People who live in glass houses..

I saw something this morning that made me laugh out loud; It was an advert for a scaffold company called Onward and Upward, how clever I thought!

Then I thought about the saying, Onwards and Upwards, often said when we are coming to the end of trouble and strife of one form or another in our lives.

“Ahh well.. onwards and upwards..”  

Often said with a hint of regret, or of sadness but always with a stoical, stiff upper lip..

Although meant as a positive saying, I thought about the advert I’d seen this morning, and asked myself, is that saying putting scaffolding over something we need to deal with?

If that scaffolding was repairing or building a structure, we’d be starting at the bottom, the foundations. A wise builder wouldn’t paint over the cracks and expect the building to have strength at the top.

When we are crumbling at the bottom, don’t we also need to look at ourselves first?

There is always something we are not happy with, either about ourselves, or about others (often we project our own failings onto others)

If things are going wrong in our lives, if we are repeating the same old behaviours, patterns in relationships..It can’t always be someone else’s fault can it?

What are we waiting for, permission to be happy, and permission to be ourselves? Or are we going to march out there in our full glory, wearing our best colours – declaring look out world here I come!

It is too easy to paper over the cracks,( what I call Emotional stuffing) to apportion blame to others if the life we are leading is any less than what we truly want it to be. “Chalk it down to experience and move on”, that’s another good saying, how about “Pull yourself together”? 

I think we are encouraged from a young age to stuff all of our bad feelings into a box (us) and not bother other people with our feelings; as though somehow it’s a little bit distasteful.

Ever sat in a Dr’s waiting room and someone you know walks in, “Hello, how are you”

Do you give them a long list of your ailments? Of course not, you say “fine, and yourself?” ......

Pre-school children on the other hand are much more open, they will tell anybody anything, as all parents who’ve attended an open evening at school will testify!

So here’s my thinking, if we thought of ourselves as a glass building, and we’d stuffed all the ballast (negativity) down to the very bottom, and built the top up to look very pretty.

We’ve chosen to carry on, Onwards and Upwards, on the surface it all looks great!

Until one day, something happens, something that shakes our foundations, loss, grief, illness, divorce, (insert anything here) so the parts of you that were already weighed down, breaks, shatters into a thousand needle sharp pieces.. and they hurt – like nothing you have experienced before.

To the outside world you may seem a little crazy, people may not be sure how to deal with you, they may even avoid you, not because they don’t care, but because we are not sure what to do, it doesn’t fit the model we have been taught, the one we are told is “normal”.

We look at all the tiny pieces, fragments of ourselves, it’s all a mess, it’s such a surreal feeling – tears fall unbidden, unwanted, but still they fall. The sharp edges seem to cut everything wide open, even your heart. It opens your gut.. and all the emotional stuffing comes out..... and it really is ok.

BUT...

Then something wonderful happens, once you’ve released all of that stuffing, you feel lighter, you can breathe easier, and you begin to notice your light, your inner shining light that the stuffing had dimmed.

In your pain you see truth, the absolute truth of who you are. Patterns are revealed in the tears, habits and behaviours are revealed, and light-bulb moments of self realisation, flash again and again.

This is a totally pivotal moment, a life changing moment you can grasp with both hands and heal yourself.

 In your vulnerability you reach a clear fork in your road..

On one fork is a bag of stuffing which feels so familiar, so warm and so very comforting, like a big meal does, or a warm jumper – it’s also the easy way out – and a sure fire way of creating another glass house.

The other fork holds the road to real enlightenment, to real happiness, to finding the joy of “being”. It’s the unknown road, the road of letting go of all you knew before, all your safety blankets, ropes and maps – all gone.

 What awaits you is happiness, true happiness that is generated by you, for you. It is no longer dependent on pleasing others, on conforming, on putting yourself last. It is scary, but it is the best kind of scary!

I can tell you two things:

The other fork is the most joyous road you’ll ever take, and I tell you this from experience

You don’t have to wait until someone or something else shatters your glass house, you can break it yourself first......... I did

.
.

 .