THE
FUNDAMENTAL ILLUSION: BLAMING OUR FEELINGS ON OTHERS
©
Dick Rauscher
"Why is it that most
people are simply unable to stay happy?"
The desire to be
happy has been described throughout history as the single most important
motivator of human behavior. No other human desire receives more attention
and energy than the pursuit of inner peace and happiness. And yet,
despite the enormous energy most of us expend searching for happiness,
it continues to remain the most illusive of all our human emotions.
Why is it so hard
to simply be happy; to live a happy life?"
I have spent a significant
part of my professional career in psychotherapy wrestling with this
question. In fact, it was my own frustrated quest for happiness that
finally led me into my own personal therapy, and it certainly has been
one of the primary goals of virtually every client in my practice over
the last twenty years.
There are a number
of things that cause us to be unhappy, but I have come to believe that
the primary cause of unhappiness is the simple belief that other people
and events create our feelings. I call this false belief the fundamental
illusion. It is a very dangerous belief if our goal is intimacy and
happiness. In fact, this universally accepted belief is the artesian
spring from which the muddy waters of unhappiness have poured since
the birth of the first human mind.
In other words,
if happiness is our goal, challenging the fundamental illusion by learning
to own our own feelings, is beyond a doubt, one of the most important
spiritual practices we must master on our life journey. Simply stated,
no person and no event have the ability to make us feel any emotion
that isn't already inside of us.
We challenge the
fundamental illusion when we begin to recognize that the overwhelming
majority of our feelings come from our childhood and other early life
experiences. When we discover that our day-to-day life experiences
can only remind us of the powerlessness, the hurts, and the fears of
childhood.
To illustrate the
fallacy of the fundamental Illusion, I ask my clients to take the Snake
and the Rabbit test with me. I pretend to reach behind me to pull out
an imaginary snake. Then, without warning, I pretend to hold it right
up close to their face. I ask them what they are feeling? Most people
admit that if my snake were real, it would scare them.
Then I put my imaginary
snake away and pull out an imaginary little baby rabbit. Again I hold
it right up close to them and ask them how they feel. Most respond
by saying how cute it is and then humorously ask if they can hold it.
Just to be certain,
I put the rabbit away and pull out the imaginary snake again. They
affirm again that I am indeed able to scare them with my imaginary
snake. I point out to them that I was unable to scare them with my
baby rabbit because they obviously have no fear of baby rabbits anywhere
in their memory.
The purpose of the
test is simple. It illustrates clearly that I simply do not have the
power to scare them with my imaginary snake unless they already have
a fear of snakes somewhere in their memory. In other words, it illustrates
that I do not have the power to scare them with my imaginary snake,
but I can easily remind them of a fear of snakes that they already
have.
Thus, to summarize,
if it's not already in our memory, no one can make us feel anything.
Unless there is a real physical threat to us, the people and events
in our life are not creating the feelings we are experiencing, they
are only reminding us of feelings and memories we already possess.
This is a very difficult truth to fully embrace in day-to-day life,
but it is indeed a reality.
When our goal is
happiness, we must develop the skill of owning our own feelings. Until
we do, we will continue to be unhappy and helpless. Powerless victims
to the hurtful behavior of the people and events in our lives.
Dropping the fundamental
illusion and learning to embrace reality will eventually lead to happiness,
but embracing change is often frightening. Sometimes change can mean
that we will no longer fit so comfortably in our community or culture.
It can even lead to the judgment and rejection of friends and family.
I try to illustrate
to clients how difficult it can be to let go of cultural accepted beliefs.
I remind them that had they lived in the middle ages, they would have
grown up believing that the world is flat. Everyone in that culture
knew that the world was flat. They would have accepted without question
the idea that if you rowed a boat to the horizon, you would fall off
the edge of the world. Had someone tried to suggest that the world
was actually round, they would no doubt have thought that he or she
was literally crazy.
It's hard for us
today to believe that at one time people actually believed the world
was flat, but this was indeed a commonly accepted belief in the middle
ages.
The fundamental illusion
is a very similar modern-day "flat world" belief. In our culture, virtually
everyone assumes the fundamental illusion to be an accurate belief.
We blame our feelings on the weather, the government, taxes, our spouses,
our children, our boss, the fact that we didn't get a raise, the stress
of too much to do, not enough money..the list is endless. It's like
a sad country and western melody we walk around humming called "I'll
be happy when________". Sadly, most of us are experts on getting ready
to be happy, but we never quite seem to get there.
Besides unhappiness,
there are two additional hurtful side effects that result from accepting
the fundamental illusion as truth. The first is a deep feeling of powerlessness
and anxiety. Because we have no real control of anything other than
our own behaviors and attitudes, the fundamental illusion leaves our
ego emotionally at the mercy of the entire universe. It's no wonder
we feel frightened, unhappy and depressed.
The second wounding
side effect of the fundamental illusion is called blame. When we are
blaming, our ability to create a safe intimacy with others is severely
impaired. When we blame others for our feelings, they experience us
as both critical and hurtful. Even dangerous. But because they too
believe in the fundamental illusion, they quickly blame us for making
them feel criticized. We of course insist that it was them who hurt
us. And so the conflict grows.
This cycle of mutual
blame caused by the fundamental illusion soon leaves us lonely and
cut off from the very people we turn to for our intimacy needs; our
friends, our families, our spouses, and our children.
Until we learn to
own our own feelings, we will continue to bring conflict and suffering
into the world. We will continue to create our own loneliness and unhappiness.
The enemy is not our neighbor; it is our own false beliefs.
When the Fundamental
Illusion is replaced by reality, our work becomes curiosity; learning
to ask the question, "I wonder where this feeling energy is coming
from within me?". In other words, our inner-work begins to shift from
angry, powerless blaming to a less-reactive internal exploration of
the various feelings that we experience from moment to moment.
When the fundamental
illusion is replaced by reality, we no longer need our old defensive
counter-attacks and blame. Paradoxically, we become non-reactive and
more compassionate of others pain and suffering when we no longer accept
responsibility for their feelings.
When the fundamental
illusion is replace by reality, we begin to grow spiritually. We begin
to live more authentically and to experience the happiness that has
always been ours to experience. The mystics remind us that when our
lives are grounded in reality, we are able to experience all the happiness
there is.
What we put out into
the world is our karma. What we give to the universe we will get back
multiplied. As a species, we must learn to be responsive and less re-active.
Our karma is too often that of pain and suffering for those around
us.
To have a compassionate
world it is necessary for us to learn to have appropriate subjective
emotional responses to the objective experiences of our lives. In other
words, we have to learn to stop over-reacting to things that we experience.
This skill begins
to develop automatically when we learn to own our own feelings and
focus our attention on the beam in our own eye before we worry about
the speck in our neighbor's.
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