08/04/2024
The myth of the bed of Procrustes: the guy who would let people sleep in his extra bed for a night, but he would stretch them to fit if they were too short to fit it exactly, or cut off their legs if too tall.
I spent many years in the world of healing. Which was great for the most part, but there can be a fundamental assumption there within that endeavor: this is where you are, this is where you could be, and with enough cleverness, connection, courage, and grit you can get to where you want to be.
Reality heads to none of this. “Where you want to be” is nothing more than a thought, like everything else. Everything is part of it. Every horribly uncharitable thought, every bit of shame, every bit of misplaced pride and ego, every self-criticism, every self-indulgence. It’s all part of it, and in a very real way, equal to anything else.
It’s the seeing through of all these moment after moment that allows the stress of all this to soften, allows this great tangle to be undone.
