Seeing through Illusions

What is real?

Before every New Year, we have a family tradition of deciding on three things we wish to let go of from the past year and three things we wish to become or engage or pursue in the New Year.

It is a blissfully liminal state. A kind of reflective limbo.

It is… a threshold.

I fell in love with this word several years ago. I have referenced it in a previous Pilgrim post but it has a rich etymology, which is deeply relevant here.

Not only is it a beginning and an end, an entrance and an exit, but it is also the act of separating the grain from the chaff.

This is exactly what we attempt to do. Separate what we can use and not, to exit one year and enter another.

There is usually a very clear theme that emerges.

I know I have locked in on something personally important when I begin seeing examples of it everywhere. About a month ago, I felt like it was time to break through some illusions I have subscribed to for a long time.

There is a quote from the new Star Wars movie, “The Force Awakens”, in which the female pirate Maz Kanata, who has been alive for more than a thousand years shatters the girl heroine Rey’s illusion that her family will be coming for her.

She says…

“My dear child, the belonging you seek is not behind you, it is ahead.”

This was profound to me because contained within the scene is a multiplicity of perspectives.

Rey, does not yet know she is a Jedi warrior. She believes she is a mere scavenger. And without her family she will have nothing.

She knows only the gravity of what she has lost.

We, as the audience can sense there is greatness ahead. We know she will find family and it will be better than she could have imagined. Yet, we also feel the horrible pain of her suffering.

Maz’s perspective is similar to ours though we sense she knows better than we can the complexities of what it will mean to harness energy as powerful as The Force.

She cannot see any of this from her vantage.

And this, I believe, is us.

We must let go of our illusions before we know what lies ahead. The movie is a much needed reminder of the possibility it will be greater than we dare imagine.

It rarely seems this way going in.

So, my illusions?

Illusion #1: Sugar makes me happy.

I eat dark chocolate covered almonds and Jacques Torre chocolate covered cornflakes, brownies and warm chocolate chip cookies with vanilla ice cream. I love it all. It feels special, like a treat, a reward after a long day or hard workout.

It makes me happy. Makes me relaxed. Comforted.

It feels like bliss.

This makes total sense.

According to food-industry legend Howard Moskowitz, who studied mathematics and holds a Ph.D. in experimental psychology from Harvard, there is a maximum sugar peak called “the bliss point”.

Like a legalized narcotic, sugar races along the same neural pathways to reach the brain’s pleasure zones.

We go up and come down and want more.

More and more and more.

New York Times journalist, Michael Moss, says it like this, “Sugar, with its ‘high-speed, blunt assault on our brains’, is the ‘methamphetamine of processed food ingredients’”.

Except it doesn’t.

The truth is, sugar makes me happy– in a nervous, desperate, out-of-control way. It is a feel-good that I pay for dearly for as my mood trails off and the guilt sets in.

That sugar is dangerous is not new news. But just like the bliss point, when we are ready, we hit the point of no return. Our family watched a documentary called That Sugar Film and something in it struck a chord.

Just to be crystal clear, sugar is an issue for me.

It’s not good for anyone. But not everyone has an addictive relationship with it. I always thought this was absurd, over-indulgent, over-statement. But it is not.

That was merely me protecting my dear sweet (traitor) friend.

I have been off the yummy crack (as it relates to all deserts, all sodas and sugar in my coffee) now for over three weeks and I feel clearer. Emotions feel clean. Not the normal foggy muddy sugar coated mess.

Illusion #2: Stress is externally created.

This has always made perfect sense. But it is untrue. It is a false sense.

It is not the things that happen, the circumstances we are faced with but out thoughts about them that cause stress.

Say nasty, guilt-tripping alcoholic Aunt Lena is visiting. Stress alarm. But not because she is visiting but rather because it means I will feel out-of-control, unstable and likely to power-eat pounds of chocolate.

These are my thoughts about her visit.

Now to be clear, I can come up with brilliant strategies for dealing with this kind of issue but they are hardly flawless.

Challenges and feelings of fear and insecurity arise.

But again, it is not these feelings but my thought about what they mean that causes stress.

I assume they mean I am weak and powerless– unable to stand up for myself.

But without these thoughts they are merely an honest and natural reaction to the cruelty of someone else.

If I allow myself to be with them instead of interpreting them, there may be sadness but not stress. They are clean emotions that result directly from what has happened. Not the complicating dirty emotions of what it all means.

Illusion #3: My fears are based on reality.

This is absurd for the obvious reason that fears by definition are not directly correlated with reality but rather are thoughts about it, as stated above.

But this has become even more hard-hitting to me recently. Why?

Because reality is not really reality.

Wine is bad. Caffeine is bad. Carbs are bad. Fat is bad. Count your calories and you will lose weight.

Lies, lies, lies. Science keeps disproving reality. Reality is a completely fluid and flexible premise.

So, the three things I am embracing for 2016…

The flip sides of these illusions. But NOT in the negative. Focusing on what I REALLY want and tapping into THAT. Not about denial. Not about what I can’t have but about what I CAN.

1) Healthy foods make me happy.

2) Truth is internally sourced.

3) There is no need to get too hung up on reality because it may not be.

Only love is real.