Foundational Philosophy - Your Life is Your Own to Create

---

Through Humanity in Harmony, I will be speaking about how to move from the basic understanding of how to be human, through the impacts that being human has on our lives and our future, to actions and activities you can use to realize your hopes and dreams. Understand that I am still in this process and, with determination and help from those around me, plan to be in the process until my last breath on this beautiful blue ball. Just reading this may impact your life in profound ways, as mine was when I was introduced to these concepts. But this is only the beginning of our journey together! Please read on to understand the philosophy we can employ to make our lives the best they can be! 

My personal journey began with wanting to have a better understanding of how my mind works. I had been through grade school, college, being an employee, owning a business, living, loving, experiencing life’s ups and downs, and yet, had no idea how the wrinkly ball in my skull even worked. Why do I get angry in some situations and in others I am at peace? Sometimes I feel sad when the exact same situation, in a different setting, has me feel joy. Am I crazy? What’s going on? Here’s what I learned, in simple terms. 

Our world is constantly providing us with input and stimuli. There is so much going on around us all the time that it’s a wonder we aren’t more overloaded than we are. Not only are we managing the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feelings (how we feel the wind blow, not the emotions we feel), we are bombarded with more complex messages as well. Messages from the news, from advertising, communications with other humans, books, television, social media, etc., all telling us what to believe, how we should live, what we should look like, what we should say, what will make us happy, what will help us fix what’s broken with ourselves, on the inside and on the outside. As a result, we have come to accept certain statements and phrases as facts and realities. Simple things that mean very little in the moment are having big impacts on how we see ourselves, how we choose, and how we live.

 Here’s an example. 

“My boss makes me so angry!” There are so many things right about this statement, but there is one thing wrong that can wreck someone’s day/week/life. I will start with what’s right. Most of us have worked for a boss at one time, and some of those bosses may not have been the best. Maybe they didn’t listen to our ideas. Maybe they stole our ideas and made them theirs. Maybe they enforced rules just because they liked to be in power. Further still, we often carried that stress home and it impacted our family life. The point is, many of us have had bosses that we didn’t see eye to eye with. The other thing right in this statement is that it is natural for us to get angry! As humans, we are emotional creatures and anger is universal. Suffice it to say, if you are human you have the entire range of emotions at your disposal. 

Now, let’s discuss what’s wrong with the statement. Difficult bosses do not have the power to make us angry. This is the first real aha moment I had in my life on the path to understanding myself better. The mechanism that leads to an emotional response is very complex, with many moving parts and years of experience and back story. That said, there is a relatively easy explanation of the basics. Here goes—the world around us happens, i.e. bad bosses, and we observe these things. As we observe, our minds want to make sense of it all, so we begin to make judgements and interpretations. Sometimes our minds interpret the world in a positive light. This often produces emotional responses ranging from neutral to utter joy and happiness. Sometimes our minds interpret the world in a negative light, leading to emotional responses from neutral to sadness, confusion, or anger. The kicker is, that two humans can have the exact same boss, experience the exact same treatment by that boss, and have two very different emotional responses. How can that be? If bad bosses make us angry, then why don’t they make everyone angry? There is so much power in asking this question. In truth, our interpretation of the world around us produces the emotions we feel, not the world itself! Are you having an aha moment? Let’s discuss further. 

We see something happen, a car crash for example, and our eyes and ears absorb the information—a loud noise, two large masses of plastic, rubber, and metal colliding, smoke, steam, glass shattering, metal twisting. It all makes for an abundance of sensory input for our brains to process. As this information moves from our eyes and ears to our brains, different parts of the brain are used to make sense of the data. If we are far away, we might experience the feelings of fear/concern for the drivers. Maybe we will experience anger at the negligence of one or both drivers. The list of possible feelings we may experience varies widely. Then, if we add multiple witnesses to the scene, now we could have an exponentially different range of emotions. Maybe one person was standing very close and not paying attention. Their experience is of shock and fear for their own life. Maybe there is a first responder nearby and, due to having experienced this type of situation before, finds a sense of calm determination settle over her as she assesses the situation and determines a course of action. The point is, if you have 10 witnesses and two drivers, you have 12 different interpretations of the same event and, very likely, 12 different emotional responses. 

So why does this matter? Because, if the world was responsible for our emotional responses, it stands to reason that one event would produce the same response in all of us. In a moment, our unique brains, filled with unique experiences and back stories, interprets our surroundings and produces an emotional response. This means that our brains and, more specifically, our brain’s interpretation of the event, is the cause of our emotional response. To put it simply, our interpretations are responsible for the anger, sadness, joy, peace, etc. we feel in any and every moment. 

When I present this concept to an audience, almost everyone in the room agrees with and understands this concept. Of course, our brains take in information, interpret that information, and then emotions occur. “Yes, I see how I am responsible for my emotions.” I then challenge them with this request, “Raise your hand if anyone has ever made you angry”. Without fail, every hand in the room goes up. Of course, someone has made me angry! But this is in direct conflict with the understanding that our interpretations of a situation cause our emotions! In one moment, everyone is ready to own their emotions and yet, in the very next moment, we go right back to blaming our environment for our upset. When I explain how the concept of someone “making us” angry is incorrect—it’s how we interpret that person’s action that causes the upset, not the actual person or their actions—understanding begins to set in. The reality, if we choose to accept it, is that no one has ever “made” us angry. Oh, we have certainly been angry at people/situations/etc. The fact remains, our own interpretations, conscious or subconscious, led to the emotional response. 

As this reality begins to settle in, often people come to two different realizations. The first is usually, “Damn, I have been blaming others for my own anger and other emotions when it’s not really their fault.” This is often associated with a bit of guilt. At some point, though, a second realization sets in, “I don’t have to react with and/or carry my emotions if I don’t want to.” Scientifically, if our emotions are the result of our own interpretations, I can change my emotions simply by changing my interpretations.

After I’ve gotten everyone thinking about anger and how to manage it, I pose another idea. “Raise your hand if you have ever received love from another person”. This time, some hands still go up but there are a lot of people considering the ramifications of this statement. The answer, of course, is no. That means, any time you have ever felt loved, you created it. Your interpretations of the person, the situation, etc., caused the emotion that we experience as love. This also means that any time we want to feel love, we can create it!

We are not tied to anger if we choose not to be and can experience love any time we want! Great news, right?! But not so fast. In concept, this is correct. In practice, it is much harder. Unless you have consistently practiced the skill, most people instantly react to certain situations; we have no real say in the moment. But what we CAN do is revisit our emotional responses and seek to understand why we reacted the way we did. Why did I get so mad when they said that? Wow, I’m so happy—what exactly is it that is causing me to feel this way? When we honestly explore these kinds of questions we can learn so much more about ourselves. Moreover, we can begin to understand what it will take to accomplish things like creating our own happiness and controlling angry reactions. If we can accept that we are responsible for the full gamut of our emotions. The possibilities are endless.  

Stress is another fact of life that we all deal with on some level and that can often be a barrier to working on our emotional responses. Many of us live in constant fear of losing jobs, losing friendships or loved ones, not being loved, not being liked, looking bad, being laughed at, being taken advantage of, being left out, being alone, etc.—the list goes on and on. All of these are thoughts and interpretations of situations that lead to some type of emotional response, mostly negative. Moderate, constant stress can lead to mental and emotional fatigue, lack of motivation, a reduction in our immune system’s ability to fight off disease, and a host of other issues. Now we are less able to stay present and in control, which only increases the possibility that we will get triggered and have a greater number of negative emotional responses. This a vicious cycle. The more frequently we find ourselves in this vicious cycle, the more conditioned we become to stay in it.  As the famous writer, historian, and philosopher Will Durant says, “We are what we repeatedly do.” Many of us are stuck in some vicious cycle or another: bad habits that impact our health, lack of patience with our loved ones, friends, or coworkers resulting in poor relationships, always giving in to other people’s whims at the expense of our own time and self-fulfillment. If you dare, take a moment to reflect and see if vicious cycles exist in your life. If the answer is yes, welcome to being human.

To further complicate our journey towards emotional awareness,  we are bombarded daily with advertising and marketing, a great deal of social media messaging and main stream media, as well as society as a whole, that would have you believe that true happiness comes from buying a new car, having the perfect body, having tons of money, being in that perfect relationship with that perfect person... the list goes on. It. Is. All. Bullshit. Period. We need take responsibility for our own well-being and not allow the outside world to shape our emotional experiences. Remember,  our responses are created by how we interpret the world. The new car may contribute to your happiness, until you no longer interpret it as cool or fun or exciting—or until the new model comes along and the one you own is now old (feel free to replace the word “car” with “spouse” or any other “thing” and see if there is any difference). 

The point is, we do it to ourselves. Let me repeat that:  WE DO IT TO OURSELVES! This is not a moment to feel guilty about what we have been doing to ourselves! This is a moment to celebrate what we could be doing for ourselves and the world around us! We are in charge. We dictate how we feel. We dictate how we respond to those feelings and react to our world. We dictate how we choose to view our jobs, our friends, our circumstances, our loved ones and partners! As a result, we determine how our lives will go. Remember, “We are what we repeatedly do.” The question becomes, what can I repeatedly do to create a different life for myself?

I think the first step is simply to accept that we are human and everything that comes with it. We were not designed to feel happy all the time, that is ludicrous! Besides, philosophically (and scientifically), would we really know joy if we didn’t know sadness? Anger, sadness, joy, love, whatever we want to call the chemical reactions in our body, we all have them. And, we all have them all (ok, there are certain cases where brain chemistry and brain makeup effects what certain people can sense, process, and feel but that’s the exception, not the rule). Before we can do anything with this glorious information about free will, we must first give ourselves permission to be human—emotional, vulnerable, reactive, responsive, needy, creative, introspective, irrational, etc. It’s all good and it’s all normal. 

Has anyone ever said to you, while you were angry, “Don’t be angry?” How well did that go? They have just revoked permission from you to be angry, i.e. human. Did that make you less angry? Not me, I just got angrier! Have you ever said to yourself, “I shouldn’t feel depressed?” How did that go? Did you feel less depressed? Not me, I just got more depressed. I’m already angry/depressed and now I’m being told or telling myself that I am wrong for feeling that way. Definitely not the road to go down in order to feel any better. What if I flipped it? What if I said to you when you were angry, “Are you being as angry as you can be? Can you crank that anger up a notch? I think you can get angrier! Let’s do it!” What would happen then? I have just given you permission to be angry and to be human. Odds are, your brain would freak out! Suddenly you might pause. Your brain would say to itself, “Wait a minute, that wasn’t what we were expecting. You mean, it’s ok to be angry? Huh, I never thought of that before.”

Let’s examine this further on another level. Take social interactions with friends as an example. Other people’s responses to our emotions can be so predictable, and have happened the same way so many times, that we have even conditioned our own response. To put it simply, whole interactions often feel scripted out and the outcome predetermined. 

Scene 1, Act 1

“ACTION”

Human 1 - “I am depressed.”

Human 2 – “Aww, don’t be depressed. What do you have to be depressed about? Your life is so great!”

Human 1 – “Thanks, now I’m even more depressed because I know that I shouldn’t feel depressed and yet I still do.”

End Scene.

Now we are in this little eternal dance with no end. What if you told me you were depressed and I said, “That’s great! Now are you giving yourself space and time to be as depressed as you can be?” (not in a snarky way but a supportive and loving way). Again, your brain would hiccup. “Wait, it’s ok that I feel depressed? This is normal? This is human? Thank goodness, I will be ok.” Depression often lasts so long because we have been told that it’s bad, and we are now programmed to fight it. “That which you resist, persists.” Gotta love Carl Jung.

So, take a moment to recognize and acknowledge your humanness. Own that you are a thinking, feeling, and doing creature. Bask in the understanding that you are the source of your thinking, feeling, and doing. The world does not provide for you your thoughts, feelings, and actions – although they will try, time and time again, to tell you how you should think, feel, and act. Ultimately, it is your choice to either embrace what the world tells you or to tell it to pound sand. If you choose to embrace and accept your own emotions, take a deep breath, and revel in the experience of being alive. Now do this three times, I’ll wait… 

How do you feel? Good for you.

Welcome to Humanity in Harmony!

A quick shout out to Peter Lotterhos for introducing me to this work, and being an amazing mentor, coach, and friend. Check out the incredible work he is doing in the world - https://www.peterlotterhos.com/