Wednesday, November 19, 2008

metaphors.



I don't know that there is anything more annoying than a splinter.  Splinters jam their way into a place just beneath the surface of the skin; not deep enough to be dangerous and just deep enough to create a nagging dull pain that does not go away.  Try to remove a splinter and you usually end up getting just the tip or, if you are lucky, 60% of the little booger.  Then comes the valiant attempts at do-it-yourself surgery including but not limited to needle punctures, exacto-knife incisions, and non-stop pushing and picking.  If you are lucky, you can infect yourself and end up requiring real medical attention.  So, what is the best course of action?  If at first, the splinter does not come out easily, nature must take its due course.  Eventually, the body will work a splinter out.  

I was thinking about splinters tonight on my way home from work as a great metaphor for things we don't understand, things that cause us pain in our lives.  We live in a world that demands solutions, that asks for things that are not easy to be removed.  We do not see the purpose in struggle, in pain, in suffering.  We see those things as splinters that must be removed.  Consequently, we end up harming ourselves further by trying to eliminate all suffering.  Suffering teaches us lessons that may not be apparent as the suffering is going on. Anguish and confusion are emotional splinters that are clearing a way for joy and peace but we have to allow the infinite wisdom of our souls to work through the discomfort.  We have to sit with the discomfort, allow it to seep into every inch of our being, wrap ourselves in the blanket of these dark and brooding emotions and simply acknowledge them as part of who we are and then let them go.  It is the last thing on the planet that anyone WANTS to do, but it is the emotional work that is required for us to grow, to evolve, to attain a greater understanding of who we are and what our purpose on this earth is.  

Sunday, November 09, 2008

Change I can believe in.


Times of change are always difficult because it means that life as we know it is shifting and the future we thought we could envision will be very different.  It makes one feel very uncertain, unstable, insecure and anxious.  Okay, maybe that is just me.   As much as I like change, I am fearful of it because, let's face it, routine is routine.  Predictable is predictable.  Nothing right, nothing wrong.  Dramatic life changes shake everything up.  They are scary.  I have decided that therein lies an opportunity for more growth.  Rather than hunker down and rail against the inevitable shifting life tides, why not just jump right on in?   That is what I am doing in this particular time of change.  Practice what I preach.  Pull myself up by my bootstraps and determine a course of personal movement that sustains me in every way.  Let go of the past and heal my soul in ways that are vital to my movement forward.  Today I threw away about 8 FULL boxes of stuff...stuff that I've been lugging around since I graduated college including but not limited to notes from my college chemistry class and the employee handbook for Ruth's Chris Steakhouse.   Why was I holding onto that stuff?   Mostly because I truly thought I would need it one day...at least that is story I told myself.  Today, I think I just recognized that it was time to let go, really and maybe I just finally found the courage to do that. 

Saturday, November 01, 2008

today's mantra.

“The great thing is, if one can, to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions in one's "own" or "real" life. The truth is, of course, that what one regards as interruptions are precisely one's life.” -C.S. Lewis