Rage is a powerful thing. So is shame. Little things pile up over time, snowballing into something out of control. And out of context. Small successes build upon each other into a progressive series of accomplishments but small failures, real or perceived, cascade over into a mess of doubt and worry.
Truth is largely irrelevant. It is perception of something or fear that something might be true that usually defines what matters, what has weight. And standing inside of something warps perception a great deal, making it truly difficult to see the forest for the trees. As such, we are often the worst purveyors of our own truth. Self-perception is too often skewed by where we stand, and then filtered through deep-seated doubts, fears, pride, long forgotten emotions, and often dimly remembered experiences.
How do you go about changing such an intricately layered tapestry woven of such warped and unreliable threads? Deeply ingrained habits. Imperceptible foundations of behaviors. Partially buried memories. Barely untangled knots of old emotions. It is a slow and very non-linear process. Progress, if it can be called that, can be misunderstood, slow, and even invisible. Again, it can be so hard to see movement and context standing on the inside.
"Don't let perfection be the enemy of progress." Advice I've never been good at. Perfectionism was an essential part of my success, and pride, when younger... but an equally essential feeder of shame when older as perceived failures and embarrassment and roads no taken slowly accumulated like an armor of self-inflicted shackles.
Where to go from here? Sorting through the mess of random thoughts and scraps of memories for some semblance of a throughline. An attempt at finding some sort of bigger picture and pick at emotional scabs along the way. A single realization in once place. A simple acknowledgement in another. A snapshot better understood in hindsight. Slowly piecing together a mosaic of disparate things in an attempt to build a new sense of identity out of the broken stained-glass shards of the previous one.
All the small things will hopefully grow to something bigger and more coherent over time.
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