what is actually happening in the world. And then, that efficient, meaning-making voice-in-your-head says, "This is the Truth." Once that voice manages to string-together enough "truths," it forms a belief. It is such a sensational, award-winning production, complete with sound effects and deeply-felt bodily sensations and emotions. Blockbuster cinematography has nothing on our brains! Such magnificent story-telling and belief-making is the perfect design of our human experience.

We also looked at the "buffet" of choices that each conscious mind is presented in any given moment. It looks like we all have the same opportunities to make the same "good choices." But, thanks to neuroscience, we see the giant holes in that theory. If the choices we are consciously aware of are largely determined at a pre-conscious or subconscious level, then our "buffet" is just a fraction of what's actually on offer. The choices that appear to my conscious mind are vastly different from the choices that appear in someone else's conscious mind. We will each select the best option based on what looks TRUE and REAL to us in that moment.

Most of us can easily define the beliefs we hold most dear to our hearts. We proclaim them, defend them, and protect them. And none of that is inherently problematic. I have my own list of "mountains I am willing to die on." I can't imagine that will ever change. And I wouldn't want it to. 

But the beliefs that determine the way we experience life from moment to moment are not the obvious beliefs that we profess from the mountain tops. The beliefs that dictate how we show up in the world are the ones that hang-out far below our radar.

They're the beliefs that our clever ego covers up and protects itself from. (When I use the word ego, I am referring specifically to the story-of-you that the voice in your head has created). Our below-the-radar beliefs are the ones that our programming picked up along the way and held onto in an innocent attempt to keep our ego safe.

Most children, by the time they are four or five, experience something that grabs the attention of their internal programming. It could be something as small as disapproval or anger from a parent. Or it could be as dramatic as neglect, abuse, or loss. In the moment of that event, a new thread of programming is silently weaved-in. Although there are no clear words attached to the thread, it feels something along the lines of, "I am not safe. The world is not safe." Remember, this is not a choice the child makes. This is not a sign of weakness or frailty. It is a tiny thread of programming weaved-in to the larger system. 

If you're a normal, breathing, living human being, your unconscious beliefs most likely fall into one or more of these categories:

1. I am not safe/the world is not safe.

2. I am not worthy/I am not enough. 

3. I am unloved/unlovable.

4. I can't handle this/it’s too much. 

Just like that small child, none of these unconscious beliefs are a reflection of you. You don't own them, you didn't choose them, and you most likely don't even know they're there. The interesting thing is that most of us would say, "I know for sure I don't have those beliefs. Those thoughts have literally never crossed my mind." 

And for sure, I get that. Me too! My mind doesn't ever say those words, per se. Instead, my clever little ego, in its brilliant attempt to protect itself, says things like, "I can't stand those people; they're so hurtful and judgmental." Other egos may say, "There is no way I am interviewing for that job. I don't have what it takes." Or, "I can't be around her. She triggers me."

Our egos are so smart. They will come up with such compelling stories to cover up beliefs that don't keep it propped up and seemingly stable. An ego is never going to say, "I am not enough." or "I am unloved." Of course not. Instead, it will point to other people, past traumas, or world events and say, "That's the reason you feel anxious/depressed/overwhelmed/hopeless."  But that's just what an ego does to hold its story-of-you in place. 

But, as far as I can see, at some point, if you're lucky, you will fall just hard enough to reach the end of your emotional, physical, or material resources. Something deep inside will finally say, "There's got to be something more to life than this. This can't be all I am; all there is." THAT is the crack in the matrix, so-to-speak, that opens the door to getting curious about who you were before a lifetime of conditioning. 

When you are curious enough to take a peek behind the curtain—to see what has been driving a lifetime of choices—you begin to remember who you are beyond the story in your head. You get to rediscover where your worth, freedom, and security really come from. When you get curious about those below-the-radar beliefs, you discover just how expansive, free, resilient, strong, and complete you are. You begin to feel lighter.  

You spend less time in your head and more in Life. It's pretty amazing. 

Next week, we'll look at what it's like to hold hands and begin the adventure. 

Sandcastles of Belief: Part 1

 

Have you read last week's post, Nice to Meet You, Voice-in-my-Head? 

It's a great place to start. 

http://waitingforthereply.blogspot.com/2022/02/nice-to-meet-you-voice-in-my-head.html

If you've been around for more than a couple decades, you've probably heard the mantra, "Your beliefs determine your reality." 

If that's true—if your reality is based on what you believe, wouldn't it be helpful to take a closer look at what beliefs are? I don't mean what your individual beliefs are; I mean what beliefs, as a concept, are made of.

Many of us—myself included—go through life assuming that our beliefs are solid indications of what kind of person we are. Beliefs look personal, as if they are part of our core identity. We categorize and label people based on their apparent belief systems. "She's a racist. He's a narcissist. They're anti-vaxxers. She's a bleeding heart liberal. He's a right-wing Trumper. Christians are hypocrites. Lawyers are liars." 

Did you find yourself having any visceral reactions to one or two of those categorizations? Did you notice an increase in heart rate or body temperature? Maybe you noticed a feeling of resistance or contraction. If so, you're in good company.

We feel our beliefs in our body as if they are as intrinsic to us as our blood and organs. Most of us will defend our beliefs to the end. We go to great lengths to protect and uphold our beliefs. We put stakes in the ground and draw lines in the sand based on them. We're willing to lose friends and sever ties with family members over them. We use them to justify exclusion and hatred. We say that we feel "triggered" by people whose words and actions go against our beliefs. On a larger scale, wars are declared and blood is shed on the grounds of conflicting beliefs. 

A few months ago, I observed a conversation between two of my daughters, Megan and Taylor. Taylor made a rather bold, matter-of-fact political statement. Megan recoiled as if Taylor had just personally attacked her. In true form, Megan steadied herself and proceeded to offer the most high-level, airtight mountain of evidence to contradict Taylor's political stance. Honestly, Megan's reply was nothing short of genius. Still, Taylor held her ground, repeating her initial statement without one ounce of emotion. Megan broke down into tears. Her most compelling evidence had not done the very thing it was supposed to do: win her "lost and wayward sister" back to the "right side" of the belief system. 

We are so intertwined with our beliefs that having them challenged or disregarded can be physically and emotionally painful. But, what if the very thing on which we stand in order to differentiate good from bad and right from wrong has nothing to do with who-we-are? What if we are not the layers of thoughts and beliefs we've been accumulating since we were in the womb? What if we are so much more?

This exploration, believe it or not, has nothing to do with the content of beliefs. It's not about finding "better" or "more helpful" beliefs. How would we even do that? Humans have tried to coax, persuade, and bully other humans into changing their beliefs for thousands of years, mostly to no avail. 

This exploration is about stepping back for a minute and seeing how beliefs develop and get innocently baked-in to our identities. 

Let's begin with some very general, fifth-grade level science. It's a little sciencey, but persevere! It sets up a pretty radical opportunity to see something new. (And if you're the kind of person who understands science at the level of quarks and gluons, proceed with grace). 

Here we go.

You have a truly amazing brain with way too many cool parts and functions to explain in a 5-minute article. But, let’s look at a couple important features. Two parts of the brain known for their roles in pre-conscious functions are the amygdala and the hippocampus. By pre-conscious, I mean that these parts of the brain process information below your level of awareness. You have no say in how this information is processed, interpreted, or stored.

The amygdala is best known for its role in processing fear. Information about potential danger hits the amygdala before you are even aware of a dangerous situation. You may find yourself having an emotional or visceral response to, say, a sudden loud noise. You innocently but incorrectly believe you chose that response. You may even blame yourself for being “overly-sensitive” or “weak.” So, while your neurology is doing its job perfectly based on its programming, there is now a layer of guilt, shame, or embarrassment. But, that programming was established in utero and developed in early childhood. There was never a you deciding or choosing anything. And yet, you innocently call those reactions yours.

The hippocampus is best known for its role in the organization and storage of memories. It also makes connections between your memories and your bodily sensations and emotions. Again, this is all happening without a you in there pulling levers and pushing buttons. You are not choosing which memories get stored or which memories make you feel sad. This is all happening at a pre-conscious level, based on programming that was established in utero and early childhood. Still, you have a voice in your head that will happily jump in and say, “I remembered that event and it made me feel triggered.” Such a cute little voice.

According to Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute at Stanford University, we don’t see reality. In fact, our vision runs about 100 milliseconds behind the real world. As a result, we are seeing a story. This is not a mistake in evolution, though. It’s a perfect adaptation.

“We don’t have the necessary machinery, and we wouldn’t even want it, to process carefully all of the amount of information that we’re constantly bombarded with,” says neuroscientist Susana Martinez-Conde.

Your brain has more than a billion cells, and each cell links to thousands of other cells by way of synapses. Conservatively, that means your brain computes about one quadrillion operations per second. There is no way your conscious mind could process and interpret that much data.

So, the pre-conscious parts of your brain, like the amygdala and the hippocampus, handle it all for you. That complex system of neurology that you developed in the womb efficiently processes and filters everything for you. Then, in a tiny fraction of a second, it hands you—the conscious part of your brain—a nice little package of filters and calls it The Truth. In that same fraction of a second, your narrator-brain jumps in and says, “Look what I did!"

It's kind of like a professional football coach and all his assistant coaches getting together to create a brilliant, winning strategy for their team. The team adheres to the strategy and wins the game—only to have the commentators in the big glass booth say, "Wow, look what we did! Our strategy worked! We won the game!"  The commentators claim the victory. But they're really just the narrators. They have NO idea what went on in those strategy meetings. That's what the voice-in-our-head does when a decision is made or a belief is believed. It disregards, or has no knowledge of, the millions of pre-conscious "decisions" that were made. So it claims the victory (or the defeat) as its own.

It has always looked like we consciously select our beliefs; as if there is a relatively universal "buffet of options" from which to choose. We then apply that idea to everyone else in the world, assuming they must have the same buffet of options showing up in their conscious minds. Following that logic, everyone has the same opportunities to make the "right choice" or have the "right belief." But everyone's conscious mind is NOT receiving the "same buffet" of choices. As a result, everyone does not have access to the same "options." We judge people as if they are seeing the same world we are seeing; as if their pre-conscious programs are presenting the same packages of truth that our programs are presenting us. But how can that be? We all have drastically different programming that is determining our moment-to-moment experience. 

Based on my programming, it's hard for me to imagine that a choice to physically assault someone would ever show up in my buffet of options. But this is a very real and "best" option that shows up on many buffets. On a smaller scale, when someone disagrees with me on Facebook, the choice to call them vulgar names or destroy their reputation also does not show up in my buffet of options. This is not at all a reflection of ME. It is only a reflection of a lifetime of programming, none of which I had any control over. It's all part of a brilliant, intricate system that has evolved over millions of years. 

The clever, meaning-making brain will jump in and say, "Fine. Different choices show up in different people's conscious buffets. But once they appear, everyone has the same opportunity to select the best option from the ones that are presented." And yes, it looks like that to me, too, sort of. 

So let's say the two options that arise to my conscious mind are, "Call the lady who ridiculed my Facebook post all kinds of vulgar names" and "Find out where she works and destroy her reputation." Suppose the options, "Ignore her" and "Have compassion for her" are not anywhere on my buffet? Then, in that moment, calling her vulgar names IS the best choice to my conscious mind. And perhaps your mind, responding to its own pre-conscious programming, will judge me as harsh and unenlightened. But, in that moment, nothing is happening other than two minds just doing exactly what they were programmed to do: categorize and judge. 

So why does any of this matter? 

It matters because when it looks like beliefs are based on conscious choices "we" make, we buy-in to the judgements they create. We listen to the compelling voice in our head that tells us who's in, who's out, who's right, and who's wrong. We also listen to the voice that tells us how we, ourselves, have been wrong, "bad," not enough, and unworthy of love and forgiveness.  In doing so, we carry shame, guilt, and remorse, sometimes for decades. We innocently misidentify with our stories and beliefs as if we had somehow chosen them.

When we start to tease-out who-we-are from the beliefs and stories we have acquired, we certainly don't stop having opinions and judgements. And we wouldn't want to! Our little meaning-making brains love their jobs of judging and compartmentalizing. But, what does happen is that we stop identifying so closely with the thoughts and beliefs that arise within us. We begin to see them for the programming they are. And we see other people's thoughts and beliefs for the programming they are. From that space, we start to really SEE people for more than the labels our minds have placed on them. The rock-solid nature of what is TRUE begins to shimmer a bit. 

Our minds may still insist that change can only happen from a space of vigilance, rage, defiance, and steadfastness. It may say, "If we stop identifying with our beliefs, how will we know who's right and wrong? How will we keep ourselves and our loved ones safe? How will we fix this broken world?" 

But maybe deep, lasting change doesn't happen through judgement, brute force, and vigilance. What if it happens as a result of seeing something new? When we see something new, the lenses through which we see ourselves change. When we see who we are beyond all of the pre-programmed stories and beliefs, we begin to see the world and all its problems in a new light. We do the things that make sense to do in each moment—not from a place of fear and hate, but from a place of curiosity and hope. The world changes because we change, not the other way around. 

(And if your mind is freaking out and scrambling to find its comfortable foundation, it’s doing precisely what it was evolutionarily designed to do. And we wouldn’t want it any other way. Hang in there.)

Next week, we'll continue the journey as we look further into how our beliefs shape our reality. 

For a sneak peek at next week's follow up to this, click here:

http://waitingforthereply.blogspot.com/2022/02/sandcastles-of-belief-part-2.html

Nice to Meet You, Voice-In-My-Head!

 

In my blogpost, We Were Born Complete, I wrote:

At our core, we are fundamentally full of OK-ness, peace, and freedom. Sometimes, those things get veiled by a lifetime of conditioning, beliefs, and concepts. But the who-we-are beneath the veils is made of perfect strength, resilience, and peace. 

So, who is this who-we-are beneath the concepts, beliefs, and conditioning? 

Maybe it's easier to begin with who we're not: Who-we-are is NOT the voice in our head. 

A few weeks ago, on the first day of my new six-month coaching class, I had to give an introduction of myself to about 30 fellow classmates and our instructor. "No big deal," the little voice in my head said. 

One by one, classmates with extraordinary credentials, degrees, and accomplishments presented themselves to the group. My mind—as all minds do—quickly assessed and categorized each brilliant participant. Then, that same mind calculated where I fit into this mix of 30 colleagues. Its conclusion? I didn't measure-up. At all. I was at the bottom of the barrel.  

Then it was my turn to speak. By that point, the voice in my head had created a pretty compelling and dramatic story of "not good enough." My nervous system naturally got in on the action with its racing heart, dry mouth, and difficulty swallowing. After all, the voice in the head and the autonomic nervous system tend to work in tandem. They make a great team. So, I found myself struggling to string together more than two coherent sentences. 

I ended my introduction as quickly as possible and then waited for that little voice to evaluate and judge my performance. You can guess what the voice said: "Well, THAT was awful! How am I going to come back from that?" 

Thankfully, I've learned a thing or two about the voice in my head, so the recovery from that moment was fairly swift and effortless. In fact, after the initial embarrassment, I had a pretty good laugh about the whole thing. The rest of the day was spent making meaningful connections with 30 truly beautiful human beings. 

Like me, you're probably already keenly aware of the voice in your your head—the one that narrates your entire day in your voice, using the kind of language you use. It speaks in first-person point of view so that it's nearly impossible to extricate yourself from it. And, thanks to evolution, it's bent toward saying negative things like "I shouldn't have had that third drink" or "I bet they noticed how anxious I was." 

The voice in your head tends to begin speaking as soon as you open your eyes in the morning and keeps a steady flow of commentary going until you fall asleep at night. That's its job, and it does it very well. 

Because of the human mind's proclivity for negativity, the voice in the head has gotten a bad rap over the centuries. We've invested billions of dollars trying to tame it, silence it, hypnotize it, and reprogram it. We curse it when it wakes us up at 3 a.m. to tell us all of our worst-case scenarios. We blame our ulcers, migraines, and insomnia on it. We call it the enemy, the bully, or even the devil. 

But what if it's not any of those things? What if there has been a simple misunderstanding? 

What if that voice in your head has always been doing its best to protect you and keep you alive? 

Best of all, what if you really don't need to manage it, control it, or reprogram it in order to be deeply OK? 

As you may already know, the modern human brain is about 150,000 to 200,000 years old. In the grand scheme of things, that's actually not very old. The magnificent brains we have today are remarkably similar to the brains that continuously scanned for and predicted immediate threats to life and limb thousands of years ago. There was an evolutionary advantage to having a hyper-vigilant brain that could spot danger a mile away. Brains needed to be predictive and efficient. This kept our ancestors alive. The thing many of us today call generalized anxiety is the thing that allowed your ancestors to live long enough to procreate. 

Brains also evolved to draw instantaneous conclusions about the environment. Accuracy has never been a priority. It was better for a brain to scream "TIGER" every time it heard a rustling in the bushes, even if there was only one real tiger out of a hundred rustling bushes. Again, this had a tremendous evolutionary advantage. These hyper-vigilant brains, bent toward negativity, prediction, efficiency, and over-generalization allowed our species to survive and thrive. 

Even though our brains haven't changed that much in the past couple of hundred thousand years, our environment has changed dramatically. We no longer need brains to protect us from immediate bodily danger in the way our ancestors did. Most of us don't worry about what is prowling around in the bushes or waiting over the next hill. We don't fear for our lives in the way our great-great-great-great-grandparents did. 

And yet, the brain still continuously scans for potential danger in much the same the way a submarine sonar scans the ocean for potential obstacles. That's still its job. The modern-day brain, in its best attempt to keep you alive, still makes fast but unreliable predictions and draws wildly inaccurate conclusions.  

Since we no longer face constant threats to our physical bodies, our brains have efficiently found something new to protect: our identity—our image, worth, OK-ness, and sense of security.

The voice in your head has no real need to chat about what might actually kill you. So, instead, it talks about what might embarrass you, humiliate you, diminish your image, overwhelm you, or leave you penniless and broken. And it talks about it with the same urgency as it did 200,000 years ago. 

Since there is rarely anything you can do about these stories of potential humiliation or brokenness (like running away from an actual tiger), the voice in your head behaves like a dog chewing endlessly on a bone. It spins and spins, chews and chews. It tells you that you have a worry problem; you have an anxiety issue. But what you have is a very efficient little machine that is always doing its best to protect you. 

That protective voice is doing what it has been programmed for thousands of years to do. The only problem—and it’s not even a problem—is that we have innocently mistaken that voice for who-we-are. We have become so identified with it that we buy-into its evidence and feel compelled to listen to it. And most of all, we believe that the images and identities it has constructed for us are who-we-are. 

As a result, we naturally resist that voice. In our innocent identification with it, we try to twist it and manage it in hopes that it will start telling nicer, more positive, less dramatic stories. We forget (or we've never even considered) that it's just a little machine doing what it's evolutionarily designed to do. I often compare this to wanting your refrigerator to wash your clothes or your car radio to boil your water for tea. It's a recipe for exhaustion.

When we begin getting curious about who-we-are beyond that little narrator in our head, we begin working with it, not against it. Almost immediately, we feel lighter, as if someone just removed a boulder from the imaginary backpack we've been carrying around. 

What if who-you-are is fundamentally full of OK-ness, peace, and freedom? What if you are made of strength, resilience, and peace?

Imagine the possibilities of showing up in the world as who-you-are rather than what the voice in your head tells you. 

And this is where the fun begins. We'll dive a little deeper next week. 😉

Part 3: Seeing with Fresh Eyes

If you haven't already read Part 2: The Lens Through Which We See the World, begin here:

                  http://waitingforthereply.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-lens-through-which-we-see-world.html

I remember the day Pete and I brought home our firstborn, Megan. We spent many sleep-deprived days and nights mostly in awe of her. 

Sometimes Megan cried and screamed, and sometimes she cooed and smiled. She did not seem to prefer one response over another. Emotions flowed through Megan like clouds through a vast, blue sky. She was not yet influenced by the lenses of should and shouldn’t. Life simply was. There were no stories in her head about what was going to happen later in her little baby day. There was no regret or despair about what had happened moments or hours before. There was this-here-now; Life arising moment by moment, showing up as cooing and smiling, then showing up as weeping and wailing. It was all perfect. There were no filters to obscure what was. 

As far as we could see, our sweet Megan was complete. She was worthy, resilient, and full of love and OK-ness. Those things, of course, had nothing to do with her. They were not based on her abilities, talents, or intelligence. They were not related to the condition of her soft, baby skin, her robust health, or even her gorgeous blue eyes. Her completeness and innate perfection were part of something much greater and universal to all of Life.  

As babies do, Megan grew up. Right on cue, her clear baby lenses began accumulating filters. She quickly learned ideas about "me" and "mine."  She developed preferences, learned concepts of time, space, and "other." She learned to make simple predictions. Before long, she picked up on social cues, learning to make sense of good and bad, and right and wrong. Layers of new beliefs subtly informed her growing sense of "this is who I am." 

By the time Megan was a teenager, the lenses through which she saw the world were pretty well set. And like all normal, healthy teens, she had no idea that she was viewing the world through a thick veil of filters. Like most of us, she believed she was simply viewing the reality of life. "This is who I am, and this is how life is—or at least this is how it should be."

And if you stopped reading there, my guess is you would say, "So what? She has her perspectives and I have mine. Why does any of this matter?"

And, as my favorite pastor in the world, Carl Frazier, says..."Here's the thing..."

It matters because it's not really about perspectives as much as it's about who we believe we are. It matters because most of us are showing up as if we are separate and disconnected from the world around us; separate from that perfection of Life we were as newborn babies; separate from the innate worth, resilience, love, and OK-ness that once so obviously defined us. 

It matters because, when we have no idea we're seeing the world through a clouded lens, we say things like "They shouldn't be like that" and "This never should have happened." We judge, categorize, and label people and circumstances through our own filters of lack, fear, and insecurity. And we have no idea we're doing it. 

It matters because we don't see the world as it is; we see the world as we are. So it makes sense to take some time to rediscover who that is, beneath the filtered lenses. 

Who we are, at our core, is whole, connected, complete, strong, worthy, resilient, and full of love. We are not our conditioning, our learning, or our filters. We are greater than that.

This is all really good news, actually. There is nothing you need to ADD. Nothing to FIX. Nothing to manage or control. It is not on you to change or scrape away the layers. There is just an opportunity to be curious, to explore, to be open to seeing with fresh eyes. 

There's a whole new world waiting to be seen. Next week, we'll continue the journey.

To read the next installment, just click here!

http://waitingforthereply.blogspot.com/2022/02/nice-to-meet-you-voice-in-my-head.html

Part 2: The Lens Through Which We See the World

 To read Part 1 first, click here

http://waitingforthereply.blogspot.com/2022/01/we-were-born-complete.html

The Lens Through Which We See the World

About 15 years ago, when my grandma was still alive, we sat together on the front deck of my parents' beach house. The sunlight reflected on her glasses in such a way that I could see a rather thick layer of grime and sea-spray coating each of the lenses. I asked my grandma if she'd like me to clean her glasses for her. She assured me that they were already clean and that she could see "perfectly well." Still, I persuaded her to let me give them a good wiping-down. When she put her glasses back on, her entire face lit up. She smiled, eyebrows lifted, and looked around with fresh eyes. Colors were more vibrant, shapes had cleaner edges, and, as she put it, she "felt lighter."

Just like my grandma, we tend to move through our days convinced that we are seeing clearly—that the way we perceive an event or circumstance is THE truth. We innocently believe that we are witnessing life as it truly is rather than how it appears through a lifetime of filters. 

The moment we’re born, the lenses through which we see the world are already accumulating filters. We don’t choose the filters, of course. There is not a baby out there who chooses the conditioning or learning that happens in his or her little baby environment. Babies do not choose parents who yell over parents who cuddle. Toddlers in pre-school do not choose thriving classrooms over dysfunctional ones. Older children don’t choose whether they have a dad who plays ball with them over a distracted or depressed mom. Conditioning happens. Learning happens. Layers of filters are added as the years and decades pass. By the time that baby is a young adult, the lens thorough which he or she sees the world is clouded at best. There is no clear, unbiased, unconditioned lens. If there was such a thing, 7.9 billion of us would see events and circumstances in the same way. There would be one objective truth rather than 7.9 billion subjective truths.

So, why does this matter?

It matters because when we get caught up in thoughts and beliefs that look like THE TRUTH, we tend to suffer.

And by suffer, I mean we find ourselves judging people and circumstances. We feel a sense of lack. We feel uneasy but we can’t quite figure out why. We feel chronic, low-level anger or shame. We see others as villains while we feel victimized. We mentally rage against all of the injustices of the world. We silently rehearse our best comebacks and that’ll-show-him lines at 3 a.m. We ruminate and fantasize about worst-case scenarios. We find ourselves in the same unwanted situations over and over again. We say things like, “This is my truth” yet we have no idea that what we’re identifying as truth is actually hundreds of layers of unquestioned beliefs.

Like fish in water, we are so accustomed to our lenses that we have no idea they’re there. We believe we’re seeing the objective truth. The decades of conditioning and learning—none of which we chose—have been innocently mistaken to be “our truth.” And if there is one thing people in Western culture love to defend, it’s our truth.

But what if, beneath the decades of conditioned beliefs, there is a you that is full of peace, freedom, wisdom, and connection? What if you could just get curious about some of the filters clouding the truth of who you really are? How might life look different if you were open to seeing something with fresh eyes—without a few of the filters of conditioned belief?

Seeing with fresh eyes is where deep, lasting change happens. It’s more than a change in perspective. It’s not swapping a negative story for a positive one. It’s not doing thought-gymnastics so that you can have a better feeling. It’s deeper than that. It’s taking a look at who you are before and beyond the layers of added filters.

Why is it helpful? Because, like my grandma, when your lenses are clear, colors are brighter. Shapes have cleaner edges. Opportunities open up that were never seen before. You have the eyes to see new possibilities. You feel lighter.  Life gets so much simpler. 

Next week, we'll take a peek at what tends to happen when we get curious about how this works. (It's so cool💜)

To read Part 3, click here

http://waitingforthereply.blogspot.com/2022/02/part-2-seeing-with-fresh-eyes.html