People with like ideas reinforce each other’s beliefs. You may meet with some misunderstanding when you suddenly decide to change your reality by changing your beliefs — according to the circumstances, you may be going in a completely different direction than the group to which you belong. The others may feel it necessary to defend ideas that all of you previously took for granted. In such cases your beliefs merged. Each individual has his or her own ideas about reality for reasons that seem valid. Needs are met. When you abruptly change your beliefs, then in the group you no longer have the same position — you are not playing that game any longer.
In the group, you may suddenly cease to provide for the others a need that you satisfied earlier. This affects both intimate behavior and, say, social interactions.
For a time then you may experience a feeling of loss as you move from one group of beliefs to another. However, others, sharing your new beliefs, will gravitate toward you and you to them. I will say more about this later in the book, but it explains for example why a diet-watcher, friends; why the person who makes new resolutions may find himself baffled by associates’ ridicule; why the alcoholic trying not to drink finds others tempting him quite openly, or teasing him into indulgence by hidden tactics.
When someone who has been ill starts on the road to recovery through changing his beliefs, he may be quite surprised to find even his dearest allies suddenly upset, reminding him of the “reality” of his dire state for the same reasons.
(The Nature of Personal Reality)
沒有留言:
張貼留言