What’s your Queen of Painful Beliefs look like? Mine’s like the Red Queen in Wonderland. She’s diligent at protecting those sacred precepts that keep me imprisoned in a House of Cards. As I begin to question beliefs that used to work (sort of), she watches, ready to trot me off to the guillotine.
Even the hint that I might violate her sacred edicts, gets her agitated.
“Maybe I don’t have to make sure the fridge has everything everyone in the family needs all the time. Maybe that’s not my job, “ I think.
Oh no! Too close to the “I have to take care of everyone else so that things will run smoothly” rule. As I begin to inquire into that Rule of Life, I quickly discover the truth: nobody expects this of me but me.
With a wave of her hand, she conjures all the stories and the attached chaotic feelings when my world didn’t run smoothly. As I keep asking myself whether taking care of everyone’s needs kept bad things from happening, she sees the threat to the house of cards she has built on that premise. So she does what all good Superegos do: she “ups the ante” by trotting out some old core beliefs: “If they don’t need me, they’ll abandon me.”
As I continue in my inquiry, having removed some of the false beliefs that were propping it up, the House of Cards gets very shaky indeed.
Then I move to the very foundation, the deepest fear: “Something bad will happen. It’ll all fall apart.”
I begin to notice that, even though I’ve weathered death and natural disaster more than once in my life, nothing’s truly fallen apart. As I go deeper, I find such kindness, so many gifts, even in the deepest loss.
I look up to see a raindrop, a spider web, crocus shoots poking through the ground. The world doesn’t seem to be falling apart. Without me filling the fridge. Wonder of wonders!
That’s when I hear the screech, “Off with her head.”
Which is muffled by the sound of a falling house of cards.
