"Wait
a second. Why would I push away what I want? This is nuts!"
Yeah, I
think so too. I've done it most of my life. Just call me nutty!
It's clear
that every choice we make, we do so in order to bring some benefit.
We believe that the choice we're making in this very moment
will make us happy, if only being the best of two painful choices.
And yes, in some odd way the woman thinks that pushing the guys
away will bring her more joy than will love, and the guy who
keeps friendships at a distance will bring him more happiness
than will letting
folks in.
How can
this be? Simple.
I must have
this scale inside me that constantly weighs out what's gonna
bring more PLEASURE & more PAIN to my life. 
Golly,
my darn scale must be broken because it's done a lousy job in
my past! But I'm wakin' up! And as we wake up we begin to see
more clearly.
THE COST
IS JUST TOO GREAT! If I let people get too close to me then
they won't like what they see and I'll face the thing I run
from the fastest...rejection! And that's FAR more painful than
this state of having no close friends! Or is it?
Pushing
success away has benefits as well, so I'll just not go the distance,
I'll not make that call today and I'll not set goals or even
set any sites at all! Why? Because the pain of not reaching
them and the sense of failure that I'll feel is FAR more painful
than getting out of bed earlier just to take risks! Heck, we've
even invented terms for such behavior to pad our excuse! We
label it lazy or demotivated.
Even worse,
what if I do succeed? Holy Smokes! Then I'll have
to keep it up and I don't know how to do that! I'm lazy, remember?
Whoa! These scales are leaning hard in the direction of just
staying right where I am. Excuse me, could someone please
grab me another pillow while you're up?
Pushing
LOVE away? Ha, that's a no-brainer! I mean,
who wants to lose at love? Who wants their heart stolen (I
never could figure out how someone can steal my heart.
Ouch!)? Love. Ahhh, it's so much easier to just keep playing
the games of "what are we" and "I'm
not investing any more time until you do" and "I'm
not ready for a serious relationship". Here's one
I love..."I can't make him commit!" Mercy!
We've concocted a million and twelve excuses to NOT engage full-out
in love. Note, I didn't say in "the dating game" or
in "relationship", I said in LOVE. You know, the thing
that your heart whispers is real but you just won't let it in?
How painful, the prospect of a man or woman looking into my
innards and seeing the things that I've worked so hard to protect
all these years. Yikes! It's much easier to just play the game
everyone else plays and settle for the norm and then gripe about
them when it doesn't work, rather than to LET GO and just jump
in to the river of no
guarantees!
That's why
we have so many rules and games and appropriate's when it comes
to love. The complicated maze that we've invented is quite effective
in keeping us from what we fear most. Gosh, we don't have any
of these with our casual friendships, do we? But we sure feel
the urgency to erect them around love so that we can be assured
(that's an illusion)
that we won't feel stupid or failure or unlovable.
PUSHING
AWAY is a very profitable business actually. It brings safety
from...from...facing yourself. And that, my friend, is life
in a nutshell. This journey of mine is one of remembering
who I am. And that must include coming face to face with the
part of me that I fear the most. And just when I get the chance
to do so, just when life presents to me yet another chance
to face me, I push the darn thing away. And then when asked,
"how are you", I answer, "Oh, I'm fine".
Knowing that I am but I'm not. I'm not "fine" to
the depth that 
I
so desire to be if I could only stop PUSHING LIFE AWAY!
Here,
try this...
Wake up & OWN IT. See more clearly
than ever what you do to push feelings
and people and ideas and dreams away. How you alienate yourself
from the dance cuz you have to stay home & feed your hamster.
It's been ALL your choice all along. It's time to own it and
stop using it. Notice what your deepest desires are that you
never talk about. Let them come up a notch or two inside you.
Give them a little bread and water and air to breathe as you
consider how you've been pushing them down. And then consider
WHY you've been doing so. Think about the benefits to keeping
them out of your life. Let AWARENESS begin to emerge more and
more in your life.
I
won't even try to give you a set solution for your lifelong
hobby of pushing life away. However I have great faith that
simply your letting these questions in and having tea with them
is good 'nough for now. That puts you so on your way to setting
the table for miracles!
