Words written by Kathryn Dawe

Here….I’ll trade you my Get Out of Jail Free card for one of your Railroads….

Monopoly….a favorite game of my generation…what game piece was your favorite? Who always got to be the banker? Who always ended up with all of the Railroads? And finally, the double edged sword of owning Boardwalk and Park Place…..can be very lucrative or send you on a fast spiral into bankruptcy……kind of like our innate system of danger detection….gives us warning, and the drive to fight or flee in the face of certain danger #runforrestrun, yet can overcompensate when faced with situations that remind us that we may not be emotionally safe because something “reminds us of that thing that happened before”….and “boy, does this feel familiar”….and” wow, I really don’t want to experience that again”…..etc….these are the times that you hope that you draw the Go Directly to Jail card…do not pass Go, do not collect $200….whew….escape…maybe we can even collect rent for a little while….but then there is the fear of having to pay your way out, and the game resumes….with the odds possibly not in your favor….or so it may seem…. #maytheoddsbeeverinyourfavor

I know that, from my own experience, life can seem like a crazy game board #mousetrap ….maybe even a warped version of LIFE, Monopoly or even Candyland….mine has often felt, and sometimes still feels like a game of Wizard’s Chess and Monopoly all rolled into one….and I don’t really even know how to play chess….so lots of randomness and guessing are going on…leaving me STILL stuck in my self imposed jail cell of fear, anxiety and frustration….and in constant search for a technique, strategy or answer to my perverse dilemma…. and me feeling like my life is constantly on the line….and by “life” I suppose I mean my “emotional life”….although emotional difficulty has a definite physiology to it, and for me can manifest in some of the oddest and sometimes extreme ways….so I’ve found myself constantly with one foot in “flight” and one foot in “fight”…..like walking on glass and sleeping on nails….and one finger on the hair trigger of escape…. #checkmate

Now, when you are exposed to any kind of long term stress…your nervous system can become gradually over- active and over- sensitized….and this can lead to physiological events like a constant knot in the pit of your stomach, sensations of constant contraction in your chest and throat….just to name a few….and also, this can create a constant environment of wariness and high alert for the next “attack” or “episode”, so it would seem….and eventually you feel trapped….trapped in fear and indecision…not knowing any longer, what the right thing to do or say is….just knowing that you feel like a caged beast that desperately wants to escape, and for the pain to be over….but you feel powerless to exact change on your very own life…you no longer trust yourself…as if someone else is holding the reins of power….THIS is what fear does…it is a jail cell built of lies and illusions…and so many times, it takes the pain of the fear and the cell to become greater than the fear of change and the unknown, for you to finally say ENOUGH! and make a choice to change your life…. #hardtruthhere ….you may indeed wish that you had one of those “Get out of Jail FREE” cards, but alas….life does not provide us with those…only Hasbro does, and only with their game of Monopoly… #sayitisntso

You know…I’ve been reading Dr. Phil McGraw’s book on Relationship Rescue….he’s a totally in your face type of tough love and “own your shit” type of guy….. I have a true appreciation for his brand of coaching….totally cuts to the chase, and forces you to take a hard look at what is real, and what may not be….one of the things that he said, which I gotta confess, is not the first time that I’ve heard it….but, hey, it’s all about context and who’s saying it…and soooo much about timing, right?…sort of like when I was potty training my daughter for that last “bit”, and my friend Dawn simply told my daughter, who was around 3 at the time, “your mommy would be so happy if you went on the potty”….that was it! She was fully potty trained from that day on! #lifechanging ….anyway…here it is, straight from Dr.Phil McGraw….you all know him as just Dr. Phil….”If you are willing to settle for less, then this is exactly what you will get.”….now mind you, this means from yourself as well, not just from others….get my point here, and his? That you are the only one who can choose to be free of your fear and anxiety….this is where the rubber hits the road my friends…total ownership AND the realization that your powerlessness is in fact, an illusion….I realize that it may not feel that way, but truly, it is….your choices may seem hard or limited, but it is the unknown that we often fear the most… and that creates this false sense of limited or no choices…sometimes we fear the unknown even more than we fear our present circumstances….this is what keeps us stuck and feeling like a prisoner…..let us examine our preconceived ideas and beliefs….are they really true, or do we just believe them to be so? Isn’t it time to find out? #searchingformrgoodbar

Create a list of things in your life that you believe to be true. Now, take an honest look at them, are they really true? Or is it something that you believe? Are you actually powerless? What is one choice that you can make, or one belief that you have found not to be true?