Old Behavior...

I think it is hard to make changes for a variety of reasons.  The list is endless, really.  But I think, for me, the main reason change is hard is that my old way, or more aptly called the current way, is still meeting a need.  So long as my current behavior pays off more than I think the change will, I am stuck.

Someone very wise, astutely said to me, “it isn’t old behavior if you are still doing it...”

I think this was the beginning for me of peeling back layers of denial and delusion.  So long as I called it “old behavior” I was forever prevented from seeing it in real time.  Seeing that while I called it old behavior, I completely missed how and where that supposedly old behavior was showing up in my current, present life.

And I couldn’t really let go or change that old behavior until it was brought front and center to my life. I had not a prayer of getting rid of it until I was willing to see this old behavior was still meeting a need.  I was still getting something out of it, which is why it was resurrected from the scrap heap of my past dysfunctional behaviors.  And my denial and delusion kicked in to help me deny that this was not an old behavior at all.  No, it was a current behavior I was mislabeling so that I could, in fact, continue to do old behavior and pretend it was something else entirely.

So today, I try to be honest about what I am doing and why.  And in so doing, I have several things I would love to label as “old” but which are, in fact, not old, not even a little bit.  So now that I have that true confession out of the way, I can begin to look at it and see what I am still getting out of it, even though I would love to believe that this behavior serves no purpose in my life.  It does, because otherwise, I would have stopped doing it a long time ago.

Seeing the payoff sounds easy but there are many layers of confusion, denial, ego, delusion and stubbornness to cut through to get to what is really going on.  And most of the time, when I get right down to it, I don’t want things to change because I like the upside of the behavior and have a very elaborate system of denial in place to prevent me from seeing the downside, until the downside whacks me upside my head good. Then I see the downside, and then I am all about the change...until I remember the upside and so begins the cycle again.

So for me, it starts with honesty to see myself as I am, not as I would like me to be.  Then I have to find the willingness to do something different.  And that willingness is often hard to come by and not long lasting.  Sometimes it takes decades and for some of my more stubborn defects, it is going to take my life time.

I realize that I am just like everyone else, the only force stronger than wanting/needing things to change, is the completely opposite desire to have things not change.  It is as though, my life and all the beings in my life, stand on the precarious balance of my willingness to lean in or away from the change I need to come. Mostly, I am in my own way, a lot.

It is human nature to want something different.  And it is also human nature to do a great deal of other things to ensure things are never different.  It is always me that stands in the way of my own progress.  And I have to give up the storyline that if _____ happened THEN I would change.  So long as I continue to place the locus of control on some sort of external stimulus, I am wasted to ever make any sort of real progress.

So I guess today the best thing I got is, I see it.  I see the places I am stuck and I know the reason I am stuck.  I want things to change but I only want the things I want to change to change.  I do not want the things I am still getting a pay off from to change.  In short, I want what I want and I do not want what I do not want.  And therein lies the crux of all my problems: I think I know shit.

I will never have any peace at all until I get to a place of quiet surrender.  A place where “I don’t know mind” takes over and I can be childlike in my wonder over what will happen next.  Coupled with a child like faith that I will be cared for and carried no matter what.

Making change is hard.  There are many conflicting emotions to cut through. It is hard to get clarity with a mind that is constantly rewriting history.  And the only way I know to find any kind of peace at all, is to admit that I do not know what is best for me, nor do I know what to do.  And for now, I am going to numb out in all the ways I still have available to me (Netflix, bubble pop, food, distractions, sleep) until I reach a point of complete surrender as to thinking I know much of anything at all.  Life and living begin, for me, at the place I throw up my hands and get out of the way.  It has never, ever been any different for me.  It is almost inexplicable as to why I insist it can or will be otherwise...the only thing I can come up with is a not so quiet acceptance that this is the nature of being human.  I choose to suffer, and persist in the endless cycle of samsara because I keep insisting that life is stable and permanent and fixed...

Again, still...