Whenever I believe a story, I make myself more stupid than I am.
I go into the victim role. I see the world – myself, others, the situation – in black and white. I polarize. I feel hopeless. I am blinded by frustration.
I perceive and live as if my belief is true. If that’s how it is, and that’s it.
Reality is different. Reality is that any number of ways of looking at the situation have validity. Reality is that it’s happening within and as what I am.
As Buddhists say, I am the sky and this experience is a passing cloud.
Earlier today, I went into some hurt and had a mental conversation with someone where I said “you are making yourself more stupid than you are”. That may be true, and it’s not for me to know. What’s for me is to find how I am doing it, also in that situation.