What should I write? Should I even write anything right now? Shouldn't I go to bed? This shouldn't really be a question for me, given how late it is. I should really be asleep by now... but then, I should write this while I'm still thinking of it. So where should I start...?
Count how many times I used the word "should" or "shouldn't" in that last paragraph, and then compare it with how many of these uses felt unnatural. How natural did that last paragraph feel as you read it? I think it sounds like something I could actually write... and yet, I've used the word "should" at least once in every sentence.
Who cares? Well, I do. When undergoing cognitive behavioral therapy for depression, I was taught about numerous distortions that come up in thought patterns which are unhelpful for your mood (and thus, in various ways, for your wellbeing). One of these was the use of the word "should". You see, this little word and those related to it (shouldn't, ought, could...but, etc.) appear innocuous enough, but they express a dangerous belief in an oversimplified term. You have judged yourself (or someone else) and found yourself (or them) wanting, according to some ideal you have in mind - an ideal that can only be reached with some change of self or circumstance - and so you believe yourself (or them) the worse for it, at least until something changes. This is all very well for things like, "I should buy this CD," but it becomes a self-compounding mess when your thought is, "I should tidy my awfully messy room," or "I should love you," or "I should be happy." You can end up so low at the thought of just how far short you fall of your ideal, that to begin to contemplate change brings nothing but agony and guilt.
Learning about how much this kind of thought can trap you in a downward cycle, I was amazed when I started to see everyone around me using this word so much. These thoughts are commonplace; this word is commonplace, and the thoughts that go behind it are the same for all. These thoughts affect some more than others, but they do affect us all negatively. Don't you feel trapped when you say you should do something? Doesn't that thing bind you, hold you, make everything else seem further off? Doesn't the way you should be make you feel a little disappointed about the way you are now? Doesn't chasing down the person you should be wear you out? I bet I'm not alone in this.
If this is a universal habit, and is negatively affecting us all, why not let it go? Fixing this pattern of thought is part of a mental health treatment plan. The official statistics about mental illness say that 1 in 5 people in Australia have a mental illness of some kind, but mental illnesses are often aggravated by societal habits such as this and I'd be willing to bet there are many non-reported cases. I think collectively changing this thought pattern would help us all.
Count how many times I used the word "should" or "shouldn't" in that last paragraph, and then compare it with how many of these uses felt unnatural. How natural did that last paragraph feel as you read it? I think it sounds like something I could actually write... and yet, I've used the word "should" at least once in every sentence.
Who cares? Well, I do. When undergoing cognitive behavioral therapy for depression, I was taught about numerous distortions that come up in thought patterns which are unhelpful for your mood (and thus, in various ways, for your wellbeing). One of these was the use of the word "should". You see, this little word and those related to it (shouldn't, ought, could...but, etc.) appear innocuous enough, but they express a dangerous belief in an oversimplified term. You have judged yourself (or someone else) and found yourself (or them) wanting, according to some ideal you have in mind - an ideal that can only be reached with some change of self or circumstance - and so you believe yourself (or them) the worse for it, at least until something changes. This is all very well for things like, "I should buy this CD," but it becomes a self-compounding mess when your thought is, "I should tidy my awfully messy room," or "I should love you," or "I should be happy." You can end up so low at the thought of just how far short you fall of your ideal, that to begin to contemplate change brings nothing but agony and guilt.
Learning about how much this kind of thought can trap you in a downward cycle, I was amazed when I started to see everyone around me using this word so much. These thoughts are commonplace; this word is commonplace, and the thoughts that go behind it are the same for all. These thoughts affect some more than others, but they do affect us all negatively. Don't you feel trapped when you say you should do something? Doesn't that thing bind you, hold you, make everything else seem further off? Doesn't the way you should be make you feel a little disappointed about the way you are now? Doesn't chasing down the person you should be wear you out? I bet I'm not alone in this.
If this is a universal habit, and is negatively affecting us all, why not let it go? Fixing this pattern of thought is part of a mental health treatment plan. The official statistics about mental illness say that 1 in 5 people in Australia have a mental illness of some kind, but mental illnesses are often aggravated by societal habits such as this and I'd be willing to bet there are many non-reported cases. I think collectively changing this thought pattern would help us all.
We are those whose love for each other is one of God's principal signs to the entire world. With a frame of mind like this, though, we might as well be stabbing ourselves in the foot before we leave our bedrooms of a morning. That kind of self-mutilation would be a more obvious but no less inhibitive way to create a holy army of the walking wounded. One of the hardest things to do as a depressed person is to think outside of yourself. Usually this manifests itself in hopelessness, in believing the future's necessarily bleak, but it also plays out in being unattuned to the needs of those around you (remember, as you read this, that it's an illness and not a deliberate state of character). Being unaware of the needs of those around you makes it really hard to love them. In this way, depression and related illnesses can hurt the church as well as the people sick with it, so it would seem to make sense to heal it... or do we want to make life hard for ourselves? There's no righteousness to be gained from beating ourselves up or trapping ourselves in little mental cages, even if we don't have depression. Christian righteousness doesn't work that way - it's a gift, and it's a process God's in control of.
Let go the delusion that you can help yourself by mentally backing yourself into a corner, or that your brothers and sisters can be spurred on by even the most eloquently worded of judgments on their current state. Put your thoughts and words to more effective use by praying for healing for the minds of the church, and by praying for patience when you're frustrated at not being perfect yet (or at someone else not being perfect yet). Look at yourself with sober judgment - neither haughty nor falsely humble. Open your eyes to the reality of our situation: depraved, but saved, and slowly but surely sanctified by God, our Father, who loves us each dearly. Ditch the self-spun guilt. It's an unseemly garland about your neck, Christian.
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