Okay. So, we have to attempt to avoid the water when it’s jelly fish season or when we are advised that they’ve come in for their own reasons mostly unbeknownst to us. We do the same with relationships. We try and not make major decisions to jump in or out when things are upside down in other areas. The same approach holds true if you are in a place of high anxiety. There doesn’t even need to be a major upset. Maybe you are just going through your own thing. That’s okay. Let yourself work through it before you do something else.
The thing is, there are times that our heart or gut will tell us that the time to connect is now. Soothe yourself. Help yourself get over that person/place/thing. Fuck jumping into a void, what about filling a void. You know, all the things. It might feel good in the moment (think scab picking), but the end result is typically disastrous. I don’t recommend it, at all.
All of this information can be secured with a quick inventory. Truly. Do a scan and BE HONEST. Lying about where you are at never helped nobody.
Okay. What’s next? Well, pick a beach with lifeguards. There are two reasons for this rule. One, you’ve likely picked a place where they communicate. There are rules. You will be advised when the undercurrent is strong, when someone has spotted a shark, and when the jelly fish are out in full force. You have an information source. A safe space.
What else? Well, if shit goes wrong, you have a professional around to handle shit. You can turn to someone who knows how to mitigate what happened in the best way possible.
The same holds true for the void and making such decisions. Before you jump, make sure you have a support network or a safe space. Some people have a person, some have a plethora of people. For some folks, it’s just about their puppy and warm and cozy apartment or their favorite running path. I’m not here to tell you what your jam is, I’m just saying make sure it’s lined up. Even if you are hopping into something with the best of intentions, or letting loose and JUMPING straight in, it makes sense to understand that you might need a boost or support at some point.
You might need someone to turn to in order to express that things aren’t exactly as you imagined them to be. You might need to vent frustrations or get a reality check. You might be struggling and you just need someone to tell you that it’s all going to be okay. Maybe you just need a quiet place where you don’t have to answer to anyone or anything. Any of this works. Truly. I can’t tell you what that looks like for you. Just find your beach with rules and identify your lifeguard.
The very last bit? The suit or repellent? Man, this is a tough one. Are the suits or repellent foolproof? Nah. There is always a place that isn’t covered. There is always that percentage where it happens to not work. That’s a thing. It’s just that it gives you the best possible shot if you want to dive in.
The suit or repellent? Your thick skin. Your attitude. Your expression of your needs and wants and sense of self. If you want to jump into a void, you better understand what the fuck you are doing before you take a nose dive. I’m not here to tell you that it’s a bad decision for you. I’m here to tell you that you have to understand the pros and cons. You have to know what it’s going to look like. You have to be prepared to speak to these things. You have to be prepared to self-protect when all else fails. You have to be willing to learn lessons from the jumps that were seemingly less successful. You have to be able to admit when things didn’t go so well and make a different decision moving forward.
The thing about a thick skin is no matter what people tell you, you can’t fake it until you make it. You have to organically grow a thick skin with time and the desire to do so. I know that might sound ridiculous to you. You might be screaming through a screen, telling me that you wish you were tougher but you have no idea how to get there. I get it. I do. I’m not saying you have to pray yourself tougher. I’m just saying you have to have the desire to make the jump differently this next time. You have to be willing to change things up.
You have to know that when you make such changes, it means that things change. I know, that sounds ridiculous, but I think that’s why most of us don’t change. We are comfortable in our dysfunction. We are comfortable in our unhappiness. We are comfortable in our fucked up narratives. We are comfortable in our place of self-loathing.
What if we thought we were awesome and someone still doesn’t want us? What then? What if we admit we are amazing at our job and we still can’t get recognized? If we admit that we have a nice figure, doesn’t that automatically mean we will lose it? If we like our face, doesn’t that mean that everyone needs to and if they don’t, we have a distorted few of self?
We tend to cling to the things that harm us not because they feed us, but because we are too scared to make a shift. Don’t get me wrong, we still jump. We do. We jump over and over and over again. We close our eyes and hold our nose and jump, two feet, into an endless dark void. But we jump knowing what awaits us on the other side of that leap. We jump knowing that the bottom is misery and pain and disappointment, BUT it’s all the stuff that we know. It’s all the stuff we’ve become accustomed to. Why should we change anything when this method of jumping works?
Well, does it…work? Does it really?
Why are we so determined to stay stuck in the murky darkness of our own making?
Well, what if we do everything right? What if we pick the right time of year and a beach with a lifeguard and a shiny sign painted with all the rules and what if we wear a suit coated in repellent, and what if we still get stung? What if all our efforts and energy was for naught? What then? What to do we do at that point? We’ve been made a fool. We should just give up and either revert back to not swimming at all, or rolling the dice, right?
Oh god. No. Absolutely not. We have to try again. And again. And again. We have to try another time and another beach and another suit. We have to try until we get it, or get close…
On that note, I’m going to call it for the weekend. I’ll be back. Just taking a lil break.
I promised to talk more about the ‘what if’ and I will. Promise.
Good weekend all…
x
L.
thepathtoworthy.com 