Accepting Reality

What happens when something occurs that we REALLY don't like? If we get sick, if someone we love gets sick, if someone we love leaves us? How do we cope? Some of us learned in childhood that if we don't like our reality, we can easily create a fantasy. As a child that's really not so bad. Children learn to explore their world through an active fantasy life. Their imaginations are full of possibilities about their future. But how about when we become adults. Does preferring fantasy over reality continue to serve us as we grow older and take on the responsibilities that come with age? Delusions may help us through the difficulties of childhood, but they rarely help us as adults. Unfortunately, sometimes the fantasies and delusions that we create as children get carried into our adult reality without us ever realizing. We begin to respond to these childhood fantasies as if they were reality. So, what's to do about it, after we recognize that this is what we are doing?

Well, it seems the problem stems from judging the reality as intolerable and not O.K. Even worse, we may deem reality as something we can not cope with. This, of course, makes fantasy seem preferable. The problem is, nothing gets solved in the fantasy world, cuz it's not reality. The trick is, to allow ourselves to see the reality as something we can cope with and get through. That doesn't mean we have to like it, it just means we have to accept it as our current reality. The saying "it is what it is" applies here. Something is really only good or bad, tolerable or intolerable, because we judge it as so. And even if something is unpleasant or upsetting, we are still capable of dealing with it and getting to the other side, if we tell ourselves that we can...and if we're lucky, there may even be the reward of learning and growth as we move through it.

Once we allow ourselves to take a genuine look at the reality of our situation, we can deal with it...especially if we tell ourselves that we can. We don't have to have the solution right that minute...we just need to remind ourselves that there is one.

So what's your take on reality?

Be happy and well,
Sari Roth-Roemer

Frustration

"Oh, No!" "This is not turning out at all the way I want it." "This is never gonna work." Blood pressure rises, breath shortens, feelings of fear, anger, sadness, hopelessness creep into our hearts and we are instantly sunk.

Few things block us more than our own frustrations and fears. At that initial moment of intense emotion, we are often fixed on the problem and not the solution. We are telling ourselves over and over what we don't want to happen, what we fear will happen. We are viewing negative and often frightening outcomes. All our energy is going towards what we don't want. How can that possibly be helpful?

So what's the solution? Simply to know that there is a solution, even if we don't know what it is yet. I'm not saying don't get frustrated. That would be impossible. Of course we will always have cause for frustration. What I'm talking about is what to do with it when it comes. I'm talking about not allowing ourselves to get stuck in it. Rather, acknowledge it, tolerate it, and let yourself feel it, but recognize that there is an answer to it. The real trick is temporarily allowing yourself to tolerate the unknown of what that solution will be, and to just know it's coming your way...

What do you think?

Be happy and well,
Sari Roth-Roemer

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