It's Still A Teddy Bear's Arse...

My one-year old son’s current favorite movie is the 1977 Walt Disney classic, The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh. In the beginning story of the film, Pooh, in the search of satisfying his never quenching hunger, visits his friend Rabbit for lunch. After gorging himself on all of Rabbits honey, Pooh, begins to crawl out of the rabbit hole he entered Rabbit's home in, but discovers the doorway has shrunk. To Pooh's realization he has become too engorged to climb out of Rabbits house or go backwards for that matter. He is stuck.

Rabbit is then faced with the reality that a Teddy Bear's Arse will be adorning the wall of his humble abode until Pooh can become thin enough to squeeze himself free. Rather than face the reality of his situation Rabbit attempts to frame the bears arse. But Rabbit discovers no matter the angle of the frame he places around Pooh's ass, he only sees Pooh bears rear end.

His next attempt is to cover the bear's ass with decor and "face paint". He makes it appear more of a moose, than a bear’s behind (which speaks volumes to a moose’s face). But in process of adorning the bears cheeks with a smile (although Pooh’s ass already has one...think about it), Pooh jerks awkwardly from the tickling of the paintbrush, forever ruining the moose’s smile. But this still did not phase Rabbit from his goal of hiding the two yellow cheeks hanging from his wall, he continued to "dress up" his moose. It wasn't until Pooh sneezed because of the pollen from a Honeysuckles that Rabbit's reality came "crashing down", along with the adornments he had encompassed Pooh’s rump with. Despite his best efforts to frame it, or hide it, the reality was it was still a teddy bear's arse hanging from his wall, and he had to face that hard truth. Or in this case the soft truth, since Pooh was in fact filled with "stuff and fluff."

We may look at this children's tale with a sly smile as to the silliness of it all, but what if I told you it was not? During my limited time alive I have observed that Rabbit’s actions encompass humanity's prerogative. I have noticed time and again the figurative "teddy bears arse" hanging from my own and countless other living room walls. But every bears arse is never a bear’s arse when enquired about. It is sometimes a piece of modern art representing the futile attempt of humanity to free itself from the walls that cage it in. Other times it is a decorative armrest, or cup holder. On other instances it is a punching bag, or swing set for toddlers to dangle from as they sway back and forth by the bears hind legs. On rare occasions it is acknowledge as a teddy bear, but hardly ever is it acknowledge as a bear’s ass.

Why is that the things in our life that are difficult to face, or deal with are never worded as what they are? It is clearly the rear end of a bear protruding from your dining room ceiling, as you pass the mashed potatoes around the dinner table, but you call it a chandelier, even though it casts no light. What is so difficult about facing the truth of a matter in our personal lives that causes us to dilute the truth? Countless reasons could be cited, and this article could turn into a book to decipher the truth behind the lies we tell, but I am not a book writer. Trust me I have failed after several attempts to begin. I much better suited for epistles. So instead of a senseless journey through a cornucopia of, reasons perhaps a common theme to reasons would be better to digest. I have observed that in all the lies we tell to hide the truth from ourselves lurks a common feeling as to our actions: discomfort.

You may be thinking how could discomfort be the cause of our ridiculous behavior to not address the arse on the wall. But think about it for a second. Every action you take is governed by a preceded thought or feeling. In fact, Physics prove this concept. And you can’t argue with scientific laws that have been tried and tested for hundreds of years? Right? As Newton observed in his first law of motion an object will remain at rest or uniform motion, unless compelled by an external force. Simply put things do not occur out of thin air but are driven to action by some force. This principle does not only apply only to physics, but to basic human action. Think back to this afternoon for an illustration. You sat at your desk, and the clock stuck twelve. Your stomach began to grumble, continually coaxing you to the lunch you had packed. Realizing that it was clearly now lunch time you took out your lunch and at first bite of your sandwich the roars of your stomach subsided. In synopsis you felt hungry, you thought you should eat lunch, so you ate your lunch. You felt, you thought, you acted. These three-step sums behavior.

Now back to the teddy bears ass blocking our doorway. The figurative teddy bears arse takes different shapes for everyone. For some it may be finance. For others family problems. Some are left alone. Others tired of the life they have built up for themselves. Whatever the circumstances the obstacles that block their way causes the same affect, discomfort. I’m sure Rabbit felt very perturbed for the months that Pooh’s ass stared him in the face at breakfast time, not to mention his requirement to only use his backdoor during those months, since his front door was plugged. So too do our difficulties plague us. Financial problems drive us to the inability to purchase the things we want. Or having yet another evening filled with fights with your significant others troubles you mentally, and emotionally. Loneliness causes depression. And on and on the discomforts go.

Now the thought may be fluttering through your head if people’s teddy bears arse’s truly do cause so much turmoil why is it they due not face the ass as it is, a bear’s ass? The answer surprisingly is the problem: discomfort. Let me explain. It is already enough of a hassle to deal with the difficulty of our situations in an of themselves. They are emotionally, and physically exhausting just trying to handle them. The drug addict has enough shame when looking in the mirror and find only their eyes convicting them. The obese already must live with the pain in their knees, and the health issues that follow obesity. Our problems are daunting enough to handle and now you want us to face are difficulties, which entails dealing with them. For Rabbit it would be the acceptance on the bears ass on his kitchen wall. For the addict it would be withdraws and sorrowful tales to their loved ones. For the obese it would mean physical activity, and relinquishing foods and drinks they found favorable. To change our discomforting circumstances, whether it be met addict, a McDonald's connoisseur, or a stuffed animal in the hundred-acre woods, we will need to cause ourselves further discomfort before the discomfort will begin to ebb, and the wedged bear in a tight place becomes unstuck from our walls.

This pattern of adding discomfort to discomfort to regain peace flows in all of life. The pregnant woman, after having endured nine months of complete discomfort, must add to herself further discomfort of birthing the child before relief begins at last to return to the body. The torn ACL must be surgically administered to, and put within a discomforting cast, and abided by a list of restrictive rules and regulations before it can return to whole once more. And the list goes one, and on. Take a moment to think about it, and I am sure you will notice a time in your life when this truth, for lack of a better phrase, holds true.

So, the moral of the story as we learn from Pooh bear is that once Rabbit accepted the bears arse upon his wall that is when he took ownership of his circumstances. He monitored Pooh’s diet, depriving him of a midnight smackeral of honey as Gopher ate his swing shift lunch. Why? Because, any decent person who had another person’s rear end dangling five feet from their dinner table would do everything in their power to remove that said ass posthaste. Once Rabbit accepted his circumstances he took accountability for them and began acting towards a resolution. I’m sure rabbit would much rather have gotten a good night’s sleep than monitor the fat bears nightly meals. But, Rabbit knew that the discomfort of sleeplessness would remove the larger discomfort of the bears ass from his wall, so he kept at it. Day after day, night after night, until the day that the bears finally slid free from Rabbit’s doorway, and his meals began once more to be unadorned with a bear’s butt.

Whether it is having to admit the reflection staring back at you is a junkie, or having to server a relationship because it has soured beyond the point of repair, or having to admit to yourself those pig sequels kids would make in reference to your weight in high school had some merit; each bears arse that adorns our walls will cause discomfort when we confront it. Tears of loved ones will shed when we admit our drug problems to them. Children will be separated from a parent when the divorce is finalized. Sweat will become more constant than sleep as you wake earlier to get in a 5K before work to shed that excess weight. But this distress that we initiate will lead to less stress. Slowly the bears ass’s that adorn our walls, that we had tried to kid ourselves was a hunting trophy will become lose from their tight place, until the point that it can be removed from its place entirely.

Discomfort is the cost of removing discomfort. Change is brought about by action. There is no other way, or secret shortcut to bypass the entire process, else we would know of it by now. But to have your doorways, and hallways free or teddy bears rear ends, isn’t discomfort a small price to pay? As one who has dealt with many teddy bears stuck within the walls of his life and is still tugging countless free each day I can assure you it is. But the journey can never begin if we keep kidding ourselves that the bears arse is something it is not. Until you face the teddy bears ass as a bear’s rear end it is never coming unplugged. You will never experience a change, or a reprise until you realize that the furnished and framed piece of art hanging from your wall is still just a teddy bears arse.