No one likes to admit they struggle with avoidance or obsession. A lot of people do and don’t even realize they do. What does it even mean to avoid or obsess?
What I found is that normal people, aka people who don’t act out in some sort of addiction, are those who seem to obsess the most. This was my problem. I acted in instead of out. It is much more respectable to act in!
Obsession gets really strong and active when we are having feelings that we don’t want to feel or accept, so to avoid those feelings we obsess about something. We act in by obsessing which takes us out of our feelings.
Maybe you don’t know if you are an obsessor or not. Some people think that they are just worriers. We may worry about real problems and try and figure out the solutions. We get lost in trying to figure out the solution to impossible situations. We get all caught up in our heads with all kinds of possible scenarios to our problems. Our mind gets more and more tormented with impossible things that seem hopeless!
Obsession works like this:
We have some feelings that we don’t want to face, feel or deal with. It could be a current feeling or an old buried feeling coming up from our past. We have no idea where these feelings come from, but instead of feeling the feelings we immediately start to wonder about some “what if” question in our minds, and it usually has nothing to do with the feeling they are trying to escape at all.
We start to wonder why we are feeling this way. Maybe my mate doesn’t love me anymore. What if I fail at my job and I get fired. How will I pay my bills if I get fired? What if my friend doesn’t really like me and is just faking being my friend. Maybe I feel this way because I am sick and have cancer or some other disease.
It could be anything, really, but because of all these questions in our minds we no longer feel the feelings. Now it is even worse, we are in a tormenting mind game.
It is most important to know that we cannot feel and think at the same time. Knowing this can come in very handy.
Another important thing to know is that we have to feel to heal. We have to be able to face reality as it is, and feel and accept where we are right now.
Feelings are not bad. It is what we do with the feelings that make them bad or unhealthy.
Feelings will come and go like a wave if we just feel them. If we shame ourselves for having a certain feeling and make ourselves bad in our minds about them then we will always try to escape and deny them, and the hamster wheel of obsession begins.
Once we get trapped in the hamster wheel of obsession the torment of the mind begins and everything seems chaotic.
If we find ourselves stuck in our heads thinking about some horrible stuff that we don’t want to think, then ask yourself if there is a feeling that you are trying to ignore.
Feelings come from our thoughts and thoughts come from our beliefs. If we are having some unusual feelings then ask yourself what were you just thinking about before these feelings came.
A lot of times it is the feeling of fear that we don’t want to feel or accept. We don’t believe we should have fear so we will shame ourselves for feeling fear and then try to deny that we are afraid.
It is much better that we acknowledge our fear and don’t allow our heads to shame us for it. If we just feel and accept our fear then we can go to the Lord with it and He will be there to help us! We can do this with any feeling we have, but we have to acknowledge that we are even having a feeling.
Food is a big problem for me. Sometimes I find myself in a sudden bad mood. All of a sudden I will feel totally miserable! Usually underneath that misery I find that I wanted to eat some food item but I thought to myself, “I shouldn’t eat that dessert. I have had enough food!” It was an unconscious thought, but I all of a sudden I feel miserable!
I realize that my previous thought was, “I shouldn’t eat that” which brought up shaming memories from my childhood. If I just let myself feel the feeling and don’t think my way out of it, then it will pass.
Most people might have a similar scenario happen and they will try and figure out all kinds of crazy reasons for their mood, usually blaming it on someone else and something someone else did. It will really have nothing to do with their sudden bad mood at all, but we get wrapped up in the hamster wheel of thoughts and we totally avoid what is really going on inside of us.
Feelings that are bigger than what the situation calls for, when they are extreme and catch us off guard because of their intensity usually stem from childhood issues that we need to heal from.
If we just sit with them and don’t run away from them, then we can heal and move on. But if we get all wrapped up in our heads which will cause us to avoid our feelings, we then just get more tormented.
Stop, be still, breathe and remember that Jesus lives inside of us and He said, “He will never leave us nor will He forsake us!”
Stop the hamster wheel in our heads and get off the ride! It is very tiring to run in a hamster wheel going nowhere but around and around in a wheel!
Tell your head, “Jesus has got this!”
I do not have to figure out the outcome because it is way too big for me! I just put my hand in His and rest!
He has got this!