During a class I was giving on "Letting Go of Self-Doubt," Pat S. wanted to know why unforeseen events, or even the threat of an unforeseen event, made her feel so uncomfortable. Following are the key questions and answers from our discussion:
Q: Why am I so easily upset by the unexpected?
A: If you're interested enough in this question, we can go into it. The answer may surprise you.
Q: Yes, I really want to know why changes in my life, at work or at home, make me so uneasy.
A: Good. Then let's start by clearing up the initial mental mistake that is at the root of your problem. It's not really you who feels shaky when situations shift without warning.
Q: If it's not me, then who is it?
A: Who you think you are; that's what feels threatened. But you do not have to go on feeling afraid. Beginning right now, with some patient self-investigation and the aid of a few higher facts, you will discover that you are not who you think you are. This is one of the most exciting and relief-filled self-findings you can make about yourself.
Living from our present life-level, we are almost always nervous about what's going on around us. Why? Because we still live with the mistaken notion that who we are is somehow affected or determined by what happens to us.
For example, say you walk outside and scuff a new pair of shoes. Why should there be pain in this unless we have literally mistaken ourselves for being a shoe! Obviously, we are not a piece of polished leather. Hopefully, we can laugh at ourselves here by seeing how silly and self-compromising this kind of unconscious suffering is. And yet, putting aside this humor that our presently confused mind is apt to cause, there is nothing funny about thinking that you are going to lose yourself if someone leaves you. Just ask anyone who has ever gone through the nightmare of seeing a loved one walk away.
This is why we are going to leave behind us, once and for all, this threatened nature of ours. By placing ourselves in the care of real Intelligence, we can learn to let go of whatever it may be that has frightened us up to now. That's right. The winds of this world can blow hot or cold, gentle or like gales, and it won't matter to you. You have found yourself. Let's continue to learn.
There is only one possible explanation for how who you really are could ever get confused or pained by what happens to you. Simply stated, you are suffering from a case of mistaken identity. This identity crisis is born out of believing that who you are, your essential self, is somehow tied to the events in your life. This kind of thinking tends to make you afraid of almost any change in life.
By thinking that your life is determined by events, you grow afraid of losing control of yourself if you can no longer control the events. Looking for yourself outside of yourself -- whether through career, hobbies, or in the faces of people, family or strangers -- is like trying to find your reflection in a tumbling mountain brook. You might see yourself for a flash, only to disappear. And then you must look again...and again...and again.
Living from this unfortunate kind of mistaken identity leaves you endlessly on edge and hopelessly searching for yourself; a search that never ends because, just as the mountain brook dances ever onward, so is constant change the true nature of life.
Remember this next helpful idea and work to learn the intelligence behind it: Events may happen to you, but you are not the event. Just as clouds are not the sky, you are not what moves through you. You are not who you think you are.
As we have discovered, thinking that you are the event, being identified with it, gives rise to a certain wrong identity -- an anxious and uncertain one. This mistaken identity is called the false self and it wears many hats. For now, let's just say this false self is a character created in our consciousness from the sum of our experiences in life; and that's quite natural.
Where things go "wrong" for us is that this level of "self" only knows how to compare what "is" to what was; it can't meet any moment with the same newness that moment brings because this self is, literally, a construct of one's past. And as long as we see life through its eyes, the freedom that comes with living in the present moment remains impossible.
It is possible to learn all about this lower nature and, at the same time, how to let it go. For too long it has lived unchallenged within us. Today, right now, is the beginning of the end of it, and the true beginning of who you really are.
Excerpted from "The Secret of Letting Go" Rev. Edition, Llewellyn, 2007)
Guy Finley is the acclaimed author of more than 30 books and audio programs on the subject of self-realization, several of which have become international best sellers. His popular works, published in 16 languages, are widely endorsed by doctors, professionals, and religious leaders of all denominations. Among many others, his popular titles include: The Secret of Letting Go, Design Your Destiny, The Lost Secrets of Prayer, Apprentice of the Heart, Let Go and Live in the Now, and The Essential Laws of Fearless Living. Finley is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit center for self-study located in Southern Oregon where he gives talks four times each week. Visit http://www.guyfinley.org for a wealth of free helpful information, free audio and video downloads, and to request your free Self-Improvement Starter Kit.