Many years ago, I learned a key lesson of life: Nothing will happen until I take the first step. I must show up and report for duty. Utilizing Grace’s path carries a similar command: Follow it. What I may think or feel has no direct bearing when confronting my Self. Progress is strictly based on what I do. That reformulated approach required the creation of a new roadmap, one without Self-imposed detours. Through my willingness to face each challenge as presented, I could secure the necessary keys to open each locked door before me.
Overcoming My Resistance to Change
How does one acquire such willingness? That quality has never come easily due to my Self’s grandiosity, convincing me that it knew better. Only when forced to my knees was I able to confront my Self’s willfulness. In other words, for this hardhead to become teachable, I first had to be whipped to the point of exhausted submission.
Human hardship offers me fertile ground for cultivating personal growth, especially when reaching for a deeper understanding of my spiritual truth. I am admittedly at my most teachable when stripped down to an emotionally raw state. But is personal hardship really a necessary ingredient? My challenge going forward required me to receive needed change as a matter of choice. Learning my lessons ahead of time rather than only after disaster strikes required facing up to what my Self resisted most: the prospect of change.
Change is life’s unavoidable constant. Our existence by its very nature, remains inherently disruptive, yet I have resisted incoming change with all my might. In fact, I am most tightly held within my Self’s thrall when facing necessary adjustments, viewing any suggestion of change as a mortal threat, one that must be stonewalled regardless of personal cost. What is the psychological basis for that resistance? Fear. I’ve found that my resistance to change occurs one of two ways:
- I am afraid something is about to leave my life I don’t want to lose; or
- I am frightened about something entering my life that I want to avoid.
In the Series Preview, I described the succession of challenges I faced between 2009–2014. That cascade of crises kept me trapped in a kind of agony I would wish on no one. Traversing those gauntlets forced me to face inescapable change.
Truth: change is inevitable. What distinguishes a healthy me from my Self’s pathologies is my ability to view such trials through Grace’s prism. I always have a choice about how I receive change. Will I struggle, allowing my Self to toss me against life’s tumbling waves? Or will I rise above its churn by riding that wave out until it exhausts itself on a quiet beach?
Willingness begins with getting up off the canvas no matter how badly life has beaten me down. I saw that kind of willingness perfectly illustrated in the movie, Rocky, a film that beautifully articulates what the struggle to express willingness looks like. Rocky’s appeal, in my opinion, was entirely due to how successfully the movie’s audience identified with its main character.
His was the story of an underdog boxer who despite limited personal strengths became willing to fight Apollo Creed, the world champion. This fighter’s success would not be defined through winning but by going the distance against a superior opponent. Rocky’s allegorical power was not a David beating a Goliath, but instead a tale of how one can courageously overcome limitation.
I felt hooked by how courageously Rocky struggled to remain standing in the face of viciously punishing blows. It reminded a loser like me that even the most marginal among us can rise to the occasion. Rocky exhibited an unceasing effort to pick himself back up before being counted out.
Rocky’s story of personal redemption bore witness to my own potential to overcome human constraint. I cannot imagine a viewer reaching the end of this film without feeling such hope. Each of us appreciates the reassurance that despite life’s stacked odds, we can still find internal victory.
My personal fight to find Grace feels no different from Rocky’s. For me, becoming teachable begins with the willingness to get up off life’s canvas and start moving again. Remaining splayed out allows my Self’s referee to count me out. Unless and until I get back on my feet and start swinging again, staying in place is akin to dying.
My personal salvation is predicated on movement. I can no longer afford to stand in place. Thanks to finding the willingness to become teachable, I crossed an important threshold. I could finally move forward on a path of relentless Self-examination. That meant embracing change rather than resisting it. I cannot allow my Self’s thoughts or resulting feelings to block much-needed progress. The only way to win life’s fight is to keep swinging until the bell sounds.
Taking Responsibility
Who owns my life? The obvious answer is that I do. Yet how often have my thoughts and behavior failed to reflect such ownership? After finally recognizing that my Self has played the dominant role in running my life, the next step required assuming full responsibility for my plight. I’ve literally spent decades sitting across the room from various therapists arguing this very point. One by one, each therapist would carefully attempt to help me acknowledge my role in whatever trauma I moaned about. Yet almost every time my response would begin, “Yeah, but…” It was the other guy’s fault, not mine. Always.
My evolving understanding of codependency over the years helped me grasp just how easily and often my Self has prevented me from assuming such responsibility. Because codependents derive primary satisfaction through meeting other peoples’ needs, I derived pathological fulfillment through pleasing others. “When you are happy, I am happy,” was my mantra. What raging codependents cannot see or admit to is the secret pay-off we seek from all that effort. The formula’s dysfunctional design works as follows: “If I love you in the way I want to be loved, you will love me back that same way.”
The problem, of course, is that such an approach rarely achieves the desired results. Instead, I am left with emotional disappointment and often, a bitterness that runs deep. In fact, the narrative thereafter can easily become one of casting shame. “After all I have given, this is how you treat me?!” I’d concluded that such perceived failure to match my outpouring of loving effort verified their limitations, their inadequacy. Such songs of blame reflected my Self’s codependent theme: No one will ever love me as I deserve to be loved.
Imagine how it must feel being on the receiving end of such twisted sentiments. Is it my audience’s fault they have failed to applaud to my Self’s satisfaction? Or does the responsibility instead lie with me, the guy dancing around onstage sending out air kisses? Unless and until I corrected such a senseless dynamic, my show’s ticket sales would keep falling. I had to look honestly at my Self and call this spade a spade. That included seeing my codependent manipulations for what they were: bad acting. No wonder my Self-centered performances kept generating so many boos and catcalls. Until I took full ownership for such codependent failure, escape from my resulting desolation would remain unreachable.
I should mention a fraternity of ownership resistance to which I belong as a card-carrying member. This neurotic band of codependents has a rather artful way of dodging personal responsibility. “I always take personal ownership since nobody beats me up as much as I do.” Given how many times I’ve sung that tune, I can easily deconstruct its music.
A vast gulf exists between taking responsibility for my actions versus Self-condemnation based on personal demonization. Through such a reaction, I unwittingly play right into my Self’s strategy of ownership avoidance. I am and will always be my Self’s favorite target. Beating up on Mater does not mean I have taken responsibility but identifies my Self’s effort to deflect its shame onto me. Rather than the healthy shame that flows from my conscience to prevent the repeat of a bad act, my Self’s version of shame paints me as utterly worthless.
Why would my grandiose Self need to make me the bad guy? Doing so allows external commentary or complaint to be easily dismissed. My Self hates the real me and won’t hesitate to inflict undeserved punishment. Its shaming results in endless self-flagellation, if only to make its point. No one’s whip leaves as deep a welt as my Self inflicts on me. My sick version of taking ownership illustrated the intensity of Self-punishment I felt compelled to apply. I could then take the attitude: “There’s no need for you to point out the problem since I’ve already suffered plenty of Self-applied scorn for my misdeed.”
As a result, no problem gets solved. Nothing really changes. By ignoring external input, I remain chained to my Self’s wrong-headed need to make me the culprit. History then repeats itself. Regardless of where responsibility lies, I remain my Self’s fall guy with the inevitable result of Self-banishment. Like a leper, I must be quarantined.
Thankfully, I’ve learned to avoid such a miserable state of Self-isolation by reframing my responsibility as exclusively solution focused. Rather than fixating on the problem, Grace’s response is to look for ways to untangle life’s latest knot. Turning the key of ownership has very little to do with taking the blame. The process is instead one of regaining control of my vehicle. I cannot adjust my life’s direction until I have migrated my thought from Self-loathing to conscientious awareness. Grace’s version of responsibility delivers constructive choices, allowing me to find my way.
As it turns out, I am a pretty good guy despite my Self’s best efforts to define me as bad. Fortunately, that devil on my left shoulder no longer has much to say. I now own my life and love every inch of who I am, the real me. Achieving that state of Grace required meeting my spirit, face to face, then setting it free.