Rocks & Hard Places

We often remain under the dead weight and trappings of
unuseful thoughts, patterns, beliefs, relationships, etc. long
after we have lost the purpose or joy once inherent in them.


My difficulty with proceeding forward from bad situations
stems in part from the normal human need for consistency
and regulation and repetition, all of which substitute nicely
for actual contentedness. But I also have some very deep-
seated aversion to change, difficulty with conflict of any
sort, and abandonment and trust issues that taint every corner
of my world. 'Losing' anything is traumatic, even if the end
result is my own good. (Not that this is unique among folks
with addictive personalities!)


This is a predicament I find myself in repeatedly, without much
resolution; The juxtaposed fear of releasing something known
to be detrimental because it is familiar, while avoiding needed
and positive change because it is unknown.


It all comes down to matters of trust.


If you find you can't trust people, you can't trust life, you fear
you can't trust self (based largely on very subjectively culled
past events and interpretations,) why would you trust the
process of life in specific or general?


Getting to the root of all the reluctance to change, healing,
growth, living fully, and just plain 'being' is exhausting and
terrifying. But as we can easily determine in others, from the
outside looking in, "You can't treat a rash without dropping
some drawers!"

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Expansion Efforts

In the course of learning life, there is certainly
more that's unknown than known.


We can never be more than, at best, in struggle for
dominance with our surroundings, whether they
be job, people, addiction, love, or what have you.
(At worst, we may hope to tread water or 'drown
less often.') Living in charge is a luxury afforded
to very few, and even then tends to be tenuous and
partial.


Finding a balance may mean changing perspective
or acquiescing, or learning to release the need to
control or mandate. That's for those of us without
the money and pull to continue pulling strings at any
point in the game.


But into every life a little rain must fall, and even the
most talented of controllers are affected by dire
circumstance, much as their low and mid-level
counterparts are.


The trappings of 'success', materialism, the illusions
of happiness we strive to achieve and maintain and
reclaim...they can all cease to carry the significance we
afford them by our decision to unclench from the long-ago
instilled belief that we 'must' continue things as they
have always been.


If I relax the parameters, ask new questions, and
allow for the old bonds of belief to be shattered,
entire new worlds open up. We are only captives if
we continue to imagine ourselves such.

Being free cannot happen if I seek absolutes and rigid
definitions that are not reflective of the complex
and fluid life process.


Things are only as important as we make them.
All meaning is superficially implied.
Reevaluating and reassessing our core needs can
be a very sobering experience.

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