Monday, July 9, 2018

The Lies of Racing Thoughts

I sat in the stands, focused on my son's baseball game.  One moment I'm so proud of his courage and love for this game.  The next moment, as our pitching efforts only brought about walks and a slew of runs for the other team, my thoughts had literally jumped off a cliff. This is so not fair.  We should never have signed up for this.  We should absolutely find a team more on his level. It's just humiliating. All the racing thoughts had made my skin flush with heat. It was definitely a fight or flight moment of my own making!  Since I was just a spectator, there was no fighting or fleeing, only more thinking, thankfully.

The truth is the only problem with that scenario the other night was my thinking and pride.  My son is 7 playing on a 10 and under team at the YMCA.  If you're unfamiliar, the YMCA's purpose in sports is foremost to introduce kids to the sport, encourage sportsmanship and give everyone a chance.  A typical week includes one practice and one game and the season is 8 weeks long.  This is a clear alternative to the heavily competitive leagues that take up a lot of money and a lot of time.  So everything that took place absolutely fit into the context we signed up for.  J has gotten a lot of playing time in new positions.  He's learning about teamwork and emotionally processing losses.  We are busy but not so tied to baseball activities that we can't do anything else.  It is exactly what he needs right now.


So, why were my thoughts and emotions spinning out of control?  Because part of being human is desiring to be the best - or at least good enough.  Whenever there is comparison or competition we notice where we rate and hope it's at the top, no matter how unrealistic it may be.  But there isn't a real honest need for me or my child to be the best in any of this.  He needs to learn and that comes from adversity.  He needs to honor God with his whole life and that means never letting anything else rise above it.  He needs to be a joyful person and that can go away quickly when we lose sight of what's important in our family.

Too often we let racing thoughts - full of lies - determine how we respond to other people or what we spend our time and money on.  The honest truth behind the WRITE Balance is taking the time to write something down in order to consider it's value or truth before acting.  The way we feel should always give us clues as to what's going on with us.  However, that does NOT give them authority to make decisions without feedback.  How much of our life are we living because the hair is standing up on the back of our necks?  I don't want to be left out, I don't want to be disrespected, I want, want want....but if we were to write it down on paper and really face it?  Maybe we would choose differently.

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