Beneath the surface

You must learn to be still in the midst of activity and to be vibrantly alive in repose. Eric Allenbaugh

There is a story about a man walking down the street who comes upon a hole and falls into it. He eventually climbs out and continues on his way. The next day, he walks down the same street, sees the hole and alas, falls into it again. The following day, he walks down the same street, sees the hole, stops, and in the process of avoiding it, falls in again. The fourth day, he walks down the same street and takes a wide berth of the hole and misses it. On the fifth day, he walks down a different street.

When I was a little girl I was filled with wild enthusiasms, sparks of imagination and bursts of creativity. I was seldom quiet, was in constant motion and asked questions continuously.

A favourite game was to time me to see how long I could stay quiet without asking a question. I usually lost.

In an effort to gain peace from my constant chatter, my family chided me for being so noisy, so bubbly, so chatty. Dinner table talk centered around my father's opinions and my brother's counterpoints. There wasn't much room for a girl to butt in, though I tried. Inevitably, I'd end up swallowing my tears, forcing a smile upon my face and pretending I wasn't bothered by their ribbing.

Smiling, swallowing and staying silent became a habit. A not particularly healthy one, but one that kept me feeling 'safe', even when stepping into danger.

Breaking childhood habits, reordering traits, and rearranging responses is a prerequisite of a happy adulthood.

It's also, at times, hard work.

You can take the childishness out of the adult but you can't make the childhood disappear.

My pattern of dysfunction around 'criticism' leaped into the forefront of my mind the other night when Liseanne, my youngest daughter, and I went to a reading that her sister, Alexis, was participating in. After the reading, I was goofing around, pretending to mimic Alexis' character in the play by speaking in a funny accent. As we walked down the stairs from the rehearsal hall, I chattered away. Alexis, conscious of the people on the stairs below us, hushed me up. "Mum. That's rude." she said.

My response was triggered by a long ago pattern of feeling less than, of feeling hushed as a child. I shut up. I sulked.

Not a pretty pattern. Not a particularly constructive nor productive behaviour.

Awareness is the first step in changing any habit, in breaking patterns.

I am aware that my response to any criticism from my daughters triggers my feelings of childhood angst, of feeling belittled and mocked. Of being silenced when all I wanted to do was laugh or play or talk.

Has nothing to do with the circumstances I'm encountering today and everything to do with the trigger points within me.

Martial arts master Sang H. Kim suggest we, "Practice change. Change your hairstyle, change your breakfast cereal, change your jogging route."

Changing how I perceive criticism begins with practicing accepting criticism in an open state. To be open I must Breathe and ask to be open. To expand, not contract.

Coming down those stairs I let down a wall that was holding me back from being all I desire to be. In my push to 'be funny' I was doing the very thing I had experienced as a child -- ridiculing the efforts of the people I love. Alexis worked hard on her role in the reading. This was a big opportunity for her. In my teasing, I was mocking what she did. And, I was embarrassing her by offending strangers with my imitation of the language of the play that happened to be part of their cultural heritage.

I don't have that right.

On the surface, the pattern here is not my response to Alexis' criticism. It is my effort to 'be funny' and feeling like I was not allowed to 'be me'. Beneath the superficiality of 'being me' is a deeper, darker need. My desire to be seen, heard, witnessed, honoured and cherished.

As a child, I acted out to gain attention.

As an adult, I sometimes do the same.

Time to break the pattern. Shift it up and switch it around. Time to act in ways that honour who I am and what I want to create in the world around me. As my friend CS often asks, "What's the ripple you're creating with that?"

It's time to quit throwing stones into the calm waters of life and start sitting quietly in the stream of life flowing in and around, over and under me. It's time to be become the stream, let go of damming up the flow and become vibrantly alive in the repose of being me, exactly the way I am, without fearing no one 'sees me'.

The question is: Are you conscious of the habits that create your ripple on the surface of your life? Are you digging deeper into the flow to find the patterns that create the ruffled surfaces in your journey?

The choice is ours

The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore. Vincent Van Gogh

Four hundred years ago, Galileo was threatened with death if he did not recant his theory that the earth was not the centre of the universe. He didn't find the threat of death reason enough to let go of what he knew to be true. Forced to recant by a church that decreed his teachings heresy, he never let go of the truth and spent the rest of his life under house arrest. Confined to his home, he never gave up on exploring the universe beyond the four walls that contained him. In his commitment to discovering the truth about the universe, he became, "the father of modern day science".

During World War 2, thousands upon thousands of people in Europe knew that killing the Jews was wrong. The threat of death did not stop them from doing what was right in trying to save whomever they could from the death camps. In their acts of courage, people did not perish and the truth did not die. In their acts of courage, they became heroes.

Every day, individuals leave the shores of safety and set sail into unknown seas. They cause ripples in the waters, disturb the status quo, upset the apple carts of life and discover new horizons never before imagined -- simply because they had the courage to leave the shores of their comfort zones and journey into uncharted waters. They still feel fear. Anxiety. Concern. But they don't let their feelings stop them from doing the right thing. The brave thing. The only thing they can do to live the life of their dreams.

Every day we are faced with opportunities to step beyond our comfort zones and explore the land on the other side of our knowing. Every day we make decisions that determine whether or not we will do what we've always done and get what we've always got, or, do something different to create more of what we want in our lives.

The choice is always ours to make. The step always ours to take.

Will we choose in favour of change? Will we take a step in the right direction?

Or, will we choose to stick with the tried and fail safe, even if we're not achieving what we want? Will we step carefully in the steps we've taken before, hoping for a different outcome, even though those steps keep us away from living the life of our dreams?

The choice is always ours.

The question is: What will you choose to do today that is different than yesterday? How will you grow today beyond your wildest dreams? What small thing, or big thing, will you do to bring you closer to making your dreams come true?