Forcing Outcomes

I tell myself to try again. Once more I enter the loop of history, repetition, habit and numbing. I am often numb when I do for the 100th time, the thing that never worked. I am masterful at forcing outcomes, I think. Because if I look back at the outcome of forcing outcomes, I have created a life I am not proud of, a life I do not stand behind. And I’m curious, how did I once again create the complete opposite of what I said I wanted? Because I always know what I want. My issue is no longer clarity, it’s execution, and in the execution of my life, I am playing in loops of history still. A lifetime of hiding, deceit, no way I could safely be myself. So I created, very intelligently, and identity that was not me. Something that would get me by, under the radar, but never allow me to thrive. I am getting the sneaking suspicion that I will never thrive until I am fully me. And as I await the moment of takeover, I am deeply aware that it is a choice to allow mySelf to takeover the device. To hear my own gentle voice saying, no, stop, move, go, pause, breathe, breathe again, and again. Each breath a sign that you are alive, and you haven’t failed because you’re never finished. Regret and grief fill my body of what could have been, and I know it could not have happened any other way because it led me here, in this moment, back home to mySelf. I can’t tell you how many times I fell to my knees and begged something bigger, no, something better to take over me, and my life. As if I could not possibly do it myself. And of course it never came, because I was always just waiting for mySelf. The takeover is not abrupt, it isn’t loud, it isn’t forceful, and it demands nothing but surrender. For me, the more I have allowed myself to hear my own voice, the more often I do hear it. In moments I am afraid because it tells me not to fight, but I still believe that means they will win. And I am reminded that not every provocation is a predator, and surrender is not failure. Surrender can be self respect, surrender can be safety, surrender can be a redirect into a life I don’t yet know.

And I’m back there, again. The known knowns, the known unknowns, the unknown unknowns of my life. How do I know where surrender will take me? I don’t. It feels like lying back into a river and allowing the current to take me wherever. So I would rather find a map of the river, chart out my journey, decide which places are “safe” to go and which aren’t. I could decide to swim like hell and avoid any areas that look unsafe. But that’s only the map. In reality, the currents of that river on that specific day may depend on many other things. What looked safe on paper may be what drowns me. The danger of the rocky areas may be the only place I can climb and rest for a while. And how would I know that? How could I possibly know that while I hold the map in my hands and make intellectual decisions from a mind that was intentionally molded to see through very specific perceptual filters. That life is inherently dangerous, violence is the way of the world, people can never be trusted, and you are inherently broken. The truth is that it is all unknown. What is “known” is what the mind can pin down, but life is fundamentally organic and in flow, meaning that it can never be known, and what is known is only that which the mind continuously fixes in place, again and again and again. An exhausting pursuit to continuously manufacture a reality that creates a sense of safety for the 4 year old that, if examined for even a moment falls apart and creates massive danger for the 40 year old. Because safety is not in fixing outcomes out there, but hearing that voice in your head that says. I AM here.

As I fix outcomes in my mind, it only allows for the 1 or 2 outcomes that the intellect finds satisfactory from a place of pattern recognition in the past. So I fix outcomes in the future quite literally based on the past. From that fixed outcomes, I work backwards and create the stepping stones that will surely get me there from here. In that moment I have collapsed all potential outcomes of what could be because my nervous system is only seeking the ONE outcome. Imagine my surprise over and over again when all that effort is exerted and I fail to create the outcome. Imagine how powerless, fearful, and inept I feel. This feeds the next loop where I now choose an even smaller outcome, and work my way backwards to create that. And if I fail…..I choose an even smaller outcome. Thinking the outcome will get me to safety I do not even realize that I have willingly suffocated my own life. I have wrapped my hands around its neck and refused to let go. No breath, no life. All because I am afraid of the unknown. I am afraid to say, no more outcomes, just process. I was taught never to look at process, as I believe many of us were. Why? Because I imagine looking at the process would have revealed me to myself. It would have revealed my family system for what it really was. So it makes sense that this world conditions us out of process, because the game being played would become too obvious and people would reject it. We would honor that this life is a miracle, outcomes are an illusion, and each one of us is here to contribute something that is unique and would actually change the world. And I know clearly that I am here to change my world. It’s a matter of mind and perception, it’s what I choose to see and how I choose to see it. Once that has landed, I am quite literally unstoppable. And maybe that’s why I was never taught process. But I know it now, and I know it must be chosen, every single step of the way.