Going with the flow and letting go

    I wrote in my last blog entry about feeling emotionally "free."  So I then followed up and asked myself the question, where did this emotional freedom come from?  I made a concious choice to let go of the things swirling in my brain and was emotionally present.  Once I was in the moment I felt relaxed and able to just enjoy myself and others.

    Part of being able to let go is to "go with the flow."  I know all of us as humans struggle with this from time to time.  We have things that we want to do or not do and we try to plan things out.  Life however often has other plans for us and to live an emotionally healthy life we must learn to let go and go with it.  I freely admit that I am a planner.  This in itself is a good thing, but over the years I developed into an over planner.  Growing up I was in an environment where there was a lot of emotional tension and uncertainty.  Our lives revolved around one person and their schedule.   As I grew up in this environment my needs and wants were very rarely validated.  I as a person did not often feel validated.  An aside, I know that in a family structure that parents run the show (or should any way.).  But this went beyond that, we all walked on egg shells to please this family member and to not "rock the boat."  When he was happy then it was okay for us to as well.  As you can imagine this is not the most emotionally nurturing environment for a kid to grow up in.

    So, as a result of this environment I felt I had little if any control over my life and surroundings.  As I got older my response to this was to attempt to "take control" of my life.  Not in an emotionally healthy way though.  I decided that I was going to do what I wanted, when I wanted.  This played out more as I moved out on my own and lived by myself.  When I could do what I wanted, when I wanted to do it, I felt emotionally validated.  I felt that I had some power and control over my life and this created a security blanket for me.  This for me became a large part of my emotional "shell."  I created a very inflexible and narrow path in living life.  I became very inflexible and dogmatic and this in turn stunted the natural process of growth and learning that I think emotionally healthy people encounter in their life journey.

  One thing that my mom would always say when I would be stubborn and dig in my heels on something is to "go with the flow" of what others wanted to do.  I would feel anger at this, like I was surrendering and that no one care about what I "wanted."  In this process I allowed things to be about "me."  I became more self and inner focused.  As I have gotten older, found the Lord,  and found the woman who would become the love of my life, it became increasingly obvious that I needed to broaden my horizon and change my outlook.  My stepdad Gordon, would say I had tunnel vision.

    Part of this whole thing is me trying to plan things concretley months if not years in advance.  This is I can now see is impractical and a lot of times impossible.  Even within day to day life.  Thinking I must and will get items A B and C done today.  Instead of these are some things I would like to get done today but also be flexible enough to see what happens.  My wife is a person who is very much like this.  When I try and make these long detailed plans she will shrug her shoulders and say we will see.  She does some planning like paying the bills and vacations but her attitude is to take life as it comes and be flexible.  This has at times caused some consternation and frustration on my part.  Internally, I would grind my teeth and dig my heels in further.  This worked no better however.

    So, I have decided that the better course is to adapt and become more flexible myself.  There are two things each day that are "must do" for me: Bible study and exercise.  If I can get these two things then I have achieved my personal goals.  I will start thinking well I have to do all the laundry and dishes etc.  I will allow myself to get so fixated in these things that I can become somewhat myopic in my focus.  Charlie God bless her will say "let's go shopping."  So then I can either say no I want to do laundry, or I can let go of my inflexiblity and go with it.  This is what I normally do in these situations.  So just in living life day in and day out I have seen how this whole process works. 

    I would like to reach a point where it becomes easier for me to live in the moment, and go with things more.  These are not signs of weakness, or disregarding my worth or importance as a person.  When it comes down to it, being more flexible and "organic" actually helps in the process of letting go.  My relationship with Christ and my loving better half are really helping me in this regard.  But I will also say that for me lately this has been a somewhat painful and frustrating proccess.  Changing core beliefs while more then worth while is a slow and sometimes very hard and painful process, but it is very rewarding when I can have break throughs like I have the past few weeks.

Freedom

    This past week Charlie and I went up to Faribault, Minnesota to stay with Jerry and Anita my in-laws.  We don't have the typical in-law type relationship, I consider them as close to me as my parents.  We went to the Rice County Fair, the science museum in St.Paul and up to Hinkley and stayed at Pathfinder Park for a bit and saw the casino in Hinkley.

    During the week, I was able to let go and not ruminate about things.  Instead of closely watching what I ate, I compromised by eating whatever I wanted but taking a long 3-4 mile walk each day.  It feels great to just be able to be in the moment and enjoy life.  As what normally happens the vacation came to and end, and I felt bummed and a bit sad.  Sadness at leaving Faribault after having such a good time.  But also sad that I was leaving a place and situation where I was able to "let my hair down."

    In the past two years I have really been working on thinking more positively and being "present."  I still really struggle with this at work.  Work remains the one place where instead of controlling my thoughts and actions,  I let them control me.  Today I was feeling frustrated because I have had a breath of emotional freedom and it felt so liberating.  Now I am returning to a situation where it is very challenging for me to do this.  At the risk of sounding overly pessimistic it's like having a peak of the bright sun, then being thrown back in a dungeon of emotional darkness.  So I am feeling happy and loved, but also frustrated because it is much harder for me to stay in the moment in my day to day life at work.  I have seen the light and I do not want to go back into the dark.  Anyways, that is how I am feeling inside right now.

    I recognize that I am choosing to view things at work in a negative light.  I am trying so hard to replace the negative thoughts with the positive ones and I feel that it is not working.  I get so frustrated I just want the emotional pain to ease up.  My step father Gordon has told me many times that God does not promise easy, and my journey certainly at times has not been easy.  But I am really struggling and grinding right now and have been for much of the past 4-5 months at work.

    Let me be clear that there are many awesome things in my life.  Married life is awesome.  Charlie is all I could ask for in a wife.  I have been able to stay away from some unproductive behaviors that I engaged in before I met my beloved.  Most importantly, I am still walking on the path that leads to Jesus Christ.  College football season is starting in a month as well.  So yes I can see all the good things in my life, but do I dwell on those?  Eh, maybe about 25-35% of the time I do.  But at least 50-75% of the time I still choose to be stuck in the negative ruminating.

    I want to get to a point where I just let go.  I want to let go of past hurt and anger, and say I don't need that any more, but I am not there yet.  I want to say I chose not to go down this path of thinking or behavior.  I don't expect myself to be perfect, but I want to be free and just relax and live more of my life in the present.  I don't want to slip back into my old mind set.  I have asked God for His help, and I know I should be patient.  But right now I have to fight like the dickens not to slip back into that old behavior and thought patterns, I mean fight really hard.  I have heard of stop fighting the thoughts and just look at them and release them and I have tried to do this, but no luck.  I haven't found what works for me yet, and I pray that I do. Because I have had a taste of emotional freedom, and I want more.

Overcoming negative thoughts and ruminations at work

    These past two years I have grown a lot and overcome a lot of self defeating behaviors.  I am able to be in the moment a lot more then I used to as well.  There is on area of my life that I still struggle with some of these bad habbits, work.  As a security officer, I have a lot of free time on my hands.  Time where I just sit there and stare at my computer screen or out the window.

    I have however started to do a variety of different things to try and keep my mind active.  Every day about 9:30 I get up and walk around the main lobby of the building and talk to people, or sit outside, or clean my cubicle.  Anything within the scope of the job that I can do to keep my brain active.  If I don't do this then I find myself "zoning out", my thoughts and brain wonder and the negative stuff comes into my head.  Or more acuratley I allow the negative stuff to come into my head.  I have had some limited success with this.  In general however once I get back to the office and sit down i "zone out" again unless something is going on.  I often feel understimulated in this environment.  I am trying to accept that there might be many days like this and not to despair. 

   I will admit that I feel that a large part of my identity is my job.  I have read that this common for men.  I am starting to realize that who I am is much larger then what I do.  However I feel that to much of my identity is still tied to my job.  This wouldn't be a negative thing If I enjoyed my work.  However, over the years I have built up in my mind a negative stereotype and image of myself as a security officer.  As my stepdad Gordon reminds me "it's a job".  The fact that I am working a job where I make more then minimum wage, have a good boss and have weekends off.  I try to balance those negative thoughts and beliefs with the idea that working where I do can be a positive.  I can encourage people where I work and be a positive influence and maybe even role model because of my faith.  IE people can see it in action. 

   I am working on changing my self talk and self esteem.  To remind myself of the good from working where I do.  It is a long slow process.  The past few months I have let myself slip back into my old mindset.  I don't work with a lot of positive people, and need to keep that negativity from seeping into me.  My wife, parents and friends at church help me with this and I am greatful.  I am not yet at a point where I can pull myself out of a negative thought spiral.  I try and expose myself to books and authors who espouse positive thinking and are encouraging.  I am hoping in the future to be able to defeat these negative thoughts on a more regular basis.