Past Its Expiration Date
Most of us have no trouble throwing away products that are past their expiration date. It makes sense that we no longer eat them, especially if they no longer smell or look right. But with the same ease, we do not rid ourselves of inner attitudes, ways of protecting ourselves, and beliefs whose expiration dates have long since passed. Things that very clearly smell and look like they are no longer fit to swallow, yet we do it anyway. Why? Habit? Laziness? Fear?
Now, everything that happens inside us is much more invisible, unless we use our inner eye, but that is generally not very well trained. What happens inside us, however, is not hidden. It sends out many signals, especially when something is past its expiration date. It knocks on our inner door and keeps knocking until we finally hear it. Until we turn inward, open our eyes, and all too often discover a true natural disaster.
Fallen trees, flooded areas, scorched patches of earth. A landscape that no one would consider habitable for a human being. And yet we live there. We climb over all those fallen trees every day, stumbling over them and getting caught on them. We walk for endless stretches through deep water, only to find ourselves surrounded by miles of pitch-black ash, no longer knowing where we are… Or who we are, why we are, what we are here for…
We would much rather find, when we open that door, a manageable number of things that are past their expiration date. Things we can still pick up, look at, and then consciously throw away. We would rather not discover a natural disaster of such enormous proportions. A place where we first have to make our way through so much misery that we are not even sure whether we will make it to the end. Where we have to catch our breath again and again. Where the road is long and it is difficult to see what we are doing it for. Whether we will ever find a habitable piece of ourselves again…
That is why it is important not to let things get that far. To train ourselves to be able to smell and see the products that are so clearly past their expiration date, and then actually throw them away. To train that inner eye. To refine our inner hearing of the knocking at the door. Because the unconscious always knocks when something has reached its expiration date. Through the pathways I described earlier: through the dream world, the body, and our projections onto others. And whoever learns to hear and see the signals prevents a great deal of inner natural disaster and unnecessary suffering…
Let me give an example. I am affected by the inner critic I observe in someone else. Hey, what is actually going on with my own inner critic? Inside, I find a battlefield. The critic is the army commander. He has secured his own safety, but in doing so has lost a great deal of manpower. I engage him in conversation.
“What is your purpose?”
He looks at me as if I have asked a strange question.
“To keep you alive.”
“Against what?”
“Against rejection. Against humiliation. Against the pain of not being good enough. If I keep you constantly on your toes, no one can catch you off guard.”
“But look around you.”
He falls silent.
“Your battlefield is littered with parts of me that you sacrificed. My creativity, playfulness, spontaneity, peace, and softness. You kept the enemy outside the gates, but you also kept life out.”
For the first time, he seems tired.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know any other way.”
Perhaps that is what we find when we look inward. A protector whose expiration date has long since passed. One who is still trying to protect us, but who by now is mainly causing devastation. Because life is asking something different of him now. And he is quite willing to take a step back, once he is allowed to discover why he fought so hard. To discover that the attitude that once caused the least suffering is now causing the most suffering. That the war is over. Because the army commander is tired too. And the battlefield around him mirrors his inner life…