A Fine Line

“Awaken my friend. Open your eyes, your heart and your mind. Remove the masks of denial. Stop running from the reality of your life and your life’s choices. Be accountable and take responsibility for your actions or lack of action. It is good to feel. Feel the parts of you open up that have been closed off for so long, for those are the parts that have denied you a full and completeness in your life. You can be whole again if you are willing to grow and heal and make amends. In order to do that you must be courageous to fight the innermost demons that have dragged you down the dark rabbit hole.  You have to figure out how you got to the desolate place in which you stand right now and decide if you are going to take the most important leap into your self-discovery or keep digging deeper into the pits of your own demise.” ~Christina Sylvester

The above paragraph is an excerpt of a book that I am working on. The words appeared to me one day out of the blue and I quickly jotted them down, knowing that the only way my book will get completed is one paragraph at a time. Every so often I have a moment in which my fingers type faster than my thoughts and it is somewhat of a writers “out of body” experience. This was one of those times. 

It dawned on me later as I re-read this paragraph back to myself, that it correlated with my previous blog about the stages of grief and the steps to healing. After that blog, I heard from an old friend and we discussed those stages and how we go through them but find ourselves going back to one of them and feeling “stuck”.

Well, YES, I often feel that I get stuck on the “hamster wheel”. Thinking I am making such strides only to find myself in the same starting position. That is when I need to stop and take a breathe and realize that I need to make a change in how I am reacting to the situation and make an adjustment in my thinking and how I am choosing to deal with it. A total perspective changer!

I recently had to realize that sometimes, as strong as I think I am, there are times when I just can’t pull someone I am trying to help out of the “rabbit hole”.  I work so hard at caring, sometimes too much and to a fault, that I lose a piece of myself. Ultimately it is up to that person to choose to grab onto the escape rope and it is their job to dig their shoes into the dirt and start the climb. I have realized that if you reach your hand too far out and too many times to someone that is digging a deeper hole, they will eventually pull you into that bottomless pit.  Ultimately damage is brought on both people. You have enabled that person to continuing in their self-destructive ways and thought patterns and now you have to rebuild in yourself what was torn apart and bruised during the accelerated fall into the pit when they tugged a bit harder than you could pull. 

Remember the saying, choose your friends wisely?  We try and teach our children to surround themselves with people who are better than them, so that they are lifted up and are encouraged to succeed in all aspects of life. If they surround themselves with bad people, they will be more likely to be dragged down before they have a chance to impact others positively.  Just as we say, “you are what you eat”, we are likely to become like those we choose to hang around with. Just as our parents didn’t want us to fall into the “wrong crowd”, we must remember that as adults we must still keep this in check.  I am NOT saying that we are not to try and lift up those that need us to help them or that we should stop trying to make a positive impact on those going through a hard time, or stop helping those less fortunate then ourselves. That is part of being humane and ultimately builds our capacity for love, acceptance and creates positivity in the lives of others…good works, so to speak.  What I AM saying is that we need to constantly strive for self-improvement and growth and realize that this is a process that will last until our last breathe. We are always growing and changing but it is up to us to make that forward progression and take the lessons that life gives us as an opportunity to get better. I have also come to the realization that some choose not to live a progressive life. They are just not capable even if all the tools they need are right in front of them!

We must also remember the fine line with helping others and may be allowing those that will take advantage and undermine progress in. We can get so caught up in trying to do “good” and help that we don’t even begin to realize that we are amongst an emotional vampire. This person will drag you so far into their dark labyrinth that before you realize you have had the joy sucked out of you, you have been completely drained.  These people are takers. They take without feeling the need to reciprocate. Joy suckers. Negativity charged peeps.  Stay away from the negative, the stressors, the drainers and the complacent.  Choose to hang out with the dreamers, the ambitious, the achievers, the goal oriented, the ground breakers, the artists, the believers, the genuine and the encouraging. Stay with the people that lift you up, are supportive, that speak truth and have a positive impact on your life.

Continue the “good work”, but always remember that you need to know when to take a step back for your own self-preservation and release the “helping hand”. Other times, know when to run, shut the door and never look back. No one is worth losing your self-respect, dignity, self-confidence and especially your mind over!  It is a very fine line to walk!

Just Sayin’

Christina