Making Molehills Out Of Mountains With Strategically Placed Chairs

I am an excellent listener, but…. I am absolutely horrible at trusting people, and following directions… There are times, where I dig myself into a deep black hole, and then get surprised when I notice that I can’t find my way back up because I forgot to bring a ladder or a rope… I end up standing on the bottom yelling for help…. The help is always there, I listen, and then….. I do the opposite of what I am told to do to get back out of the hole.

I have a skewed view of the truth, and I set impossible standards for myself, based on what I think I should be like to be a real person.  These standards are what cause me to time after time to dig the before mentioned hole.  Another analogy would be that I make mountains out of molehills, and become frustrated when the mountain will not go away when I tell it to.  I allow my physical limitations to be the reason why I am not able to turn the mountains back into molehills.  I don’t think my talents are worth anything as long as I can’t do things able bodied people my age can.  I totally disregard them, or give up when I see that there are millions of people out there who are better than me.  Why should I be noticed in the big world?

Right now there is a huge mountain in front of me, a mountain that needs to be turned into molehills, but Pernille does not believe in molehills, she wants to tear the mountain down right here and right now, and if she can’t it is only because she is inadequate, a weak subhuman species.   I want to make everything perfect for everybody all the time, and if I can’t I just want to hide at home because I am ashamed of myself.

I know that what I need to do is to strategically, place chairs, and make myself use them in the process of turning the mountain into molehills.  Yes, I need to use them….  (This is not an original Pernille thought, I stole it).  As I said above, I tend to uncritically attack the mountain with no regard for how I can overcome it, and then I  get mad at myself for not being able to do it, I give up, and let the mountain sit there as a reminder to me of how inadequate I am. 

I need to understand that the fact, that I cannot physically spring clean the entire house, does not mean that I can’t do anything.  By strategically placing chairs and reminding myself that when I need a break it is OK to sit down and relax.  I tried it Yesterday, and it worked (at least for the time being)….  I had set a goal of de-cluttering the kitchen (again I do that every day it seems), and of getting rid of all of our old newspapers.

Getting rid of the papers is something that would take an able bodied person around 10 minutes.  The person would just have to bend down, pick up the papers, and put them into a garbage bag.  However, it is not quite as easy for me.  I cannot bend down and pick up the papers, I have to use my grabber, and pick up a very small amount of papers at a time, a process that can easily take between 30 and 45 minutes, and by the time I am done, I can almost guarantee you that my shoulders will be very sore, and I may even be worn out for the rest of the day.  Today I set up a chair, and promised myself that when I could feel the fatigue, or frustration start sneaking up, I would sit down and do something I like to do for a bit, something I am good at, something that has nothing to do with MD. 

I did it, when I felt like either just throwing the grabber away saying “to hell with the bleeping papers”, or when I was tempted to just power through beyond what I probably should do in the spirit of spiting the MD and the world by saying “watch me…. You say I can’t, but I did”.  I took a break and started redesigning my blog.  A process that turned out to be a lot lengthier than I thought it would, so when that started to frustrate me… I went back, and killed the rest of the paper pile, and I can proudly say that my shoulders are only slightly sore tonight, and I have a blog that looks like a mess….

It all seems like a success story, and I should feel encouraged by it, knowing that I set a goal, and reached it by using my brain… But…I don’t… I look around the house and inside my brain and see nothing but “shoulds”.   I should scrub the floors, I should make the bed, I should, I should, I should….I took at molehill out of the mountain, and got rid of it, but the ugly lies and the false thoughts are still there….

The right thing to do would be to look at the mountain, identify the molehills, pull them out one by one, and set up two chairs next to every single one of them, and focus on them one at a time….. Anyone, with the right chair and teamwork, can conquer a molehill, and eventually also the mountain.   

It is such a simple concept, but yet so incredibly hard for this messed up little brain to grasp, accept, and use.  My prayer at the end of today, maybe even every day until I get it, should be something like

•   “God, please help me release myself from my prison of perfection, I will never be perfect in this world, but in your eyes, I am wonderfully and fearfully made.  Please help me open my heart so I will finally be willing to let you teach me what it is you want me to do, in order do your will, Amen”.

Peace

P
 Contact email keepinghopejourney@gmail.com