All last week I would go out and spray the weeds. A normal weekly chore. The spray always works. This week it didn’t. So I sprayed them again. And again. It wasn’t working.
Yesterday I went to the shelf again to get the spray and realized something.
I had been spraying deer repellent on the weeds.
The bottles were exactly the same.
I got the right bottle this time and sprayed the weeds and today, they were dead or dying.
The “moment of truth” is the moment where intentions meet reality. I had hit the moment of truth. My intentions were sincere. I sincerely believed spraying what was in that bottle on the weeds would kill them. Reality met my intentions and reality won.
There is a saying that goes, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. The old english proverb means that you can’t just intend to do something, you must actually do something and do the right thing.
I’ve long used the example that I could get paint, paint brushes, tape and a ladder and paint the wall perfectly. But if it’s the wrong wall, it’s a wasted effort.
I nickname all my daughter’s boyfriends and one of them I nicknamed “juicebox”. It’s because he was a kid that always seemed to think that just because he tried or whatever, that he deserved a prize.
My intentions have changed.
I have been spending time with a counselor to help with the trauma and it’s helping. I also have been working on the trauma of chronic pain. Something that is actually hard for me to label. Finally, I am seeing a pain doc as well. All with the intention to accomplish two things. One, to work on the psychology of trauma and the weight I have carried for decades. And as the book “The Body Keeps Score” illustrates, should I get through that trauma, the stress on my heart will reduce. That will then help the second thing, to reduce the pain.
But I’ve changed one of my intentions. I am trying to accept the pain. It doesn’t mean I am stopping the therapy or doctor’s visits. At all. But what it does mean is I want to learn to accept the pain.
Frankly, it’s a radical thought. It’s a psychological term. It’s the idea that you accept something with all you’ve got. It’s the idea that “you stop fighting reality”.
The moment of truth…
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