Friday, January 27, 2012

Two Options

I reckon I’m a compulsive teacher.  When something excites me, even if I haven’t quite grasped it in its fullness, off I go given half a chance.  And when not given half a chance I imagine conversations in my head. Oh dear!



So there I was, talking to someone in my head about how they didn’t really want to change.  (And realizing as I went that it was just as true for me.)  That trying on the idea that I don’t want to change can produce two different reactions in me.  One is that I feel bad about myself because I’m trying so hard to change, praying all the time for help – so I think – and yet I feel I’m getting nowhere. What is wrong with me???



The other feeling is just starting, I hope, to create a groove in my brain, an alternative to the rut I’ve just described.  This groove is to recognise that beating myself up is a dead end street and instead to see the statement ‘I don’t want to change’ as just what it is, a statement of truth about me and nothing more.  A statement about the real person I want to discover.  This puts it in a whole new light for me.  It becomes a positive statement rather than a negative one, something I could put on the list of who I am at present.  True, it’s not something I want to keep on the list but at least it’s a discovery of a part of me. 



To press the point, one feeling is a ‘you’re no good and never will be’ feeling, totally deflating, and the other is one of discovery. The reason I want to write about this is that this particular discovery is followed by an ‘ok, I’m at the bottom of the ladder but all I need to do is use my perfectly good arms and legs and start climbing’ feeling. There’s an element of adventure, of learning something new.  And with it is an openness to God, an awareness of God’s presence that is certainly not there when I’m beating myself up.  And that in itself is a pretty good short-term reward, hard to describe, but a feeling that I am being supported, that I will always be supported while in this space.  And loved.



From here I have the motivation to ask ‘why don’t I want to change?’  I want to know and it feels like I’m surrounded by teachers who want to help me.  The answers tumble out.  Right now I have food and shelter and comfort and people who are kind to me.  If I change, all that could change too.  Against that I see clearly how the world is changing, and how fast it’s happening, and I don’t want that because it will impact on me, of that I feel certain.  I’m very afraid of change, of losing my present level of comfort.  I’m very afraid of hunger and pain and desolation and loneliness etc etc.



But fear is not comfortable.  Here’s another truth about me.  It was fine when I denied I had fear but as soon as I say ‘I’m afraid of change’ here’s another potential opening to God.



It’s a long ladder but my arms and legs are not tied; I only need to recognise this truth!




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