---

---

---

The image above is only partly a joke.

The “point,” the place where real­ity exists (for you!), is some­where within your skull. That was the mean­ing of last week’s “orange” exer­cise, and the irony extended to the title of last week’s arti­cle “Mind-full of Oranges.” It’s the only place an orange, or any­thing else, can exist.

In a sense (he says with a smirk,) the whole of the uni­verse is con­tained between your ears.

Opti­cal illu­sion games demon­strate the unre­li­a­bil­ity of (or bet­ter, how easy it is to fool) our senses.

Things, as they say, are not as they appear. They are as I choose to see them.

One of the rea­sons the ini­tial “The Matrix” movie was so suc­cess­ful is that it’s premise — that it was pos­si­ble to cre­ate a faux world, and with­out “wak­ing up”, it was impos­si­ble to detect - is actu­ally reality.

We can only pre­tend that the 2 things that seem the most obvi­ous are ver­i­fi­ably real:
1) that there is an exter­nal and ver­i­fi­able out­side world, and

2) that there is any sim­i­lar­ity at all between the world I per­ceive and the world you perceive.

This is espe­cially so with con­cepts, but also exists in terms of the things we think we see, “out there.” For exam­ple, when you pick some­thing up, you think you are feel­ing the object, when in actu­al­ity, all of the “stuff” is hap­pen­ing inside of you. You do not feel the object — you “feel” your hand!

One of the odd things clients often want is what I call agreement/permission.

They want some­one else to val­i­date their expe­ri­ence (despite the fact that no-one can actu­ally val­i­date their own…)

They are frozen in place, wait­ing for some­one to do some­thing. Usu­ally, it’s res­cue them from their self-created messes, but it can also be that they sim­ply want assur­ances in advance. The assur­ance might be that some­thing will suc­ceed before it’s started (a rela­tion­ship, child rais­ing, a busi­ness, a divorce, etc.) Or, that the per­son who is wait­ing is good, or bad, or indifferent.

Yes, there are some folk out there that think they are fail­ures, or bad peo­ple, or weak, and they want oth­ers to con­firm this. You might won­der why.

If I think I am inca­pable, and oth­ers also tell me that, indeed I am incom­pe­tent, then I am freed from act­ing. I can con­tinue to feel bad, although with the “assur­ance” that I’m “really” a loser, and there­fore some­how off the hook.

Off the hook, indeed.

The realm of judge­ments is equally strewn with mines. We feel ten­sion in our bod­ies, and our minds scream (or whis­per!) “That’s not right! And… it’s all your fault!” As opposed to, “Hmm. I’m feel­ing tight and my anx­i­ety thoughts are increas­ing. I won­der why I am choos­ing this?”

I once worked with a cou­ple. He was doing quite well learn­ing the com­mu­ni­ca­tion model, and she could get through it, with dif­fi­culty. Then she said to her part­ner, Dick, “I want you to help me with this. Point out when I’m not doing it right, cor­rect me. I need your sup­port with this, because I can’t do it on my own.”

Ini­tially, he accepted, as this seemed to be the chival­rous thing to do. Over time, how­ever, the com­mu­ni­ca­tion between them remained the same — he used the Model, she yelled, finger-pointed, blamed. I was new at the ther­apy game, so it took me a cou­ple of weeks to fig­ure it out.

I said, “Sally, you don’t seem to be using the model much at all, any­more. Why are you choos­ing not to use it?”
Sally: “It’s Dick’s fault. He’s doing a lousy job of remind­ing me to use it.“
Me: “Oh. I get it! You had no inten­tion of using the model.“
Sally: “I was going to use it, but it’s his job to make me.“
Me: “Hmm. Per­fect! If you choose to do it, great, and if you make a mis­take, it’s Dick’s fault!“
Sally: (Glar­ing at me) “He agreed… so yes, it’s his fault!

This passes for com­mu­ni­ca­tion. I call it duck­ing respon­si­bil­ity for your life.

All too com­mon — set up some­one around you to take the blame for your inabil­ity to choose to do something.

Within a rela­tion­ship (and in all of life!), each party is solely and com­pletely respon­si­ble for their side of things — what Sally feels and thinks is all about her, not about Dick. Nor is it his job to keep Sally on track — that’s her job. His job is to do what he says he will do, in this case, com­mu­ni­cate using the Model.

Now, this is not to say that other peo­ple do not make mis­takes, do not blame, do not get angry.

It is to say that every­thing going on in my life was caused by, and set in motion by me, includ­ing my thoughts that oth­ers are to blame, or that oth­ers should some­how be respon­si­ble for me. The key, then, to self respon­si­bil­ity is tak­ing 100% own­er­ship of our thoughts, feel­ings, and actions, while at the same time remem­ber­ing that we don’t know much for sure.

It is quite imma­ture for adults to stomp their lit­tle feet­sies, and say, “I don’t under­stand, I don’t believe it, and I’m not lis­ten­ing to another word!”

Such an odd thing. Peo­ple are stuck in a pile of shit, and insist that
a) it appeared by magic,
b) they had noth­ing to do with their being in it,
c) some­one else is to blame,
d) some­one else should dig them out, and
e) they don’t want to even con­sider how they got into the pile in the first place (as they place their fin­gers in their ears, and start humming.)

If I assume that what I know is pro­vi­sional and incom­plete (what Zen calls Beginner’s Mind…) then life actu­ally becomes kind of sim­ple. If I am stand­ing in roses I can enjoy it, then move on. If I am stand­ing in shit, I can extri­cate myself, and then devise a way to not end up there again.

The Point?

The entire uni­verse is going on right in your head. You are cre­at­ing every­thing through the sto­ries you tell, and expe­ri­enc­ing every­thing as you choose to. Your expe­ri­ence, your feel­ings, your thoughts, all are you — you are choos­ing out of many, many options, those spe­cific things. If I have Beginner’s Mind, I can start again, and pick some other way.

Dar­bella and I just fin­ished our first Injured Worker’s Group, and there was much suc­cess — the par­tic­i­pants learned to deal with their pain in another way. In other words, rather than see­ing them­selves as vic­tims of their pain, they found a way to accept it and move gen­tly around it. Yes, I did say “accept,” as in, “Here is where I am, right now. This is me, injured. Wish­ing it were dif­fer­ent accom­plishes noth­ing. So, let me start here, and approach this in a new way.“

Here’s a quote from one of the participants:

[This group was] sur­pris­ingly help­ful. I went in with an open mind, (“I’ll try any­thing once”), but I really didn’t expect much out of it. My source of pain is nerve related, so I can not be sure if my pain has actu­ally decreased or its just the nat­ural fluc­tu­a­tions. How­ever, my suf­fer­ing has def­i­nitely been reduced by a sur­pris­ing amount. Some­how, Wayne and Dar have man­aged to alter my entire out­look on life in eight short weeks. Absolutely amaz­ing, con­sid­er­ing that I have always seen myself as hav­ing a rea­son­ably good han­dle on myself and my life. I think this is mostly due to the open and flex­i­ble nature of how they teach. Everyone’s pain has been caused by sep­a­rate injuries and a rigid course would help some I am sure but could also hurt oth­ers if their indi­vid­ual needs were not acknowl­edged. Allow­ing the par­tic­i­pants “to “pick and choose” how much,how far to go and even what exer­cises to use makes this course uniquely flex­i­ble and appro­pri­ate for everyone,of all ages regard­less of what the pain source is. This course has been pos­si­bly the best thing that has hap­pened in my world since the day I hurt myself at work 2 years ago.

Time to own your own expe­ri­ence (all of it) and then to make other choices.

That’s the Point.

---

Make Con­tact!

So, how does this week’s arti­cle sit with you? What ques­tions do you have? Go to the top of this arti­cle, click on the title, and leave a com­ment or question!

---

Work­shops, Retreats!

Dar­bella and I can help you to find a new, vibrant, rich path. We offer day-long and week­end events —just you and us—and we will work with you, to be the change you want to see.

Read about it here:

Day-long Inten­sives
Week­end Residentials

---

Incom­ing search terms:

• real­ity checks how to screw your head on
• real­ity is in your head
• real­ity is all in your head
• real­ity in your head
• real­ity is in your own head
• real­ity is in your mind
• real­ity is only in your head
• all of real­ity is in your mind
• your head vs reality
• life is all in your head
• real­ity is just in your head
• won­dered if real­ity is just in your head
• real­ity itself is all in our heads
• the uni­verse all in the head
• uni­verse all in your head
• all in our head-reality is all in your head
• def­i­n­i­tion only what\s in your head is reality
• every­thing is all in your mind
• how much of real­ity is in your head
• is real­ity all in your head
• is real­ity in our head
• is relity in your head
• realit i sall in our head
• real­ity and in your head
• real­ity exist inside you
• your real­ity exists in your mind

Related posts:

1. Mind Movies
2. The Mind and Suffering

---

Tagged with: appear • chosen • Communication • communication model • exist • Mind • mindfulness meditation • optical illusion • Reality • relationship books • understanding

---