Getting Past The Familiar
Tricks for getting past your personality
I moved my husband at the time and young son to California in 1968. Moving from a small town in Pennsylvania to a big city in California was an enormous risk.
I decided to go, and my husband decided to come with me.
We drove—really, I drove—the entire way with our son’s tricycle strapped to the back of our used Pontiac LeMans. Everything else we owned was in the car.
On the last full day of driving, I was afraid as I came over the mountain and saw the lights of Los Angeles spread out as far as the eye could see.
I mumbled to myself, “I hope you did the right thing.”
The next morning, we stepped out of the motel onto grass that didn’t feel familiar, bright sunlight, and some strange-looking plant that I later learned was a bird of paradise. I knew that my world from then on would be entirely different.
In those days, moving to California was essentially moving to a foreign country. I knew nothing about the place other than what I had seen in “The Graduate," but I knew it was where I had to go.
To force the issue, I had applied to Long Beach State. I remember standing in our tiny kitchen and getting the acceptance letter from Long Beach State as if it were yesterday. I am not sure if I have ever been as excited or scared at the same time.
Although I could not attend after moving (another story for another time), it started our entire family down a path I know everyone was eventually glad we took.
After taking that gigantic risk, you would think getting past the familiar into the unfamiliar would be easy for me, and yet, like everyone else, it’s not.
I have tricks I use.
I used this trick to decide about moving to California.
I shut my eyes, held out my hands, and pretended I was holding the idea of staying in one hand and the idea of leaving in the other. Every time I did it, the idea of leaving felt lighter.
It was an open door, and as hard as it was—we knew no one, had no jobs, and just enough money to get there and live for the first month—it was easier to go than stay.
One morning, while jogging, I used another trick.
There is a turnaround point I use when I don’t feel like going the longer route. I hadn’t gone the longer route for some time.
When I asked why I hadn’t, I realized I had developed reasons for avoiding it.
It was unfamiliar again.
What would be on that route?
What if a dog barks at me? (Seriously, if your dog barks at people on the street, please train it not to. We don’t know what that bark means, and it scares the bejeezus out of us.)
What if I couldn’t make it that far?
These are just a few reasons I didn’t want to go from the familiar to the unfamiliar.
I knew it was time to pull out the misdirect trick.
As I approached the turning point, I turned my head away from the marker and distracted myself until I was far enough past it that it was easier to keep on going.
After that, it was a delight. I even got to say “hello” to people walking their dogs (on a leash, thank you), and both the people and the dogs smiled at me.
I don’t want to do many things I know I must do to move on.
So, I practice self-trickery.
I trick my limited personality into joining groups and classes that I don’t want to because they are unfamiliar.
I promise myself (as I once promised my daughter) that after fully participating—this is the key—I will find that the group or class does not fit me, and I will stop attending.
Occasionally, I do stop. However, every new class opens the door to things I never thought I could or would want to do. Even if I stop, every move forward opens new paths and ideas to consider.
With all our tools, such as computers, phones, and tablets, we are constantly asked to move from the familiar to the unfamiliar.
Every time our gadgets ask us to update or download, we must move onward just a little.
Instead of resisting, we could rejoice that the universe's continuous expansion is about exploring new possibilities.
As expressions of that universal Mind, expansion is also our natural state.
If we believe that to expand, we must find the willpower to do so, then moving from the familiar to the unfamiliar may never happen.
But willpower is never the right way.
Instead, we can trust that we are always guided into expansion. Sometimes, a voice from within, a symbol we see, calls and leads us safely onward.
When personality gets in the way, go ahead and trick it. It will be worth it!
Or we can remember what the poet Robert Frost told us:
“I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.”
So good!