Everything around is reality, the bad the good, the evil, the angelic. Whatever is going on is reality and running from it is one of the most dangerous things a human being can do. Facing reality every day and accepting it is tough but it boosts self-esteem and provides people with massive empowerment whereas denying reality has the opposite effect. “Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn’t go away.” What is reality? This seems like an obvious question, but a lot of people have a very bad track record of dealing with it. So let’s first understand exactly what it is. Reality is everything physical, it is the road you walk on, it is the people you speak to and the food you eat. It is everything around you. It is what you see, hear, smell, feel and taste. It is all that is happening in the present moment, it is not in the future, it is not in the past, it is all that is now. When your boss fires you, when your child is born or when your eating your favourite meal. that is all reality. It is the state of things that actually exist, not how you want them to exist, but how they truly are. It is nothing inside your imagination and it can’t be skewed by emotion. It is surrounding you for your entire life and we all interact with it everyday. Reality is not something you escape, you can’t escape it, and attempting to will result in even more pain. Reality is not good or bad, harsh or compassionate. Reality just is. Man made statements like good, bad, loving or evil come from someone trying to imagine or compare. There are no emotions in reality and there are no other realities, except the fake reality inside your own head. When the real reality and the reality you imagine are too different, you will begin to experience problems. Problems with your marriage, your kids, your work and your happiness. Why do people prefer to run from reality? Imagine one day you wake up, check your phone and find an email from your boss. He’s letting you go. You then look over to your partner to see their phone light up, you check the message and discover it is a flirtatious text from another man. You walk down stairs in shock, only to see your 8 year old breaking down after months of bullying at school. Sadly, Like it or not this is reality. This terrible series of events, would be difficult for you to accept. You would have an instinct to stop thinking about it, and pretend everything is fine. A lot of people do this because it is comforting and feels very good to deny reality. Of course it does, it would be relieving to run away from something horrible, it is in our nature. Life is tough, sometimes it seems like shutting your eyes and sticking your head in the sand, would make it easier. It wont. This can cause something even worse to happen. If you try to escape reality and ignore it, more suffering will come your way. Not only will the outside world fall apart, but if you try to force it, your mental state will begin to diminish. You will be creating a feeling of guilt, and worry inside of yourself. This feeling will continue to grow, until you accept your reality and try to face it. Sometimes reality can be worse on some days than others, but it is all about how you respond to it. That is the other thing that matters. If you cower and ignore what is happening, reality will continue to get out of hand. What are the consequences of denying reality: The benefits of facing, respecting and accepting the reality. Depending on how long you’ve been shying away from reality, the benefits of accepting it are huge. When you understand that reality has to be acknowledged the better you will feel. This is the first step, no one else can do this for you, it is up to you. After you accept reality, and actually see what your doing to avoid it, you may feel down, depressed or angry. It may not feel good when you are actually in the process of accepting reality, this is because of the judgements you’ve placed on it. It is ok, this is a good thing, just know that it will pass, as long as you start doing the right thing. You will begin to have the urge to fight, and to do the right thing, like going on that diet, stopping drinking so much or quitting smoking. You will feel a massive sense of relief and boost in mood. You can feel good knowing that you’re finally working with reality, not against it. Once you get past the initial uncomfortable feelings, more doors will open up for you. As you continue to face it, reality will have less of a hold on your life. You will become more confident as each day passes, you will increase your self esteem, and begin to respect yourself much more. Reality never lies, it is only when we become too attached to it, that it begins to hurt us. When you then start to face reality, you will start to find solutions to your problems, instead of running away from them. You begin to communicate better, you stop eating so much junk food and you will develop better relationships. You just have to become aware of the things that need work in your life. Benefits of embracing reality: An easy way to accept reality. If you resonate with anything I am saying, then you may want to find out how you can face reality, and stop running. An extremely helpful process is guided meditation. With guided meditation, there is no way you can run from what you don’t want to think about. This is because your mind will keep bringing it back up until it is dealt with. You will have nothing to do but listen to your conscience, it will tell you what you’ve been running away from. We then zone in on that feeling it is giving you. This is the only way to fully accept reality. It is the only way to overcome these horrible circumstances, and feelings mentioned above. Once you have gone through this, and accepted that things are bad, you are on the right track. The next step is more difficult. It involves facing what you’ve been running away from. This can be tough for most people. They have invested so much time into denying and running away, whether it be mindlessly eating junk food, or sticking with a spouse that is cheating on them, that they get attached to it. They start believing that this is just how things are. They do think they can change. This is wrong. You don’t want to change deep down inside, but Guided meditation will calm your mind, and allow you to see where you could improve in life. Your subconscious will open and you will be able to see what you need to do. We will then work with positive affirmations, this will give you a foundation of the correct beliefs about reality, and how it should be viewed or interacted with. This will propel you forward in life, making it miles easier to avoid bad things in the future. You will know when you would be going against reality.
