Nowhere to Run

As we see our own thoughts, self-talk, planned & spoken words, planned & actual behavior, more & more objectively and in greater & greater detail, we may realize that these have an undercurrent of fear, anxiety, hunger, or incompleteness, and that we're repeatedly driven towards some things and running from others.

It's much easier to notice what & why we're running towards: approval, love, success, travel, material possessions, money, health, distraction, mindless entertainment, food, drink, drugs, etc, etc, etc. Typically, what & why we're running from, we intentionally avoid, such as existential dread http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2017/07/the-elusive-sense-of-being-fully-alive.html or it's buried deep in our subconscious, such as trauma http://www.johnlovas.com/2017/03/trauma-fact-of-life.html

Even if, with or without professional help, we more or less figure out & come to terms with fear of death & past traumas, life-long patterns of avoidance & distraction take on the momentum of a massive cargo ship, requiring kilometers to stop, or even to change direction. The tendency to keep running tends to continue like an addiction.

"I'm just full of energy!" We become so identified with "the story of me" that it can easily dictate how we live the rest of our life. But being caught in the "momentum of life" robs us of the freedom to choose how to behave appropriately right here, right now. We see things as we are and behave as we are (more accurately, as we used to be).

To free ourselves from being stuck in the momentum of our past, we can closely examine how everything that we compulsively run towards is invariably disappointing. We can learn to become disenchanted with all quick "fixes." Foreknowledge of the fact that no matter how alluring the object we're after, it will quickly lose it's gloss, helps temper our obsessive drive, and bring us a bit of equanimity.

There truly is nowhere to run! "Wherever you go, there you are."