Security. Guarantees. Perfect conditions. The status quo. Stick with what you know. Perfection. To give up. To do things the way we always did. To be right, always. To distrust so as not to get hurt. To hurt you rather than allow you to trust. To stick to the trenches.
Different monsters want different things. Working out what they’re after can be frustrating, because they’re too busy announcing the end of the world to tell you. Or too busy judging you and telling you what a terrible person you are. Or too busy silently threatening you.
Many monsters are born out of fear, but fear comes in many different varieties and this gives rise to varieties of monsters.
- Fear of the unknown gives us monsters that tell us to stay put and do exactly what we always have done.
- Fear of failure gives us monsters who tell us to do everything perfectly, and if we can’t, to avoid trying.
- Then there’s monsters born from guilt, who will do anything to keep you from messing up again. Again!
- And there’s monsters born from past hurt, who will bite off your feet rather than let you walk into that same wall a second time.
And those are just a few examples.
Whatever variety of emotion they sprang from, and whatever their tactics, ultimately most monsters just want to know you’ll be OK. They just have awful ways of showing it. This is why it pays to show them patience and forbearance, and to really listen to them and get them to tell you about the problems they see.
Because sooner or later you realise you’re both on the same side.
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Wow, I have all those monsters but a couple of them were too busy hiding for me to even know they were there! Pretty sneaky….
LOVE this new blog o’yours, my dear!
Hi Chicsinger Simone! Sneaky monsters are the hardest to deal with. Sometimes the only way to get them to come out is to assume they’re there, for the sake of argument, and see what happens. It’s a tricky thing.
And sometimes it is a moment of great startlement on both sides!
But once the initial surprise passes, things seem to start working out a lot better.
Birdy: definitely. My monsters are often very surprised when they realise I *do* actually understand what they’re after. Once you stop assuming the other party is stupid/evil, all kinds of stuff can happen.