Collapsing Our Lives-The Destruction of Freedom

I was talking with a friend the other day and he shared a breakdown he was having in a relationship. "Breakdowns" are a quick way of saying someone is upset about something, and your upset by the other person's upset. We all know this is a very common phenomena in relationships, and not just intimate ones. This breakdown was over a decision my friend made.

My friend went on to share he had two "choices" to make reference the breakdown. He could choose A or he could choose B. Choice A was to go back on his decision so the other person would be happy, thus removing the upset. Choice A would also keep him small and inauthentic. This is a heavy price to pay. In my opinion, there is no heavier price to pay then with our own authenticity. Choice B would have my friend expand and really step into his authenticity; but as my friend pointed out, the consequence of this choice would be the other person would remain, or get more upset (this isn't true by the way). My friend said he was going to "choose" B so he wouldn't be responsible for any more upset.

There are three points here:

1. This is not a choice; this is an "in order to"

2. When we collapse what happened with our stories, we step into a never ending loop of "in order to" where we have ZERO power

3. For choices to be made freely, and to avoid "in order to," we need to uncollapse what's really happening (the "what's so") from our story about what's happening

So why do we collapse? Two reasons;

1. We have a tendency to get caught up in the significance of everything. We make everything so significant. Here is a key to the kingdom; It's not and we are not. Let me say this again, you are not significant. Some of you are going to really struggle and push up against this; like you know, make what you just read significant (or we could say, the statement challenges your significance). What I wrote is also not significant.

2. We are addicted to being right, even when we can't or refuse to see it. We give our entire lives and our entire being away to being right.

So back to my friend. He fell for the lie we are responsible for other people's happiness, and with that, their upset. In doing so, he made himself significant! Listen to me; we are not responsible for other people's happiness, which is great, because it frees us from being responsible for their upset, too. (I am not referring to being accountable; we ought to be accountable.)

So let's examine this. My friend is in a relationship with someone and made a decision. That person got upset. This person's upset stands alone. My friend wants to be authentic and powerful. This also stands alone. How these two events get collapsed is by creating a story (giving interpretive meaning) around the what's so of these two separate events and thinking they can only exist together. What's the what's so? My friend made a decision and someone got upset. The end. It's not significant and it's not about you. (I'm hoping you can see my friends partner collapsed my friends decision with their own story. This is how we get stuck in these never ending circles of "in order to" AKA, drama.)

This collapsing usually happens because our ego needs to right about everything and needs to avoid being wrong about anything! So the process gets triggered when we make the upset significant and also make ourselves significant. As a side note, this usually isn't a decision. It's most likely how we listen to and interpret the entire world and the people in it. It's usually how we are always listening. Anyone been on Facebook lately?

So think of significance as the hook that pulls us onto the road to collapsing. Now we are on the road to payoffs! Even if we can't see it, and even if we can't imagine it's true, there is always a payoff to collapsing! What's the payoff? We get to be right! What do we get to be right about? We get to right about the main driving stories we've made up about ourselves and how life is supposed to be.

In this case my friend has a story that life is supposed to be hard and that he has to put everyone else first IN ORDER TO to pay for his (imaginary/made up) mistakes of the past. So if my friend were to decide to change his decision, his payoff would be that he gets to be right about how hard the world is and he also gets to keep punishing himself for some perceived mistake he made two decades ago!

So how do we uncollapse? We uncollapse all this by being self-aware and knowing our stories and the lenses we listen through. We just get really present and conscious about what's driving us, namely our stories and listenings. It's also really helpful to surround yourself with people who know this deep down and dirty stuff about you so they can help you see when you're acting on it, since we often times can't see it playing out. (This is why people hire coaches.)

Ok, let's move onto choices, decisions and considerations. If my friend acts to stick with his decision without any consideration of the other person's upset, that becomes a choice. It's free from consideration. However, we rarely do this. We mostly engage in decisions. They are decisions because they are full of considerations. These are not choices, but rather, when we really break them down, they are a decisions made from all of our considerations "in order to" fix, to look good, to avoid confrontation, to get one up, etc. The second we add considerations to our choices, we are no longer choosing. And we start to make considerations when we collapse the "what's so" of whatever is happening so it fits our story of "what's so." In this specific example, my friend collapsed his person's upset with the world is hard and I need to suffer. This instantly took him out of his power!

Now as a side note, my friend is truly a badass human being. Driven, successful, smart, happy and all that. But this person is also into producing breakthrough results, not marginal or meaningless improvements in his life, thus he takes this work on. And I applaud anyone who is willing to get uncomfortable and vulnerable so they can have their best life. To me, this is what it's all about; true experiential performance. This is the work of Redshift Performance!

Cheers to waking up every day stoked AF,

Chris