Let’s Talk About the C Word
I know, you think I’m about to write a blog about the word “cunt”, a taboo word for a part of the female anatomy. It’s not that I’m afraid to say the word cunt. I’m not. Cuntcuntcuntcuntcuntcuntcunt. See?! It’s that today I’d like to talk about an equally taboo word: commitment.
The word commitment tends to invoke feelings of fear and a sense of being trapped. However, that’s because many of us have been thinking of it in a way that creates fear. We think that if we commit to something, we need to do it forever. We think that if we don’t fulfill our commitments, we are failures.
But what if we started thinking about commitment as a choice that we make on purpose, based on our desires? That is conscious commitment. We can choose to intentionally, freely commit to something. And I’m not just talking about committing in relationships; I’m talking about all kinds of commitments.
I got to thinking about commitment today because I was laying a guilt trip on myself for not having blogged for so long. When I started this website, I committed to blogging twice a week. And I have been pretty darn consistent with that. Until recently when I decided not to blog during vacation, and then became very irregular and infrequent with it in recent weeks.
At this point, it would be inaccurate for me to say: “I am committed to blogging twice a week.” In fact, I am committed to blogging sporadically. I can tell that because that is what I have been doing. Somewhere along the way, I became committed to blogging sporadically. That was an unconscious commitment on my part. I didn’t consciously decide to do it; I simply did it. (Well, at first I did, and then my blogging got less and less frequent than I’d intended. That was the unconscious part.)
So here’s another part of the new paradigm with the c word: Whenever you notice yourself falling off your commitments, like I did, you can wonder about it, rather than going with the status quo of getting down on yourself about it. That would sound something like: “I wonder how/why I created this? I wonder what I can learn from this?”
In my case, what comes up for me is that I was going through a hard time and felt scared about continuing to put myself out there in my more vulnerable state. And, my truth today is that I feel ready to recommit. So here goes: I recommit to blogging twice a week. (By the way, commitment is not something that happens between me and you. I can make agreements with others, but commitments are between me and the Universe.)
The next thing that usually happens when someone makes a commitment is fear. Thoughts like: “But what if I change my mind?” and “What if I fail?”
Fortunately, these unpleasant elements that can be eliminated in the new paradigm as well. For example, I don’t have to fear commitments when I give myself permission to create a new, different commitment whenever I decide that the current commitment is no longer serving me. Preferably, I will do this consciously. And, if I don’t, I can still learn from it, forgive myself, and recommit, as I just did. And that is not so bad ;).