What Are You Shopping For?

"Brothers and sisters, I do not consider that I have made it my own yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the heavenly prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."   ~Philippians 3:13-14

If you celebrate Christmas or Hanukkah you probably just finished a season of shopping. Whether you shopped in-person or online, you went searching for the perfect gift or gifts. We also often go shopping when it comes to our mental health. Sometimes we struggle with the purchases our minds make: Ruminating, Trying to Figure Something or Someone Out, Fixing, Shaming or Blaming Ourselves or Others, People Pleasing, and the list goes on. 

Let's take a closer look at a few of these purchases:

Ruminating:  We know we are ruminating when we have constant and repetitive thoughts about a problem or a situation. We might describe it as "I'm always in my head;" "I have racing thoughts;"  "I'm constantly dwelling on things;"  "I can't shut my brain off;" or "I tend to overthink everything." We all ruminate to a certain extent, and when we are dealing with a situation that is stressful, temporary rumination is natural. Temporary rumination may occur when we are continually worrying about an upcoming exam, we are reliving an important conversation in our mind, or we are thinking about a meaningful event that happened in the past. Rumination is more troublesome when we constantly think about perceived mistakes we have made or negative aspects of ourselves. Our minds go shopping for every possible flaw, misspoken word, or less than perfect action we may or may not have performed. We shop and shop and shop... and our purchase is anxiety. 

Figuring Something or Someone Out: Our brains are wired to search for emotional safety. When a circumstance is stressful or a person behaves in ways that shock or distress us, we want to know why. Our brain believes that if we can just figure out why something happened or why someone has hurt us, we will feel better and be safe emotionally. We shop and shop and shop... and our purchase is pain. The truth is even if we discover the why behind the hard circumstance or the motives of the person who deeply hurt us, we do not feel better. We still hurt, we still experience emotional pain. 

People Pleasing: We all have an innate need for others to notice us, accept us, and love us. It is a natural desire to want to please the people we love. We cross over into people pleasing when we find ourselves giving others 24/7 access with no thought of our own well-being. We will jump through any hoop so someone may finally notice us, accept us, or love us. We shop and shop and shop... and our purchase is exhaustion and overwhelm. 

We all go shopping sometimes when it comes to our mental health. Recognizing our purchases is the start of leaving old patterns of thought behind. We will look at how we can reach forward to new ways of thinking and living in my next blog post. In the meantime, shop carefully.