Context is Queen

Context is everything. Context is the distance between everything.

Right now you have a certain way of framing the world, a certain perception of how everything works, a certain window if you will, on the world. This is your context. Everyone has their own context. Their own window on the world. The combination of biology, birthplace, age, experiences, education, relationships, all help determine the context of each person.

Change your context and you change your world.

There are a number of ways of changing your context. This concept is so damn broad. Some things about your context you cannot change. Where you were born, your past, your age. Some things are harder to change, biology. Some things are easier to change, current relationships, education, active experiences.

The greatest tools you have to trying to change your context are: Imagination and Curiosity.

Curiosity is marked by asking questions. Ask new questions, old questions, and silly questions. Asking questions helps you investigate new possible answers. Your brain goes off on an expedition hoping to create an answer to your question. The more you explore new answers the more you open yourself up to existing in a new context. Seeking others answers does not work as well. It is the internal process of creating your own answers that has a greater impact.

Imagination is the tool you use to create a vision for yourself. The vision of how you might recover, what it might look like, who you want to be when you recover. Imagine the future you, happy, content, REAL, and look back in time to the process you took. Imagine what future you had to do in order to get real. Take the steps backward and build a path from today to that future you.

Start building a new context using themes of acceptance as its foundation

A lot of people have improper expectations about how recovery works. This leads to impatience, disappointment, and lots of dejection. However, if you start by learning about, exploring ideas, about what recovery is really like, you can help yourself right from the start.

Learn about how recovery is not a straight line, but a squiggly mess. Learn how to be okay with the fact that today this is where you are, and it is okay because you are committed to taking tiny steps forward. Every week you come up with a tiny step to take and see how it goes.

You find symbols and imagery to remind you how long and weird recovery is. You tape them to your walls, and beat into your head these new thoughts. When you stumble you don't think One step forward two steps back, you think, Yeah, it's hard to fight old habits and today I didn't win this round. That's okay.

Keep exploring how other people understand recovery. Try to really see the issue from their context. If you find a major plateau, progress stops for too long, too far a slip back, its okay. Take a step out and try to learn more.

A deeper thought on context and education

I never claim to be good at explaining what I mean when I say context. But I know what it means to me. And I hope what I am writing is inspiring some interest in the subject for you.

Life is not hard, dealing with your self it

Take two people and put them through the same experience. Do they react the same way? No. Almost never, or nearly impossible. Why? Is Life itself actually that hard? No. Dealing with your self is the hard part of life. The judgemental, selfish, suffering internal narrative of your life is the hard part to cope with.

Some people are broken and destroyed after years in prison. Others come out and become radical social figures cough Mandela.

Context comes to play as we hope to change. Today, you know X number of things. When you look at the world you use X number of things to create your understanding of it. What you know helps dictate the things you pay attention to, like the stupid humans in your way or the puffy clouds in the sky, or the cracks in the sidewalk, or the sounds of the birds. With today's X number of stuff you know, you are kinda limited.

By adding new stuff to your bucket of knowledge, you allow for more possibilities. It can be as simple as this: You want to change? Great, start by googling "How does change work". It doesn't have to be complicated, or even specific. The more you learn the more opportunity you have to change your context.

In my case, I began researching shame. I was deeply ashamed. The more I learned about how it worked, the more I began questioning myself with my curiosity. Is what I am feeling now shame? Or something else? If I am feeling ashamed right now why? What good is it doing for me to feel ashamed? I quickly began realizing tons of holes in my understanding of the world, my context, that kept me trapped in a world of shame.

Unless you are willing to add new information to your context, it is going to be super hard to change your context. I promise you that.