Week 23. Avoiding

There are times in everyone’s lives when we know we have to do something, that it will be good for us but at the same time it overwhelms us a little, maybe we don’t know where to start, maybe we’re not sure how much time we need to block out for it out of our day so we end up postponing it, pushing it into the unforeseeable future or downright avoiding it. I had a real life situation with picking out the weeds in the backyard. With these Reads you usually get some philosophical, theoretical examples but this one is plain and banal. When I noticed that I’m postponing this task, also a few others, that I consider important in my life, then I got to sit with myself, asking what am I avoiding? This is much more than about the weeds in the backyard. I asked myself, where in my life do I feel uneasy or cluttered, maybe not wanting to deal with it so it grows and festers “under the carpet”. When I got clear about those things it became clear to me that I just didn’t want to face myself at that time. There are many reasons why we run from ourselves, sometimes it’s embarrassment (we’ve seen all of us, the bad, the ugly, the naked, nothing much more could embarrass us at this point), lack of trust (when we fear our own judgment, which is the worst), perceived guilt (if we missed two days of exercise we feel guilty and might start avoiding the subject or ourselves all together), to name only a few. It’s important to try to find that feeling which hides behind the avoidance and to address it first. From what I have noticed, it’s usually some sort of vulnerability or a perceived shortcoming of ours that we try to hide behind avoidance. At times it is a pile of emotions we never gave ourselves time to process and feel, and now it’s so big we fear it might explode. Sometimes it’s repeating unresolved issues which we think we can’t face or solve in any way but who else if not us? We have all the resources and tools, we only need to let ourselves look at them and start to tackle them, which is scary, I know. But things are done only by way of doing and stepping one foot in front of the other (I bet you’ve already read that somewhere before). This week, please remember, that you are capable of facing the hard stuff, resolving the issues that arise and the ones that already have festered, and you are capable of feeling all that there is to feel for you, with smile on your lips or with tears in your eyes, you can and will make it to the other side. If you don’t believe it just yet, remember that I believe it, and that you are never alone. There are so many people who walk through all sorts of personal stuff, fears, hurts, discomforts, hardships at this very minute, there is at least one person in the world who faces something similar as you do. I guess that is why music works so well because it connects people who experience similar emotions as conveyed in the melody, the lyrics, the rhythm. So these are the supporting tools for this week and beyond. You can listen to the music that resonates with your emotions, be it cheerful or heavy and by seeing how many more people listened to the tune you can imagine all the other people who are going through the same things as you are at the moment and visualize that all of these people hold each other’s hands, support and comfort each other and you. This image warms my heart. Does it help you?

Have a week of being truthful to yourself.