In the movie The Matrix, the hero, Neo, is in a computer-generated 3-D holographic world called “the Matrix”. In one scene of the movie he is in the Matrix in a room with other highly developed human beings. In the room is a boy who is bending a spoon with his mind. Neo asks him, “How are you doing that?”

The boy replies, “Don’t try to bend the spoon, that’s impossible. Instead you must simply realize the truth.”

Neo asks, “What is the truth?”

The boy replies, “There is no spoon.”

Since the world they are in is computer-generated, the spoon is simply an illusion generated by a computer. Seeing through the illusion gives one freedom from the impact and the effects of the illusion.

By the same token, when we learn to see through the illusions and the fear-based perceptions of the paradigm created by our fears and our negative self talk, then we begin to free our minds from the impact of these fears. Automatically, our habitual coping strategies and our current cycles of conflict begin to dissipate and unravel. We begin to become more responsive to the needs of the present moment rather than being stuck on the cycles of conflict dictated by our past. We become more effective in creating what we want in life and we stop wasting our time and energy on the dead end situations and on the useless power struggles we have perpetuated over and over again in our lives.

Once we see through the illusions created by our fears then our anxiety fades, we become more aware and awake in the present moment and we regain more of the joy of living that we may have lost to some extent somewhere along the way in our lives as we got caught up in limited goals, dysfunctional patterns of relating and negative ways of being that steal the life out of our lives. We have that shift in perception where within our psyche, the caterpillar becomes the butterfly and our life situation shifts accordingly.