I'm Working On Something, But It's Complicated

So I have this thought-idea-concept-revelation-understanding-introspection that has been swirling around in my head for a couple of weeks. A way of being-pattern-of-coping-addiction-to-behavior-and-the-input-that's-received way of being that I know I do and see in others quite often, too.

The idea is that we are addicted to the high of fixing things. 

Not fixing things like getting our car repaired or gluing together a broken vase kind of fixing, though those things can be very satisfying. No, it is not that.

It's the fixing of interactions and relationships.

There is something about that instant when you feel the shift in the air between yourself and another and you know - in that intuitive way that settles in your chest and skin and not just in your mind - that something has gone a bit off path and needs to be resettled back to right again. And with that knowing - for me anyway - is a bit of an adrenaline rush. It is an I-can-do-this-make-it-right kind of rush and then we ramp up in a subtle or a really big way. Maybe just a softer difference in our voice, or a leaning in of our body. Or maybe in more grand gestures of acknowledgement for that other person in phone calls of appreciation or lengthy explanations about ourselves.

And when things are righted and all feels in balance and we think that we are in the clear, our heart settles down again to a more steady rhythm and we breathe a bit more easily even while enjoying still the afterglow of that rush from making things good again.

This happened a lot when I was younger. And I was very aware that I loved the rush of it. The one time that stands out in my mind most was a time when I worked for Macy*s. This was back in the day when Macy*s was the place to be in retail. The Macy*s training program was the best in the country and I was in it. My plan was to be a star in the retail world and this was the beginning. And for one of the training modules that I went through that summer I shadowed the diamond buyer. Yup, that is what I did. I got to play with diamonds for three weeks. And go to vendors and look at precious stones. It was almost as good as being around shoes. 

And one day something happened in the office, a miscommunication with another buyer who shared the same space and I felt it, that shift to misunderstanding and their disconnect and pulling back from me. And I can still remember the slowing down in the air around me as though everyone else was suspending in that moment as the feeling of sitting in the I-have-to-make-this-right-again-and-know-that-I-can-do-it rush filled my head.

And then I was in it.

I honestly don't remember what the incident was and also don't remember what I did to make it be all okay but I can see the office space so clearly in my mind's eye and I can feel, as I write this piece, the churning in my belly as the drug of fixing entered my veins.

And then it all was good again.
​
Actually even better, so I thought, because my ego felt renewed and validated from within myself and from the feedback that I got from the other person in my story. I got that input that I needed. That drug of shining bright in a moment so that this other person likes you and thinks that you are good and sees you with appreciation and wow - how awesome I am because I made it all right.

But here's the thing: if I didn't have the knowing that I could set back right the thing that tipped slightly and almost shattered on the floor, would I have been more careful with it in the first place?

See, this is why this is so complicated.

As we grow up, and not in age though that certainly plays into the growing and knowing of things, but when we grow up in our soul's journey and we begin to see the interplay between our ego's need and our true light that is our self, I am finding that two things happen.

One is that we stop looking so much for input and validation from outside of our self. This, because we realize we don't need it. Our ego does, but we don't. Because that true love of self love is really the only love we seek, and once we love our selves fully, that other, outside of our self, love is no longer needed.

That doesn't mean that other love is not good love, as in the love from our children and partners and friends. But we don't need it anymore. We are enough with the love from our self to our self.

The other thing that happens, as we settle into being enough on our own, is that I think we are more loving in the interplay with others. When we come from a place of love we are able to love more. When we come from a place of compassion for self we are able to see others with compassion. When we accept and understand and value ourselves we are able to see others clearly and accept them as their own selves, too.

So how does this all relate to the rush of the fix?

I have no idea...haha, just kidding...well kind, of.

Our ego is a funky friend who not only seeks outside light to feel illuminated and bright but also tends to sabotage our true self when we are free from those, outside of our selves, sources. And so in those moments where we may be shining brightly in the truest sense of our selves - without an outside agenda or a need for validation from anyone else because we are complete enough and grounded in the goodness and the good enough of our being - our ego finds a way to make it all go a bit off so that we will feed them again with those things that are not aligned with our internal knowing. And the ego does this by clouding the calm and simple with perhaps a momentary complication and a not quite right in an interaction so that we will feed it with that druggy input.

​Like the rush of the fix.

And so this is what I think: I think that there are times, not all the time because often things happen regardless of the role we play, but many times where we would be more mindful of the interaction we are in if we remember that this is our only opportunity to be in it. If we see each moment that we have with another person or situation as the only moment that we have and that we can never replay or rework or remix it, would we be in it differently?

I think that we would. I think that we do. I know that I do.