Why Reality Is Subjective

Most people, when they begin to hear the messages of, and believe in, the Law of Attraction, The Law of Faith, &/or Healing, they come to a point where they have heard enough to test their own wings, so to speak.  So they begin to believe for that which they desire and now understand that they can have.

However, stepping over into this new realm isn’t always easy.  And many people come up against the very same obstacle no matter what it is for which they are exercising their belief.  That obstacle is: what can be observed as the realistic present circumstances of one’s life through the five senses versus what one is believing.  And, when this comes up for some, they find themselves arguing for what they “see” as real versus what they are believing to be real.

One might say, “I’m believing for my healing but everything that I can see and feel, and everything that the doctors report as my condition tells me that the reality of the situation is that I have a serious disease and I need to subject my body to invasive medical treatment.”  However, the reality of any situation is never dictated by what one sees, hears, smells, tastes, or feels.  The reality of a situation is only given by what one perceives to be the truth.

The reality of me as a writer can only be given by the future into which I’m living.  If I only believe that what my five senses tell me is my current life as a writer will always be my life as a writer, I would discontinue writing for others immediately.  However, I choose to believe that I have a gift and I believe that gift will open doors for me to make a living through writing and doing other things about which I am passionate.  My life as a writer exists today because of my perception of seeing myself as a published author.  That life is the life I live into every day as given by the future I have created for myself.

We must always remember that believing in anything does not require us to deny the existence of our present circumstances.  In fact, faith allows us to say with surety, “although my current circumstances point to my insurmountable debt, I believe, and I therefore speak by faith, that all of my bills are paid and I am financially free.”  You see, faith can look into the eye of present circumstances and tell them to give way to the truth – the truth being what we perceive to be the reality of the situation.

The reality that we believe in is that everything on this earth is made up of the same thing – energy.  And just as the heavens and the earth were created by the language of God, we were created in His very image and we therefore have the same creative power to speak to the circumstances of our lives and command them to fall in line with the reality of the universe – that we create our lives, and we attract the circumstances that surround us.

Copyright ©2009.  All rights reserved.

Truth and Transformation Only Exist In Agreement

In my blog of July 31, 2009 (“Our Worlds Are Created By Our Words – Part II”) I explained that our worlds only exist in language.   If you haven’t had a chance to read it yet, please do so as it will provide the needed background for this blog’s topic.

And, once you understand that everything that exists, exists in language, you can get to the understanding that everything exists as simply a series of conversations.   We ourselves are simply a network of conversations.   Our doubts, our fears, our desires, our abilities, our memories, and our inadequacies all exist in language as conversations.   And while some conversations are never spoken out loud to others (they’re really just monologues or memories of conversations that are in our heads), in order to produce lasting transformations in our lives, we must first transform the conversations we have about those things that need to be transformed.

You see, living inside of our heads never produces anything.   It is only in communication that we accomplish anything.   Why?   Because all of life is simply a series of conversations.   Money is a conversation.   Sex is a conversation.   Work is a conversation.   These conversations do not always have to be words communicated between two people.   A “conversation” (in its simplest form) can simply take place in your head.   However, for us to influence anyone else, or, for anyone to influence us, the conversation must live outside of ourselves; outside of our heads.   In other words, the conversation must live in words spoken.   Ralph Waldo Emerson said it this way, “Conversation is a game of circles.”   If we don’t like the way our life is in the area of finances, we should look at the conversation we have concerning money.   How are we related to it?   What would be a more empowering context to choose so that we can shift the conversation from one of lack to one of abundance?

For a conversation to become transformed into a reality (or a belief-set), it must have agreement.   For example, the U.S. monetary system is simply a conversation that has agreement.   A one dollar bill, in and of itself, has no intrinsic value with the exception of the paper that it is printed on.   However, because we agree that it has value, and we have built a system of trading and bartering around our monetary system, the one dollar bill has implied value.   (Yes, Fort Knox exists and still holds gold that’s in place to “protect” the value of our dollar but the value of that gold was long ago exceeded by the amount of money printed and owed by the U.S. Federal Government.)   In that same vein, a one hundred dollar bill has no more value than a one dollar bill.   Yet, because we agree that it has a value that is one hundred times the value of a one dollar bill, it has greater value to us.   This is how we create our mutual reality – through agreement (also called “agreement reality”). 

If you offered someone on the street a choice between receiving a one dollar bill or a one hundred dollar bill, he would undoubtedly choose the one hundred dollar bill.   Again, if the value of the bill were only the true value of the paper that it is printed on, the person wouldn’t care which bill he received.   But, because he agrees that the one hundred dollar bill has more value than that of the one dollar bill, he will choose the bill of greater value (the one hundred dollar bill).  

This same concept is used for everything that we believe – regardless of whether that belief is in a material thing or a metaphysical thing.   On an atomic level, protons and neutrons didn’t exist until the scientific community “discovered” them and there was agreement that they are real things.   (That isn’t to say that they weren’t real prior to discovery or that they really didn’t exist.   However, we had no knowledge of them; and, consequently no agreement within conversation about the realness of them.   Therefore, to us, they did not exist.) 

An atom only exists because we say that it exists and we have agreement.   On a subatomic level, a quark only exists because of agreement.   Few people have ever seen a quark – we everyday laymen of science certainly don’t see them.  We can’t hear or touch a quark.   It is not something that can be believed in through our five senses.   Yet, there is agreement that a quark is a “real” thing; that it has certain characteristics, and that it is one of the smallest particles of an atom, making up protons and neutrons.

It’s much easier to understand this principle with metaphysical things than it is with material things.   Stay with me now.   A tree on a hill only exists because of agreement reality.   If others agree with me that there is a tree on a certain hill, then it is/becomes “real” and it exists.   If no one agrees with me that there is a tree on a certain hill, then that tree does not exist.   For dog to exist there must be agreement between me and others that dog exists.   That does not mean that there aren’t truths that exist without agreement.   They’re just not commonly agreed upon truths and therefore they are not part of our shared agreement reality.

So, why does agreement reality make a difference to you and me?   Because of the conversations we have about our lives.   If I’m stuck in a conversation about my finances that isn’t working for me; in other words, it leaves me disempowered, then I need to disrupt my conversation(s) about money and get into agreement with others about what my finances look like.   This is more important for you than for the others that are involved.   While the power of 2 or 3 people believing something the same as you is greater than that of just you thinking it, the benefit is really in your putting your conversation “out there” rather than just keeping it “in here” (in your head).   Getting agreement from others involves your speaking your word, out loud, and getting others to buy in to it.   In order to do this, you have to have a greater belief in what it is that you believe.

Notice that if you’re timid about your belief or you’re unsure of something, you have a lot of difficulty speaking it out loud to others.   You would much rather hold on to those thoughts until you’re sure of them before you commit them to being spoken to another.   But, if you truly want to transform an area of your life, you’re going to be in a much more powerful position to do so if you commit your transformation to the spoken word and share it with as many people as possible.   The more people that you share it with, the more real your transformation becomes for you.   Just as the more the number of people believing in anything causes, through agreement reality, that thing to become more real in people’s lives.

Sharing your new possibility for transformation in any area, is key to developing agreement reality with others, and to cementing your own transformation, not only in your beliefs, but in reality.

Stories – Part II

In yesterday’s blog (“Stories – Part I”), I demonstrated how we make up stories about others. The stories we make up about others are given by: (1) our general beliefs about life itself (this is a good source for you to use if you’re ever having trouble identifying your core beliefs -> i.e. what are you saying is true about others?) and (2) our past experience(s) of these people.

The truth of any situation is that we make up our own interpretation of the events in our lives and we decide what’s true about them. According to that truth is how we then live, speak, and breathe. So, today, I want to look a bit closer to home. Because the stories we make up about others, as related to us, come directly from our past-based beliefs about ourselves – particularly those stories which are self-defeating. To illustrate this, I’m going to use an example that I read somewhere, & which includes a few of my own embellishments.

Let’s say that you’re out working in your yard and you find yourself in need of a shovel. Since you don’t have one, and rather than buy one, you decide to see if you can borrow one from your neighbor. It’s 9am on a Saturday morning. You go over to your neighbor’s house and knock on their door but there’s no answer. You know your neighbor’s basic routine and you see their car is in the driveway so you “know” that they are home. You knock on the door a second time and no one answers. Thinking they may not hear the knock, you ring the bell and wait for a minute. There’s no answer to the bell. You ring the bell a second time and wait another minute; but, still no one answers. You sooner or later realize no one is going to answer the door so you leave. But, what you and I don’t do, is we don’t just leave. Instead, we always assign some significance to an event like this. And we assign the significance immediately.

So, as soon as you’ve given up on the hope of your neighbor answering his door, you assign your meaning to the event. You leave only after you’ve assigned some meaning to that event. [Note how quickly this happens in real life.]

Before you leave, you could decide:

a) The neighbors don’t like me and that’s why they didn’t answer the door.

b) The neighbors didn’t want to lend me their shovel so that’s why they didn’t answer the door.

c) The neighbors may have been right in the middle of a hot breakfast and that’s why they didn’t answer the door.

d) The neighbors were in the middle of having hot, passionate sex, and that’s why they didn’t answer the door.

e) The neighbors were actually away from their house visiting another neighbor (they walked and that’s why the car was in the drive) and that’s why they didn’t answer the door.

Or, you could decide, more zen-like in nature, that

f) The neighbors didn’t answer the door because they didn’t answer the door! (This is the same as consciously assigning no meaning to the event.)

Each of the above reasons (with the exception of the last) has a meaning. What we generally do as humans, is assign the meaning that means something negative about us…..in this case, something like example a or b above. You won’t really know why the neighbors didn’t answer the door until you have a chance to relate the story and ask them why they didn’t answer the door. And, notice how quickly you make up your meaning about the events in your life. It happens so quickly, that unless someone else makes us conscious of it, we rarely even recognize that we’re engaging in this activity.

So, now that you’re conscious : - ) my request is that you start noticing in your life where you give meaning to what previously had no meaning. It really didn’t. It only became significant because you said that it was significant. It only became cause for concern because you put that concern into the meaning. Maybe it was necessary. Maybe it wasn’t. My request is that you play with this. When you reflect back on your day, look at the meaning you gave to the different events of your day. Then, look at whether or not you would have acted/reacted any differently if you had not given the event the significance you did. See if there’s an area of freedom for you in this discovery.

Stories – Part I

I first became aware of how much we rely on our own made-up stories about how life is, how we are, and how others are in 1994. Since that time, I’ve been fascinated in my observations of myself and others, seeing this truth unfold before my eyes time and again.

My father is very good at making up stories. I remember as a young person riding along in the car on a family trip when we would, at some point in the journey, cross the path of where an earlier accident had occurred. My father, with sheer believability, would proceed to tell the family what had happened there and who was at fault. The accident might have happened hours earlier but he sounded convinced of all the facts.

While we’ve joked about my father’s habit of “telling stories” within our family, the truth of the matter is that he’s no different in his habit than the rest of us. The stories we make up may not go that far but the facts are, nevertheless, convincingly made up by our minds and we firmly believe them.

A made-up demonstration here would be in order. :-) Marcy had always avoided being in a group of more than four people, including herself. She said that it gave her anxiety. When asked why this was, she contemplatively thought for a few minutes, and then said, as if newly discovered, that she avoided larger groups of people because her mother always had. When asked why her mother exhibited this behavior, Marcy again sat silent in thought. She then said that she supposed it was because her father was a jealous man and didn’t like seeing her mother talking to too many people. When asked where her father’s jealousy came from, she reported that he was just like his father in that way. To delve further, she was asked from where her grandfather’s jealousy stemmed. She said she believed it was because her grandmother was very flirtatious. When asked from where her grandmother’s flirtatious behavior came, she said that she supposed it was from her Argentinean background.

Without taking you farther down this trail, you can readily see where this is going. In logic, if a = b, and if b = c, then a = c. So, logically speaking, Marcy had anxiety in groups of more than four people because her paternal grandmother was Argentinean! That makes perfect sense…….no?

The truth is we make up reasons for everything and everyone. We say that our boss is too particular because we think he has an Obsessive-Compulsive disorder. We say that the neighbor’s child leaves his toys all over the yard because we think he has Attention-Deficit Hyperactive disorder. We say that we’re afraid of the dark because our parents always turned on a night-light in our bedrooms as children. We make up stories for the way we behave, and more importantly, for the ways that others are without really bothering to know them or ask them.

Shortly after learning about how we make up stories, my sister and I were traveling home together (we lived in the same city at the time). We were in the airport waiting at our departure gate for our plane to arrive. My sister, who is an avid people-watcher, would poke me to get my attention and then whisper, telling me about the relational connections between others at our gate. Her observations all seemed to logically fit, but of course neither she nor I knew any of these people or anything about them. So, while we could assume all that we wanted, we never truly knew who they were or how they related to one another.

What stories have you made up about the people in your life? Have you made up stories about why people avoid you or why people don’t take you seriously? Have you made up a story that your boss or a co-worker is out to get you? Maybe you’ve made up a story that you’re too old to do X, or you’re don’t have the needed personality to participate in something.

I’m not saying that you haven’t found the evidence you need to back up your story. In fact, I’m quite sure that you have! Remember, we always find the evidence that supports what we are looking to prove. Once we’ve determined how something is, we will always find the evidence necessary to support our case.

What would happen now if you gave up those stories? Could you even give up the stories you’ve made up about yourself? Would that give you greater freedom to be with others? Would your boss or co-worker now have a chance at making things work with you? I invite you to give up your stories and see.

Truth Changes

Since we’re all of the same (human) species :-), we all get stuck in our thinking from time-to-time concerning what the truth of a matter is.  When I was younger, I used to hear my mom say, “sin changes.”  I asked her about that one day.  She explained that when she was young, it was thought to be a sin to go to a movie theater, to play any games with cards, to wear makeup, and so forth and so on.  But as Christians progressed in their knowledge and understanding of scriptures, and as civilization progressed, certain beliefs that were once held as true, were no longer believed.  The fact is: truth changes!

Years prior to the time of Columbus, the “truth” was that the world was flat.  It was also the “truth” in Galileo’s time that the Sun revolved around the Earth (geocentrism).  In fact, the geocentric view was so true, that the Church had Galileo imprisoned because of his teaching that it was the Earth that revolved around the Sun (heliocentrism).  The Catholic Church declared the heliocentric view to be "false and contrary to Scripture."

Any of the scientific areas of study - - Physics, Mathematics, Sociology, Psychology, Philosophy, Biology, Medicine, Chemistry, etc. - - have had major shifts in what they believed to be the truth from the time of their inception until now.  As we grow in knowledge, each new generation starts at a greater level of understanding than we did.  Therefore, this great wealth of knowledge continues to feed the study and research conducted in each of these fields, allowing new discoveries all of the time.

Why then, knowing this, do we get so “stuck” in our beliefs of what is the truth?  Might it be a more powerful place to stand if we could consider what we know to be true as simply a perception or viewpoint?  If we approached everything as if what we know is simply our viewpoint of that thing, we might open ourselves up to actually listening to others whose views differ from ours. 

If our views are true, they’ll stand up to the challenge of interrogation.  Truth needs no vindication.  And, truth has no need for anyone to believe in it in order for it to be true.  It just is - - by its own merits - - with or without agreement.

You could have an argument with a friend.  You might say, “Did you know that light travels faster than sound?”  Your friend says, “No it doesn’t!  Everybody knows that sound travels much faster than light.”  You could argue back and forth for 30 minutes and then ask others to weigh in on the argument with their beliefs.  For all of the good that would do, you might as well be pounding sand!  During the course of your argument, did the truth ever, even once, change?  Was the truth dependant upon a majority of people agreeing with it?  Of course not!  The truth remained that light travels faster than sound and it required no agreement or understanding from anyone in order for it to be so.

I assert that, what we see today as the truth, is fallible.  We would be better served by looking at what we believe to be true, as simply a position or a vantage point.  This would broaden our abilities to consider other possibilities and alternatives.  Regardless of whether we are flexible and open-minded, or whether we are guarded and unapproachable by others’ views, the truth will stand.  The truth will remain.  And, the truth will endure.  Will you?