Cycles

I wrote the other day about owning your own shit and only allowing what you can control to affect you.  The ability to let it go when you can't do anything about it.  It's tough and many times it is only attainable when you practice daily, or even moment to moment.  It took a year for me to learn it, after being reminded week after week.  It's not easy to master and very easy to forget.  But once you are able to do it, successfully, it's like riding a bike.  After a little work, it comes more easily.  Some people said it made a whole lot of sense to them- I hope it helps.

I figured that I'd share another lesson that I learned.  It was about cycles.  How many people live their lives in circles?  I'm betting everyone of us do to a certain degree.  I know I do- work, home, son, bills, gamebox. wash, rinse, repeat.  Not necessarily in that order, but you get the picture.  There is not much change there unless I make it happen.  It's very easy to get into a routine.  Routine is comfort.  Routine is also very boring after a while.  I make myself change things up- go to watch my buddy's play on stage, etc.  Otherwise I'll lose my damn mind.  One of the paths for me is to work on the motorcycle, and eventually ride the SOB.  I like to find new stuff for the boy and I.  We're getting into jiu-jitsu and some art classes.  Then we're going on tour to fight while drawing with pastels.  :D  It's different!  It keeps life fresh.  Break the cycle!  Your significant other will love you for it.

There is another cycle, one that is tougher to talk about.  It's the cycle of abuse, the cycle of pain.  How many times in the past have you fought with your gf/bf/hubby/wife and somebody got screaming mad and someone slept somewhere else?  How many couples do you know that are together and miserable, but as soon as they break up and somebody's shit is in the street, they are back together?  They are back and forth, as often as windshield wipers?  And you say, "Why?  You make each other miserable!  He hits!  She screams!  They are better off apart!"  We all know them, know of them, or we are them. 

It's easy to get in a comfortable routine here as well.  You know how that person likes their coffee in the morning. You have kids together, you have history, you're not afraid to be naked around them and the comfort is amazing.  Except when there is no comfort, only hurt and screaming and hitting and general war in the house.  This is another cylce that has to be arrested.  This one has to be broken.  You have to realize that even though make-up sex is amazing, it doesn't fix the root cause of the problem.  Something is going to set someone off and war breaks out again.  So many people go back to the person that abuses them out of fear of change.  Breaking your cycle is scary.  You have to be alone, you have to change, you have to find a new routine.  Most of all, you have to get comfortable being naked around someone new.  :D 

Breaking the abuse cycle is not always a relationship ending situation.  Sometimes a couple can come through the change even stronger than before.  With both parties commited to change and owning their own shit, it can work like a champ.  A lot of backsliding will take place and forgiveness has to be handed out freely.  Breaking cycles and owning your own shit is tough when you are alone, but it is doubly tough when you are both working at it together.  The past has to be just that, the past.  It can't be used as a sledge to try and beat someone into your ideal image of a partner.  You have to let it go and keep stepping together.  This is where so many, like myself, fail.  But you have to keep trying, alone or together.  Don't allow comfort and routine keep you in a cycle of pain.  You'll regret every moment spent in that cage.

Those cycles of pain have to be broken.  They can come from work, love, your commute, anything that causes you grief.  In a perfect world, harmony would be attainable, but I think a person would need to win the lottery twice to obtain the resources to do it.  So you do what you can, you make changes where you can, you take a few risks and you'll end up happier.

Break the cycles.

Ain't nothin' to a G.