How often do we feel hurt or get upset thinking that we have been mistreated and wronged by others. We act as the judge and the jury to conclude that there was a huge agenda and a conspiracy behind everything that occurred based on that person and the universe collaborating to hurt us and stopping us from being successful or achieving something that we had desired.
Byron Katie in her masterful program; “the Works” sums it all up by offering the first 2 questions of the 4 steps being these two simple yet major common misconceptions of the brain memes, “is it true?” and followed by “is it really really true?”. How often do we find ourselves making a decision based on false interpretation of our views regarding something that is far away from the reality and yet we believe in its absolute certainty.
We are the interpreter of our experiences and no brain surgeon has ever been able to see a “thought” and no scientist has ever been able to identify; “not having the rent money, family stress, relationship issues, health challenges” in Beta level activities of a brain scan other than the fact that during Beta level activities, our body is experiencing stress.
So the interpreter has a huge role in the outcome and the events that will follow an interpretation since that outcome once decided, it will dictate to the body what emotion will have to be experienced which will put our body into Joy that will increase our immune system and create good feelings or the opposite that will increase stress and makes us sad.
One of my favorite stories that reminds us of how wrong sometimes we can be without knowing it is the beautiful poem by Valerie Cox called “The Cookie Thief”:
“A woman was waiting at an airport one night, with several long hours before her flight. She hunted for a book in the airport shops, bought a bag of cookies and found a place to drop.
She was engrossed in her book but happened to see, that the man sitting beside her, as bold as could be. . .grabbed a cookie or two from the bag in between, which she tried to ignore to avoid a scene.
So she munched the cookies and watched the clock, as the gutsy cookie thief diminished her stock. She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by, thinking, “If I wasn’t so nice, I would blacken his eye.”
With each cookie she took, he took one too, when only one was left, she wondered what he would do. With a smile on his face, and a nervous laugh, he took the last cookie and broke it in half.
He offered her half, as he ate the other, she snatched it from him and thought… oooh, brother. This guy has some nerve and he’s also rude, why he didn’t even show any gratitude!
She had never known when she had been so galled, and sighed with relief when her flight was called. She gathered her belongings and headed to the gate, refusing to look back at the thieving ingrate.
She boarded the plane, and sank in her seat, then she sought her book, which was almost complete. As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprise, there was her bag of cookies, in front of her eyes.
If mine are here, she moaned in despair, the others were his, and he tried to share. Too late to apologize, she realized with grief, that she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief.”
Alex Abossein,
InnerFit, Oasis For Perfect Health