changing

We don't realize how strong we actually are and we don't realize the strength we have access to. 

In this struggle between rumination, which is trying to close me down, and my daily goals which represent my new life, I'm still so subject to rumination and it's still hard to really see the power of my goals.

The rumination still seems to be winning. But I am pushing back against it. It seems like a water pistol against a fire hose, but I have faith in the power of my goals. 

My ruminations, anxiety, depression, fear and other negative thought patterns seem so real to me and my goals don't. They don't seem to make a difference. 

But I know they do make a difference. I can feel the difference even today. My spirit lifts as I do these things. It's just that the rumination is so pervasive. All it takes is one worry - one little detail - and I'm drawn back into the whole network of worries and fears. 

But I'm learning to see that network for what it is, and to see my goals for what they are. I believe in the powerful life-giving ability of my goals and I can see the error of my ruminations. I can see how one supplants the other. The suffering brought by my rumination will not be used to destroy me or break me. It's exactly what is needed to build me. There is no mistake. 

It takes time though. It's not a simple matter of fighting the rumination or reasoning my way out of it. It's a matter of growth and development. Growth of my new life, and falling away of the old with its rumination and other maladaptive ways. 

So, I'm kind of stuck with rumination for a while. I'm stuck with a lot of the pain and fear, but I'm learning that the real suffering comes from resisting and fighting them or trying to escape them. That's the problem - we want a quick fix. Pretty much every day I have some windows - some breaks in the suffering...moments, sometimes longer, of feeling OK, feeling normal, peaceful. And I want to hold onto them, but they don't last. It almost feels permanent for a while, but then I start to slip, and then the fear kicks in which of course escalates the problem, and down I go. 

As I wrote above, these two things - doing my goals and my rumination - supplant each other, but ultimately that only goes one way. Doing my goals is undermining my rumination. The rumination might temporarily interfere with me doing my goals, but every day I do them anyway, and I'm going to do them more and more and get better at them. There's a permanence to my goals that is not shared by my rumination.