Your Thoughts, Your Life

As the winter months approach, perhaps this is a good time to begin that journey within to discover who you truly are and what you want from life.   Do you want to stay on the hamster wheel of indecision and in action or do you choose to fling open that cage door and embrace your life’s purpose and run with it? Should you encounter rejection, please to not allow it to turn you from your new path.  Instead, use those stones that the misunderstood have thrown at you in judgment or rejection and use them to build your new path.

In order for you to find your way out of that rut, you need to be willing to not only think outside that box, but act outside that box.  For most of us, it is easy to say we will change something.  However, to actually take that first step or put your pinky toe in the water and give it a try takes great courage.  We find ourselves obsessed with whether those closest to us will judge us.  Not only judge us, but judge us unfavorably as weird, crazy or (gasp) not normal.  

How often do you find yourself sitting with your thoughts of “If I could only…,” “When ‘this’ happens, I will…,” or “If only I was as good as ‘this person,’ I would…”?  Yet should one of those scenarios you put up as an obstacle actual clear your path to what you would do, what do you do?  Most likely nothing because in your mind you never thought you would have to face it.  So you return to your idle “if-then” spinning and make more excuses for why you can’t move forward with that thought, idea, ambition.

If you stop and think about it, none of us are normal.  We all have our own unique viewpoints, our own idiosyncrasies, and our own particular habits.  It’s hard to step out from behind the masks that we wear for all the different people in our lives.  We are the wife, the mother, the sister, the best friend, the daughter.  But all those roles lead us little room to let our true selves and true thoughts come to light. 

In order to allow our thoughts to flow freely and to claim the people we know we are inside, we need to take a deep breath and learn to be comfortable with our true selves.  Criticism is never easy, especially criticism of the deep parts of our selves when we choose to share them with others.  However, this growth process will certainly show you who your true friends are and who you may choose to cut out of your life. 

The Metaphysics of a Board Game and an Onion

Most of us have played the game Chutes and Ladders as children.  Some maybe more recently with our children, nieces and nephews, or children we babysit.  We all know that you can go along just fine moving forward and making progress until that one space on the board that sends you all the way back to the beginning.   Dang!  I was doing so well!  We can all relate this to the times in our lives when we are going along and making progress until that one thought, emotion or memory comes along and sends us down the chute to an issue we thought we had conquered.  At these times we tend to get confused because “hey I dealt with this so why is it coming back up and why does it still hurt?”

I asked this same question of a counselor friend who gave me an example of an onion.  We all have our own issues in life.  Maybe it’s a negative soundtrack in our minds from when we were growing up about not being good enough, smart enough or pretty enough.  Maybe it’s a traumatic event in our lives that we have never fully explored or healed.  Maybe it’s a pattern in our lives that no longer serves a purpose but we don’t know how to change it.  Whatever the situation is, we deal with it in layers just like an onion.

 

So the first few times we encounter this seemingly backward slide we break out our coping mechanisms and ride it out until we can put it back in the box and stuff it back inside our heads or hearts.  Eventually, there will come a time when this issue surfaces that you feel that just coping with it isn’t enough.  You may begin to realize that something needs to change so you can stop feeling like this and move on.   Perhaps you don’t know what to do to begin the change.   I bet you feel that need for change so go with that!  Trust yourself.  If you feel you need to start with a self-help book about your particular issue to help you understand it then do that.  If you have done that and feel it is time to seek out a counselor then search diligently and make the appointment.  If you feel you aren’t ready then perhaps call a trusted friend and talk to them.  You see, you are not alone and you are not the first or the only person to slide down that chute. 

Okay, you have made a change, you have challenged your comfort zone with this issue and you have moved on.  Great job!  You are finding that living in this new reality after the change is a bit easier and even a bit more pleasant.  You have made a change and stuck with it.  That is until sometime later… it could be weeks, months or even years… and then here you are at the bottom of this stupid chute again looking at the same issue.  But this time you aren’t looking at this issue from the first layer, you have progressed to the second layer of this same issue.  Perhaps the first time it was learning to speak up when someone said something negative to you or about you.  Good on you for speaking up!  Perhaps this time around you have spoken up and this person has persisted in their negativity about you and challenged you.  So you are not a confrontational person so you back down.  This same pattern will continue to repeat with this person or other people until you find your courage to challenge them and shut them down.  Do you see what I mean by another level or layer of the same issue?

I can say that I have been through many such manifestations in my life on many different issues.  Most recently I have slid down that chute to the issue of self-comparison.  I have this habit of comparing myself to other people and always finding that they are so much better than I am and that I must be doing something wrong.  It was not until recently when I found a bit of wisdom from Colette Baron-Reid that said, “If someone wants to tear you down it's because they think there is not enough and you somehow are taking something away from them. Send them love and light. It's not about you.” 

That seemed to shift something inside me where suddenly I don’t feel that I need to compare myself to anyone.  It isn’t about me.  I need to walk my path and do it honestly, in love, and with an open heart.  So you see, many of us continue to encounter deeper and deeper layers of the same issues.  Do not look at this as a back slide, a failure or an inability to move forward.  You see you ARE moving forward.  You are going deeper and deeper into these situations to learn the lessons you need to learn to be able to eventually release these thoughts, feelings and ideals that no longer serve you.   So when you slide down that chute once again, please don’t look at it as a negative.  Look at it as another opportunity for growth and understanding on your journey.  Afterall, it won’t go away until it has taught you what  you need to know.