I want to be happy. I do.
So then why do I engage in obsessively compulsive disordered thinking? Why do I persist in habits that keep me small, angry, upset and stifled?
There are things I think, things I feel and words that I say to myself and others that are simply not serving me.
To out myself, here are a few:
1) I used to be the sort of girl who outted all her thoughts, good, bad, and mostly ugly, on a public blog. From 2005 to 2007, I wrote obsessively about everything. As I sat down to write this blog, I started telling myself I’d forgotten how to blog. You’re blocked. You’re out of practice. You don’t do it the way so-and-so does it. No one wants to read you. The coach in me would prefer I think about it this way: Perhaps I just don’t want to blog the way I used to. I want to offer something different now. And I do, actually, have something to offer.
2) I am ghostwriting a memoir for someone. In our final interview before I started the outlining phase, she told me how incredibly excited she is about our project. “It’s like meeting a new lover,” she said in her accented English, “you cannot wait. This book is like my baby.” I put that comment on like a cement coveralls. Talk about pressure! The coach in me would prefer I tap into her excitement and use it to fuel our efforts instead of crush them.
3) The future of our living situation is for my husband and me is quite unknown. I can’t seem to wrap my head around what our next move should be, who will rent us an apartment or lend us money to buy a new one. And my biggest fear is that we will have to leave the city. The coach in me would ask me if the future is ever “quite known.” She’d remind me to focus less on the fear and live in the vision. I don’t have to know how. And the reality is we don’t have to go anywhere!
What’s one thought that you feel obsessively compelled to repeat that’s contributing to your disordered thinking? What would the coach in you want you to think instead?
To shut down this obsessively compulsive disordered thinking I’ve started asking myself if I wanted to be happy? That question has enabled me to shift away from the un-happy-making habits.
Do you want to be happy? Or do you want convince yourself you can’t write anymore?
Do you want to be happy? Or do you want to live in fear of moving 20 miles away?
Do you want to be happy? Or do you want to be wearing cement OshKosh B’Gosh?
If I want to be happy, I have to let go.
I want to be happy.