After receiving a couple of pieces of very unwelcome news early last week, it took me several days to regain my writing focus.
Most mornings were spent getting my mental, emotional and spiritual act together, which resulted in having to work till very late at night to meet some deadlines. I got the work done, but I didn’t enjoy any of it.
Today something else happened. This time I found myself very mad–at ME.
Time for a Change
None of the situations were my fault. I didn’t cause them, I couldn’t cure them, and I can’t control what certain people are still doing. So it really, really irritated me that I spent so many hours this past week thinking, reading, praying, and journaling about it.
I’ve always been this way, as far back as age four, the earliest I can remember. Obsessive thinking doesn’t help the other person, and it sure doesn’t help me. It robs us of hours and hours of productive, HAPPY times. And for writers, it steals our time to write, our relaxed ability to create, and the focus so necessary for our projects.
Enough is Enough! Focus!
Yesterday I read a quote that really got me to thinking. In The Little Book of Letting Go by Hugh Prather, it said: “We talk to children about the ‘power of the imagination.’ We attend seminars that tell us our minds have immense reserves of untapped capacity. All in all, we have done a superb job of kidding ourselves that in our roomy ‘attic’ all is useful, worth keeping, and in good repair. But if we observe our minds closely for just one hour, we see that instead of a boundless chamber of magic and wonder, our minds are more like stuffed and stodgy refrigerators that emit peculiar odors.”
It’s time to clean out my refrigerator. I’ve come to realize that all this obsessive thinking and worrying is a life-long bad habit. It’s not a mental illness that needs a pill. It’s not an emotional illness that needs counseling. It’s a bad habit–and habits can be broken.
Identify the Culprit First
I’ve broken lots of harmful habits in the past, and nearly every time it involved discovering the lie I was believing about something. We all have them. (The obese person may believe the lie that “gorging myself will bring comfort.” The procrastinator believes the lie that “I work better under pressure.” The rescuing mom believes the lie that her grown children shouldn’t/couldn’t be responsible for themselves.)
Time to dig into this stinky “mind” refrigerator and find the spoiled junk emitting the odors. Look out! Don’t stand behind me. There’s gonna be some bad stuff chucked outta here!