Resisting Reality Part 1

We don't always choose the circumstances we find ourselves in, but in this episode we talk about how to avoid heaping suffering on top of bad situations. 

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Episode Transcript

(00:27):
Hey my friends.
Before I had even met my exhusband, I dated this guy, and I
was, like, desperately in lovewith him. I wanted to marry him,
but it turned out that healready had a girlfriend. I

(00:48):
didn't know it at the time thatwe were dating. She was away for
a couple of years on a Mormonmission, so he was just using me
in that absence. But he neverhad any intention of being
serious with me. So when Istarted to want to be serious
and have more seriousconversations with him, he broke

(01:15):
it off with me. And then told meabout this other girl, and
that's who he is serious about,and this was supposed to be
nothing.
And, of course, it devastatedme.
And at one point I decided that,you know what, I'm not the type

(01:35):
of person to just give up. I'mnot gonna just, you know, give
up on this. I'm gonna make himlove me. And in the moment, it
seemed so empowering. Like,yeah, I'm not a quitter. I don't
give up. Our culture just lovespeople who don't give up and
aren't quitters. We really,really idolize that. And in the

(01:58):
moment, it did, it felt soempowering. It felt so much
better than grieving what I hadlost. But the truth was, it was
just resisting reality, and itdid not remove the grief. It
only delayed it. In the end, itwas not empowering at all,

(02:19):
because it was not based inreality.
The reality is we cannot controlother people.
We cannot make someone love us.
We cannot make someone treat usa certain way. We cannot make
someone abuse us or not abuseus.

(02:45):
The truth is we don't actuallyhave any control over what
people think, say, do or feel.
And I was trying to resist thereality of that.
And I was resisting that realitybecause the reality was painful.
In reality, that relationshipwas over, if you could even call

(03:05):
it a relationship. And that waspainful for me. Reality was
painful. So I tried to avoidreality and resist reality and
pretend like I could change it,like I could change things that
I really couldn't.

(03:37):
And this is the reason whypeople resist reality. Whenever
there's something really painfulthat we don't want to face, we
will resist that reality and tryto pretend that we can control
things that we really can't.
Resisting reality is like beingone of those hamsters running on
a wheel. You spend a lot ofenergy and effort but get

(04:01):
nowhere. And it doesn't get ridof the pain. It only delays it
and brings exhaustion andfrustration. The unfortunate
thing about pain is that itdemands to be felt. Grief isn't
going anywhere until you gothrough it. There is no way
around it. The only way isthrough. If you are feeling

(04:23):
really frustrated or stressedout by people or circumstances,
there's a chance that somewherein there you are resisting a
reality and trying to controlsomething that you can't
actually control. And anytimeyou feel out of control, it is a
guarantee that you are trying tocontrol something you can't

(04:47):
actually control. We talk aboutthis a lot on here, because this
is a big one for people, meincluded. We think that if only
someone behaved differently orbehaved how you think they
should, then you would feelbetter. And maybe that is true,
but the rub is that you can'tmake anyone be how you want them

(05:10):
to be. You can only acceptpeople as they are at face
value. And then once you acceptthem, then you can decide how
you want to be. And that iswhere your power lies. We can't
control other people, but we cancontrol ourselves. You may hate
how someone behaves towards you.

(05:34):
You can't change how they behavetowards you. You do get to
decide how you are going to showup for it, though. You get
decide what to say, think, anddo about it. When we say, Don't
let someone treat you badly,it's not that you can control
how they behave. It's that youcan control what you allow in

(05:57):
your life. If someone doesn'ttreat you, right, you remove
them, you avoid them, youcontrol what you can control.
And the same with circumstances.
Sometimes we find ourselves inshit tastic circumstances that
just really fucking suck, and wecan't always control that. But
we always get to control how weshow up for it. We always get to

(06:21):
say, All right, this happened,now, what am I going to do next?
How am I going to handle it? Ourthoughts and our behavior are
the things that are always inour control. That is where our
power lies. Accepting realitylets us access our power. It
lets us take control of what isactually in our control and

(06:45):
spend our focus and energy onthings that will actually help
us. And I know it isn't alwayseasy. It means feeling the pain
that we were trying so hard toavoid. It is what helps us move
forward, and even though ithurts, there is less suffering
involved than there is when youresist reality. I like to say,

(07:09):
when you resist reality, youlose, but only 100% of the time.
I would have been much betteroff in my situation letting
myself grieve and asking myselfwhat I was going to do next
since this relationship didn'twork out. Instead, I spent weeks
trying to formulate plans of howI was going to get him back, and

(07:32):
calling him way too much, andstalking his Facebook, and
honestly, just torturing myselfand delaying the inevitable
grief, which came later when itbecame too ridiculous to deny
the reality anymore. I prolongedmy own suffering by resisting
the reality. Sometimes it isn'tgiving up at all, but accepting

(07:56):
what is.
And we have to have the wisdomto know the difference between
the two.
And so I would invite you, myfriends, to consider if there is
anywhere that you might beresisting reality, and how can
you work to accept that realityand step back into your own

(08:16):
power?
All right, my friends, untilnext time. Be well.