The Gates of Perception by Raffyka
Assignment: Today, notice how conditioned mind creates problems. Ask yourself, "If I didn't experience this as a problem, would it be one?"
Starting today I will using this forum to explore the amazing Transform Your Life - A Year of Awareness Practice by Cheri Huber App. Typically I just open it and read it, but I thought to get the full effect, I should truly think about each one. So I will take a few minutes each day to do so here.
So much of what we perceive to be problematic is merely that - a perception. It is a fantasy fallacy that we create beyond the presented, an interpretation of events, a construct of our own imagination. And in this fantasy, we distort - manipulating a situation until we are convinced in our mind of its truth. Yet, though this becomes very real to us, it may be very far from reality and in this way we allow circumstances to create problems from what is essentially thin air.
Perhaps this stems from our need for drama - a need I do not entirely understand yet am acutely aware of. Or perhaps it comes from the inability most of us possess to not take things personally. Perhaps it differs for each of us. But I cannot help but wonder at the truth of the statement - If I refuse to stew, validate, misrepresent and assume… If I can stop myself from seeing things as a problem, an affront, a personal assault, then can I essentially remove "problems" from my reality?
Certainly things will happen in life. People die - they are murdered, violated, duped, challenged. These present problem that are very much real. But the next layer, the problems we create for ourselves through misinterpretation, miscommunication, misunderstanding, and mistake- these are perhaps very much avoidable.
Don Miguel Ruiz asserts in The Four Agreements that the seemingly basic principle of "Do not take it personally" rules much of our lives. We, as the center of our own personal narrative, often take personally things that have nothing to do with us. If someone mistreats us, we begin to think "what have I done to deserve this, why don't they like me, what can I do to make them treat me better" when in reality the actions of another have little to do with us and are nearly entirely if not completely the result of another person's conditioning, their understanding of their own reality. This one of the four agreements is the one I struggle with most - the one I must remind myself of on a daily basis in hopes of minimizing these self-generated problematic situations.
I love, and another does not love me back in the way I desire. Is this my fault? NO.
Can it be that I have not expressed my desire, yes.
Can it be that they are incapable of providing me with what I need, yes.
Can it be that I am unworthy? No.
If someone hurts me, this is partially my fault - not that they have acted in a way that hurt me, but in the way that I have allowed them to treat me poorly, or have allowed their treatment of me to reflect in my own view of my self worth. If I take it personally, I feel pain, and I now have created for myself a VERY REAL problem which only serves to hurt me further and has minimal impact on the doer of the deed. Why then, would I allow this person's issues to make me feel somehow less than I am? If I have been wonderful, treated someone with love and respect and they turn around and spurn me, ignore me, dismiss me… then I have done nothing wrong. And I do not have to let them continue to treat me so disdainfully, so discourteously because in truth, I am far more valuable and I do not deserve it.
The crux of the issue is this: Experience. If I experience something as a problem, then that problem becomes very real to me and it has the power, the possibility to tear me apart from the inside. If instead, I experience something for what it is - without judgment or pain, then I can acknowledge the circumstances and move beyond it without generating for myself new issues that I can never truly conquer because they aren't mine to begin with.
With Love,
Michelle
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