I explained to my lover, Jill, last night that we each have an internal story about who we are and what we like, what we do, etc. We both have a story about the other person, as well. When we get along, it is partly because we are believing our own internal story about the other person… which is incomplete and false in many ways.
Then, when the other person does something that flies in the face of the story we are telling ourselves, “she’s getting better at … (some thing I/she wants changed)” and suddenly she does the same thing that upsets us again, we are jarred back to reality.
Jill has accused me of being unpredictable. I’m not, really. Sometimes nothing is going on that challenges her inner story about me, but when I do or say something that reminds her of the reality of me,she (or I, or both, depending) get upset because now reality isn’t matching our story or our expectations.
I didn’t say this part to her, and maybe I should connect this dot, but what we do is think the *other person* has been lying, when, in fact, it was we who were lying to ourselves *about* them. We mistakenly blame the other person, when the truth of who they are was in front of us all along. (Note: this says nothing about the content of what they are or are not being, doing or saying that upset us – the truth is that they are fine the way they are. It doesn’t matter how we want them to be different. Each of us thinks we have the “only right way,” even when we are educated and open-minded and think we know better. It is our nature. We evolved to believe we were right. See “On Being Certain” by Robert Burton.)
Can you see what I’m saying?
In fact, this is the source of all of our upsets about others. We blame them for not meeting our expectations, when, actually, we were lying to ourselves believing they would always meet our expectations, and of course, they won’t.
That’s why “no blame” works and nothing else does.
Love,
Ann
“Reality is kinder than your thinking – but only always.”
– Byron Katie, Loving What Is
Ann's Tale 