It’s 6:30 AM.
I’m drinking coffee and late for the gym…again.
My cat is on the loose. She’s running around, jumping on furniture, clawing her way around, and trying to knock everything off the edge of the table. I think she may be possessed.
I’m trying to concentrate and get this thing written so I can go do some pull-ups but my cat is distracting.
It’s difficult to be in the present moment and just exist. To let go of worry, frustrations, and obligations. To be content with exactly who you are and where you are.
And the worst part is that if you try to “hold on” to any specific moment, you just wind up depressed. Because time doesn’t stop. Everything changes.
You grow old. Your kids grow old.
Your new car isn’t new anymore (but you’ve still got the payments). The paint on your house is chipping. The sink leaks. There’s a hole in the wall in your son’s room. Everything changes.
But what about this moment right now? Yes, it’ll be gone in a millisecond. But for that brief time, we can be happy. And then maybe the moment after that (but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves).
In the book Fight Club, Tyler Durden pours lye on the Narrator’s hand, creating a chemical burn. The Narrator goes to his “happy place” to ignore the pain. Tyler slaps him and tells him he is missing the most important moment of his life.
Tyler explains…without pain and sacrifice, we would have nothing. He then pours vinegar on the hand to neutralize the lye.
(If all that seems crazy, it’s just a drop in the bucket)
Here’s the deal…
Without the difficult, we’d never appreciate the easy.
Without the critics, we couldn’t appreciate the praise.
Each moment in time is a gift. A split second to build a life on.
We have to let go of the things that we can’t control and embrace the things we can. This used to be called faith.
Here’s how Tyler Durden put it:
Hitting bottom isn’t a weekend retreat. It’s not a g**d*** seminar. Stop trying to control everything and just let go! LET GO!
Our minds process information. Everything that happens to us is processed, sorted, and stored. This is how we interact with the world around us. Inputs and outputs.
Those that suffer childhood trauma have much higher rates of depression, anxiety, and addiction.
So how do we let go of these things that are so painful?
Are we supposed to just forget?
No.
Instead, we transform our lives through the Grace given by God.
First, understand the source of your anxiety might not be what you think it is.
Could fear of heights be a suppressed memory of being psychologically abandoned by your parents due to the success of an older brother? Probably not. Sometimes you’re just scared of high places. But maybe, just maybe there’s more to you than that. This may take years to figure out.
Next, understand that it’s completely natural to feel the way you do. To understand that an emotional response is a biological output to a psychological input. If you want a different output, you either need to change the input or change the output.
Now most of the time you can’t change the inputs. Life just happens to you and then you respond. But this isn’t always the case. And a lot of the negative things that happen to you will be because of the “things” you let in your life.
Example: Childhood trauma leads to alcohol abuse. You can’t go back in time and change the trauma, but you can make sure you don’t self destruct through self medication. In other words, you can’t change the input of trauma, but you can change the input of alcohol and in turn transform a life that would have been thrown away.
Explore your life and look at the patterns that upset you. What can you change? Toxic relationships, junk food, drugs, alcohol, greed, pornography, adultery, ignorance, anger, bigotry, laziness.
These are a slow rot that festers and spreads inside your mind and soul.
Change what you can. And start today.
Find a way to channel your anxiety and pain into something meaningful.
Become a counselor. Volunteer at your church. Plant a garden and give the food away to those in need. Rescue a kitten and give it a safe home. The options are limitless.
The idea is to create a meaningful world and walk that path as long as it takes you.
You can’t take away the hurt but you might be able to make the world a little less painful for someone else.
This doesn’t erase your past, it transforms it.
What the world needs now is not another passionate Facebook rant, but instead…
A little kindness, some true masculine leadership, and a whole lot of Christian faith.
Try it and watch your life change.
It’s time you start fighting for the things that matter.
This is not a seminar. It’s not a weekend retreat.
It’s your life.
Time to get busy living it.
p.s.
I wrote another non-fiction book but won’t be releasing it just yet. I need to put the re-write and editing on hold while I focus on a new project…
My first novel!
It will be a different genre than what most people are used to. (Neo Noir Southern Gothic Christian Punk)
Kind of like Conan the Barbarian meets the Exorcist meets the Evil Dead.
Safe to say, it won’t be for everyone.
Here’s the story line:
I was hoping to have it out by Halloween but that’s not going to be possible.
I’ll keep you posted.
p.p.s.
If you’ve ever thought about writing your own book but felt too overwhelmed to start…
Or maybe you got the dreaded “writer’s block” and couldn’t finish it…
You need to read this right now!
p.p.p.s.
And if you haven’t read my first book, now’s your chance…
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