#19 Stop Living Like A Barnacle

~ 20 minute read time ~

~ 20 minute read time ~

The root of suffering is attachment.
— Buddha
 

I see so many people clinging on for dear life to so many things - status, situations,  places, relationships, jobs, stuff - and they often have no idea why they suffer as a result.

These are good people too. The kind of people who are normally rational, well-reasoned and talented individuals yet they’re unhappy and wonder what’s causing it, or why it’s happening. This is a theme I’ve touched on in recent blog articles, why do people choose to keep themselves small by looking for comfort and contentment outside of themselves?

As soon as you place your happiness in the hands of someone else, or base it on specific situations or even physical items, you’re setting yourself up for a fall. If your happiness is based entirely on your job title or what car you drive, you’re creating a bond with that thing and as soon as that thing is taken away, damaged, or changed then the attachment you have put in place will inevitably cause you unhappiness. Like taking candy from a baby - waaaaahhhhhhh!

In short, you must remember this - that if you hold anything dear outside of your own reasoned choice, you will have destroyed your capacity for choice.
— Epictetus

Here’s an example from my recent past. I had a brand new Jeep about 4 years ago, it was gloss black, limited edition wheels, leather seats, heated steering wheel - all the toys. I loved it, or so I thought. The first time I drove it to the city, I was petrified to leave it anywhere for fear of it being dented or damaged.

Ridiculous, it was just a car.

After the initial novelty factor wore off, I realised it was making me miserable.

Over time, it got scratched and some lovely(!) person opened their door onto it in a car park putting a huge dent in the door and I was devastated. I felt genuine anguish. Looking back now I feel somewhat embarrassed to admit this, but at the time I felt like I’d been mugged. How could someone mindlessly cause damage to my beautiful car and then just drive off with no care?

I realised at the time my reaction was unhealthy. I’d allowed myself to attach meaning, and therefore my emotional response, to a material object. There was a little more to it than that though. I’d part funded buying the car with money from an inheritance after my Dad had died, buying a new car was symbolic. I’d imbued it with a deeper meaning than was necessary, maybe it was part of my grieving process?

When I had that car, I kept thinking about the famous quote from Fight Club:

The things you own end up owning you. It’s only after you lose everything that you’re free to do anything.
— Chuck Palahniuk

I was responsible for my own suffering. I realised then that our attachments are what makes it so hard to accept change.

It’s called Identity Investment, where self-worth is found in the things you own.

When I speak to friends who are unhappy due to a certain set of circumstances, it often stems from holding on too much, carrying heavy energy and dwelling on it for too long.

It’s like trying to hold a hot potato and hoping it won’t hurt.

IT’S A HOT POTATO OF COURSE IT’S GOING TO HURT - get rid of it as quickly as you can!

The damage is done in holding on. Stress and pain is not usually caused by an action itself, it’s created as a result of our reaction to the action. It’s a choice we make.

…for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
— William Shakespeare

As Hamlet says above, nothing that ever happens is either good or bad - it’s purely our judgement of whether it’s good or bad. Once we decide something that has happened is bad, it then requires effort and sustained decision making to continue the story around the ‘bad’ thing.

By dragging out the narrative that we’ve been injured, and clinging on to the pain we become barnacle-like when we should become Teflon, not letting things stick. If we let too many hurts stick to us, then we accumulate heavy baggage which we carry around with us everywhere we go. We become stuck in the mud.

Then we wonder why we’re always down, and we have no idea why everything is such a struggle in life. Well, dear barnacle, you’ve clung on for so long that all the bad stuff attracts more bad stuff and it’s emotionally draining.

Take a leaf out of Elsa’s songbook from Frozen and ‘Let It Go’! You may have been harbouring wounds for so long that you’re not even sure what the original issue was? Who knows what opportunities you may have missed due to hanging on so tightly? You may have missed out on true romance because of clinging on to your current partner, even though it’s a loveless relationship. 

You stay because you don’t know any different, it’s safe, some of your needs are met, you don’t want to rock the boat and you’re not sure whether it’s worth the upheaval.

Or, like I did for far too long, you stuck in a job that you hated but it paid the bills and kept a roof over your head? What if you decided to let go then found your dream career - wouldn’t that be wonderful?

If we stick like barnacles we’ll never know.

Everyone has different drivers based on their upbringing, their culture and programming mean many people really value certainty above all else. Others will accept some risk to try different things; or there are some who dislike the mundanity of every day life and actively seek change. 

Every one of us is different. There is no ‘normal’. There are over 7 billion different versions of ‘normal’ on this planet.

I’ve read that barnacles can cause issues in shipping because they accumulate on the hull creating hydrodynamic drag, therefore slowing the boat’s progress, straining the engines and using more fuel.

This is a perfect analogy for how we create friction in our own lives where there really needs to be none. We project past upsets forward into the future, essentially guaranteeing further suffering for ourselves. Something that caused pain in the past, if carried forward, continues to cause pain.

Prolonged pain becomes suffering.

It’s a limiting factor for us as it affects how we choose to behave in new situations. It’s like constantly picking at a scab never allowing it to heal properly.

I’ve talked in previous articles about bringing awareness into our daily lives, and seeing which things still trigger us long after we should’ve recovered and healed. Too many of us cling on to the known because it’s safe and certain. We feel like we have an element of control when in reality, we have no control at all.

The human mind is very good at rationalising. That’s how people can justify awful behaviour because, somehow, in their minds they can explain it away and believe it completely. We feel in control because we tell ourselves certain ‘truths’ which are not true at all - they’re just us trying to rationalise and massage our egos to feel better about things. 

I think this may be why so many people struggled to accept the first Lockdown, their lives were ticking along seemingly fine and dandy then… BOOM - lockdown is enforced and their mindset crumbled.

So many of us place too much of our inner state on external variables. Variables that will be forever changeable, with our fleeting emotions dictating how we live our lives.

I say;

Sod living small!

Sod living like a crusty barnacle!

And sod carrying heavy crap. Let us get rid of it all.

None of it serves us.

Once you realise you do have choice, it becomes hugely empowering and freeing. 

You then understand that you’ve willingly chosen to carry pain all this time, having not just caused your own suffering, but you’ve perpetuated it over time. 

At any time, you can choose to let it go. Heal yourself by choosing your reactions differently. Make better choices, give yourself that bit of emotional distance between an action and your reaction. Don’t just feed directly off your emotions. 

Imagine you have a toolbox, if you selected the hammer for every job - you wouldn’t be able to fix things very efficiently. In fact, you'd likely cause more damage by botching it. Similarly, if you always choose anger as a reaction to every moment because that’s the tool you know how to use, you’ll also cause more damage than the situation calls for. 

I suppose it is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.
— Abraham Maslow

Sadly, as I have found over the years, if you’re quick to anger, then you will suffer the most.

Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.
— Mark Twain

Emotions are like waves, they come and go - conditions can change in an instant. Yet if you charge headlong into a wave as it’s about to break, you’ll be sent into a spin struggling against the power of the ocean. But, if you can learn to allow the waves to ebb and flow around you, swimming with the tide, you’ll achieve a flow state where you and the sea can co-create a balance.

By being a slave to your emotions, you give away your power. There is, however, a magic word that I love which can help. If you ever feel ready to blow in a given situation, remember this word and use it as a positive mantra:

EQUANIMITY - pronounced E-KWA-NIM-ITI

Noun. “calmness and composure, especially in a difficult situation.” 

If you can accept both the good and bad with equanimity, you give yourself control over your reactions - you still can’t change what happens, but you can change how you create the stories around it. 

Stop clinging onto any old hurts, old angst, get rid of all the bad feelings around stuff in the past and resolve not to carry the heavy baggage forward. Doing this better prepares you for accepting change when it does happen. You won’t be caught  completely off-guard because you’re lighter on your feet.

By truly letting go, and that can mean saying goodbye to a relationship, a job, a living arrangement, a friendship - it could be anything. It may simply be a re-setting of boundaries is all that’s needed. Either way, unstick yourself, don’t accept less at work, at home or from anyone else.

Stop clinging like a barnacle, you’ll not only reduce unhappiness you’ll really begin to thrive.

Love

LP x

P.S. No actual barnacles were harmed in the writing of this article.

 
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#18 Curiosity & Courage