Food For Thought - "The Enemy Within"

"The Enemy Within"
C2004  Gail Pursell Elliott
 

If evil was ugly and frightening, it would be easy to avoid.  Often it comes to us looking like the embodiment of our wildest dreams come true.  Then we realize that if we are to attain this bright and shining goal, we must compromise something else that is important to us.  We have to hurt someone, tiptoe around our ethics, or engage in some other behavior that does not reflect the truth of who we are within.

Sometimes we justify this behavior with excuses or may feel so compelled by the exhilaration of the moment or what is promised that we lose sight of what we know to be true.  We feel that we cannot live with or without the experience.  Other times we may feel we have invested so much of our time, talent, commitment, etc., that we believe that it will cost us too much to walk away. Yet if we don’t walk away, we know we are compromising our values or not being true to ourselves.  A no-win situation.

One of the hardest things in life is to walk away from situations that we have worked long and hard to achieve or have been handed that look like great opportunities, simply because something in the pit of our stomachs tells us to.  Intellectually, we can come up with a whole list of reasons not to pay attention to that voice.   When we ignore it we’re invariably headed for trouble.

The word ‘evil’ is the word ‘live’ spelled backwards.  When we start ignoring our inner truth we are entering a trap that can keep us enslaved for years. And at that point we blame the situation, people,  or the external factors that seemed to have lured us in the first place. 

If we have the courage to be honest with ourselves and look all the way back, we find that the enemy was not outside of ourselves but within.  It was that split second in which we knew what was right for us and sidestepped it for what looked like was a greater reward.  Like Scarlett O’Hara in Gone With The Wind, we told ourselves not to think about that now, we’ll think about that tomorrow or later, or not at all.  It catches up with us sooner or later, in one way or another.

The opportunities that come to us are in themselves neutral.   We evaluate situations when they present themselves not in terms of whether they are ‘good’ or ‘evil’, but whether we must compromise who we are to participate in them. The internal enemy is another voice that tells us that it is ok not to be true to ourselves and that we can catch up to that truth some other time.

Some of us, myself included, have martyred ourselves at different times during our lives because we felt that we had made a commitment and because of our sense of integrity felt obligated to follow it through regardless of what it cost us. Once in the situation we did not feel that we could back out or walk away,  yet knew that the circumstances were not right for us.  We succumbed to the ‘enemy within’ which invariably places us in what appears to be a ‘catch 22’ condition.

The solution, which we may not have seen during those times, was that we had a prior commitment.  That first commitment is to our inner truth and our own sense of integrity.  Integrity is often defined as a code of ethical conduct, but another definition is the state of being whole and undiminished.  When we feel fragmented within we know that our inner integrity has been compromised and we are not able to fully live.  At that point we are in an inner holding pattern, our life has been told to ‘stand in the corner with it’s face to the wall’ for awhile … and ‘life’ in reverse appears to be ‘evil.’

The next time you find yourself in a situation that you did not expect, or initially ignored your inner warnings because it seemed like such a great opportunity, but now seems to compromise your inner integrity on closer examination or experience - walk away from it.  Even though it may be difficult we must. We have a ‘prior commitment’ that we may have temporarily forgotten:  a commitment to be true to ourselves and only engage in activities that are a reflection of that truth.

Have a Great Day and be good to yourself.  You deserve it!

Gail

Copyright ©2004 Gail Pursell Elliott All rights reserved.