Yesterday I began the delivery of tri-fold pamphlets to every door in the Cirrus Drive corridor. I did it because I had a mental hang-up. I overcame that, now it’s time to hire someone.
After two hours my feet hurt, and the fear I had about leaving something on people’s doorsteps had mostly gone away. I know plenty of youth in my ward who I can pay to finish the job.
I want to find some sort of game for getting over the fear I have of talking to people. It’s deep seated, and a large part personality. But I feel a pull on my heart and mind to care more for people, and I see my latent tendency to retreat from people as an obstacle.
As I wrote the words of the preceding paragraph I had a light bulb moment. I have never put to writing, or thought, such a clear representation of my challenge. I have a latent tendency to retreat from people. I’m sure there are many reasons for this, but one that sums up all the others is that it’s the easier way. It’s easier to retreat into the comfortable patterns of my own mind than be in the crosshairs of someone else.
Even the use of the word crosshairs signals how I feel when I’m the object of someone else’s attention. It’s mentally rigorous to put myself in a situation where I might be subject to the judgement of another. I’m sure that’s true for everyone. What becomes limiting for me, and I think frankly unhealthy, is that my mind sees opportunity for judgement against me in the most mundane circumstances. Sometimes even going through the self-checkout in Winco makes me feel uncomfortable because I think I’ll do something wrong and be judged by the attendant or people waiting in line behind me.
I’m not sure if there is a cure for that kind of thinking, but I can put it in remission by practicing hard things every day. So, I suppose the trick is figuring out how to maintain the mental stamina to do hard things. Just like physical exercise, it will mean constant daily effort to stay in shape. No retirement soon for me. 🙂
This was a good psych session. I didn’t even need to pay a co-pay.
Come Follow Me
I have always liked the scriptures that talk about the weak things of the earth, like verse 19 of section 1.
“The weak things of the world shall come forth and break down the mighty and strong ones.”
Since as early as I have memory I have always been the kind of person that would root for the underdog. It makes sense to me that Heavenly Father would use the weak things of the world to do whatever work he needs. And I suppose this concept has always given me hope for myself.
But weakness isn’t the only qualifier. An acknowledgment of the weakness, and the internal strength to give up our own agenda is also required. It’s interesting to think of it as giving up my agenda. What is my agenda, and how does it conflict with Heavenly fathers agenda? How do I give up what does conflict?
This is what I’ll ponder today. And I’ll practice not retreating from people.