This past week I was in an audience of 4000 counselors and therapists listening to an incredible man deliver a keynote speech at an annual conference, Irving Yalom. He is one of my teachers and a human I greatly admire in this world.
Most people have never heard of him! But he is famous in the world of mental health, a beloved psychotherapist who has taught at Stanford and practiced for 40 years.
Irving Yalom writes in one of his many books that the capacity to tolerate uncertainty is a prerequisite for becoming a therapist, and that really we are all in this together. The “problems” people bring to therapy are ALL of our problems.
This reminds me so much of Byron Katie saying “there are no new thoughts!”
We get uncomfortable and life happens, and we have interactions with other humans (often these are humans related to us, or very close) and something is threatened inside of us. We don’t feel safe, we feel loss, we feel needy, we feel misunderstood.
Then, the mind attacks that other person. It does this so innocently, it’s natural for the mind to do it. That person, that event, that situation caused me unhappiness. That thing outside of me hurt me. If only that thing, that person, hadn’t done that or said that, I would be OK right now.
Off with their head!!!!! Or…Run away!!!!!
And what about reality itself…so many things I haven’t agreed with about this world, if God had asked my opinion. I don’t like blood and accidents and cancer, I don’t like death. I don’t like starvation, hatred, wars, tsunamis, or climate change.
When I first read Loving What Is, I realized that I had a TON of things that I could write the book Hating What Is.
I love how Katie says “who needs God when we have you” when someone is particularly opinionated. And that would be me, right? I mean, like I said, I had a very long list of what I found unacceptable and in need of change. I had a few things to say to God, if I had God’s ear.
But then, oh dear, we can start to feel so horrendous about our thoughts, like we’re just the meanest, nastiest, most cutting, vicious, selfish, bossy person. Or the most cold, withdrawing, nervous person. Or the most unforgiving, resentful, closed-minded person.
Beginning to question all the concepts we have about those people who have done even the smallest thing that caused pain has made a huge difference in my life.
Then, questioning my beliefs about death, reality, God, life, pain….then my mind really begins to expand.
One of my most incredible light-bulb moments of my life was in writing a Judge Your Neighbor worksheet on God. Really lettin’ God have it, all my genuine petty, childish, non-spiritual, angry, despairing judgments.
Then doing The Work on these thoughts…..is it really true that all “this” is a big mess, that this world, this life, is painful, stressful? That God didn’t answer my prayers when I was a child, or that God is aloof and distant?
Who would I be without the thought that something is amiss about life, that this is a tough place to be, this world?
Wow, at first I’d be confused. Blank. Then I continue to stay in question four, who would I be without these terrible thoughts about God or Reality?
Who would I be? I’d be excited. Open. Unafraid. Wondering.
Byron Katie says in A Thousand Names For Joy “the only time you suffer is when you believe a thought that argues with reality. You are the cause of your own suffering–but only all of it. There is no suffering in the world; there’s only an uninvestigated story that leads you to believe it. There is no suffering in the world that’s real. Isn’t that amazing!”
I have a big humongous story that there is lots of suffering in the world—I have found proof that it is true! Haven’t I? But can I really know that what I have thought of as bad is really BAD? For sure, the end, no doubt whatsoever? No. I can’t know absolutely.
Isn’t that amazing!!