Consider This: Transcending our story

The Cohen Brothers’ movie, “The Matrix” is returning to the big screen. In the movie, humanity lives within the Matrix, where pleasant virtual reality daydreams have been substituted for reality, and self-aware machines farm the slumbering humans for energy. Neo and his compatriots manage to extricate themselves from the Matrix, fighting back against the artificial intelligence that has enslaved humanity.

Perhaps the Cohen Brothers were onto something, that each of us lives within a matrix; not one fashioned by artificial intelligence, but fabricated by our own minds.

Consider this: We do not consciously manufacture the virtual world of our dreams, but some part of our mind must be responsible, sending us dreams that help us navigate our daily affairs — research suggests that anxiety dreams may help us rehearse more effective responses to difficult or frightening situations.

Perhaps the same part of our mind that constructs our dreams also works behind-the-scenes during our waking life, trying to influence our behavior to reduce our suffering.

Zen Buddhist Monk Thich Nhat Hanh suggested that the origin of fear is our awareness, as young children, that we are utterly dependent upon caregivers to keep us safe, meet our basic needs, soothe our distress, and ensure that we feel loved and admired. Our complete dependence on caregivers produces a feeling of helplessness, which is the genesis of our fear.

To the extent that caregivers perform these tasks well, children develop healthy attachments that provide a solid base from which to explore their world and develop greater mastery. As childrens’ self-confidence grows, dependence on caregivers diminishes, along with their sense of helplessness.

To the extent that caregivers fail at some of these tasks, or perform them inconsistently, children develop a weaker attachment that prevents them from confidently exploring their world and developing mastery; their sense of helpless dependence persists.

The part of our mind that uses dreams to guide us through the rough spots in our life may construct stories, based upon our attachment experiences. These stories help us to avoid the pitfalls associated with weak attachments to early caregivers.

If a caregiver abused substances or was emotionally/physically abusive, the child’s story might cue them to “walk on eggshells” around angry people, to avoid emotional explosions. If a caregiver was depressed, the story might remind the child of the importance of self-reliance. If the caregiver was self-absorbed, the story might prompt the child to act in a manner that reflected positively upon the caregiver.

The mind updates our story based upon what happens when we step outside the home and attempt to make friends, join groups of peers, and later to date. Acceptance softens the edges of our story, while rejection or discrimination may lead to more cautionary tales, giving our story sharper edges.

Our family culture further shapes our stories, identifying who can be trusted, as well as those who should be feared and hated because they pose a threat to our family’s culture.

Our stories promise us a safe, reliable, and predictable world. Stepping outside the familiar structure of our story may induce anxiety. Buddhists refer to the self that clings to certainty, afraid to deviate from the strictures of their story, as the conditioned self.

If we wish to live our life as our authentic self, we must be willing to sacrifice the certainty promised by our story.

In an effort to develop present moment awareness and to cultivate insight into the human condition, we may practice mindfulness. But our mind resists our efforts to penetrate the illusion of our story, insisting on its right to remain our guardian.

We try to anchor our attention to our breath, but the next thing we know, we are thinking of something else, which reminds us of another thing. We become bored and restless and start thinking of our to-do list. We escape into fantasy or relive memories.

With practice, we notice the moment our attention is hijacked and escort it back to our breath. We become aware of our body sensations. We observe our thoughts as though they are clouds, scuttling across the sky, neither identifying with our thoughts or allowing them to drag us back inside our story.

We may discover clues in the pattern of our thoughts as to how our story is constructed.

As we loosen our story’s hold upon us, we become free to express our authentic self, the self that is not dependent upon others for validation. Once our mind stops trying to force others into the roles dictated by our story, we can practice deep listening, fostering authentic relationships.

Slowly we emerge from our story.