Cautious Optimism

I’ve been doing pretty good lately. (Yay for me.) While I haven’t had a completely pull-free day in a while, I haven’t pulled near as much these last few days as I have the last few weeks. I take that as a positive. Especially over the weekend when I’m more tempted to pull because I’m bored. So I’m feeling pretty good there. Tonight while I was reading my Bible, I came across a verse that stuck out to me:

“First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.” ~Matthew 23:26

I can’t fix myself on the outside in hopes that it will make me feel better inside. (What an epiphany! Well one of those I-already-knew-that-but-to-see-it-written-out-makes-a-difference epiphanies.) The outside will fix itself as soon as I can fix myself on the inside. Once I learn how to be TRULY happy, I won’t need to pull, I won’t pull, and then the outside will reflect the inside (I hope). That day can’t come fast enough. 

So the question (or QUESTion) becomes, of course: how do I obtain this allusive happiness I’ve heard so much about? Now I realize that we’re not meant to be EXTREMELY HAPPY all the time, but I just want to be content. So the next question becomes what is making me unhappy–and THIS is where the catch 22 comes in. PULLING makes me unhappy. So it’s what I do to the outside that hurts me on the inside. Vicious cycle. How do I stop spinning? Where do I begin? With what I can control? The pulling? Possibly. Probably.

Why is it that some days I can do this so easily and other days it’s so hard I don’t even try? I feel almost like God is helping me ride a bike for the first time and He keeps letting go too soon. I need Him to hold on longer. And I need satan to stop putting cracks in the sidewalk.

Why ask Why?

A friend of mine made an interesting observation that she wrote about in her blog : when faced with a difficult situation or condition, is it really necessary or important to ask yourself why it is happening? I think there is a point when it is important to try to understand why, but perhaps it is wasteful to dwell on it. For instance, I realized a long time ago that the literal reason why I pull is because it relieves stress. Period. I know when it started, what prompted it, what causes it to continue, when I’m likely to pull more, and frankly I know how to stop. However, I do not know why it has been put into my life to begin with. I do not know God’s purpose for it. Is it even God’s purpose? Of course it is. But why. If He wants me to do something with it, learn something from it, I do not clearly see His plan for it. Am I really supposed to, though? If I do not figure it out, am I missing out on His TRUE purpose??  What a crazy cycle! Is it worth continuing in this cycle? Do we need to know His reasoning in order to deal with it? No. So deal with it.

As I told my friend, I tend to think I know everything there is to know about my condition and the many aspects and emotions that come with it. So I appreciate it very much when someone can teach me something I did not already know or think about. 

She also said that this is something that takes a concentrated effort. What’s funny is that I already knew that but for some reason I reacted to it as if I had never heard it before. I have to concentrate. Well, really I have to WORK at it, isn’t that right? I have only begun to realize how often this word plays into my everyday life. It is a part of almost everything.

“Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me, but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’” ~2 Corinthians 12:8-9

KEEP Working

I’ve lost my way a little bit. I’m not surprised. I tend to do this; stay motivated for a week or two and then it slips away. That’s probably my biggest challenge: How do you keep the motivation and the “high” going?? I still can’t figure it out. Well, I kinda can, which is why my word for 2010 is WORK. I have to WORK to keep the motivation strong. I get comfortable and think because I did it for that long, I can do it without working as hard when that’s really not the case at all. I’m so impatient.

I don’t necessarily want to put up pictures of celebrities to compare myself to and tell myself “this is what you’re striving for” because I don’t agree with doing that. I hate that girls do that to themselves because you’re NOT supposed to be that person! You’re SUPPOSED to be YOU! So how can you compare yourself with someone that’s not YOU?! So I have a few pictures of myself that I will put up to remind me of what I looked like when I hadn’t pulled and use that as my motivation. These are a few of them:

 

 

I need to fight and WORK even when…no…especially when I don’t want to, because that’s when it matters most. I can fight. I can WORK. I can do this.

“I have strayed like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I have not forgotten your commands.” ~Psalm 119:176

Fighting

I have a new observation; one that I’ve made before but now I think it has some validity: I think that I pull more when I’m tired. I think that when I’m physically tired, I am also mentally tired and therefore not strong enough to resist. I’m not trying to use it as an excuse but it’s just helpful to know what makes it easier to pull so I can avoid those situations. So now I know another good reason to get a good night’s sleep. (Obviously today wasn’t a particularly good day in the pulling department.)

I was thinking earlier that maybe my word for 2010 should have been “fighting”, but that sounds too violent and negative. “WORK” is supposed to be my word for a reason and I’m sticking with it. Tomorrow is going to be great! 

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”  ~Matthew 6:22-23

Progress?

I didn’t pull at all today! Again, I stayed busy most of the day so I didn’t really even have time to think about it, but when I did, I resisted the temptation! Yay for God!

“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will provide a way out so you can stand up under it.”  ~1 Corinthians 10:13

I’ve always had a way out; I’ve just chosen not to take it the majority of the time. It’s not the easiest way to go. But easy doesn’t take any WORK. So I choose to put in the same amount of WORK to make me happy as it usually did to do something that made me sad.

“WORK spares us from three evils: boredom, vice and need.”  ~Voltaire

Sick and feeling better

I called off work today. I’ve just been feeling emotionally and physically exhausted lately and needed to give myself a chance to catch up. I feel much better. I slept in, got a lot done around the house, helped Derek, and just relaxed.  And I didn’t pull. Weird that with really nothing to do I wouldn’t resort to the one thing that always seems to keep my busy. I didn’t really even think about it today. Perhaps because I was so busy? But really I wasn’t; and also, I don’t want to have to stay constantly moving and busy to not pull. I want to be able to relax and not pull, too. Which I did today. What’s my secret? I don’t know!

Last night I pulled and texted Derek to come up and be with me so that he could keep me from pulling until I was tired enough to go to sleep. He wasn’t really happy about it and I guess I can’t blame him. He’s not a baby-sitter. But while we were talking, he said something that really struck me:

I don’t NEED to do this.

What a profound thought! I don’t need to do this?? Really?! Of course I don’t! So why do it? He told me to stop pulling and not for anyone’s sake but my own. I want to be happy because I know if I’m truly happy, everyone and everything around me with just fall into place the way it’s supposed to.

The one thing I feel like I still need to learn is how to keep this “natural high” going. I always seem to get motivated for a little while and then it goes away. Is it because God is with me to start and then backs off to see if I can do it “on my own” (because I know He never really leaves me)? If so, I fail miserably every time. But I need to not get complacent and learn how to always want to strive for more. I need to keep reading my Bible; keep His words around me everyday. Learn something new everyday. I’ve been trying to take a Bible verse out of every chapter I read so that I’m taking something more out of it. Tonight I read Matthew 9. Jesus healed many people in this chapter. What struck me, though, is the faith of one woman who felt that all she had to do was touch Jesus’s cloak and she would be healed. How easily her faith seemed to come to her so completely! Why is it that faith is so hard to feel sometimes? I want complete faith like THAT!

Three Rules of WORK:

Out of clutter find simplicity; from discord find harmony; in the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. ~Albert Einstein

Awful

Today was awful. I was physically exhausted so I wasn’t mentally on my feet either. I pulled a lot. And I feel like even more of a failure because the spot on my head is worse than I thought. I was encouraged before, but now I feel as if I have too big of a mountain to climb. How did I go from so encouraged to so discouraged? A while ago I learned in church that the closer you get to God, the more that Satan tries to tempt you away. Is that why? Is it because I’m so ready to arm myself with the words of God that Satan feels me slipping away and is trying harder to hang on to me? Or am I using that as an excuse to relieve myself from responsibility?

Was I given this condition by God in order to learn something? Or was it given to me as a punishment by Satan? Why do I have it? What is its purpose? If God is so willing to heal, why won’t I let him? What is keeping me from letting go of something I never wanted in the first place? It always makes me wonder, when I watch shows like “Intervention”, why people never seem to want to go to rehab, when in the scene before they’re crying because their life is terrible. Wouldn’t they want to go to rehab? Why can’t I want to be better? I’m not strong enough to keep going; I always want to give up. I need to WORK hard to obtain the happiness that I want. I deserve it. God wants me to be happy, right? So many questions.

“Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of WORK is the same.” ~Francesca Reigler

Warrior with Words

I’ve been rereading my Bible lately and I always start with the New Testament, so right now I’m on Matthew. The other day I was reading chapter 4 when I had an epiphany. In Chapter 4 it talks about Jesus being tempted by Satan and how after fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, Satan tempted Jesus to turn stones to bread and Jesus said “It is written ‘Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” Well of course there’s a little notation indicating that there’s something more in the notes so I look down and there it is:

“Although Jesus was the Son of God, he defeated Satan by using a weapon that everyone has at his or her disposal: the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. He met all three temptations with Scriptural truth.”

Oh my gosh, how helpful is that that we have something as simple and plain and wonderful as God’s words to fight against temptation?! I feel as if I want to surround myself with verses now so I have a weapon available whenever I feel tempted. Certain verses I know off-hand, but it’s different when it’s right in front of you. I feel as if I really have a chance now.

Today was a good day in that I felt powerful and strong enough to fight my demons. But I am a WORK in progress and while I may slip up, I can’t let that tear down my whole being. I have to keep WORKing for what I want and I’m finally starting to feel like I can do that.

“Your WORK is to discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.”   ~Buddha

Make it WORK!

In 2009, my word for the year was STRENGTH. I wanted to find STRENGTH to overcome my demons. However, it’s almost as if I didn’t have the inner STRENGTH to find my inner STRENGTH. Does that make sense? So unfortunately, I think I failed. I do not feel strong and mostly because I’m still pulling. I’ve been unable to overcome it. But I’m not giving up. I know I have to work at it and I just have to accept that it’s not going to come easy. But perhaps I’m not supposed to do it all myself? I’m supposed to put in all I can and let God do the rest? But the important part is that I put in all I can.

In thinking of what my word for 2010 should be, the two that came to my mind were “happiness” and “peace”. Mostly because, again, I want them. Perhaps it should be “work”.  Yes, I think that’s it. My word for 2010 will be WORK. In order to obtain the STRENGTH, peace and happiness that I want so badly, I have to WORK at it!

“Whatever you do, WORK at it with all your heart, as WORKing for the Lord, not for men…” ~Colossians 3:23

 

Headache

Today was a good day. Got to work early. Got a lot done that needed to get done and solved a few issues. Derek came in to see me for a few minutes and I just love it when he does. It got a little boring there right in the early afternoon, but it normally does. It’s usually around this time that I tend to pull, but not today for some reason. I had my little football stress ball which helped. And I think I just decided that I just wasn’t going to pull today. Since I’ve been thinking of this as more of a TRUST and a TEST from God, I’ve also begun to think of it as temptation from Satan. If I can think of it as reverse psychology in that I’m not doing something he wants me to do, then I tend to not do it because I’m “showing him”. Does that even make sense? Anyway, I did really well today. I’m trying to be encouraged and enthused but my massive headache isn’t letting me. Running around all evening didn’t help, but still. It’s a big one.

I’m very much looking forward to the rest of this week as we are doing Christmas with the boss and his family tomorrow night and Christmas with Derek’s mom’s side of the family New Year’s Eve/Day. I can’t wait to have them stay the night and hang out. It’s going to be a lot of fun.

Anyway, I really do tend to ramble in these things. And it doesn’t help that I love how it feels to type on my little netbook! But it helps to get my thoughts out before bed as it helps me fall asleep.  Goodnight!