Why Take Things At Face Value When You Can Be Happy?

I know that sentence must sound odd to you. It certainly did to me when I woke up with it in my head…but then I realized it’s right on the mark. Thankfully, I’ve learned to pay attention to what is delivered from the mind (aka Mind) before my brain (which is full of personal thoughts) gets turned on — usually with my morning coffee.

This is where that sentence led me as I got curious about it….

I knew it had something to do with the things we think that are not only useless but also often detrimental to our ability to be happy. So I followed that trail, and I got even more curious…

What does the phrase “at face value” mean anyway?

I wanted to check with google or Siri but first I just kept my mind empty (by sticking with my curiosity) and what occurred to me was this…

The face contains our eyes and ears. Eyes to see with and ears to hear with. I know that whatever we think, will appear real to us because we see and hear what is out there; what is in front of us…right?

Well, it turns out, not exactly. What we see and hear is colored by what we think about what we’re seeing and hearing. What is out there in front of us is colored by our personal beliefs, ideas, previous experiences, what our teachers in life taught us to think, etc etc.

In other words, our EXPERIENCE of what’s out there is contaminated by our unique personal thinking. Okay, onto the google definition:

What is another word for: take something at face value?

And the Webster dictionary definition:

Definition of at face value

1: for the price that is printed on something

We bought the tickets at face value.

2: as true or genuine without being questioned or doubted

After all his lying, nothing he says now should be taken/accepted at face value.

And it’s the perfect explanation of why my clients come to me with:

• We can’t seem to stop arguing and no one is winning

• I need sex and I have to feel loved to stay in this marriage

• She listens to other people tell her the same thing I tell her

• He would rather give a hand to his friends than help us

• My child is off the rails and nothing I do is helping

• I’m anxious a lot and now I’m getting panic attacks

• I’m so depressed that I don’t want to get out of bed some days.

• We’re so different we just can’t see eye to eye.

• I love him but I’m not in love anymore.

• Etc. Etc. Etc.

It would be easy to say — ‘just quit taking things at face value’- but of course that wouldn’t help because it wouldn’t have an impact at the level that’s necessary to really SEE what’s true and what’s imagination. Only insights have the power to do that. It takes insight (a sight from within) to SEE what is really true. When people gain INSIGHT into how REALITY really works THROUGH THEM, and not TO THEM, their lives improve across the board.