Analyze This…

Over the weekend, I had some very interesting realizations.  All of them are things I’ve thought about before, but I was either able to see them in a different light or finally approached the line that says ‘Step over or you are choosing to live in a space that you know is a lie.’  I have a highly analytical side to my personality.  When faced with logic, I have to accept that or choose to not engage that aspect of my personality.  I came face to face with some areas of my life that I have chosen to not see logic and reason.

I am an extremely visual person.  If you can create a picture in my mind, I will never forget what you told me, and it will help me to understand.  A while back, I had the picture of being in a dark tunnel.  I had been through one before & knew that no matter how much it sucked to be in the tunnel, it was the only way to get to where I was going.  As I made my way through my current tunnel, I finally could see the light.  It was still quite a ways off, but I could see it.  One night, I pictured myself running toward the light.  I had been in the tunnel – the darkness – for so long that I was desperate to reach that light.  But the faster I ran, the farther the light was from me.  That frustrated me.  Once I stopped running, not only could I see the light at the end of the tunnel, but I saw a bunch of crap.  The message was clear – you can’t run past the crap to get to the light.  You have to go through the crap – deal with it now.  A few days ago, I was talking with a friend, and I told her that recently I’ve realized that I can see the crap more clearly now.  I’m beginning to see exactly what is there – what I need to deal with.  She said something that took me by surprise – ‘That means you’re getting closer to the light.’  I hadn’t thought about that, but it makes sense.  I’ve been taking steps through the crap for a while now.  It helps to realize that I’ve made progress.  What does that mean analytically?  I may not like the crap I see, and there is definitely a fear of dealing with it, but that is the only way to get out of the tunnel.  How can I say that I want to get out of the tunnel, if I can’t also say that I’m ready to deal with the crap?

One of the things I learned during my journey of quitting my job and going back was that I have an extremely analytical side, and I have an extremely creative side.  I was taught to think in very black and white terms.  The analytical side of my personality was highly developed.  I struggled with that at times because there was always a pull to the creative side.  I never thought that the two could exist at the same time.  That would mean living in an area of gray.  I was taught that area either didn’t exist or it was unacceptable.  How can I be both analytical and creative?  That was a big reason for me quitting my job.  I wanted to do something more creative, and I truly believed that it meant giving up the analytical.  Throughout my journey in the last nine months, I’ve realized that I need to find a balance – to learn to live in the gray.  Finding that gray area is part of that crap that I need to go through.  Having lived in a black and white world for so long, gray is a scary place.  But I know I need that balance.  I know that my heart continually pulls me back to the creative side, and my head pulls me back to the analytical side no matter how hard I try to escape it.  How can I live anywhere but in the gray?  What am I missing if I continue to swing from one extreme to the other?

My biggest realization this past weekend made me admit that I will choose to disengage the analytical side of my brain if I am faced with reality that will force me to step outside my comfort zone and face fears that have been a part of me for as long as I can remember.  I had a great conversation with a friend on Friday night, and I was processing through that conversation when I heard a question in my head – ‘Do you trust her?’  My response was something along the lines of – Yes (duh!).  Next question please.  And that next question came immediately – ‘So how is it that you are still holding onto beliefs that are so completely opposite of what she said; of what she thinks/believes about you?’  Aw, crap!  I walked right into that one…

Okay…let’s try this – Yes, I trust that she means what she said, but what I believe about myself needs to come from inside of me, not just based on what someone else thinks of me.  ‘And where do your current beliefs come from?’  Crap, again!  I’m not doing well here.  Usually, I can hold my own when it comes to logic and analytical reasoning.  Apparently, I’ve discarded logic and reason to be guided by fear and lies.  So why would I choose that?  I could give reasons, but at the end of the day, it comes down to one question – am I ready for my actions/choices to reflect truth rather than lies?  Will I allow truth to lead me to the gray area where my analytical and creative sides meet and stay engaged together?

I’ll be analyzing this from a creative viewpoint with the hope of finding what I’ve been searching for -me.

 

Afraid of the Answers…

Sometimes, it is easy for me to sit down and start writing.  An idea pops into my head, and I am excited to see where it takes me.  Other times, like today, I have a very difficult time making myself start typing coherent words into this block of text.  The idea has been floating around in my head for a while, and I have been avoiding it.  I hesitate to write this because I believe it will open doors that I’m not sure I’m ready to walk through yet.

Over the last few years, I have been on quite a journey.  So much of what was a part of my life several years ago is gone, and what I’ve always believed about myself has been challenged.  My goal has been to discover who I really am.  Not who everyone told me I was, or who people said I needed to be, but the person God created me to be – the uniqueness, the purpose, the person God has known since the beginning of time as ‘me’.  I’ve discovered a lot about myself, but I’m finding it hard to let go of what I’ve believed about myself for so much of my life.  As long as I still cling to those beliefs, there’s not room for new beliefs.  The new things I’m discovering are starting to bump up against old beliefs – old voices.  They can’t both be true.  They can’t both exist at the same time.  So, the questions start…

What do I believe?  What do I want to believe?  What do I need to do to challenge those old beliefs and let go of what is no longer true in my life?

There have been several questions running through my head recently.  I’ve been avoiding the answers because answers scare me right now.  They usually lead to more questions – harder questions.  And, ultimately, I’m afraid that no matter what changes in my life, the answers to certain questions will always be the same.

The first question is huge for me.  I remember the first time I ever heard it, and I couldn’t understand why it would even come up.  It was like asking if the sky is purple.  Over the years, the answer has become much less black and white, but I still struggle with the question.  Do I believe that I am loved?  Do I believe that there is anyone who truly cares about me – not for what I can do for them, but simply for who I am?  There is nothing in my life that I want more than to believe that.  I have seen progress in that area, but my thoughts, actions, choices, and decisions still reflect a disbelief.  Holding onto what I’ve always believed about myself does not allow me to truly see anything worth caring about.  Of course, every question just leads to more questions.  How can anyone love me for who I am when I have no idea who I am?  If someone sees something in me that they feel is worth caring about…well, I’m not even sure how that’s possible.  All I ever heard was what was wrong with me.  How do I believe something that completely contradicts what was taught and reinforced over most of my life?  And I end up at the same question every time – how do I challenge the old beliefs and voices to figure out what is true so I can let go of what is not.

Part of that answer goes back to questions.  I need to ask questions to challenge what I’ve always believed.  How can I really know what is true if I don’t ask?  But I become paralyzed by fear.  When a voice is triggered in my head, the logical side of my brain says that I can ask a question to find out if what happened is truly reinforcing what I’ve always believed or if what I’ve always believed is coloring how I interpret what happened.  But the fear takes over, and I don’t want to know the answer because I’m so afraid that it will reinforce what I’ve always been told – I’m not good enough.

When I was in junior high, I got teased a lot.  There was not a single person – parent, teacher, friend – who protected me.  They each just reinforced that what was being said about me was true.  When I went back to college to work on my teaching certificate, a teacher I had in junior high was a professor in the education department.  My advisor had an office right next to hers, and every time I walked by, I would hear a voice saying, ‘Go in and talk to her.’  I wanted to ask her if she remembered me as the person I saw myself as or if she remembered someone different.  Did she think that I was the horrible person that I was taught to believe I was?  I never asked.  I didn’t want to know if the answer reinforced what I believed about myself, and it was already so reinforced that it wasn’t worth taking that risk.  In my mind, the chance of her saying anything other than what I already believed about myself was so small that I couldn’t walk through that door.

Though I still have trouble walking through that door, I do believe that there is a higher chance that someone would say something to discredit what I’ve always believed about myself.  The problem is that it’s not a high enough chance yet for me to get past the fear.  I still believe a lot of negative stuff about myself because that’s all I heard for so long.  The scales haven’t quite balanced out yet, and though I know that I need to challenge what I believe about myself, I’m not sure I’m ready to walk through that door yet.  I’m not sure I can get past the fear.  I’m not sure I can ask the questions…