Subconcious

There comes a time in your life when you realize everything - and I mean everything - you’ve ever experienced will at some point parallel someone else life … and that they’ll need your guidance to navigate the waters. For some of us, that’s easy. A simple pep talk, a few harsh words. And then there are some of us who don’t like the sound of reality so much that we’ve learned the art of not listening, because we’ve learned to tune out any of the voices outside our own.

Let this be a voice instead, that is inside. Words you read, become your own. You have to think them, and therefore own them in a sense. I hope and pray that this ownership comes to whom its due.

The subconscious mind is a subtle thing. Don’t laugh now at such an obvious statement. Its not always that obvious - because sometimes we can make an assumption about our perception of our subconscious mind. We RATIONALIZE that which we want to be truth. Sadly, rationalization isn’t the same as intention, and nor does it equal truth.

I want to tell you a story. You can determine for yourself if its true.

**

Years ago, there was a girl. She had everything you’d assume one could want. A house, beautiful kids, a husband that loved her dearly. She also had a heart and soul that raged like a wild stallion stuffed inside a horse trailer with far too many companions.

As one does when there is a part that’s unsettled, she tried to hold it in. Of course, that wasn’t possible. Holding in such a fury and storm is like trying to capture the power of a hurricane to use as your own personal vacuum cleaner. The pain of it starts to strangle you and that soul inside begins to die slowly. And we all fight death. And its about how we choose to fight death that determines whether or not we actually live.

She stood in the middle of everything she had, and wistfully dreamed of what could be, and what could have been. She thought about those in her past, and those who were potential. She talked to her friends about her thoughts - her single, free friends. Not once did she mention this to someone at church, not once to anyone who was married. She wanted only the ones who knew the taste of freedom and could convince her that it was best to be the ones to whom she spoke.

If you asked her though, she wanted to stay in her marriage, stay with her children, stay with her life - just with a little bit of fun time on the side. Oh, the subconscious.

In the end, we all get what we set out to find. Even if it is different from what we thought we sought. After all, who would want to give up that wonderful life? Even if it was boring, drab, routine and totally making her crazy.

As it turned out, those fun single friends did convince her. They showed her how much fun they had. They helped her overlook the obvious fact that she had children and they didn’t. They made everything seem easy, they spoke with authority on things to which they were ignorant and naïve. And she believed them… because she wanted to.

Before she knew it, she was making excuses. Girls night out, night over at a girlfriends house, oh, just going out to sing a song, be home soon. Oh, it’s a weekend birthday party at so and so’s house, I’ll be home before you know it. 8pm returns became 12. 12s became 2. 2 o’clock returns started to seep into the next day after work.

Until one day, she came home to nothing but a lamp on the floor. And nothing else. Her children, they were gone. Her husband was gone. All that he had left her was her clothes, and a single, solitary lamp. She had gotten what she wanted - freedom to run like the wild stallion that she felt she was. She crumpled to the floor unable to move. She had lost everything she actually wanted and instead now held before her the emptiness that freedom meant.

**

There is more to this story, but what happens next is unimportant. Its insignificant compared to the lack of decision, to the lack of direction she allowed herself to have. I know someone who is flirting with this fate, and she is flirting fast. She doesn’t even believe that she is, just as this girl above didn’t.

But this girl above, she pushed for it. We all can see where she would have driven her husband to take the family from her - she was destructive to everything a family needed most. Sometimes our pushing comes a little lighter. Hidden things here, secrets there, putting our own wants and needs in front of our spouses or families. These little things, well, they’re not so little, not in a marriage.

I hope that this message finds its way home, and that there can be another way found … change that stallion to a bird - give her wings. Let her fly a little, but teach her how to fly safely, how to harness that wild untamed power and need into something that doesn’t flirt with disaster. Because if disaster flirts back, its too late.