3P Random Reflections Blog

After gaining insight into the “truth of life” (the illusion of all thought, and a sense of the miraculous energy that manages it all), my husband and I have had, and continue to have, many interesting conversations about the forms that our systems of thought and feeling will take.

Here’s one such conversation that often comes to mind when either pointing to the illusory nature of thought, or to our personal experience being created from within, or to the truth and significance of each person living in a completely separate reality.

One day I started talking about fears. I exclaimed, “Oh my God, my life has been full of all sorts of ridiculous made up fears!”

I continued to share that even though I’d never had any of the typical fears of public speaking, or heights, or spiders, I had had thousands of other little nonsensical fears that had stopped me from taking action… things like not wanting to send back a bad meal at a restaurant, or not wanting to return an unwanted purchase from a store, or not wanting to make small chit chat in a room with a bunch of people I didn’t know, or not wanting to be seen in my bathing suit, or not wanting to ask for help… I could have gone on with the list forever.

I explained how all of those fears had crippled me, even though I eventually did the ones I felt I really had to, and on occasion, somehow chose to do a few others.

They crippled me in the incredible amount of significance and meaning and thinking that I devoted to them every time I had those thoughts and feelings, and every time I avoided doing whatever I thought I should be doing.

If fact, those fears accounted for ALL of my lifetime of suffering, and all of my 23+ years of self-help… trying to figure out why I had those fears. What was the matter with me? What was blocking me from taking action with what should have been so “simple” to do? Other people had no problem doing these things… what was causing my fears and stopping me?

And then it occurred to me to ask my husband, “What fears do you have?”

His reply was, “I don’t have any fears.”

To be honest, I’d heard him say this several times before in our years together, but I just never believed him. I thought he was in denial, and just left it at that.

But this time I was completely stunned. His answer came into my awareness in a “Lost-In-Space-Robot-Will-Robinson-This-Does-Not-Compute” kind of way.

My first thought again was that he must be in denial. How could he possibly NOT have any fears? Everyone has fears! In fact, my insight into the truth of life and the nature of thought had showed me that every single human being on the planet was subject to all sorts of insecure/fearful thought, so what was he talking about?

So then I asked him, “Well, what about the fact that you don’t like sending back bad meals, or returning items to the store, or making small chit chat in a room full of strangers? Aren’t those fears?”

He said, “No, they’re just stuff I don’t want to do.”

And despite my initial stunned head-shake of disbelief, I realized he wasn’t in denial. I could see he was telling the truth.

I could see that in the world in his head, he had just NEVER created the idea that any of his “I-don’t-want-to-do-it” type of thoughts/feelings, should be labelled as a fear. And because he hadn’t given them any significance, they didn’t represent to him anything that was wrong about him, or anything that needed to be overcome.

In my husband’s head, he had created the following simple equation…

I-don’t-want-to-do-it-now    =    I-don’t-want-to-do-it-now

In complete contrast, I had unknowingly, in my own head, created the following incredibly complicated equation for many of the brief uncomfortable thoughts/feelings that would pop into my mind throughout each day…

I-don’t-want-to-do-it-now   =   I won't want to do it ever   =   fear   =    bad    =    something wrong with me    =     something that needs to be figured out and overcome   =   even more bad about me in each and every moment that I don’t figure it out or overcome it

Holy Crap! Mind Blown!

Nowadays, I still get many “I-don’t-want-to-do-it” forms of thoughts/feelings throughout my day. Fortunately, I often catch the unhelpful label of “fear” I am giving them, and also get pointed once again back to my initial insight into the truth of life, which included, “I’ll be perfectly fine, no matter what happens, no matter what I do or don’t do, even if I die.”

And so now, I have a much more helpful sense of how I label things... what is fear and what isn’t.

And, I’m very much looking forward to continuing to discover what is likely to be an infinite pool of completely ridiculous “thought-rules” and labels that I have somehow unknowingly made up in my head, and am simply not yet aware of… what I lovingly and affectionately refer to as my personal craziness.

What is yours?

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