The magazine subscription metaphor

A story

Imagine you take out a subscription to a magazine. Maybe one of those gardening magazines because you want to start your own garden or because you are simply interested in beautiful design. You simply enjoy reading it. Alternatively, something about cars or fashion or shares.

You read it for a while, but you don’t really have the time. Sure, the magazine continues to arrive every week and you’re happy that it comes. But you don’t really have the time to read it.

But maybe later. You put it on the table and after a week the next one arrives and you haven’t even looked at the previous one. But maybe at the weekend.

The amount is debited once a month, which is starting to get on your nerves a bit. It’s not a lot of money, but it is a bit. But it doesn’t really affect you. Even the fact that you have to put the older copies aside at some point doesn’t really bother you.

Just have a small pile on the sideboard, you’ll find time for it at some point. Maybe on vacation. Until then, the pile will get bigger every week and you’ll be debiting it every month. But you’re completely ignoring that now. Otherwise you’ll just get annoyed and who wants to get annoyed?

Until a friend says at some point, “why don’t you cancel the subscription?” … “yeah … are you crazy?”, “it’s my hobby, the gardening”, “do you want me to stop having fun?”

Having to cancel your subscription really pisses you off. Yes, of course, you don’t need it and you don’t read the stuff either and you now live on the seventh floor in the city … or you’re no longer interested in cars or shares. But the subscription stays!

Do you see where I’m going with this?

Sometimes we have issues in life that we drag along with us. They annoy us a little from time to time, but never so much that we really look at them. Not the really difficult childhood and not that one traumatic event or illness that forces us to do so. Nothing that really stands out, that you have to work on.

Maybe the topics only ever come up when we see the parents and siblings at family gatherings, but then we always get into really nasty arguments.

Or it only shows up when that one stupid colleague says something. Or you keep getting involved with the same type of partner, which then always goes wrong in the same way.

Or you always jump when your mother, children or partner want something, even though you don’t want to, and you get annoyed every time afterwards. But then you forget about it because the next distraction is there or the TV is on and you don’t have time anyway.

You may also realize that you are the same to your children as your parents are to you, even though you never wanted to be like them.

Maybe you keep messing up your finances just when you’re about to get on a green branch. But you can blame it on someone else, it’s not that bad … it’s just annoying.

The examples are endless, you know them, these issues that trigger you, annoy you, rob you of your strength… but somehow never so strongly that you really get to grips with them. Because you don’t know exactly how and where it will lead you. Because you can get over it with a glass of wine or a beer. Or with a bit of fun and positive thinking.

Like this subscription. You know you don’t need it, but you don’t want to cancel it either. But it’s costing you energy, you realize that.

What if there are a lot of them?

Now there are people out there who don’t just have one subscription. They have 753 of them. And not just one stack of magazines, but 753 of them. All meters high and close together. It’s like the whole place is full of them, you can hardly get through.

They do, because they have practiced. If necessary, they do yoga, which makes them flexible enough to get through the stacks without any problems and yoga does so much for you. Works great. Sometimes it’s annoying because the piles don’t go away, but as long as you ignore them and wriggle your way through, everything is fine.

We simply don’t look at the account, then we don’t see the 753 debits either. Everything is fine the way it is. You just have to relax from time to time and “refuel” somewhere. There’s nothing you can do anyway, isn’t there?

And then a new partner, boss, colleague, neighbor, etc. comes into their lives and because they don’t know the stacks, sooner or later they will knock you over.

And then you have the salad. Everything’s a mess in the apartment, you can’t get the door open, the wine is spilt, it’s a huge mess.

That stupid ass… why can’t he pay attention? You’ll quickly throw the stupid jerk out of your life. This is the twelfth time you’ve stupidly caught the wrong person, another toxic narcissist who doesn’t watch where he’s going, why does it always happen to you? They’re all the same anyway. Have a quick beer … or go to yoga.

Why only?

Well, why does it always happen to you? Why do you always catch the one who can’t cope with all the piles of magazines in your life and always knocks one over? Or all of them.

Or is the problem not this guy, but your 753 subscriptions for the 753 stacks in your living room? That would be a thought to pursue, wouldn’t it?

Who wants to be in your life if they have to muddle through in exactly the same way as you do? Who does that to themselves? Who CAN do that? Sure, you can wait for that one super prince or super boss, or for your parents to finally die or for you to win the lottery. But that won’t solve the problem.

Your piles stay and get bigger and bigger. Until you start canceling those subscriptions.

Yes, of course, it’s not that easy. Some of them you didn’t even take out yourself, you got them from someone else. Others you’ve had for ages and some you don’t even know about.

It’s hard to get there on your own, you need someone who can see the subscriptions and where they come from. Someone who can help you cancel them one by one, someone who can help you get rid of all the old paper, someone who can help you deal with all the free space and all the free energy you’ll then have. You realize that no one is going to do that for you. You’ll have to do it yourself. You also have to decide first.

It’s not that easy. But if it were easy, you wouldn’t have the problem, would you?

Once the decision has been made, you are welcome to contact me, because I have answers for the “how” and I will be happy to give them to you.