Stop Doing That Sh*t. Gary John Bishop
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I meet “the one”). There’s no end to the possibilities you’ve written off with nothing more than a series of auto-response triggers in the confines of your head.
“It’s too hard.”
“It won’t work.”
“I can’t do it.”
“I don’t know enough.”
“There’s no point. It won’t make any difference.”
In terms of survival, what better way to live a long and relatively safe life than to continually barf up the same kinds of issues and problems and then apply the same tired and useless solutions? Your own personal Matrix of old emotions, old complaints, old experiences. Your “no reality” reality.
Every day is a new day, right? No, every day is the freaking same day.
I mean, at least you always know what’s coming. You also know that you’ll survive it too, even if it sucks! No unknowns, no uncertainty, nothing out of left field, no threat to you, just a single, predictable line of engagement. You apply the same eyes and ears to every situation life throws at you and spin in your own mini tempest of the same old dramas and upsets. Circumstances may change, but what stays the same is you and how you see them, as well as how you deal with them and ultimately how you participate in life. The problem here is that it’s often hard to see those automatic predictions we’re making every day in an effort to survive. It’s hard to uncover the themes and story lines that underlie our life events.
But humans are funny creatures, and we’re often not content to live a safe, predictable life. We want excitement! Adventure! Passion! And that’s the crossroads where human beings exist. Pulled to predict life and stay safe, yet at the same time thirsty for the new and its tempting allure of a better existence. Wanting and lusting after change while gripped by the anxiety of keeping life safe, certain, and survivable. Minimize the judgment, minimize the failure, crush the pain and the uncertainty and the chaos of real change. Safety eventually wins. Survival is the victor.
That’s what we call a life. Wanting new; addicted to the familiar. Even when the familiar is as dull as dishwater. When it comes down to it, you’ll willingly trade in what you want for what you know. You’re doing it right now in your life!
Often when people are stuck in unhappy relationships or unwanted careers, this is what they are really dealing with. It’s the trade-off. Underneath it all, it’s not about the kids or the family or the money or the risk or the judgment of others. It’s all survival. Safety over aliveness. Predictability over joy or love or freedom or the life of your dreams.
What makes it so hard to see is that you never fully witness the trap you are stuck in. You only get to live with the consequences of that trap. Your entire life to this point has been a series of actions subconsciously driven to trap you in the same bubble of life.
Take a minute to allow yourself to take stock here. What has been the underlying experience of this life of yours? When it’s all said and done, when you look at the struggle and determination, the victories, the defeats, the sorrow, the drive to be happy and content, the seemingly never-ending hunger for something better—better job, better body, better partner, better family, better house, better society, better clothes, better social life, more passion, more purpose, more followers, more whatever, on and on and on—what are you left with?
Pause here for a moment and honestly answer that question for yourself.
Well?
When I ask my clients this question, they mostly have the same answer. “I’m exhausted.” Sometimes it’s worse.
Sometimes they say, “It’s okay.”
Fuck!!
Reminder—this works only if you pause and populate this conversation with your own circumstances, your real-life situations and cycles of self-sabotage, to start to draw some sense from what I am saying and how it applies to your life. Do the work here. Start to see the issues of your life through the lens of what I’m saying—your repetitive and destructive behaviors are supposed to be that way! Your life was set up to repeat them. They’re also what keeps you being that familiar you, living with the same constraints, weighed down by the past, always in the same, tired struggle for a better day but occasionally sedated by a glimmer of hope or optimism.
Keep in mind, if you really are after some kind of new life, some new and unprecedented result, that will require risk on your part. That will require you to push through your predictable self-talk, your all-too-familiar emotional freeze-frame, and reach for the unknown.
You can’t do new without risk. Period.
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