I used to get really overwhelmed by the thought of having to go the rest of my life battling OCD and depression. I couldn’t even make it through Sunday afternoon! How was I going to make it 60 more years? Turns out I am a bad prophet.
My prediction was wildly off. From my point of view, I had to take on the rest of my life. All at once. Every moment. Daunting. Occasionally, I would get these superhuman bursts of motivation where I would tear apart my button up shirt and have the “S” on my chest. But eventually, my motivation dissipated, and the “S” disappeared. I would proceed to free fall back to square 1.
What I didn’t realize was that life does not happen all at once.
Life is a series of moments.
I can’t choose to battle OCD tomorrow. But I can right now. I can’t decide whether or not I will be depressed tomorrow. But, I can make the choice to not let it dominate me now.
Remember the “Pound it, noggin'” turtle in Finding Nemo? Remember how he would just glide through the ocean on the EAC (East Australian Current)? That’s how I viewed success. I thought “getting better” came by having the motivation to get through every obstacle in life all at once. Once I achieved that lifelong motivation, my life would be one long EAC.
Well, OCD kept pounding my noggin’ until I realized that was not the way forward. Life is a series of moments. I may not have the motivation to face tomorrow. I might not even have the motivation to face an hour from now. But, I can face right now. You may feel dominated by your mind. Your thoughts may assault you. But, you are not under their reign.
For those with OCD, Dr. Jeffrey M. Schwartz, author of Brain Lock, likens your thoughts to your neighbor’s car alarm. It’s loud and it’s annoying. But the answer is certainly not to concentrate your mental efforts in order to turn it off. Your job is to refocus on the present moment and allow that car alarm to go without your attention. The car alarm only gets louder as you focus on it. Take your eyes off your theme and onto your present moment.
For those with depression, make the choice this moment to let your mind wander. Not on everything that has gone wrong, but on the things for which you are truly grateful. In her book, Choosing Gratitude, Nancy DeMoss notes,
“An important key to not becoming overwhelmed by what is going on around us is looking for evidences of God’s hand at work in the midst of the turmoil and being “simply overwhelmed with thankfulness to Him.”
Gratitude takes my eyes off of everything that is wrong, and brings me back to my true reality. We tend to have rose colored glasses of the past. But we have mud colored glasses for the present. Clean those off and choose to see what you what is beautiful, pure, lovely, true, honorable, and good.
I read a verse that said, “Take your thoughts captive.” My version of that verse used to read, “My thoughts have already taken me captive and now they are taking everything else too.”
Thankfully, I don’t define truth. Remember, I am a bad prophet. You were designed to choose today if you will fight. Thankfully, there is One who is willing to fight with you and for you. “Don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will have enough trouble of its own.”
Keep your eyes on this moment, and those moments will snow ball. Keep your eyes on the snowball and it will ruin every moment.
Free to be Funk 