This post is part of a "series" on my exploration of the pieces and parts of Trust.
I believe our emotional responses go something like this: I have a thought about something. It triggers a feeling. That emotion is NOT universal. It is
unique to me and my experience/perspectives. This unique emotional response triggers another thought, which triggers another emotion. Eventually I come up with (what I call) a"story" to try and make meaning of the emotion/thought pattern (this is bad; I am a victim; I am justified in my hurt; I "deserve" better; I've been betrayed; others "should" this or that) . Usually I assign meaning that supports past stories. Eventually I build a personality that responds to the world through my internal anthology of those stories. (There are chemicals involved there, too, but I won't begin to go into that because it complicates things beyond the scope of a blog post).
Although it's sometimes difficult to separate the two, it's important to remember that the story
is not the feeling.
Feelings/emotions are pure and generally pass quickly if we allow that purity of expression without attaching our meanings and stories to them. It's the stories about the emotions that keep them alive in us, whether happy or sad. It's the stories which feed and continue to support beliefs we have about ourselves- needs, desires, met or not, which then create more emotions in a never ending loop.
When we're in pain, this loop of feelings, beliefs and meanings keeps us stuck. Unfortunately, there we are in the middle of the stories of our buttons and core issues and we don't/can't recognize them. We believe the stories are "true" because they've been a part of us for so long.
On a number of blogs, including this one, the question of whether we can truly change has been asked.
It's my belief that we can. The process is simple but not easy: we have to change the story. We have to
choose to reframe it (whether one emotion or our entire personality, bit by bit) from a different perspective.
We created our meanings and our stories.
We keep them alive by reinforcing them. Only we have the power to transmute them. When the story changes, the thought changes. When the thought changes, the emotional response to the emotions change. Eventually, the emotion changes.
It does work.It takes consciousness. It takes time.
Why does it take time? It is my experience
thatwe areso investedin the story behind the core issue/meaning that we cling to it's "truth," even though it brings us tremendous pain. We forget that Truth is malleable and subject to interpretation
."But it's TRUUUUEEEE...I've been huuuuuuurrrt, unfaired against!!!! and I can give you example after example of real life meanies that hurt meeeeeee."
Yes, I see your hurt, I understand your heart is in pain. Fuck...I know this is difficult....my heart goes out to you...I so understand it's fucking awful. I do. I've been there. I know this. I've cried, I've been stuck, I'm ashamed of myself for being weak. I send you hugs...
And...
Both you and I have been hurt because of the meanings we created about our experience.
Do you want to remain in pain? What are you committed to? Is it more important for you to cling to the "rightness" of your stories or it is more important to heal?
I believe that when the core issue that's being reframed is Big, it can take time to shift because of resistance to change. We stay stuck in self destructive emotional loops because although the repeating pattern is painful, at least it is a "comfortable" pain because it's known.
The unknown and what Change will require of us scares us even more. Perhaps we'll be required to look in the mirror at pieces and parts of ourselves that we don't want to see. Perhaps we'll have to be stronger than we feel, step out more than we're used to, admit our darkness and the ways we hurt others. Wow....maybe we'll be required to believe in our magnificence!!!???!!!
Being the scientist of the inner world that I am, I ask the questions of the energetics of it all...why the fuck we do it this way. Perhaps we have never gotten out of that thing that babies do. All my kids and grandkids flip out before some huge developmental milestone. They won't sleep, they get clingy, they are touchy and "misbehave." Then...just about the time I'm sure I'll kill them, they magically shift and can either crawl or start to speak clearly and are the most adorable creatures on the planet.
Or...it could be that maybe the pain of our stories gets bigger and bigger to
force us to shift (because really in our heart of hearts we want to). Maybe emotional chaos is simply a requisite step to emotional change. Is it the attachments to our stories (that keep us safe and which we cling to out of understandable fear) that determine the longevity of our pain? I believe so. Letting go of control of all we've believed, allowing a shifting of our future identity takes great courage. Sometimes we're ready to make the shift, sometimes we're not.
And that would be my story.
I believe our emotional responses go something like this: I have a thought about something. It triggers a feeling. That emotion is NOT universal. It is unique to me and my experience/perspectives. This unique emotional response triggers another thought, which triggers another emotion. Eventually I come up with (what I call) a"story" to try and make meaning of the emotion/thought pattern (this is bad; I am a victim; I am justified in my hurt; I "deserve" better; I've been betrayed; others "should" this or that) . Usually I assign meaning that supports past stories. Eventually I build a personality that responds to the world through my internal anthology of those stories. (There are chemicals involved there, too, but I won't begin to go into that because it complicates things beyond the scope of a blog post).
Although it's sometimes difficult to separate the two, it's important to remember that the story is not the feeling.
Feelings/emotions are pure and generally pass quickly if we allow that purity of expression without attaching our meanings and stories to them. It's the stories about the emotions that keep them alive in us, whether happy or sad. It's the stories which feed and continue to support beliefs we have about ourselves- needs, desires, met or not, which then create more emotions in a never ending loop.
When we're in pain, this loop of feelings, beliefs and meanings keeps us stuck. Unfortunately, there we are in the middle of the stories of our buttons and core issues and we don't/can't recognize them. We believe the stories are "true" because they've been a part of us for so long.
On a number of blogs, including this one, the question of whether we can truly change has been asked.
It's my belief that we can. The process is simple but not easy: we have to change the story. We have to choose to reframe it (whether one emotion or our entire personality, bit by bit) from a different perspective.
We created our meanings and our stories. We keep them alive by reinforcing them. Only we have the power to transmute them. When the story changes, the thought changes. When the thought changes, the emotional response to the emotions change. Eventually, the emotion changes.
It does work.It takes consciousness. It takes time.
Why does it take time? It is my experience thatwe areso investedin the story behind the core issue/meaning that we cling to it's "truth," even though it brings us tremendous pain. We forget that Truth is malleable and subject to interpretation .
"But it's TRUUUUEEEE...I've been huuuuuuurrrt, unfaired against!!!! and I can give you example after example of real life meanies that hurt meeeeeee."
Yes, I see your hurt, I understand your heart is in pain. Fuck...I know this is difficult....my heart goes out to you...I so understand it's fucking awful. I do. I've been there. I know this. I've cried, I've been stuck, I'm ashamed of myself for being weak. I send you hugs...
And...
Both you and I have been hurt because of the meanings we created about our experience.
Do you want to remain in pain? What are you committed to? Is it more important for you to cling to the "rightness" of your stories or it is more important to heal?
I believe that when the core issue that's being reframed is Big, it can take time to shift because of resistance to change. We stay stuck in self destructive emotional loops because although the repeating pattern is painful, at least it is a "comfortable" pain because it's known.
The unknown and what Change will require of us scares us even more. Perhaps we'll be required to look in the mirror at pieces and parts of ourselves that we don't want to see. Perhaps we'll have to be stronger than we feel, step out more than we're used to, admit our darkness and the ways we hurt others. Wow....maybe we'll be required to believe in our magnificence!!!???!!!
Being the scientist of the inner world that I am, I ask the questions of the energetics of it all...why the fuck we do it this way. Perhaps we have never gotten out of that thing that babies do. All my kids and grandkids flip out before some huge developmental milestone. They won't sleep, they get clingy, they are touchy and "misbehave." Then...just about the time I'm sure I'll kill them, they magically shift and can either crawl or start to speak clearly and are the most adorable creatures on the planet.
Or...it could be that maybe the pain of our stories gets bigger and bigger to force us to shift (because really in our heart of hearts we want to). Maybe emotional chaos is simply a requisite step to emotional change. Is it the attachments to our stories (that keep us safe and which we cling to out of understandable fear) that determine the longevity of our pain? I believe so. Letting go of control of all we've believed, allowing a shifting of our future identity takes great courage. Sometimes we're ready to make the shift, sometimes we're not.
And that would be my story.