Staying Open...

I am an avoider.  It is my most honed tool.  It is the first one I reach for, it is my default.  When something, or someone, comes into view that I do not like or do not want to deal with, I am the first person to take the exits that I have already located as soon as I entered the room.  I do this every time I enter a room, a relationship, a situation:  find the exits because I know, more likely than not, I am going to need them at some point.

I have found over the years that my exit seeking behavior is just another descriptor of a larger practice in my life which is avoidance or shutting down.   Whenever I don’t like something or get uncomfortable, I seek exit or shut myself down.  I turn off.  I leave, even though my physical body might still be present.

I am working on staying open.  I am working on remaining even when the desire to flee is great and calling me out.  Staying open is hard for me.  I like resolution, even if the resolution does not bring me the desired outcome, I prefer being done with something rather than leaving it open...

So I am working with staying open, watching myself shut down, watching myself want to find the exits and trying to do something different, and to instead remain, be curious, stay open to the feelings, thoughts and stories my head spins.  To just remain...

It is fucking difficult.  I so much prefer shutting down and moving on.  It feels so much better to me.  However, it does not really support my growth in an intimate direction.

I think a lot about my capacity and then spend even more time wondering if it has changed at all?  Am I further along then back when I was not all that aware and just a reactive girl?  Have I really made that much progress at all?

I mean, I at least think about my capacity today.  I ask myself if I can stay open when everything inside of me begins to shut down.  I guess the answer is “it really depends on the day.” Sometimes I can shut down my shutting down and open up to what is occurring and then there are those other times where I cannot.  I just can’t.  I must flee, exit, leave, shut down and turn it all off and move on.  And I will never know if the leaving is just a reinforced behavior or if it is the smart choice.  There appear to always be two universes: the one where I do and the one where I don’t.

The older I become the less capable I feel in changing.  And perhaps, to some degree, that is just another story that supports me not being responsible for changing anymore.  I do not believe that all my growth is at its pinnacle at 56.  I believe there is a great deal of growth and change still to come.  But sometimes I wonder if my capacity is working against forward progress...

I guess I have to go with that I wake up every day and try to stay open.  To not engage in avoidance.  And then about 15 minutes into my day, I have to own the fact that I have likely already avoided like twenty things.  It is such a default that I often do not even see that I am doing it until much later.  Long after I could have corrected it.  I just have to chalk it up to experience and intend to do better the next time, to notice earlier, to be more willing to pay attention to what I am doing when I am doing it.

Staying open is hard.  I used to play this game when I lived in a big city.  I would walk down the street and just try to observe how I felt as people passed me by:  did I feel the compulsion to open or close?  And I would just walk down the street with that mindset, allowing the passerbys to show me where I leaning...

Today, I don’t have to play the game anymore.  I know, almost without fail, that my overwhelming feeling is of closure.  A need to shut you out and down.  I notice lately that I do not want to talk to people, I avoid eye contact and do my best to escape conversation.  I don’t have a story about it.  I just know that, right now, for whatever reason, I do not really want to be engaged.  I feel the need to be closed.  And I work at it, I try to open.  I try to notice that I am closing down and why.  But sometimes, I just need the world to not enter.  To leave me be.  To circle my proverbial wagons and avoid.  It isn’t the best living strategy, but pretending like I am not doing it, isn’t a great living strategy either...

Truth be told, I am doing my best.  I think I know most of the time whether I am opening or closing.  And I know I can’t always change it.  Sometimes the noticing immediately opens me up.  I see my need for closure and that in and of itself is enough to get me to stay open.  And then there are those other times where I can see the slamming shut and there is nothing I can do, no amount of will I can supply to get me to open up.  I know I am doing it, but I cannot find the will to stop it.  And I am sure there are many more times where I am just out there not even noticing that I am shutting down at all.

It is a lot of work to stay open to what is.  To this life.  To these fucking people.  And I know that my ability to do this particular work is challenging on the best of days and not even possible on the worst.  Which gives me a lot of fodder to work with as I move through this life, alive, and living.  Always walking that line between excuse and change which will always beg the question of opening up or shutting down...

Again, still...