cliodhna’s wave

How do you explain to a fish what water is?

You take him out if the water and show him the air. Then he will understand better than a thousand words what water is.

How do you explain to a person what life is and what we have surrounded ourselves with?

You take them out of it and let them see eternity. Then they will understand what life is better than a thousand words.

Perspective. A very little used tool in our army of rationality. In fact most of the time it is ignored, abused, shoved under the bed into the far corner where dust balls come to rest and forgotten about. We lose the perspective on our lives in a thousand moments every day. We don’t take the time and space we need for ourselves and we surround ourselves with things and responsibilities, and deadlines and bills to pay and all important things that make us think we HAVE to keep going and going and going like a hamster on his wheel.

If we don’t take the time we need who will give it to us? If we don’t give ourselves the space we need who will provide it for us? We get ratty with partners and people we love because we don’t look after ourselves. Nobody else can do this for us, we have to do this for ourselves. We have to give ourselves the love and healing we deserve and not wait for someone else to do it for us, not wait to be looked after and then get annoyed when it doesn’t arrive.

I get annoyed and frustrated and cranky when I feel I am not being looked after, but when I honestly look at my life it is because there was something I wanted that I didn’t do/ask for/ go and get because I was waiting for someone else to do it for me. It is an ego battle too, I WANT the world to pay attention to ME! My spoilt controlling child self takes over the reins because she reckons the grown up me isn’t cutting it, I am not giving myself what I want/deserve so she steps in to get it for me.

Perspective is about standing back from your life and your emotions that rule you and breathing fresh air for a minute. Away from the drama of the minutiae of daily life. Away from the soap opera that hooks us in, feeds us its never-ending looping circles of storylines, keeps us caught on what is going to happen next. It doesn’t want to let us go, we have to escape from it ourselves. It wants us to stay caught in its current, because we give it energy, without our energy it dies, cut of its head by taking away our attention and it dies.

Our life is our own responsibility. We shape our lives as we want to, and this includes knowing when we are being dependant on others and also knowing when it is time to ask for help, when we can’t do something on our own. Balance and perspective.