Last night/early this morning, I was yanked from sleep when I saw someone breaking into the house via the basement stairs. The image was so crystal clear, a man pushing his way through the basement door to do who-knows-what sort of destructive mischief. Yes, on the second floor, I had the distinct image of someone coming through the basement to break into the house. Yep, that's the image, that's what I was sure I saw.
When I woke enough (after pacing upstairs considering my options, my heart racing, sweating profusely with fear) to realize that I had been dreaming and that no one was in the house except those who belonged AND realizing that it was physically impossible for me to see through two floors into the basement below, I was able to calm down and go back to sleep.
But this experience, one I've had before, made me stop and consider other images that I have held, some that are just as alarming and unsettling, things that aren't really so.
Sometimes what I think I see and what is really there are two separate things, and it can get me into trouble. For example, the perceived slight from someone who I thought was a friend which turns out to be an oversight or the result of a really rotten migraine. Or the person who seems to have it in for me on the highway, cutting me off at every opportunity, when the real culprit is an urgent need to get to the bedside of a sick parent. Or the snub I feel from someone who I care for but who doesn't seem to return the feeling, when the true story is a deeply held sense of fear or regret that has paralyzed the person from acknowledging true emotions.
Most of the time when I let myself get into such situations where I convince myself that I'm being somehow rejected or abused or neglected, I eventually discover that I am the one being oversensitive and, more importantly, too self-absorbed to see the situation for what it really is.
It's an ongoing issue with me, and I'm working on it, along with a slew of other foibles, but it's an important one. Because when I don't see things for what they truly are, I'm avoiding the truth. And that is never a good way to see the world.
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1 comment:
Good thoughts Sara. I've come to that realization here recently myself. Things I consider aimed at me have NOTHING to do with me. And when I step back and think, like you just stated, that other people have things going on in their lives that have nothing to do with me what so ever, that it's just my self perception of being wronged, it makes me realize how selfish "I" am.
That being said, it's so easy to understand that and say it, but to practice it, and remember it in the "heat" of the moment.....oh no my friend, almost impossible. I'm reading a book now called The Shack. Where a man who's had some hard luck in life, most recently losing his daughter to a serial killer, meets God (The Trinity). He meets them at "The Shack" where his daughter was allegedly murdered. But when he meets God, she's an older African American woman, Jesus, an Arab, and the Holy Spirit, a Mongolian lady. Talk about perceptions....our culture probably perceives God as a caucasian male just like the character in the book, and realistically, how would we or anyone know? It's all in how we relate.
I guess the point I'm trying to make is if we can't perceive God for what He is (everything), trying to perceive our fellow humans is equally as hard, and we probably have the same misconceptions as you state (the guy trying to cut YOU off in traffic who may be rushing to the hospital). We relate to everything on our own terms, without consideration of others.
It's all very interesting to talk about, and very easy to realize how we SHOULD think and behave, but much harder to live.
Great Blog, keep working out our minds and bodies....nice job in the torture....I mean XBike this AM. :)
PBW
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