brokenpurplecrayon

just when i think i’m through the most recent episode of ‘personal growth’, i realize, via some quote or story or event, that i’m sitting squarely in the middle of the pot and the water’s just beginning to boil.

Ego as a Room of One’s Own

Ego is like a room of your own, a room with a view with the temperature and the smells and the music that you like. You want it your own way. You’d just like to have a little peace, you’d like to have a little happiness, you know, just “gimme a break.”

But the more you think that way, the more you try to get life to come out so that it will always suit you, the more your fear of other people and what’s outside your room grows. Rather than becoming more relaxed, you start pulling down the shades and locking the door. When you do go out, you find the experience more and more unsettling and disagreeable. You become touchier, more fearful, more irritable than ever. The more you try to get it your way, the less you feel at home.

–Pema Chodron, Start Where You Are

lately, i have been squarely in my ‘room’, futtering about every little detail – straightening blankets, making sure everything is ‘just right’, and firmly shutting the door on everything and everyone else.  if you don’t come in my room and meet me on my terms, then just go away!

and while i realize this is (and i won’t say ‘bad’ here because there are no good or bad states of being – only states of being) … potentially more stressful for me in the long run, in the short term, i’m sort of ok with the fact that i’m in my ‘room’ right now.

i think, on the whole, that i am emotionally exhausted, stressed out, and desperately seeking some sort of isolation and solace from the demands the world has thrust upon me.  not a long break mind you, just a respite.  a moment (or three) to recharge and reconnect with *me*.

i’m tired of worrying how everyone else will respond, react, or deal with … anything.  i want the simple blissful peace of being able to enjoy something without feeling compelled to make sure everyone around me is happy as well.  its not that i want to stop caring, i just want the (perceived?) responsibility off my shoulders for a little while (without it being perceived as selfish).

because this feeling of overwhelmed and tired and done?  it feels a lot like hypersensitivity and defensiveness and irritability.  i’m thinking this ‘ego-room’ thing is a double-edged sword of sorts.  too much or too little is sharp and painful.