Slowing down, taking time for yourself and establishing new habits that will last a lifetime.
Theme – Embracing Mystery
Hanging out in that messy, dark space that we all find ourselves sometimes: not knowing.
In what ways do you feel more grounded in knowing that things always work out for you no matter what?
(Psst ... also notice the parts that don't feel so grounded or certain)
I am confident that things will always work out in the end and that if they don’t sort themselves out, or it is not the way that I envisaged, then it was not meant to be. If at all possible when there is something that I cannot fathom-out … I wait, and it is surprising just how often things are resolved, or the answers do present themselves.
That said, I am very much a ‘now’ person. I like things done and dusted and to complete tasks before moving on, which really does not sit well with the stuff that has to remain hanging about because there are no answers, well none that have present themselves instantly.
Then there are the things that never work out, well not as far as I am concerned or the things that maybe work out for other people but not in the way I envisaged them. Things that do not go the way my mind’s eye planned because, in truth they were not my problems to solve, but just things that I was concerned about. Usually this involves others who have their own lives to lead and will have their own criteria for sorting those personal things out.
My eldest son was a drug addict and constantly in trouble with the law, sometimes for serious, hard-core matters. When he was young there was a train of thought that behavioural issues were all the result of the way people were raised, thus causing them to deviate from the straight and narrow. As a result of this way of thinking investigations were conducted as to his upbringing, our background, if he was wanted or an accident, the age of the parents etc. etc. Granted in those days I was considered quite young when I had him (19 yrs) but I had always planned to get married and have children while I was still young enough to really enjoy them and we had been married for fourteen months by the time he arrived. We had a mortgage, hubbie had a steady job and I happily postponed a career in nursing to be a full-time mum ... so as far as we were concerned life was more than good. However, from a very early age it was clear that our son was hard work.
Today, he would be labelled with all kinds of acronyms but back in the early 80s behavioural issues were solely attributed to upbringing. Looking back, it is hard to believe that the only answer to things like this involved social service monitoring of the adults, parenting classes and if all that failed then the removal of the child into care. Once that happened then all further problems were ascribed to the fact that the child came from a broken home, regardless of the fact that it was the authorities that caused the break. I suppose if there is anything of any worth that could have come from my child being removed from the family home was that after a few short weeks the case was taken back to court by social services to return him to me because the staff at the childrens home couldn’t cope. Every time he did anything or kicked-off they would phone me to come and sort things out. At least them it was accepted that the issues stemmed from the child. Not that any help was offered because then no-one really knew how to address this.
I would have dearly loved to have been able to ‘sort’ everything for him but regardless of how much I tried it became clear that this was not what he wanted. By the time he was a teenager he was into drugs and breaking the law to obtain the money to buy them. He elected for the way he wanted to live and had no intention of quitting his chosen lifestyle, but it took me years before I came to terms with that.
Just recently I read an article written from the point-of-view of a drug addict that berated the so-called help that was on offer from establishments, counselling facilities, friends and family. Basically, what was being said was that every excuse made to justify the addict’s actions, every second (third, fourth etc.) chance, and every new start offered was simply pandering to the person and delaying the time when they had to take responsibility for their own actions, and situation. That this 'help' was not allowing them to come to the position where they were ready to want to accept help. There is an old saying, ‘you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink’ and this is what the addict was saying about the ‘do-gooders’ who were trying to impose their principles of life on those that were not ready to be ‘saved’.
This concept is often termed as Co-dependence and Enabling
Co-dependence – is when family and friends are controlled by the addict. They believe that love, security and acceptance are crucial to the care required, which in turn fosters more dependency on the part of the addict.
Enabling Behaviour – encourages the addiction, either directly or indirectly through things like concealing the addiction from others, covering-up for the addict or suppling money to obtain drugs.
Drug abusers quickly learn the fine art of manipulation in order to get whatever it takes for their next fix, but those engaging in co-dependence and enabling protect the individual from the consequences of their behaviour.
The natural instinct is to nurture, love and protect those we care about, but the real help is to deny the addict the things that they crave to uphold that kind of lifestyle, no matter how hard it is for the ones that care and how much it goes against the grain. Let’s face it all we really want is to make their life better, to cure them of the problem, to turn them around and bring them back into so-called normal life but, and this is the big issue … this cannot happen until the person themselves comes face-to-face with the real consequences of their addiction and gets to the point of wanting that kind of help.
There is no getting away from it, drug abuse or any addiction is heart-wrenching for those that are on the outside and watching the devastation it causes, because it is nothing that the unwitting observers can have any control over. If confronted by it on a personal level, you often have no choice but to accept that it is something that may not work out the way you would like.
Written as a letter in 1903 to an aspiring young poet, this passage contains a universal truth that speaks volumes.
Letters to a Young Poet. (1954)
Dear sir,
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now see the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer. Perhaps you do carry within yourself the possibility of shaping and forming as a particularly happy and pure way of living; train yourself to it but take whatever comes with great trust, and if only it comes out of your own will, out of your inmost being, take it upon yourself and hate nothing.
(Rainer Maria Rilke)
After reading this, I totally agree with Stephanie Bennett Vogt that it is a terrific reminder to relax the need to know.