So what does that story have to do with today's blog post? Plenty. This former neighbor made a habit of her daily outings to buy whatever from wherever in our small downtown. What she bought, who knows? How she went about getting what she wanted was, in fact, well known. Anyone could see it. She was highly predictable when it came to "this" particular habit of hers. Anyone could notice it when paying enough attention. The same is true for all of us. We are, by nature, creatures of habit. Whether the habits we have established for ourselves are more positive than neutral...or more negative than neutral...pursuing a change of habit doesn't "just" happen. In this neighbor's case, unless there was a blizzard or a thunderstorm to stop her...she wasn't stoppable. She was firmly entrenched in her habits of choice and nothing and nobody was going to change that.
As you might have surmised by now, any successful personal change involves a decision, or an intention, to make it happen. Nobody changes for the better by magic. Nobody changes for the better because time keeps marching on. And for certain nobody changes for the better because they are merely "thinking" about it. Thinking about something doesn't count for much. Actions have always spoken louder that both words AND thoughts! With my neighbor, she didn't drive. She didn't ride a bicycle. And she certainly didn't have someone else to pull her around in an adult-sized wagon. Yet her legs worked well enough and that's what she chose to use in transporting herself from Point A to Point B and back every single day. And no, we didn't have Uber back then. Yet we did have taxi cabs; she didn't choose to take a taxi---except perhaps on those days when there was a blizzard outside or a major thunderstorm. Who knows?
Just as change involves a decision to do it and the intention to pursue it on a daily basis, so does our own healing process. Do you really believe that all you have to do is "do" your own life and all those unwelcome memories and other "junk" from your past will eventually merely fade away into nothingness? Think again! There is work to do. Without the desire to find answers to help us understand "What happened to me?", we will continue to live in our own carefully constructed fog oblivion.
Let's look at someone from the past to help us understand this principle. Egon Schiele was born at the end of the 19th century in Austria. His growing up years involved the existence of three sisters, one of which it is suspected he had an incestuous relationship with. That sister married one of Egon's friends. Egon's father was an alcoholic, and died early in his life. When Egon became a ward of his Uncle, that uncle gave Egon the opportunity to attend art school. Egon's paintings and drawings were not exactly G rated. In today's world, he would still be regarded as a sex-addicted pornographer who had a predilication for sexually exploiting minor female girls. He even spent time in jail for that. Except back then, he wasn't glorified for it. Today, he no doubt would be...and still is actually.
Egon's "Portrait of Wally" recently sold for $17 million dollars. That's a whole other story, but "Wally" was one of Egon's first muses and lovers after they met and lived together when she was 17 and Egon was 21 years old. Theirs was a relationship not like Tommy (Lee) and Pam (Anderson)...or Sid and Nancy of Sex Pistols fame. High drama...mutual exploitation...and it all ended in tears. As it turned out, Egon died three days after his wife died (not Wally, someone else) while six months pregnant with their child (Egon was 28 when he passed). Wally died a few years later while serving as a nurse in another country. The only positive change(s) in this sad story is that Wally somehow managed to turn her own terrible life around and walk away from both Egon Schiele and the life they had together for as long as they did.
Had Egon Schiele been born into a different set of circumstances that did not involve sexual abuse, exploitation, and the development of a raging sex addiction and paraphilia involving minor female children....I wonder what he would have focused his painting on instead? Would he have had a different set of outcomes than that which occurred during his own lifetime? No one can say for sure. All I know is that Egon Schiele was obviously a tormented soul; it comes through clearly in the vast majority of his work. $17 million or not, his was a life I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Worse yet, he didn't appear to have any interest in making changes to improve the quality of his own personal life, or the lives of those he initially idealized, then devalued, and then discarded.
If we think, we can change. It's that simple. And when we choose to change...when we intend to change...this is the same moment when our own healing journey begins in real time.
Choose the change. Be the change. Do your work. Otherwise, you won't get better and you won't stay the same. You can only get worse.
Until next post....