Mario Andretti
Motivation is a problem for any human who's been brought to their knees often enough to cause a natural aversion to voluntarily putting themselves in harms way. Trying becomes an enemy, failure an expectation, and desires get smothered as soon as they surface. Why want something you can't have? Why attempt to grasp for something so outside of your reach? Without desire there's no motivating force to inspire forward motion. Sitting on the sidelines eventually becomes a way of life. It doesn't have to stay that way, but the change is a mighty challenge.
The only positives among all that chaos is that up is the only possible choice of direction, while the rate of acceleration is up to you. The real trick isn't the major rise; it's the minor lift that's most brutal. To get your dead ass up off the bench you must first defrag your brain and validate your soul. Wrestling notions and adjusting attitudes on the one hand, while paying careful attention to a gentle spirit on the other is a real battle. Once you realize that the war is worth winning it's impossible not to enlist as a willing warrior. But you didn't get stuck instantly and getting unstuck takes a chunk of future and staying that way takes a lifetime.
When you suffer from a self-defeating mindset you're held hostage by your own sticky web of negative emotions. You're like the students in the back of class who sink deep into their seats, hoping to be totally ignored until the bell rings and they can escape. Life becomes a burden if it's not really lived. Without desire or motivation breathe-in-breathe out seems to be the most you can do. Nothingness only lasts forever if you're determined to be its constant companion. So what if it takes an implosion to evict it from your journey? Big deal if it takes strength you fear you don't possess? Trust me, if you're determined enough to lift a hand the strength will be there to make a fist. Trust me, until you can trust yourself! I'll walk beside you... you're not alone!! I understand!!!
I know about pain and the overcoming of it, I once was that person scrunched down in the back row. It took me forty years to begin to unfold and move nearer to the front of the room. Since then I've tossed many lifelines to fellow travelers, but unless someone is willing to grab hold whatever I do does no good. The agony of seeing someone drift away is intense. My own sense of failure, at such moments, is overwhelming; hope can't be force fed, no matter how I wish otherwise. I plant seeds, but I can't hope to oversee every garden. Micromanagement isn't one of my weaknesses, but anyone who needs a hand is always within my reach. I walked alone, but you don't have to.
I found my way back from the edge. I KNOW hope and self-awareness can unlock the prison doors. I KNOW that to believe in yourself is to validate your RIGHT to the pursuit of happiness. I KNOW that the road back is brutal, but at least it is not a dead end. The possibilities are there, like a field of wildflowers, but you can't make a bouquet without picking them one-by-one. What you tell yourself will dictate what you end up with; say you amount to nothing and you'll end up empty handed by default. Convince yourself that you matter and your possibilities will be limitless. Trust me!
I had to remind myself often that I mattered. An act will become fact if you're determined enough to keep at it until it's your reality. I chanted, "REMEMBER WHO YOU ARE" into the mirror every day once my make-up was on until I finally stopped forgetting. I had to silence many voices inside my head, but the hardest to control was my own. I had bought into bull-shit for so long that I was close to certain that the bull-shitters were correct in their assessment of my worth. But inside my weary brain there rested one small shining grain of hope. I grabbed ahold and built a life around it, knowing that to surrender would be sure suicide even if I continued to breathe.
I won't meekly take whatever life hands me, folding under the pressure that's part of this journey. I'll thrive no matter what happens to me or around me, because safely sheltered deep inside my soul is that grain of hope I discovered so long ago. I exercise it every day, inside my own mind and heart, but also within the limitless boundaries of Sisterhood Support.
THINK ABOUT IT... LET IT RIDE... THEN YOU DECIDE!!!
© GLENDA ALEXANDER
