Get Back Up: Loving the Burned Down HouseThere is no more addictive habit than smoking. Smoking tobacco, smoking pot, smoking memories – once you get started on smoking, it is amongst the hardest bonds to break in the known universe. And the funny part is: Everyone knows it’s bad for you. And not just kind of bad like, “man, I really should be wearing clean socks.” No no, eventually and inexorably going to kill you bad. Not only will it kill you in the ethereal tomorrow, it steals your health today. You can’t breathe, you smell bad and you even hurt anyone who happens to be around you. There are no ifs, ands or buts about it – smoking is a terrible habit. But billions of us do it every day. Why? Simple – Because we’ve done it before. When things burn, smoke comes out. Those in the presence of the burning have no choice concerning the presence of smoke – they can choose to inhale or not, but the very presence of smoke is not up to them. After enough time of being around smoke, whether it be cigarettes or for our purposes, a metaphorically burned down house – just about everyone chooses to inhale. Hey, it’s there, other people do it, what have you got to lose? It’s natural. A relationship is a house. It can give birth to an actual house, sure, but in its essence, a substantive relationship is a fixed arrangement of emotions and behavior in which the participants operate their daily lives. When a relationship burns down, a lot of us start smoking. Figuratively and actually, many of us will sit in the fumes of a burning or burned down thing, sucking on what was in order to stop what is. Of course, the problem with smoking as a coping mechanism is twofold – number 1, whenever you are actively engaging in the habit of suppressing emotions by way of a physical external practice, you are setting yourself up for a severe fall later. Those emotions don’t just disappear. They fester underneath all of that smoke. And they will begin to control your life without you even acknowledging their continued existence. Number 2, five years later when this burned down house is another photo in the scrap book, you’ll still be smoking. You will either be physically smoking or continuing to live your life in the delusionary practice of re-creating feelings through selective memory. Either way, you’ll be actively killing yourself. So… how do you stop? Read Part 2 of Get Back Up for an answer. |
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