Stories. People love stories. Movies, oral tradition, plays, tv shows. Any good storyteller understands the importance of something called the “suspension of disbelief.” “Suspension of disbelief” is a concept outlined by Aristotle with respect to poetics, and gets at the idea that audiences accept fiction as reality in order to have an emotional experience.
We’ve all done it. Whether your thing is books, tv, movies, graphic novels, we all likely practice suspension of disbelief regularly. No matter how unlikely or fantastical a plotline, we get caught up in the action, drama or humour of a story.
It’s why we have our favourite shows and why we look forward to seeing new releases. It’s why we love novels and comics and the stage. The ability to hold back on proclaiming how unrealistic any story arc or character may be is the reason we can enjoy that favourite story.
Why am I talking about suspension of disbelief? Because we all have the ability to do it, and in my experience, it’s a crucial skill to use with intention when you’re exploring your personal and/or spiritual development. If you want to watch a 5-minute video Q and A on this, check out the video below.
How open-minded am I really?
Most of us would identify as being pretty open minded, as it becomes increasingly commonplace to recognize the value of diversity, inclusion, individualism and being one-of-a-kind.
If you’re on a journey of healing, or of personal/spiritual development, keeping your mind open to new ideas is paramount. It doesn’t have to mean that you have to let go of your existing beliefs, religion, or culture.
Coming at the new, unfamiliar or potentially uncomfortable can help you to push yourself to grow, expand your knowledge base and continue to learn. Below I will provide a breakdown of how to intentionally use your innate ability to suspend disbelief and keep an open mind until you have enough information to come to a truly deliberated conclusion or interim conclusion.
Where I learned this tool
In the past two years, I have dramatically enhanced and adapted my belief system. I grew up with a fairly rigid religious belief system, a clearly defined concept of the divine, and a set of fear-based beliefs about the spiritual.
I will share more on this in future posts, but suffice it to say that in the past two years, I have come to recognize that there is so much more knowledge and ways of knowing and existing personally and spiritually.
My personal, relational and even professional wellbeing has transformed significantly and for the better as a result of my continued learning and practice. And I couldn’t continue to learn and develop without having an open mind.
Intentionally suspending disbelief
As you build a regular meditation practice, over time you will discover that you’re able to remain fully present in situations that may have thrown you off previously. You won’t get so stuck in your head.
With a longer-term meditation practice, you will find that you’re better able to simply sit with an observation and consider it without needing to intentionally suspend your disbelief. But in the interim, as you build your practice and invest in your learning and development, here’s what to do:
- Patiently take in the information/idea without deciding whether you subscribe to it.
- Think about this as going to a store and picking a sweater off the rack.
- Think about the idea – hold it in your head, let it ruminate, really consider it – and hold off deciding whether you believe it.
- Keeping with our sweater example, think of this as trying on the sweater in the changeroom, paying for the sweater, and taking it home with you so you can try it on again at home.
- If this feels uncomfortable, just sit with the discomfort. You’ll be okay. You haven’t actually changed anything.
- Let’s say you get home and you try on the sweater again. You’re still not sure if it’ll work for the outfit you have in mind, and is it even fitting right? So you leave the tag on and set it aside for now, to try it on again later.
The great thing is that you can think about a concept and not actually need to know whether you believe it. This is not dangerous. Like our sweater example. If you decide once you’re home and you’ve tried it on with your other clothes that it’s just not right for you, you can return it. You’ll get your money back, and you’ll know you didn’t miss the opportunity of having a new complement to your wardrobe. Because it could have been an amazing fit, a sweater that would become your go-to that you wear for years.
And maybe next time you’ll find such a sweater. Maybe the next spiritual, meditation or energy concept you come across will help other information you’ve gleaned to fall into place. Maybe it will be instrumental to the next milestone in your journey. I’ve personally experienced this time and again in my own journey.
It’s common to avoid even thinking or approaching some concepts because they’ve been categorized as something “other”, or because they bring up some kind of defensiveness in us.
The defensiveness may be from general discomfort with a new idea; it could be that it’s bringing up an uncomfortable emotion that you haven’t allowed to have a voice; it could be that your religion or cultural beliefs take a different stance.
Frequently, discomfort related to “otherness” tends to be rooted in fear. Fear is something I will discuss in other posts, because fear has been experienced by every single one of us and has informed core aspects of ourselves at some point.
But for now, keep coming back to the three steps above, and remember that in being open minded, no one is forcing you to change your mind or belief system – myself included!
It’s all a choice.
If you choose to keep yourself open to new ideas, you’ll be supporting increased intelligence, patience, and opportunity for development. If those sound like useful outcomes to you, get out there practice exploring some new-to-you ideas!
Resources
Some suggested books to get your started are below. As always, I’m not being compensated to recommend these, and their subject matter isn’t even specifically related to this post, but I’ve read them all and they’re great content to practice open mindedness while reading.
- Vision for Life: 10 Steps to Natural Eyesight Improvement by Meir Schneider, PhD or Take Off Your Glasses and See by Jacob Liberman, OD, PhD
- Medium in Manolos by Lauren Robertson
- Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman
- Body Wise: Discovering Your Body’s Intelligence of Lifelong Health and Healing by Rachel Carlton Abrams, MD
TL;DR
- Patiently take in the information/idea without deciding whether you subscribe to it.
- Think about this as going to a store and picking a sweater off the rack.
- Think about the idea – hold it in your head, let it ruminate, really consider it – and hold off deciding whether you believe it.
- Keeping with our sweater example, think of this as trying on the sweater in the changeroom, paying for the sweater, and taking it home with you so you can try it on again at home.
- If this feels uncomfortable, just sit with the discomfort. You’ll be okay. You haven’t actually changed anything.
- Let’s say you get home and you try on the sweater again. You’re still not sure if it’ll work for the outfit you have in mind, and is it even fitting right? So you leave the tag on and set it aside for now, to try it on again later.
You can remain undecided about what you think of this idea while you ruminate on it and continue to intake new information. The next spiritual, meditation or energy concept you come across may help other information you’ve gleaned to fall into place.
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