Many people have a very difficult time moving beyond dysfunction. Perhaps it is because they have a problem letting go. Dysfunction, to some, can be a friend. But I consider dysfunction to be an enemy. An enemy of the soul and mind. It is an issue that permeates the heart of many and for many, its an issue that eats away their being little by little until there is nothing there but dry, sour, emptiness.
With dysfunction comes depression. With depression comes emptiness and with emptiness comes anger and hostility. Many people are unable to move beyond these issues for varying reasons. Perhaps the drugs they are taking don't work; perhaps they can't afford proper medication or proper medical treatment; Perhaps they drink as well as take medication; Perhaps they don't realize their depression can be helped through counseling or medical treatment and they go through life miserable, affecting everyone in their path. For a person who is depressed and dysfunctional, their world is a gloomy place. They blame everything that happens to them on others, not wanting to consider that the problem might be within themselves. They lash out at others. They go out of their way to make others as miserable as they are themselves.
Perhaps dysfunctional people can't move forward because they are afraid of moving beyond their status quo. Perhaps they are afraid of death. In a sense, moving beyond dysfunction and depression does mean death of sorts. But that type of letting go...that type of death is a positive thing. Letting go brings changes that could be very positive for the person hanging on.
Many people afraid of learning how to live life without dysfunction are afraid of change. For so long, depression and dysfunction has been their normal pace of life. Both issues have become their friend. Something they can rely on. In this frame of mind, people sometimes prefer what is familiar rather than something that isn't. After all, learning to live a life without dysfunction and depression means possibly living a life of the unknown. Perhaps by letting go of dysfunction and depression, it would change their comfort zone.
Once you have learned how to move beyond dysfunction, you can live your life without fear. Really...it's true! You can live your life authentically. You can be true to yourself. Living without dysfunction means no longer being paralyzed by what people think of you or what they say of you or fearing the unknown. Once you know that you can escape a life of depression and dysfunction, you can learn to embrace life and the wonderful things that living true to yourself will bring.
Is there a prescription that will help you live your life without dysfunction? Without depression? Well...yes and no. There are medications available that can be prescribed to you by your doctor. But why rely on drugs to change your life for the better? Why not just start by changing your attitude towards life and changing your ways of living? Isn't that better than relying on a drug? Perhaps some forms of dysfunction do require medication. I'm not a doctor. But I myself have come from a severely dysfunctional family who to this day remains severely dysfunctional. I very much feel like the lucky one! I came out a survivor and did not rely on medications or drugs in order to come out a survivor. I didn't have to rely on therapy. I didn't rely on a doctor. How did I do this?
First of all, many years ago, I decided to forgive my parents for raising me in a household full of dysfunction. I forgave them for creating the environment with treacherous dysfunction that causes my estranged family members to remain living a life of dysfunction. I chose to let go of the past. Letting go of the past will set you free. Secondly, I removed the toxic people from my life who were contributing to the dysfunction. That meant distancing myself from everyone in my family including my own parents. My father passed away in 1994, but I had distanced myself from him years prior to his death even though I loved him very much. Distancing yourself from those who are toxic doesn't mean you can't love them. It just means you can't have them in your immediate life or share in their enjoyment of being toxic to those around them. Leaving toxic people in your life will not allow you to make the positive changes that are required if you want to live a life without dysfunction. You have to make a clean break and leave all of the toxic people behind you. That is a requirement, otherwise all of your efforts will be in vain.
Thirdly, living life with a meaning is key. Find something worthwhile and find something that has meaning. Not to others, but to yourself. Once you find something that is worthwhile and that has meaning to yourself, branch out and become an expert in whatever you've chosen to take on. Take up a hobby or learn something new. Live your life with positive energy and positive energy will come back to you threefold. Of course you will always have those nasty dysfunctional, toxic people you left behind swirling in the mist behind you, always trying to find a way to penetrate your new existance and for some strange reason, following behind you.......but disregard them completely and continue moving forward. If you allow toxic people to block your progression and hold you back from living a life free from dysfunction, then you've gained nothing and have lost the battle. Keep toxic people at a distance and over time you will see the distance growing wider. There is no catching up to you once you've truely left them behind for good.
You must ask yourself, "Who am I?"....."What is it I want out of life?" and "What does my life mean to me?". My process of awakening began with a near death experience many, many years ago. Perhaps with some people, it will take a similar dramatic event to make them wake up and smell the coffee. I chose to change my life and to move forward and never look back. That doesn't mean that you won't have negative people constantly trying to infiltrate your existance because it seems the more positive you become, the more negative people who are drawn to you. But you have to make the conscious decision of whether to be sucked back into the negative energy or leave it behind and keep moving forward in a positive manner. You can not expect others to make you happy. You can not expect people to love you or like you. You can not expect doctors or nurses to make you better or feel better. You have to fix YOU. You can learn how to become a better individual just by doing it, living it and taking the necessary steps at becoming better.
You have to remember that each person's journey is truly one of aloneness and that whatever happens in your life, is only you. It will always only be you. You will die alone. No one is going with you in the end. While I do believe that we merely change our energy when we die and we still live on forever....just on another plane of life....we still must make this journey alone. Furthermore, in order to really come away from dysfunction, you must learn to hear the truth and to only speak the truth and to only live life with the truth. My philosophy in life is that if you can't speak the truth to me or if you can't tell me the truth, then don't bother telling me anything. To me, there is nothing in this life except for the truth. I live life with truth. Not lies. Not with deception. Not through smokey windows or smoke screens. This is me. Take me or leave me. I am who I am and that is all I will ever be. I live for me. I do not live for anyone else. If you happen to going in the same direction as I am, then I'm happy to share your company. I don't put on airs about myself, nor have I ever lived my life putting on airs. I use to think that by having many possessions and having beautiful things constantly being around me, that this made me who I was. I could not have been more wrong. I do not need possessions to feel good about myself. I do not need to keep up the same life style as others nor do I need to share the same beliefs as others in order to feel good about myself. You have to like you for you before others can like you for who you are. After all, if YOU don't like YOU...then why should others?
Joining the military was the best thing I could have ever done for myself because I was taught how to live life without possessions and I learned that I was still okay with just myself. I was taught how to push myself to the limits and I was taught to face my worst fears. I faced my fears and I came out of it okay. When I realized my fears, then I was able to live life without fear of the unknown. I was able to live life without the fear of what other people thought of me or said of me. I no longer care how I am judged by others. I am my own judge. I set my own standards. Others can not set standards for me nor do I live my life by standards set by others. I do not set standards for others, nor is it my place how to tell others how to live their lives. Their life is not my life. Their standards are not my standards. I do not walk in their shoes nor do they walk in mine. Others are not in control of my thoughts or how I express myself nor am I in control of their thoughts or how they express themselves. Yes of course I do get angry when people make up lies or tell others untruthful things just for self gain or when people go out of their way to hurt others through their lies, but if they live their life through lies, that is their journey and it is not mine to follow. Some people live their life through denial because they wear a mask. They live their lives through a mask and they pretend to others to be something they are not. These are not inwardly happy people. They are dysfunctional people caught up in their disease. A disease called dysfunction. These are people who choose to remain living with their disease instead of living a life healed.
My life is measured of how I judge myself, not of how someone else judges me. No man is my judge. No man is your judge. No one has the right to judge who you are or how you chose to live because to do so would mean that they are above you. No one is really above you. No one is above me. We are all equal in reality. We are all human carrying similar baggage. All of us eventually get sick and die. All of us are born and all of us will die. We all must go through the similar things in life even if our story line is a bit different. When you no longer live life with dysfunction, the things you thought mattered, no longer matter. You see life in a completely different perspective. Leaving dysfunction behind changed my life for the better.
By merely looking inward, of course I had to re-experienced the pain of my childhood. My childhood was painful. But that doesn't mean my adulthood has to be painful. My parents thought they were doing the right thing by staying together even though they never should have stayed together. They were dysfunctional people together and because of that, they basically ruined the lives of their children through their shared life of dysfunction. Yes, this is a very difficult statement for me to make because by making this statement, it seems to others that I am blaming...but I'm not blaming anyone. Do not make assumptions about me because you will be very wrong. In order to leave dysfunction behind, you must be honest with yourself and you must see the truth for what it is. I make the statement because it is my truth. Speaking the truth will change your life. Living the truth will change your life forever.
I appreciate my parents for their many fine qualities as individual people. I appreciate my parents for the fact they enabled me to come into this world so that I could then do something for others in a meaningful way. I appreciate my parents in many, many ways. As individuals, each had their talents that were passed on to their children, however small or great. I loved my parents, but that doesn't mean I enjoyed sharing their dysfunctional life or enjoyed sharing their home that had dysfunctional people in it. That doesn't mean I appreciated living a childhood with dysfunctional siblings or relatives. Loving someone and appreciating someone doesn't mean you have to live with them or share in their dysfunction. Their journey does not have to be your journey especially if you know that you want your life to be better. Recognizing dysfunction and knowing you must leave it behind you helps you to heal and to live your life healed. Sharing in the dysfunction or remaining in a life of dysfunction causes you to live your life miserably, right up to the end.
Learning to live life without dysfunction means realizing that your life is about you and no one else. It isn't about your parents. It isn't about your siblings. It isn't about your friends or other family members or even about the strangers who enter your path. It isn't about anyone who may be following your journey. Your life is about you. It has always been only about you. It is up to you to take control of your life and it is up to you to make the necessary changes in your life to come out a survivor, free of dysfunction. Everyone must learn to seperate themselves from their family of origin in order to learn how to be an individual. This is the only way you can become your own person.
Your family members, your friends and total strangers will place expectations upon you as you go through this journey called life. It is up to you to say, "I don't want to play this game anymore" and leave it behind. If you do not learn how to live your life without dysfunction, you will live your life in turmoil right up to the end. Who wants that? Dying bottled up inside would be a horrible thing. Who wants to carry this type of baggage around for all eternity?
Back in the early 80s, I made a pact to change my life. I made this pact with myself. I chose to live my life for myself. I do not require approval from family members, friends or total strangers to tell me how I should live my life. Their approval is not required nor needed in order for me to be happy with how I live my life. You do not need permission from anyone in order to live a life free of dysfunction. I am free from dysfunction because I chose to change my life and I am proud to say that I've never been depressed. Ever. I can't think of ever a time I felt depressed over anything. Sad...but not depressed. Changing my life didn't require medication or drugs. I merely made the decision to change my life for the better and to leave toxic people out of my life. Low and behold, some toxic people to this day continue to follow my trail and scent like a bloodhound. For some strange reason, they are hellbent on injecting their negative energy towards me....but I brush them off and I don't look backwards. I do not allow their negativity to penetrate my existance. It is okay to know that negative people surround you or are behind you. It is important to know that you will always have negative people trying to block your journey. But you must not acknowledge them. To acknowledge them would defeat your purpose of positive living. Sooner or later, the distance between yourself and the toxic people who follow you will be far greater and wider and they will eventually exist no more.
Toxic people wear many masks. The one mask they do not wear is the mask of truth. They have not yet learned how to resolve their personal issues, therefore they can not live their life in truth. Instead, their reality is not authentic. Toxic people appear to be someone they are not. If you live your life in truth, the truth will always allow you to see toxic people for what and whom they really are. Truth will allow you to see through a toxic person's smoke screen. Toxic people can stop playing games and they can learn to be honest with themselves and with others, but for some reason, toxic people can't seem to move forward. They are basically stuck on a very low plain of life.
Don't live your life with dysfunction or depression or in denial. Life is much shorter than we think and there is so much more to life than living it full of negative energy or allowing others to pull you through life through their own negative energy. To live life without truth is to die wounded. To understand one's truth is to die healed. Dysfunction is a disease. Don't lie to yourself, because that only makes it more difficult to fight the disease we call dysfunction. By telling yourself the truth and by living your life in truth, you allow yourself to heal. Once you have healed, you will then be able to live your life through your own eyes and not the eyes of others.Your life only belongs to you. Live life to the fullest and expect nothing less.
