So, I Hear You Want to Help People – Ch. 13

The point is that we do go backwards. We fall off or we fall back into old routines. Not every hit will be a home run and not every day will be great. But nothing ever has to be so bad again.
You know this.
Right?
They told me that relapse is part of recovery. And maybe it is. I have no idea what is in store for you or anyone else.
I know that I had to fall hard enough to learn to say, no . . .
I think I want better for myself.

I am not sure that life allows us an endless amount of chances to repair ourselves. However, so long as there is breath and ability, then at least we can say there is always possibility.

I was told to never believe in never.
I am unsure what my opinion is on this. I can say that I will never play professional football. I can say that I will never join a band or be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
I can say that there are people who I will never see or speak with again.
And I can say that not all “nevers” are bad ones.

There are some occasions when the word “never” applies.

I will never have the chance to go back to when I wish I had begun something meaningful or gave myself the chance to try something new without fear that I might be awkward in the beginning.
I can never go back to the times when I was too afraid to laugh or too afraid to dance because maybe i don’t know how.
I can never get those moments back.
But I can try to dance now.

I can say that I will never be able to erase time or rewind, or fast forward, or hit the pause button so that I can stop in the middle of a moment, long enough to embrace the farewell, or hold someone to the point where I realize that I never want to say goodbye — but sometimes, goodbye is the only option. Sometimes, life only allows for so many chances to reconcile; hence, life is short and more importantly, life is too short to allow ourselves to sink in the abyss of an unfulfilled life.

Now is the time . . .
We have to move.
We cannot fight the unwinnable battles or waste our fruit on the spoiled grounds that never supported our growth.

I can never get back what is gone and I can never relitigate the past, and while I have tried, I cannot regain the hours or reshape what has taken place.
Yesterday is a memory.
All we have is now, which is why we are here, and this is why we have to choose to be brave and literally unmerciful when it comes to this.
We have to be unstoppable when it comes to our dedication to us and our transformational change.
And here we are.
This is the here and now. This is life, right now, and this is all happening at the same speed, and in the same context, in the same realm or in the same place, which I always like to call Project Earth.
Welcome to the big conveyor belt, kids.
Try not to miss out on the scenery.

There is no going back anymore. However, it is important to note that there will be battles. There will be reminders. There are the unseeable and the invisible scars that remain, like an untraceable detail that links us back to a time, a place, a thing, or a moment in life when we were hurt or tested.

There are times when the heart aches and the thought machine will start to tilt or overload. Without clarity, or without reason, I offer to you that the past or the old wounds, or the details of depression or depressive thinking and, of course, it would be remiss not to bring up the anxious ideas. To add more; even the thoughts of despair and suicidal ideation can be no different from what it’s like to live with a bad back.
Understand?
What I mean is some days the discomfort is not so bad. Some days the back is okay. Some days are bearable and sometimes, the pain is enough to make you forget that you are a nice person.

I get that.
I really do.

I offer this because there are times when our transformation falls short. There are times when we slip or fall back in our new routine.
There are times when we experience old thoughts or old symptoms, which make no sense because we look at all the work which we put in.
This is why people quit on themselves.
The end results seem like a closing window or a diminishing outcome. Then we start to believe that the return on our investment will fall short; in which case, we start to lose sight of the achievements behind us.
We forget about the successes from yesterday, which are like old trophies in a closet, covered in dust and unremembered.

But—
It’s okay to not be okay. It’s okay to feel pain. It’s okay to be frustrated and to want to scream and spit or curse or shake your fists.
It’s fine. No, really it is.
I see no reason to deny this, nor do I find it helpful to bury our feelings or deny their existence. In all fairness to us, this makes the monsters under the bed or the skeletons in the closet more powerful than they deserve to be.

We need to remember that in the end, we are looking to touch the reward system in our brain. We want to hit the receptors that bring us peace or ease, or even if there is no peace and only problems, our thoughts travel along a certain pattern because this is how we taught ourselves to survive.

This is what we are aiming to improve.

We are in a new stage of the game now. We can go backwards or forwards.
The choice is ours.
We can recover and we can change, and we can transform into the person we have always wanted to be.
Or we can slide back into old patterns of thinking.
We can go back to old habits. We can accept the failure and find that old familiar seat in a life that lacks spirit or truth, and we can settle. We can accept that, at best, this is where we are, stuck in the tired or mundane existence, or we can settle for the understood dramas and expected disappointments because, of course, this is what a life like this can offer—nothing new, nothing extraordinary.

Or, we can decide to follow through.

We can decide to keep moving, even if we only move an inch, and even if we get knocked back, I guarantee that no one can knock us back to where we were, unless we let them — or volunteer for it.

I have often said that there is no luck.
There are no victims. Only volunteers.
So?
Do not volunteer.

Now that we have moved from the beginner’s circle and are learning to improve and perfect our transformation, ask yourself what makes you happy.

When you see your improvements or notice your reflection in the mirror and you see the change in your face or how your complexion is better and that your smile is brighter because, above all else, what does this do for you?
How does it feel to know that you have made the choice to become your own best friend?

How did it feel to walk away from the toxic people, places, and things?

I often see people walk away from toxic people and notice how they look back over their shoulder, almost as if to wonder, “Will they miss me?”
Let them miss you.
That world you walked away from does not deserve you.
You do not deserve to be that person anymore.

So, here are the questions for today –

Imagine yourself sitting at a table.
We will call this the table of trauma.

Look at the people who are sitting there. These are the toxic people.
This is an example of all the toxins in your life.
Think about who would sit at this table. Think about the contents on top of this table, and this could be anything. This could be a representation of abuse or betrayal. This can be people from your past or people in your life who degrade you or keep you from being your best.

What does this room look like to you?
Some people imagine their childhood dinner table. Some people see a cafeteria. But this is your room.
Who is there?
What are the things you need to walk away from?

Imagine this.
See yourself here.
Notice yourself as you push your chair back. You stand. You slide your chair back in and then simply put—you walk away without looking back
EVER.

What does this look like to you?

Better yet, what would this feel like for you to stand up from all of your trauma, and without warning, without discussion, without looking back —all you do is walk away.

How would this look?
(to you)