Yes, we are not really any of it – ideas, viewpoints, identities, roles. These are all positions we can take and explore. Some are helpful in some situations and others in other situations, they all enrich our lives, and it’s good to find some fluidity with it and hold it all lightly.
Of course, that’s easier said than done. When we come from fear, wounds, and traumas, we tend to find and create a position we hold onto in order to feel safer, and when that position is threatened, it feels like we are threatened. It can feel like a matter of life and death.
WITH A LITTLE MORE DETAIL
Said another way, with a little more detail…
Roles, views, identities, ideas, and so on are clearly not what we fundamentally are. They come and go. In one situation, we take one role, in another, another role. In one conversation, we take one view, in another, another view. This also changes over time. When I was ten I used another set of views, identities, and roles than I do now.
And yet, we can feel that it’s what we are. Parts of us hold onto a certain viewpoint – which is all an identity, role, or idea is – in order to find safety. It feels safe to retreat into a certain viewpoint. It may be familiar. It’s known, to some extent. It allows us to not have to investigate so much. When that happens, we identify with and as that viewpoint. In our own experience, we become it.
That means that anything that seems to threaten that viewpoint – anything that goes counter to it, disproves it, questions it – feels like a threat to what we are. It can feel like an existential threat.
It’s good to notice, it’s good to remind ourselves of what’s going on, and it’s good to invite in more fluidity – through healing, identifying and questioning the viewpoints, and so on.
To the extent we are able to find fluidity with it, it brings less stress to our lives, it allows us to respond more appropriately to different situations, and it can enrich our lives and our experience of ourselves immensely.
WHAT’S GOING ON
And said yet another way, from another perspective…
MY NATURE
To myself, I am not fundamentally these viewpoints that come and go. I am not fundamentally anything within the content of experience since it all comes and goes, including any ideas of this human self, an observer, doer, and so on.
I find I am fundamentally something else. I am what it all comes and goes within. I am this awake space that the world, as it appears to me, happens within and as. This is not a special awake space, it’s the awake space that likely all “conscious beings” are to themselves.
NOTICING ITSELF OR NOT
The consciousness I am can notice itself, and the world as it appears to me as itself. It’s learning to notice itself through changing states and experiences and allowing this human self to live within that context.
The consciousness I am can also take itself to be something within the content of experience. It can take itself to be a viewpoint or a set of viewpoints. This works only to a certain extent, although it can seem convincing if it’s able to distract itself enough from noticing its nature.
PARTS OF ME CAUGHT UP IN VIEWPOINTS
There is another wrinkle here.
This awake space can notice itself, and even notice itself through changing states and experiences, and there are still many parts of me – many parts of the psyche – that hold onto viewpoints for safety.
Parts of me identify with viewpoints to find safety, and that’s how wounds – hangups, trauma, or whatever we want to call it – are created and maintained.
EXPLORING IT
One of my favorite ways to explore this is the Big Mind process. Here, I can notice and explore my nature, and I can also explore the many different viewpoints possible for me, including the ones parts of me hold onto for safety. I get to know them, how my personality relates to them, how this human self can relate to them in a more constructive way, create partnerships with these parts of me, and so on.
I also like to explore this through The Work of Byron Katie. I identify a stressful thought, which shows me that there is some identification with the view of that thought. I explore what happens when a part of me holds onto it. I get a sense of how it would be, here and now, without holding onto it in that way. And I get to explore the genuine validity in the many reversals of the initial thought, in contrasting perspectives on the same topic.
Apart from that, any kind of healing helps us – and parts of us – soften the grip on these viewpoints.
IT’S ALL ABOUT VIEWPOINTS
As mentioned above, any role, identity, opinion, idea, and so on are essentially viewpoints.
Any thought comes with a viewpoint. If it’s held lightly, it’s easy to shift between several viewpoints and find the genuine validity in them all, and a bigger picture that holds the limited validity in them all. If it’s held in a strong grip, it becomes something to defend, prop up, use as a weapon, hide behind, and so on.
THE RICHNESS IN IT
There is an immense richness in all of the possible viewpoints available to us.
Any idea is a viewpoint, any viewpoint is a new and different way to look at something, and it’s all in me.
The more viewpoints I explore and am familiar with in myself, and the more fluidity I find among them, the richer my life is – in the world, in perception, and in my experience of myself.
A SIMPLE PRACTICAL POINTER
When I notice I hold onto a view in a fixed way, I may not be able to shift out of it immediately, but I notice and I make a mental note of it. When things have calmed down a bit, I explore it.
What are some of the other views here? What’s the validity in each of them? How would it be to acknowledge and live that too? How would it be to find a little more fluidity here?
How would I live my life differently, here and now?
How does it enrich my life?
EASIER FOR MY NATURE TO NOTICE ITSELF
This exploration not only enriches my life by bringing in the possibility of perceiving and living from more viewpoints. It enriches my life because it makes it easier for my nature to notice itself.
Holding onto viewpoints is fine. It’s natural and ultimately innocent (although it comes with stress.)
And it can also be a distraction from my nature noticing itself. It’s a distraction from noticing what’s already so obviously here. This awake space that the world, as it appears to me, happens within and as.