The attempt to escape from pain is what creates more pain.
Gabor Mate
I spend a great deal of time with people that want to change the way they feel, change the way they are living, breathing, and experiencing their world.
It does not feel good to be uncomfortable knowing that there is something that needs to change around you, knowing the only thing you can do is change something in you OR change the perception of how you see it. Quite frankly, most of us would instead point a finger and demand 'the thing outside of us to change than change anything about us.
Today during a session, I remembered how difficult it was for crustaceans to change, and it had me think about the story of the lobster.
As we all know, lobsters have soft and delicate bodies that live inside a rigid shells.
Unlike our skin, that hard lobster shell does not expand at all. The shell becomes very confining as it grows, putting it under extreme pressure and discomfort.
With no hard shell to protect it from predatory sea animals, the lobster goes under a rock formation to seek protection. Patiently, it casts off the old shell and produces a brand-new one. This shedding process will keep repeating throughout this lobster's life.
This beautiful but excruciating process of preparing, producing, and recovering from shedding is known as molting.
It's not a pretty sight.
Stressed in a complex and inelastic shell, the lobster must shed its old shell to grow. When leaving its shell in the process of growth and change, it becomes highly vulnerable, just as we all do when we get stressed.
The stimulus for the lobster to be able to grow is that it first feels the pain.
It has me sitting with the state of our world - it doesn't matter the side of the red or blue fence you live on; we are in pain individually and collectively.
I have preached enough that the only pain we can relieve is our own. Much like the lobster, we have to molt to feel different in our environment as well as the world around us, and let's face it - It is painful, AND we don't have to hide underneath a rock to do it, although it does feel that way right now.
While we may all be preverbally molting in our way, one of the ways we can look at our lives is to begin looking at our conditions of satisfaction, and what that does is ground us in what we deeply yearn for, what works for our lives.
Conditions of Satisfaction are like getting right with our reality first; it requires us to look in all areas of our lives to see what works and doesn't.
Just because going to bed at 11 has worked for you for the last ten years, it may be in your way, and you need to adjust to a new bedtime.
Or you may need deeper intimacy with your partner, so you get to decide what that looks like for me to feel fulfilled. OR you look at politics and what you once decided you believed in, you no longer do, or a friendship you were in no longer works for you. All of these things are part of the molting process, and inside of molting is pain and discomfort, but what is more discomforting is trying to fit into something that no longer works or serves your life.
Moving to an island required me to molt. It had me look at what was once acceptable inside friendships, love, work, relationship, play, and family, and having to take a hard look if these conditions created satisfaction in me.
Our earth, in its way, molts with its natural ways of shedding and even creating earthquakes and volcanos, it is the natural way our planet recreates itself, and yes, it affects us and all living things on the earth. What is loving for you or me is loving for everyone.
Staying uncomfortable and trapped forever, the lobster fears the change and chooses not to leave the shell is a lifetime of being small, afraid of the unknown, and powerless in our desires is scarier. It forces us into a small and constricted space of unacknowledged hell.
Our lives are short, and our needs and desires are fundamental and essential.
Our conditioning, which once met our desires and, like the lobster, we outgrow them, and while you don't have to hide under a rock for safety, you can begin to write, talk, share, or create a list of conditions you would prefer.
If you need some support, I am here.
Much Love and Healing,
J