22nd August, 2013.
UNBINDING ONESELF
This rings quite different bells in different minds. For the religious mind, there is probably an already painted picture of some spiritual ritual, where one is set free from a bad spirit or anything ugly and spiritual you can relate to the spiritual context. Whereas for the pagan mind, I would favorably call ‘non religious,’ somebody is building void imaginations of physical battle between oneself and a set of chains or load that is pinning them down. Well, all is appreciated effort of the mind because it all sums to one thing despite the differences; trying to set oneself free from some sort of bondage-unbinding oneself.
Now here today, let us try to give a whole new touch to the idea of unbinding oneself. How about we just take a moment and have a thorough inner self check! You know, torch through our minds and see just how much we giving habitat to. Does anybody notice what I would frankly love to call preserved anger, thick blanket of bitterness, how about that grossly red chamber that is filled with immature revenge plans, and then that very dark corner where all kinds of wrong ideas are being hatched, talk of gossip, witchcraft, and anything wrong that a certain voice within you is always prompting you to attempt.
This is where the idea of unbinding oneself steps in to save the emotional and psychological congestion in your mind. The pivot point for a change being ‘forgiveness’, ‘letting go’, ‘moving on’, ‘learning how to contain it- talk of living with a situation’ and at the peak of it all forgetting if possible. Now everybody knows those are overly used lines that have been overly used and re-cycled, they have become more of a life cliché I could say. And yes, none of those, not even forgetting in this context, drops in easy like a pizza or lunch delivery at your work place or home, where the cost may go unfelt because the price is often constant and the satisfaction instant. That is because the focal points for unbinding oneself actually work with human emotion not material objects. There is real battle between forgiveness and anger, moving on and fear, yet at the peak of it all, the effect or satisfaction is gradual. Not forgetting the cost is deep because here we are talking sacrifice, pain, tears, bitter acceptance and sometimes soiling your feet a little; talk of dropping that ego/pride that is the only hump causing a lot of unnecessary congestion in your supposed to be clear mind.
But hey, “Weep Not Child,” God the perfect porter has molded no foot that has no right shoe size, not even locksmiths make locks without keys. So yes, for every entrance to a self binding cage, there is surely an exit. Most times as humans, we just choose not to see it, thanks to our grave desire for shortcuts and quick solutions/satisfactions. But if only we could learn that the quick solutions are equivalent to saying let X be Y in a Math equation yet at the back of our minds we know X is not actually Y and we ought to eventually find X at some point, then we would understand that thinking hard on how to soil that workmate who is doing better than you, how to revenge on that woman who messed up your parents’ marriage, how to make that father who ditched you at milk bottle stage regret it, proving a point to that roommate that is giving you a mess to work with, causing for that girl that has sent you to “Dumpsville” for another man, fighting that girl or woman that is dating your ex boyfriend/husband (even if reason is justifiable), hating on that grandmother or mean aunt that is always up against your case, maintaining that silent treatment you are giving a friend because they wronged you, just name it, it’s all no solid solution to anything. As long as it consumes a bit of your time and occupies free space in your mind, bears less fruit, never really fills that gap you always seek to fill somewhere within the emptiness in you, and above all, it is evidently for no good cause or effect, believe it or not, it has you caged and captive in a bad cycle that only grows worse with time.
The only legal gate way out of there is choosing to ‘unbind oneself.’ Forgive and try to forget some things, not because you are Jehovah Shalom or because forgiveness is the well deserved reaction for the other party but because you prioritize yourself at the expense of all the anger, bitterness, vengeance, and whoever inflicted it. Because whatever it is, it has no justification for being your major time and effort consumer with no returns. Because you have some basic Economics at your finger tips so you ought to know when the losses are surely sending you to a shut down point. Let alone, you are smart enough to know when it is necessary to open a fresh page for your new writing instead of marrying your new piece to your old mistakes.
And then sometimes it is just about forgiving oneself as well as letting go of all the blames, castigations and lebels upon oneself. I mean how long are you going to continue blaming yourself for that chance you blew up then, how many more names are you going to give yourself for messing up once and loosing it all? The earlier you step out of there and come to terms with your past, forgive yourself, and learn how to live with the bitter reality, the best for you. Letting go also means accepting that pie is pie, that there are some tight grips you ought to loosen, that there are some fights you are supposed to step out from, that there is a part of you that is not that necessary(for example that pride and ego), that some things and people you just have to accept and learn how to live with them if forgetting is the harder option, that you are human enough and sometimes you need help from that particular person that your pride forbids you from asking it of them. This does not mean that your weak or you are a quitter. It is not even anywhere next to implying that you are giving up, it is just a classy language used to mean it is time to drop that overly re-read story book because even the slowest chamber of your brain has mastered the ending and pick up a new one. Even better, get rid of the old one because you ought to love yourself enough to want your mind space free and clear of the circus and drama.
How about we all just do that little self scan, find out if we have any excess mind weight to cut, if our brain test tubes are boiling down with what is exactly right for us, if we are who we are without any colonial hand emotion of any illegal tenants in our heads.
By: Watsemba Miriam