Many of us live in boxes for pretty much most of our lives. And then there are those blocks that wedge themselves into our psyche as life moulds us into creatures of habit, believing that our genes define us, and that our cultural heritage should be followed until our thinking and behaviour become socially acceptable.
Living in a box can be quite comfortable and even convenient. Especially if one can find like-minded box-dwellers to confirm that being limited in the same way that everyone else is, has to be the best way of life there is. It is so safe, and easy. Who needs to be brave? Surely the courage to think outside of the box must be overrated, and living outside of the proper limitations that everyone follows, is simply irresponsible and something only weirdos do. Respectable members of society know the limits, and there is nothing wrong with being comfortable with parameters that have been set by a long line of ancestors.
But life has a way of being a bit rough on boxes. They tear easily, and if one is not careful, one can fall out of the box. So if living in a box means, ‘these six sides define me’, what happens when life rips open the box and pulls one out of the safe, though confined space? Usually, a few bumps and bruises can be expected. These heal over time and once one begins to flex a few unused muscles, the vast space outside of the box reveals the fullness and beauty of creation. It is a place we were intended to explore.
Yet that is not the end of the story. While boxes tend to define us, a block says, ‘I am not budging’. These are the parts of us that remember the safety of the box, that bought into what we have learned and accepted since birth. Parts that feel fear. Fear of judgment and criticism, fear of being wrong, or not fitting in, of being outside of the box while everyone else still appears to be inside their wonderfully safe box-worlds. These parts of us flail about, trying to put the broken box back together again, even when the fearless aspects of ourselves know that we would never be able to get back into any box.
There is a time for everything. Feeling safe and fitting in can be important. Fear can protect us, from all kinds of things, even from ourselves. But when life tears open someone’s box, it becomes necessary to address the blocks that formed while confined within the limits, or limitations, determined by others. Living outside of the box becomes quite messy when one remains stuck, despite the freedom that comes with the open and newly available space. Being stuck blocks the flow of life itself. That happens. And it is up to us to force our way through the blocks within us, so that life may flow through us as we explore the space we were given to live in, on a planet called Earth.
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