In the last month, two
people I know have had their homes burglarized. Sadly, for both of them, this
was not the first time, nor will it most likely be the last time. Fortunately,
for both of them, they were unharmed and/or not home. However, they did lose
possessions and one of them reported that their basement was a mess. So what
would you do if someone burglarized your home? My guess is you would call the
police and report that you had been burglarized.
Now, what would you do if someone broke into your life and robbed you of your blessings? What would you do if the person who was burglarizing your life was you? We may have limited control over whether someone breaks in and burglarizes our physical homes; however, we do have control over how we burglarize our own lives.
When I write about burglarizing your life, I am thinking about every time we think, speak, or behave in such a way that robs us of the opportunity to ever experience or do something in or with our lives. An acquaintance of mine never finished high school or her GED. She talks about how this has robbed her of doing many things with her life. While this is true, everyday she does nothing to finish her GED she continues to rob herself of those opportunities.
Whenever we think or say “I can’t” then we rob ourselves of the opportunity to experience or do something. Every time I say, “I can’t walk that far” then I am robbing myself of the opportunity to work on doing so. While I may not be able to walk to the end of the driveway and back at this moment, every time I rob myself of the chance to try and build my muscles to be able to do so, limits my ability to do so in the future.
Sometimes it is not a tangible thing that we rob ourselves of but part of who we are and were created to be. When we do not value the totality of who we are and allow what we believe and value to be lost to those who are seeking to enslave and domesticate us, then we rob ourselves of the ability to be our authentic selves. When we surrender our happiness to achieve acceptance, then we are allowing ourselves to be robbed of our peace and joy. When we rob ourselves of love and replace it with fear, then we are making a statement about how we value the approval and authentication of others more then our own.
When we rob ourselves or leave the door open for others to steal parts of who we are, then we block and stunt our own evolution and growth. When we do so, then we are also blocking the evolution and growth of those with whom we share our lives. Who do we even call to say I have been robbed? Who do we call when we are the ones who have sold what is of value to the spiritual pawn shop, thinking that at some point we may be able to get it out of hock. Who do we call when we left the door open for others to steal our values from us because we feared not having their acceptance?
We have the capacity to not only be the one who burglarizes our lives, but also the investigator who can take the report, conduct the investigation, and recover the items. However, moving from robber to recoverer is a journey in and of itself. We have to begin by valuing who we are. We have to begin to look at why we have been burglarized in the past. We have to look at what changes we need to make in our lives to move us out of the space that promotes this self-burglarization. What do we need to do to install a home security system in our own lives?