“It’s not the things that happen to us that cause us to suffer, it’s what we say to ourselves about the things that are happening.”
Pema Chodron, via Essential Zen Habits (Page 106)
Beyond the Quote (59/365)
Think about your mind like a movie theater. What you say to yourself is what directs and creates the movie that plays in your mind. You can direct and play whatever type of movie you want—action, comedy, romance, horror, adventure, thriller, etc. What you don’t get to do, however, is choose how the events in your movie unfold. So, if you can’t control how the events unfold, how can you control how the movie plays out? It’s all in the director’s (your) creative interpretation and expression of how those events influence the main character to think, feel, speak, and act (also you). You get to take the expression, “Everything happens for a reason” and you get to determine why everything happened and for what reason and see to it that the movie plays out in a direction of your choosing.
This is not to say, however, that everything in your movie will happen for obvious or easily identified reasons—it might often be the case that you might not be able to identify any kind of reason at all. Sometimes, things can’t be rationalized or explained, nor do they always need a “reason” for happening. But what’s important to note is that the movie in your mind will continue playing regardless of what happens. And as Pema Chodron points out, “it’s not what happens to us that causes us to suffer,” the fact that it happened implies that it’s already over and done with and that there’s no going back and changing, “…it’s what we say to ourselves about the things that are happening [that causes us to suffer].” In other words, it’s how we choose to direct the movie moving forward that influences how we will feel and how things will continue to play out.
When you think about the long list of movies that you have probably seen over the course of your life, what’s reassuring about this way of viewing the mind is that the quality of the movie has less to do with what happens to the main character and more to do with how the events were interpreted, expressed, and acted upon. Some of the greatest movies of all time, in fact, share a story of overcoming and courageously moving forward from incredibly challenging and awful situations. Shawshank Redemption, the #1 rated movie on IMDB, is about two imprisoned men who bond over a number of years and find solace and eventual redemption through acts of common decency—it’s a story about living and finding redemption after being imprisoned. A movie I just watched the other day, Unbroken, is about how Olympian Louis Zamperini survived a near fatal plane crash in WWII, 47 days on on a raft stranded in the middle of the ocean, and years in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp.
Of course, not all movies share similar stories of triumph and victory—many share stories of pain and suffering. This is when you might try to internalize the lessons from the movie and use them as guidance for how to better direct your movie to ensure similar occurrences of pain and suffering don’t happen. A movie like, Joker, which I watched last night is a good example. It shares a story of how a lifetime of incredible pain, suffering, and mistreatment, mixed with the carelessness of others, can lead to malevolence and evil. And so, sheds light onto the idea that we need to better take care of our neighbors and spread kindness, love, and compassion to prevent such things from happening (as best we can).
While it would be nice if we were able to stop directing and were able and put our mind movies on “pause” for a while so that we could figure things out after they happen—we can’t. The movie of the mind doesn’t work that way—the show must go on. And the problem is, when you leave your movie set unattended—by not analyzing, making sense of, or disconnecting from the events of your life—you give the power of directing away to others. People like your closest friends or family members might play out the movie how they think it should be played, bosses who may play your movie out for the sole benefits of work, or even random acquaintances who might play the movie out randomly and with little care (or at least not nearly as much care as you would have over your own movie). And if none of them fill the role as director and steer your life in a particular direction, then you’ll be left full-time with your monkey mind making the decisions—and that doesn’t usually play out well.
Essentially, whenever you stop directing the story of your life, your life story spirals in unknown and unforeseen directions that get harder and harder to recover from the longer you are “off set” and mentally checked out. Stay checked in. Pay attention to what’s happening. Consciously steer your movie in the direction you see best fit. Disconnect from events that seem to have no rational meaning or interpretation and re-connect to the present moment. It can be easy to get sucked into the trap of always directing, always planning, and always interpreting. But, once you analyze the major events or your past and have confidently directed your mind in a direction you want to go, take a step back and enjoy the movie as it’s being played. What a tragedy it would be if you never got to watch and enjoy the movie of your own life, eh?
Don't Let the Motivation Stop There...!
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