Meandering Michele’s Mind: Do you create your reality?
Monday, March 22nd, 2010 • Uncategorized •
I had an interesting discussion last Friday, live and in person with a Master Self Discovery trainer. She believes we absolutely create our reality. Later I chatted virtually with a group of survivors debating this idea. Several of them share the opposite opinion. It’s an interesting topic to consider.
I find myself falling on both sides of the fence. On the one side, I vehemently disagree that we always create our reality. For those of us who were children at the time of our traumas, it’s hard to accept, fathom, imagine — you choose the word — that we could even conceive of creating such a horrific reality for ourselves. No, I can’t find room for that idea. In the case of trauma (no matter what your age) I feel we end up as pawns in the creation of someone else’s reality.
Then, as children we haven’t learned enough about the world to know how to input the terror we feel into an appropriate framework of perception. As adults, we might learn the maxims of “bad things happen to good people” but as children we create our reality at face value. We take it for what it’s worth and interpret it that way, as personally and practically as we experience it. And so, maybe we do create a poor post-trauma reality but it’s because we don’t know any better. Not exactly the ‘choice’ involved in the suggestion creating your own reality infers.
So, again: No, I don’t believe we always create our reality because I think that’s unfair. No child intentionally brings suffering on him or herself. To say — in a way that suggests we have absolute control — that a child creates his reality assumes too much his own power in the moment. A power I don’t believe an immature child can absolutely possess.
On the other side, though, I DO believe that as adults after trauma we do create our reality. After trauma. Even in adults I have a hard time accepting that on the most innocent level anyone purposely creates pain. Well, no, that’s not exactly it either. I know in my darkest PTSD years I did purposely create even more pain because, as distorted as it was, it gave me a sense of control that made me feel safer and, ironically, more alive.
In the end, I split the realty question this way: Pre- and post-trauma. Pre-trauma I don’t believe we’re going along having a wonderful life and we purposely create a situation that just about kills us. Post-trauma, however, I do believe we have the choice about how we perceive past events, the present and the future. Insomuch as we can CHOOSE our perceptions (from a mature, adult perspective) then I think we do possess the ability to create our own reality.
Which does not mean we pretend the past does not exist, or the present does not have challenges. Rather, it means we view it in its proper perspective. As in: it is an event in the whole spectrum of my past but in the entire timeline of my life it is but one aspect of who I am. Or, what I have to do now in only a moment in the timeline of my life and then I will move forward.
This is where I believe our power to create our own reality sits: in how we view what happens to us, and what we do with that view, not necessarily in creating the tragedies that befall us but in designing how we proceed with our lives in the aftermath.
That’s how I see it. What’s your take?
(Photo acknowledgement on Flickr.)
Tags: Meandering Michele's Mind, post-trauma, survivor, trauma
Loading ...
Trauma: For me definitely a pawn in someone else’s reality. A warm body onto which they could project and enforce their reality. That was the primary trauma source for me I think.
Ex-Trauma: Our perception of phenomena creates reality. There is no absolute reality that exists independently of our thoughts. “It’s raining man that sucks”. “It’s raining the garden needs the rain”. Phenomena and perception are different. Perception is malleable.
Trauma is what happen when our ability to perceive/interpret/process phenomena is overwhelmed by the phenomena themselves. Trauma blows and bypasses all our processing ability so that we experience reality without our normal perceptual filters.
Dealing with trauma is coming to terms with that and building new perceptual filters that are more closely correlated with phenomena and not so subject to being overewhelmed.
Maybe!
If I could create my own reality, it would not be the one I have now. I witnessed so much of this in Vietnam. A young person, having lived a sheltered life thinking all is good is thrust into a daily life and death war. This is not the reality he created. It is a reality created by those who drove the war into a reality. I believe my healing will be step by step changing of my thought processes thus creating a new reality of my choosing.
I have been free of PTSD for about three years now. I first discovered I had PTSD after I returned from Vietnam in 1968. I sought help from the Physiatrist department of the Marine Corps in Camp Pendleton. I did not get any help and no one listened to me. I suffered horribly through out my life because of PTSD. Now I am having the same effect trying to convince people that there is a program that gets rid of the symptoms and thus PTSD. This is a wonderful site but it is not very realistic. I am a relatively intelligent individual and I could never control PTSD. A mood swing is a mood swing. How can you control it when you do not even realize you are there until you are there? What about an anxiety attack? I was laying down watching TV and suddenly I began to sweat and then within a few minutes I had diarrhea and I began vomiting violently. I was dizzy and I thought I was having a heart attack. I called for an ambulance and was rushed to the hospital. I was a 55 year old man at the time and a very strong man.
I was always scared of everything, I hated being around people. I was timid and I felt like I was a coward and very stupid. Why did I survive when much better man than I died? I hated living but was afraid to die. I always afraid to die because I would screw that up to and live eternally with my head screwed up.
E-mail me and let people read this there is help. The Army is currently beganing to use this program.
Fred;
I have been in the VA PTSD treatment process for 25 years and they have made vast progress in the treatment of PTSD sufferes. My Daughter is a Nurse at the US Army hospital at Fort Hoot, Texas. She hasn’t been able to find out about this process you speak of. I believe any breakthroughs in this area should by rights be shared with all the services and the VA. It would be great if you could share this Secret treatment process with all those needing help.
I so love the way you encourage..and you’re positive outlook..Hopefully someday I will be PTSD free and share that vision…I have just one comment.. when you say look at Post trauma..that’s really hard to do since my trauma started at the age of 5 …I truly don’t have any visions of post trauma..I’m in the process of healing and working on changing and succeeding from today on…I have to recreate memories of post trauma….making new memories to thrive today ..thank you for this post
@Bongo — Great comment, and to that I would say: post-trauma is TODAY! Who you are going to be when you are PTSD-free, and how you look back on your past trauma, all depends on the reality you choose to create through all of the decisions you make from this day forward. Think of it this way: your vision of the future is your post-trauma vision. Who will you become? Who do you want to be?…. I can’t wait to find out. Keep me posted.