![]() He is the One who unlocks the door and turns on the lights in the forgotten spaces of our soul. I could see what I needed to change, but I needed Him to reveal the source, the root of my wounds, and I needed Him to keep showing me the Way. I had been dissociating from my life-and there had to be a reason.Įventually I could no longer rely on my introspection and reflection I needed the Holy Spirit’s revelation. I needed clarity.Īs I kept paying attention, the clues began to point to a pattern. Back to overanalyzing, not only my situation but why I procrastinated, why I couldn’t make decisions, or why I couldn’t take consistent action. But then I’d be right back where I started. I’d try to hype myself up on the success of others, Pinterest quotes, and God’s promises. And me? I couldn’t get out of bed, off the couch, or out of my closet. Why couldn’t I get moving? Take action? Make a decision? Friends of mine, along with every person I scrolled past on Instagram, were out there hustling, living their lives, making decisions, and watching their dreams come true. And you feel so much shame for not being able to get out from under it-when other people seem able to just toss it off. You feel as if you’ve been left behind-even when you are right in the middle of it all. It seems everyone and everything are in motion, except you. It’s as though your voice is foreign it’s forgotten how to communicate, or maybe it never knew how to in the first place. There must be-if the smallest decisions, like to what to eat, wear, or watch, are debilitating. It feels like something is exceptionally wrong with you. To some this may sound extreme, and others know exactly what this feels like. The decision of what show to put on was literally too much. In the long run we are exerting more energy because we are repeatedly tidying and cleaning things that we wouldn’t have to, if only we’d take the time to go through the process of uncluttering.Īt my worst, during bouts of depression, I spent an embarrassing amount of time staring at the wall, so vanquished mentally that I couldn’t move physically-too overwhelmed to even turn on the TV. Surely clearing out will take far more time and effort than cleaning up does, we tell ourselves (as we exert more energy with all our emotional laboring over this looming task). Because it feels like a daunting project, we convince ourselves that it’s easier to tidy around clutter than to organize or get rid of it. Think of the energy we exert when we avoid a physical uncluttering in our homes. ![]() I never fully viewed my avoidance as inaction because I was spending almost all my time (other than mothering) introspecting, coping, managing, preparing for every “what if,” and planning for “when and then.” All of the mental gymnastics required a level of doing, even if just in the mind. It takes considerable energy to avoid something or someone, push back against change, overthink your circumstances, or pretend you can’t hear or see what’s going on when there’s actually no avoiding. To the untrained eye, avoidance looks like doing a lot of nothing. It’s a place where we can pretend nothing is happening, and, therefore, we don’t have to change. Avoidance becomes an option we don’t have to decide to take. When we don’t know how to cope, we cope by not coping we avoid. In life there are things so overwhelming that before you have time to think or process what’s happening, your mouth sputters out the likes of: Forget putting my fingers in my ears-I was now more like an ostrich with its head in the sand. ![]() Try as I might to face reality, I had no idea what to do with a reality that didn’t match up to my ideals. In my thirties I was ready to be a grown-up and take on the things I tended to avoid, but when things got tough, budget formulas seemed inconsequential.
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