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.
