Introspection: Listen to Your Heartache

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Listen to Your Heart(ache)

When Jesus saw him lying there, knowing that he had already been there a long time, he asked him, "Do you want to get well?"

John 5:6 (CEB)

It happens when you can't take anymore

And you don't want to fight

You go inside yourself

From "Emotional Cocoon" by Tearwave

Looking back on the last couple of years, I've noticed that I have a tendency, like many people, to become a little bummed out after Christmas.  I have a theory about why this happens to me.  Every year, I take two weeks off from work around the holidays.  I usually spend the first week getting ready for Christmas: in fact, I typically do all my Christmas shopping during this time.  During the second week of my holiday vacation, I don't have very much to do.  I think that maybe the resulting idleness, coupled with the comedown from the rush of the previous week, might cause me to feel a bit drained.

There was a time when I had more things to keep me busy than I have at the present.  Not too long ago, I was both a Sunday school teacher and a leader in a Bible study group.  Now I perform neither of those functions, yet I have managed to keep myself occupied.  For some reason, the demand for Lay Speakers increased this year, and I have had more opportunities to preach than I have had in previous years.  I preached on ten Sundays this year, giving me the opportunity to write six new sermons and to revise three old ones.¹  I also started blogging more often to give myself something else to do.  At some point early in the year, I decided to try to post something on my blog every week, and I'm glad to say that I've met my goal, though I was late on a few occasions.

To summarize, I did a pretty good job of keeping myself busy this year.

I do not think that idleness is my sole cause of melancholia, but rather something that brings me face-to-face with it.  I live in a pain-averse society, and like many people, I have a tendency to numb myself.  Not long ago, I confessed that I use things like cynicism and negativity to protect me from the pain of potential disappointment.  I think that maybe I also use busyness in a similar way.  Being busy prevents me from having to think about anything that might make me feel sad or anxious.  For me, all is right with the world when I'm too busy to think about all that is wrong with the world.

Earlier this year, I realized that, though I am quick to complain that my life is not what I wish it was, I find myself at a loss for words when I am confronted with that dreadful question, "Do you want to get well?"  It has been said that people change when the pain of staying the same becomes greater than the pain of changing.²  Looking back on some of the changes I've made in my life, I think there is some truth in this statement.  Many of us have become quite adept at numbing ourselves, but perhaps numbness keeps us stuck in a rut.  When we numb ourselves, we might not experience the pain, unrest, and discontent we need to motivate us to make changes in our lives.

Though I'm glad that I now write more than I did in previous years, trying to post something every week has taken its toll on me in a number of ways.  I haven't had as much time read as I had in previous years; I often find myself anxious about figuring out what to write; and I feel that I haven't always posted my best work.  That said, in 2017, I intend to take at least one week off from blogging per month.  I'm hoping that a monthly break will give me time to seek inspiration from the writings of others and to allow my best ideas to rise to the surface.  I'm also hoping that a little less busyness will help me to face the realities of my life so that I'll find whatever I need to take steps to move forward.

I learned a number of life lessons in 2016, and perhaps you did as well.  Such lessons are meaningless to us unless we actually put them into practice and move forward.  In 2017, may we pay closer attention to what is going on within ourselves, so that we find the resolve to take the steps we need to take.


Notes:

1. For the tenth Sunday, I revised one of the new sermons.
2. Some form of this saying has been attributed to a number of people including Tony Robbins and Henry Cloud.

The photograph of the sundial was taken by Wikimedia user Jeepika and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.