Recently I was surprised to catch myself reaching into the cookie jar.
This of course is the proverbial “cookie jar” symbolic of all those things kids do when they think no one is looking and not an actual cookie jar. I would not be surprised at all to find myself reaching into a real cookie jar because I am an adult and can eat a cookie whenever I want to.
But nonetheless I was busy just living life when I happened to catch myself in the act of trying to hide something from myself. I was not looking to catch myself red handed but all of the sudden in the middle of a random train of thought I saw my little devious inside self intentionally trying to keep things from the forefront of my thought process. This surprised me a little because I didn't know prior to this moment that I was crazy.
Would I start hearing voices telling me to go to the nearest zoo and liberate all the captive kangaroos? Would I start seeing secret messages in my Lucky Charms?
I do not think, at least at this moment, that I am mentally unstable but it was a very insightful revelation nonetheless. I am sure that throughout my life I have intentionally buried a thought or feeling deep into my subconscious but this was the first time I was aware of it happening as it was happening. I was in a situation that called for me to think about something that I did not want to think about and instead of actually pondering about it I derailed my train of thought to focus on something more irrelevant and transitory. I realize now that I have done this dozens of times every day throughout my life but this was the first time that I remember hearing the thought “I don’t want to think about this, what can I find to distract me?” enter my head first.
I watched myself feed my subconscious, avoid a situation, and get away free from guilt.
And now me and myself have some questions that need answering.
Like “What do I think I have to hide that prevents me from being open and honest with God and the people that love me?”
Or “What issues/ insecurities/ sins/ attitudes have remained unresolved because I have refused to acknowledge that they are even there?”
Or “Why am I fighting against myself and letting things remain buried that will one day take root and grow into something bigger and scarier than they are right now?”
It scares me how good I have become at lying to myself and the world around me without even realizing it. I have become a surveyor of mythical lands.
Instead of being honest with myself and living in reality I choose to distract myself by pretending I live in a mental state that doesn't exist.
I realize that I create these places in my mind where everything is awesome. They are often places from my past that I look back on a exaggerate thinking that the way I felt when I was doing such and such is the way I want to feel right now so I spend my time trying to recreate a feeling that probably wasn't as great as I remember it to be anyway. Or they are places so far in the future where all of my circumstances line up the way I want them to and everything is perfect.
But what is God wanting to do in the real place I live right now?
I don’t know because I keep burying things in my subconscious that I don’t want to deal with all the while wishing I were in Narnia, Middle Earth, or NeverLand instead of making my actual home a better place to live in.
If you have followed this blog before you have probably (hopefully) noticed that my writing in the past few months has been scarce to non-existent to say the least. I have blamed by crazy schedule and to-do list for my dearth of thought but the truth is that you always find time for what you love and I can’t use that as an excuse. My computer is full of posts that almost happened but haven’t. I have file after file of introductory paragraphs with no meat and potatoes to follow. I am great at coming up with an idea complete with a witty intro, catchy title, and spiritual punch-line but when it comes to fleshing it all out into a complete thought I distract myself and never finish. This is a bigger issue than the frequency of blog posts.
I don’t finish the thoughts that God is trying to work into me and I am not getting anywhere.I haven’t been able to put my finger on what is keeping me from being who I want to be and doing the things I’m called to do because as hard as I try to figure it out I seem to try even harder to keep it a secret.
And right now as I type this I can tell you how many likes and favorites my most recent Tweet and status update have because I keep checking my phone over and over again to avoid coming to the conclusion of this thought. It is scary how easy it is- to come to the peripheral of your real self but never get to your own heart with honesty. We have to shut the world out sometimes and say “God search my heart and the recesses of my mind and show me what is down there, no matter how scary it might be. Finish what you have started before I chose to run away to the mythical places of my imagination and distract myself with the temporary and transitory.”
No comments:
Post a Comment