by Judith Anderson

Song lyrics such as in blues, country and folk songs all share a similar thread or theme that “life is hard” and someone or something has “done me wrong.” This complaint casts the person as the victim of a rough life, of persecution, and assumes that it’s a common malady from which to suffer, because we’re “only human.” Therefore, people are regularly taught it’s normal to feel aggrieved and to be upset and unhappy living in this world of woe.
     People then get an identity from the programming that they are unlucky or put upon. They feel thwarted because “I wasn’t given what I deserve.” You can name that emotion in many ways but for now let’s call it frustration. Basically it’s not getting what you want. And then you go on to “sing the blues.”
     What causes frustration is the fact that you had a desire, an expectation, a wish. You go out in the morning, as Vernon Howard so well describes it, “carrying a basket of preferences.” Since reality rarely gives us what we want, the result, what I get, is frustration, unhappiness. A simple cause and effect law is seldom seen by people, that I am the cause of what happens. “You are the cause of your condition.” Instead we prefer to blame others, circumstances or bad luck, and dismiss our own culpability.
     What’s even more fascinating in the study of human nature is that people are often unconscious of their expectations. We don’t even realize we have those demands until, lo and behold, “things go wrong.” That is, the event or person is different than I want them to be. And suddenly I’m in pain — because I had a thought, an idea, a preconception.
     Vernon said much of the time we don’t even know we’re in pain, we’ve hidden it so well from ourselves and others. He once said, “I can feel your suffering for you.” This is why he was able to help us to see what we’re doing and to become more conscious of it, in order to prevent or overcome these phantom obstacles. We create problems with our mind. He said to “realize that nothing bad is happening to you outside of your thoughts!”
     Truth makes it crystal clear that nothing has actually happened except in the mind. People are living a delusion, a soap opera life caused by an overload of societal propaganda. The powerful suggestion of being wronged, thwarted, is made up of only words and thoughts. This is then attached to a non-existent entity to make one feel he is real, a somebody. Instead of accepting the flow of life, the come-and-go of it, people develop a false emotion to define a “me,” the false personality.
     Here’s an example. Say your debit or credit card is cancelled due to a fraud alert. Fact. Event. Are you grateful for the heads-up? No, you start grumbling, “What a bother. This world is too complicated. Life is against me.” You feel overwhelmed and believe you have a right to suffer.
     Okay, this is the chance to see, to stand apart and observe, to “Use the pain to end the pain.” For if you can see deeply at that moment that it’s all phony, a self-created torment, the seeing will free you from the cycle of suffering. You can stop singing the blues. You can change your tune!
     Yes, it’s hard work to break the habit of unconscious demands and welcome something new and different. To interrupt and get out of the frustration rut will take some rough bumps but it can be done — if we want to do it. I can wake up, and be free of my dreams of unconscious expectations, which only lead to unhappiness. Vernon told us to say, “It’s my moral duty to be happy.” Not of course a fake forced chirpy happiness. It’s a friendly universe if I will stop imagining and fighting it. If we yield and allow the Higher in, we will be at rest and know that God really does care for us.