Resistance: 1. Analysis

Now that we've broken through Denial only to discover that nothing has changed, except that I know I've been hoping this thing that's bothering me will go away if I ignore it. It's possible at this point to hope for the return to Denial, but it really deserves another name, because once something has a name it's hard to go back to pretending it doesn't exist.

I've come to call it Resistance. And as I said in the last post, it's another way to be stuck, because it is its own type of blindness. Now, even thought I know the thing is there a part of me is keeping me from addressing the situation. Imagine a rather mundane example of this. I go through this with laundry. I don't want to do it. I ignore it, I postpone it, I rationalize it, I put it off as though it will wash itself and put it away. I do this for as long as it takes to get me to decide to do it. And when I get around to doing it there's a process I've discovered I go through. For the sake of our discussion I call it Analysis.

First I start to let myself be aware that there is laundry to do. Then I have to come to the realization that I am the one who needs to do it. I check to see if I'm running out of clothes. Actually, clean underwear. That's the one for me that is the final issue that can push the action button and get me to do it. The problem is that I have lots of underwear and I now have so much of it that I always do the laundry before I run out of underwear.

This situation has actually been a gift because I need another tool for deciding when to do it that's new. This calls for Analysis! You'll say, "Duh!" And I'll acknowledge that as correct as your harsh judgment of me is, it isn't informative or helpful. I need to take a look at the cause of my Resistance. And although it took me a little while to say it out loud, the truth is I want someone else to do it for me. What I really want is for my Mother to do it for me. Just like she did until I went to college.

And even deeper is that I don't want my mother to do my laundry, I want to be taken care of. Someone should love me and as a result do my laundry because she loves me.

I can't tell you how many arguments I had with my ex about her wanting me to know what love looked like to her. I didn't know, because I am a lousy mind reader and she wouldn't tell me because I was supposed to know. But that's an entirely different issue. This issue is just about my parents and me, not about Analysis. But it is a clue to my Resistance.

Now that I am aware of the nature of the Resistance, I get to decide whether I want to be an adult or not. But at this point I now know the nature of the problem I am facing and I get to go to the next step.

Tomorrow.

C'mon back and see where this path goes.