Here’s a trick.
Stay out of your own head.
I love this saying yet, I know the difficulties which come when, of course, we need to stay out of our head or we need to stop thinking so much. We need to stop the movies from playing out in our heads.
We need to stop contemplating the worst-case scenarios or overthinking and overcomplicating the path ahead of us. We need to breathe, if anything, and stop the anxiety train from plugging along.
I think about something my Mother used to tell me.
And this was something my Grandmother used to tell my Mother.
“No one ever promised you a rose garden.”
This came from my Grandmother on my Father’s side.
No one said good things come easy. No one ever told us that life is going to be simple, or that life is always good. No one came along and said that people are always honest and kind, and no one ever told me (or us) that life happens without consequences.
No.
There are snakes in the grass and rats in the bunch.
This is true.
I remember being a young boy and hearing another kid tell me “God punished you” after I fell and hurt myself.
I remember hearing his Mother respond to what he said. His Mother corrected him and quickly replied, “God doesn’t punish people. People punish themselves.”
I was in grade school at the time. I was never very comfortable with the “God” thing. I had always struggled with faith and the idea of God, especially since there is so much unfair and unkind things in the world.
I never liked the idea of some overall punishment or the idea that we are sinful and created by sin; therefore, we have to testify and confess and atone for our sins on a daily basis.
I never understood the God concept or the creation of the God concept.
I remember a lyric from a song entitled Dear God.
“Did you make mankind after we made you?”
In fairness, I admit to my own belief system. I admit to my doubts and confess about my challenges with faith throughout my life. I tend to walk away from organized religion and all the claims to have the right or the better pathway to salvation.
But—
I like what the Mother told her son after accusing me of being punished by God. By the way, I slipped and fell because I was running and playing in a backyard party with different kids, families and friends.
I know, a punishable offense, of course. But still, I think there is something to investigate here.
I agree.
I agree wholeheartedly that people punish themselves. I agree that people get in their own way. I agree that we overthink. I agree that we tend to get in our own way and that people can think themselves into the worst possible scenarios. I believe in self-fulfilled prophecies.
But is this a symptom of God punishing us, or is this us punishing ourselves?
I go back to a speaker I once heard.
He talked about a deer in the forest.
I go back to when the speaker explained about the deer hearing something. The deer perks up, lifts its head and then runs and runs. The deer runs some more until it finds safety or a place where the deer is far enough away that it can go back to its life, as in business as usual.
This is where we, as the so-called superior of the species, tend to differ from the animals in the animal kingdom.
The deer goes back to whatever it is the deer would do in a mid-afternoon. The last thing the deer is thinking about is the insult that just took place. The deer isn’t thinking about the injustice or how the deer was afraid. There is no ego, no rethinking of what just happened, and there are no inner-voice rehearsals of what the deer would do or say the next time someone comes along and interrupts our lunch!
Deer do not do things like this.
However, since we are the superior of the species, we tend to go in a different direction.
We relive the impositions.
We rethink the insults and the injustices. We rehearse what we will say the next time someone comes along and interrupts our lunch.
We fail to do like the deer and go on with our day, eating, walking, living and breathing. No, we are far more well-equipped and far too bright to be so simple.
Right?
I had a friend who told me, “Don’t play that movie out in your head.”
This was told to me while I was going through a hard time. Unlike the deer in the forest, I was thinking about fear. I was thinking about the intrusion and the injustice that was served to me. I was thinking about the worst-case scenarios and then, naturally, I assumed the worst would be inevitable.
I basically ran myself into the ground like this.
I agree.
It’s a trick to stay out of your own head.
I remember reading a quote, “Stop imagining fake scenarios and hurting your own feelings.”
I think this is great.
No, I think this is brilliant.
However, I am not a deer nor a member of the animal kingdom.
I am far too superior for this.
Know what I mean?
I know how to hurt myself by thinking too much.
However, this hurts others as well. Again, since we are supposedly the superior of the species, I am unsure why the lesser of the species or the so-called insubordinate are far more intelligent than we are.
Mark Twain wrote, “Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to.”
I think this is true as well.
I am in the crosshairs of a new existence. I don’t know whether the news to come is good or if I’ll have more challenges to face—but either way, I am thinking of the brilliant words that I was just advised.
While I still struggle with my belief system at times or whether it’s God or people who punish people or if it is us who punish ourselves—I was told “Give it to God and go to sleep.”
Let go.
Pull a trick and stay out of your own head.
That’s what this means to me.
All I can say is that God that was beautiful
and do you know what?
So are you!
The Written Addiction 