I paid $25 to park. There I said it. $25 to park may not shock anyone in NYC or LA. But in Nashville, and especially on a Thursday night, $25 is robbery. I dropped my family off at a restaurant and drove off in search of a place to rest my minivan. I pulled into the most convenient lot, parked my car, and walked over to the ticket machine. My jaw fell open. $25.
Turns out the parking company had concealed the price until drivers proceeded to pay for their ticket.
I briefly considered my options: Search the city in the haystack of parking meter spots or look for another parking garage.
Here’s the thing: I assumed the lot across the street would be comparable in price. If the Shell station on one side of an intersection advertises gas for $2.46 a gallon, the Exxon across the street sells for $2.45, right?
Common business sense.
When I walked back to my car following dinner, however, I noticed the adjacent parking lot’s sign: $6 All Day.
My assumption cost me $19 and some shame. The judgement I made, based on my common sense, turned out to be foolish. It never occurred to me there might be another way.
There might be another way.
This is the theme for all of our lives. Each of us has a way of doing life and relationship. To our own awareness, our way makes sense. It is woven into the fabric of our being and often is the result of tiny, seemingly insignificant messages which turn out to be toxic. Unless uncovered, what may have protected us in one moment kills us for the rest of our lives.
Intimacy is to be feared. Women are dangerous. Men only want power. Authority cannot be trusted. Sexuality is shameful. Family will always manipulate.
Our future paths are cut and paved from these small, neatly packaged self-protective pledges. In our subtle agreements with our truths, we determine the emotion associated with our experience is one to avoid. Fear and shame are popular culprits. We attempt to avoid these and accompanying emotions like they are laced with a virus. Practice makes perfect: Our belief and actions become habit.
In fact, our way becomes so ingrained, we do not realize we recreate the same circumstances over and over again. Let me say that again: We habitually recreate the same world around us. We start a new job in a completely different field and then realize it feels like our old one. We remarry after a divorce and discover past issues follow us into our new marriage. We move to another city and attempt to start over. But we always find ourselves in the same story with different characters. We rarely conclude the common denominator might be us.
After discovering her “way”, built from a life saturated in avoidance of fear, a woman told me, “I decided I simply need to do whatever it is I definitely do not want to do in every situation.” She began to chart a new course and write a new story.
When we do not become aware of our way, and we do not consider another one exists, we overpay on life when parking across the street is $6 all day.
Process:
What messages about life and relationships have you assumed to be true?
How do you apply them to relationships today?
What might it cost you to try a different way?
What will it cost you if you do not?
