On Life – Overcoming Negative Patterns (Part 1)

Life is crazy.  That pretty much sums it up.  Life. Is. Crazy.  I don’t know about you but over the years I have had this thought on so many occasions.  Because life sure throws curve balls doesn’t it?  Or it throws fast balls right at your head, and if you’re not paying attention, if you don’t duck in time, you’re getting knocked down.  I think that’s what I’ve learned with time- to always be paying attention, to be ready for the fast balls, the wild balls, the curve balls, and everything in between.  I’ve been caught with my guard down too many times.  I’ve been a little too trusting, a little too naive, a little too wrapped up in fantasy to notice what was really going on around me.  I believed in the goodness of people even when they were behaving badly.  I was optimistic to a fault.  I saw the silver lining, but not the cloud.  The lemonade but not the lemons.  Since it was too hard to face the bad stuff, I just stopped seeing it completely.  I could only see the rainbows and the butterflies with my perpetual rose-colored glasses. 

This is partly why alcohol became such a problem for me.  I was already well versed in denial and in detaching from reality.  So when I was old enough to drink, alcohol became a quick way for me to avoid anything real- pain, my flaws and others’ flaws, disappointments, betrayals, negative emotions, bad decisions, etc.  This is how I ended up in an abusive relationship.  I fell head over heels in love while ignoring all the red flags that could’ve saved me from a lot of heartache.  This is how I ended up going from one chaotic, dysfunctional work environment to another over the years.  How it became so easy for people to use me, manipulate me and take advantage of me, if that’s what they chose to do.  I just blotted out all the bad stuff and told myself everything was good. 

Yes, life, in general, is crazy.  But my life has been particularly crazy because I was a mess inside and everything around me was simply a manifestation of that.  I was broken internally, so nothing was really working for me externally either.  My life was a crazy mess, so what did I do?  I worked harder, I got busier, I drank more, I went out more, I got into relationships I had no business being in.  I did everything in my power to ignore the alarm bells signaling for me to slow down.  I ignored the warning signs that things weren’t right, that I was not okay.  I was so used to saying, “I’m fine, everything’s fine,” that I really believed it.  But this was just a shiny, verbal veneer covering up a whole host of problems.  I was not “fine.”  Not even close!

I was an alcoholic, codependent, people pleaser.  I had low self-esteem and no boundaries- I was essentially a walking doormat.  I was immature and very out of touch with my emotions and reality.  I had no real purpose in life.  I was lost, drifting, and going absolutely nowhere at all.  In fact, my life had become much like being lost in the woods.  You think you’re getting somewhere, then you recognize a certain tree (or in life, a certain situation) and you realize you’re right back where you started from.  Let me tell you, I got tired of living out the same situations, the only things that ever changed were the people and/or the scenery.  I got tired of getting taken out by the same pitch, when I should’ve seen it coming by then.  I got tired of MYSELF- doing the same things while expecting different results.  We all know that’s the very definition of insanity.  So eventually, I started making different choices.  I can’t cover all the changes I made in this one post, but I’ll give you the basics with more to come later. 

The best choice I made, by far, was to surrender my life to Jesus and let him start working on me from the inside.  He started to transform my mind, my heart, and my spirit.  By no means do I want to make it seem like this has been a quick or easy process.  I had decades of dysfunction to undo and that wasn’t going to happen overnight.  I am several years into the process, still a work in progress, but I have truly come so far from where I started.  And no, it hasn’t been easy.  In fact, it’s probably THE hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.  Fighting against the negative and unhealthy patterns in my life has truly been like swimming upstream.  And I’m going to tell you up front, I don’t believe I would have made it this far if I didn’t have God swimming alongside me.  Because you know what?  I’ve tried it in the past without Him.  I’ve tried to get sober before.  I’ve tried to stay away from toxic men before.  I’ve tried to find financial stability before.  I’ve tried to find happiness and peace before.  And with all those tries, I never made it very far, because I would get tired of swimming upstream and I’d just give up, get swept downstream and go back to my old ways.  But now I’ve successfully done all those things I only tried to do before, and I can’t take credit for any of it.  I can only thank God and give all the glory to Him. 

But even though God was the catalyst for my transformation, I still had a part to play.  I still had a responsibility to own my healing.  I had to take steps and work hard to undo what needed to be undone.  So outside of surrendering my life to God, beyond prayer and reading the Bible, I’d like to share some things I did that were pivotal in changing my life.  Some things that made me pay attention to what life might throw my way, and that allowed me to be ready to duck if needed, so I wouldn’t keep getting knocked down.  Right now, I am just going to list these things, and later I will delve into each one more deeply.  Some of them are going to sound too simple, some of them are going to sound cliché, but all of them were a part of my transformation.  All of them worked for me, but only because I did more than just say, “I’m going to put myself first,” and I actually did just that.  Even when it was hard, even when it was messy, even when I lost friends as a result, even when it was uncomfortable, even when it was painful and confusing, even when I felt selfish, even when I felt guilty, even when I was dying to save someone else, I finally drew the line in the sand and decided it was time to save myself for a change.  

It was time to come face to face with myself and fight for my own stability, healing and growth.  I did this by:

̴ getting sober from alcohol

̴ seeing a therapist

̴ slowing down and minimizing distractions

̴ doing the opposite of what I would normally do

̴ learning to say “no” as a complete sentence

̴ making self-care a priority

̴ learning to spend time alone

̴ paying more attention to people’s actions than their words

I will unpack all these things in a separate post.  It might even take me multiple posts to cover each one.  But for now I’ll wrap it up.  Yes, life itself is crazy.  But if your own life is currently a chaotic mess, please know that there is hope for something better.  That within the craziness of this thing called life, you can carve out a space for yourself where there is true peace and joy.  You can change negative patterns and overcome self-defeating behaviors.  You can be ready for what life will inevitably throw your way, while also taking back some control of your own life.  I don’t care if you spent the last 20 years getting knocked down by the same pitch.  Today is a new day and it’s never too late to change.  It’s never too late to make a different choice that can lead to a different outcome.  Stay with me on this journey over the next few weeks and if you are looking to overcome some things in your life, I will be praying that you receive the breakthrough you need.