It can be so frustrating. All the work, the struggle, the therapy, the digging and picking to find out the trigger, the specific event, to deal with the after effects, all the forgiving and healing and reclaiming of power…it’s so exhausting. And after all that, years of it, dealing with the aftermath of the failed relationships and figuring out all the causes…and yet there is still not relief in sight. Once again the old problems surface, the same old thing happens again! There’s never any happiness or bliss or even relief from this same old stuff. It’s never ending!!!
Yeah, well, not so much. Two things here. 1) The problems weren’t caused in a day, were complex and created even more complex situations, and therefore do not have simple solutions. 2) Just finding the cause of the problem doesn’t heal it. It just identifies it. The next step is to heal it by changing both inside and out, by thoughts and by actions. But let’s start with #1. Rather than looking at the journey as Ground Hogs Day, it’s better to look at it for what it is, multiple steps required to achieve a long-term result. Some people use the “peel the onion” example although that always gives me a visual of an onion that gets smaller and smaller until it disappears. Not exactly how I would want to imagine a successful and healthy life. :/
I think of it more like construction or crafting. First you have to collect the raw materials, then you prep the materials so they are ready for use, then you start putting them together, but more than likely they only work correctly if put together in a certain way in a certain order. It could take multiple steps to get all the pieces together and once that’s done then there is finishing like removing grout or glue residue and cleaning up the workspace. So many times we stop at the collecting of raw materials or prepping those materials and feel we should be done and everything should work like a finished project. While it may be frustrating or even exhausting, the reoccurrence of an issue is a sign pointing the way towards the finished project. If we keep going we’ll eventually have created a masterpiece.
