Is It Time To Wake Up Yet?
It is amazing how much fear and confusion, and misunderstanding controls our lives. Yet their effects are often so hidden, rationalized, or cleverly disguised that the possibility of freeing ourselves from them is almost impossible. Perhaps 95% of the people I see in individual therapy are suffering from these difficulties one way or another.
Most people believe, or they are told, that they need to somehow control their behaviour, to just get a hold of themselves and simply stop being something (angry, jealous, anxious, depressed etc…). But the simple truth is we cannot successfully “force” our self into changing. That is simply an application of destructive energy and misguided thinking and it will only lead to further negative consequences.
Rather than being told by others that we need to change, or even simply agreeing with them, we somehow (and that’s a big somehow), need to arrive at this choice ourself.
We have to unconditionally accept that this is our life, and it is entirely up to us what we do with it . We have to stop blaming others for why we think, feel and act the way we do and without knowing exactly how we are going to do it, we have to find a way.
We have to want to change.
More accurately, we have to become aware of our inherent desire to change, and then choose to support that natural process.
We cannot directly influence emotional and psychological grow in ourself or in others. All we can actually do is create the right conditions which nurture that process and in a certain sense, stand back and let nature take its course. As a rough analogy, I can look after a plant by giving it the right amount of water, exposing it to sufficient levels of of light and so on. But I cannot and do not make it grow. Something else, call it a life force, call it nature, but something outside of my hands is responsible for that growth.
If, and when, that desire arises, and if we are truly serious about this, then we are ready to learn. This presents the next challenge as there are many sources and methods of teaching, some of which will be useful for you, and many more which will not be. Learning that important distinction is a challenge in its own right.
Ultimately, we will have to become dedicated to finding and speaking “our truth” to ourself, and eventually to others. That means we have to start learning how to pay proper attention to our experiences, how we actually think, what we truly imagine and believe, how we actually feel and so on.
We will then need to learn to see the relationship between those experiences, our actions, and their effects. Our experiences and the actions which flow from them always create simultaneous effects in the world “out there’ and the world “in here”. It is all intimately connected
As I extend more deeply into my self, my understanding of “who I am with you” also changes. For example, I begin to clearly see how much my emotional reactions (fear, anger, jealousy etc.) and my beliefs ( i.e. I am unlovable, I am unworthy) have been affecting our relationship and limiting our ways of interacting. The quality of relationship I have with myself will always be the same one I have with you.
Often times the distinction between what is good for another and what is harmful is very unclear. Sometimes our love for another requires we act in ways that the other does not appreciate and does not want. And sometimes we offer things to another that they really enjoy and will thank you, for but it is not good for that person. Learning these crucial distinctions is difficult. It takes a great deal of care, attention, and energy, to do all of this. This is what extending ourself is all about.