Runaway-Train-Brain
Recently, I realized that faith is about finding a way to fortify ourselves internally through an externalized source of power. Many people who grow up in stressful circumstances, who are traumatized, who just plain lack faith, are accustomed to being criticized, being controlled, being at the mercy of others for whatever reason. If anything is internalized, it is the negative, critical, judgmental voice of some terrible other - be it a broken primary caregiver or a cultural drive toward extreme individualism that we often mistake for trying to be perfect. That inner critic can be extremely self-limiting, doing a lot of damage over time, and many of us have no idea how to turn it off. There has to be a counterweight, another option, a voice full of kindness and self-compassion.
Even if we know that voice is necessary, it’s hard to implement in the moment. Most of us are dealing with runaway-train-brain. Rarely are there brakes or steering involved, but this, my friends, is where prayer, meditation, and faith come in. They say prayer is talking to God (or Good) and meditation is listening. I get it - meditation sucks, especially at first. It’s particularly difficult for the most stressed among us, but it has served me beyond measure when it comes to awareness and creating options. I am just paying attention differently, which creates opportunities for something beyond the same old BLEEP.
And prayer - well, what is prayer? Prayer is asking for help from an external source that probably has better options than the ones we can imagine, which usually includes beating ourselves up or driving ourselves crazy with worry. Let’s be real - anything is better than that, right? And, yes, prayer is externalizing the problem AND the solution. That might sound like a crutch but WHO CARES? Only the cruel, bitter, or overly confident care about crutches.
Like it or not, we walking faithless almost always need additional support and are also usually the slowest to admit that need. Even when we are aware we need help, we reject, resist, or otherwise struggle against it until we’re just plain worn out. This, personally, is where faith came in for me. I had exhausted myself trying to go-it-alone (while, paradoxically, also relying far too heavily on others). I was convinced, for quite some time, that if everyone would just do what I thought was best, life would be better for everyone (L…O…L). It was exhausting, ineffective, and misery-making.
Faith has helped me let go of a lot, reach a place of acceptance with life, and find healing and wellness I never thought possible through being more effectively proactive at times and more contentedly patient at others. God (or Good, call it whatever you need to to get on board) has helped me with both… with all of it. Just everything.
Much of our culture tells us we need to go-it-alone or pull ourselves up by our bootstraps, falling prey to an internal critic that can be incapacitating. Most of us know we need an internal cheerleader but we don’t know where to start. Faith has become that for me. I have become comfortable with drawing strength from something that feels externalized but is, in reality, internal. I am doing faith for myself, but because of my own trauma, it had to start out as something other than myself to get me rolling.
It doesn’t make any sense, and yet it does, and it does work - at least for me. Perhaps it might work for you, too.