The old paradigm implies that we are our psychological experience. We are the sum of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. We are the “me” identity our left-brain interpreter constructs for us. We have a personality that is stable and meaningful, that tells the world who-we-are.
The new paradigm couldn’t be more different. In the new paradigm, we feel psychological experience moving through us, but we know we aren’t our psychology. Our psychology, which includes our mind-created identity and personality traits, is always in flux. We aren’t the masks we wear.
The old paradigm says that life affects us in unfavorable ways that are felt through the whole of who-we-are. We can be irreversibly damaged by our experience.
In the new paradigm, we see that life is not about the identity we call “me.” When we’re caught up in experience, believing it can hurt us, we experience that. We unintentionally stare right at it when it looks like all there is. But we are incomprehensibly resilient. Our formless nature is never damaged by anything, and the form is always changing. When we see that we’re undamageable, that becomes our reality.
– Excerpt adapted from Just a Thought: A No-Willpower Approach to End Self-Doubt and Make Peace with Your Mind. Available now.
