Are You a Runner?
By now you are probably used to hearing me talk about coping mechanisms and how to overcome them. Today’s message is a little different. I am all about offering tools and tips to help you while on your healing journey, but today I want to challenge your mindset. And I am going to start this off by asking a question…
Do you invest?
Weird question for a mental health blog, right? But is it really? You may have immediately went to investing money and probably answered based on that. But obviously that is not what I’m referring to. Or maybe you caught on to that question and took it as investing into yourself. But that also is not what I’m talking about! What I mean is do you invest your time? When we think about investing money, the idea is that we put it somewhere with the expectation of receiving more back. When we think about investing into ourselves we think about doing things we enjoy and the expectation is that it will bring us happiness. But what does it mean to invest our time? And what is the expectation that we have when we invest our time?
Technically my original question was a trick question because we are ALWAYS investing our time into something. But when you break down the things we invest our time into, this will fall into two categories, or two expectations. We are either running away from something with the expectation that we won’t have to face the thing that is causing us anxiety and negative thoughts, or we are running towards something with the expectation of fulfillment.
The running away from things is usually an easy to see thing when it is brought to our attention. Maybe there is stress in a relationship, job, financial situation, etc. And running away will always look like distractions. When we think of distractions we tend to think of things like scrolling social media or watching tv, but these can also be sleeping a lot, over working ourselves, keeping busy constantly, over planning, or even just going numb to things/ pretending everything is great all of the time. All of this comes with an expectation that we won’t have to deal with those hard feelings, but ultimately we always do. At some point we will have to face them. So, ultimately, we will never win that race.
The running towards something sounds way more positive, right? But it also can come with an unhealthy outcome as well. This comes down to what are we running towards? Running towards goals is always amazing right? Would you be shocked if I told you no? A lot of the time our goals will center around our mental health, and how we run towards them also comes down to where we are mentally as well. If we are in a place where we are chasing happiness, this is an indication that we are actually running away from something. I know, I know, this sounds really strange. But SO many of us are so focused on finding happiness instead of joy. If you are an OG around here then you understand the difference. For those that are new, I’ll sum it up. Happiness is never long lasting and is usually what we search for when we are running from pain. Joy is something that we can find through any circumstance and can be found in healing. If we are constantly running towards happiness, that also means we are constantly running away from pain. And unfortunately that means we won’t find lasting joy or fulfillment because those things are only found in the peace that healing brings. However, when we set our eyes on running towards growing and healing, we can find that fulfillment.
So, let me rephrase my question:
HOW do you invest?
And HOW do you want to invest? What expectations do you have for how you invest your time? When you sit back and really look at your day to day, how much of your time is invested into your mental health? How often do you talk about how you are feeling? What about your thought life? How are you investing your thoughts? Are you thinking/speaking life or death? What about the music you listen to or the shows you watch? Are they pointing you towards bettering yourself or telling you to stay the same and love yourself exactly the way you are? Are they encouraging you to love or to isolate? Who are you spending time with? What do those conversations look like? Do you find yourself saying you don’t have time when people suggest resources or tools like listening to podcasts or making those phone calls?
I know that the idea of finding the time to do these things or investing into things that requires work seems daunting, but so is staying the same. So is feeling and thinking negatively. So is living in anxiety and depression because you shut out anything that resembles dealing with those feelings. This is called “damned if I do, damned if I don’t”. We tell ourselves that both options hurt so we stick to what we can control. But instead of investing our time and mental health into staying stuck, I challenge you to invest it into things that may feel hard but have the higher chance for a better outcome! I challenge you when you feel like watching tv, to watch a church service or a mental health vlog. When you feel like listening to music, listen to a podcast or turn on pandora or Spotify and find a christian station that will uplift you. When you feel like staying busy, force yourself to workout or go for a walk and, again, find that podcast or station that can uplift you. When you feel like sleeping, PRAY! Talk to God, outloud like you’re talking to a friend.
Your healing is up to you. Your goals in life are up to you. But we are here because we are tired of staying stuck, right? We want to take the control back over anxiety, right? It sucks feeling alone and unloved, right? SO DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! Quit running and investing your time into things that are keeping you from finding actual peace and call it what it is. Fear. And then face it with truth! You know the drill! Really take the time to be honest with yourself and challenge yourself here. And for my friends that like an extra challenge, I challenge you at the end of every day to log what you invested your time into and journal about your expectations. Write down how you felt and what your emotional goals are! And then take the steps necessary to change what needs to be changed the next day and try again!
We hope this helped you. Remember, there is a difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is fleeting but true joy lasts! And staying stuck is just as daunting as making a change for the better. They are both hard. Choose your hard. This was a challenging message but it’s only because you are loved and we want to see the best for you friend!
