Читать книгу Breaking the Bonds - Paula Nicolson, Dorothy Rowe, Dorothy Rowe - Страница 20

Having prepared our story, we then proceeded to live it. We had the plan. We simply tried to follow it.

Our story, as we live it, becomes the structure of our life. If we are lucky, our hopeful story and our actual life remain close together. We plan to marry Prince Charming and live happily ever after, and this is what we do. We plan to be rich and famous, and we achieve this.

So long as our story and our life go along together, we forget that our story is nothing more than some ideas in our head. We take it to be an order of the universe. We believe that there is an order in the universe, one of justice where the good are rewarded and the bad punished. We work hard at being good so as to avoid punishment, and we feel secure in a universal Grand Design of which we and our lives are a part.

If we are lucky, if we are very, very lucky, nothing happens to us to make us question our belief.

Few of us are so lucky. Over time, our story and our life diverge. This might be a gradual divergence, as we slowly discover, perhaps, how unsatisfactory Prince Charmings can be, or how riches and fame do not necessarily lead to happiness, or it might be a sudden divergence, caused by some loss, or death, or failure.

Whichever, once we see the divergence we realize that we have got things wrong. We see that our story is nothing but our imaginings, and that reality is something very different from what we thought it was.

We had gone around thinking that we were an individual in our own right, and we discover that we are not. We find that we are neglected, abused, and treated as an object of no importance.

We had gone around thinking that we had secure and loving relationships, and we discover that we are wrong. The people we love and rely on abandon, desert, reject, and betray us.

We had gone around thinking that other people relied on us, and we discover that they do not. The people we thought needed us show us that they do not need us, and the people we thought regarded us as indispensable show us that they can manage without us.

We had gone around thinking that we had organized a secure life for ourselves, and we discover that we have not. Our security is destroyed and our livelihood and possessions are swept away.

We had gone around thinking that we were succeeding in gaining our goals, and we discover that we have failed. We are shamed, humiliated and thrown into chaos.

We had gone around thinking that we were meeting all our responsibilities, and we find that we have not done what we ought to have done. We are overwhelmed by guilt.

(D 7) We had gone around thinking that we lived in a just world where our goodness would be rewarded, and we discover that no amount of goodness prevents disaster. We therefore feel betrayed, resentful, and terrified.

Such discoveries destroy the structure of our lives. Everything which we thought was solid and secure becomes fragile and ephemeral, even the structure we thought of as our self.

We are consumed by the greatest terror.

What can we do?