Getting Into the Solution

        It is always so tempting to look outside myself for the comfort, stability and joy that I want in my life.  I have learned however that those things are inside jobs; meaning that they have to come from inside of me.  Now, that is not to say that I can’t enjoy things that come from outside my own cranium, far from it.  What it does mean is that I cannot depend on things outside of me to make me happy.  If I am always seeking outside of myself to make me content, then in the end I will always be disappointed. 

        It has taken me years to come to even begin to understand this concept.  I believe it is fairly normal that we tend toward looking outside ourselves for things to make us happy, comfortable, and to solve our problems.  If you think about it we are almost geared towards it from infancy.  We are tickled and played with as infants, we cry and we are brought food, a toy, a diaper change, put down for a nap or whatever we need.  We are shown that our needs will be provided for from outside of ourselves and that things outside of ourselves will make us happy when we feel sad, upset, angry, hungry, lonely, tired, etc.  There really is no way around that as we are helpless infants.

         So it doesn’t seem odd that we continue that same paradigm as adolescents and often into adulthood.  We live in societies which bolster it.  Kids are given more things today than I think most of my generation can have imagined having as kids.  Many spiritual and religious practices also re-enforce seeking outside ourselves for answers to issues also.  For ill or good we seem surrounded by things that encourage us to seek solace beyond our own skin and consciousness. 

        This is true of the issue that I face with my wild brain.  I don’t know that I really thought of it in those terms until recently.  This is true because the overwhelming anxiety that I face within my own skull.  It feels like if I am the source of the problems then the fix must come from outside of me right?  My brain turns against me on a daily basis so there is no way that the answer can be in that mess right? 

        The solution still has to come from inside of me because I am the one who has to do the work.  That doesn’t mean that I can’t have help from outside of myself.  The desire to change has to originate with me.  No one can alter the essence of who I am from the exterior in.  It has to be an inside job.  That was an extremely difficult and costly lesson for me to learn.  Damned if I still don’t struggle with it on occasion!