Do we have the power to change our lives? or are we bound by our destinies?
The other night, as I was thinking about old lovers--which ones seemed to be the best for me, and which ones were the worst....
Over the years I've read a plethora of self-help books of various stripes, based on a combination of psychology and humanist philosophy,all very well-intentioned, all mean to empower us to change those bad habits that get us into bad relationships.
I also got seriously into alternative, New Age "spiritualities" that rely on understandings of fate and destiny and our powerlessness to change those things that lead us to particular individual.
Strangely, these two philosophies about our lives and relationships exist side by side--often with one person or one mindset referecing the other.
You know the kinds of folks I mean: the well-intentioned therapist who espouses "spirituality" to help give us the strength to change our bad habits. Or the New Age practitioner who, at some point, says out Mindset needs to be altered in order to understand why we're not connecting with our deeper selves.
I keep thinking and wondering if I've had the power to change my life and relationships--if it's honestly in my power to fix what's wrong with me, get all those blocks out of my way that are keeping me from having that spouse and family that is either my destiny or my deepest desire (I don't know which it is, and if I consult both the psychological and the spiritual, I get different answers.)
Everyone in every corner seems to have the solution, method, or remedy for what ails me. I can indeed change my mindset if I delve deep within my childhood, find the root of the problem, voice it, exorcise it, and realize it when I'm getting involved with someone. I can set myself on a quest, or right psychological path, to manifest all those dreams. It is, after all, within my power, a act of will, for me to get everything I want.
Or I can't change it at all. I am destined to fall for certain kinds of men because they resonate with a past life. I've always been part of their lives and I am simply continuing-playing out-resolving old karmic patterns. I am destined to fall for the unavailable or the not-so-good-for-me because I am not meant to be settled down in this life, or at least not settled down with these men who are integral parts of very old past lives. Or it's that I keep getting in God's way, and if I simply step back and let God handle everything in my life--just show up and let it happen--then the right person will magically cross my path because I'm doing the Right Things in the eyes of God and deserve that earthly reward of a loving spouse and family...
The thing is, when all is said and done, neither way of thinking is right. Both are full of major bullshit. As far as therapeutic thinking goes--well, I've spent loads of time trying to fix everything about me, perfect myself psychologically so that I'll be Just Right. And it hasn't worked. Of all that Work I've done, the best part is acknowledging that my parents were terrible relationship role models and didn't give me the tools I needed to pick a good spouse.
Can I change this? Can I create the right tools for my psychological tool box? The only tool that works, like a really good vise-grip, is awareness. I can be aware of the decisions I make about relationships, as I'm aware of decisions I make about everything in my life. I can choose to stay with someone, or leave--but I can't be perfected, and maybe there are some obstacles that make it so some dreams just don't happen in this lifetime.
And what about God? Has God failed me because I don't have a nuclear family? Has psychological baggage prevented me from recognizing God's plan for my life? Or does God want me to do other things with my life? Is it my destiny to remain frustrated in one area of my life and achieve success in another? Or to be frustrated in *every aspect of my life? Am I continually attracted to men with certain kinds of unavailability because that is my destiny or because of my baggage? Have I cleansed my arua enough, burnt off enough of the old karma, or is it that I will keep meeting those I have unfinished spiritual business with in order to fix the past before I move forward in future lives?
See what a mind bender this all can be?
Lots of us get our knickers in a bunch trying to figure out how to fix or change ourselves in some way--either psychologically or spiritually--so that we can get what's paraded in front of us every day as the American Dream. If we work real hard to reach that perfection, we'll get that family, be thin, have money, be happy.
What I'm beginning to think is the reality is that there's just so much we can change about ourselves before we reach a brick wall where things don't, or can't be perfected. This doesn't mean we're psychological failures or cursed by God. What it means is that we're human.
To paraphrase Thomas Merton--if we think we've figured out the Will of God for our lives, we couldn't be further from the truth. In other words, we never really know what God, the Spirits, or Earth Mother, wants for us any more than we can fix every little psychological imperfection.
I know I've spent a boatload of time trying to perfect myself. I know lots of that process was because I grew up with so much pain around me and I didn't want an adulthood that was a repeat of my parent's pain. I didn't believe I could stop repeating their horrid relationship pattern because I was destined--by psychology and spirituality--to repeat their pain. I figured if I worked really hard to perfect all of it on both psychological and spiritual levels that I'd have it all, be happy, never suffer.
But maybe there's really only a few who have it all--and even then, maybe they really don't. In pop culture, we are only shown the Good or High Points, never the reality. Even the woman who penned The Total Woman--that self-help guide from the '70's that was touted as the ultimate recipie for total marital life success--ended up divorced.
No psychological practitioner, humanist philosophy, spiritual guide or Biblical God can fix everything about any of us to give us our dreams.
Is this, then to say that we simply have to deal with the hand that's been dealt us by our dysfunctional families or our destinies? No. We can change things. And if things don't change, it's not because we failed at reaching psychological perfection or that Predestination makes it impossible. Maybe it just *is*--the decision caused by the moment, not an effect of the past. If the decision doesn't work out, it's not that we're not perfect, it's just that other people also have *stuff* and no matter what Werner Erhardt says, we really *don't* have that much control over other people's lives.
No matter what all those snake oil salesman of every stripe try to sell us, there is no way to change the past. We can know the psycholocial past. We can never be sure of the spiritual past.
We can be aware and not repeat the mistakes of the past. Sometimes we fall asleep at the awareness wheel, and we slip up, and shit happens. In the spiritual, we are not abandoned by God nor victims of an unchangeable fate if things don't work out perfectly and properly, too. The past can't be ameliorated with constant psychological or spiritual vigilance--it's just too stressful.
Life is, after all, what it is...
Over the years I've read a plethora of self-help books of various stripes, based on a combination of psychology and humanist philosophy,all very well-intentioned, all mean to empower us to change those bad habits that get us into bad relationships.
I also got seriously into alternative, New Age "spiritualities" that rely on understandings of fate and destiny and our powerlessness to change those things that lead us to particular individual.
Strangely, these two philosophies about our lives and relationships exist side by side--often with one person or one mindset referecing the other.
You know the kinds of folks I mean: the well-intentioned therapist who espouses "spirituality" to help give us the strength to change our bad habits. Or the New Age practitioner who, at some point, says out Mindset needs to be altered in order to understand why we're not connecting with our deeper selves.
I keep thinking and wondering if I've had the power to change my life and relationships--if it's honestly in my power to fix what's wrong with me, get all those blocks out of my way that are keeping me from having that spouse and family that is either my destiny or my deepest desire (I don't know which it is, and if I consult both the psychological and the spiritual, I get different answers.)
Everyone in every corner seems to have the solution, method, or remedy for what ails me. I can indeed change my mindset if I delve deep within my childhood, find the root of the problem, voice it, exorcise it, and realize it when I'm getting involved with someone. I can set myself on a quest, or right psychological path, to manifest all those dreams. It is, after all, within my power, a act of will, for me to get everything I want.
Or I can't change it at all. I am destined to fall for certain kinds of men because they resonate with a past life. I've always been part of their lives and I am simply continuing-playing out-resolving old karmic patterns. I am destined to fall for the unavailable or the not-so-good-for-me because I am not meant to be settled down in this life, or at least not settled down with these men who are integral parts of very old past lives. Or it's that I keep getting in God's way, and if I simply step back and let God handle everything in my life--just show up and let it happen--then the right person will magically cross my path because I'm doing the Right Things in the eyes of God and deserve that earthly reward of a loving spouse and family...
The thing is, when all is said and done, neither way of thinking is right. Both are full of major bullshit. As far as therapeutic thinking goes--well, I've spent loads of time trying to fix everything about me, perfect myself psychologically so that I'll be Just Right. And it hasn't worked. Of all that Work I've done, the best part is acknowledging that my parents were terrible relationship role models and didn't give me the tools I needed to pick a good spouse.
Can I change this? Can I create the right tools for my psychological tool box? The only tool that works, like a really good vise-grip, is awareness. I can be aware of the decisions I make about relationships, as I'm aware of decisions I make about everything in my life. I can choose to stay with someone, or leave--but I can't be perfected, and maybe there are some obstacles that make it so some dreams just don't happen in this lifetime.
And what about God? Has God failed me because I don't have a nuclear family? Has psychological baggage prevented me from recognizing God's plan for my life? Or does God want me to do other things with my life? Is it my destiny to remain frustrated in one area of my life and achieve success in another? Or to be frustrated in *every aspect of my life? Am I continually attracted to men with certain kinds of unavailability because that is my destiny or because of my baggage? Have I cleansed my arua enough, burnt off enough of the old karma, or is it that I will keep meeting those I have unfinished spiritual business with in order to fix the past before I move forward in future lives?
See what a mind bender this all can be?
Lots of us get our knickers in a bunch trying to figure out how to fix or change ourselves in some way--either psychologically or spiritually--so that we can get what's paraded in front of us every day as the American Dream. If we work real hard to reach that perfection, we'll get that family, be thin, have money, be happy.
What I'm beginning to think is the reality is that there's just so much we can change about ourselves before we reach a brick wall where things don't, or can't be perfected. This doesn't mean we're psychological failures or cursed by God. What it means is that we're human.
To paraphrase Thomas Merton--if we think we've figured out the Will of God for our lives, we couldn't be further from the truth. In other words, we never really know what God, the Spirits, or Earth Mother, wants for us any more than we can fix every little psychological imperfection.
I know I've spent a boatload of time trying to perfect myself. I know lots of that process was because I grew up with so much pain around me and I didn't want an adulthood that was a repeat of my parent's pain. I didn't believe I could stop repeating their horrid relationship pattern because I was destined--by psychology and spirituality--to repeat their pain. I figured if I worked really hard to perfect all of it on both psychological and spiritual levels that I'd have it all, be happy, never suffer.
But maybe there's really only a few who have it all--and even then, maybe they really don't. In pop culture, we are only shown the Good or High Points, never the reality. Even the woman who penned The Total Woman--that self-help guide from the '70's that was touted as the ultimate recipie for total marital life success--ended up divorced.
No psychological practitioner, humanist philosophy, spiritual guide or Biblical God can fix everything about any of us to give us our dreams.
Is this, then to say that we simply have to deal with the hand that's been dealt us by our dysfunctional families or our destinies? No. We can change things. And if things don't change, it's not because we failed at reaching psychological perfection or that Predestination makes it impossible. Maybe it just *is*--the decision caused by the moment, not an effect of the past. If the decision doesn't work out, it's not that we're not perfect, it's just that other people also have *stuff* and no matter what Werner Erhardt says, we really *don't* have that much control over other people's lives.
No matter what all those snake oil salesman of every stripe try to sell us, there is no way to change the past. We can know the psycholocial past. We can never be sure of the spiritual past.
We can be aware and not repeat the mistakes of the past. Sometimes we fall asleep at the awareness wheel, and we slip up, and shit happens. In the spiritual, we are not abandoned by God nor victims of an unchangeable fate if things don't work out perfectly and properly, too. The past can't be ameliorated with constant psychological or spiritual vigilance--it's just too stressful.
Life is, after all, what it is...
posted by Tish Grier at 8:09 AM
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