I was thinking tonight after I got out of the bathtub and was putting my clothes on, “I’m stuck”. I once again couldn’t get my pajamas or clothes on. This is a daily pattern in my life that seems to happen every time I get out of any type of water. My sweet partner always laughs at me and says “Do you need a little help honey? You never dry off enough”. I simply smile and say can you just help me get this shirt on, no need to dry me off. She tenderly dry’s me off anyway and helps me get situated in my clothes and goes back to what she was doing.
I smile as I know this was a simple show of love and a lesson I missed out on as a child, and now I just skip over this basic step like it’s not necessary. I never really learned to totally dry off after a bath, the little girl in me was just in a hurry. Still, to this day, I act out of this learned condition even though I am fully capable to dry myself off now.
It’s fascinating to me that I still navigate my life from the auto pilot seat. There is a part of me that likes to have things be easy. The funny thing is that I think I am making it really hard, but my ego says it easier to struggle, not take responsibility, and run into the same situation over and over again. Changing the way I behave will take conscious effort. Eeek!!!!. I want life to get easier now.
Something that we know from a behavioral perspective is that we do what we know; over and over again. Doing something new takes a conscious, action based effort. Not thinking, lets us move forward as if there is no issue. Now at first this is a great gift, that is until you realize you are making the same mistake as you did a million times before.
We have developmental stages that we all need to go through in life and if we missed one or more of them we will have to go back and re-learn those lessons. The beautiful part of this is that everyone has to do it. No parent or caretaker can meet all your needs, that is impossible. In fact, you wouldn’t want them to because if you got all your needs met why would you as an individual, strive to be more? Would you dig into your pain to find your gold?
I encourage you to step into your full expression of you… Be more my friends.
I have learned to love the parts of myself that didn’t get some of my life lessons down, and now I’m going to pick those lessons up and integrate them into my fantastic future. I can stay vulnerable and open myself to possible criticism and know that growing is always ok.