The Lies We Believe

by Dr. Chris Thurman

  “Yes, me too. I think more about making sure I get what I want than making sure Jon gets what he wants,” Debbie added.

  “It’s obvious that both of you are hurting a great deal,” I said. “Even when one of you gets your way, you usually do it at the expense of the other person, which, again, makes the marriage suffer.”

  “I don’t like to admit it,” Jon said, admitting it, “but I do get so intent on fighting Debbie for what I want that I don’t even think about the fact that we both end up worse off.”

  Then Jon explained how the night before they had wanted to see a movie. Of course, they didn’t want to see the same movie, and neither wanted to sacrifice and see the other’s choice. They had a big fight over which movie to see and ended up driving home in anger, not having seen a movie at all. Their “my way or the highway” mentality was the kiss of death to intimacy and harmony that evening and had cost them a total of five years of marital unhappiness.

  Jon, Debbie, and I talked about how to negotiate with each other so they could avoid fights like that one. We talked about the importance of serving each other (try to sell that idea in this day and age!), developing a strong “we” mentality in the marriage, compromising when possible, and not allowing selfishness to ruin their marriage. We talked about standing firm on your convictions (Debbie felt strongly about not going to see R-rated movies) but being willing to flex when possible. As the “we” in their marriage began to replace the “I,” they got along better and intimacy grew.

  Life has a nasty habit of reminding us that it will not always go the way we want it to. Each and every day is proof of that. In light of that fact, we have a choice to make. Either we can throw a little hissy fit every time life dares to not treat us like royalty, or we can get off our high horses and accept that life is going to “dump” on us every so often just as it does every other human being on the planet.

  The next time things don’t go the way you want them to, make a decision to accept it (not necessarily like it, but accept it), do what you can to face it, and allow yourself to feel content, even peaceful, in spite of what happened. Is it idealistic of me to challenge you this way? Maybe, but the alternative isn’t much of a challenge, is it?

  “My Unhappiness Is Somebody Else’s Fault.”

  “You make me furious when you do that!”

  “What you said yesterday really hurt my feelings.”

  “I wouldn’t have yelled back at you if you hadn’t yelled at me first.”

  “I wouldn’t be the mess I am today if my parents had raised me right!” The main theme of this book is that our way of thinking about the circumstances of our lives is what makes or breaks us. The lie we just looked at said that things have to go the way we want them to before we can be happy. The lie I want to focus on now takes that notion one unhealthy step farther. It says that my external circumstances cause me to feel and act in certain ways. This mind-set allows me to pass the buck for all my emotional upsets and wrong actions onto anybody and anything nearby. It points a finger outward. No responsibility is taken here.

  Let me give you an example of what I am talking about. Picture yourself in a long movie theater line, and it is five minutes until show time. The line is moving slowly, and you are getting more frustrated by the minute. You notice out of the corner of your eye two people who walk up and ease their way into the line ahead of you. Your blood boils, steam comes out of your ears, and you feel angry enough to shoot the two people dead on the spot.

  Now, let me ask you a question. What made you mad? If you are honest, you will have to admit that you believe what made you mad was the fact that the two people had the nerve to cut in front of you, right? It is all their fault that you are angry, right? Well, you’re dead wrong. What they did didn’t make you mad. Nothing, I repeat, nothing, can make you mad (or happy or sad or anything else). External events don’t have the power to make us feel what we feel or act the way we act, period. Coming to grips with that fact, I believe, is a key issue that separates the psychologically healthy person from the psychologically disturbed person. Psychologically healthy people take responsibility for their feelings and actions, and psychologically disturbed people blame theirs.

  You might say, “Okay, but what about certain events that do cause everyone to react the same way, such as the death of a loved one? Isn’t that an example of an event that makes us feel sad?” First of all, there are no events to which everyone reacts in the same way. Even in the case of the death of a loved one, we can think of a variety of reactions.

  Grandpa, for instance, a devout man of faith, has been suffering painfully for months with a terminal illness and passes away. The religious people in the family might react to his death with relief and joy, believing that his suffering is over (relief) and that he is now with God (joy), while the nonreligious family members might react with the same relief but none of the joy. It is the same event for both groups, but each filters the reactions through different “tapes” about death. Thus, they end up with different reactions.

  But even if everyone on the planet only felt sad about death, that would just mean that everyone views death as a bad thing. Same view, same reaction. It still would remain true that the death of a loved one did not cause everyone to be sad. Cause-and-effect applies to inanimate objects, but it does not apply to human beings.

  So, the long-winded bottom line here is that everything you feel and everything you do comes from within you and is not caused by someone or something else outside you. As Stephen Covey, author of The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, put it, “In between stimulus and response is choice.” You feel and act the way you do because you think the way you do. No one and nothing is to blame for your emotions or your behavior while you live on this planet!

  Of course, the “somebody else’s fault” lie pervades every aspect of life, every relationship, every action. Thirty-year-old Beth based much of her life on it without a hint of what was happening to her. One day, she told me how her sister would call and literally waste hours of her time “droning on about her problems.” Beth blamed these calls and many other things for her constant misery. When she finished telling me about all this, I suggested she call her sister and tell her (kindly, of course) how she felt. Beth looked surprised. “I couldn’t do that. It would hurt her feelings,” she said.

  “If you were honest with your sister, she would feel hurt, and that would be your fault?”

  “Yes, I would have hurt her feelings,” she replied, refusing to budge.

  “What if I told you that your sister isn’t the problem here? But you are,” I said—and waited.

  She looked even more surprised, even a little bit angry. “I’m not the problem.

  She is. If she wouldn’t call and waste my time, I wouldn’t be so mad!”

  “So it’s her fault that you are angry at her?”

  “Exactly,” she answered, sitting back in her chair. “How could I possibly be the problem when it’s her calling me that makes me angry?”

  “Are you the only one she calls?”

  “No,” she said, wondering what I was up to.

  “Any of the others get as angry as you do?”

  Beth frowned. “I don’t know. I guess it’s possible they don’t. I’m not sure where you’re heading,” she said, turning a little away from me.

  “Well, let’s say you call ten people and ask for donations to your favorite charity,” I said. “Four of them hang up on you, three politely tell you they don’t want to contribute, and three gladly give. All ten of them got the exact same phone call from you, but you got three different reactions. Are you to blame for the different reactions?”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t guess I could be, could I? The way they reacted had more to do with who they are.” She stopped and looked at me out of the corner of her eye. “I think I get what you’re saying. It’s my problem, not hers—is that it? I’m choosing to react to my sister a certain way, yet blaming her for it.”

 
Yes, that was exactly what I was getting at. Beth was choosing to listen to her sister drone on and on about her problems and was choosing to get really angry about it. In realizing that truth, Beth was finally giving herself the chance to move from the victim role of “Look what she does to me!” to the healthier role of seeing what she was doing to herself. She could now move from passively waiting for her sister to stop calling as the solution to assertively talking with her sister to get the problem solved. Even if it means her sister chooses to have hurt feelings.

  We mold our emotional lives by the way we choose to think about what happens to us. We choose our emotions and actions whether we realize it or not. No one can force a feeling on us or force us to act in a certain way. To think otherwise is to be irresponsible, to place responsibility for our lives in the hands of every person and event life throws at us. This blame game is one of the deadliest games we can play. If we want our lives back, this game must stop.

  Growthwork

  When I was in graduate school preparing to become a psychologist, I was exposed to a counseling approach developed by psychologist Albert Ellis that made a lot of sense to me.3Dr. Ellis developed an A-B-C model of emotional health that is quite helpful in enabling people to change destructive beliefs. I want to teach it to you and get you to use this tool throughout this book. It requires a pencil and a legal pad to be your journal and some on-the-spot self-awareness.

  For this assignment, I want you to focus on just the first letter of this model. The “A” represents the events that happen to us as we go through life. Some events are what I would call “5¢” (nickel) events in that they are small and insignificant, such as a friend being one minute late for lunch. Other events, though, are at the other end of the spectrum, what I would call “$500” events, such as losing a loved one in death, being fired from a job, experiencing the birth of a child, and getting married.

  Some of the events that happen to us are not our fault in that we are not responsible for their happening. For example, I had a client who had exited off an interstate highway and was waiting at the red light on the access road when another motorist came off the interstate going sixty-five miles an hour and hit her from behind. My client had multiple fractures, a punctured lung, and other serious injuries from the crash. I certainly would not go up to her and say, “This was all your fault.” The event was the other motorist’s fault, not hers.

  On the other hand, some events that happen to us are our fault. I was running errands around Austin one day a few years ago. I wasn’t paying attention and went through a school zone at thirty-five miles an hour. One of Austin’s finest stepped out into the street, waved me over, and gave me a ticket for speeding. Now, the event called “getting a ticket” was my fault, not anybody else’s. By not paying attention, I brought the event on myself and got to hand over $118 of my hard-earned money to the fine city I live in.

  With all that said and done, here’s what I want you to do. I want you to keep a journal for one week on the various events that happen to you. First, write down the event (“boss chewed me out in front of some coworkers”).

  Second, assess the value of the event using my scale from 5¢ (someone is a minute late) to $500 (death of a loved one). Third, decide whether the event was your fault (“locked my keys in my car”), somebody else’s fault (“close friend gossiped about me”), or no one’s fault (“tornado destroyed my home”).

  Create three columns on your sheet, and enter the information as I have done here:

  Event (“A”) Value Fault

  Misplaced car keys, found them a minute later $1.00 Mine

  House broken into, stereo/television stolen $250.00 Theirs

  Late for an important meeting at work $50.00 Mine

  Tree knocked over by high winds in front yard $25.00 Nobody 's

  Ran (literally) into coworker rounding corner $5.00 Both

  Do the best you can to keep a detailed account of the events. Don’t worry about assessing the value perfectly. (Remember, you are no longer a perfectionist, right?) Just make the best guess you can. Pay special attention to the events you feel upset (depressed, angry, sad, hurt) about.

  The purpose of this assignment is to help you become more aware of the events that trigger you in life, their relative value, and who is responsible for them, all important issues in maintaining good mental health. We will build on this assignment in later chapters, so make sure you do this before reading further.

  3

  WORLDLY LIES

  The truth must essentially be regarded as in conflict with this world; the world has never been so good, and will never become so good that the majority will desire the truth.

  —Søren Kierkegaard

  Grab for All the Gusto!

  Look Out for Number One!

  Do Your Own Thing!

  If It Feels Good, Do It!

  Your Feelings Are Your Best Guide!

  You Deserve to Be Happy!

  Advertisements, television shows, movies, magazines, music, and self-help books shout messages like these at us every day. And in childlike naiveté, we listen and believe. Often without even realizing it, we buy into what the “world” tells us, as if it knows how we should think and how we should live our lives. We look for truth in a jingle.

  How trustworthy are the messages we get from our world each day? I want to suggest to you that many, if not most, are extremely dangerous and will destroy our lives if we live by them. Unfortunately, we are so brainwashed into believing these lies, minute by minute, day by day, that they not only appear harmless, but also true.

  I’m sure you have heard a speaker at one time or another use the “frog and water” metaphor. You know the one. If you drop a frog into boiling water, it will immediately jump out because it can tell quite clearly the danger it is in. Yet if you put a frog in room temperature water and slowly heat the water until it is boiling, the frog will remain in the water and boil to death. A frog adjusts to the small changes in the water’s temperature over time until it loses its life for having done so.

  Now, I tell you all this to make an important point: you are the frog, the world you live in is the water, and the philosophies that the world teaches provide the heat that is boiling you ever so slowly to death. Millions of us are being boiled to death every day by some of the most incredibly stupid and destructive lies to ever hit the planet, and the cost in terms of emotional health, intimacy with others, and spiritual maturity is incalculable.

  What are these “worldly” lies that destroy us? There are so many of them that writing about each one would fill volumes. In the following pages, I want to focus on what I believe to be six of the most toxic to our souls. These lies are taught to us from the time we draw our first breath until we draw our last. These lies put us in our graves at an earlier age because of how deadly they are.

  “You Can Have It All.”

  Who says you can’t have it all? A popular beer commercial once shouted that question. The underlying aim of that question, I believe, was to get us to believe that in drinking beer and in living life itself we can and should have it all (and ought to be really hacked off if we don’t). The company’s beer, we were told, had it all so that it “tastes great” but is somehow “less filling” at the same time. I’m not a beer-drinking kind of guy, mind you, but I’m a little skeptical about the idea that anything in life can “taste great” and still pull off the “less filling” part. Seems to be wishful thinking to me.

  I believe that one of the deadliest lies we are told by our world each day is that we can have it all. However commercials, self-help books, songs, or movies choose to phrase it, the notion that we can have everything in life we have ever dreamed of is baloney. Absolute baloney. There is not one single person who has ever had it all. And there is a simple reason why.

  Every yes is a no, and every no is a yes.

  Confused? Allow me to explain.

  In life, we are constantly having to make decisions between things. For example,
when you go to a restaurant, the waiter doesn’t come to your table and ask, “Are you having the whole menu tonight?” He says, “May I take your order?” He wants to know which entrée out of all the ones listed you have decided to say yes to. If you say yes to chicken fried steak, you are saying no to grilled fish, steak, and everything else on the menu. You can’t have everything on the menu.

  Life is like that. Life is a menu of things you can choose from, but saying yes to being a huge success at work usually means saying no to getting home by six and being able to live a balanced life. Not always, but usually. The point is that no one has ever had it all because whatever a person says yes to inescapably means he had to say no to something else.

  Maybe, though, you’re like a lot of people who look around and see others who appear to have it all. We look at them and think they got the whole enchilada and all we got was rice and beans. So, we start salivating for more. Scratch below the life that looks like it is the whole enchilada, though, and you will invariably find a life with painful gaps in it.

  Tim is one of those “whole enchilada” kind of guys, at least on the surface. He is a highly successful business contractor, and from every appearance, he lives the American Dream. He drives a Mercedes, wears a Rolex watch, and is a member of three country clubs. His wife is beautiful and intelligent, and has personality plus. They have three healthy kids, live in a home the size of Rhode Island, and go on fantastic vacations to places such as Bora Bora. Tim, though, is one of the most unhappy people I’ve ever known.

  “I always thought when I reached this level of life I’d be happy,” he said the first day he visited my office. He slouched low in the chair in front of me. “I know this sounds crazy, but all the things I have don’t make me happy. They’ve actually become a burden.”

  “A burden?” I asked. “How?”

  “We have more debt than ever. All that we own is just that much more to take care of. I don’t know. It just seems the more we get, the more we want, you know?” he said, fiddling with his diamond pinky ring.