Are You Lying To Yourself? I was.

During our most recent podcast How to Survive Earth School recording (available on Itunes and Soundcloud), I had an epiphany of sorts with the help of Janice and Christine D.

While I do this work, and feel like I have gotten so much better recognizing my old programs when they begin to run, I am realizing that I am still operating on really basic underlying truths that tend to always be playing in the background while my awareness is distracted.

Typically, when this happens, it's because something has upset me.  But rather than move from this feeling of being upset or hurt, I move directly into anger at the supposed perpetrator of this transgression.

Why don't they know what they did?  Why do they continue to do this despite my asking them not to?  Why don't they listen to me?

This inevitably leads me to my programs, which take these thoughts into the realm of absolutes.


People don't care.  I'm unlovable or there's something wrong with me.  People do not listen.

While I have gotten so much better, particularly in the area of feeling not listened to, and not taking things personally when people do things that feel inconsiderate; I realized that my awareness and recognition is limited to specific acts that I have just begun to recognize.  But, there are some other things that are falling through the cracks.

What are these?  The tend to have to do a lot with not belonging, abandonment, and the home.

While I am doing so well at not taking things personally from friends, family, career, and even relationships; when it gets into an arena that activates my fear of abandonment, not belonging, or my home space; it really begins to unravel my well formed identity.

Particularly in my home life, I have been taking it for granted that the people you live with simply will not care about how what they do will impact you.

Saying it out loud this last week really hit home just how apart of my understanding of the world this concept was.  I never even gave it a second thought these last couple of years working with Janice.

It's so bizarre for me to still be finding these hidden beliefs stuck in the mud of my fears.  I suppose some things simply just take time to rise to the surface so that you can deal with them.  While this may be a small thing, it really isn't.  I was dedicating so much time to feeling angry, to feeling hurt, and to feeling resentful all while feeling like there was simply nothing I could do about it.

While I haven't perfected asking for what I want, I have gotten alot better at it.  What I am still working at, and which is coming a bit slower for me, is letting people know how I feel.

I don't know why this is so hard.  I suppose because it feels like the ultimate test of someone's caring for you.  If you say how you feel and nothing changes?  Well, then they obviously don't care.

But change takes time, and so many people are stuck in their own illusion - their own programs - that to continuously take another's behavior as a reflection on you is almost insane.

Learning to remind people, gently, when they've dropped back into their old routines is a wonderful way to keep things from turning into a button pressing game.

Rather than get your hackles up, and begin to create an argument or defense in your mind; look for a way to discuss your feelings in a non-confrontational way.

The reason discussions devolve into confrontations is because somewhere we, or the other person, believes that they are not entitled to their feelings or else they are afraid that the person won't care or listen to what they say.  Practice slowly, and reiterate your caring for the other.  It's ok to not always see eye to eye, but compromise is a gift and should be employed whenever and towards whatever thing you need to resolve.  Not discussing the problem is no longer an option.  It will grow and grow until it consumes you and it's all you think about.  Is someone leaving dirty dishes in the sink really worth all that?

So, in conclusion.  Yes, I have been lying to myself.  People do care, and I know because I talked to them about it. 

http://www.miylana.com/blog/are-you-lying-to-yourself