Our Internal Architecture
Have you ever driven past a neglected house which, over time, has been allowed to fall close to ruin? It’s easy to imagine how, in its prime, it would have stood proudly alongside the others. There have been periods in my life where I’ve felt that, ‘my house’, through neglect was on the verge of collapse. I’ve sat with old ideas and stagnant mindsets for so long that I was simply going through life and not growing through it. In this state of wear I’ve lived with an underlying dissatisfaction and a general mood of resignation where the thought of an internal restoration just seems too big.
This mood and mindset says, ‘I can’t’, ‘what’s the point’, ‘I’ve failed’. When we find ourselves at these common crossroads, we must choose to either stand still or to walk through them. Having been at this place recently I focus on the state of my house and recognised it would need restoration. So, I chose to abandon my comfortable dissatisfaction and began stripping the paint. I ripped out rotten floor boards and removed the vagrants who had taken up residence. This involved a change in mindset through remodeling thoughts, becoming conscious of who I surround myself with and a deep acceptance of things I had been resisting.
In doing so I changed my listening and stopped justifying the stories which kept me standing still. I accepted that in order to shift it was time to tear down, rebuild and reinforce. If I continued to resist the change that had been knocking on my unhinged door, I would continue to be vulnerable against the storms of life. In the process of remodeling, I learnt the following 3 points about structural maintenance.
- To accept life’s challenges instead of resisting them.
- The past and future cannot be changed. The only aspect in this duo I had control over was the way I interpreted them. I chose to do so with compassion and kindness.
- To never again neglect maintenance and self-care. I would repaint and redecorate my house often and do so with gratitude for this privilege.
I decided to stop regarding life as a journey because it sounded too vast. Life would now only be a series of daily incremental steps. With this acceptance I took my first step through my crossroads and said goodbye to resignation. By embracing acceptance and partnering with possibility I had reinforced my house for the next seasons rain.
