You know the saying about wearing “rose-colored glasses”? It means that the person in question always looks at things in the best possible light, seemingly oblivious to the pain and suffering around them. Most of the time, it is used as a disparaging remark; it’s a way to make fun of people who seem so innocent.
There is an opposite to rose-colored glasses, and that is fear-colored glasses. The person who wears fear-colored glasses always sees things in the most negative light. They always believe that everyone in their lives is out to hurt them, and that nothing they ever encounter is truly beautiful, pure, or good. They don’t even think that there is anything beautiful about themselves, so they can’t see the beauty around them. Everything they do or say is reflected in the fear that consumes them, and everything that happens to them is the most awful thing ever.
When you put fear-colored glasses on, the world becomes tainted by your fears. Your job satisfaction falls through the floor, because you are always afraid of losing it. Your relationships go sour because you are always afraid that your partner will leave you. Food doesn’t taste as good to you, because you are afraid it will make you fat or harm you in other ways. You don’t exercise because you can’t see the point of it; you don’t drop bad habits for the same reason. You’re going to die anyway, right? Why waste time at the gym? Why not drink yourself into oblivion? Smoke a pack a day. Take drugs to numb the pain. Fear-colored glasses make life seem hopeless. Why not just throw it all away?
Fear-colored glasses wreak the most havoc in interpersonal relationships. Not just romantic relationships, but friendships, business partnerships, even professional relationships between colleagues are strained when one (or sometimes both) of the partners are wearing their fear-colored glasses. When you have your fear-colored glasses on, everything people say to you, and everything they do, is tinted with your fears.
Events do not have meanings by themselves. Things either happen, or they don’t. Even if there is a Divine Plan that we are all following, the individual events that occur only have meaning in our minds. We assign meaning to those events…a meaning that may or may not be in alignment with the Divine Plan. I’m not saying that things don’t happen for a reason; what I am saying is that there is no meaning inherent in events. Whatever happens, (if you believe in the Divine Plan) is part of the Plan, simply because it happened. If it didn’t happen, then it just wasn’t meant to be. But why it happened is open to our interpretation. If we are truly aligned with the Divine Source, then we can often see the wisdom in events. But, wearing fear-colored glasses skews your interpretation, and causes you to react from that place of fear. You end up causing yourself (and possibly others) a great deal of pain, simply because you misinterpreted events.
A classic example of this is in a marriage, and the man starts working late at the office. Things haven’t been going so well between Mary and John, for about a year now. They fight often, and they can’t seem to agree on anything. Neither one of them is happy, but they have reasons for staying in the marriage and trying to make it work. Lately, John has been working late at the office, and Mary has been spending more time with her friends, having “girls night out” at least twice a week. Put yourself in the wife’s shoes for a moment…
“Damn John! I know he’s having an affair with his secretary. Little Slut! I saw the way she looked at him at the holiday party last year. He pretended not to notice, of course, but how could he not? She’s young, with that skinny little waist and those fake…just damn him! He’s always working late now, too. I know exactly what kind of ‘job’ she must be doing for him. I can’t believe I’m wasting my time going to couples therapy…alone…every Tuesday evening. I tell John that I’m going out with the girls, but that’s only because I know that he would never approve of therapy. I wish I could get him to go with me, but I have to get him out of her arms before that could happen. Why can’t he see how hard I am working to save our marriage? Just damn him!”
Now, look at things from John’s persepctive…
“I can’t believe how unreasonable Mary has been lately! I know things haven’t been that great between us, but does she really think she’s helping by ignoring me and going out with her ‘friends’ every night? I bet she’s seeing some guy. That’s why she’s always so evasive when I ask her about where she went, and who she was with. Here I am, working all these extra hours, just so I can try to surprise her with a nice vacation for our anniversary, and she’s wasting all of my hard-earned money on some guy that probably doesn’t even care about her, just using her. Why can’t she see that she’s hurting me so bad? Why can’t she understand how hard I am working to save our marriage? Just damn her!”
Both Mary and John are wearing their fear-colored glasses, and assigning meaning to their spouse’s actions that are completely innacurate. Now, admittedly, this is an overly-simplistic scenario. In real life, this would never happen. But the point is still valid: When you assign meaning to someone else’s actions, based on your own fear, then you jump to the wrong conclusion. This causes you a lot of unnecessary suffering. Because you look at events through your lens of fear, you end up hurting yourself.
Note that you aren’t really hurting the other person. In fact, they are most likely oblivious to your internal struggle. It’s you who feels the pain, not them. This is one of the most common problems that psychologists treat every day.
In psychological terms, “fear-colored glasses” are known as fear-based thinking. A good way to overcome fear-based thinking is through cognitive based therapy (CBT). Only a trained professional therapist can help you with CBT, but in basic terms, you use logic to overcome your fear, and try to look at all of the possibilities. You can never really know why somebody does anything. Even if you believe that you are psychic…even if you really are psychic, the minds of other people will always be a bit…murky…at best. That’s because as humans, we rarely know the real reasons we do anything. Most of the time, we make decisions without giving them any real thought beyond a simple “I’d like to ____.” We don’t analyze ourselves, wondering why we want _____, we just go for it because we want it. Since people are so unclear with themselves, it’s impossible to be any more clear from the outside looking in.
The key to CBT is looking at every situation from at least two different perspectives. Even if you really don’t believe one of them is true, accept it as a possibility. Since you can never really know what is true, always be prepared to accept all possibilities. If someone cuts you off in traffic, then maybe they’re just a jerk. But maybe their wife is in labor in the backseat. Maybe they’re a doctor, rushing to the emergency room to save a life. The simple fact is that you can never really know, so accept the possibility that they have a good reason. Again, it doesn’t really matter to them one way or the other. If they really are a jerk, then they don’t care if you think so. You’re only hurting yourself by allowing your fear (”I could have had a wreck!“) to make you angry. I know how damaging fear-colored glasses are, because I have been guilty of wearing them many times myself.
I recently lost not just one, but two friendships because of fear-based thinking. One was my own fault, because I allowed my old fears to sneak up behind me, and attack me when I was already weakened. A friend did something, or rather, didn’t do something that I thought she should have. I lashed out at her, and ruined the friendship because I felt like she didn’t value me. When she explained her reasons to me, I felt very foolish, but it was already too late. The damage had been done. This I did, despite having spent the better part of a year in CBT, and even knowing that I have a problem with fear-based thinking. I also lost another friend recently, because she (mistakenly) believed that I didn’t value her friendship. I had told her that I would call her soon, but then I forgot. She called me a week later, crying and practically screaming at me. I admit that I should have called when I said I would. That was my mistake. But her mistake was in thinking that I didn’t care, and had deliberately blown her off. In truth, it was just an honest mistake. She doesn’t care about my apology, though, because she’s so sure that she knows my “real reason”.
In both of these situations, fear caused loss. In a way, that’s why I started this site. I was tired of seeing people I cared about suffer because of fear. I’m including myself in that list of people who suffer because of their own fears. I’m hoping that as I learn more about fear and its effect on people and relationships, I can heal myself, and help others do the same.
In our example of John and Mary above, if either one of them would just stop for a moment, and consider the possibility that their spouse loves them and isn’t cheating on them, then they might be able to sit down together and have a good laugh at themselves, strengthening their bond. But before that could ever happen, they would both have to take off their fear-colored glasses.