By Alan Jacob – CMHC
REALITY FORMULA
The Reality Formula directly addresses a significant cause of distress for many people worldwide—resistance to reality. Many may say, “I believe in reality; I have no other choice, I see it, I live in it. Why do I need this formula?” Because when reality doesn’t agree with our worldview or disrupts our comfort zone, we fight against it in our thoughts, holding on to beliefs that it shouldn’t have been what it WAS. We’d rather not know reality as it IS; we prefer to know reality as we understand it. Any inkling of thinking or wishing that reality be different than what it presents is resistance to reality. “Why is that a problem? So I want it to be different than what it was, so what?… Well, didn’t you see that happen?…. It shouldn’t have happened in the first place!” This last statement is all too common, and it reveals the following beliefs:
1. We want reality different than what WAS or IS.
2. We disagree with reality.
We have no control over what WAS; it’s in the past and cannot be changed. The instant that we think someone or something should be different than what it WAS is the moment we take our control out of it. Our distress begins as our control ends. This is why agreeing to reality is essential.
Losing Control
Our subjective judgments of what we think is right or wrong, what we think should or shouldn’t happen, create an illusion of reality—our imagined stories of how we believe things should be. We then overlay our illusions and imagined stories onto reality. What we want to have happened is not real, which further spreads our lack of control. When we don’t agree with reality—focusing on what we want instead of what IS, we separate ourselves from control, and the effect is that we feel out of control.
No Resolution
“Shouldn’t have” cannot be resolved. It is useless, and worse, it damages our well-being to spend time thinking that something shouldn’t have happened. Stress builds in our minds and bodies due to these thoughts and becomes a never-ending feedback loop, damaging our sense of well-being and physical health. These unresolvable thoughts and beliefs can manifest as sickness, injury, and disease.
We can’t deal with actual reality when we stay stuck thinking something shouldn’t have happened. True control doesn’t happen unless we understand what reality IS and agree to it. Should or shouldn’t beliefs in and of themselves do nothing positive. They are not resolution-focused; they are stagnant. Yet, for many of us, this is where our thinking stops, almost as if the outrage itself is doing something about it. It is not. Expressing outrage over something does nothing to change it. Not expressing outrage does not mean we approve of it. By redirecting our thoughts to what can be learned from the past and making these shouldn’ts into non-examples, we can move forward—focusing on and doing only what we can control. This is true control.
Gaining Control
To feel more in control physically and emotionally, in many, if not most situations, agreeing to the reality of the situation is the first step to being in control. Reality is what HAS happened or IS happening outside us—it is life as it unfolds. If we want to feel in control of our lives, we must learn to stop thinking in shoulds or shouldn’ts, in judgments of rightness or wrongness of reality. Instead, when we agree to reality, we say, “That happened; now what? I don’t like what happened; it doesn’t work for me, but I agree that it happened. But because it doesn’t work for me, I’m doing this instead because I can control it, which works for me.”
Mindset
Having a First Responder/Emergency Medical Services personnel (EMS) mindset is helpful—they focus on solutions. First Responders and EMS know something is going to happen, so they prepare. They have effectively redefined problems, pain, and chaos—for them, it’s just another day at work, and some days are trickier and riskier than others. “Problems, pain, and chaos happen, so I prepare, and I’m ready.” It would be helpful for all of us to redefine problems, pain, and chaos as elements of a normal life. When a problem just IS, a problem ISn’t. What we used to view as a problem, we now just accept as life. We assess what works for us or doesn’t and do what works for us in every situation.
Creating Resolution
We create resolution when we agree to reality and choose how to move forward within it. Resolution is the act of solving; to deal with something successfully; to clear up; to find an answer to. There is no resolution when our beliefs disagree with the reality of what happened. The resolution is, “That happened, now what.” “Now what” is our cue to work the problem—focusing on what we can control, what we can do, what is within our power to act—not what we can’t control. When we think this way, we dissolve our beliefs that are not in line with reality.
When we are happy, what is actually happening outside of us is what we believe should be happening, and we expect it. Therefore, our thoughts and beliefs are synchronized with reality. Our internal beliefs match our external reality and there is no issue with reality or what is happening—we are unified with reality. When we’re synchronized with reality, we experience life in serendipity—life itself becomes a gift of finding valuable and agreeable things not looked for or expected. What IS, works for me. If we change our subjective judgments of rightness and wrongness of self, others, and things to mean everything and everyone just IS or WAS, focusing only on what works for us or doesn’t work for us, utilizing our control within that mindset, we would be happy much of the time. This constant state of happiness becomes Joy.
What does it mean to agree to the reality? Why would I need to? What does it do for me if I do agree to the reality?
Agreeing to the reality does not mean approving of what others may say, do, or how things are. We simply agree that “They said that, they did that. That just happened. This IS happening. This IS who they ARE, and this IS who they ARE NOT.” It is not saying we approve of something that happened; it is simply agreeing that it DID. Agreeing to reality is saying a resounding, “This IS real.” We don’t have to like something to agree with it, we just have to work with it. However, the more intensely we dislike something or someone, the more we are separating ourselves from reality and control.
Agreeing to the reality is foundational to our well-being; it says, “I am committed to reality.” We resist reality when we want the past to be different than what it WAS. Resisting the reality that has happened brings distress because it cannot be changed, yet we want it continuously. We ruminate over it. When we agree to the reality, we agree and commit to the IS-ness of ourselves, someone, or something. Agreeing to the reality of who we are, what someone or something IS, is fundamental to its nature, its IS-ness. It grounds us to reality, which is elemental. It IS that. There is nothing else it can be than what it IS, what it WAS, or what it WILL BE. Agreeing to the reality is primary, basic, factual, a force of nature.
When something happens that we like, we agree to the reality of it immediately, and the side effect is positive emotions. When something happens that we don’t like, it is common to resist that reality by believing it should be different and that it should align with what we think and believe. The side effect is distressing emotions. These distressing emotions come because we have an expectation or belief contrary to the very nature of what someone or something IS or WAS. We have no resolution to our distress when we say, “That happened, but it shouldn’t have.” A resolution becomes possible when we agree to the reality of what IS (or WAS). Resolution comes when we can say, “That happened (or IS happening), now what?” A good example of this is when we’re in traffic. Some experience road rage, while others just do what they can within the traffic conditions without experiencing negative emotions. The reality is that we cannot control traffic and other drivers. We can either let the other drivers irritate and enrage us with their driving, or we can agree to the reality that traffic just IS, stay safe, and control what we can.
Positive emotions tell us we are in alignment with reality; negative emotions tell us we are not aligned with reality and that we are avoiding mental pain in some way, shape, or form. We know not to touch a hot stove, but do we know a thought can be a hot stove as well? Any time we have a belief (recurring thought) that something shouldn’t be or that it should be different than what IS, it’s like touching a hot stove. Or like repeatedly hitting ourselves with a small hammer. Imagine what that would do to our body over time—a year, ten years, thirty years, etc. It would be covered with bruises and injury. And we typically get mad at the hammer, not the belief—the true source of our injury and distress. The damage done by inaccurate and unrealistic beliefs is invisible because it is internal, leading us to believe our beliefs are harmless. They are not. When we resist reality by believing something should be different than what it IS, these beliefs, along with their negative emotions, stay inside us without resolution and damage us from within. Resolution comes by shifting all of our beliefs to agree with reality and then focusing only on what we can control. Our positive and calm emotions confirm our mental alignment with reality.
What WAS and What IS
We can keep thinking about what ourselves, others, and things should be, but that will never make them different than what they ARE or WERE. Agreeing to the reality of ourselves, what something WAS, IS, or WILL BE, is our first step in changing our belief about things and creating a resolution.
To understand what WAS and what IS, we must understand its relationship to what “should” or “shouldn’t” be. What WAS WAS, and what IS IS. What “should” or “shouldn’t” be is not real. “Should” or “shouldn’t” are imagined results and outcomes—stories of how we wish things WERE, ARE, and WILL BE. It’s what we want instead of what WAS or IS, and is simply a thought.
How Shoulds and Shouldn’ts Are Created
We have an experience. We either like it or don’t. If we like it, we want it to repeat, so we form a belief that it should repeat. It is something that should happen—the meaning is that it is something good, desirable, worthwhile, wholesome, and positive. We experience positive emotions because what we believe about the situation (that it is desirable and should happen) aligns with the reality of the situation (that it happened). If we don’t like it, we don’t want it to repeat and form a belief that it shouldn’t happen—the meaning is that it is bad, undesirable, draining, damaging, and negative. When the “shouldn’t happen” happens—or anything like it, we experience negative emotions, not because our beliefs are accurate, but because the emotion is telling us our belief (that it shouldn’t happen) is out of alignment with reality (it happened). Our emotions are side effects of our beliefs and meanings.
IS-ness
The IS-ness of someone or something in the present does not describe anything it doesn’t have. The IS-ness is its organic, elemental, and factual state within reality. What IS, is a statement of fact, not a question, judgment, or opinion; a complete agreement with what self, others, and things ARE, without resistance. What IS, is grounding. What IS brings us to the present, to reality, to its complete IS-ness. If we consistently live our lives in what IS, focusing only on what we can control, then results and outcomes just ARE. They are not an expectation; they are a natural side-effect of the process of what IS. When we agree to the reality of the IS-ness of something or someone, we no longer expect them to do what we think they should or shouldn’t do. “That’s who they ARE. That’s what they DO, now what? Does this work for me? On what level?” Or, “This doesn’t work for me, now what?”
WAS-ness
What WAS refers to the factual past. WAS-ness is the state of something in the past—ourselves, others, events, things, etc. The WAS-ness of someone or something in the past does not describe anything it didn’t have. The WAS-ness can’t be anything other than what it WAS. What WAS are the facts of what happened, void of any notion of what should or shouldn’t have happened or what we wish would’ve been different. In the past, everything and everyone, including ourselves, was an objective fact; we understand the reality of self, others, and things as they were, not as we wish they were. When we agree to the reality of what WAS, we can now choose what belief and meaning we give the past and how we want to experience our future experiences.
If we wish the past were different, it changes how we experience our future experiences. If the meanings we create from the past with what we think should or shouldn’t have happened are not based in reality, we can have distorted perceptions of self, others, and things with intense and distressing emotions.
Continuing to wish the past was different contaminates the present—what WAS is no longer in the past; we’ve pulled it into the present, and it becomes a false reality. This keeps us stuck in the past with the same negative emotions we felt then but worse now because we continue moving further from reality (remember the small hammer?). Our negative emotions tell us when we believe in something inaccurate or unrealistic. Any whisper of a thought that the past should be different than what it IS is unrealistic. We cannot change the past—it is beyond our control. Continuing to wish the past were different makes a resolution impossible. Our wishing—shoulds, and shouldn’ts—keep us trapped in the past because we keep waiting for our results and outcomes in the past to happen somehow. Agreeing to the reality of the WAS-ness of the past enables us to use the past as examples or non-examples.
Making the WAS-ness and IS-ness Work for Us
Agreeing to the reality of what WAS and what IS allows us to define all experiences as examples or non-examples. We’re no longer making unrealistic judgments of our experiences through should or shouldn’t beliefs; we’re adjusting our beliefs about our experiences—they happened, and we can focus on, “Now what?” This also takes inaccurate, negative, and critical judgments out of our thought processes, including those against ourselves—that we’re not enough. Judging ourselves by our past mistakes, we stay stuck in the past, forever seeing ourselves as the same person, unable to move past our past. Redefining our experiences as examples and non-examples allows us to make different choices based on our past experiences going forward.
An example is something that works for us—an experience we will repeat. A non-example is something that doesn’t work for us—something we don’t want to repeat. Examples and non-examples are equally valuable. What WAS and what IS are now in their proper places; they are defined by reality. A new belief that allows for this process is, “I agree to the reality of what WAS and what IS, and all experiences are examples or non-examples.” “I agree to the reality that my past no longer represents who I currently am, and who I choose to be.” “I agree to the reality that my worth is unconditional.”
To apply the Reality Formula, do the following:
1. As in all the formulas, starting with grounding is essential. Use the Breath of Life app with its music to begin grounding. See three things, hear three things, touch three things, and smell three things (if possible). Grounding helps us BE in the reality of the present.
2. Recognize the distressing emotion. Trace it back to the source outside of us that is causing the internal disruption. “What am I thinking that is unrealistic or inaccurate?” Search your internal beliefs for “Do I want a different outcome or result than what reality is presenting?”
3. Agree to the reality of what IS. Notice what IS happening, then ask yourself, “Now what?” What about this can you control? Do what is within your power to act. Now you’re in reality and functioning within reality. Notice the shift in your emotions. “I agree to the reality that everything just IS so I control what I can.” “I agree to the reality everyone just IS so I control what I can.”
Letting Go
How do we let go? What are we letting go of? When we say we need to let something distressing go, we’re frequently talking about emotions like bitterness or resentment. We can’t let the emotions go until we realign our beliefs with the reality of the situation—what we can control and what we can’t.
Agreeing to the reality in any situation, focusing only on what we can control, and not taking responsibility for things we can’t, is letting go. Let go of every inaccurate and unrealistic thought about events, others, and ourselves. Agreeing to the reality, one can more clearly focus on what they can control in any given situation while being in a state of calm. “This is how I can behave within this reality.” Again, all of this is letting go. It may be tempting to say, “It is within my control to inflict equal pain, it’s what’s fair, it’s what’s just.” This is not justice, this is punishment. Don’t confuse justice with punishment. This will not bring you inner peace. Approach what you can control from your Higher Self, and inner peace becomes possible. This is true control.
True control is realizing immediately with anyone and in any situation, past, present, or future, what we can’t control and then letting go of that. Then, we can focus solely on what we can control, thus resolving the issues. Remember the mindset of EMS and First Responder Personnel around the world. They arrive on the scene and calmly, but with urgency, work the problem at hand. They only focus on what they can control, which is true control. They are there to resolve safety issues and provide necessary care. Some ways we can act in true control are voting and being involved in local, state, and federal government. We can engage in and support social causes that are important to us. We can involve law enforcement or legal services, if necessary, etc. These things are within our power to act and keep us in true control. When we’re focused on finding solutions, rather than problems, solutions show up.
When we focus on what we can control in the present moment, time can stand still. When we live in the present (not the past or the future), we don’t have to wait to live eternally; we’re already in it—in the eternal “now,” which has no beginning or end. This is living in the IS-ness of time. Living in the present, we can hold our precious moments longer, making each sensation a little bit stronger. Don’t look back or forward so much, be in the NOW of what IS.
What do we want? Just to live a normal life. Many of us have defined normal life as a life without problems, pain, or chaos—nothing that disrupts our comfort zone. Realistically, you can’t measure a “normal life.” It will be different for everyone—it’s all just life. So we get on with it. Live every moment, in each moment.