Coming Up For Air
Overwhelmed, most of us are hanging by a thread but would never admit this.
By the time we are 4, most of us are drowning in life experiences that we feel overwhelmed by. Granted, nearly everything overwhelms us at the age of 4.
By the time we are a teenager, we've been overwhelmed by life so much, that we've developed some neurotic behaviors. These behaviors get us by but they often have enormous unintended consequences. The messes from these neurotic behaviors begin to build and it becomes something we feel helpless to avoid. We begin to say, 'well, that's just who I am.' We begin to see this as just an unfortunate part of our personality. 'People are just going to have to take-it-or-leave-it.'
In reality, we are spiritually drowning. We have pressed the pause button on life, well...at least with certain circumstances. Certain circumstances that we label as 'bad' become those areas of life that we pause and stop growing. With this, we start to become sick, spiritually. Our life throws out more 'bad' circumstances as if to say, 'let's heal this.' But we respond with, 'this is not good' and we go into our neurotic behavior that helps us dodge this 'terrible' life experience.
We may do well with the 'good' experiences but fail miserably with the 'bad' experiences. This approach to life never works and it ultimately takes this sickness and it spreads to our emotions, thoughts, and body. We become sick. By the time we are 40, we all are likely experiencing some significant physical discomfort. Ultimately, this leads to our death at some point...not too far off into the future.
It's those pesky 'bad' things that we need to sort out. How do we lighten the load of so many 'bad' experiences that just keep happening over and over again. If we're old enough to read this, it is likely that some of our neuroticisms have cost us dearly already. They've likely cost us some important relationships, family and friends. Avoiding these 'bad' experiences in life is not only making us sick in more ways than one but it is also costing us some very important relationships in life.
The only answer, is to fully experience the next time another 'bad' experience happens again. Feel it. Feel the very hurt of the pain it causes us. It is supposed to hurt. It is telling us something about what we are not. Things that hurt, is our experience of what we are not. It is the opposite of us.
Generally, things that we define as 'good' tend to affirm who we really are. Who are we?
One.