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Shortly after I was ordained to the ministry, and was about to begin my ministry, just out of school, I needed a car. I had some savings, so I went to a recommended dealer to look. The salesman asked if I had ever considered a Honda. At that time, I had never even heard of a Honda Escort, let alone considered one. Yes, I’m that old! Not only did I buy one (my very first new car), but after I started driving it, I began seeing them everywhere! The car I didn’t even know existed was becoming quite popular. I suppose that I could have imagined that all those people had seen me driving my car and that caused them to go running out to buy one, but, more likely, I’d just never noticed them before.
That’s the way our human minds operate, you know. We filter out a tremendous amount of sensory information that pours into us from moment to moment. Without those very useful filters, we’d find ourselves absolutely paralyzed, unable to function. We have to take those filters into consideration when we employ the life strategy we call ‘comprehension‘. We must comprehend that what we observe is only a small portion of what we perceive, and the mind has its own criteria by which it judges what’s going to get through (and what isn’t). We filter out random conversations in a restaurant, but, somehow, hearing our name spoken from across the room grabs our immediate attention.
The principle here is very simple and straightforward: we don’t notice what doesn’t relate to us. Yet some things, you may say, we just can’t ignore. Our attention is immediately grabbed by anything that harms us, or threatens to harm us. Our self-preservation instinct is the strongest one we have. The ‘fight, flight or freeze’ reaction has been hard-wired into our brains, even by-passing the thought centers of our cerebral cortex. How can we explain, then, those instances where the very sight of another person makes our flesh crawl, our faces get red, and our hearts beat faster. What’s behind those feelings of fear, loathing, anger, disgust and hatred that we feel when confronted with even the image of an ‘enemy’?
Strangely enough, in those circumstances (when we’re not in any real danger), we’ve encountered our own fears. These fears that other people bring up in us have no basis in the other at all (other than they serve to remind us of our own vulnerability). Psychologists call these events either ‘projection’ or ‘transference’. In either case, we don’t so much see the other as we do our own reflection in them: a reflection of what we believe to be the most unacceptable part of ourselves. We can’t crush out the unacceptable parts of ourselves without destroying the rest; so we find a way to hate the other, since our filter makes it easy to see only the memory of our own fears and not whatever potential may also exist there.
Fear, hatred, animosity, ex-girlfriend revenge, and all the other negative emotions we direct at others reveal themselves as corrosive self-hatred. The only pathway out of this entanglement lies through forgiveness. Forgiveness isn’t optional and it isn’t selective, any more than you can learn to accept just a part of yourself, while trying to destroy another part. Forgiveness isn’t about letting anybody else ‘off the hook’ (as though you had them ‘on the hook’ in the first place). It’s about giving yourself the chance to move beyond all that’s keeping you doubly stuck: stuck in painful events of the past that are over and done with, and stuck in the present fears about your own integrity, abilities or worthiness. Comprehension as a strategy says, ‘When you feel these negative emotions come up in regard to anyone else, STOP! Take a look at what’s going on with you, and ask yourself how you need to change.’ You’ll be surprised how quickly forgiveness will let you move on, and the other will fade into the background like the unheard conversations in a restaurant.
H. Les Brown, MA, CFCC
ProActivation® Coaching
Website: http://www.ProActivation.com
E-Mail: [email protected]
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Copyright © 2008 H. Les Brown
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