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Diana Schwenk, Diana's Enormous Book of Quotes, Fear, fortress, impenetrable, imprisoned, Jack Handey, protected, safe, vulnerability
To me, it’s always a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if anybody says, ‘Hey, can you give me a hand,’ you can say, ‘Sorry, got these sacks.’ ~Jack Handey
I’m like Superwoman, or am I?
I have a Super Power. It’s true!
Well, it’s more like a shield – a protective shield.
Or a wall, yeah that’s it – a wall.
No it’s more like a fortress – it can’t be penetrated.
Whatever it is, I am safe.
You can’t get close enough to hurt me. You can’t even get close enough to the first line of defense, never mind the actual place of that which I protect.
I’ve thought out every angle.
Every approach.
You don’t have a chance.
I am so protected inside this fortress that I cannot even get into a place of danger. I can’t even see what’s out there.
I wonder what’s out there. I wonder if I’m missing …something good.
I am like a fortress that can’t be penetrated
or can it?
God I hope so.
~ DIANA’S ENORMOUS BOOK OF QUOTES ~
Ever been in a prison of your own making?
talktodiana 
How did I miss this Diana? This is great! And what an icon or symbol for all that you do in your day and week, Super Woman!
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haha! Thanks! Yeah. Ok. I’ll run with that! 🙂
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Sometimes I think the older we get, the more stuff gathers in our brain. How can we help it? Life experiences build up like powder keg…we just gotta find our safety valves. All that bubbly anger and defense must come out like aged wine.
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So true Jean. And now I have a sudden urge for a glass of wine! 😉
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Diana,
I loved this. Can so relate to these walls you so eloquently build here with your words!
Hey, I just wanted to point out that your gravatar doesn’t have your wordpress link on it. You might want to link it to your photo. You should have so much more traffic with your great writing here and a lot of people won’t take the time to go back twice to retrieve an address, they just move on. If you click on your photo only it won’t automatically take you here…. Just thought I’d share… If you go on my blog and search for the title gravatars… I re-blogged a friend’s blog about how to do it…
Great post! More people need to see it!
😉
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Wow thanks! I will have a look on your blog for that post!
Diana
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My superpower is looking like I am doing wonderfully well, when actually, I’m falling apart.
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I’ve done that before for fear if I lose it there will be no coming back – A sort of fake it till you make it thing. I hope things feel less overwhelming for you soon Jan.
Hugs.
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wisdom mostly.
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What do you mean?
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This made me think, have I ever been in such a prison and you know I think when I was younger I was indeed imprisoned by my own fears, as a middle aged woman not so much I am happy with who I am and how I live my life
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How freeing – that’s wonderful Joanne!
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I first read this post hours ago and had to leave it for a while. I couldn’t place it for myself immediately so it took a 4.5 hour drive with a good friend sharing some vulnerable moments. And that is what allowed me to see the door to the prison/fortress/wall. Brene Brown’s work. The necessity of being vulnerable. And the key to that door being the knowledge that only when we are self aware and able to love ourselves unconditionally can we allow others to see us for who we truly are.
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Thanks for your thoughts on this Ian. I agree if I am pleased about something about myself and can embrace and love myself then it doesn’t much matter if someone else thinks it wrong. Thanks for coming back to this 4.5 hours later. I also can’t help but notice that both our posts today, although not exactly the same, were similar. 🙂
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Oh, now,… you can no more live without emotional walls than you can without physical walls. Would you prefer to be “emotionally homeless” living under whatever temporary circumstances provide shelter? Depending on the virtual handouts of others?
We all need a home base, a place of safety, refuge, peace. Without that our energies are spent in daily survival.
Look at it this way, human civilization advanced only when humans reached a point where fighting to survive was no longer the full daily activity. In Maslow’s famous Hierarchy of Needs, shelter is one of the top three most primal needs. Without it, everything else is threatened. Cherish your shelters, both physical and virtual!
The trick, of course, is not getting or feeling trapped. The labels we accept for ourselves can sometimes have a trapping effect. Labels may describe you, but they shouldn’t define you (let alone trap you). What you are right now; what you choose to do right now defines you.
All the doors you can see are available to you. (Of course there are doors you can’t see that aren’t. I’m afraid that, for example, the door labeled “Canadian Prime Minister” is probably not in your ken. Although who knows…)
There is a metaphor I like, of castles. Many of those old fortresses are both tourist attractions and home to caretakers. The USA White House and other government and famous homes work similarly. There are public rooms open to all comers. There are rooms where “special” people can go, the “Authorized Personnel Only!” rooms. And there are the private rooms where only the family and loved ones go.
We all have our rooms. And our attics and dungeons. We all have rooms that really need cleaning out and maybe a paint job after all these years. We have our show rooms and secret closets. And that trunk where all the real secrets are kept.
I think it’s easy, especially if you’ve lived in the place a long time, to be concerned about how visitors will react to rooms that have been private for so long. Past experiences, past reactions, can have a scarring effect. The only real answer I know is the old ‘one day at a time’ deal with today, be true to yourself and the universe unfolds as it will. If nothing else, perhaps just to understand that you… are merely feeling the human condition!
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What a neat way to look at it. I agree there are parts of me that are just for me. Parts of me I don’t share and I don’t have to share.
In this post I was trying to address an area of my life that I protect because of fear that I might get hurt at the expense of something potentially beautiful. Make sense?
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Absolutely; with ya from the gitgo. Look at it this way: On your death bed (many, many happy years from now), you look back and are given a vision of two paths: in one you stayed safe and snug in your fortress. In the other you risked the emotional pain for beauty, but it didn’t pay off, you got hurt and, returned to as before with newly damaged heart.
Regardless of which path you actually took in life, you’re shown both. Regardless of which path you actually took, which would you most regret missing? I, for one (and I bare all the scars to prove it), totally and utterly believe that it is better to love and lose than to not love at all. It may be one of the trickiest payoffs in the human history of risky gambles, but man…when your number comes up, it’s worth all the struggle and heartache. Finest wine there is.
And remember that, as an adult, humiliation and emotional pain are totally survivable. Sometimes you can barely even see the scars! Is beauty worth the risk? It’s hardly even a question in my book! Beauty is always worth the risk (assuming the risk is your own heart).
FWIW, I find that sometimes with difficult or challenging decisions, it’s helpful to look at it in terms of which decision would you least regret rather than most favor. Life often gives us choices that seem equally favorable depending on how you look at them.
It’s a really trite example, but it illustrates: I finally figured out which was my favorite, Mexican food or Pizza by realizing I couldn’t live in a world without enchiladas, rice and beans, chips and salsa. I could … somehow manage to live, no call it survive, in a world without ‘Za,… mostly because there’s still spaghetti and other marinara/pasta/melted-cheese foods. 😀
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I’ve often made decisions based on that method! For real!
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For a while I had been behind the fortress. I call it living in la-la land. Rising early, watching the sun-rise, walking in nature, smelling the roses, enjoying the special moments of the day, thinking positively; doing everything and anything rather than think about things I did not want to think about, or facing things that I do not want to face. As long as I was in la-la land, it was safe. After a while when I tried to emerge I found that anything or anyone that reminded be of the painful thoughts (that I did not want) was not welcome and I started blocking them out too or avoiding situations in case they hurt. So now I had a fortress (against changing my situation) AND a shield (against new/old people and new/old adventures). No-one could penetrate but I felt strong. Earlier this year i decided to leave the fortress or at least plan to. Since making the decision, the pain has been excruciating. Worse than anything I had ever imagined. By that I mean facing life on the other side of the fortress, facing what I have to do to get there, and facing what I have to become. However, I am still determined to do it.
I leave you with a quote from Ian Munro’s latest blog-post. I feel that it captures what has been holding me back. “Have you ever noticed the tendency of us humans to choose the certainty of an unsatisfactory situation over the allure of a satisfying but uncertain alternative? We actually choose an unhappy situation because it is a situation that we are familiar with. The unknown has that much power over us, even one with the possibility of increased happiness or fulfillment.”
Sorry for the long reply. Your post hit a spot for me today. 🙂
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I am deeply saddened to live in a world where people feel the need to apologize for a long reply!
(I could go on at length about why, but apparently that just isn’t done anymore.)
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I am sorry for taking so long to respond ……. yes, we do tend to keep saying ‘I am sorry for…’ instead of accepting that we can only ever do our best and that our best is good enough.
Thanks for pulling me up on this self-condemnation habit of mine.
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no need to apologize Elizabeth. I know you’ve had a hard time of it in the last year or so, yet you are so amazing in the way you are working yourself through it. I think you’re brave and beautiful.
xo
Diana
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Hey, I need those walls! A door would be nice, though. 🙂
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haha! a secret hidden door maybe. 😉
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Excellent. I’ll tuck it behind the bookcase 😉
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There ya go! How’s Astonishing coming?
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Ugh, not very productive over the last couple of weeks. Life and injury getting in the way. That said, my mind has been working, and I have been getting some pages done today. 🙂
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Awesome it will happen, of that I am certain!
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Ah yes, the walls. Then the armored suit in addition, just in case someone dared come through my walls.
It took a superpower to help me shed the suit. Then they helped me peek over the wall before I finally leapt over!
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And what’s it like on the other side? 🙂
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At first terrifying, then tolerable, and now utterly and simply incredible. Come join me?
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I’m always working on it – see you on the other side!
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You’ve lost me… why have you of all people built walls… ??
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to protect myself. I think most people do. And the walls come and go. You’ve never experienced that bulldog?
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being my type of person.. never need a wall to protect me, as I have always considered the best form of defense is attack, and lived my life like that… does it make sense.??
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I think attack, which I have practised myself, is a form of a wall or maybe better yet, a fortress which has that first line of defense…it’s all about protecting…
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I thought only introverts built walls! Do tell why this is so, for an extrovert like yourself. x
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I think many extroverts build walls. There are many parts of me I openly share but there are parts of me that are guarded as well and if conversation heads that way, I shut it down. I think it’s true of everyone, no?
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That makes sense. Nosey moi wonders what you are guarding though. lol (blame it on the writer in me)
Of course, don’t feel you have to confess anything here. 😉
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haha come over for coffee and I’ll tell ya! 😉
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If only it were that simple, D. Maybe someday. 🙂
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That would be fun!
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I have been in that prison–thankfully a few people have baked me a chocolate cake with tools inside to chisel my way out–inch by inch
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haha now I want chocolate cake!
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then you are on your way out too!
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See I knew there was a connection between chocolate and freedom!
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I think we have come upon one of the secrets of life!
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You are brilliant!
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hardly, but thank you!
xo
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Yep I know those walls 😉
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Why do we build them?
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They feel safe 🙂 we can’t get hurt…
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Or maybe just hurt in a different way in the long run?
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