So this Saturday afternoon, one of my housemates heard the outer front door slamming in the wind, and went to close it properly, only to find a HUGE THIGH BONE wedged between outer and inner doors, keeping it from closing fully. His question to me the next day was, "So, anger any witches recently?"
My only possibly answers were, (And I think this first one is unlikely) some Trump supporter was showing his displeasure with all the Hillary and Bernie posters that were up in the front of the house (put there by the landlord, I'm not complaining, but don't have time for that kind of stuff. Though I'd put a sign up for Bernie, and not just because that's my dad's name.)
Or, more likely, some of the neighborhood kids thought it would be funny.
Anyhoo, pics or it didn't happen:
In other news, I had a nice dream last night. Made me feel loved. Thanks subconscious!
And another unrelated topic: one of the books I'm reading for class is interesting. It's hitting on some philosophical and practical ideas for lasting change that I've discovered through other writers, but had forgotten about, and this book seems to tie them together nicely. Let's see if I can quickly dig up the titles... the one I'm reading now for class is called "Seven Languages for Transformation" By Kegan and Lahey.
And it's weaving together and clarifying concepts from Rober Fritz's work, including "The Path of Least Resistance" and Byron Katie's work, including "Loving What is"
There are several very powerful ideas in it, but the one I'm enjoying right now is that, for all the things in our life that we want, and are not doing anything about, there are competing commitments we are not aware of. Other things we also want, that are motivating us to do those unhelpful things, or avoid doing the helpful things. To give an inelegant example, maybe I want to lose weight so I can feel good about how I look. But I'm continuing to eat junk food. Well that might be because I also want to eat Nutella, cookies, gummy worms, whatever.
It's not just that I have weak willpower, or the environment is making me do it (though they certainly have an effect!) No, I want that junk food. And sometimes that desire overpowers my other desire. And it's important to recognize and own that. It starts taking the mystery out of why we behave the way we do. Hopefully it gives us a bit of understanding and compassion for ourselves. We're probably not being dumb or intentionally self-destructive. We are being driven by things we want, that happen to contradict other things we want. Of course I want gummy worms, they're delicious! That desire makes perfect sense.
We tend to forget or not think about these competing desires because they are politically incorrect most of the time. It's "ok" to want to eat healthy. It's "bad" to want to eat junk food. So we don't own that desire. We push it away and think of it as something "out there" that's forcing us to go against our true and good nature. But I think there is more power and certainly more honesty in accepting that it's a part of us.
It feels kinder. It makes me think of the "shadow work" that some of my friends have told me about. Integrating all the different parts of who you are. The light and the dark. I think it had a Jungian basis.
I don't know if this sounds permissive, but it's not about just being ok where you are and then staying the same. There are further steps that all the books talk about to change the static "new years resolution" style problems, (you know, "I resolve to change this" and then a month later its back to where it was).
But before you jump to trying to fix the offending behavior, if you want the change to stick, this (according to the book) is one of the steps you need to take first. It is a step of deeper awareness. There's another, even deeper awareness step that comes next, but for right now, I'm enjoying the feeling of owning a part of me I had forgotten existed. The book quotes one of my favorite Walt Whitman lines to describe this:
"Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. I am vast, I contain multitudes."
-I Out
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