So I've had a couple of conversations with myself recently. With The Keeper of the Stuck, a part of me that employs an unending variety of techniques to trip myself up, keep me from trying, sabotages my plans and self/life-improvement projects and basically just keeps me feeling Stuck. That is its job and it’s pretty damn good at it.
So in these recent conversations it has ended up telling me that it's trying to protect me from disappointment, from trying and FAILING, that it thinks I'll be better off to just not start.
Yes, protecting me. That is its mission.
(Oooh, wow, thanks Me.)
But, I believe that the Keeper of the Stuck is telling it's OWN truth: that that part of myself believes I'm better off feeling lousy about not doing anything that feeling lousy because I'm disappointed or because I failed.
After all, I admit that I have deep-set belief that If One Makes A Mistake Terrible Things Will Happen. It was something I inherited/absorbed from my early history. There is very little evidence to support it but golly gosh it feels like a Fundamental Truth to some parts of me. The Keeper of the Stuck believes it and is out to protect me from The Terrible Things.
:-(
So, anyway I get that now and I think we all (the characters in my head) understand that it's not helpful anymore. But the KotS doesn't actually have any other very good techniques to work with. In the amygdala lizard brain repertoire of fight/flight/freeze it chooses freeze. So here am I, rabbit in the headlights, Boom! Splat! Damn. Ergggh. Boring.
I also get that the real failure lies not in falling down but in not getting up again blah blah motivation blah. Uggghhh.
*small rant to follow*
Fuck off, Mr Motivational Speaker I'm actually NOT an idiot. Help me to DO it! Give me some STRATEGIES for getting up again! Got any beyond spouting little truisms and thinking that's enough? No? Well then you're not helping you're just giving more weapons to my Judgement and Condemnation Two-Headed Vulture Judges to beat me around the head with. Actually, shockingly, NOT helpful! Who would have thunk it? Ugggh.
*end rant*
After talking to my Stuck which turned out to be Just A Pattern, not an Evil Entity Out To Get Me (which turned out to actually be a conversation with Frank, of course) I have a bit of a new perspective too. (Yay, perspective!)
Here's what I think. I AM always going to go through the familiar pattern of Starting Thing-->Triggers Stuff-->Avoidance of Thing-->Feeling lousy about being in avoidance-->Conversing with Stuff-->Learning something useful-->Getting on with Thing-->Triggers Stuff and rinse and repeat.
I've always hated the loop. Hated the fact that my Stuff comes up (uggh you still have stuff? LOSER!), hated being in avoidance (boo hisss PROCRASTINATOR), hated feeling bad about BEING a procrastinator (LOSER!), and the anticipation of the conversations (aaarrggh run awaaay!).
(The conversations in and of themselves have never been THAT bad and I do always love the Self-Discovery Treasures that get uncovered.)
But the Pattern of Stuck told me that it just is what it is, a pattern I go through, it's not actually an entity of its own, it has no agenda in keeping me on it and it's not out to suck me in and get me! Oh, right. Um.... yay.
So, I guess the secret is not to avoid Starting Things, in order to avoid the Stuff and the loop, but to ACCEPT (radical acceptance!) that Stuff and the loop are ALWAYS GOING TO BE A PART OF DOING THE THING.
Oh. No getting out of it, huh? Nope. It's here. Nothing to be AFRAID of, just a part of the process of Doing the Thing.
Havi calls this not being IMPRESSED by it, not responding to the fact that Stuff Comes Up with anything other than well, der, I guess I'm a real live human being with fears and painful memories and other crap. Just like everybody else.
But to move into a mode of acceptance and responsibility. Yes, I have stuff (hi pain, hi fear, hi avoidance). So what? What am I going to do now?
To accept that this is just part of the choreography of my life, to just go through the steps (taking notes!) knowing that pain is just part of the process. There is no life without stuggle. Life is suffering or some noble crap like that.
To dance with life! The light and the shadow, the beauty and the pain, the joy and the tedium.
Never to NOT DANCE. Never to AVOID the Thing (thing!) just because of the darker parts of it. Never to hate the pain so much that I stop dancing!
To keep on dancing. To get better at doing the shadow-side-shimmy, the pain-prance, the tedium-twirl. Not my favourite steps but an essential part of life. No getting out of them.
To get REALLY EFFICIENT at the crappy parts of the Loop. To move quickly through the avoidance and feeling lousy about being in avoidance bits and getting on to the Conversing with Stuff and back to Doing The Thing really fast.
And then eventually to maybe ask: what can I learn from these steps? Like in yoga, being curious about what I can do to make these poses easier, nicer, better, more interesting, more ?fulfilling? ??enjoyable??!?.
There are two types of poses in yoga: there are the poses that you love, and the poses that you are learning to love.
Not just in yoga, either. Yes.
