One of the most important paradigm shifts is to embrace and accept reality. Reality simply is. It is not affected by my attitude about it. It is not changed by my thoughts about it. However, the way we view Reality determines how well we can embrace Love, Joy, and Peace.
When we refuse to accept reality, we choose, consciously or unconsciously, to allow negativity into our lives. We are convinced that our thoughts and emotions about something is simply true and justified. Our ego leads us in this illusion. Eckhart Tolle writes,
“A person in the grip of ego, however, does not recognize suffering as suffering, but will look upon it as the only appropriate response in any given situation. The ego in its blindness is incapable of seeing the suffering it inflicts on itself and on others…the negative states such as anger, anxiety, hatred, resentment, discontent, envy, jealousy, and so on are not recognized as negative but as totally justified and are further misperceived not as self-created but as caused by someone else or some external factor.”
If the weather turns rainy and cold, we call it “bad weather” without realizing that the weather is not “bad”. It is what it is. What is so debilitating is our reaction to reality. Shakespeare wrote, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” “Whenever we are in a negative state, there is something within us that wants the negativity, that perceives it as pleasurable, or that believes it will get you what you want.” (Tolle)
Shakespeare
“There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
Negativity is also present in many common forms such as being perplexed or being “fed up” with something or someone. Irritation with life (with reality) creates an underlying fundamental unhappiness and resentment. This state is fueled by fear – fear of how reality wants to hurt us and keep us down. Depression feeds off of this perspective. Thoughts seem to drag us down and manipulate our emotions and feelings. We become “victims of life”, pawns, or puppets on a set of strings pulled by someone or something. This confusion with reality is orchestrated by our egos and then it tells us, “Well, that is just who you are. You can’t really change your reality. Others may, but not you.” Sometimes the ego (that voice in our head) says, “Maybe at some point in the future I can be at peace, if this or that happens.” Or it may say, “I can never find peace because of what has happened to me.” In this state we exist and bring to all around us our creation of hell on earth.
The only answer to all of this is to find peace with the present moment. Tolle says, “There are three words that convey the secret of the art of living, the secret of all success and happiness: One with Life. Being One with Life is being one with the Now. You then realize that you don’t live your life, but life lives you. Life is the dancer, and you are the dance.”
Personally, I finally became convinced that my perception of the life I was leading, had experienced, or would be my future was an illusion. Up until that point I was convinced by my logic and my view of reality. But when I let go of this illusion I found myself as a partner of Life, not an adversary of it. I still had things that didn’t go “my way”. But through acceptance, forgiveness, and most of all, Love, I took more and more steps out of my established patterns of reactions, emotions and thoughts and found myself aligning more and more with the Life that God has designed for all of mankind. I wanted to judge everything, especially the stuff that happened. Not through one heroic act, but holding on to the simple truth of accepting reality as it is, I became more and more aware of the debilitation and underlying anger that had fueled my negativity and I choose one thing at a time to break free.
The first words I heard from Jesus, as an atheist, are in John 14, verse 18. My journey is embracing real trust and a confidence that neither God nor Life is out to get me. We have no reason to fear, we are One with God. And the message of Jesus actually being in us and giving us everything we need to live in Peace and Joy and Love is contained in these words of hope:
I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. …The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them. ~John 14:18-21
All this I have spoken while still with you. 26 But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. ~John 14:25-27
“Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” ~Mat 6:34
“The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.” ~Rom 8:6
Mark Nepo writes:
We begin so aware and grateful. The sun somehow hangs there in the sky. The little birds sing. The miracle of life just happens. Then we stub our toe, and in that moment of pain, the whole world is reduced to our poor little toe. Now for a day or two, it is difficult to walk. With every step, we are reminded of our poor little toe.
It is the giving over to smallness that opens us to misery. In truth, we begin taking nothing for granted, grateful that we have enough to eat, that we are well enough to eat. But somehow, through the living of our days, our focus narrows like a camera that shutters down, cropping out the horizon, and one day we're miffed at a diner because the eggs are runny or the hash isn’t seasoned just the way we like.
When we narrow our focus, the problem seems everything. We forget when we were lonely, dreaming of a partner. We forget first beholding the beauty of another. We forget the comfort of first being seen and held and heard. When our view shuts down, we're up in the night annoyed by the way our lover pulls the covers or leaves the dishes in the sink without soaking them.
In actuality, misery is a moment of suffering allowed to become everything. So, when feeling miserable, we must look wider than what hurts. When feeling a splinter, we must, while trying to remove it, remember there is a body that is not splinter, and a spirit that is not a splinter, and a world that is not splinter.
