Stress re-enforces habit big time. I daresay some people are so accustomed to their stress habits they forget they are stressed.
As in a twitch, or as in running away? The whole spectrum, facial tick, running away, uncontrolled rage, self-harm, and that is not a rare habit really. For every virtuous behaviour we have been taught, we were also imparted a vice, and the love and light types don’t offer all the support they claim they do.
In stress I can go very prolonged periods of not talking. I not talk a lot. It can get you into further trouble. I get quiet too, and very, very focused. I always tell people if I’m talking to you, we’re fine. I guess because I’m so used to crisis, I have acquired skills that surface only in a crisis state.
At work I did a personality profile test. They showed how you switch when under stress. Ah, that is exactly right. Calm you and distressed you are not necessarily the same person.
They talk on the phone from time to time though. They do. They usually are not actually cut off, and if they become cut off you have a budding case of multiple personality disorder.
I am either knee jerk, or ice cold, depending on situation. It‘s not always choice. No, it is habit, and in distress you are at your most abandoned, but we are all still responsible. This is part of why I sometimes appear critical of the love and light types. They seem to espouse that devotion to their principles and eschewing any knowledge of the darkness is enough. If you had never seen a car and then were forced to utilize it, how would it go?
Wild ride and with potential death at the end. Some people live like that. Their life is a wild ride with potential death to end it, and they are told “Ignore that force in your life. It’s just bad.” Who benefits from this? I am not espousing nihilism, or any form of morbidity, but if anything quite the opposite. The love and light only focus seems to be those who foster an ennui at best, and burn out with heightened despair later.
I’m just frustrated with this nail-biting. It’s been with me since I was a very young child, and it’s always something I’ve been ashamed of, plus the impracticality of the pain. Nail biting is a sublimation. When you are in the nail biting cycle, there is actually another behaviour that you want and originally wanted to do. Can you say what that is?
Everything around me is confirmation I am wrong, regardless of the love and light in it. Yes. I experience something similar, and well, the horrible truth is it’s right. You are wrong, but you haven’t failed. But you may mistake what you are wrong about.
I’ve been tricked, trapped, betrayed, denied, abandoned, and carry around a critic for not being ok about all this. Yes, ok. Usually when you are in this state, the nasty surprise is that what keeps you here is your effort to do right. All of those adaptive efforts and compromises you do, and trying to be the “bigger person.” There is a way to be the bigger person, and not lop off your shadow. Sometimes when things go wrong they need to be allowed to go wrong, and sometimes when you would “do wrong” you are doing right because the circumstances are all wrong. Sometimes the fruit should just be allowed to rot. Even that is a part of the cycle.
Many have experienced wrong, and do know cruelty. But there is another side to this. I’m not actually going to offer an escape hatch. Reality is what it is, and has taught me some things. We often stick with the devil we know so to speak, because we fear acts of destruction. We tell ourselves it’s better to have something than nothing. This is not true. Whatever your personal spirituality is, there is a reality behind these false constructs we live in. Well… let’s say I live with it every day, and it makes me distrust even the most wonderful things. Reality is frail. Humanity is frail, inconsistent, weak, selfish, and stupid. We exist not because of ourselves, but despite ourselves. There is a “life” beyond this life we learn, and I am not talking about death or suicide.
We get very concerned with doing good. I suspect if you took a hard look not at your actions, but at the circumstances around them, it’s a whole other story. Sometimes you must destroy things and situations. Sometimes the fruit does have to be let to rot. Maybe it would be the first act of not wasting time you have done in a long time. But in your view, did I offer you an escape hatch?
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~