Saturday, August 18, 2007

Side Stepping

By Cate Cavanagh

It happens to all of us. We are walking along and poof! Out of no where is an unpleasant excrement on our shoe! The truth of the matter is we simply did not notice it in our immediate surroundings. We do anything we can to rid ourselves (and our shoes) of this unpleasantness until it is gone. We get annoyed with ourselves for not seeing this in our path. But, what gunk do we willingly carry around with us every day? Are we carrying around a guilt that no one realizes? Are we weighing ourselves down with feelings of unworthiness?

There is no doubt that negative concepts about ourselves probably came about as the result of programming from the time we were children but does that mean we should allow ourselves to bring these into our every waking moment? Do you have trouble sleeping? If you do you are probably in brain overload which means things keep racing in your mind. You cannot stop thinking about them or feeling overwhelmed. In short you are walking on a mental path with "stuff" you are walking into all the time. Going back to cleaning our shoes and cursing at ourselves for stepping into unplesantness, a little cursing at carrying around unpleasant personsal baggage might be called for. You see when we get angry oftentimes we are willing to do something about it like cleaning off that soiled shoe.

Imagine you are that shoe. Imagine cleaning it off. Imagine not stepping into our personal gunk to begin with. Sometimes awareness can begin to change our circumstance. For example, won't we become more aware of our surroundings and not step into pooh again? Why shouldn't we also become aware enough to not fall for the mental and emotional pitfalls that we may come across? Sometimes if we want to change that which is around us and in us we have to begin by making changes within ourselves first. Shrug off anything you cannot solve in any moment. If you have to, imagine you are holding an eraser over a piece of paper. In your mind write what is bothering you on that piece of paper and then erase it! Each time you do this you are heightening your self awareness and saying I choose not to carry this internal pooh on my soul.

Sometimes we need help in learning how to better to avoid our pitfalls. There is nothing wrong with seeking help when we trap ourselves day in and day out by not seeing the "Pooh". Sometimes we need help learning how to side step the unpleasantness we carry all the time such as psychotherapy can help you. Whatever it takes to help you avoid your personal pitfalls will be worth the effort.

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