Play:Work

So many of us daily subject ourselves to numerous emotional, physical, and mental toxins: A job we feel secure in but provides us no challenge, a relationship we’ve cultivated over years that no longer provides sustenance in return, a substance used recreationally that we’ve allowed ourselves to become dependent upon.  We avoid physical activity because we are lazy, we eat junk because it is convenient, we watch tv because we don’t want to think. We find new and creative ways to distract ourselves and ignore our true needs.

Even when we can see and feel the harm being done, we continue to indulge ourselves in these things that make our souls sick.  Why?

For many, it is hopeless human optimism mixed with fear of change and laziness that keeps one firmly in place.  

First, often, the things making us sick do not start at out as toxins. In fact, they may have been critical to our journeys of self. But just as a child outgrows his clothes, we too often outgrow parts of our life (or they outgrow us). This is completely natural. It is only when we insist upon keeping those clothes that we find ourselves increasingly uncomfortable–optimistic we could squeeze another year or two out of them when in fact all we are doing is suffocating ourselves. We keep thinking it can’t be ‘that, bad.

Second, these things that make our souls sick are usually deeply embedded in our conditioned understanding of how life should be–and present for a long time. We’ve grown dependent, reliant, afraid.  We fear attempting to change developed patterns and lifestyles because there is no certainty in what comes next. We hate uncertainty.

And finally, its easier to not. It is easier to ignore than to confront, excuse than address, sleep than to wake. We seek out the path of least resistance.

And by ignoring these things that make us sick, we are bombarded with their symptoms: emotional distress or numbness, depression, anxiety, unease. We complain, we seek out temporary escape, we make excuses.  But the longer we indulge in these poisons, the hard it is to break free.  We become addicted to our chosen illness, for it is all we know.

It doesn’t help either that, in trying to change, we often face the potential for great hurt–either ourselves or others in our lives.  At some point, all illnesses can advance far enough to affect those around us.  They join us in our sickness, find themselves sick too. If not for our sake, for theirs, we must face and break free from the things that make our soul sick.

Daily Reminder

Line 5 from Hex 16 of the I-Ching, when paired in change, can be interpreted as “Always Ill, But Never Dies”. I read this and am reminded today to examine where in my life am I allowing poison to seep in? What in my life have I outgrown?

Do not be afraid to let go the things you’ve outgrown.  Yes, there may be fear and pain, but in passing through that fear and accepting the pain that comes with growth, we free ourselves to pursue our fuller potential.

Onwards!