It’s July 2010. My husband and I are celebrating our 20th wedding anniversary. The setting is romantic; a rooftop restaurant in a little Mediterranean gem called Cassis. But we’re not raising a glass. We’re not holding hands. We’re arguing, fighting, gloves off. Especially my gloves. Not caring about the setting, the people at the neighbouring tables, and especially not the feelings of the man who had been my best friend for 20 years. That night I write in my diary, tears streaming down my face, “I think this was the beginning of the end.”
It took another five years for us to get there, and those five years were certainly not one long misery. It was the classical rollercoaster of ups and downs, the downs increasingly deeper and more despairing, and the ups increasingly fewer and more trepidatious.
It is human nature to become so invested in a project or a relationship that we fail to understand when enough is enough. But the longer we try to flog the dying horse, and the more we invest our energy, the harder it becomes to say loudly and clearly; enough is enough. In the end, it was my husband who had the courage to say it, and allow us both to continue our individual journeys in life. It was a good, though painful decision.
The devil’s advocate
We often try and think our way through a decision, more often than not, adding to the confusion and the indecision. Our mind is like a constant wellspring of inspiration. It does not discriminate between good or bad ideas. It does not assess whether the latest enterprise will be fruitful or not. It does not truthfully help you see if a relationship has run its course. The mind argues, backwards and forwards, like an excellent devil’s advocate, but it seldom tells you to stop doing the thing you are so invested in.
Of course, there might be one voice asking if you’re not throwing good energy after bad, but there will always be another voice trying to convince you that it is worth holding on just a little longer, giving it just a little more time. Even if the loudest voice shouts, ‘enough is enough’, another says.. ‘well… maybe’.
Historical perspectives
It’s one thing where this lack of follow-through concerns a personal project or relationship, but what about the world we are living in today. What about the historical missed opportunities to say ‘enough is enough’? I’m an avid reader of historical fiction, especially Philippa Gregory’s novels about the reign of Henry VIII. In the Boleyn Traitor, she uses a recurring phrase to great effect; “somebody should have said no.” The same theme is explored by Olivia Hawker in her novel, the Ragged Edge of Night. In 1940’s Germany, the narrator is a young friar who watches helplessly as his special needs pupils are deported to so-called ‘special children’s wards’. He repeatedly asks himself in the novel how they, the German people, allowed things to get so out of hand.
Should we be asking ourselves the same question, are we letting things get out of hand? Countries that championed equality for women are slowly but surely turning back the clock. Back home in Holland, where Amsterdam was once the capital of gay liberation, and where we are proud to have our first so called ‘openly’ gay prime minister, men, women and transgendered people no longer dare to walk hand in hand. And in the meantime, social media whip up the polarization anywhere where it finds a crack in society’s cohesion.
I know, I know we’re all on holiday, and do we really need to bother with all that right now? But maybe the holiday has been going on for long enough. It seems most of us are watching, and sometimes fearfully waiting, hoping that this too will pass.
The end of the beginning
Until now, I have been an advocate of trying to rise above the fear, keeping our own frequencies clear so that we don’t add to the kind of blinkered, polarised thinking that comes from living in a state of fear. But this week, as I finished Olivia Hawker’s book, I found myself wondering, “is there any more that I should be doing to try and fight this rising tide of backsliding evil?” Should I be saying, or acting, on enough is enough.
For example, I love AI, without AI the whole Star Psychology project would not have taken off. But there is a voice that reminds me that my use of AI, and that is only for the illustrations, is contributing to the financial dominance of high tech, with its dubious ethics and morals. The same voice wonders if I should go off the grid completely, deleting all my social media apps. Perhaps even join a protest march? Yet another voice reminds me how these actions also fall into the black and white thinking and into the trap of polarization. And then, another says; despite these great upwellings of evil that have billowed throughout history there has also been great progress and positive human development.
I need the social media to market my services, just like, another voice adds, you needed to stay married because you were afraid of losing that safe economic base that matrimony offered. Whatever the emotional costs.
Could it be true that when it comes down to it, the greatest dissolvers of the boundaries of ethics and morality are financial and economic concerns?
After all, our Dutch Royals still went and stayed the night at the White House in the middle of the Iran conflict because it was for commercial reasons. Appeasement dressed up as diplomacy. In the same way that the UK used their monarch to charm the pants off one of the main global bullies. As if the bullies of this world, when push comes to shove, put the opinion of royalty before their own need for money and power. Will we be lamenting to one another, ten or twenty years down the line, when the floodgates of morality have been irreparably breached that “somebody should have said no”.
I don’t know the answers to any of the questions above, and in a way, they are a perfect example of the action numbing state of mental spiralling that I described in the opening paragraphs. And I even feel a little bit guilty that I am presenting you with all of this while you are perhaps sunning yourself on beach in 35 degrees. And let’s not start talking about global warming.
Think global, act local
All I can do is to bring it right home to myself and ask where, in my life, concerns about my financial and economic status are dissolving away boundaries of ethics and morality, of goodwill. When I started writing this blog, I was going to explore whether I was clinging on to the Star Psychology project that is actually costing me far more than it is bringing in. But then my writer’s muse steered this blog into another direction, and steered me towards the mandate; “think global act local.”
I may not be gaining much from Star Psychology in financial terms, but I know how many people have been helped through the free workshops and the many give-aways and ‘pay what you want’ reports that I’ve written. Even when combined with ‘normal’ therapy, it is still such a valuable tool. So economically it makes complete sense to say enough is enough, solving, in one fell swoop, the AI and the social media concerns too.
But in human terms, in how much Star Psychology contributes to helping people live closer to their authentic selves, joyfully recognising their innate challenges and receiving practical tools to overcome them, I feel am contributing to what I believe is the beginning of the beginning. And when I dare to trust the process, then that is worth so much more.
Perhaps enough has been enough, and we find ourselves already at the beginning of the beginning. Baby steps towards a world where each person is firmly anchored in their own unique self, contributing what they came here to contribute, in an increasingly diverse and non-hierarchical society. Where polarisation cannot get a grip.
And if you’re curious about why and how this vision of a new world has come about, you only have to wait for my next article where I’ll be exploring the true meaning of the age of Aquarius.
Or maybe tell me about your own dilemma in knowing when enough is enough?
And if you want to know more about Star Psychology and the ways in which it is helping people live from a place of authenticity, then you will find all the information you need here the Star Psychology Adventure