Shoes. The items we put on our feet, sometimes uncomfortable, yet the style is in so we bear the pain. The colors, the shapes, the sizes, and the styles are chosen, mostly for the need in hand: sports teams, dressy occasions, winter boots, suits, business, business causal, flip flops…the list goes on.
Our closets become a hotbed of shoe hideouts. Back in the corner of the closet, rejected, older, worn shoes lay in wait for the trash bin or the Goodwill run. It depends on the owner’s feet or state of mind.
The shoes we wear say much about us, without our awareness. Every person in a group, wear shoes, which they have chosen the morning before the evening meeting. Sitting around the room, each man shares their feelings for the week, they share their struggles and own any behaviors they need to be accountable for and then give feedback to others who may experience an issue with a partner the week prior.
One individual shared, ‘I look around the room at everyone’s shoes and I think of their stories. I think about ‘walking’ in their shoes, experiencing their stories.’ I pose a question to the readers here, What benefit do you believe you might gain from considering walking in another man’s shoes?
The masses walk among us, in the United States, mostly clad in shoes. In ghettos and areas within inner cities, the shoes may shift and children play in streets without any or extremely worn shoes.
Let’s consider the word ‘ghetto’ as stated above. The dictionary online shared the following definition:
- “a section of a city, especially a thickly populated slum area, inhabited predominantly by members of an ethnic or other minority groups, often as a result of social or economic restrictions, pressures, or hardships.
- (formerly, in most European countries) a section of a city in which all Jews were required to live.
- Slang: Often Disparaging and Offensive. noting something that is considered to be unrefined, low-class, cheap, or inferior” (Dictionary.com).
The ideas behind the word ghetto are discouraging! It is a biased, derogatory term, used to describe impoverished, minority individuals. Now, consider the shoes the individuals in those areas wear.
What stirs in your mind as you consider their shoes?
The impoverished among us are found, easily, when one drives on the designated wrong side of town. Asking people to describe where they believe is the better side of town, most will start with the negative places. Don’t go here or there, they suggest, and before you know it, you are discussing the areas in great detail.
In group work, we have members from all areas of life. Businessmen, Chefs, Blue-collar workers, Restaurant owners, snow removers, security guards, and stay at home dads. There are more, of course, however, the few mentioned here represent a variety of shoes! Stay at home dads might be barefoot, wear slippers, or tennis shoes. Work boots, non-slip shoes, and others grace the feet of the men who attend the group. Some have concrete dust, thick mud, or snow.
They sit around the room and face their issues, some tapping their shoes on the floor, and others, rather than make any movement, try to blend in and not be noticed. It doesn’t work. They follow the check-in list, share their thoughts, rather briefly, and then try to blend in again.
Shoes may take them from point A to point B; it’s their choices that make the need for the group. Some individuals kick their partner, others kick indoors. Most of the time, they wear shoes. Rarely does a man kick his partner with bare feet?
Joe South wrote a song, Walk a Mile in My Shoes, and the chorus rings out:
Walk a mile in my shoes
Just walk a mile in my shoes
Before you abuse, criticize and accuse
Then walk a mile in my shoes
We hold onto shoes, which no longer serve a need.
They collect spiders and dust, sitting there in the basement, in a box, or in our closets. We usually face our shoe piles when faced with a decision to move, change jobs, or a need to clear out forgotten corners in our homes.
There is nothing more satisfying than slipping your feet into a comfortable shoe, which supports, relaxes, and encourages movement.
Sometimes, our comfortable shoes begin to wear out. We bought these shoes five or so years ago. They are formed to our feet, they fit so well. They are the go-to shoes. Then, the soles wear out, the laces, tear, there develops a hole in the side, where the pinky toe peeks out.
Its time to buy a new pair. Panic sets in.
Wandering around a shoe store, looking at the variety feels overwhelming. Shoes change every few months, and each season drives marketing to develop a new style and older styles, like the ones you wore out, are no longer available.
Now comes the trying on shoes. We know our size, so we put on pair after pair, stressing, sweating, and exhausted. Clearance isles are great since sometimes, our favorite shoes made it to the rack and are still available.
Change is not easy. Changing the shoes we were is just as hard.
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When an infant, our mother or father put on little socks and covered our feet to keep them warm. As we began to walk, they found sturdy shoes to help us keep balance on fragile little legs. As we moved and started jumping and running, our shoes changed. Time brought us to a new place: sports, running, playing, and life outside of our homes where carpets and soft flooring kept our feet warm.
Thich Nhat Hanh shares, “when we walk, arrive with every step” and with the shoes we put on our feet, we can arrive easily and safely. The idea, granted by Thich, was to be present and to walk with mindfulness; a sort of meditation where each step moves us in the moment and embracing those moments to change as we go.
How often, we forget, when we put shoes upon our feet, the chance to be present leaves our mind and we rush around doing rather than being.
What about your feet? Do they take you to places where trouble shows up? Do you add trouble to your day by choices in location?
These questions we ask the men in our group. We ask them about their choices. Many times, individuals will blame everyone except their choices. They put the shoes on, they make the choice to embrace or reject people in their lives and they make the choice to hurt another person.
Change is challenging. Life is challenging.
Making the choice to walk presently and buy a new pair of shoes means we embrace the ability to make healthier, wiser choices.
We cannot tap dance through life, however, we can dance our way in our hearts to a better way to think.
Our future selves and our legacy we leave behind us will thank us when we walk uprightly, both mentally and physically.
Thich continues, “Everything we think, feel, and do” affects all of those in our lives, now and later.
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We struggle with owning our negative choices. Who wants to be considered a bad person!? How does one define themselves as good? The purpose each person uses, whether they know it or not, behind each choice and activity provides something for the individual.
They may not even realize it until they are faced with consequences. Locked into a legal system, they may begin to look, hard at their lives and the places their shoes took them while hopefully, setting aside any lingering blame-game attitudes.
Usually, the blame-game lasts at least five weeks into the group work of 24 weeks. If we can help the men recognize the shift soon enough, they have quite a few weeks to continue changing, practicing with the tools we provide them, and families reunite with a new focus. Maybe even some new shoes, for everyone.
Change happens over time. Like leather when it is new and is stretched and plied for flexibility.
We catch the ah-ha moments, begin to settle our thinking, and start to listen to those around us, or even God’s soft whisper to our cries we drowned out with stress and anger.
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Is it time for you to step out of those old, worn comfortably broken shoes and begin stretching a new, leather pair; relaxing and shifting the leather as it heats to the body’s temperature and the foot molds the leather to the comfortable shape?
Walking across the bridges we build in life, we carry ourselves, shoes included to the other side. We hope to find peace along the path, maybe even hope for a better future. We are in charge of our choices, whether we want to blame others or not. Our shoes, we walk in, carry us the direction of our mind’s dictate.
What a better way to change your future than to control which way you walk, why you walk the way you do, and where you want to find yourself in a year from now.
What do you say? Wanna change your shoes? Let’s go on a shopping trip, donate your old shoes to Goodwill, St. Vincent’s, or Salvation Army. Someone will come along, and the shoes you give away becomes their ‘new-to-them’ shoes.
Whether you find yourself the recipient of a well-loved pair of shoes or you have the flexibility and finances to buy a brand new pair, is not the point. The point is, whatever ‘shoes’ (roles in life) you have been wearing; the ones you didn’t realize you were controlling with negative choices, can be changed out at any time.
Your choice. Your changes. Your future. What shoe will you put on today?
~Just a thought by Pamela
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Previously published on Medium.com.
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Photo credit: By Jakob Owens on Unsplash