The other day I was thinking about how hard it is to make a change in life and how easy it is to fall back on old toxic habits. I likened the experience to a series of papercuts. We know when we get papercuts, because boy, do they sting. But, who are we to complain about it? It’s just a papercut, move on. Imagine if you were to get papercuts every day, morning through night. Your fingers would either be coated in Band-Aids, or they would be numb to the pain. Maybe some thicker skin would grow over to cover the cuts or maybe you’d learn to expect the cut coming, because it always seems to happen, anyway.
Imagine if we substituted papercuts for emotional jabs we receive daily.
Your choices are to sway to the side, brush them off, bandage them up, and move on. Wake up to hear complaints from one or another family member. Sigh, maybe answer back, or ignore it. Cut. Or, better yet, wake up to the negative rumination in your mind – how ugly, dumb, slow, weak, lazy you are. More cuts. And then, proceed to go about life the same way you did yesterday and the day before. Maybe there’s a fleeting thought, “Man, I should do something about this. This isn’t good.” But, then again, life moves so quickly and before you know it, you’re back to the doldrums of complacency because it’s all you know and that fleeting thought that change is possible, seems so distant.
It’s human nature to deliberate on making a change.
We don’t just show up like this. It takes years, actually, generations to cultivate our unique – yet relatable – set of issues. So, you have a lot to work through. Also, it’s typical that many in your inner circle keep you doubting that change isn’t a ludicrous ungrateful idea. Because, if you actually do things differently, that may leave them with some cognitive dissonance to embrace or shove to the side.
And yet, the thought lingers in the back of your mind. This doesn’t make sense. It shouldn’t be this hard. Something isn’t adding up. I need help. Be brave enough to listen to that thought, even if you’re so hell-bent on listening to the other 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts you have on the daily, where 80% of them are negative.
Yes, change is hard and it’s scary because you don’t know what’s on the other side. But, you gotta ask yourself, are you willing and choosing to spend the rest of your 20,000 days of your life multiplied by the 60,000 daily thoughts reliving the stings of emotional papercuts?
If you are struggling with Perfectionism? If so, make sure you join us over on Facebook in the Pie Group by clicking the link below.