Let’s talk about a topic that has the potential to change your life. It does anyway, but most of times in a very painful way. It doesn’t have to be like this though. Let’s talk about the magic and healing power of disappointment.
I’m sure you know that feeling in some way or other: You see someone (or something - it doesn’t matter if it’s a thing or body) a special way - you may even „love“ someone - and then, for numerous reasons, your perception of this person changes.
This is what’s called disappointment or a better word would be dis-illusionment.
The end of illusions and why we fear it
Let’s have a look at the meaning of illusions first. An illusion is to see someone (or again „something“) in a special way, that proves to be wrong in hindsight. Time is the important part here, because it seems as if we only could know that something is an illusion, after our relationship to it has changed. We then say, that time has proven us otherwise.
If we „loved“ a person dearly and she then turns out to be an asshole of epic proportions, we experience this disillusionment as pain.
Pain is another word for the ending of an illusion - at least most of us experience it this way.
Because we all had these experiences and we try to avoid pain, we fear this change - we live with the subtile (or not so subtile) threat of the other person to change. In the end, it’s the fear that our perception of this person could change anytime.
So even if we really experience this change of perception in the future or not, we always fear, that it could happen anytime.
This is, what makes relationships in this world so scary.
Why disillusionment is so scary
The real reason for this is not only do we try to avoid pain, but because it seems like this pain can be inflicted on us from the outside!
So first we give our power to make us _____ (happy, feeling loved etc) away to someone outside and once this habit has formed, we certainly fear, that the other person changes in some way - thus ending our illusionary perception - and therefore this person has from now on the power to inflict pain upon us.
The issue here is, that we have not only projected on the other person, but with that we have given our power away - the only power we ever have - the power to make the world what it is through our decision.
We always project. This is what minds do. All of the time.
Contrary to common belief, I don’t think, that we can stop projecting at all.
There are many popular psychological and spiritual systems that teach, that we once are able to stop projecting we have reached a very important goal.
I think, they are all wrong - not only with this goal, but with its underlying premise.
We only have the freedom to choose with which part of our mind we project. [Please review my past articles about this decision for further insights]
The necessity of disillusionment and disappointment
Once we realize what illusions really are, we can take our next step and start to view them in a different way.
The fact of the matter is, that other people don’t really change. The only thing that changes is our perception of them.
Disappointment is therefore a change in our mind and not in the other person!
So in the end we constantly fear, that we change our own minds!
People are what they are - a blank canvas on which we can project - nothing more and nothing less.
It’s obvious, because if another person would really be in a certain way, everyone would perceive them in exactly the same way.
Since your loved ones also have potential enemies who avoid them, any certain characteristic can’t be part of their being. It’s just your mind that does the projecting. The good, the bad and the ugly…
How a person truly is, can never be known, because any person - including yourself - is in and by itself neutral.
Disillusionment is therefore a very good thing - it ends an illusion and lets you see reality more clearly.
Seek only truth and be at peace
If you want to know truth and be at peace - a peace, that can’t be threatened and is unchanging (!!) - then you are advised to seek for disillusionment wherever you can.
Once you realize that this is how life works, you will look for opportunities the whole day, where illusions can come to an end.
Your prayer then becomes:
Please let me see each and every illusion in my life, so that I can once and for all be at peace
This is the end of specialness, and with that, also the end of suffering.
Disappointment and Disillusionment become your allies on the way and enfold their full healing potential.
Healing means the alignment with Truth - and Truth can’t be threatened, as we learn from this well known passage in A Course in Miracles:
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
T .2:1-4
Seeing the unreality of illusions is then nothing we fearfully await, but something we actively look out for, since it will teach us Truth.
You will become fearless, every time you cry out to the world:
„Come on! Bring it on! Show me, what is true and what is false!“
Living this way, you have become a warrior of light and the Truth of God will show itself to you and everyone around.
This is the beginning of a whole new journey…
Love,
Atmos