Accepting reality is very difficult. It is much easier to try not to pay attention to her, to play games like «but I’m not like that» or «I want to be different.» It won’t work to be different anyway, but it’s possible to stop feeling “not like that, but different”. In fact, unsuccessful attempts to be what we are not lead to only one result — we cease to understand and feel our own desires.
Tension, anxiety arise from the gap between who we are and who we want to be. A novice specialist, who does not yet understand much in practical activities, has two options for the path: to recognize reality or to ignore it, playing an experienced pro. Then either “I don’t understand a damn thing about what’s going on, please explain to me” or “OK, everything is under control” (accompanied by growing anxiety).
One of the tasks of human lies is to hide the liar from reality. Many small lies and self-deceptions permeate our lives… For example, you pretend to understand what you are being told and undertake to answer, instead of simply admitting: «I did not understand what you meant.» «I’m trying to explain to this moron what he’s wrong about» instead of «I’m just humiliating him — I enjoy it.»
It’s scary to realize that you’re not as good as you make yourself out to be. For this awareness, you need to do very little — pay attention to what you are doing at the moment. Not what you want to do or what you plan to do. The mere labeling of reality often brings relief, because it frees up the forces used to defend against it.
For example, a grown daughter spent an endless amount of time, consciously and unconsciously, trying to prove to her already deceased mother that she was not a prostitute, as her “loving” mother called her. But once you prove that you don’t… What will be the reality? «I am the daughter who believes her mother that I am a prostitute.» What if it’s even easier?
Compare: «I have to prove to my mother and everyone around me that I am not a prostitute» and «I believe that I am a prostitute.» Which phrase has more tension and anxiety? And who, then, is mom, by the way? This is a woman who convinces her daughter that she, the daughter, is a prostitute. Nothing but a sign of reality. No judgments, no self-reproach…
The beginning of the path to change in life lies through a statement of what is happening in my life and what I am doing now
When considering reality, it is important to distinguish between stating facts and interpretations. “My husband sometimes beats me when he drinks, but then he always asks for forgiveness and promises that this will not happen. This goes on for five years. It turns out that I am a woman who believes her husband? Yes, this is also part of reality, but you can look from a slightly different angle: “I am a wife whom her husband has been deceiving for five years.” A little different, right?
Or, if we take a professional activity … An unsuccessful session with a client passed, something obviously didn’t work out … You can become a “bad psychologist” (doctor, lawyer, physicist, speaker …), or you can simply designate reality: “Now I am a psychologist who thinks that he had a bad session.»
Another aspect of accepting reality is accepting the other person as they are now. Right at this moment. Psychologist Pavel Zygmantovich gives such a wonderful example: if a husband, lounging on the couch and not wanting to do anything, declares that he is such a person and that he needs to be accepted as he is, then do it. Who is he, what is he right now, in the present?
A man lying on the couch and not wanting to do anything. And nothing else — everything else exists not in reality, but in the imagination (memory, hopes …). I think that real changes in the behavior of a husband can only occur when he himself is aware of himself as he is now …
The beginning of the path to changes in my life lies not through the desire for these changes, but through a statement of what is happening in my life now and what I am doing now. No ratings and no interpretations. And finally, the words of the author of the «Paradoxical Theory of Change», psychologist Arnold Beisser: «Change occurs when someone becomes what he is, but not when he tries to become what he is not.»