Check your facts!

We are not reacting to what happened

We are reacting to our interpretation of what happened.

Something I have been thinking about the last few weeks is learning to be mindful of beliefs that we have about ourselves. Often we have internal beliefs and thought processes about ourselves which are quite negative and limiting, and yet somehow also comforting. 

Like we know for fact and certain that we're terrible artists or cooks or dancers and although this might not even be true and is a limiting statement, somehow it feels like a comforting thought at the same time. Or we tell ourselves we are impatient, angry or bad at connecting. Too messy to find love or a lasting relationship with another human. As harsh and negative as that sounds it's also a comfort, to just be like 'well, why even try meeting new people? I'm obviously not going to be good enough'.

Why would fear based beliefs such as ' I"m too flawed to be loved'. Why would that be a refuge or comfort? Tara Brach was talking about this today in a talk I listened to about how sometimes our limiting beliefs or unhealthy behaviours can become a 'refuge' of sorts. 

Fear is our primitive survival energy. Our fear based beliefs were constructed for our protection. We tell ourselves we are not good enough so that we don't have to face the insecurity of not knowing whether we will succeed or not.  We focus on what could go wrong or what is wrong with us a mechanism for survival . 

We need fear to survive, but far too often we get stuck there. We get stuck in the stories that we tell ourselves and start narrowing our vision only looking for evidence that supports our 'story blinding us to other alternatives. Or at least I know I do!

I have been reading Brene Brown's book Daring greatly and a big part of her work is about helping us to recognise the shitty first draft (SFD) of the stories we tell ourselves around events and relationships in our lives. Someone is short with you or doesn't look up when you say good morning - their either just busy and didn't hear or purposefully ignoring you and come to think of it are actually upset at you! Why are they upset? Don't worry your mind will have plenty of stories ready to spin about possible reasons of how you have done something wrong. 

It happened to me recently at work where I felt like someone was being short with me and I worried they were upset about something. Then...... they messaged and asked for a meeting! Woah! Signal fear and a major panic moment!!  Not only was I feeling the vibe that something was wrong, but it was so wrong that we needed a whole meeting to discuss it. Immediately my mind wanted to go into overdrive about reasons why they could be upset, mentally calculating all my recent mistakes and failures. I went through all the stages of guilt and then mentally objecting, justifying, defending my innocence and being angry and feeling misunderstood at breakneck speed. 

I left work feeling very stressed and anxious about this and felt an upcoming sense of doom about the meeting scheduled for next week clouding my mind. Thankfully though I caught myself when I was spinning these stories and told myself 'okay, what are the facts that actually happened here?' - I was asked to take a meeting. That was it. 

Everything else was in my head. Sure, this person had been preoccupied at work and perhaps not as personable as usual but they are incredibly busy and that's a natural reaction to busyness. Also I recognised that this feeling of guilt or doom or dread really went back to the main belief I have about my self and my worthiness. My main 'refuge' of negative beliefs - That I'm not good enough at my job. That I'm unworthy of finding love. That I'm not healed enough/good enough for someone else to want me. 

Tara Brach talks about how when we escape into the 'refuge' of our stories it hardens our beliefs about others and our own sense of inadequacy and unworthiness. 

She described it as energetically violating ourselves..... 

Oh man! That feeling of exhaustion, sadness and despair that we get at the end of a hard day of beating ourselves over the head. That is what we are doing - sapping our energy through our negative, limiting stories. 

She then talks about how an intrinsic part of the spiritual path is learning how to step out of this prison. From the false refuge to true refuge. I guess for me that means when we become more mindful we are training ourselves to find better ways of thinking, believing and coping with stressful events. 

Escaping from the false refuge for me in this case was first recognising that I was spinning quite the story. Then I was able to ask myself ' what is your evidence?' and look at the facts not just ride on the feelings. Then I reminded myself that I am worthy and good enough - my 'good' days don't make me good and my 'bad' days don't make me bad. 

I told myself to concentrate on the facts I knew and approach the unknown with positivity and compassion. Wait and see what happens in the meeting and there is no point worrying about it now because it will probably not be how you imagine anyway!

This helped to restore my mental peace and calm my anxiety and every time this worry or feeling of dread in my stomach tried to return I pushed myself to remember and check my 'evidence'.

So, I had the meeting last week. It was fine. It was not what I thought and worried it would be, not even close. Sure there were some aspects of challenge where I was pushed to check the edges of myself and make sure I was doing the best I could possibly do. But I was able to approach that challenge from a more positive and grounded state because I had already dealt with a far far worse imaginary story..... that never even happened!

So if you are caught up in a worry wheel about something that happened at work or in a relationship with a friend or loved one - write down your shitty first draft of the story you are telling yourself. 

Break it down to the facts. 

Check in with yourself - what are you feeling? 

What story is it that you are telling yourself? 

Is it backed up by the facts? 

Or does it sound anything like the 'refuge' of negative beliefs about yourself that is your default escape? 

Give yourself some compassion and care and try to remind yourself to check the 'evidence' when you feel the worries or dread starting to creep back in.