Inside Out

I often find myself in the conundrum of feeling inside out. Just like the movie, "Inside Out", that feeling of being conflicted with what the world is throwing at me, and what I have control on. How do you see your world, your existence? Are you inside out?

In my years of working with hundreds of clients, I have seen both ends of this spectrum played out marvelously. I, myself wasn't truly aware of where I was on this spectrum initially, because it isn't one of those things that a person brings to the forefront of their mind on a regular basis. It was only working with people that I learned exactly how I viewed my world.

There is a client I see and we will call her Short-Round. Working with Short-Round over a three and a half year span of time allowed me to see where she is on this spectrum, and solidify where I am on the spectrum. Short-Round is a single mother of two and just barely thirty, in a constant financial struggle, and has constant relational struggles. You see, Short-Round views her world very externally and is in a constant state of chaos.

In virtually every session with Short-Round, she states how she had a plan for life when she was barely twenty and things didn't go according to plan and now there is no use trying to do anything to change that. She is constantly depressed and all her actions are for everyone else in her life but her. She seeks the validation from people who have been critical of her all her life and she is never getting that validation and continues to try harder to hopefully, magically obtain that validation she so desperately wants. She has difficulty in romantic relationships because she doesn't view herself as good enough because obviously the fathers of her children didn't want her. She is so afraid that she is "cursed" because of these failed relationships that she won't allow anyone in and more often than not uses the phrase "I can't let them in". These are all examples of viewing the world externally, hoping something will change, but doing nothing to change it herself.

Internal viewpoints are of course the opposite. When I see an area of my life that I think is less than adequate or acceptable, or that makes me feel downright miserable, I ask myself "what control do I have in this situation". 99% of the time, I have control to alter the situation at hand, if not change it all together. I often have an extreme example I share with my clients to illustrate the point of where control lies in a person; their accountability if you will.

If I am in a crosswalk and I have the little man saying it's my turn to cross I start walking, but I am not looking to either side because it's my rightful turn. All of a sudden a bus hits me dead on as if I had a target painted on me. Now, assuming I survived (I mean it's a bus after all), I could blame that bus for running the red light and hitting me. But did I not have some accountability? I didn't look both ways before I decided to cross and therefore I have some of the accountability for being hit. I could have exercised control in that situation and looked as I was crossing and noticed that said bus wasn't slowing down and stopped before it could hit me. This is not to say that there are things that are 100% out of our control. I could be sitting in my living room (typing this exact blog post) and a meteorite slams through my roof and kills me instantly. I can honestly say in that moment, I had absolutely no control or accountability.

Many times in my life I have defaulted to the external, as I'm sure we all have. Some examples of mine are, "All the red lights are out to get me", "Why do bad things always happen to me", etc. Those of you reading are likely guilty of the same or similar sayings as negative things happen in life. It is important to learn to live as internally as possible and realize that we all have more control in our everyday situations than we realize, and the quicker we accept that, the easier and more positive life will be for us. This type of thinking and approach to life will help to shrink the chaos in your life.