One path

I was dialoguing with a friend last night and I had reached an understanding about a belief I was holding on to… “That being content, happy, is a static position and contributes to a lack of ambition.” I have been working at this for sometime and now I can see it as something I can change. Holding this belief up to my past I can see that it is false…moments of my greatest growth and achievement were born from self acceptance…especially the last two months are enough to debunk it. I have never felt more content or at peace with myself…happy…and I am motivated and accomplishing more now than I have for years. I am hungry again.
I have held the belief that contentment is static my entire life…I projected this belief on to all that I did from a place of discontentment. I have judged contentment as negative though I have never truly achieved it with any kind of consistency…a defensive measure I suppose to discredit that which I fail to attain. Who does not want to be content and happy? I simply did not know the path and therefore had to tear it down as something undesirable or unproductive. I can take this model and apply it to other beliefs I hold to help me remove or replace the ones that stand in the way of my happiness.
My conversation with my friend shifted from this topic to that of my inability to effectively communicate with my wife. As we delved into this I felt the resistance on my part to go there…I literally felt my self pulling back. I did not want to dim the high I was feeling from the revelation I had just made…not realizing how connected they were. Thankfully my friend nudged me forward.
I have written about my wife and I putting our relationship on hold…how it has saved us…I truly believe that but it has taken its toll. We have not had the time to invest in developing our communication skills with each other. We were on our way to doing this in the course of our marriage but when Griffen was born the obstacles we faced as a family took more and more of our time and energy and it seemed like a luxury that we could not afford.
I have guilt about this because it interferes with our ability to help our son. Guilt because I have not figured out how to reach her on a deeper level…to bypass the B.S. and communicate without judging and fear…without misunderstanding…. I have anger towards her for not figuring it out on her end. The mind set goes if we would have gotten it together… to break through any walls that still existed then our son would have been closer to recovery.
But this just supports the reason to drop the belief I spoke of….guilt and resentment is doing what I thought contentment and happiness would bring --- inaction. Have I truly tried to reach out to my wife or have I avoided it? Clearly I have avoided it and in doing this I have allowed my lack of understanding of her to breed bitterness thus stifling our ability to communicate on a truly meaningful level. Guilt is not a motivator
How can I change the dynamic of our relationship? --- I can strive to understand how she communicates…to learn from and appreciate it. I can shift my perspective of it as flawed in someway because it does not mesh with how I communicate. I can strive to fully understand myself and how I communicate. From that point of view a greater depth of understanding can be reached. I know there is a way to connect our two approaches…to recognize the strengths in each other….from that place we could find a way to join out of mutual respect. We have become defensive when we delve into deeper subjects…we fail to see what brought us together in the first place and what keeps us together…we focus on what separates us and that is keeping us apart.
I was telling my friend that allowing oneself to be vulnerable is a strength. I said it with conviction because I believe it. Opening yourself up leads to growth and understanding and only builds strength…it’s NOT allowing yourself to be victimized. I believe this yet I realize that I have been reluctant to be vulnerable with a woman I have shared my life with for over 12 years….someone I have experienced so much growth and sorrow. Somewhere we took separate paths though I never realized it because we have always been insight of each other. I don’t want to continue that way. We can move forward…side by side and not have to give up our individual identities. The family bond we share now will only get stronger…contentment and happiness will be a constant. Yea… that sounds like a place I want to be.