So, I bought the last existing copy in three counties of The Secret on CD at one of the many Wal-mart’s I visit in my travels…….I had quite an argument with myself over whether to buy it. The current tool I’m using to cut back on my spending is the question, “Do I need it?” I’m in the car for fifty percent of my day and have a good selection of stuff to listen to. I should never be bored but I do get tired of the ’same old, same old.’ I justified this purchase as being part of the research for my book. I’m glad that I did buy it. I have a lot of issues with the movie and Rhonda Byrne is not exactly one of my heroines, but had I known that the audio was so superior I would have skipped the movie altogether. Without all of the visual hype, the book on audio is not as “fluffy” and “magical” and has a plethora of good thoughts to reflect upon. It could have been recorded on two CD’s instead of four, but that’s another discussion of how Rhonda Byrne chose to make her money.
As a social worker who has been through her own share of challenges, I have often been frustrated by clients who seemingly refuse to change. I frequently caught myself judging them by comparing what each of us had been through and wonder why I was able to do it when they either couldn’t or wouldn’t.
I’ll have to get back to you with a chapter reference – one little “paragraph” holds the key. People do not change their behaviors and beliefs when “it is all they’ve ever known.” This makes sense in so many ways. Those who grow up in certain socio-economic classes and have seen few, if any, get out successfully are going to have a very difficult time believing that there is anything better for them. It is more comfortable to coast along in the land of “all I’ve ever known.”
One of the more frustrating discussions I had with my late husband, who lived with cystic fibrosis, was his downright refusal to have hope. I suppose that this piece of the audio shouted above all the rest because it jogged my memories of him saying, “It’s all I’ve ever known.” While living with the illness was challenging, difficult and often downright inconvenient, it had his perks and he would brag about them. For instance, it got him out of ever having to work and he found ways to have whatever he wanted despite not having an income. He was a genius with finance companies, robbing Peter to pay Paul and having an excellent credit rating all the while. Mom and Dad were always there to make sure that he didn’t starve or do without utilities and the tiny disability check ensured that he wouldn’t become homeless. He would tell people that the “government paid him to cough” and his mother often bought t-shirts and other items with funny quotes about being lazy and not having a job.
He admitted to me that if he didn’t hope for healing, he could never be disappointed.
Wow.
Hearing this one small statement really pulled it all together for me. It explains everything from fear of success to why we choose to stay sick. Oh, we may not think that we choose to stay sick and I’d be the first to argue the point – but when it’s presented this way even I have no choice but to agree.
If I’m 100 percent healthy, if I have all the resources I need, if there are no challenges and nothing in my way, then I might have to move out of my comfort zone and extend myself – in other words, I might have to work – but the piece that our stuck in the comfort zone minds miss is that when we’re doing what we dream of doing it doesn’t feel like work – and this is how we set ourselves up to fail.
We will not change until the “comfort zone” becomes the “discomfort zone,” when the incongruence of what we say we want and what we’re settling for becomes uncomfortable enough to venture into the unknown. For me, I believe that this evolved over a long period of time and included making several aborted attempts that sent me running back into that safe zone before I was able to decide that it was neither safe nor comfortable or even easier. It would be very easy to blame fibromyalgia, my age, my history for everything I’m not doing, but the bottom line is that whether I have fibro or not, no one else is going to create my life, my health or my happiness for me. I am the only one who can do that. The question is not whether I can but whether I’m willing to take that responsibility and act on it.
Which zone will you choose today?
