The mind

I have never been one for horror, gore or just plain creepiness. That stuff sticks with me. I see it over again as soon as the lights go out.

I also happen to have a baby who requires me to get up during random hours of the night.

Watching a TV show with grotesque images shortly before bedtime is not a brilliant idea for me. I wound up doing that anyway last night. Even though we then watched something humorous immediately following the image was still burned brightly into my brain and was haunting me when I needed to fall asleep. Phebe however did not think we should go to sleep.

I learned an interesting lesson last night about my mind, as I was up over and over again taking care of an infant at 1 am trying to rid myself of a terrifying scene.

I realized I can not fence off a bad image in my mind.

I can't simply tell myself that we aren't going to think of that any more and hope my thoughts will find something else to do.

We have all been told not to think of something and suddenly that is all we can think of. The same concept applies here. I do not want to think of it so what do I do? I obsess.

When left to wander my mind always came back. However, if led in a very purposeful distinct direction the results were significantly better. I have to give a talk soon in Sacrament meeting at church. Once I decided to think about how I was going to present my material I no longer had any problems of drifting back. My mind had a direction to go and was doing a great job in accomplishing its task.

You must replace not just try to avoid.




Sorry if you already knew all that. It was a pretty profound moment for me.