Knowing When To Say When

by Jill MacGregor


We all have defunct mental treasures that we hold close, whether they are outdated or never ever served us at all. But we clutch tightly because they’re OURS, and we’ve made them such an extension of who are that we forget that they’ve ceased to function for us, if they ever did at all. Why do we cling to the useless?

Let’s burn the fields.

I wrote about *knowing when to say when* in a previous post, 10 Life Changing Lessons I Learned From Painting. I wrote, “Everything has a natural stopping point. Jobs, paintings, hobbies, relationships, our lives, the extent of our feelings, patience, energy—everything has a natural stopping point. And, that is not the same thing as giving up. It’s about observing something in a particular state.”

What ideas or beliefs have you been clinging to that have stopped serving you? A lot of times these worn out beliefs stem from a situation when we felt mistreated, unappreciated, ignored. We allow ourselves to become imprinted by these feelings and drag them through the future as if these feelings no applied to every situation. Simply because they applied to one in the past.

Rube.

Think of one of the stories you’ve created– we usually have more than one. Think of how you’ve allowed the story to leech into situations and color your perception of how you are being treated or will be treated—think of how it’s even kept you from trying.

What if, starting today, you could throw away that old, useless burden—because if it’s no longer functioning, it is simply a burden. What if today you could stop dragging around that rotting corpse–stop forcing people in your life to pay for the sins of others? What if today you could stop assigning value to the useless ideas that no longer serve you?

I believe you can. I know you are clinging to these stories as if they were important. I do it, too. When was the last time it served you—instead of you serving it? It’s like cleaning out your closet—if you can’t think of one situation when these negative thoughts ever did you some good, get rid of them because you need the space for new ideas.

Today I’m going to clean out my emotional junk drawer. I’m going to be merciless about what I get rid of. I’m going to throw away the stories that sit on my shoulder like an evil monkey and whisper, “Its not going to work” or “I can’t believe you said that” or “You will always be alone”. Drama monkey. I’m going to make room for more “I can do that” and “Just try again” and “Other people get to be right, too”. I feel like having more of those plot lines building my stories will create this endless loop of kindness and patience—some for me, some for you, some for me, some for you.

Write down 5 of your useless, go nowhere plot lines that you’ve allowed to negatively color your life. Just jot them down–they don’t need to have a lot of detail. You know them all by their nicknames.

I’ll wait.

Ask yourself, when was the last time each of them did you a service—and the last time they screwed everything up. If your old useless stories were employees, you would fire them. Create some new awareness around these stories during the next couple of weeks—what’s going on when they appear? Why do the old, tired themes become your fallback even if you realize they accomplish nothing? Just bad habits, I think, so give yourself the opportunity to establish some new patterns to take their place. Take things apart and put them back together without these stories. It will feel awkward at first. Something will feel like its missing. It will just be the crap you’ve let go of.

I believe you can do it.

Just try.

Everything you do today is the right thing.