When I was little, my mother taught me to never touch the hot stove. “It’s hot, very hot, and you’ll hurt yourself,” she’d say and I would never touch the stove. Unfortunately, I didn’t apply this important advice to other hot objects and managed to burn myself playing with matches when I was about five years old. The flame created a big welt on my thumb and I hid it it from my mom fearing she’d be angry with me. I never once thought that maybe, had I not concealed my injury and my pain, my mom could help me, kiss it and make it better or at least put some ointment on it. Instead, I learned to keep touching the “hot stove” and keep tolerating pain rather than face anger or disappointment from someone I love.
There are a lot of different issues here but today we’re talking about the hot stove, or any other object of danger. Fact is: I keep touching the hot stove even though I know with great certainty that the hot stove will cause injury. I have seen the proof and the impact on my life over and over again and yet I keep putting my hand into the flame.
Why not avoid the object of danger? After years of soul-searching, I’m still not sure why. Some possible theories – I don’t love myself enough, I have low self-esteem, I am co-dependent, I have abandonment issues and the list goes on. There are so many possible explanations, but regardless of the reason, I ignore the heat and keep getting burned.
A quick story that relates to this issue: 25 years ago, I worked with some cooks who liked to test me and push me to prove myself to them. They were always doing some new, horrible thing to me or “making” me do things I didn’t want to do; one of these things was the game of “slap the flat top,” a burnerless flat cooking surface. In their game, everyone had to slap the flat top as many times as they could before the heat became unbearable. I had no interest in playing this game, but knew that they would torture me relentlessly if I didn’t do want they wanted. So, over and over and over, I slapped the flat top, regardless of how hot it was or if my hand was hurting, simply so maybe they’d leave me alone and give me peace. I never once considered simply saying “no” and walking away from their game. Nor did I realize that the more I complied with them, the more hot stoves I would encounter in my future.
I still don’t understand exactly why, but I continue to touch the hot stove. I never learned that I had a different choice and keep hoping that if I endure the heat, that maybe, just maybe, I will eventually get the peace and happiness I deserve. Strangely, I’ve never considered that I have another choice, the choice to create peace and happiness for myself and avoid the people and things that hurt me. It’s such a foreign concept to me – chase after things that feel good and stay away from things that feel bad.
The hot stove is the biggest challenge I face and the biggest obstacle in my journey. I am slowly learning to avoid the pain, but most of the time, it seems easier to walk into the flames and hurt myself rather than deal with the possibility that I might hurt or disappoint someone else.
It’s in my nature but doesn’t have to be in my future.
Remove The Chaos 