Assumptions and Beliefs November 8, 2011
Posted by gerrystarnes in General, Learnings, Relationship.Tags: authenticity, life
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I was recently reminded that one of the problems with assumptions is that they are always based on your beliefs, most of which are not accurate. You may believe you know someone, but you may very well be completely wrong.
Assumptions are assertions of your belief system reinforcing itself. When you make an assumption about someone, event, or action, it is always based on what you already believe about that person or life in general. When you accept that assumption and act on it, you reinforce whatever is the underlying belief. However, if you question the assumption, you also have an opportunity to examine the belief–or beliefs–on which it is based.
Realistic Assumptions
Of course some assumptions are helpful and necessary. You may safely assume, for example, that the sun will rise every morning. You can count on it without having to question the underlying personal belief. You can also assume that if you lose your balance past a certain point, you will fall; and if you get hit by a car, you will most likely be injured. These natural assumptions about the effects of gravity and motion are very reliable.
We call these assumptions “scientific facts” or “universal laws” about how the universe at large works. These kinds of natural, reliable assumptions are, of course, based on beliefs shared by the vast majority of people on the planet. They have been tested for thousands of years.
You can also assume that if you follow a particular route in your travels, you will eventually arrive at your destination. Homes, offices, towns, and cities generally do not move from their location. However, you can sometimes get off track, perhaps miss a turn or a landmark, and if you do not check your assumption about where you are, you may miss your destination and possibly get lost.
However, there are no “universal laws” about people.
Judgements
When you judge someone, most often you are measuring them or their actions against your own underlying beliefs about how people are or “should” be. Of course, you assume that your view of the world is correct and that the person “should” behave or believe differently than they do. And you may feel offended and perhaps angry.
Being angry at someone often indicates that you believe they should behave differently, that they should be more like you. That assumption is not true. They should be exactly as they are, of course. It is YOUR belief that would better be questioned.
Making judgements about people tells more about you and your beliefs than it does about others. As a result, examining what you judge can be helpful in tracking down your own limiting beliefs.
Beliefs About People
One of the most troublesome problems with assumptions has to do with communication and interaction with people. People are very complex. They change all the time; they are seldom static. They flow with the state of their emotions; they change based on experience; and over time they become completely different.
Yet because of how your operating system works, it is generally easier to assume that “people never change” or your partner “always acts that way.” In fact, if you really pay attention and challenge that belief, you will find it is simply not true.
We explored in a previous article that reality is filtered. Once you hold a particular belief, your entire operating system goes to work to prove that it is true. This happens not only in how you think, but also all the way down to perception. Sometimes, you literally do not perceive things that conflict with your beliefs.
In an argument, for example, consider that you may not be hearing correctly. It could be that your entire translation of the sounds that you hear may be wrong because you are actually hearing different inflections — and possibly even missing or adding words — than the person intends. You assume that you already know what the person is saying and what they mean, and you hear what you expect, no matter what is really being said!
When you find yourself in situations like these, when you catch yourself in the middle of an argument or feel unable to communicate, stop talking. Take time to really listen instead.
Family Beliefs
Almost everyone has the experience as an adult of returning home for the holidays and being treated like a teenager or being misunderstood. This happens because the family expects you to act and think as you were the last time they saw you, or the last time you lived at home. The beliefs they have of you have not changed, but you have.
In a large family, the pressure to be someone you no longer are can be very intense, because each person has a different recollection of who you were. Your parents see you one way, your siblings another. Cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents all remember you differently and expect you to have remained the same. You would have to be a neurotic chameleon to meet all those demands, so you wind up getting exhausted.
And it may be that you believe the family has not changed when actually they have. Consider, too, that your perception based on assumptions and beliefs about them may not be accurate.
These same dynamics occur to some extent in all of your relationships with others. The vision you hold of all your friends and relations is subject to the same interplay of beliefs and reinforcing assumptions.
Changing Beliefs, Becoming New
If you are committed to changing old patterns and becoming genuine in your relationships with others, it is a good idea to consider your own assumptions and how they reflect your beliefs about the world. Expect that you will be shown those invalid beliefs.
Do your best to know who you are and to be grounded in that knowledge. When you can stand in who you are when everyone around you insists you be otherwise, you find an inner strength emerges. Not that it is easy to remain solid in the face of demands that you be otherwise! It is the difficulty in doing so that helps you to be stronger and to better know yourself.
Pay attention to your judgements and what you think about other people. Listen to what you tell yourself, as well. Remember, you have beliefs and make assumptions about yourself as well as others. Test those old assumptions, especially the negative ones, to find the beliefs on which they are based.
Change your thoughts, change yourself.
Wolves in the Woods December 7, 2009
Posted by gerrystarnes in General, Healing, Learnings.Tags: life, love, risk
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Footprints in deep snow,
Surrounded by woods,
The moon bright overhead,
Lights the wet white carpet.There are wolves in the woods.
They make no sound,
Yet they are there in the dark,
Watching between the trees.
Tingling flesh, racing heart, shallow breath: is it excitement or fear? The body cannot tell the difference.
Toes on the knife-edge precipice,
Wind gusting at your back.
Skidding just beyond control,
Useless steering wheel.
Wolves in the woods on a frozen winter night.
In the moment, we rarely get to choose. It happens; we are in it. We respond beyond thinking from that deep place. It is like a predilection: programing running just beneath the surface, installed by someone else, by the past.
A loved one revealed something recently that drove down into that place with a long, cold blade so swift there was no time to think, to reflect, to choose. Thought whirled around the numb bubble that encased it, believing it was OK, that the wound was not as serious as it might have been.
When the numbness dissolved, the body responded with an overwhelming mood that reflected the weather outside: cold, gray, raining, inescapable.
Close the door. Bolt and seal it.
Hungry wolves cannot enter where there are no windows.
I lay in that dark place with the sensations – racing heart, buzzing nerves, restless hyper-awareness – trying to feel my way through the panic and confusion. Alone with the wolves.
Two sides showed themselves: the fear of letting go of a belief no longer tenable, and the excitement of letting go of a belief no longer tenable. The body did not know the difference. It was up to me – to my Soul, not my helpless mind/body – as to which interpretation I would choose to attach.
The programming can be overwritten, the curse removed, the imprint erased. Step by step, choice by choice.
Run quickly out of the woods,
or walk in full awareness
into the maelstrom that Love has prepared.
I may survive into a new level of Joy, or I may be torn into ten thousand pieces that I must gather, heal, and re-member myself again. I am not helpless. An act of Courage is the purest expression of Freedom.
A warm, excited heartbeat,
Aware, yet unafraid moves steadily;
A brother wolf who walks upright,
Just passing through.
(Original artwork by Kevin Vinson. Used by permission.)
Risk Is Life October 23, 2009
Posted by gerrystarnes in Healing, Learnings.Tags: life, love, risk
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From Conscious Dancer, an article on Vin Marti clearly expresses the challenge and opportunity of taking a chance in life:
“Let’s remember that to love is to risk not being loved in return. To live is to risk dying. To hope is to risk despair. To try is to risk failure. But risk we must, because a greater hazard would be to risk nothing. Only a person who risks is free.”
Some people are immobilized by the very idea of relationships, much less intimacy. Having been hurt and betrayed in the past – perhaps many times – the fear of rejection became paralyzing. And yet, feeling alone and empty, they longed for significant connection to another.
Relationships require courage. They are rarely easy and one is always vulnerable to the unexpected. We take into them all our past hurts as well as past joys, all our history as well as our hopes and expectations. This is true, not only for long-term significant relationships, but also for the shorter-term friendships, and brief connections of any kind.
There is no “safe” way to do life. Each action requires courage in the face of risk, as Vin says: of failure, of rejection, of despair, of death itself.
Certainly, one must also be cautious. The skydiver makes careful choices and prepares for the unexpected. Only when all systems are “Go” does he make that leap. In that moment, in that free-fall into the unknown, is exhilaration and the excitement of being fully alive. It is the risk that makes the jump worthwhile.
As a dancer, or artist, or teacher, or parent, or any of the other personas that we wear in everyday life, we must risk in order to Live. And really, the only choice for those who seek Freedom is to embrace risk in the face of fear, and cast ourselves full-on into the moment.
“One must Risk in order to be Free.”
