July 28, 2008


LOOKING BACK

As I return from Washington, DC. having celebrated the 20th anniversary of the theatre where my acting career began, having spoken to my ex husband to confirm the last stages of finalizing our divorce, seeing a friend I haven't seen in over 10 years and seeing my beloved highschool drama teacher, there was confirmation of the many broken habits that have my life being unrecognizable now. Sometimes going back is the the best way to see and be reminded how far you've come as you prepare to embark on new steps forward.

Breaking Patterns
by Mark Nepo

We go into change rehearsing the history that brought us to this
point.
-Parker Palmer

Often we have to rehearse the truth, until we find the courage to live
it. In this, repetition is not failure, but the heart’s way to learn
how to be in the world. Yet like everything else of significance, this
process has an attractive yet false counterpart waiting nearby to
distract us. We can describe the repeating that is unnecessary as the
reliving of scripts, or unconscious repeating, and the repeating that is
necessary as the rehearsing of truth, or conscious repeating. And we
could say that the near enemy of rehearsing the truth is being trapped
in reliving scripts. Though the difference between these is hard to keep
in view-especially when in the throes of either.

Nevertheless, the way an actress rehearses the situations she is given
until her character is one with the character she is playing, the drama
of life demands that we put in the effort to consciously work with what
we’re given until we practice our way into honest living. Without such
effort, we lapse into unconscious entanglements, like a dog that
incessantly tangles itself in its leash. And as such a dog will push its
ball out of reach and whine and pout, we can nudge the truth of who we
are beyond the reach of our self-created limitations and whine and pout
and grow sad. In this way, when we repeat our reactions to living and
not our attempts to live, we find ourselves trapped.

In contrast, Paula Underwood Spencer wisely states,“If you want to be
truly understood, you need to say everything three times. Once for each
ear, and once for the heart.” The implication is that things that are
worth experiencing and communicating have to be repeated in order to
grasp and share the fullness of their meaning. We must enter them more
than once, receive them more than once, articulate them more than once,
and listen more than once. This brings us back to rehearsing the truth.
So when something is working you and you’ve only barely spoken of it,
don’t limit your growth because you have no one else to talk to. Find
a willing stranger and make a new friend. The growth of our soul demands
that we break all hesitation.

When feeling the press of the patterns that govern our lives, these
distinctions are muddy. Often, it is a slow and unclear process to move
from unconscious repeating to conscious rehearsing. But this slow
clarifying is part of self-transformation. The process is powerfully
distilled by Portia Nelson in her poem, “Autobiography in Five Short
Chapters”:

I walk, down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in
I am lost . . . I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
But, it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in . . . it's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

I walk down another street.


So breaking patterns involves repeating. There is no getting around it,
though we are always pressed to discern whether we are reliving what
doesn’t work or peeling away of what is false. In addition to this, we
are frequently swimming like salmon against the current of a disposable
society that discourages us from looking at anything more than once. It
reminds me of the lonely woman and the second flower.In early spring,
she is stopped by a burst of sun on a peony on the north side of the
city. A few days later, she sees another peony in her friend’s yard.
But she thinks, “I’ve seen this flower before.” And so she
doesn’t pay attention.But it is the second flower that holds a
secret for her.Pretty soon, she thinks life is repeating, when all that
is repeating is her want for a flower she’s never seen.
*****************************************
These reflections are excerpts from several books, including a new book
of poems, Surviving Has Made Me Crazy, CavanKerry Press, and a new book
of spiritual non-fiction, Facing the Lion, Being the Lion: Inner Courage
and Where It Lives, Red Wheel/Conari Press. For more info, please visit
www.MarkNepo.com.


THANK YOU MARK.

PLAN OF ACTION:
Take a moment to look back and see how far you've come. How many holes have you've gotten yourself out of, how many have you avoided?



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