Digging Your Heels In

Last night one of the speakers at the US Democratic Party convention quoted Einstein referring to Republican Senator John McCain’s campaign policies as being the same as the present administration’s, creating economic deadlock: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” As insane as that statement sounds, that’s what many of us do because we are afraid of change.

photo credit: Thowra_uk

Making life changes is the most difficult of tasks, we are being asked to die to an old part of ourselves. Change does not come without a lot of kicking and screaming. I remember how I would stall and stall, talking to people about what I want to do until my dear friends would say, “shit, or get off the pot.” When we begin to look at ourselves on the spiritual healing journey, we become aware of our pain and looking deeper, we often see how we are creating the situations that cause our suffering, yet we continue with the same course of action. We’re stuck and yet we refuse to try something different. Do we do this because we are insane, stupid or stubborn? One of my teachers points out that when we “dig our heels in,” it’s because we do not feel safe to make a different choice. We allow fear to cloud our thinking and even though we see that our life is not working and want change, we are not able to move in a different direction. When we come to this impasse it is time for the practice of “loving-kindness,” accepting that we are not feeling safe enough to step into the unknown. For many of us, continuing to be in pain with the familiarity of our situation is more comfortable than stepping off the cliff, which is what we need to do to create a different outcome in our lives.

In practicing loving kindness, we are not trying to cover-up our pain, we recognize our fear, and we are gentle with ourselves. We may need support to create change whether it is outside of ourselves or whether it’s our own permission to step beyond our comfort zone.