Last post, I talked about the power of bad influences and how so many of us are completely unaware of what our own bad influences are...or have been in the past. As I have said many times in therapy, if you hold a live frog over a boiling pot of water, it doesn't exactly react as if it is ready to jump right in there. It recoils, it wriggles, and it fights to stay out of the pot. YET...if you hold a live frog over a pot of cool and undisturbed water, it'll jump right in. Everything is fine until the heat slowly gets turned up to the point when the frog dies without ever realizing what happened to it. THIS is what it is like to flirt with the abyss of "bad influences" in our daily lives. Nobody wants to acknowledge anything or anyone as having some degree of power over them, especially when that "power" is negative in nature. Yet when we jump right in and don't think about that (whatever "it" is that represents our bad influence(s)!)..we will undoubtedly end up dying in some way, shape, or form.
The abyss is like the giant sinkhole that appeared in front of James Franco's house in his "This Is The End" movie. People (even Rhianna!) were just falling in like dominos and nobody could do anything to stop it. Except in our case and in real life, we can stop it. Our problem is that we don't stop it; we keep taking steps down into the abyss for a little while...and then step back up and out of it. We continue this pattern over and over again throughout life. At some point, we step further down into the abyss than we ever have before. Then what feels like suddenly out of nowhere, we have been yanked to the bottom. As if a giant hand has appeared from the depths to grab us around the ankle and pull us down completely. When that happens, we are goners. We are not the same person we thought ourselves to be; we have cooked our own goose.
What constitutes these "abyss" moments in life? Well, for some people, it is a particular person who just happens to come and go with different faces attached. For example, who hasn't heard the infamous, "I don't know what it is, but I've always been attracted to bad boys?" Uh...hello! I know what it is! It's a culmination of all those bad-boy influences that may have started in your crib...in your classroom...or in your neighborhood that you never noticed---and still don't! Listen, I get it. "Bad boys" and/or "bad girls" can be a lot of fun. Yet when it is their hand yanking you deep down into the abyss when they do....how did that relationship with your own version of "the bad boy/girl" work out for you really? This dynamic is very sad because just by it's very nature, you have allowed some other person to influence you more than you influence yourself! Oh by the way, this is at the heart of any malignant and highly codependent relationship I'm just sayin...
Anything in this life that has the power to pull us down and influence negative changes in our life constitute our abyss moments. Remember the first time you had a drink of alcohol? How old were you? Who were you with? Who provided the alcohol? Were you alone? Why did you, on that day or night above all others, choose to drink alcohol as you did? How much do you literally drink now on a weekly basis? How many 5 oz. drinks of wine, how many cans of beer, how many shots, how many mixed drinks? Now for some, these questions sound completely irrelevant or silly to even read. But to the person with a drinking problem, they are crucial to understanding how and when the bad influence(s) associated with drinking came about in the first place---and how they have remained. Just because something is "legal" does NOT mean that it is not a bad influence on you and your life right now and in this very moment.
Recently, I was introduced to "Monster High" dolls. Do you know these dolls? "Be Yourself. Be Unique. Be a Monster." Okay? This off the Mattel website that manufactures these dolls. I mean it's one thing to celebrate one's flaws and embrace them, but I sure could have thought of a thousand other ways to do that without the bad influence attached. Even more disturbing, when a five year old owns several of them and is ALSO Justin Bieber's biggest fan. Or how about the kids who receive "cigarettes" at the Heart Attack Grille" in Las Vegas because, as the owner states, he's just offering what customers want...even when it's obviously bad for all involved.
The seven deadly sins were called that for a reason; there are only so many ways we can "do" and "be" bad as people. Seven deadly sins and four major vices; that's all there is in the bottom of anyone's abyss. Learning to step up and out of the abyss starts by living in the truth rather than in the fiction about yourself and your lifestyle. If you need help with that, give me a call.
Until next post...
The abyss is like the giant sinkhole that appeared in front of James Franco's house in his "This Is The End" movie. People (even Rhianna!) were just falling in like dominos and nobody could do anything to stop it. Except in our case and in real life, we can stop it. Our problem is that we don't stop it; we keep taking steps down into the abyss for a little while...and then step back up and out of it. We continue this pattern over and over again throughout life. At some point, we step further down into the abyss than we ever have before. Then what feels like suddenly out of nowhere, we have been yanked to the bottom. As if a giant hand has appeared from the depths to grab us around the ankle and pull us down completely. When that happens, we are goners. We are not the same person we thought ourselves to be; we have cooked our own goose.
What constitutes these "abyss" moments in life? Well, for some people, it is a particular person who just happens to come and go with different faces attached. For example, who hasn't heard the infamous, "I don't know what it is, but I've always been attracted to bad boys?" Uh...hello! I know what it is! It's a culmination of all those bad-boy influences that may have started in your crib...in your classroom...or in your neighborhood that you never noticed---and still don't! Listen, I get it. "Bad boys" and/or "bad girls" can be a lot of fun. Yet when it is their hand yanking you deep down into the abyss when they do....how did that relationship with your own version of "the bad boy/girl" work out for you really? This dynamic is very sad because just by it's very nature, you have allowed some other person to influence you more than you influence yourself! Oh by the way, this is at the heart of any malignant and highly codependent relationship I'm just sayin...
Anything in this life that has the power to pull us down and influence negative changes in our life constitute our abyss moments. Remember the first time you had a drink of alcohol? How old were you? Who were you with? Who provided the alcohol? Were you alone? Why did you, on that day or night above all others, choose to drink alcohol as you did? How much do you literally drink now on a weekly basis? How many 5 oz. drinks of wine, how many cans of beer, how many shots, how many mixed drinks? Now for some, these questions sound completely irrelevant or silly to even read. But to the person with a drinking problem, they are crucial to understanding how and when the bad influence(s) associated with drinking came about in the first place---and how they have remained. Just because something is "legal" does NOT mean that it is not a bad influence on you and your life right now and in this very moment.
Recently, I was introduced to "Monster High" dolls. Do you know these dolls? "Be Yourself. Be Unique. Be a Monster." Okay? This off the Mattel website that manufactures these dolls. I mean it's one thing to celebrate one's flaws and embrace them, but I sure could have thought of a thousand other ways to do that without the bad influence attached. Even more disturbing, when a five year old owns several of them and is ALSO Justin Bieber's biggest fan. Or how about the kids who receive "cigarettes" at the Heart Attack Grille" in Las Vegas because, as the owner states, he's just offering what customers want...even when it's obviously bad for all involved.
The seven deadly sins were called that for a reason; there are only so many ways we can "do" and "be" bad as people. Seven deadly sins and four major vices; that's all there is in the bottom of anyone's abyss. Learning to step up and out of the abyss starts by living in the truth rather than in the fiction about yourself and your lifestyle. If you need help with that, give me a call.
Until next post...