I write a lot about our heads and the need to stay out of the head, so I thought it was time to explain what I mean between the head and the mind in case my readers don’t understand what I mean. When I say we need to stay out of our heads it doesn’t mean that I am saying we shouldn’t think. I will try and explain what I mean and hopefully I can help people that don’t understand and make it more clear to everyone.
I will begin with myself. I did not do well in school. I had a very hard time learning and concentrating. I could not make choices. I wavered and vacillated and I did not know why. I would get anxious because of it and depressed. I know now it was because I lived in my head. Living in my head kept me from feeling or living in reality. My head was full of little conversations that I had with myself. They were about many different areas of insecurity and what I thought I needed to be okay; shaming voices that played in my head that I was less-than. I wanted to be anyone else but me. My head was full of all kinds of voices telling me I wasn’t good enough. That was not my mind speaking! That was my head!
My mind is the part of me that helps me to make choices, like it is time to go to school now. My head would be the part of me that would say, “Why bother going to school, I am stupid, I will never learn.” It is very hard to make decisions about something when our heads are getting the best of us. Usually it is in a certain area we struggle with. When I find myself in a place of indecision about small matters it is usually because I am in my head.
I am the one who has to choose not to listen to the voices of shame in my head. I have to choose to get myself in the here and now, and focus on the matter at hand. Then I can make a decision that is impossible to make when I am listening to shame voices in my head. Shame is the voice that tells me that I am not good enough. Until I say no to those voices and focus on the moment at hand I can stay lost in indecision, which can lead to depression. If my mind feels clouded then I can’t make good choices, be with the people or situation I am in, or focus on anything that needs to be done. Telling myself that I should be better is the last thing I need to do. Telling myself “I can do it”, would be a lot better choice.
If I turn my focus and attention to the Lord inside and feel Him in there, I can shift myself out of head entrapment and get in the moment I am in. It is only then that I can make a good choice and be attentive to the person or situation where I am.
My head is not my friend. Even if my head is saying good things to me about myself instead of negative, it is really not much different if I am comparing myself to others. For example, you know the phrase about someone having a big head? It is someone who people say is full of themself! That kind of persons head is so full of their own self that they can’t think straight. If my head is saying, I look way better than that person, or I can do this or that way better than he or she, then that is still being in your head. The bible calls it being puffed up. Either positive or negative head entrapment keeps us from being where we need to be. I was caught up in the better than/less than head game. I was not free to love others. How could I love others if I wasn’t really there for them! When I lived in my head I was not present to who I was with. It was a way of escaping from reality for me. I wanted to be able to love others, but I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t really there. I could do nice things for others, but I couldn’t really love them or hear them.
When I learned how to feel deep inside me of me with the Lord, instead of just living in my head I started to learn how to use my mind to make decisions. My fog lifted and I could be where I was and be present to who I was with. My mind is what I use to make the choice not to listen to my head anymore!
Sometimes I find myself blaming or finding fault with someone in my head instead of taking responsibility and feeling my own feeling about it. For example if I feel hurt, sad or disappointed about a person for some reason, instead of excepting my feelings and letting myself feel them I will find something about that person that is wrong, or everything about that person will start to bug me. This is a not usually a conscious thing though. When someone else starts to bug me a lot I know that it is probably not really about them, but about me. Something is going on with me that I need to deal with, some feeling that I don’t want to feel.
When I realize it and just accept it and let myself feel it, then it gets better. It is much easier than the torment I live with letting the other person bug me. I am not happy with myself when I do that and it takes up all my mental space.
There are times I live in my head with the opinions of others telling me how I should or shouldn’t be, or what I should or shouldn’t do. A lot of times it my own idea of what I believe I need to do, so this other person will be pleased with me or like me. I think a lot of people are hindered because of the opinions of others that play in their heads.
A lot of times it is a parental voice that still plays in our heads telling us what we should do to be okay. Shoulds will never motivate anyone to do anything good, but they do paralyze us. It is almost impossible to use our minds to make a good choice if the voices of shoulds are being listened to in our heads. I stop now and say “No” to myself, let myself feel and change what I am saying to myself.
If my goal is to love others then it is very important to be able to use my mind and not live in my head.