Our Version of Reality

Disconnection From It Affects Everything

I’m wondering…about the ways that we create our own version of reality.

We seem strangely, yet consistently, capable of picking and choosing which pieces of reality we want to engage with. And, then, we often inadvertently reshape the significance of those pieces into a form that somehow serves us.

Once that process is well underway, it is difficult to not reinforce it by what we pay attention to and the stories we collect and maintain to keep it going.

When 'our' reality ends up disconnected from what is actually real, we become something generally unable to contribute to the common good...to what IS real.

I have to wonder if our capacity to construct our own version of reality (and thereby disconnect from what actually is real) is not at the core of the various kinds of addiction we can end up in.  Narratives and stories we create and use to reinforce our version of reality are the pieces and justifications we claim to need in order to perpetuate something (a feeling?) we are after.  In other words, they work for us — we get something from it. 

It seems like many of these kind of things are on a spectrum with a tendency, on one end, to lock in on a subset of things that exist and an addiction to them, on the other end, that actually distorts our perception of what is really real.  We replace the whole with just a part of reality. 

Why is this mechanism so attractive (to whatever degree it is functioning in our lives)? I’m guessing that part of our attempt to locate something that feels real, is actually more deeply trying to avoid something else.  A kind of hurt or pain that we believe we cannot endure and, therefore, justify the smaller existence definition we feel we need (and deserve).

We might say it (or think it) like this:

I need this because of the way I feel.  Something about my life is too hard for me to bear — besides, it is imposed on me unfairly by something (usually, someone) else.  Therefore, I’m justified in this way of compensating.

In the end, though, each of us has to learn how we need to live in the ways we've discovered that are good for us (make us healthy) and for the world around us.  What other people say is good or bad often has to be discarded in favor of our work we have to do — at the very least, other people opinions need to be subservient to it.

And, this allows us to know more fully what reality actually is.

Because when we are rightly oriented to what is real, we become increasingly capable of true healing.  And healing, then, enables true being. 

When we are being in the world in a healthy way, we often become capable of being a part of this same process for others — who we are individually impacts who we are collectively...because who we are collectively impacts who we are individually.

Everything is connected.

When the whole thing is healthy, we can be healthy. When it’s not, we’re often not.

So, what is actually real (as opposed to the versions we sometimes come up with) is very important — paying attention to it is vital.

What we find in life is based on where we put our attention. When we focus on the small worlds our thoughts create, we miss out on the beauty and possibilities we are meant to enjoy.

-- Guy Finley