Spiritual Chutes and Ladders
By now, you may have realized that healing is not a linear process. It’s more of a spiral than anything. An initial shock delays absorption and it’s the timeline from there that spirals. A big metabolic process is underway in a hurry, though it will take time (and life’s provocations) for the project to purge completely through you.
In the meantime, you go around and around the material from different angles. All the big stuff (not yet swallowed) in your life story will repeat again and again, as ego’s perspective wants to harden into firm stories and mindsets. As the triggers come, bringing the impetus of re-enactment, you either will or you won’t evolve your choices. You either will or you won’t repeat the pattern.
Actually, you will likely do a combination for a while. At the beginning, you’ll repeat a lot of it, while also having a growing awareness of what you are doing. The next time, you’ll repeat less of it and have more awareness and do more growing. And eventually, you’ll play with the idea of re-enacting, but instead, you’ll wink at the Universe and decline the opportunity. That’s when healing is really noticed.
Before then, you are just re-enacting with ever increasing awareness (to your great frustration). This is why healing isn’t linear. Because you do not get progressively more confident about your healing, you get progressively more clear about the amount of healing you need to do!
The following metaphor was born between myself and one of my clients. Neither of us recall who coined the term but we found it incredibly satisfying to examine the personal growth journey as a game of spiritual chutes and ladders. Just when you are about to get to the end (and you feel so smug about it too) , you draw that one card and your instructions are to slide your butt all the way back to the beginning. Being in “the work” is a lot like that.
If this is the process then we are in luck because chutes and ladders is child’s play. We don’t have to learn some unreachable master skill set, we simply have to be willing to slide back to the beginning and then get back in the game. We have to be willing to fall on our face and kiss the humble pavement of the dead-ends goodbye and we have to be willing to get back to the game and bring our childlike innocence with us.
James Barrie says, “life is a long lesson in humility.” Isn’t that the truth? If it’s not, well, then it’s probably time you are humbled again my friend because life is a master at bringing you to your knees. Spoiler alert—we all die in the end. So humility, yes, it is my friend. Also it helps to laugh. To see the absolute absurdity of our predicament and to laugh at the clever way we got ourselves stuck. We know, but we don’t. We are awake and we aren’t. We are free and we aren’t.
So let’s just play the game with a light heart, a sense of humor, and a growing trust in our timely demotions. Just fall down, there you go. You’re fine. Brush it off. Stop trying to hang on and let go. Stop trying to win and lose your shit instead. Then you’ll be free and then another breath will come into your being and life force will take it from there. Keep playing and you’ll keep growing. And you’ll keep falling down. And that’s okay. You are doing great.
Amy