LOOPS

Hello reader. I’m sure you may have clicked on this blog because of an interest to find out what “loops” mean. I recently…

{mostly stirred up thoughts over a course of months but even more recently within the last hour} …

have felt a slight pressure on my heart to take my thoughts about this topic of “loops” and pour it out onto this screen that you’re reading this very second. Sometimes my thoughts can become clusters or even have a spiderweb effect in which one thing leads to another which is attached to another, and it becomes a full circle. A loop if you may. So hopefully it’s not as confusing as it seems within my mind, and I can understandably describe my thoughts in a linear way through this keyboard. Like I said… hopefully. Enjoy◡̈

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Do you ever feel stuck within your days?

As if every day feels like the same thing over and over and over. But you may not even realize it.

The days drag on. Or even the weeks are cycling just as the previous. Just with special events occasionally.

You go to work, you go home, you walk the dog, you make dinner, you read a book, you brush your teeth, you go to bed, you wake up, you go to work, you go home, you walk the dog, you make dinner, you watch a movie, you brush your teeth, you go to bed, you wake up, you go to work, you go home, you walk the dog, you make dinner, you read a book, you brush your teeth, you go to bed, you wake up, you go to work, you go home, you walk the dog, you go out to eat with a friend, you brush your teeth, you go to bed. You wake up.

You.

Wake.

Up.

& There’s not a single thing wrong with living a consistent life. A schedule is a good thing.

The problem is when our thought life carries out this same process. It’s not always a problem, but it can be if its leading to a thought life that’s destroying you from the inside. Even worse when you aren’t aware of this process occurring.

It can be a silent killer.

It’s a slow and painful death of yourself. Of how and who you are created to be. We are not meant to live in a toxic cycling of thinking. It can be harmful. to us and to those around us ...........if carried out in response.

I sometimes feel like life holds a series of loops, thinking loops, that we endure during our time here. We are constantly thinking in loops, or possibly not, but they change to our seasons.

It changes based on your values. What you care about most. It starts with an idea. Then it spirals or possibly falls down a rabbit hole.

You look in the mirror and think about one small detail of yourself that you aren’t favorable of. Next thing you know… you cannot stop thinking about it. You begin to find other details that you don’t like. You feel repulsed by the appearance in the mirror because you’re up to 8 things that you find unlikeable about the way you look. You begin to not want to be in photos. You don’t want to wear certain clothes that you felt fine in before. Your mood and attitude begin to shift. Your confidence weakens. BUT you don’t want others to notice this weakness, so you compensate with your personality or giving a distraction so hopefully people won’t notice the things you notice.

You live your life around that. Trying things to change your appearance or alter the things you don’t like.

It’s a loop.

It’s a thinking that will make you feel trapped inside your head.

Or even messaging back and forth with someone of interest. You send a risky text. You feel stuck waiting on a response. You may feel an anxiety or a pause in your life. You may throw your device down and do things out of obligation to avoid the gut-retching anxiety to read the response. Or You may find yourself glued to the phone or the computer just waiting on a simple response.

“ding”- You get a response.

You send another message…. It's yet another time of pacing back and forth in your mind waiting for the response. You lose track of time. You are stuck in a cycle of waiting and responding. Should you wait the same amount of time it took for them to respond? Should you respond with fewer words, so they don’t think you’re overbearing?

You live your life around it.

Stuck in a loop.

It could physically affect your health. The “do it tomorrow” motto. You begin to workout at the gym and haven’t been in a long time. You begin to show up every day and build community there. You have it down to a routine. Then one week you feel sick, so you skip a few days. But you’re back the next week. Then you start to feel tired. Then you are too busy. Then you hurt your ankle so you’re out for a bit. But you get stuck in a cycle … a loop. Of excuses and next thing you know….. you’re paying for a gym membership that you don’t even use. Same thing happens with bad eating habits. It’s a cycle. It goes over and over and over in your head.

And then you feel bad….. and it loops back up to the mirror.

There are loops in negatively thinking of other people. You hear a distasteful mouthful from another human being, and it already is starting the loop. You are engraving it into the crevices of your brain to now hold a bias of that other person. You may possibly engage in the negative conversations with others, and it enhances your thinking to be the same. Now you start to think poorly on the next person way easier. You start to gossip and begin to tear down people for little things. Next thing you know, you’re hating on the 90-year-old granny in the car next to you because her hat is “too red” for her skin tone.

And on to the next person.

And to the next.

And the next.

You don’t even realize that you have binoculars on that points out something about a person and suddenly heightens your bitter thinking towards it.

Then you hate the sky,

And the way the grass feels…

And pancakes.

You become a small being that is sitting in a dark hole in the ground.

The loops of thinking can dig you a grave. You dug yourself a grave.

There are so many loops of thinking that can be dangerous; the pity, the gossip/and negativity, the laziness, the insecurities, the need for reassurance, the self-criticism, and whatever else.

It’s dangerous when you allow yourself to respond.

Are you going to speak negatively about another imperfect being? Are you going to skip meals because you don’t like how you look? Are you going to stay in bed and skip the gym because of your mood or even the chemical imbalances in your brain? Are you going to criticize everything you read, hear, watch, see or do? Are you going to binge food because you want to keep pushing things down? Are you going to keep numbing yourself with temporarily satisfying things?

Are you?

Reacting in the way you naturally want to, is feeding into the loop. It keeps you steady inside the loop. The easy thing to do is to stay on the tracks within the loop.

It takes a lot more effort to take those train cars or roller coaster cars and pull them off the tracks. It’s easier to move forward on the tracks and remain inside the loop.

This thinking is an addiction. It's insanity. Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.

There is an addiction to unhealthy coping mechanisms that originated with looped thoughts. The thoughts just play out in real time, in real life… and then you’re physically and mentally stuck in it. It's numbing.

Something bad happens. Unhealthy coping. Temporarily satisfied. Satisfaction fades.

You feel bad. Or something bad happens again. Or you think something bad. Unhealthy coping. Temporarily satisfied. Satisfaction fades.

You want that feeling of satisfaction back. Unhealthy coping. Temporarily satisfied again. Satisfaction fades again. Unhealthy coping. Temporarily satisfied. Satisfaction fades.

You chase it.

Over….

And

Over…

Again.

You are stuck.

I was there. I know. Things of this world only give you a glimpse of satisfaction. They don’t fill you up. It’s not filling the gap you think it should.

You are searching for satisfaction. For contentment.

You are searching.

You just don’t know what for.

All these loop’s chain you. They make you feel trapped. Like you can’t grab a breath of fresh air.

You cannot get out of these loops on your own. You can’t do it by your own strength. If you do, it's temporary or you jump from one to the next. You may think that you’re in a positive thinking pattern due to the success around you- the money, the fame, the status, whatever it is- but you still feel empty? Those “successes” can also be a loop entrapment of thinking. You cannot get out of that way of thinking on your own.

You cannot.

….. and now. I’ll give you the answer. Most of you probably won’t want to read much further but I only know how to speak truly and freely from my life and experiences and what I know to be true. The only one to set you free. Truly free.

The breather of Life, creator of all things, who knows your heart and your thought processes more than you even do, knows how your body works and your hormones work and the experiences you’ve gone through to put you where you’re at now, He gets it. He understands the bondage to those thoughts and those actions and those loops that are pulling you down to the bottom of an ocean by a cement block. You would be surprised how much the creator of the universe and of your body knows about how your body works- How you think, How you react. He knows.

He just wants you.

He understands these loops you’re in.

He understands that by your own strength you cannot escape them.

One turns into another turns into another.

He understands. He wants freedom for you.

He wants you free from these thinking patterns.

He wants the chains to these loops to fall at His feet.

He wants you to know true and eternal satisfaction… the kind that doesn’t fade by the next morning or leave you longing for the next hit.

He wants you to feel noticed and loved. You may have never even experienced what love means or is.

He wants you free.

He wants you.

& Not all loops are bad ones. There are a lot of great patterns of thinking that are harmless or beneficial.

Loops that stem from love, joy, peace and patience. Kindness and goodness. Faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control......From Him.

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Loops to generate healthy thinking spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically.

It doesn’t start with you. It once did… and look where that got you… chasing satisfaction and stuck in a bad loop.

It starts with Him.

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[I’ll explain more in another blog post about this topic and what this practically means in life instead of just saying a bunch of inapplicable "christianese" or "Jesus-y" words because I could write on this topic for pages and pages]