How much do we notice that things are the way they are around us?
How much do we notice that things are the way they are within us?
Perspective is a funny thing…
Are you stressed? Or is life just stressful around you? Do you notice where that stress is?
Are you bullied? Or does it feel like you are because of how you feel about yourself? Which makes those bully comments feel that way…
Are you happy? Or are you living through happy times?
Or maybe we could ask one that is probably more relevant to the world right now…
Are you scared? Or are things scary?
I started with stressed because it’s something I can relate to. In my past and right now.
The answer can, and probably is, both.
If I said that the outer world is a reflection of your inner world, would you agree with that, Kim?
But pretending that the outer world doesn’t have impact on your inner sense of self and emotional sense is wildly ambitious too.
If life is stressful, do you feel that within yourself? Because I used to ignore it. I used to convince myself that I wasn’t stressed, I was too tough/smart/cool/rugged/controlled to worry about something so insignificant as stress. Better to just get on with things and ignore the emotions that came from things that annoyed me or I disagreed with or didn’t want to do, or just plain sucked.
But my body, my physiology, knew I was stressed. A biiiig part of my psyche knew I was. But I simply invested in an egotistical perspective that didn’t allow me to feel that stress in my conscious thoughts. Ego can overcome a lot of things in the moment, but that doesn’t mean those things go away. Quite to opposite.
Stress is cumulative, that shit adds up. And as much as we’d like to pretend that its not there, or that we can ignore it because that’s “work stress” or “relationship stress” or any number of ways life can impact you, its still there. Your body and subconscious still swallow it all down, and it does its damage regardless of if you acknowledge it’s existence or not.
The point that I’m trying to make there is, if we choose to identify things that are coming up in us as things we can ignore, as if they’re just things that are happening outside of us, that shit catches up with us. It did with me. And it still has its echo’s of impact.
Being present with what was coming up for me emotionally, rather than pushing it down and pretending it wasn’t there, made it possible to actually deal with and confront my own emotions and the events that allowed those emotions to become a thing for me. Otherwise, I’m just running away from them, internally and externally, in spite of my justifications that I was too awesome for those things to be an issue…
Can anyone else see the vicious circle I placed myself in? Thank you, Gareth. Yes, very succinct. Playing into my own sense of arrogance, which in retrospect, was exactly why I was dealing with (and making worse, might I add…) those stressful situations in the first place.
Anyone else pretending like the outside world doesn’t impact them, and the messiness they keep rolling with, in an inner way?...
The arrogance of our ego… can hamstring us coming AND going.
The bullying question from earlier is a pretty good going example.
I know someone who was bullied as a child. Through primary school and high school. And it severely challenged their ability to make friends and be comfortable in those relationships. Which turned into a constant driving force to validate themselves through external validation. It was extensive.
After a while of hearing those stories of how things where back then, I started to hear things that made me question what really happened for them back then. From their own mouths at first, then from others who knew them very very well back then.
Now, before I go any further, I need to qualify something. Bullying is a reprehensible way to treat someone. Regardless of the knowledge that bullies only behave that way because they themselves are being treated a certain way and feel the need to outsource those feelings of hurt and powerlessness to minimise their own pain, in my estimation it is still no excuse. But this is still something that happens in all walks of life, to varying degrees.
Anyway, back on point…
The more I heard other perspectives of what had happened, and the more I saw inconsistencies in this persons stories and behaviours, the more I started to suspect that, on at least some level, this bullying wasn’t quite the savage personal attacks on self that I’d been led to believe. Now, don’t get me wrong, things happened, but a picture was forming that had me suspecting that a lot of this hurt and angst this person held was emotions of their own making.
When you’re having a rough day, how much (or little) does it take to cause you to snap? Regardless of the person, regardless of the comment, regardless of the intention, what is your perspective at that point? Does the other person matter at that point? Or is it about you and how you feel inside?
If you already feel like torn old undies rinsed in toilet water with a handful of sand thrown in, how does the rest of the world seem at the point? Like a bunch of pointing laughing pricks that know you suck, have always sucked, will always suck, and those are the only undies that you’ll ever have to wear for the rest of your life. And you’ll believe it because it already hurts, so why not add some lemon juice to those cuts. Which, strangley, has some impact on how your interpreting the world around you from then on.
This persons perspective, based on the wider and hopefully more objective versions of reality I was told about, was seemingly skewed by how they felt about themselves and by extension the actions of others around them.
Now, my point is not about bullying existing, or being good or bad, or even questioning as to if this person was or wasn’t bullied or not. Bullying exists, and is bad, and can come in many forms and levels of extremity.
My point IS, that after everything I learned about this persons perspective, it was looking more and more like they didn’t notice the extent of what may have been going on within them, as opposed to what their perspective was telling them was going on outside of them.
Pretty much the opposite of what was occurring in my example.
I was making what was going on within me and around me NOT about me, to an extreme.
This person was making what was going on within and around them ALL about them, to an extreme.
Both of these examples are invested in ignoring the reality of a situation and how coloured their perspective might be. Completely disregarding the balance of how detached or invested each perspective is in reality means that they are hurting themselves by ignoring/fighting/demonising reality.
But now we get a bit more metaphysical. Sorry guys, hippy time…
Your head, your ego, your psyche, your sense of self, whatever, IS your reality. Certainly for most people, anyway. Fear only happens in your head. Happiness only happens in your head. Its simply our perspective that attaches meaning to the experiences that bring us these feelings and emotions. Mostly, it’s just stuff that happens. Good, bad, whatever. Things happen that are then filtered through our perspective so they are INTERPRETED as good/bad/whatever.
As always, some stuff is genuinely fucking bad. No argument. Bullying for one. Some stuff is genuinely awesome. A hot person hitting on you, for second.
But if we live life with our perspective removed from the reality of our situation in an extreme way, we do make it worse.
Acting like the world can’t and doesn’t affect you, being so desensitised to it and yourself, makes the reactions that your ego CAN’T control much, much worse.
Acting like the world is entirely about you and being hyper-sensitive to it make your emotional reactions to it much, much worse.
Reality is how you perceive it. How you respond to it. How do you interpret it, based on how you’re used to it treating you, and you treating it?
If your perception of reality is based entirely on those extremities, how much fun are you really having?
Said it before, I’ll say it again. Pay attention!
Are you ignoring reality at your own expense?
Are you over investing in your own version of reality, at you own expense?
To us, the outer world looks a certain way, based on our inner world. If you inner world is unacknowledged or heightened beyond reality, you outer world changes dramatically. If your outer world is viewed as irrelevant or too relevant to your sense of self, it doubles down on your inner worlds perspective.
We all do it. How far do you take it?
Be kind, be smart, be your best you. No bar fights.
“There are no facts, only interpretations.” Friedrich Nietzsche.
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