The Spinning Gears of My Mind

There are so many things that define me and it seems that the majority of me is my mind.  I know that to others I am so much more.  But to myself almost all that I can see is what goes on inside of my mind.  Life is made up of energy and it seems that all the energy in my life is mostly burned up through the spinning of the invisible gears of my mind.

My mind is constantly in a state of momentum yet it seems that my behaviors rarely match the activity level inside my brain.  Today as I thought through the great continuum of ideas through my mind, I seemed to come to some very good ideas and conclusions on questions that came up.  However, I came to realize that to a large degree thinking or even knowing (which is what seems so important to my OCD) does absolutely nothing! I can continue to live in my mind with all of its amazing ideas and yet no matter how amazing, inventive, fantastic, world-changing they are… they continue to do NOTHING…they are just thoughts.  Unless I create action.  The thoughts can be useful, I can imagine something that will one day make a difference in my life or the life of others BUT it will never happen unless I act on these thoughts.

If this is true then that means that the same has to be true for OCD thoughts.  The thoughts are just that…thoughts…unless or until I act on them.  I don’t know how many times I have heard this uttered…they are just thoughts…but I couldn’t get the true meaning of it until it hit me on the head and finally the light bulb went off.  I now Logically understand it takes both thoughts AND action to truly make something important or meaningful.  That being said, there will always be the Illogical part of me that automatically wants to put deep intrinsic meaning into every “bad” thought that comes my way.

In the bible at James 2:26 it says that Faith without Works is dead.  This could be true in every aspect of our life.  It takes works or actions to bring a thought to life.

And I am disappointed to say how much of my life is spent inside my mind with all of the gears churning.  Some I am happy to say that they are just thoughts and is not indicative of an action that will inevitably happen because the thought existed.  I would rather not have the thought….but I am thankful it exists just the way it is…a thought without action.  Others I am ashamed to say I have allowed to stay as thoughts instead of actions because of fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, and OCD.

How can fear, anxiety, shame, guilt, and OCD take these masterpieces of my mind away from me?  Easily…it tricks me, and I allow myself to be fooled into believing it.  They tell me I am not good enough to pull it off.  I will fail.  I will look like an idiot.  I will make a fool of myself.  And then if I am strong enough to combat all of that straight trash talk to look at the possibility that I might succeed, it gives me all the negatives of success.  I am not being humble enough.  I will make people hate me by succeeding.  I will become obsessed with power and lose everything precious to me.  I will be creating more problems by rising above.

So how do I choose what to do?  This is the saddest part… Many times I don’t.  I sit there in the midst of the storm of thoughts and wish my life away.  I sit there unable to decide, not knowing the best (what most people would describe as perfect) way to go.  By not moving forward…I am actually moving backward as life continues on leaving me sitting there with only…..The spinning gears of my  mind.