Living in two worlds

In this article: It's subtle to notice that we each live in two worlds and not in one, but when noticed it has the tendency to change everything.

There is the shared real concrete world of events, systems and the stuff we can touch and see. And then there is the inner personal psychological world that explains, gives meaning and a narrative to that real concrete one. And a different narrative provokes a different response which leads to different results, which of course reinforces the original narrative

In the outer world we have to one extent or another a temporary waxing and waning influence. But in the inner psychological world we have, depending on our level of personal mastery, a greater and more consistent one.

There is often the assumption that we all live in the same world, but this is not true. If we acknowledge that we each live in a synthesis of inner personal psychological and outer real shared world, then there must also be the acknowledgement that we each live in different worlds ... because no two inner psychological worlds are identical.

Struggle, tension, anxiety and conflict come about when we mistakenly believe that the path to determining our own inner personal reality lies through shaping (controlling) that outer shared one.

The truth is somewhat different and a whole lot easier. Master the inner and cooperate in shaping the outer. This is exciting because it means that we don't actually know or can ever know what the outer cultural world is ever really going to look like, because it's the consequence of a shared activity. And fulfilling because no matter what it ends up looking like, we participated simply because it was a lot of fun and deeply meaningful to do so.

Paradoxically, when we do that, we end up exerting a greater influence on that outer shared reality, than when we attacked it directly.