The other day Adam and I were watching a documentary which included some information about the "Jones Town" massacre several decades ago. I wish I knew what the documentary was called and that we'd been able to watch the entire thing, but I digress. . . (cable TV/First world problems).
Anyway, during the documentary a survivor was interviewed.
First I found myself feeling sick as they showed footage of the hundreds of people who died at Jones Town. How sad and how horrible. How on earth did one man convince all those people to drink poison to induce their own death??!!!!
Once upon a time I would have believed it was because they didn't know the "true god" and they "weren't really saved" so they were susceptible to being "tricked" and "brainwashed". God wasn't protecting THEM from such evils because they hadn't accepted god into their hearts (not really anyway, even if they truly believed they did). They hadn't given their minds over to god and so this evil man was able to fill their heads with nonsense and manipulate them.
Here's what I found interesting:
When the survivor was being interviewed, he described what it was like being a part of Jones Town. He described how his ability to think had been taken away etc.
What shocked me was the emotions waving over me. I felt sad. I felt instant empathy. I felt that: I KNOW WHAT THAT FEELS LIKE! I felt like I knew exactly what he was describing.
Then I thought- how sick is it that I feel like I can relate to someone who was involved in such a horrible cult!
Clearly I have never experienced such trauma or anything nearly as awful as what happened at Jones Town- not even close. But I DO fully understand how this man felt. I DO know what it's like to feel like you can't think for yourself or that you have been told WHAT to think for so long that you do not know HOW to think.
I want to reiterate that I think there is a HUGE difference between teaching someone HOW to think and teaching them WHAT to think. When you teach someone HOW to think, you are empowering them. When you teach someone WHAT to think, you are stripping away their humanity. You are stripping away their (god-given if you believe in god) curiosity, desire to learn, and desire to use logic.
When you strip these things away you are left with someone who can be easily trained, manipulated, and convinced of JUST ABOUT ANYTHING.
Something I have learned that has been of great benefit to me (as silly as it may sound) is that I really can't control very much. I have very limited direct control over what happens to me and my life situations.
For instance, last week I found out I would be in a situation where I would have 0 health coverage for the birth of our baby, or extremely expensive COBRA coverage. This is a pretty scary and stressful situation. I had tried to plan everything perfectly. I waited for years to have another baby so that we would have good health coverage and that we would be ready as a family for a new addition. Adam and I planned and planned and "figured everything out". Then all at once it fell apart. We didn't do anything wrong, we didn't "cause" this to happen. We planned, we had a worst case-scenario back up plan, and it still all came crumbling apart.
Obviously I would be lying to say "I wasn't even stressed!" of course I was stressed. But in the past, such a situation would have totally debilitated me. I would have been distraught. I would have wondered if god was punishing me. No, actually I would have been CONVINCED that god was trying to "teach me" something and I would have felt guilty for some "sin" I had committed and become convinced that THAT was the reason why I was "suffering". I would have been angry that it just "wasn't fair" that this was happening to me. I would have tormented myself and allowed myself to feel all sorts of mental/psychological pain in the most extreme of ways.
Instead, (while still difficult) I reminded myself that I cannot control everything. Yes, we had planned everything out "perfectly". But plan or no plan- life circumstances are simply beyond our control. However, what I CAN control is what happens in my own mind. I can accept my lack of control and focus on what I am actually able to control. Instead of debilitating myself over this problem I needed to find a solution and meanwhile instead of mentally flogging and torturing myself I reassured myself and focused on the things that made me happy (my family, where we live). I accepted that I didn't do anything wrong and that this is just a normal part of life- this sort of thing happens regularly whether or not you have "gods protection".
Now as much as I think it's absolutely ABSURD that our healthcare system even allows for such a situation to occur (whether or not you agree with the changes headed our way, NO ONE can say the current system is "just fine"), again it's not something I have direct control over. And so it's not worth wasting my emotions, time and energy being upset over a situation I can't change.
So we came up with options. Then we pursued those options. Lucky for me we live in a state that provides immediate low or no-cost medical care for qualifying pregnant women who lose their insurance- or have no insurance. This was definitely our best option and I am so grateful it worked out.
So while I was still very stressed, it was a relief to experience 100x LESS pain than I have in the past when dealing with such stressful situations. And all of that happened because I've been learning to think. I've been learning HOW to think. I've been learning how I can focus on the ONE thing I can actually control (my own thinking) and use it to help instead of hinder myself.
That is the power of thinking.
No comments:
Post a Comment