Relocating Fingers

I’ve written elsewhere about how easy it is for one or two of my fingers to become dislocated – and about how I manage to put them back in place, to “relocate” them.

In addition to the entirely physical nature of this whole set of actions, there is also – for me at least – a metaphorical angle, in terms of non-useful mental habits; of habitual behaviours and ‘trains of thought’ learnt over many years. And here is where I come to view them as being akin to dislocated fingers; except that they are dislocations that are left alone and NOT re-located.

Bodies compensate

Imagine a dislocated finger just left “out of joint”. Our bodies are very good at taking and making compensatory action – so eventually we would “get round the problem” and endeavour to use our hands, and fingers, by finding the next best way possible. We’d do this by some trial and error process, and then consolidate the change by “learning” the compensation.
It is rather like, by the same token, if we have a foot, leg or back injury. We’ll walk with a limp, or twist and contort ourselves out of shape so we can still move around with the least amount of discomfort. The longer we endure the original injury, the better and more ingrained our compensation becomes.

Minds compensate

The same applies to mental dislocations. However – the difference with mental dislocations is that we rarely have a sense that a “dislocation” has taken place. We just make the compensatory adjustments we feel are necessary and incorporate them into our lives.

Feel here is often a key component. If we make compensations that are inadequate – we’ll know about the inadequacy because we’ll still feel the discomfort somewhere, usually – as it happens - in our bodies.

To take just a couple of examples; whether it is a childhood fear of the dark, or a reaction to things said about us – they all started with something that filled us with a discomfort, an unpleasant reaction, an insecurity of some kind.

We’ll then start to assemble a strategy of compensation – rather than an action of relocation. We may well have heard that old adage about “getting back on the horse after being thrown or falling off,” but we’ll rarely bite that particular bullet. We’ll look to take the softer option by assuring ourselves that getting round the issue would cause us less immediate hurt than re-confronting it by “getting back on the horse.”

A Fear of the Dark is quite a toxic one, because it can telescope out into a fear of the unknown, of the unfamiliar, of anything new etc. Once we are aware we can grow our fears in a whole variety of ways, we might view falling off the horse and getting back on it from a totally new perspective.

It all starts with an original horse, and an original dislocation (maybe from the saddle!). If we can approach ANY original instance from the perspective that relocation is going to be better than making compensation – then we don’t put ourselves in a position of growing thoughts, beliefs, behaviours and skills that won’t in any way serve us well in the long term.

Childhood Fears

How private do we keep our childhood fears? How much do we share and how much do we keep inside?
Children tend to have extremely fertile imaginations, and the notion that almost anything is possible when we are young, including the content of our dreams, is accepted very readily. It is only life that teaches us the more likely or the more credible outcomes and considerations, as we can see here.

For Britney, at home in her darkened bedroom, the Wardrobe Monsters would present a far greater and on-going fear than any REAL burglar coming in through the window. 

For Daddy, however, the opposite is the case.

When it comes to playing out the “WHAT Ifs” – again Britney’s and Daddy’s will be quite different, although for each of them these are still played out in their respective imaginations.

The thing is – for Daddy to really help Britney and her fear of the Wardrobe Monsters he’ll need to step into her reality, her mosaic of the world, and then take the relocation journey with her. AND, by doing so, he may – just may – sort out some of his own dislocated fingers along the way also.

Things People Say

The internet is full of scams, some overt and some covert, designed to get us to click on a link that allows gremlins into our computer. These gremlins and viruses can infect and spread their toxicity into our security – by attacking our operating system, invading our financial and personal identity.

Most of us, by now, have become cognisant of the fact that emails that start “Most Honourable Sir,” and that emanate from West Africa, are ones to avoid and delete at all costs.

However those of us who walk within the cathedrals of social media have become subject to something much nearer home in terms of our vulnerability, viz:

“Have you read what they are saying about you?”

This tag line, plus a pernicious link, personifies how the ‘scammers’ attempt to get through our guard. They frame it up by reaching for our fingers and trying to dislocate them.

Now if we met someone in the street who actually did this in reality we’d understand the assault, and then look to get a doctor to put our fingers back right again.
But THIS is different – or so it seems!
And yet it is also far worse – for it plays upon our inner insecurities.
“What ARE they saying about me?  How BAD are these things? WHO else has, is and will be reading them? I’m under attack – I must defend. I cannot defend against the unknown so I must FIND OUT.” And so on.

If we are sensitive, then our metaphorical fingers will be dislocated on a regular basis. Our sensitivity began somewhere, and we compensated rather than relocated in that original instance. From then on we always took the softer option, until that no longer worked for us. Then we learnt how to take more soft options to compensate for the earlier softer option that was no longer working. And so the strategies build and the habit forming goes from strength to strength.
But that strength takes us further away from the most effective solution for us.

So – in the case of things people say – is that relevant? Is it important, to you, really?
We can make endless compensatory excuses to hold that relevance and importance in place – if we so choose! With each excuse, we weaken the hold on the joints of our fingers.

Conclusion

We are never, ever, stuck with having metaphorically loose-jointed fingers all our lives. We can put them back, relocate them, and build their strength. Good strong joints is the way we were born, is the way we are meant to be. With them we can then be dextrous in life, rather than distorting ourselves out of shape.

And – as always with my perspective – it is just a thought, an idea, a notion. And – as ever with your perspective – it is always there for you to choose.