What is the force? What do we believe the force is or was or can be?
Way back in the day, before I decided to get my life in order, I was having a conversation with some friends. At that time, I was in the throngs of alcohol addiction, I hadn’t really gotten my life in order, I felt totally discombobulated and out of sorts with everything. At that point, it felt as if I was just dealt a bad hand in general, and that I was destined for a really, crappy existence. I had, to some extent, accepted this as being my path.
In this conversation, my girlfriends and I were talking about relationships we had been in. I was really going quite in depth about the nature of most of my relationships, which up until that point, had been pretty destructive. I stayed in most of them for a long period of time, hoping for some amazing enlightenment that I could bring to the table for the misguided gentleman I was dating at that time. Yeah…the light never came.
One of the women I was speaking to said “Boy Rhonda. Why do you continuously attract such dysfunctional men in your life?”
I was kind of offended by that. I felt like this was an attack on my person – like maybe I was this fly paper that only flies were attracted to. It made me mad, so I thought, I’ll show her.
I responded “Ummmm…many types of men have been attracted to me over the years. It’s not the men who are attracted to me, it’s who I’m choosing to be with.”
For a split second, I thought “I told her.” Then I realized….”What?”
“Wait a minute…it’s not who is attracted to me, it is totally who I am choosing. It is who I am choosing to even stay with when I know who they are, and will always be. They are who they are, however, the current state of my being with them has nothing to do with them. It is ALL ME.”
The comment woke me up to a lot. Not just the fact that I had wasted a tremendous amount of time being with men who were not interested in growth, but I was drinking a lot, and smoking – blaming it on my history. I was angry all the time, blaming it on my life experience. I could not hold down a job, blaming it on the mean bosses I had. I was moving from place to place, blaming it on the evil landlord. I could not keep up with my bills, blaming it on the fact that I was only going to make the money that I deserved, which would always be less than. I cried all the time – blaming it on the fact that my depression was due to all these things combined, and I had a complete right to cry if I wanted to.
That one comment at that one time made me realize it had nothing to do with any of those things. It had to do with the fact that I had become comfortable in my dysfunction, not because it felt good, but it was easy to stay there. I didn’t have to do any work. I just had to continue doing what I was doing and just flying by the seat of pants, taking prisoners when they wanted to be taken, and throwing people away when I’d had enough. What I realized was that this was not only about me making decisions that weren’t in my best interest – it was understanding that I was making decisions purposely to create a bad ending, so that I could have something to blame my bad behavior on. “It’s my destiny”, “bad things always happen to me”, “I’m used to this”. Why change, when you create those foundations to make it so you don’t ever have to?
Now that this thinking has changed, and I’ve flipped the script to understanding my role in how things function and don’t function, I am totally cognizant of the fact that almost everything if not even EVERYTHING depends on my choices. The result of what can happen when people are less than cordial toward me doesn’t depend on the cordiality of that person. It depends on what I choose in that scenario.
Choice One: “I know this person is not cordial. Is this a relationship that I want?”
Choice Two: “No. I don’t want this, however, is this a relationship I need to cultivate?”
Choice Three: “YES – how can I change this environment to better serve the mission and the bottom line?” or “No – this is something I can and should walk away from.”
Choice Four: “If Yes – let me get to know who this person is, and see what motivates them. Let me see how I can dive deep into the whys behind their personality, so that I can figure out how to diffuse this interaction.”
Choice Five: “If this person never changes, what can I control?”
Choice Six: “I can control how much I interact. I CANNOT CONTROL THE PERSON”
Summary: “If I choose to stay, I HAVE TO FIGURE OUT WAYS to make this work. I can only control what I do, not what someone else does. If things are not making me happy, I can totally walk away. Either choice is up to me.”
As crazy as all of this seems to have to put yourself through, it becomes second nature as you continue to grow professionally and personally. Before you water a plant, it really has to work to grow – but when it’s being watered, all it has to do is grow. When you water a plant, and you continue to see the positive results of what happens when you consistently water it, it becomes a part of who you are.
We have choices, every single day.
If we see a car speeding, we can become angry and scream, which accomplishes nothing – or, we can just let the car pass, and go about our day. If we’re angry – it’s not the other driver’s fault.
If we have compromising relationships with in-laws, you can continue to beat yourself over the head with why they won’t accept you or are not very nice to you, or….you can choose to be around them and ignore the behavior, or choose not to go, because the behavior is too difficult to manage. If you continue to be around it, and accept that people are treating you badly, your feelings of inadequacy are not the in-law’s fault.
If you are in a terrible relationship where your needs are not being met, you can talk to friends about how awful it is, and cry on their shoulder about how someone should know how they’re treating you, or…you can choose to have a conversation after you’ve calmed down, with that person. If your words are not getting through and things don’t improve, you can leave. Yes, money may be a factor; kids may be a factor; nonetheless, if you choose to stay for that purpose, and you remain miserable, that is because of YOUR CHOICE. Not because of underlying factors.
If you have or are in the throngs of an affair, the affair is not your husband or your wife’s fault. No matter what they are doing or not doing to you, an affair is a personal choice. YOU are to blame. There may be things in your marriage that are not working – in that case you go to counseling, or you leave, or find a myriad of ways to deal with it that don’t involve an affair. But an affair is a separate issue that is of YOUR doing. Whatever consequences are suffered because of the affair fall completely on your shoulders.
If you hate a job and all it stands for, the fact that you stay is not the fault of your bills or retirement. Those things can be controlled. Your status as it stands is because of your choice.
If you’re not spending enough time with your kids, do that.
If you’re not happy with drinking too much, stop.
If you feel you’re not paying enough attention to the people you love, start doing that.
If you feel that people are treating you badly, either walk away or confront it.
If you feel that your childhood has created a plethora of current dysfunction, get help for it.
If you are suffering from depression or suicidal, CALL A NUMBER TO GET HELP.
This is not to say that these things are as simple as just stopping or starting or jumping in a changing the story-line. It is to say that even if you have no direction on where to start, you still can find where to start. You can ask questions; you can research yourself. There just is no excuse. It is HARD WORK, but you have to be committed to becoming vulnerable to what this means.
Every single thing that is before us in this life is in our control to be able to manage. We only have control over changing ourselves and our own environment. The outside world may fall into place when we do that, or it may not. Are we falling into place? That is where our existence lies.
The only way you can truly grow is by being honest about what is going on, what it represents, and how YOU got there. When Yoda talked about “the force”, he was not talking about special powers or some cosmic star that gives us the ability to defeat evil. He was talking about what we build inside of ourselves, and how we bring it to the outside world. “May the force be with you” is about you. Are you truly walking the path with yourself and doing the work that needs to be done to make sure that this path is moving forward, even if at a slow pace…or, are you walking a tethered path with your past, your history, and your feelings of annihilation leading the way? That ain’t the force – just letting you know. Have you wondered how this little itty bitty green character had all of that power in Star Wars? Do you think maybe it was intentional on the part of the movie makers to show that the most powerful character of that movie is this little dude who talks like someone who just woke up from a 15 hour nap? He had no muscles, no weapons. All he had was "the force". Where do you think that force exists?
Choose to own it, be it, accept it and continue to move. If you truly have the force, yourself, as your biggest champion and leader, there will be nothing standing in your way.
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