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| Expansion: What is our fear? |
I've spent an interesting weekend with friends from all over the Eastern US and Canada. It happens twice a year in Nashville. It was really nice to see a lot of people with whom I enjoy sharing company.
A hot topic of conversation was expansion. It became quite complicated, but let's put it this way: we're faced with situations, people, and influences that "pull us out of our comfort zone."
How do we confront these conditions?
Well, I can tell you one modality that I'm certain that you use. I certainly am extremely capable of doing the same. When faced with opportunities to expand, we retreat back to our personality and our belief systems because they offer us a very safe and warm haven with which we have considerable experience.
I'll give a recent example of how this works. Look at the events of the past week in the US. For those of yo who don't know to what I refer-- we had an election. The results of this election were disappointing to a good number of Americans. OK, let's consider or paradigm.
Event: "Unfortunate Election Results"
Opportunity for Expansion: Learning to Live with the Reality of "Unfortunate Results"
Potential for Growth: Learning to live with the Ambiguities of a Situation that One Perceives as Unfortunate
Retreat into Personality: Anger! This is Horrible! Let's React!
Retreat into Belief System: I'm a Democrat/Progressive/Pro-Gay-Marriage/Supporter of Legalized Marijuana and this is just not good for us.
Do we get the picture? We lost an opportunity.
By the way, this blog entry is not about the elections. Yes, by the way, I did react to the elections.
Look at your life, just look at it (LOL)! How can this paradigm be applied to your cognitive processes? It can't? Congratulations, you are the unique winner of the game of life. If you find that you also follow this unhealthy line of reasoning-- Welcome to the human race.
I've given an example. Think of one yourself. How can you turn these episodes, people and/or upsetting situations into an auto-didactic moment? Can you look at it from a clinical point of view and not pass judgement on yourself? Drop me a line and let me know how it works.
