THE OPTIONS ON THE TABLE
We are always, sometimes unknowingly, listening to the options on the table.
A young girl is struggling to stay alive. No, she's not terminal--she's hopeless, which is just as life-threatening. Every day her mind careens around curves that say, "Drive into that bridge" or "Take that bottle of pills." She hears other options, too, such as "Talk to that person you trust" or "Give yourself another day to find hope."
If we are not too far down the road of hopeless, and if we have the tiniest of moments in which to feed the strength of our mind, we may find we can actually take options off the table. Then, in a single moment of sturdy decision-making, we can say, "Taking my life is no longer an option."
Something significant seems to happen in the moment we are able to take an option off the table: it somehow loses its permission to be at work in our mind and even consume our thinking. It may come right back and we may have to repeat the action, over and over, but it can gradually lose its power to influence us.
Here is an everyday, less dramatic example: person 1 in the relationship has done everything he/she knows to do, even with counseling wisdom, to impact the relationship for the good. Person 2 simply refuses to engage. Person 1 finds himself/herself feeling as if he/she let person 2 down. We know this drill: beat oneself up for the failure in the relationship even though the other person is exercising emotional paralysis.
Can person 1 take "beating myself up and feeling like I let everyone down" off the table? I believe YES. Today, where you are hurting or hopeless, write down the options for action that are available to you. Are there any you can choose to remove?
Listen to the hope that can be found by taking options off the table.
