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Which way do you think you’d be more effective in dealing with something? Peaceful or stressful?
Katie and other practitioners of The Work of Byron Katie ask this question a lot.
Somehow we got it wired up that we’ll succeed if we tense up, ready to spring into action with thoughts like “Oh no!” instead of relaxing with acceptance of what is and thoughts like “Oh yes.” I’d say 99.9% of the time this isn’t the key to success. It’s more likely to be a fight, flight or freeze reaction, rather than a clear, relaxed response.
Most of the time it’s pretty obvious that a tense response blocks out information. It’s immediate tunnel vision. That is what a fight, flight or freeze response is supposed to do – focus us in case of an emergency. What emergency?!
Katie says, “When you argue with reality, you lose – but only always.”
The car broke down. Oh no!
My boyfriend broke up with me. How awful!
I have a headache. That’s terrible!
Our culture calls this sympathy. It’s not. It’s commiserating.
To co-miserate means “to join in misery.” Why? Why have extra miserable tunnel-visioned people?
“To empathize does not mean to join in suffering, for that is what you must refuse to understand.”
A Course in Miracles
Text, Chapter 16, 1st sentence, Page 330
Or, as Katie puts it:
“You move totally away from reality when you believe there is a legitimate reason to suffer.”
Byron Katie, “Loving What Is” page 288
We are taught that we aren’t being a good friend if we don’t join our friends in their suffering. Why debilitate both of us? Why cut ourselves off from our peace? Our knowing? Our power? Our present?
Denying with that “no” or “terrible” or “awful” won’t get the car fixed; it won’t get me on a bus. It won’t help me realize that I only want a relationship with someone who wants me and that there are other fish in the sea. It won’t lead me to take something for the headache or to stop eating or drinking things that may cause headaches. And it definitely won’t help me see the variety of choices I have available.
A lot of my friends tell me that I’ve got a lot of “courage.” That may be true. I prefer to frame it as perspective. I can’t think of too many things that it would be useful for me to deny.
When we’re relaxed with an “oh yes,” letting the truth of the situation in, we are far more likely to see a broader vision, more choices, and more peace. In fact, it seems to me that I actually have the resources to find more choices in the peace of “oh yes.”
Is there a time for tension, springing into action, and focus?
Of course there is, but it is a brief, limited occasional thing. This response is great if a mountain lion is heading my way. Most of our daily challenges are not remotely like the mountain lion, but we respond with “oh no” and freeze our thinking and our resources. It’s no wonder we stay stuck in our same old relationships, same old jobs, same old life and wonder why nothing changes.
There is no mountain lion.
The previous blog talks a lot about trauma. Many of us are stuck in old responses, including myself. That’s trauma. We may react to something n totally inappropriate ways out of habit due to some stuck thinking or stuck feelings that we internalized and have never questioned.
All of the Shampoo Methods are about questioning these and finding what is.
I’ve heard people express the fear that if they just accept everything with the “oh yes,” or another open, positive response, that they will succumb to inertia and never get up off the couch.
Is that true?
Far from it. When we do act, it will be more peaceful and more intuitive. We can sit on the couch until something moves us and the next thing we know, we’re fixing lunch or going to the store or calling a friend.
“A healed mind does not plan.”
A Course in Miracles
A healed mind does not have to plan. Instead of blocking the creative impulses, we just do what’s next.
Love, Ann
