How to “pass” the past. In 12 steps.
By -see

Step 10: Invest.

Time
Heart
Energy
Feelings
Talent

Money
Opinions
Doubts
Emotions

Options
Fears
Faith

Take note that the first letters of the words above spell “Theft Mode Off”. In order for YOU to effectively “pass” the past, YOU are going to have to take off the brake, get in motion, move. One of the biggest defense or coping mechanisms that we use to tuck ourselves in from being exposed or vulnerable to life is to lock up or get defensive or protect ourselves from what we feel is the impending or certain reality that someone or something is coming to steal our moments, our peace, our trust, our hopes, our confidence, our identity, our safety, our security, or our significance. And some of our history has proven this to be true. Our religious dogma and declarations have proven this to be true: Our enemy, real or perceived, has come to steal, kill, and destroy. We acknowledge this and prepare ourselves with measures that we design or devise to guarantee ourselves a sense of safety, protection, or isolation that prevents the theft of our goods, our belongings, our selves, in the shelters of our imagination or in the bubbles of our created environments, in order to hold on to something that gives us a sense of stability, or normalcy, or routine. We arm ourselves with sometimes extreme protective services that are thought to shield us from confrontation or continuation of whatever trauma our past has caused. We become overprotective, over cautious, over skeptical, and often go overboard in alienating ourselves from contact or the freedom of participating in the buoyancy of existence. We arm ourselves physically and through other means considered to be sufficient in guarding us from danger. This is sometimes originated in childhood and a practice that we perfect well into adulthood. It begins psychologically and graduates into being the discipline we exhibit in all areas of our lives.

It is time to turn it off.

Step 10 requires YOU to invest. Investing is the polar opposite of safekeeping and protection that we enable in order to maintain our privacy and primary function. Whether it is with money, or time, or talent, we -those who are momentarily inept at being able to process or progress beyond certain tragedies or traditions- find ourselves hoarding the belongings of our past and arming ourselves in order to identify with what our insecurities and inadequacies suggest we have come to be. We shut down, we shut out, and we close off exposure from the world in an effort to prevent further losing any sense of value or worth, if any at all seems to exist within us. We operate and function in “Theft Mode”, guarded and protected to the extreme!

And no one gets in. We don’t go out.

In order to take the risk that “investing” is YOU are going to have to turn off some of YOUR “theft deterrent” protocols and habits that have been sustaining YOUR sense of security and well-being. YOU are going to have to gamble on the chance that getting over, getting through, and getting healed, is. YOU are going to have to go “all in” in some respects, in regards to putting everything that YOU have, think, know, imagine, or feel, out there and on the table. The smartest investors in the financial market master the intelligent systems of comprehending risk versus exposure versus market capitalization vs timing versus having a good sense of supply and demand. And then there is still the probability of being wrong or the luck of being right. The fact is that YOU will have to take a similar chance on YOU! YOU will have to enter the market and risk YOURSELF for the opportunity to increase YOUR worth. YOU will have to expose YOURSELF to the chances of stake that YOU may be unfamiliar with or resistant to. YOU will have to bet on YOURSELF and preceding and following that bet with substantive intelligence and data that can most accurately guide YOU towards the return YOU expect.

YOU will invest YOUR:

Time- Spending the proper time to gather the information and insight necessary to learn and live.
Heart- YOUR heart is YOUR collateral and YOU must put it out there for the opportunity to have it valued.
Energy- YOU must be willing to commit YOURSELF to this process and work of passing YOUR past.
Feelings- YOU will present YOURSELF vulnerable and open to the possibility of becoming and being.
Talent- YOU have a gift, a power, a skill, a tool, and YOU must use it for the work of YOUR process and progress.

Money- All of YOUR resources must be directed towards paying the price of getting YOU, the best YOU, back.
Opinions- YOU must open YOUR mouth, YOU must be willing to speak out and open up about who YOU are.
Doubts- We all have them and YOU must be willing to part with them, in order to lose them or realize their insanity.
Emotions- YOUR emotions are not YOUR feelings. YOUR emotions are how YOU express them and YOU must be ready to let them out, for the sake of being corrected or acknowledged.

Options- If YOU never try, YOU will never know. YOU have options and YOU must be willing to explore them.
Fears- Fears are faith without courage and YOU have to overcome them by killing them with effort and dissent from the mediocrity of thinking that enables their existence.
Faith- If YOU believe it, YOU can try it. Faith is YOUR belief that something is possible. YOU must see YOURSELF as able to grow, produce, win, receive, heal, thrive, be forgiven, loved, happy, and be at peace, in order to accomplish any of these.

At some point or another in YOUR past one or more of the above was stolen or lost from YOU. That loss greatly grieved or devastated YOUR belief and trust systems and that loss scarred YOU beyond what anyone may have ever known or believed possible. So YOU got protection. YOU hardened or YOU hid or YOU hurt. YOU became impenetrable to connection and interaction and feeling. YOU developed a callous sense of self that alleviated YOUR desire or surface need to embrace people or pleasantries. So YOU suffered the silence in a synchronized pattern of routine and character that has probably garnered YOU a reputation or lifestyle much contrary to who YOU really are or want to be. But YOU were safe somewhat or in control enough to decide YOUR own mess and so YOU have settled for that.

But now YOU are empty. YOU are bankrupt. YOU are alone. YOU feel like YOU are losing.

Time to invest in a change.

-see

©2014 Cornelious “See” Flowers
-@seethepoet