LTBH: COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS

02: Understanding Cognitive Dissonance

LTBH: COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS Understanding Cognitive Dissonance Healing is about realising wholeness, unity and integrity. True happiness, and lasting contentment depend

12: The Illusion of Ownership

LTBH: COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS Labelling: the Illusion of Ownership Ownership is a concept, and possession, is a relationship.  When I think,

13: The Illusion of Relationship

LTBH: COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS Labelling: the Illusion of Relationship I started the lesson by saying “ownership is a concept, and possession,

14: How We Filter Information

LTBH: COGNITIVE DISTORTIONS Understanding Cognitive Bias Do you think our anecdotal recollections of an experience are accurate?  Why do people

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LTBH: THE FOUNDATIONS My Account [pmpro_levels] Relection: What Am I Attached To? Get out your notepad. Name several things you

Labelling: the Illusion of Relationship

I started the lesson by saying “ownership is a concept, and possession, is a relationship”, but of course relationship is a concept too! 

What makes someone our Mom, our friend, or our partner? No one can observe, with complete certainty, who’s your friend or partner just by looking at them – because they have no real connection to you. The relationship is in your mind. 

Even familial relationships are in our mind. Some of your DNA may be in the same shape and pattern as your parents, but the molecules your DNA is made of, have been replaced since you were born. You’re more closely related to the food you ate yesterday than to your parents, since those molecules are now part of your body, and the molecules you inherited from your parents bodies have long since been recycled.

Many people unknowingly think of their relationship as a kind of independent entity or unspoken agreement. 

In reality, there is no independently existent relationship to have, or lose, since the relationship exists is in your mind. 

You have your way of relating to them, and they have their way of relating to you. How each person sees themselves, sees the other, and sees the relationship is often very different than we’d like to think. 

Relationship depends on memory, which as we’ve seen, is thought. Thought is totally subjective, which is why it’s possible for us to consider ourselves as someone’s friend, while they may consider us to be their enemy!

At best, the concept of relationship serves a practical purpose. A child needs their parents to take care of them, and partners need each other to help pay the bills. 

In that sense, there are a variety of practical commitments associated with different relationships. When everyone agrees to them, it can help to bring order and stability to our lives. 

But beyond the comfort and convenience of having the support of other people, what benefit is there to relating to others as our friend, our partner, or our parent?

By labelling a person, we reduce them from something which is real, unique, impermanent and observable into something which is imagined, general, permanent and unobservable: we transform a free human being, into a role. 

In mistaking the real person for the label you have given them, you’re more likely to project your values and expectations on them. 

Our friends may encourage this. They might say, he’s your boyfriend, he should get you something for your birthday. She’s your wife, she should make you dinner. This often leads to trouble. 

People have their own ideas of what being someone’s friend or partner means. The roles and expectations may be different in each person’s mind. This can lead to a lot of misunderstanding and resentment. 

When we label someone, we’re no longer relating to them as they really are. We’re thinking of them only in reference to ourselves. This makes it harder for us to appreciate and understand them, because we have reduced them from a real, observable, changing person, into a imagined, general, unchanging concept: my friend. 

Friendship is a concept. Partnership is a concept. Parenthood is a concept. As we already mentioned, you cannot be a concept, nor can anybody else. 

If you want to see someone as they really are, then you have to think of them as having an existence independent of you. You can’t bring your roles and expectations about their character into the present. You must be ready and prepared to see them as they are, right now, which may be very different from what you’ve known them to be in the past. 

Just in case you’re having doubts, let’s look at yet another way clinging to the sense of mine causes trouble for us. 

Just as we had found with our possessions, relating to people as ours makes it far more likely we’ll react to what happens to them, as if it’s happening to us. 

For example, if your friend is treated badly by their partner, or harassed by someone for their gender expression, and you feel possessive of them, you may feel offended and you may feel defensive. 

Does it help you, or them, for you to be upset? Nothing’s happening to you. If you weren’t taking it personally, you might think to ask your friend, how they feel, and what they’re thinking. You might think to ask them what they would like to do, and if they need your help, rather than assume things based on your own feelings.

We want to be happy, so we need to ask ourselves, is the way I’m relating to the people in my life making me happy? Is it making them happy? Is there a better way of relating to them? 

I’m certainly not saying you shouldn’t have relationships, nor am I saying that you can’t think of someone as your friend. 

You just want to remember that people are not yours. They are more than their roles. They don’t owe you anything. They are free to change, and they’re going to, whether you want them to or not. 

On a practical level, you can keep referring to people as your partner, or your friend, but emotionally, it’s better to relate to them as completely free to think, feel, say and do whatever they want.

And, in recalling the lesson on personalization: don’t assume a persons thoughts, feelings, fears an desires, are a reflection of you, and your worth. What each person thinks and feels, says more about them than it does about us. Try to let them be themselves. Don’t make it about you.

If we relate to the people in our lives as guests, and have no expectations of them, it will be easier for us to appreciate them, and to be grateful for the things they freely do. We’ll be more likely to feel blessed, than resentful that they’re not living up to the expectations of the role we put them in.

  • Relationships are not independently existent. You have your way of relating to them and they have their way of relating to you.
  • Since relationships are concepts, you cannot really have or lose a relationship, you can only change the way you think about the person.
  • When we relate to people as being their roles, we are far more likely to have expectations of them.
  • When we think of people as ours, we’re more likely to feel offended and get defensive on their behalf, and feel hurt when they’re hurt, and this isn’t helpful.
  • When we think of people as the label we have given them, we stop seeing them as they really are, and see them only in relation to what they are to us.