recently with a couple who are trying to sell their house and move across the country. The woman looked nearly panicked as she relayed the couple’s pretty constant and consuming fear of all the ways this house sale could go wrong, or just not happen at all. I floated the idea that rather than trying to manage the fear, or worse, trying to manage the unmanageable circumstances surrounding the house deal, instead, she and he might reflect on what the fear does for them. She looked at me quizzically.
I tried to clarify. Ask yourself what you get out of running the possible nightmares through your head. What you get out of that. While you’re at it, notice how bad it makes you feel.
She said, What do you think we get out of being afraid?
I said that sometimes running the awful possible scenarios can feel weirdly better than just allowing as how you really have no idea what is going to happen. Her eyes became huge circles then.
Oh my God, she said, turning to look at her husband. That’s the ultimate nightmare — not knowing! She had just gotten something.
The ultimate nightmare also turns out to be the truth. We really don’t know what’s going to happen — with the sale of the house, with the timing of death. Spinning scenarios protects a person from the terrible not-knowing. But it turns out to be terrible only when it is not allowed. Recognizing the truth of the deep incentive to lie to self — to invent scenarios, to pretend you’ll live forever — can be a wonderful starting place on the road to a more peaceful daily existence.
If you can deeply allow as how I just don’t know, and sink into that, you may find you feel some peace about the whole thing. Simply because you have lined yourself up with the real, with what you know to be the truth. You have stopped asking yourself to believe a lie: that the future is knowable or controllable.
The peace may surprise you. After all, it’s the last place you ever expected to find it.
Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.
Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».
Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.
Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.
