I am aware that to ask you to identify disturbing thoughts as an essential step toward cleansing your mind runs counter to current values. At the moment, our culture places great stock in the art of being disturbing.
This high regard extends even to books, plays, news specials, and the like. In reviews, a “deeply disturbing” movie or book is one that supposedly has meaning, depth, and relevance. Jolting musical groups, shocking talk shows, and volatile athletes are rewarded financially. Those public figures who coat themselves in adversarial rhetoric and polarizing opinions receive the media’s brightest spotlight. Ministers, teachers, and TV commentators often profess that they want their message to disturb. They say, “I want to shake the audience out of its apathy.” Their assumption is that the more they disturb their listeners, the more likely their listeners are to “use their minds.”
What About Stillness?
It is stillness, not disturbance, that plumbs the depths of our mind. If we want to know our deepest beliefs, hear our intuition, and remember our love for the people in our lives, agitated thoughts are of little use to us. Perhaps it was the recognition that Truth is seen only in stillness and that peace is experienced only in peace, which gave rise to the ancient Chinese curse, “May you live in interesting times.”
When we are disturbed we have the illusion of doing something meaningful. We think that our upset is an accomplishment in itself. For example, every newspaper has its editorial and op-ed sections. Those who read these regularly are often considered “deeper” thinkers than those who don’t. Yet few papers contain a section of equal length giving steps the reader can take toward solving the problems highlighted.
To the ego part of our mind, getting upset, deciding who to blame, or taking “a strong stand” is sufficient. Note that few people leave a disturbing movie determined to do something about the issue presented. They walk out animated to talk about it.
At present we are a people addicted to a good fight. We don’t particularly care where we have to go to find one. Watching or reading fictional conflicts is satisfying. Seeing reports of real ones is even better. But embroiling ourselves in one disturbance after another is best.
However, holding on to mental disturbance of any kind is of no benefit to you or anyone you love. Inner turmoil is a great cacophony that keeps you from hearing your real thoughts and experiencing your real feelings. Sweep it from your mind and the peace that takes its place is like the sounds of the morning, only this time, you are the gently rising sun, the opening leaves, the singing birds.
Letting Go of Relationship Battles You Aren’t Having
Perhaps nowhere else can our belief that being disturbed is a sufficient goal be seen more clearly than in our romantic relationships. The time and energy we spend vainly attempting to convince our partner that we are right is staggering. Even though arguing is a cooperative venture, few couples make a comparable effort, or any effort at all, to move their relationship past an issue. What they care about most is how tellingly they present their side of the schism.
For most of the hundreds of couples Gayle and I counsel each year, the disturbances between them are far more meaningful than their friendship. They speak of how upset they are, or how their upset is not being “honored,” or how their partner gets too upset or not upset enough, or how they are not allowed to be upset in the way they wish.
Much of their time away from each other is spent obsessing on their upsets. They read books and magazines and watch talk shows that dissect various kinds of upsets. The friends and relatives with whom they discuss all this invariably add upset on top of upset.
The generally preferred solution to relationship turmoil is to “bail.” The term bail or bail out originally meant to parachute from a disabled aircraft. The plane goes down but you land safely on your feet. Sounds great, but here again, human beings’ tendency to settle for mere appearances comes into play.
When people divorce, they may separate bodies, children, and finances, but rarely do they separate their minds from this failed relationship. Actually, most people do the opposite. They build a detailed case against their former partner and tell it to everyone, as if nourishing judgments, grievances, and grudges were a path to mental health and freedom. All they do is sharpen and plunge the damaging thoughts as deeply into their psyches as they can. As a result, they carry very powerful thoughts about what was done to them into their next relationship.
As a counselor, you sit there and listen to a woman yell at Stewart, her last partner, although Fred, her new partner, is the one she is looking at. And she doesn’t even know she’s doing this. You watch a young man relate to his mother when he thinks he’s relating to his girlfriend. Indeed, his relationship with his mother was a failed relationship, but he can’t see that the one he is in now doesn’t have to fail. These are emotion addictions in the truest sense. An old pattern is in place and the “addict” is a victim of his or her past, not the present.
It is quite sad to see how many relationship crises today are not about the relationship; they are about thoughts of old relationships. These couples don’t have a chance. They can’t even experience the potential of the new relationship because they aren’t in it.
Please understand that this cannot be helped as long as powerful thoughts about what went on with Stewart or with Mom are active. Somehow people believe it’s enough to recognize that they shouldn’t “carry baggage” into their new relationship. Yet their hands have convulsed and locked around the handles, and unless they become deeply aware, the baggage is now permanently a part of them.
The other side of this coin is that those who do become aware gain their freedom. No matter how powerfully you were influenced or damaged by any previous relationship, whether with parents, peers, or an ex-spouse, if you work diligently to bring the thoughts your mind still carries into full awareness, you eventually become free to choose how you will feel and act.
An example of how this process occurs naturally can be seen in how differently people act out the racial, sexual, financial, and other group prejudices they pick up in childhood. In each area of the country there are strong feelings against certain groups. The particular groups singled out differ from location to location, and many people who travel have been amused to hear almost identical criticisms directed at Native Americans in Santa Fe, Mexicans in Dallas, Koreans in L.A., and Puerto Ricans in New York. These groups are so unlike each other that obviously “the locals” are seeing their prejudices, not the groups.
Most likely, some form of prejudice was part of the atmosphere you took in daily, if not in your home, then in your neighborhood or the schools you attended. If you are like most people, your basic mindset contains echoes of those prejudices even today, regardless whether you see intellectually that they are unreasonable.
If you are hiring for your company and an applicant who is a member of the group that was disliked when you were a child walks through the door, your immediate impression of this person might very well be distorted by prejudice. By being aware of this attitude and knowing where it came from, you can quickly concentrate on not letting it continue to distort your view of someone who might very well be an asset to the company. If anything, your awareness motivates you to take pains to be especially fair with this person.
Another example concerns the generalized opinions men have about women, and that women have about men, which they laugh about and bemoan among themselves. When it comes to the individual they are dating, most people are conscious enough to set aside these attitudes and see the person clearly.
In both examples, I’m sure you know people who are sufficiently unconscious of their prejudices and let these thoughts affect their ability to see a job applicant or the person they are considering dating to the point that they pass up a good prospect. They actually think that the person before them is as flawed as the way they view the group from which this individual comes.
You can see that they are unaware of what is motivating them. Perhaps you have discovered that pointing out their mistake doesn’t work. It doesn’t work because they have to want to become aware, and they have to make the effort themselves.
The Tragic Effects Of Unconscious Motivation
Many people see the tragic effects of unconscious motivation all around them; still they won’t take the time to cleanse their minds of destructive pollutants. They may be aware of how often failed relationships have negative effects on the lives of their friends and acquaintances, yet they believe that somehow they are not similarly affected.
We may sense that we have not released an old relationship completely, but since this residue is in our mind—which can’t be seen—all that matters is that we talk as if we have. We make it plain to friends, relatives, and complete strangers that we’ll “never again have anything to do with” this former spouse or that former lover. We “can’t stomach them.” They “make us sick.” We “shudder at the thought” of them. We’re “lucky to be alive.” They “need help.” They’re “really very sick.” We “feel sorry” for them. We “pity” them. We’ve “learned our lesson.” “We’re “glad to be out of it.” We’re “never going to make that mistake again.”
Yet how can you believe that you were thrown into a fire and then believe you didn’t get burned? When you are burned, that part of the body becomes very sensitive to heat. In fact, it overreacts to heat. You can’t tolerate a degree of warmth that really is not harming you because it feels like it’s harming you. Your new partner isn’t doing what the old partner did, but it feels like she or he is.
After a failed relationship, your mind now has a number of burned places, places where you were yelled at, undercut, told you were crazy, betrayed, belittled, lied to, manipulated, or bullied. Anything that even looks like that, is that. Furthermore, if you believe it’s how you’re being treated again, you will act on that belief. You will destroy or cripple the new relationship.
If you take nothing else from this book, please take this:
If you believe it, you will act on it.
If you continue believing it, you will act on it again and again.
Of course it’s possible that it is happening all over again. Despite all the books that tell you that you keep “attracting” these kind of people, based on the twenty-five years Gayle and I have been counseling couples, that almost never is the case. There are definitely new conflicts, but these are not the old conflicts. Unfortunately, the new conflicts never get addressed.
So what do you do about the thoughts you have about your failed relationships? You expose the thoughts and let them go. This is true whatever the relationship was that failed—whether with a parent, sibling, lover, friend, or with the father or mother of your children.
Subtitles added by InnerSelf.
©2000, 2017 by Hugh Prather. All rights reserved.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher, Conari Press,
an imprint of Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC. www.redwheelweiser.com.
Article Source
The Little Book of Letting Go: Cleanse your Mind, Lift your Spirit, and Replenish your Soul
by Hugh Prather.
A simple 3-step process for shedding prejudices, preconceptions, and pre-judgments and facing each moment with openness and enthusiasm.
Click here for more info and/or to order this book.
About the Author
Hugh Prather was the author of more than 14 books. His first book, Notes to Myself, was first published in 1970, has sold over 5 million copies, and has been translated into ten languages. Hugh lived with Gayle, his wife of more than 30 years, in Tucson, Arizona. He was the resident minister at St. Francis in the Foothills United Methodist Church until his death in 2010.
