The Reality Trap
Isn’t it all just reality? Rainbows are beautiful, but first it has to rain. And you stopped believing in pots of leprechaun gold and other magic a long, long time ago.
So you may be thinking...
You might believe that those moments of brilliance, the times when you feel unimaginably strong, when your joy makes everything luminous — they’re not part of reality.
Your imagination takes you places that you’re better off not knowing. Dreaming about what you can’t have doesn’t do anyone any good.
After all, it’s much better if you just stay grounded in the reality of trying to keep up with everything you have to do and try to create a little bit of balance in your life.
Maybe when you retire, you can find time to do something just for yourself. It must be nice for those women who write their stories about taking a year or even just a weekend off to “find themselves,” but clearly they never had to face reality.
Because isn’t it all about dealing with reality?
How many times have you thought these thoughts in the last few weeks?
If one or two of these thoughts feel familiar ... if you find yourself not wanting to answer ...
... then you’re caught in the Reality Trap.
The Reality Trap feels very, well, real. It’s logical, sensible, reasonable, and rational. It follows all the Rules.
The Reality Trap is all wrong. Heartbreakingly wrong.
The fact is, reality DOES include rainbows.
Reality includes that feeling of amazing brilliance. Reality includes knowing who you are, and acting from that still place of certainty, that center that allows no compromise, only love, compassion, unconditional trust, and joy. In fact, that’s the only Reality. It’s the rest of it — including the life you’re struggling with right now — that’s unreal.
Why is that so hard to believe?
Partly because you want it so much, and you’re afraid you can’t have it.
Partly because some part of you remembers, and it hurts too much to remember.
And partly because that marvelous mind of yours, so busy thinking and sorting and analyzing, wants everything to be reasonable and linear.
But joy isn’t linear. And rainbows aren’t linear. And you aren’t linear.
Could you open the door of your heart, just a little bit, to consider other possibilities?
Ok. I’m willing to consider that maybe not everything is linear, and maybe there is something beyond my current experience. I sure could use that, so I’m curious. Now what?
Start by signing up to download my free guided meditation recordings — and then try it out. Just a few moments of silence in every day will make a difference. You’ll also receive my twice-monthly newsletter, Crossing the Threshold, which includes ideas and tips for deepening your sense of who you are and finding ways to deal with this new reality.
You can also look at my resources or services page. Or find out more about me.
And if you have any questions or thoughts I haven’t answered, then please contact me. I generally respond to email within one business day or less.
I’ve had a lot of issues with men, and one of my big leaps forward into integration is letting go of my
defenses in this area. So the mere fact that Jon is male is really important for me — that I have enough
trust to open myself up in this way with a man with absolutely no fear is significant. No fear. I just trust
him implicitly. I know I can be all of who I am with him, there’s nothing I have to hide, nothing I have
to defend, nothing I have to hold back. It’s because of the kind of man he is that I can do that. I feel
really safe.
Jon can help you recognize where you are, and become more clear. My work with him has not been about plotting
out my future, it has been about helping me come into deeper relationship with myself so that next steps unfold
easily and effortlessly.
The fact is that he’s really done his work, and he knows what he’s talking about. The benefits
aren’t just in the verbal exchange — it’s the depth of the vibe, if you’ll pardon the
jargon. In addition to the verbal sharing, there’s a lot of silence and a lot of laughter, too. It’s
not an intellectual process for either one of us. I don’t turn to him because I want to deal with
something on an intellectual level!
He creates a safe, spacious container for you to go as deep or wide or high as you’re capable of in any
given moment. It’s like there’s room in the dynamic for something new to emerge, and he’s
so good at helping you recognize that and see it. It’s the nuanced listening, and the way he can feed
back information to you about aspects of yourself that most people would neither tune in to in the first place,
nor would they have the capacity to reflect them back to you in a way that allows you to own and claim them.
It’s a matter of him being able to see the facets and help me make them real in me, and see them as real.
So when you’re out in the world and you’re trying to bring all of who you are — it helps to
have somebody like him at your back. Because then you feel more real and established and valid in claiming it
all and emerging into the fullness of who you are.
- Sandra Leader, Carmel, CA