I cannot tell you how many books I have started and never finished. How many ideas pop into my head but never see the light of day. How many things I begin but just never manage to see through. It’s tough to look in the mirror and face this ne’er finisher. Why is it so hard to give myself the gift of a dream realized?
I am probably a broken record with this thing. Or rather this not doing thing. But it feels like I am on this treasure hunt, trying to find what is it that keeps me from doing the things that I want to do the most.
So I saw a therapist about this not doing thing. I remember walking into her office and thinking, I really need a buddy system with this treasure hunt because sometimes walking the hallways of my mind can be difficult. I get distracted by all the things I find in there. There’s a broken heart in one corner, another dream or goal I didn’t achieve behind the springy couch over in that corner, and on and on and on. It really is not that difficult to get side tracked by all my other troubles. And so, the therapist is my buddy.
Anyway, so I explain to my buddy that I have this not doing thing. And I tell her how I feel often like I am walking through tar. Knee deep. Thick and sludgy. Dark and just hard to move through. (I was particularly impressed by my imagery, by the way).
And then she said that the sludge was me. I was the tar. I was in my own way.
One of the downsides of being low key self-absorbed and neurotic is that I am so intent on finding the big THING that is wrong with me. That one that I will fix and then *poof* all my problems (including nail biting) will disappear. Like the not doing thing, the fixing the big THING is a lie. There is not that one thing that I need to fix because, by virtue of being human, there is really not all that much that is wrong with me. I share many of the same struggles that others do. There’s a little fear, a little laziness, a little procrastination, a bit more fear, and other even more basic human flaws.
Self-sabotage is the lie that builds all these things up into obstacles that I must work and maneuver around. I have to get out of my own way by minimizing this need to create problems where none exist. And I have to be more positive and believing. I have to have enough faith to go from start to finish.