We live in a beautiful world of views and vistas, sunrises and sunsets, cityscapes to shanty towns.
One place known for the best of these is in the State of Hawaii of the United States of America. Its tropical climate, fresh fish, and sandy beaches make it the perfect place to vacation, relax and rejuvenate.
I had the privilege of working in Hawaii and experienced some of its culture and sights. It is a great place to visit; you should make plans to go!
During my time there, I dined at a popular outdoor restaurant in an up and coming part of the city. As I sat at my table, I noticed this beautiful mural. The mural was painted on the wall of a parking garage near the restaurant. It was an image of a Hawaiian woman wearing a head lei. As I admired the painting, some very noticeable gaps in it started to distort and interrupt the flow of the image. Do you see them in the picture?
These gaps in the mural caused me to ponder how we sometimes see and think about ourselves. We try to present a beautiful image, but if someone were to look at our lives close enough or long enough, they would see gaping holes that distort and interrupt the flow of our lives.
So, as you can imagine, my time at the restaurant ended up being a delicious yet contemplative dining experience.
During my off days while in Hawaii, I like to take the public transportation to get the feel of local island life. As I sat waiting for a bus, like anyone waiting for a bus, I people watched. The area had a mix of business professionals, blue-collar workers, students, tourists and the homeless.
I watched the people around the bus stop; some were either standing or sitting waiting for their bus to arrive to take them to the desired destination. As I watched the people get on and off buses, I noticed a few people around the bus stop who never boarded a bus. They might stand in line to board the bus or look in the door of the bus and never enter. After a while, it became apparent they had already reached their destination.
These people appeared to live in an invisible world, a world that only they or a few could see. A world where the best of times and worst of times seemed to have collided. They would have sudden outbursts and arguments or perform actions making them look like they were responding to people and a place no one could see but them. To the passersby, these people are dismissed as merely someone just “talking to themselves” or someone who has taken too many drugs. Some people call it living in an “imaginary” world.
I would tend to agree that it could be an imaginary world they live in only because it does not line up with what others see as reality or a present moment. However, as I watched these people at the bus stop, their acts and outbursts did not always seem so random. I believe if I were able to hang around them for an entire day, I would have seen them repeat the same outbursts, arguments, and reenactments several times during that day.
As I continued to watch and wait for my bus, a question came to mind about these people at the bus stop; what can cause a person to:
- start a random argument that escalates to screaming and yelling with someone that only they can see or
- intensely wave their arms at the base of a streetlight mimicking cooking at a stove or dusting off a piece of furniture and taking invisible things off an invisible shelf or
- pick up invisible objects off the ground and place them in their invisible jacket pocket, or
- engage you in a general conversation that suddenly turns violent because they are no longer talking with you but with someone that only they can see
I continued to watch the collided worlds of several people at the bus stop that day. As I watched, I pondered another question, “Where are they in their mind, right now?”
Now, you probably think the obvious question should be “how did they get in that state of mind or situation?” Well, that was my first thought, but then I realized I honestly did not want to know the answer to that question. I was more curious about the place they got stuck in. Each one of the situations I listed above is a place where I believe their minds literally said, “Halt – Rewind – Replay – Repeat!” The place or experience that is invisible to others but oh so real to them to the point that they are unable to get through it mentally. Unfortunately, it appears in their world, this place or experience happens over and over, hour after hour, day after day, month after month, and year after year.
How powerful is the mind that can create a world or hold on to a place or experience that causes a person to live in, what we might term, an “imaginary” world.
I shared those experiences because they both highlight how our state of mind impacts everything. Whether it’s a subtle assault on our minds hidden by the busy-ness of managing our public and private lives, that includes family, friends, colleagues, and the shifting worldviews that are competing with our spiritual values or it’s an all-out DEFCON 1 assault on our minds to take us out permanently. Our mental state is what determines the path of our lives.
There is a story of a prominent family whose son had experienced a DEFCON 1 type of assault on his mind. It was so intense that the man kept himself in the cemetery among the tombs, shouting and cutting himself. He would also show up in public places completely naked. I don’t know all the details of what caused this assault on his mind, but thankfully, he did recover and was able to share his story and inspire many in his country.
Let’s talk about the ‘Halt – Rewind – Replay – Repeat!’ state of mind. What experiences or memories are causing you to ‘Halt – Rewind – Replay – Repeat’? Think about the areas of your life where you are afraid to move forward; moving forward in your business, relationships or executing on new ideas. Is it because of some previous negative experience that keeps playing over and over in your mind, something that didn’t work last time and the fall-out was painful? Possibly you experienced some unfortunate pain or abuse that has stopped you in your tracks, and you can’t move through it?
You may not be at a point as extreme as random outbursts to invisible people and performing imaginary tasks, however, you may be at a place where you feel like the safest thing to do is retreat, which can be good for a defined period. However, sometimes this retreat starts to look a lot like depression, anxiety attacks, stress, fatigue, loss of appetite, restlessness, nausea, and frequent headaches; I think you get the idea.
Now, if you are experiencing these symptoms, you might be saying, “I’m doing just fine. It’s nothing I can’t handle.” Unfortunately, for many women, these words have become our mantra. However, if we are honest with ourselves, that little voice inside is saying, “Yes, that’s me but please don’t tell anyone.” Okay, I won’t tell, but if you don’t seek help, your actions and reactions will begin to tell the story you don’t want people to know.
At some point in our lives we all experience some form of the ‘Halt – Rewind – Replay – Repeat’ state of mind; what keeps us from becoming the ‘people at the bus stop’ is determined by how long we stay there. One of my favorite passages in the Bible is 2 Timothy 1:7 that says, For God did not give us a spirit of timidity or cowardice or fear, but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of a sound judgement and personal discipline [abilities that result in a calm, well-balanced mind and self-control].
In it, I find reminders of what I can do to avoid or at least lessen the amount of time I am in the ‘Halt – Rewind – Replay – Repeat’ state of mind. It also helps me ‘flip-the-script’, on it as well. Here are 3 things you can do to help maintain a healthy mind:
- Quiet Yourself (Halt) – This is sometimes the hardest thing to do. However, it is the most powerful. As you quiet yourself, you are telling the situations in your life and the voices in your head to ‘Halt.’ It’s just you, and you are giving yourself the opportunity to recognize your God-given power.
- Forgive (Rewind, Replay) – specifically forgive anyone that has hurt you. Unforgiveness is a time bomb waiting to go off. In it are fueled memories that are consciously and sub-consciously played, repeatedly. When you forgive you open yourself to ‘Rewind’ and ‘Replay’ forward moving and positive memories and future possibilities. It also flexes your love muscles.
- Practice Safe-Thinking (Repeat) – this means you are in a place of sound judgment, disciplined thought patterns, and the ability to understand and make right decisions. It includes the qualities of self-control and self-discipline. Safe-thinking is a moment by moment practice. When things get hard for me in this area, I pull out my WPC. I worship and pray to my Creator, and I get wise counsel, which means I talk through my challenge with someone I can trust that knows me and they know my God.
I’ll leave you with this passage from the same Bible. It comes from Philippians 4:8, ‘Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable and worthy of respect, whatever is right and confirmed by God’s word, whatever is pure and wholesome, whatever is lovely and brings peace, whatever is admirable and of good reputation; if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think continually on these things [center your mind on them, and implant them in your heart]’.
Peace!