Cleaning Out Our Dusty Corners

What stays hidden in our dusty corners of our mind will ultimately rear its ugly head and make itself known to the world. We cannot deny the darkness of our history. Without healing of the shadows within, issues will re-emerge weapons of destruction in our personal and professional life.

There is a time in everyone’s life when a choice must be made. Will I carry on the legacy of the past by avoiding the wounds associated with my history, or will I courageously face the pain of my history and re-examine it? If we can explore our past, we can then move forward in a new direction. We can re-create ourselves and make our life more meaningful. The mystery is, why do some people choose to step outside the bubble (come out of hiding), while others do not? The truth is that many who do choose the path of courageous living recognize that we are ultimately responsible for the direction of our lives and feel an urgency to change.

However, it is very easy to give up trying to improve our condition. It is so easy to avoid reality. Since many of us are rather lazy, it easily becomes our way of coping with reality. It becomes comfortable to remain emotionally stagnant. But, if we play out the martyr role, we may falsely cling to the notion that others will solve our problems for us. Many of us, on some level, believe that someone or something is magically going to rescue us from our problems. We keep waiting and hoping that this will happen as our lives run their course.

Giving oneself permission is the way to find the passage toward adulthood. Recognizing that there is no one to rescue us but ourselves is the key. Most of us hold the illusion that our parents, whether dead or alive, will bail us out of our unhappiness. As Mildred Newman and Bernard Berkowitz profoundly proclaim in their book, How to Be Your Own Best Friend, we must emotional let go of our parents. We must let them go and transcend them in how we conduct our lives. As psychotherapist and author Sheldon B. Kopp says, we must be an “on-you-own, take-care-of-yourself-cause-there-is-no-one-else-to-do-it-for-you-grown-up.” No one is going to come and rescue us. The permission lies within.

Giving oneself permission is the difference between living in a bubble and stepping out. We all have needs, wants, and aspirations. Sometimes these desires get put on hold because we are afraid of failure or afraid of what others might think. Many of us feel underutilized. We feel guilty for not realizing our potential. Appropriate guilt, the recognition that we have fallen short of our goals, is necessary if we are to change and grow. We have to be upset enough about our situation in order to change and grow. Many times people will say, “I’m sick of the way I behave, I’ve had it!” I remind them that they must get very tired of their behavior before they will be willing to change it. As alcoholics in recovery sometimes say, “you’ve got to hit rock bottom before you get it.”

James P. Krehbiel, Ed.S., LPC is an author, freelance writer, and cognitive-behavioral therapist practicing in Scottsdale, Arizona. He recently released Stepping Out of the Bubble available at http://www.booklocker/books/2242.html James can be reached at http://www.krehbielcounseling.com