What glass boxes are you in? While recently chatting with a friend, a healthcare issue came up. It was nothing serious. My friend smiled and said that her physician had told her, ‘it’s happening because you’re getting older.” In other words, just accept it; there’s nothing you can do about it. Perhaps in this case this is true, but I am now wary of this way of thinking, or not thinking. Here are some variations of this same, just-accept-it attitude, ‘It’s just the way things are,’ ‘this is how it is,’ ‘we’ve always done it that way,’ ‘It happened that way before, it will happen that way again,’ and so on. There are many of these expressions that essentially mean nothing will change and there is no reason to expect anything else.
I call these beliefs or attitudes glass boxes because it’s hard to see that we are in containers with walls, albeit clear, but nonetheless, confining. They prevent us from having a new thought or seeing a new possibility.
Of course, I have fallen for this, too. For quite a while I woke up each morning with a slight backache. I chalked it up to ‘getting older,’ another ‘that’s just the way things are…’ Then, after a very comfortable stay in a hotel for several days, I discovered that I needed a new mattress! I had lost track of the age of my own mattress. Sleeping on my new mattress has banished those backaches. I have had several such experiences of accepting or settling for a situation only to later find that I never had to do so.
Here’s the challenge, how do you see the box you are in when it is so familiar that you are unaware of it? Because once you see it, then it can be relatively easy to make a change if you so choose. Here are some suggestions for catching sight of the boxes.
- The first is the hardest, you have to pay attention to your thoughts. Much of the time we are mindless about our internal conversation.
- What is the tone of that conversation? Is it sad, berating, angry, accepting? And of course, the tone can change depending on the topic.
- Then consider, what beliefs and expectations are the foundation for that internal conversation? That is the unseen, unconscious source of your assumptions.
- And last, consider, is there a way to test your assumption or belief? For example, ‘how do I know that is true, really? ‘Where did that idea come from?’ ‘How can I check that out?’
If I had stopped and wondered about my acceptance of morning backaches, I probably would have looked into the possibility of an aging mattress long before I finally did. The above suggestions for seeing our glass boxes will work for any kind of unknowingly assumed thoughts or beliefs. Have fun and be open to all the possibilities of living.