It's so much harder to do things differently than the way we are accustomed to doing them. Anyone who has ever quit smoking or drinking knows that the withdrawal period can be excruciating; the person's body craves what it knows.
Recently I have had to refrain from using my right hand, especially for my computer mouse. Tendinitis, possibly even a mild form of carpal tunnel syndrome, has been plaguing me for weeks and has been getting worse as I use the mouse and spend a lot of time (at work and at home) on the computer. So, last night I asked one of my kids, who has had to use wrist braces in the past, if she would lend me one of hers. She agreed and gave me her best one to use.
I tried to wear it to bed, as it was designed for that use. However, I found that I couldn't fall asleep wearing it. Frustrated, I took it off.
But I put it on again this morning before leaving the house.
Thus began one of the most physically frustrating days I've had in a long time. When I got to work, I put my mouse on the other side of my keyboard. I used my left hand for all tasks except the shift key and some of the ASCII codes I use at work to make French accents. Making my right wrist relax and not try to do the tasks even under the brace ... was exhausting. I was ready for the end of my shift, I can assure you. When I described that experience to my family I was told that the first day is always the hardest, and that it would get easier over time. I can only take their word for it. And they probably are right; I defer to their experience.
It's the same way with learning how to live life instead of how to just survive life. Survival mechanisms like controlling, fixing, manipulating, letting people walk all over me, and so forth, allowed me to survive life in my growing-up years. Carrying that into my adult life just ended up destroying relationships instead of making my life more secure. When I started to heal from that, I had to unlearn a lot of things (hanging on for dear life) and start doing other things I wasn't used to doing (letting go, for example.)
It is hard to do things to which I am unaccustomed. Especially if I've been doing it a certain way all my life. I am used to acting and reacting a certain way and learning to stop using those emotional muscles and start using the ones that were never developed, is really tiring. It takes longer. It's messier a lot of times. It's so much easier to fall back into old patterns. Yet I've learned from experience that the old way of doing things produces results that are usually the opposite of the desired result, as well as a whole lot of frustration too.
So even though it was exhausting, even though it was hard, I was determined to let go and stop trying to fix other people or justify myself. It felt awkward. It felt like the emotional equivalent of when a hamster stops running in the exercise wheel : spinning out of control, backward. Everything in me cried out to start running again. But I'd learned it only ended in heartache.
As I stopped and stayed stopped, the awkwardness gradually diminished. Over time the new normal (so to speak) became more and more comfortable, and the old way of doing things became more and more uncomfortable. I started catching myself doing self-destructive things that in my old life, I had not even been aware I was doing. Sometimes I even handled a situation the right way instead of freaking out and alienating everyone around me. And as that happened, I found that those same people started to open their hearts and their arms to me - people I had not dared dream that I would ever be in a good relationship with.
Left to my own devices I would have run my life to the ground. But when I turned my will and my life over to God's care, He empowered me, enabled me (in spite of the awkwardness) to blaze a trail instead of staying in a rut.
Recently I have had to refrain from using my right hand, especially for my computer mouse. Tendinitis, possibly even a mild form of carpal tunnel syndrome, has been plaguing me for weeks and has been getting worse as I use the mouse and spend a lot of time (at work and at home) on the computer. So, last night I asked one of my kids, who has had to use wrist braces in the past, if she would lend me one of hers. She agreed and gave me her best one to use.
I tried to wear it to bed, as it was designed for that use. However, I found that I couldn't fall asleep wearing it. Frustrated, I took it off.
But I put it on again this morning before leaving the house.
It's the same way with learning how to live life instead of how to just survive life. Survival mechanisms like controlling, fixing, manipulating, letting people walk all over me, and so forth, allowed me to survive life in my growing-up years. Carrying that into my adult life just ended up destroying relationships instead of making my life more secure. When I started to heal from that, I had to unlearn a lot of things (hanging on for dear life) and start doing other things I wasn't used to doing (letting go, for example.)
It is hard to do things to which I am unaccustomed. Especially if I've been doing it a certain way all my life. I am used to acting and reacting a certain way and learning to stop using those emotional muscles and start using the ones that were never developed, is really tiring. It takes longer. It's messier a lot of times. It's so much easier to fall back into old patterns. Yet I've learned from experience that the old way of doing things produces results that are usually the opposite of the desired result, as well as a whole lot of frustration too.
So even though it was exhausting, even though it was hard, I was determined to let go and stop trying to fix other people or justify myself. It felt awkward. It felt like the emotional equivalent of when a hamster stops running in the exercise wheel : spinning out of control, backward. Everything in me cried out to start running again. But I'd learned it only ended in heartache.
As I stopped and stayed stopped, the awkwardness gradually diminished. Over time the new normal (so to speak) became more and more comfortable, and the old way of doing things became more and more uncomfortable. I started catching myself doing self-destructive things that in my old life, I had not even been aware I was doing. Sometimes I even handled a situation the right way instead of freaking out and alienating everyone around me. And as that happened, I found that those same people started to open their hearts and their arms to me - people I had not dared dream that I would ever be in a good relationship with.
Left to my own devices I would have run my life to the ground. But when I turned my will and my life over to God's care, He empowered me, enabled me (in spite of the awkwardness) to blaze a trail instead of staying in a rut.
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