The week before last, I wrote the following sentence in
my notebook: Wounds are going to come
most likely, but self-inflicted ones need not return. Coincidentally—and only
coincidentally—I heard from your mother that you are feeling stymied by your
inability to cease and resist some self-defeating actions. The word stymied may be understatement, but that
is my way with words.
My first take was that your threshold for pain had not
been breached apparently. Not physical pain, of course, but the emotional or
psychic pain that requires healing sometimes and sometimes more than an ounce
of prevention. I also went with the old comic riff on self-thwarting: “Doctor
it hurts when I do this”. “Then stop doing that.”
Not laugh-out-loud funny, but wry at the very least.
Probably as helpful as how we say to another to stop acting or stop feeling or
stop thinking in some particular way. Perhaps, though, having some obligatory
encouragement sent our way, tenderly or fiercely, does offer to us a wall to
bounce our self-awareness against.
Or turn it into a step in a series of steps—yes, a
process. Self-awareness of a weakness, a failing, an error, oh Human One, is a
self-admission. Sure, we need the discerning eyes of others, especially those
on our side as we stumble forward, but self-knowledge needs be and is a
powerful tool. No doubt you see me massaging the self-concept gambit. Self.
Self. Self.
I could offer up anecdotal evidence of my sojourns in
slow-leaner land or examples by the dozens of others as well. Not so sure that
is helpful beyond reestablishing that nearly all of us sooner and later rocks
their own boat.
Of course, your mother loves you and would wave the magic
wand were one available to her, even as she understands it is your wallow. That
is not to say there isn’t a magic wand. But then you already knew that, didn’t
you?
You are the magic wand.
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