"No Thinking: (no questions allowed in this area)" 

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How many areas of our lives have we declared off limits for further examination? Some areas might even be off limits to think about the fact that they are off limits.

 

How many of us avoid looking at and questioning...

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• the direction of our lives?

• the day-to-day satisfaction and joy in our lives?

• the level of satisfaction in our jobs?

• where our marriage is and where it’s taking us?

• our belief that life is hard or unfair?

• our full expression of passion and lust?

• the extent and method of our indebtedness?

• the corners and boxes we have somehow managed to put ourselves into?

• whether we have the romance we want in our life?

• where we’re likely to end up if we continue the way we’re headed?

• our feeling of incompletion with our parents?

• our beliefs that we're not good enough?

• our feeling of completion and wholeness with our children?

• our feeling of completeness with all prior relationships?

• our friendship with all parts of ourselves?

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A way to un-avoid...

 

Try out this simple exercise. Repeat out loud the beginning of the following sentence stem, adding the first ending that comes to mind. Don’t worry about whether or not the ending is true or false. Just complete the sentence quickly. Then repeat the sentence stem again, spontaneously adding a different ending.

 

Keep up this process until you’ve created at least 10 endings to the sentence.

 

Here is the sentence stem:

 

“One of the things I might be avoiding to think about or look at is...”

 

Repeat this sentence stem at least 10 times, creating a new ending for the sentence each time.

 

What did you come up with? What did you discover that you are avoiding to think about?

 

Did you realize that you are frightened of your own mind and resisting that fear?

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A more fundamental type of courage

 

In some sense, all choices of courage begin with the courage to think and ask questions we have not asked before, to think outside the boxes and boundaries we have retreated into and behind, often pulling the blinds behind us so that we even hide the evidence of our own retreat.

 

Choose an area that you’ve avoided thinking about.

 

Take some deep breaths and say, “Holy molies and jeepers weepers, I am so scared to think about...".

Honor your five-year-old within for the courage he or she is about to choose to explore this area you've been avoiding.

 

Then start asking some questions that will put you in contact with your fear.

 

Enjoy! Here lies the real opportunity of your life.