Most of us by adulthood are not slow learners, we are just quick forgetters. REPETITION is how humans learn regardless of our age.
Creating new skills requires revisiting the same emotional homework until we know it by heart; as our heart doesn’t forget like our head can.
Life gets so busy and emotional lessons do take time, effort and discipline to sit with, then process. This is because the truth often takes longer and is more emotionally challenging to tell ourselves and others than a lie is.
So REPETITION is our patient friend designed to help us, not punish us.
It’s often said that the longest journey with any of our life’s lessons is from our head to our heart. Sometimes it just takes consistent REPETITION of the same lesson until we will finally stop, throw our hands up, albeit involuntarily, in surrender and cry out …
“What the fuck!”
Until we become willing to look at the common denominator in our dramas, which is us, and own our fear, surrender blame and take responsibility …
Nothing can nor will change for us.
Emotional recovery is based on revisiting situations where we once self-abandoned in fear and shame and REPEATING the emotional script, but this time with love for ourselves, instead of fear of ourselves.
I’ve been married three times.
The first time was to the father of my two sons, I was 19 when I met him, emotionally starving and in full-on addiction. It lasted 14 years and I’ll always be grateful for the gift of his love and loyalty and our two divine sons. However, I left him out of shame for I was emotionally absent as an active alcoholic/addict in those years and doing more harm than good.
My second husband, also a good man, I spent eight years with clean and sober. I was given much emotional homework to REPEAT, and my second attempt at marriage was successful for me in learning how to speak up fearlessly and respectfully.
However, I left him too through no fault of his. It was just that my emotional growth from the day I met him to the day I left him took me on a very different path to where his life was heading.
At age 40 with two divorces under my belt I concluded I was not cut out for marriage. However, Mother Nature had other plans and Mr Delicious sauntered into my world two years later.
I didn’t want more emotional homework. I didn’t want to REPEAT the pain from my last two marriages.
Pain, however, is one of life’s most priceless and powerful gifts that none of us want. I’ve learnt my life lessons the hard and painful way, but nonetheless I’ve learned.
Since 2003 I have been learning, living and loving with the man of my dreams. I’ve learnt not to run away. These days I am blessed with a marriage that is more romantic, fulfilling and interesting than I would have ever dared dream for myself.
Yes, REPETITION and revision of past lessons still occurs keeping me Emotionally Fit. REPETITION has become an exercise I now respect as it always gives me the opportunity to respond differently and not run or hide in fear, but stay and speak up in love.
Third time lucky? No, I don’t believe in random luck. I strongly believe the harder we work on ourselves the luckier we get in relationships.
If we choose to improve our physical fitness, doing REPETITIONS of different muscle groups is essential to build our strength. It’s no different with the laws of Emotional Fitness.
REPETITION of emotional lessons is essential until we get strong enough for our heart to finally lift our big dreams into reality.
So if you are ready to give up on yourself or love or finding REPETITION challenging and seeing little progress, I encourage you with all my heart to be patient.
None of us go to a gym and see results instantly, it takes time, lots of REPETITION and faith, and is sooooo worth it, the results are divine.
So let’s be thankful rather than resentful for Mother Nature’s patience as she lovingly REPEATS the consequences of our fearful past actions so we can learn healthy new alternatives.
It’s important for our emotional health to not ignore but pay attention to emotional patterns that keep REPEATING in our relationships and take the time to get to the heart of our emotional homework.
It’s an unwavering universal law that none of us can escape …
We either learn from the patient gift of REPETITION and resolve it … or we will repeat the drama until we do!
Lotsa love Cynthia xxx
© Copyright 2016 Cynthia J. Morton Emotional Fitness™
This Word Vitamin is an excerpt from my latest bookset “The Four Seasons of the Heart”. If you would like to order your own full set of Daily Word Vitamins one for each day of the year, in book form for yourself or as a gift just click on the SHOP tab and place your order.
