My husband took a book out of the library, and while reading it, said, “You really ought to read this book.”
Now let me tell you the backstory on this… it was a self-help book; I always read self-help books, not him; I always end up reading his books, which he never seems to finish- because I am more of a reader than he is; and, last but not least, I wasn’t in the mood for a self-help book at the moment. You are jumping ahead of me if you think I picked up the book and read it… you know I did, but let me tell you the rest of this, because there is a useful point to me telling you the tale. Because I wasn’t in the mood to read something I didn’t pick out for myself and was busy with some projects (not the least of which is getting back on track with de-cluttering) I resisted. For awhile.
Anyway, I’ve been struggling again with my friend, Procrastination. I try to shake her off, and give her the message that she is a nuisance and a burden, but it isn’t working, she loves me better for all that. So you see I’m set up to be interested in a self help book, if it is the right one. I’ve busied myself with creating valuable content for gardening readers – off on tangents to Squidoo pages and writing in the blogs, because this is an important goal of mine this year, and reading my husbands book didn’t fit with the plan… not that this has ever stopped me before.
Procrastination was spending some time at my house, to delay me from making Dr. appointments, which I really hate and are the only reason I welcome friend Pro in for extended visits. So while she went in the other room, I thought, “I’ll just pick up this book and give a look.” You know where this is going, but I’m writing it down because there is something here for you, and I think it will help you as much as me, so stay with me just a little while more. Thanks [smiley face].
God has been doing some parallel things like rewriting my inner negative conversation, encouraging me to believe for good things in my life, and accepting how I was made and my unique experiences. So this set me up for the book, as well. By now you are impatient for the title, so here: ‘The Solution, Conquer Your Fear, Control Your Future‘. That title would not have been one I would have picked up, personally. I don’t consider myself fearful or fear-driven, and I need to relinquish control, not pursue more of it. At least that is what I think of myself, but I’ve been very wrong before…
As soon as I read the Foreword (as I always do), I was hooked. It was by Dr. Daniel Amen, who had intrigued me in a PBS segment about changing your brain. He said the methods in this book would help do the very things his research supported. OK, I’m in…. I want to change my brain and make my thinking healthier.
I picked up the book and started reading and the first concept presented was to start piecing together and understanding your own “Core Story”. I’ve done so much thinking about my past and problems that this was actually hard. Too much information. Still, I felt that it is worth going forward with, not in moments, but over some time during the first quarter of this year. That is the assignment for Day 1, so I spent some time with it. It was on the Day 2 assignment page that I saw something that stopped me and made me write this, because I am sure there are some people who could benefit from this as much as me, and this is the real take-away in this post. This is the quote:
You don’t need to apologize or make excuses for who you are “not”
That realization, alone, if that is all I ever get from this book is worth the price of purchase. It is worth gold, actually, because this is the chaff of my life. Inside and outside I apologize constantly for what I am “not”. To be free from that need is a goal, an attainment, real personal wealth.
It also works synchronously with what God is doing in my life. Faith can’t work on the basis of what we lack or are “not”. I need to renew my mind with the new nature that Christ has imprinted upon me, that comes from His spiritual DNA, that is built up from my experience in Him. God is very “can-do” if you don’t mind me saying. I need to shuck off the “I can’t”, the “I’m not”, which have nothing to do with my own path and possibilities.
When I realized that, I saw what a time waster the apology-making is, meant for a world of things that others may want or imaginary demands that I will never meet.
Instead I need to own who I am and what I have to offer. Then to get busy giving others something real and valuable from what I really have available to give. Not that ghost of what I imagine they want or need from me, that I don’t have.
I can’t tell how freeing that one little sentence is. How it puts a whole new face on my thinking, and creates a space for me to accept who I am and get on with it: get on with living a life worth the time spent here on this earth. Believing that we have a purpose, we are a fit somewhere in the plan, and not a mistake of our own or anyone else’s making.
Life is full of striving, “straw making”, and the gold is rare because so few possess it. Truth is like fine gold, and when we exchange a lie for truth we have transformed our straw into gold. There are times we see that as futile, and that we are doomed to our fate, which is why I want to give some real effort to changing my thinking, to going through the exercises in a self-help book that I didn’t even have an initial interest in reading. I use catalysts like self-help books, and PBS specials, and Beth Moore bible studies, then I share them with …whoever will listen. Today I hope you will take home the decision to no longer “apologize or make excuses for who you are “not””.
There is no time for starting like the present, even if the present is your fifth decade of life.
It is a start. January seems the appropriate time to initialize it.
If you want the book by Lucinda Bassett, you can order it from Amazon.