A very stressful belief, held by many at various moments on the planet, is the concept “I need that person to feel OK.”
Boy howdy, that’s a juicy, sometimes wildly painful belief.
Our Tuesday YOI (Year of Inquiry) Group examined this thought together this morning.
Wow, awesome.
There is your friend, your mom, your dad, your boyfriend, your wife, your child, your client…..and they are depressed, weeping, lying in a hospital bed, in turmoil over a loss, they are worried, angry, nervous, upset, they just got emotionally hurt.
There’s an urge to rush in, assist.
It really does seem like it would be better if that person felt OK, felt good, felt content, felt open.
Questioning this belief does not mean you are cruel, cold, or uncaring.
In fact, without this belief, you may find that you are more genuinely caring than you ever realized…but let’s take a look.
First, are you positive that you need that person to feel good, better, different than they feel in order for you to be happy?
Can you absolutely know that it’s true that if he, she, it, they felt OK you’d be better off?
The fear that enters the body and mind when a loved one gets hurt, let’s say pretty badly, can be infused with this belief.
Maybe their feelings are hurt, maybe their body is hurt…this is noticing the anxiety, panic, anger, and your own hurt that becomes present, sometimes almost simultaneously, when you learn that this person you love is hurt.
So how do you react when you believe that thought, that this situation would be better if they were OK?
When I believe this thought, I am going to find out what will resolve their “hurt” and stay on the job until I find the answer. I call them. I think about them. I read books about their condition and nod. I rush in.
I come to the rescue.
I think thoughts like “he really needs to….” or “she should get help from….”
In the past, I had a great friend who had a major huge mega-watt amount of anxiety. His story, or my story, was that he had a rough life.
How did I react when I believed that I needed him to feel OK?
First, I tried to rescue.
Then, I ditched him. I believed I couldn’t take it anymore. I quit!
But who would you be without the belief that this person needs to be OK? That they are NOT OK, even with whatever is going on?
“My beloved sister is dying of cancer now, and she is in the very painful last stages of agony. Watching my sister’s husband watch his wife in such dreadful pain would be agonizing, if not for the enlightened mind, the questioned awake-to-love mind….
…..Oh, how I love her, and how opposite of helpless I am. I am the power of love, and there is nothing more powerful than that as I find myself sobbing with her. Who would think that love is that grateful, that deep, that overwhelming, and tear-filled! As I sob, the joy within, the joy that is born out of my love, blind in its clarity, runs deeper than any sadness could ever begin to, and it is allowed to live at its depth, a state that fear is too shallow to explore and must always fall short in its emotion to express.” ~ Byron Katie
Without the belief that other people need to be OK in order for me to be happy…
…I am free to love, express, breathe, connect, be honest, authentic, caring, overwhelmed, untethered, real, genuine….and stay or go.
I turn the thought around that I need him to be OK, I need her to be OK.
I don’t actually need that. I am living this life over here, in this body, apparently.
I can see advantages, even, to that person not being OK as I look at them:
- they are encountering their own fear and growing stronger through it
- they are capable of getting through this
- they are learning about life
- they are freer
- they are experiencing something profound
- they are changing
- they are dying (or some part of them is dying) and therefore on their way to a new dimension, new life…
And while that person is not OK, I can turn that whole entire list around to myself and find the incredible gift in that person appearing as they appear in my life:
- I am encountering my own fear and growing stronger through it
- I am capable of getting through this (their pain, my pain)
- I am learning about life
- I am freer
- I am experiencing something profound
- I am changing
- I am dying (my stories or otherwise) and therefore on my way to a new dimension
“The ego creates stories to convince you that you cannot be at peace NOW, you cannot be fully yourself NOW.” ~ Eckhart Tolle
How might you be when you are with those sweet, amazing, suffering people if you knew they were actually OK?
Much Love, Grace
