TOWARD

Stained Glass Secrets

by: Elexis Penner

 

This was a few years back. One of my boys had friends over, and I needed to go to town for a couple of things.

 

Me: I'm going to go get some groceries…

Boys: Can we go skating on the pond?

Me: Ummmm… just wait until I get back.

Boys: Well can we have a fire?

Me: No. Wait until I get back.

Boys: Can we go shooting with pellet guns then?

Me: NO! For the love of… Can you please just do something that is a little less likely to cause property damage or personal injury? I don't even OWN all of you….

Boys: OK. Where are the axes?

Me: Ugh.. just SIT THERE and don't move until I get back.

 

I love this. Mostly because it's not even made up or exaggerated. There they stood, earnestly waiting for me to let them run around the yard shooting each other. They really wanted to do all of those things, and saw no issue with this. I, on the other hand saw ALL of the issues with this. They'll shoot their eye out. They'll start the whole section on fire. They'll chop down the neighbour's yard swing. All while I run and get a jug of milk.

 

They knew what they wanted, and were ready to move towards that. All I could feel was the fear of what could go wrong. Now granted -- in this particular situation I might not have been completely off base in exercising some caution. Or all of the caution. There was a huge chasm between the way they saw things, and the way I did.

 

Somewhere along the way (aka turning into adults), our drive towards something can get overshadowed by the fear of what could go wrong. And a healthy amount of this is just called normal. And growing up. And staying out of prison. And we all do it to varying degrees.

 

But I think that maybe it's gone a little overboard with me -- or maybe with everyone -- I don't know. But never realized that it might be a problem until I was at a counselling session. And my counsellor poses a question to me as he sits back in his chair, nodding, the pads of his fingertips tapping together. (I'm kidding -- just trying to make it sounds all Freudish). He says, "What is it that you want in your life? What is important to you?"

 

And I'm like, "Well I don't want to have any pain."

"That's what you don't want."

"Well I don't want people to hurt."

"That's also what you don't want -- what DO you want?"

 

"Well I want me and everyone I love to be free from pain. Ha! Nice try." Leaning back in my own chair, one eyebrow cocked, I feel like I've won some kind of showdown. Because that's obviously why we're here, ha.

 

And I start to think.. and I start to realize that almost everything I do, is to avoid some kind of pain or discomfort or bad thing. I do more running from things, and hardly any moving towards good things at all.

 

Fear is what drives me when it comes to food and body image issues. I remember the first time it ever crossed my mind that there might be something 'wrong' with my body. I was in grade 3 or 4, and a friend told me something about her older sister, who had just lost a bunch of weight. "Well my sister used to be chubby, but now she's thin. So maybe when we get to her age, that will happen to us, too."

 

Okay, sounds good. Wait…. WHAT? And it hit me, that there was something wrong with my body. And blah, blah, etc, etc, fast-forward 30 years… And the truth is, that an embarrassingly large chunk of my life -- with the food, and the thoughts, and the body image -- has revolved around the singular fear of being overweight. Even when I was underweight. And it's consuming, and it's a whole nuther blog, or maybe 10 more blogs.

 

I was talking to my doctor about some medication (yes, for my moods, just back off), and I asked him about potential side effects. As he's reading them off -- dizziness, nausea, heart condition, stroke, temporary blindness. And my mind is going, "Man if he says weight-gain, I'm out…."

 

Sooooo basically blindness? Fine. Heart trouble? No problem. But put on 10 pounds, and I'm like, Noooooooo! People are just going to have to deal with the this, because NO. Just. Nope.

 

It's one of many areas that is governed by my fear of something, as opposed to being fuel to drive me towards something -- health, energy. All the things that we could be appreciating our bodies for, is instead channelled into debilitating fear.

 

And this habit (habit?) permeates many of my decisions, or actually lack of them. I have a lot of trouble making decisions - because I'm always looking for the perfect decision, where all will go well for all involved. The guarantee of no pain. I'm looking for the solution that will be perfect for everyone. And sometimes, that just doesn't exist.

 

And what's left is this state of groundlessness. Not going forward, not going back, not being at peace with anything. Anxiety creeps in and starts to set up camp, and it will stay there for days if I let it.

 

But sometimes if I can stop my mind, even for a moment. For a few deep breaths, or the words of a friend or author. Or a meditation or prayer (they are the same to me)… There is a small clearing in that forest of anxiety that makes me stop and ask, "What is important? What do I want? What direction do I need to go? What can I change? What do I need to accept?"

 

And I catch a glimpse of the direction I need to go, if only the first few steps. In the movie, "Out of Africa", Meryl Streep's character says of Robert Redford's character, "Perhaps he knew, as I did not, that the Earth was made round so that we would not see too far down the road."

 

And so too, maybe we are only meant to see a little ways down the road, because only the next step is the one that needs taking. And when things are scary and unclear, we need to know that we only need to take that one next step. Or as the poet, Rumi says, "If all you can do is crawl, start crawling."

 

And then I know (sorta) that going forward, is worth the risk of pain. And I try to understand the notion that love and pain are two sides of the same coin. If you love you will have pain. If you can manage to escape all the pain, there is probably not much love, either. Either way, the attempt at pain-avoidance that has been ruling my life has ended in pain anyway. Shoot. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

 

I have not mastered this. Whatever the opposite of mastered it is -- that's what I've done. My default is to run from pain, but in no particular direction. I need to be intentional. Busyness and self-abasement are not my friends. Sufficient sleep and focus and meditation are.

 

And even though it seems like crawling doesn't get you very far -- think back to a month ago, or a year. You can cover a lot of distance when you move towards something -- no matter what your speed.