Stuck In My Ways

Been stuck in my ways for so long. I'm stubborn.
It takes a lot of convincing for me to become willing.
I'm ready to become ready. To become willing.
To shift my perception, my perspective.
Shifting my entire paradigm. They can be shifted, transformed.
They can be recreated. Lots of things can.
We can recreate ourselves. When we transform other things.
Mutable signs have a way of doing this easier.
Fixed signs have a harder time. They are the most stubborn.
I'm a cardinal sign. Which is great for me.
I feel like only cardinal signs understand cardinal signs.
Like "it takes one to know one."

It takes a lot of work and one must be willing to do the work.
To do what it takes to make such a drastic change.
Otherwise, we'll just revert to our old, familiar ways.

All my life I've approached life with a "wait and see" attitude.
That is what I'm comfortable with. Waiting and seeing.
"Let's see if..." I wanted to see where things were heading
before jumping in with both feet and even then,
most of the time I wouldn't.

I remember when I was in a foster home and we went camping.
There was a lake we went to and there was a cliff.
They were jumping off the cliff into the lake, and it took me a while.
To jump. I kind of wanted to, but I had reservations. I'm reserved.
There were more than a few times I thought about jumping.
Not just off that cliff into the lake.... But I didn't, or I wouldn't be here.
Doesn't mean those thoughts never crossed my mind.

Today's quote is: "Let go of the thoughts that don't make you strong."

In my weak moments, I have thoughts that make me weak.
Those thoughts attract other thoughts that are similar.
I used to have more of those moments than I have now. So many more.
I didn't know how to dismiss those thoughts so they kept coming.

"Seldom do you exceed your self-expectations."
Especially when you don't expect very much of yourself.
Everyone expected a lot from me which is why they've been disappointed.
Keeping your expectations for yourself low means you don't get disappointed.
Unless you do actually wish you could set the bar higher and meet it.
I've felt like that. A part of me knows I can do so much more.
That I have something more to offer.
But there are certain gifts that I have that I've never unwrapped.

It kind of reminds me of when my Grandfather passed away.
Two days before Christmas and my Grandmother kept his gifts in the closet.
Gifts that he never got to open. The closet at the bottom of the stairs.
Every time I walked down those stairs, there they were.
The box on the top shelf... I saw it the most. I didn't look at the others.
But the one on the top shelf... It was level with my eye level.

Anyway, there are certain gifts that I have... That we all have,
but we don't recognize them. We don't see how powerful we could be.
We don't acknowledge that kind of power exists. Let alone in ourselves.
So we embrace our limits and limitations. Because that's what we expect.
We expect to be whatever we think we are.

"We frequently determine our outcome in advance,
then behave in ways that support our predetermined conclusions."
Whether we realize we are doing it or not.
I didn't realize a lot of things that I'm beginning to realize.
I'm starting to see myself in others. They are reflecting me back to me.

I can't remember how it was worded exactly.
Something about how people are who and what we choose them to be to us.
Representations, reflections... More than meets the eyes, or not.
Or they can just be whatever we think they are.
We can project onto them like we often do and think our projections
are what they represent, but they are mirrors.
Showing us things about who and what we are.
But... We can refuse to see that and to know that.
Just as easily as we can refuse to see and know so much.
Just as I did for most of my life. Why? I didn't want to see or know.
So I could just claim 'lack of knowledge' but I was choosing that.
By not choosing otherwise. Even though I was unaware it was a choice.
That it's a choice not to make a choice.
Even when you think you have no choice or choices. We do. Always have.

It takes time to see how many choices we actually have.
When we face one direction, we can't see what we could see
if we were facing in another direction. We could turn around.
We could open our eyes and our minds.
We could remove the blindfold. We could see the birds of truth.
Or we can not do any of that and use the blindfold as an excuse
as to why we 'can't' see. Are we willing or unwilling?

There was something I read in a book that I read this year, or last year.
It was a metaphor type of story.
About how someone can come and help us remove all kinds of
junk from our place and help us put it in another place.
All the junk representing our junk thoughts...
Then when they leave, we are left with an emptiness.
But we have the choice, to go get the junk we had and bring it back.
To fill our place back up again with the junk.
Or we can wait, and start over. Filling it with things that we need.
We don't have to take back the junk we used to have.
We can take the opportunity to start over again.
ONLY IF we SEE it as an opportunity.
Otherwise, we'll want our junk back to 'feel' 'secure.'

I've been at that place and still at that place,
where I thought I needed things to feel and have a sense of security.
I took it to extremes, but I still felt insecure and didn't know why.
Then I realized that it wasn't about the stuff. It was about me.
About why I felt 'insecure' in the first place.
I still have some insecurity issues, but I realize that certain things
that I wanted, are not going to fix that for me.

Because, often we move, we change location (situation)
taking all our stuff with us. Baggage. I have my own.
I'm not saying I'm without baggage, I'm not.
But how often people deny that they have any baggage!
Their hangups, insecurity issues, all of that, and more.
We all have stuff we bring with us when we move.
Same stuff, different address. But do we address the stuff?
Do we look through it and say, "I actually don't need this"?
Do we say "If I let go of this, I'd have room in my life for that"?
It's not about being a minimalist. It's not about actual 'stuff.'
It's about inner, emotional and psychological 'stuff.'
We don't clean it out. We can be minimalists on the outside,
but hoarders on the inside.
Just as we can be hoarders on the outside
and minimalists on the inside.

We drag along our patterns from the past. To new situations.
And we don't deal with them. For lack of knowing how to,
for lack of willingness to, whatever the 'reason' that we don't do it.

"Letting our old patterns run the show
positions us to experience the same outcome."

Like patterns we have with interacting with people
or how we react to certain things that 'trigger' us.
How we reacted as a child, if not addressed,
will be similar to how we react as an adult.
Patterns like that and so many others. That's only one example.

Changing our circumstances does not address the issue.
That's why starting a new relationship doesn't address insecurity issues.
Which is what I wasn't seeing before.
It wasn't the circumstances that needed to change,
it's the issues that need to be addressed.
Otherwise patterns are going to keep repeating and repeating
and all I will end up with is experiencing the same issues, in other ways.

We can get to the point where we are tired of having the same outcome,
but until we realize why we keep getting the same outcome,
we can't do anything about it.
Even when we finally realize why we keep getting it,
we have to want to do what we have to do to change it.
To break the patterns and create new ones.
Which of course isn't easy. We have to really look at them.
At our thoughts, actions, reactions, feelings etc.
"I keep acting like this, because I keep thinking and feeling like this."
"I keep acting like a child, because I keep thinking and feeling like a child."
"Why do I keep thinking and feeling like a child?"

"All meaningful change comes from the inside,
not from our external circumstances."

There are underlying causes that we are either aware of or unaware of.
When we are aware of it, we can do something about it.
When we are unaware of it, there is little to nothing we can do about it.
But we can choose to become aware.
Or we can choose to remain unaware.

We can get to a point where we become aware that we are unaware.
That is the first step in becoming aware. Knowing that we don't know.
We go from not knowing that we don't know,
to knowing that we don't know,
to knowing that we know.

But all along the way, there are choices to be made
to get us from each point to the next point.

"To be, or not to be?" That is the question and the choice.