2 Ways To Stop Fighting Reality

When you fight reality, reality starts to fight against you. But when you accept what you can’t change, and react properly, then reality is your friend.

In this article I am going to introduce you to a key concept on your path to the life of your dreams: You must accept your current reality the way it is - at least for the moment.

Let me use a situation from my own life as an example for what fighting reality means and what it might lead to.

In November 2006 I started my own business as a salesperson, and in february 2007 I made this my main career. But things did not turn out the way I wanted them. My sales decreased and I was working longer and longer for less and less money, while my expenses exploded. Eventually I reached the point where I gave up, and intended to take a few weeks off to recover from working way too hard for way too much time.

A few weeks off became a few monts of depression and apathy, living off of my credit cards, so instead of balancing my accounts, I went only deeper into debt. Only when I reached my financial limits, I eventually did what everybody was telling me to do: I got a job - any job - to earn some money.

And all of this happened for one single reason: I was fighting reality!

What fighting reality means

Fighting reality basically means that you refuse to accept reality the way it is, and act in a way that is not congruent with what reality is really like (although it might be congruent with what you want reality to be like).

I did exactly that in the above example, and more than once. It all started with me knowingly getting into work that contradicted at least some of my core values, preprogramming failure. When I eventually failed, I continued to ride that dead horse harder and harder, up to the point where it began rotting right under my face. I finally gave in to reality, and instead subscribed to the belief that if I would only wait long enough, somehow everything would turn out well, and my dream life would come knocking on my door. What a fool I was, again against better knowledge… I went only deeper into debt, and the lower my bank accounts went, the deeper I sank into depression and apathy, although I knew that only action on my part would change anything about the situation I got into.

The most serious mistake in terms of fighting reality was that I refused to take responsibility for my own situation, and waited for others or the universe at large to help me out of that bad situation it took me into.

Only when I accepted that I myself had gotten me into that situation I were in, and accepted the fact that if something would chance, it would change because I changed myself and my behaviour, things began to change.

Now that you know what fighting reality looks like and have an idea where it would eventually lead you, let us explore how to stop fighting reality.

Stop Fighting Reality

The first thing you have to accept is that there is no instant way to stop fighting reality. There are probably many areas where you are more or less refusing to accept reality the way it is, and you can’t work on them all at once.

However, there are some tools and processes that helped me a lot, and in this article I want to share with you the two that I found most useful: The Work of Byron Katie, and the Core Belief Process

The Work of Byron Katie

In her Book Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life, Byron Katie explains a process she calls The Work. It all centers around becoming aware of beliefs that contradict reality in some way, and then examining these beliefs to find out beliefs that are more true.

The Work is all about awareness, and not about changing anything. Change is something that happens through constant awareness, not something you can force. Byron Katie sees the world and the people around you as a mirror of yourself, and negative emotion towards others often point back to yourself and something you struggle with.

The process is quite simple: Whenever you notice a negative though about someone or something, you formulate that thought as a belief and write it down. Then you answer some specific questions to examine that belief and its influence on your life. The last step is to “turn it around”, to find a belief that is more true that the one you started with.

For example, you might have negative feelings about your boss, and you come up with the sentence “My boss should implement the ideas I presented to him.” You write that sentence down and answer the questions:

1. Is it true?

Of course that’s true - it was a great Idea, wasn’t it?

2. Can you absolutely know that it’s true?

Well, no, I can’t. He’s the boss and has a lot more experience than I have. He sure has his reasons to not do what I believe is the right thing.

3. How do you react when you think that thought?

I feel anger when I thing that thought. I behave in a disrespectful way, and because I can’t show that anger to my boss, I let it out on other people around me.

4. Who would you be without the thought?

Without that thought, I would be calm and happy. I would accept that my boss didn’t listen to me, and be OK with it. And perhaps I would calmly ask him how I could better support him.

Then you turn that original sentence around to search for the truth: “I should implement the ideas my boss presented to me” - is that true?

Well, somehow it is. I don’t always give my best when I don’t believe in what I do, and I am not really committed to everything I do as a part of my job. Maybe I should ask him how I could improve and then act on what he tells me.

So you not only came up with some actionable idea, but you also came up with another belief: “I can’t show my anger to my boss.” Well… is that true?

The Core Belief Process

This process helps you to directly change the beliefs that make you fighting reality. I am using the version I got from Marc Allen’s Book The Type-Z Guide to Success.

This process uses affirmations to change your beliefs through constant repetition, which is a great way to work directly on your beliefs.

The short version is simply to formulate the contradicting belief in the simplest words possible, and then search for the affirmation that expresses the exact oposite of your former belief. For example you come up with “I’m not good at math”, and then start affirming “I’m more than capable to succeed in math”.

The long version is again a series of questions you ask in order to find limiting beliefs and come up with the right affirmations to change them:

1. What problem, situation, or area of your life do you want to improve?
2. What emotions are you feeling?
3. What physical sensations are you feeling?
4. What are you thinking about?
5. What is the worst thing that could happen in this situation?
6. What is the best thing that could happen?
7. What fear or limiting belief is keeping you from creating what you want in this situation?
8. Create an affirmation to counteract and correct the negative, limiting belief.
9. Say or write your affirmation repeatedly, over a period of several days.

I won’t guide you to through an example here, but you can find one from Marc Allen himself in his article about Changing Core Beliefs over at InnerSelf.com.

How to apply these processes?

The key to success is to not only use these processes once, but as often as possible. Ideally you use them as often as you stumble into negative feelings, find yourself in a situation you don’t want to be in, or feel that you make no progress towards your goals.

As I said before, there are probably many areas in which you are fighting reality, and there will inevitably arise new ones all the time. And this is a great thing, because they will always get you closer to your dream life when you work through them and act properly.

Other ways to stop fighting reality

There are, of course, many other ways, many other processes, concepts and tools available to work on your beliefs and help you to stop fighting reality. I invite you to share what helped you most in the comments. If you want to share your own experiences with us, you are of course also welcome.

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